PTA Review
As electrodruid has mentioned, we played the last game of 137 (a game using the Primetime Adventures system) last night. Overall the players seem to have fairly mixed views about the game, so I thought I'd spew out a review from my POV.
The basic premise
PTA is a game that's designed to mimic a TV show, the players are the writers, actors and directors rolled into one and the GM (in an extremely low-key role) is the budget-master and, to some extent, editor. Our game was based on the fact we wanted Sci-Fi with Aliens, Unstable Psychic Powers and Machiavellian Intrigue, so we started the game on an isolated mining colony on Europa about to meet our first set of aliens.
The System
I've said this multiple times over the last few weeks, PTA isn't (in my definition) a roleplaying game. There's nothing to work out (the players already know where each scene will go and can make the plot up), your character's goals are not equal to your goals as a player and (as pointed out by rimmel5622 you have very little control over what direction your character goes in should other players declare they want you to go a different way. The other main point is the GM is very far from a "Storyteller", the players are the creators and narrators of 90% of the story and there's often little a GM can do other than "go with it". I guess that definition kinda sounds like "Player-led-plot" but it's a much deeper level of control for the players as they've got the setting, npcs and pcs under their control.
There are very few mechanics in the game, the main one being the conflict resolution one (using cards). All players decide upon stakes and then if they beat the GM, they succeed and if the GM beats them, they fail. This sounds alright but the nitty gritty of "My character wants to shoot yours" vs "My character doesn't want to get shot" just plain doesn't work, as if both players succeed the target both does and doesn't get shot. Although that's a starkly obvious clash, there's a lot more subtle ones in almost every conflict. As such, there has to be quite a lot of negotiation of stakes before the winners/losers are decided and sometimes the person who jumps in first with "I wanna pwn the rest of the party" and doesn't budge off that will end up glory-hogging.
The other major downside of the conflict system is the lack of context for the conflicts, which isn't helped by the no-pvp mechanic. i.e. Two characters are arguing over who gets the last Rolo, Player 1 says his stakes are to Win the Rolo, Player 2 (now unable to do anything to do with possession of the Rolo) can say "I gain awesome cosmic powers", they both win, Player 1 gets a Rolo and Player 2 gain awesome cosmic powers.
The only other real mechanic is FanMail, which are points awarded by players to other players for being entertaining and roleplaying well. This feels a little sucky to me, it's a lot easier and more beneficial to "play up to the cameras" and do something you know will get you Fanmail then necessarily to play your character well.
Our Game
As mentioned, we went for (during the initiation phase of the game) a gritty sci-fi about humans facing monsters (or at least aliens) by themselves in the darkness of space. There were times of absolute brilliance and times of cringeworthy cheesiness but in general it was a million miles from gritty. Perhaps the first mistake was not setting an upper limit for Tech/Weird Alien-ness, but even the early poking of the (mostly non-existent) boundaries by the players caused massive complexities and inconsistencies in the plots, making them a pain in the ass to tie together. Couple this with the fact that it was hard to distinguish some characters from the plot (An Alien Ambassador, A possessed-by-scary things Manager and a Russian Saboteur Spy) meant that sometimes the plot would have to become incredibly twisted just so the characters couldn't "solve" any of it.
There was also (imo and no offence to anyone as I was as guilty as the next man) a little too much "going for the wow/wtf factor" throwing strange situations in and having to explain them with plot afterwards, which meant that once again things got unneccessarily complex.
Overall
I quite liked the system some weeks and hated it others. I'm not massively opposed to playing it again (as I think it could work in a really smoothe and enjoyable way), but I don't think I'd want to anytime soon, and if we did I'd try and push for the following:
· The setting should have limits defined, and if possible should avoid high fantasy (or even scientific high fantasy) as much as possible.
· The characters should be properly laid out before the game. As it doesn't have skills or abilities or attributes or anything like that, it's all to easy for someone to go from lilly-livered vending machine attendant to mega killing machine.
· The players should resist indulging themselves. Whether this is through a group consensus of "No" or through everyone resisting seizing the spotlight unneccessarily, the game would flow a lot better if it didn't have to flit between "characters being cool" so often.
· It should be story first, characters second. Players should be trying to make the story succeed as opposed to their characters the majority of the time. PvP isn't allowed and doesn't work so don't force it.
· Much as dicking around is fun, the game feels like it'd work a lot better if the characters had proper issues/feelings and decisions to deal with.
