anonystu
J'Accuse PirateCat!
Astralnauts is a TV show about a modern world that has been invaded by spirits and creatures: some of the these encounters have gone horribly, and some have gone well, but overall the human population is very fearful. The Astralnauts are a group of people, funded by/beholden to ________, who are specially capable to respond to these invasions, are trying to figure out what they mean, and can travel into the astral realm to do it.
This is a setting that cooperatively, people came up with in this (http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108571&page=2) thread, and we're going to be running it using Primetime Adventures. The first thing to know about Primetime Adventures is that it is very collaborative, and so your input is needed to help refine the setting. Some things that could use some thought right now.
a) Who's funding? (ideas tossed around: a NGO, a religious group that may or may not agree with the protagonists, self-funded, military)
b) How much do the PC's know already, and if they do know much about spirits, what do they know? (There was the idea that spirits represent dead people from this world and others, and they come through DeathGates. I like the dead people idea, but maybe it'd be better if the cause for the incursions was less known at first).
c) We need some sets which the players will use a lot.
d) Your inspiriation goes here.
Secondly, you show, and don't tell, and so I'm going to give you pretty much the entire system of Primetime Adventures right here, with the play rules first, and character creation second.
Primetime Adventures is a game where a group of people get together to create a TV show based on the melodramas of today (see: Buffy, 24, Alias, Six Feet Under). We're going to be playing a short season, which means a pilot episode plus 5 episodes (each episode is equivalent to a gaming session). Every player but one plays a protagonist, a main character on the show, while one player plays the Producer, who helps keep the protagonists in interesting situations.
Each protagonist has a set of Traits, which define ways that they are special as a protagonist (I am an ex-military pilot. I know the King.), and a Story Arc, which defines the personal issues that they will struggle against in a season. The Story Arc is made up of an Issue (This season, willow deals with her issue of Dark Temptation) and Screen Presence. Screen Presence is the core stat in the game which defines, for each episode, how important you are to the episode: 1 means that you play a minor, supportive role, 2 a moderate role, while 3 means the episode is about you and your issues. In the pilot episode, all players have a Screen Presence of 2. You get to decide how important your character is to the other episodes and where to place your spotlight episode.
How the game works is that the players take turn creating scenes, roleplaying those scenes, and resolving any conflicts that arise.
In more detail:
1) The active player creates a scene. The first active player for an episode is always the Producer, then next, any players with spotlight episodes go next, then the rest of the players go in alphabetical order. Creating a scene has 3 elements:
a) Location: Where does the scene take place?
b) Focus: Is this scene about character development or plot development?
c) Agenda: What is the drive behind the scene? (I'm trying to stop the wedding; We're trying to find out who attacked us by going to the library)
The producer then sets the stage by writing an introductory post based on the request, and then all players involved in that scene start roleplaying.
Most times, Conflict happens in a scene. Conflict is defined as when there is rift between what a player wants and what the player has.
In a conflict:
1) Protagonists declare if they're involved. At least one protagonist has to be involved for it to go.
2) Each protagonist separately states what's at stake for them in the conflict. (This should be thought of as conflict resolution, not task resolution. It's "I want to get to the ship before it leaves." not "I want to move twenty feet and hit the guard on the head.")
3a) The producer determines how many dice to roll, using one die as default plus spending 0-5 Budget to gain additional dice.
3b) The protagonists determine how many dice to roll, using dice equal to Screen Presence as default, plus one die for each Trait they invoke (Each trait can only be invoked Screen Presence number of times per episode), plus one die for each Fanmail they spend. (More on budget/fanmail later)
3c) Players not in the conflict can spend fanmail to roll dice to add to any side they want.
4) All players roll their dice (d10's) and count odd numbers as successes (and 0's as 10s)
4a) If a protagonist rolls more successes than the producer, they succeed at what's at stake, less, they fail.
4b) Ties are broken by both sides rolling an extra die until someone gets more successes. (These dice are then removed from what's in play).
5) The player who rolled the highest individual die (not necessarily the producer or even somebody directly involved) takes into account what's at stake, success/failure, and suggestions from other players, and narrates the result of the conflict, even narrating what other characters and protagonists do.
5b) Ties for high die are broken by looking at the next lowest die for all people tied.
After a conflict, usually, the scene will resolve it fairly quickly. (Most scenes have one conflict, although zero is possible if an agenda is resolved without conflict), and then it's onto a new active player to suggest the new scene. Repeat until the episode is done, with the players doing most of the scene creating, narrating, and conflict resolution, and the producer guiding through his control of the non-protagonists this into an exciting, well-paced high-action and dramatic episode of Astralnauts!
Budget/Fanmail Ecosystem
Starting Budget for the Producer is (Total of all players' screen presence for episode) x 3
Budget spent goes into the Fanmail Pool
At any time, any player can award another player a point of Fanmail from the Fanmail Pool for doing something cool. Each player can make one award per scene.
Fanmail can be spent in any conflict, in any quantity. Any Fanmail dice that are rolled and do not succeed are discarded. Any fanmail dice that are rolled and succeed are dropped back into Budget. Fanmail that are not used by the end of an episode are carried over.
So, hopefully that helps you understand why I think this game is very innovative, and very cool. I think also that this game is well suited to PbP, because it encourages looser boundaries between "These are my characters." and "This is your character." and so we can all work on telling a great story, and not get bogged down in either resolving conflict or having conversations that go back and forth slowly. It requires a group of people who are creative, respectful, and motivated to do this though.
