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At the RinCon Gaming Convention, we ran a multi-table Primetime Adventures event titled Sweeps Week. Three tables, three different television shows. Audience members keep changing channels between tables.
For those of you that haven’t played PTA in a public location like at a game day or a con, you really should. The audience participation mechanics are just spot on awesome. People wander over to the table to see what’s going on and they get to weigh in on how they want to see a conflict unfold. Audience members can also get fan mail (we use poker chips) that they can use to really influence how a conflict will shake out. They also take on the role of live bloggers or message forum fans. They get to suggest scenes, just like the people with protagonists in the show. They always get a stake in the conflict. Just like all the other protagonists, they can get narration rights. It’s wicked cool fun.
Sweeps Week featured three shows. Channel 1 featured Jason Corley’s Curtains, a television show about an underground (literally) theater in Paris run by creatures, monsters, and pulpy villains. Think Buffy, the Vampire Slayer meets Glee. Berin Kinsman ran Hell’s Kitchen: The Animated Series on Channel 2. Chefs were Speedy Gonzalez, Toots from Drawn Together, El Kabonk, and others. It was crazy comedy. ("Seventy-two hours into food service, and still no food.") My show, on Channel 3, was Safety in Numbers, a drama about survivors of a zombie apocalypse. We created the basic premise of each of our shows ahead of time so we could more easily sell the concept of the game to attendees looking at the con schedule.
But before I talk about Safety in Numbers, I want to mention something about Curtains. While Berin and I went ahead and had the protagonists created at the table, Jason had pregenerated characters ready: names, position in the theater company, issue, and screen presence. (His was a mid-season episode; mine was a pilot with everyone at 2. I’m not sure how Hell’s Kitchen:TAS handled screen presence.) To help people flesh out their characters, Jason had several edges and connections on index cards and scattered them on the table. Each player picked one and that went on the character sheet. This worked out so well. Not only did they get the idea of what edges and connections were, they also got some that were tailored to the setting, so they had a better feel about what type of things fit in the setting.
The diva picked "My more-talented dead sister, Sophie", so all throughout the show a ghost kept running lines with her fellow actors better than she did; Sophie seduced her boyfriend away; and other wonderful, wonderful things.
Now to the actual session report for Safety in Numbers that you’ve all been wanting to read while wading through the above.
We sat down and first decided on the channel and quickly came up with Showtime. That means blood, cursing, and nudity were okay. A quick look around the RPG hall indicated that the nearest children were several tables away and it was pretty loud, so that was cool. We start kicking around survivor concepts and some ideas for the show. We’re near Atlanta and all of Dixie has been quarantined. Everything in it is considered lost, and the military stages raids into the area to destroy anything living, including survivors. So Atlanta isn’t just crawling with zombies, it’s also been strategically bombed.
We come up with a kid that lost her parents. (Looking back on it, one of her edges should have been "I grew up really fast in the past month.") She was brought in to the sanctuary by a rookie cop. First day out of the academy was z-day. We have a second year med student on hand. We have a militia member/survivalist with the edge "fully stocked bunker". And our final survivor is a convict that escaped from death row.
Jeff, the medical student, is running from fast zombies towards the bunker. But Jed, the militia member, isn’t going to risk his neck to run away from safety to help out Jeff. Bad things are going to happen to Jeff here and the conflict revolves around Jed: does he get out there and help out, risking his own life, or does he stay back where it’s safe? The rookie cop manages to get Jed moving. A few rifle shots and a run into the bunker where the door slams shut and we have our opening title.
Meanwhile, Travis, the escaped convict, wipes out on a road relatively near the bunker. Jed has set up surveillance cameras all around the area. The kid, Samantha, sees smoke from the car wreck and is trying to get the attention of the other survivors while they’re arguing with each other. Conflict: Can Sam get the attention of the others (she’s regarded as an equal) or is she just a kid and everyone ignores her? Either way, the survivors are going to find out about the wreck. Sam loses and James the rookie cop is credited with spotting the wreck. (Everyone’s name seemed to start with a J.) A small debate on heading outside, and we’re off.
We’re at the wreck and the med student pulls Travis out. Jed is mistrustful of strangers and acts accordingly. Jed and Travis draw on each other, but the conflict is all about Jed, the control freak. Does Jed back down from Travis and get shown up in front of everyone? Unfortunately, yes, he does. Jed now has a seething distrust of Travis and resents his loss at being alpha dog.
Travis has a whole lot of police-issue weaponry with him. They pile things into Jed’s truck and start to head back to the bunker when the black helicopters show up. Holy crap, we’ve got to get off the road, but the dirt roads betray the truck’s location and the hunt is on. They abandon the truck and run into the woods and have a quick argument about what to do: should we stay put or try to make it back to the bunker? While this is going on, we cut to the truck and see back cords falling from the top of the screen. ZIIIIIP and down comes some heavily armored soldiers in Ultramarines Terminator Armor. American flag on the shoulder over a skull with crossed lightning bolts. The letter Z is stamped on the forehead of the skull. This is the logo of the military force that will be plaguing our protagonists throughout the series.