Doubtless everyone who played (particularly crm who apparently saw no flaws in it at all) will have differing opinions of the system. But those were mine.
End Rant.
The basic premise
PTA is a game that's designed to mimic a TV show, the players are the writers, actors and directors rolled into one and the GM (in an extremely low-key role) is the budget-master and, to some extent, editor. Our game was based on the fact we wanted Sci-Fi with Aliens, Unstable Psychic Powers and Machiavellian Intrigue, so we started the game on an isolated mining colony on Europa about to meet our first set of aliens.
The System
I've said this multiple times over the last few weeks, PTA isn't (in my definition) a roleplaying game. There's nothing to work out (the players already know where each scene will go and can make the plot up), your character's goals are not equal to your goals as a player and (as pointed out by rimmel5622 you have very little control over what direction your character goes in should other players declare they want you to go a different way. The other main point is the GM is very far from a "Storyteller", the players are the creators and narrators of 90% of the story and there's often little a GM can do other than "go with it". I guess that definition kinda sounds like "Player-led-plot" but it's a much deeper level of control for the players as they've got the setting, npcs and pcs under their control.
There are very few mechanics in the game, the main one being the conflict resolution one (using cards). All players decide upon stakes and then if they beat the GM, they succeed and if the GM beats them, they fail. This sounds alright but the nitty gritty of "My character wants to shoot yours" vs "My character doesn't want to get shot" just plain doesn't work, as if both players succeed the target both does and doesn't get shot. Although that's a starkly obvious clash, there's a lot more subtle ones in almost every conflict. As such, there has to be quite a lot of negotiation of stakes before the winners/losers are decided and sometimes the person who jumps in first with "I wanna pwn the rest of the party" and doesn't budge off that will end up glory-hogging.
The other major downside of the conflict system is the lack of context for the conflicts, which isn't helped by the no-pvp mechanic. i.e. Two characters are arguing over who gets the last Rolo, Player 1 says his stakes are to Win the Rolo, Player 2 (now unable to do anything to do with possession of the Rolo) can say "I gain awesome cosmic powers", they both win, Player 1 gets a Rolo and Player 2 gain awesome cosmic powers.
The only other real mechanic is FanMail, which are points awarded by players to other players for being entertaining and roleplaying well. This feels a little sucky to me, it's a lot easier and more beneficial to "play up to the cameras" and do something you know will get you Fanmail then necessarily to play your character well.
Our Game
As mentioned, we went for (during the initiation phase of the game) a gritty sci-fi about humans facing monsters (or at least aliens) by themselves in the darkness of space. There were times of absolute brilliance and times of cringeworthy cheesiness but in general it was a million miles from gritty. Perhaps the first mistake was not setting an upper limit for Tech/Weird Alien-ness, but even the early poking of the (mostly non-existent) boundaries by the players caused massive complexities and inconsistencies in the plots, making them a pain in the ass to tie together. Couple this with the fact that it was hard to distinguish some characters from the plot (An Alien Ambassador, A possessed-by-scary things Manager and a Russian Saboteur Spy) meant that sometimes the plot would have to become incredibly twisted just so the characters couldn't "solve" any of it.
There was also (imo and no offence to anyone as I was as guilty as the next man) a little too much "going for the wow/wtf factor" throwing strange situations in and having to explain them with plot afterwards, which meant that once again things got unneccessarily complex.
Overall
I quite liked the system some weeks and hated it others. I'm not massively opposed to playing it again (as I think it could work in a really smoothe and enjoyable way), but I don't think I'd want to anytime soon, and if we did I'd try and push for the following:
· The setting should have limits defined, and if possible should avoid high fantasy (or even scientific high fantasy) as much as possible.
· The characters should be properly laid out before the game. As it doesn't have skills or abilities or attributes or anything like that, it's all to easy for someone to go from lilly-livered vending machine attendant to mega killing machine.
· The players should resist indulging themselves. Whether this is through a group consensus of "No" or through everyone resisting seizing the spotlight unneccessarily, the game would flow a lot better if it didn't have to flit between "characters being cool" so often.
· It should be story first, characters second. Players should be trying to make the story succeed as opposed to their characters the majority of the time. PvP isn't allowed and doesn't work so don't force it.
· Much as dicking around is fun, the game feels like it'd work a lot better if the characters had proper issues/feelings and decisions to deal with.
Doubtless everyone who played (particularly crm who apparently saw no flaws in it at all) will have differing opinions of the system. But those were mine.
End Rant.