If you think you want to join the Astralnauts, chip on in some of the setting issues above, look at the character creation rules in the next posts, and then start tossing ideas around.
This is a setting that cooperatively, people came up with in this (http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108571&page=2) thread, and we're going to be running it using Primetime Adventures. The first thing to know about Primetime Adventures is that it is very collaborative, and so your input is needed to help refine the setting. Some things that could use some thought right now.
a) Who's funding? (ideas tossed around: a NGO, a religious group that may or may not agree with the protagonists, self-funded, military)
b) How much do the PC's know already, and if they do know much about spirits, what do they know? (There was the idea that spirits represent dead people from this world and others, and they come through DeathGates. I like the dead people idea, but maybe it'd be better if the cause for the incursions was less known at first).
c) We need some sets which the players will use a lot.
d) Your inspiriation goes here.
Secondly, you show, and don't tell, and so I'm going to give you pretty much the entire system of Primetime Adventures right here, with the play rules first, and character creation second.
Primetime Adventures is a game where a group of people get together to create a TV show based on the melodramas of today (see: Buffy, 24, Alias, Six Feet Under). We're going to be playing a short season, which means a pilot episode plus 5 episodes (each episode is equivalent to a gaming session). Every player but one plays a protagonist, a main character on the show, while one player plays the Producer, who helps keep the protagonists in interesting situations.
Each protagonist has a set of Traits, which define ways that they are special as a protagonist (I am an ex-military pilot. I know the King.), and a Story Arc, which defines the personal issues that they will struggle against in a season. The Story Arc is made up of an Issue (This season, willow deals with her issue of Dark Temptation) and Screen Presence. Screen Presence is the core stat in the game which defines, for each episode, how important you are to the episode: 1 means that you play a minor, supportive role, 2 a moderate role, while 3 means the episode is about you and your issues. In the pilot episode, all players have a Screen Presence of 2. You get to decide how important your character is to the other episodes and where to place your spotlight episode.
How the game works is that the players take turn creating scenes, roleplaying those scenes, and resolving any conflicts that arise.
In more detail:
1) The active player creates a scene. The first active player for an episode is always the Producer, then next, any players with spotlight episodes go next, then the rest of the players go in alphabetical order. Creating a scene has 3 elements:
a) Location: Where does the scene take place?
b) Focus: Is this scene about character development or plot development?
c) Agenda: What is the drive behind the scene? (I'm trying to stop the wedding; We're trying to find out who attacked us by going to the library)
The producer then sets the stage by writing an introductory post based on the request, and then all players involved in that scene start roleplaying.
Most times, Conflict happens in a scene. Conflict is defined as when there is rift between what a player wants and what the player has.
In a conflict:
1) Protagonists declare if they're involved. At least one protagonist has to be involved for it to go.
2) Each protagonist separately states what's at stake for them in the conflict. (This should be thought of as conflict resolution, not task resolution. It's "I want to get to the ship before it leaves." not "I want to move twenty feet and hit the guard on the head.")
3a) The producer determines how many dice to roll, using one die as default plus spending 0-5 Budget to gain additional dice.
3b) The protagonists determine how many dice to roll, using dice equal to Screen Presence as default, plus one die for each Trait they invoke (Each trait can only be invoked Screen Presence number of times per episode), plus one die for each Fanmail they spend. (More on budget/fanmail later)
3c) Players not in the conflict can spend fanmail to roll dice to add to any side they want.
4) All players roll their dice (d10's) and count odd numbers as successes (and 0's as 10s)
4a) If a protagonist rolls more successes than the producer, they succeed at what's at stake, less, they fail.
4b) Ties are broken by both sides rolling an extra die until someone gets more successes. (These dice are then removed from what's in play).
5) The player who rolled the highest individual die (not necessarily the producer or even somebody directly involved) takes into account what's at stake, success/failure, and suggestions from other players, and narrates the result of the conflict, even narrating what other characters and protagonists do.
5b) Ties for high die are broken by looking at the next lowest die for all people tied.
After a conflict, usually, the scene will resolve it fairly quickly. (Most scenes have one conflict, although zero is possible if an agenda is resolved without conflict), and then it's onto a new active player to suggest the new scene. Repeat until the episode is done, with the players doing most of the scene creating, narrating, and conflict resolution, and the producer guiding through his control of the non-protagonists this into an exciting, well-paced high-action and dramatic episode of Astralnauts!
Budget/Fanmail Ecosystem
Starting Budget for the Producer is (Total of all players' screen presence for episode) x 3
Budget spent goes into the Fanmail Pool
At any time, any player can award another player a point of Fanmail from the Fanmail Pool for doing something cool. Each player can make one award per scene.
Fanmail can be spent in any conflict, in any quantity. Any Fanmail dice that are rolled and do not succeed are discarded. Any fanmail dice that are rolled and succeed are dropped back into Budget. Fanmail that are not used by the end of an episode are carried over.
So, hopefully that helps you understand why I think this game is very innovative, and very cool. I think also that this game is well suited to PbP, because it encourages looser boundaries between "These are my characters." and "This is your character." and so we can all work on telling a great story, and not get bogged down in either resolving conflict or having conversations that go back and forth slowly. It requires a group of people who are creative, respectful, and motivated to do this though.
If you think you want to join the Astralnauts, chip on in some of the setting issues above, look at the character creation rules in the next posts, and then start tossing ideas around.
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