PTA Review

[justtom]

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.

Comments

[electrodruid]

I agree with most of this. Whether the game is defined as a roleplaying game or not doesn't strike me as especially relevant, PTA doesn't seem to be something that easily submits to classification, and at the end of the day, it was a fun way to spend a few evenings.

I definitely agree that the system for resolving conflicts is pretty brittle, and doesn't really allow for things to unfold as they should. It almost feels like there need to be conflicts which are purely PvP (ie, the Producer doesn't have cards, and the players are just pitching their cards against each other). The system would be a lot more flexible that way, but I guess it might not be such a good idea to encourage any more PvP (well, character vs character) than there already is.

All in all, I had fun, and I'd play it again, although not for a while. And I think we learnt a lot of lessons about getting the setting and characters right - the setting and characters we chose were just way too "out there", and the plot kinda ended up running away with itself. For our group of players, I think we'd be much better off with something mundane - a cop show, or a hospital drama. Something grounded in reality in which we can't spontaneously sprout Godlike powers or destroy entire cities at the drop of a hat.