Prime Time Adventures (website
here) first came to my attention after Gen Con when some posters who bought a copy there were praising it on the forums.
It sounded interesting but I wasn't sure about it. Last week someone mentioned it on the boards and I finally ordered the game to give it a shot. It arrived the other day and here are my thoughts.
PTA provides a very powerful and familiar framework for roleplaying campaigns -- the television show. The player characters are the protagonists (Buffy, Willow, etc.) and, just like the heroes of a TV series, their story arcs are given greater or less emphasis in any particular episode. What PTA does is provide a means to gauge this protagonist emphasis and, as a group, the GM (called the producer) along with the players hammer out how often and to what degree individual shows in a season (usually 5 or 9 eps to a PTA "season") involve the protagonists.
This stat is called screen presence and it determines how much a protag can influence storylines. In other words, if this is an episode where it's been determined it will be all about Xander and has very little to do with Willow -- he would have a high screen presence score whereas she would have a low one (both players would have already established this at the beginning of the season) -- Willow probably can't waltz in to save the day all by her lonesome; Xander would have the most impact on what's going on. Essentially, PTA quantifies troupe-style play (that style of play where not everyone is the star every game.) PTA does this is a beautiful, simple way and suddenly troupe style games become much more accessible.
Heroes in PTA aren't defined by a slew of ability scores or specific skills but instead traits and relationships which aren't numerically quantified. You won't be rolling vs. your STR in this game. They add to your screen presence score but it will be that presence score which has the most impact on what you can do. The GM has a variety of tools (all TV series-themed) at his disposal to establish the initial premise of the episode, boost conflict, introduce a nemesis established by the player, manipulate events, etc.
The key here is that it's a very meta-game framework so you have to be comfortable with that. Players and the GM are deciding when (though not necessarily how) character arcs occur. Players will be doing most of the scene framing -- they're the one's requesting scenes (everyone in all eps gets a chance to do this) -- so this game will require a group that wants authorial influence. If you've got a bunch of players who want only to traipse down the corridor to see what the GM has in store for them in the next dungeon room, this game is probably not for you.
Still, even if you don't like the fact that characters aren't numerically statted out or what not, the solid advice on campaign construction in terms of story-arcs, character-arcs, etc. is quite excellent. These lessons are easily applied elsewhere and I suspect that I'll be using the information here in a lot of what I run, no matter what system. For instance, I can easily see how a Buffy-unisystem game might benefit from influencing the amount of drama points the players have to spend on their charaters per episode depending on an agreed-upon "season schedule" of screen-presence. Most rp campaigns reflect a TV show mentality and this game -- and the advice therein -- quantifies that.
IMO, the game's initial cost is be a bit much. It's $18 US; that includes postage. What you get for that is a 76 pg book, digest sized. That might be a bit too expensive for some considering the size and page count of the actual book and I think the price will dissuade those who are only mildly interested in checking out a new game.
However, the way I judge the value of a game is the use I get out of it. If I just collect a game and never play or run it, the game itself may not be worth it. But if I use a game, suddenly I'm getting my money's worth. (e.g. the Stargate rpg may cost $50 but I've run it often enough that it's cost is now pocket change per hour of play). I certainly think the same will be true of PTA; the good stuff in there is well worth what I paid for the game and even if I don't use the game as is, I'll still use the coolness elsewhere.
If you're still there, thanks for reading this far.
- Ian
Linear Mode
