Post originally by Paul Czege at 2004-12-21 08:03:50
Converted from Phorums BB System

We just finished the final session of a great five-episode PtA drama last week (about the space race in the mid-60s). And although we have not played a high-adventure show, I'm left thinking an adventure would have been a cleaner, tighter experience in terms of our natural adherence to the rules. The game specifies that going into a conflict the player states "intent," which is defined as what the character hopes to accomplish. In our drama, we often found ourselves stating intents we wanted as players...stuff we wanted inflicted on our characters. "I want to be nonresponsive, so she calls off the wedding." This may seem strange, but handling a character in a drama I better knew the adversity I wanted for him than what he wanted. And it actually felt unnatural to state intents on behalf of him. It felt like a disservice to the character. "He wants to calm her down and make the problem go away." Well, @!#$, I just asked for a scene with the fiancé being all upset, and now I'm going to say that I want that conflict to go away!? The game was great, but a couple of times a session we'd have to step back, rework what we'd stated for intent, and trust the Producer to deliver meaningful adversity. I'm thinking that would have been easier to do if it were a high-adventure show.

Paul