The debate in the woods stops when the pickup blows up. They run.
We cut to a flashback of our med student pre-Z. He’s recruited to help with a project by some government scientist. (I gave this role to the player controlling Sam, the kid.) Of course, this project led to the zombie outbreak. We go through a few quick bits in the flashback and get to a breaking point for Jeff. Knowing all the unethical things that are being done and horrible effects of the cancer cure, does he stay with the project and try to fix things within the system or does he pack up and run? It’s a conflict about his character: will he do bad, horrible things? Will he try to stay ethically clean? He goes on the path of goodness and runs.
Back to the present where Jed finds a culvert and an underground sewage control room. They hunker in there for the night, hoping to evade Task Force Z. (At this point, the ride for two of our players came by and had to steal them away. One of our audience members jumped in a scene or two later and took over the rookie cop. We used the kid effectively as an NPC at this point.) Travis is a jerk, Jeff is a pessimist, and Jed distrusts everyone. As they go off to sleep, we have a flashback to how Travis got out of prison.
It turns out that both I and Travis’ player had seen the BBC series Survivors, which you really should watch. So when we were doing this scene, we were involuntarily channeling bits of that show, namely Tom’s escape from prison. Travis is on death row and a guard comes to get him with a cattle prod. He’s going to kill Travis. "Judge and jury are dead. There’s no way I’m going to let someone like you loose in the world." Travis manages to get the cattle prod away from the guard and we decide to go into a conflict: will Travis kill this guy (Travis’ side) or will he run and we might see this guy again, later in the series (my side). Oh my, does Travis kill this guy. He has the edge Brutal and we are on Showtime for a reason. I’ll spare you the details, Gentle Reader, but needless to say, it’s not pretty.
In this flashback we find out that his name actually is Travis. When we cut back to the present, Samantha asks him what his name is. He replies, "David".
There’s also another flashback in our merry little band. Jed tells the rest of the group that he doesn’t need them and was doing just fine before they all showed up. Smash cut to Jed, alone, in front of the bank of monitors. Zombies on every screen. We see Jed put a pistol to his head. CLICK. He spins the revolver cylinder. CLICK. CLICK. BANG. But it’s not his gun. Up there, on a screen is a cop with a young kid in tow, fighting off the zombies. There’s someone else alive! Jed gets up and goes outside, man of action. There’s a reason for him to live!
Back in the morning, with our replacement player for the rookie cop, the military has left. The protagonists start to head out, amid grumblings of how it’s just not safe here. We should try to get to a safer location. Part of the group wants to head to a town and get another vehicle so they can leave; Jed thinks it’s better to head to the bunker. Conflict: can Jeff convince everyone? Yes he can, but Jed gets to narrate. "No sir, we’re heading to the bunker, and that’s final!" Jed heads up the hill and sees the bunker in the distance. And the herd of zombies milling around it. He turns back. "Another vehicle might be a good idea. Just in case."
Atlanta looks like a war zone. We head to a hospital for medical supplies. While Jeff and James go to the pharmacy, Travis, Jed, and Sam search the garage for a vehicle large enough for them. We’re cutting back and forth between these two groups. There’s no incidental music and a lot of silence, which should unnerve the audience watching at home. The three in the garage are separated a bit. (Great line alert! Jed: "We’ll just need to hotwire a car." Travis: [without missing a beat] "I can do that.")
In the pharmacy, we get a shot through a handheld camera with a red lens. OH NO IT’S KILLER ZOMBIE CAMERA. As they shuffle through the dimly lit pharmacy, Jeff hits a light switch, which is still powered (emergency power is barely functional). In the next room, the zombies perk up and lunge through the glass window at Jeff and James. Conflict here is if pessimist Jeff can overcome the medicines needed before the zombies get in or if he turns tail and runs. Jeff blows it, and he barrels past our rookie cop. Remember kids, you don’t have to outrun the bear.
Meanwhile, in the parking garage, Sam is doing that eerie whistling that all kids do in spooky movies when they’re by themselves and, because we’re in a parking garage, she accidentally sets off a car alarm. Yeah, it’s loud enough to wake the undead. Jed is by a totally tricked out pickup. On the opposite side of the truck is a zombie, just staring at him. They lock eyes for a moment, then Jed’s off to the races. Over where the doctors park, Travis is trying to get into an H2. The conflict here is more task-based: does he manage to secure the vehicle for them before the zombies get there, or does he have to run? He gets into the truck, but there’s no time. They’ve all got to run.
Everyone runs into the stairwell and barricade the doors behind them. Unfortunately, this means that they’re trapped. Where to go? Up on the roof!
Upstairs, we get to see the incredible devastation that Atlanta has endured as the protagonists attempt to secure the roof access. But there’s a black, unmarked civilian helicopter up there. Jed tries to keep the group from signaling to the helicopter, but loses that conflict. Travis goes out and flags down the helicopter, which just circles the rooftop. The people inside the helicopter have a camera and are filming or taking pictures of the humans on the rooftop--Travis in particular. The people in the helicopter drop a case to the rooftop, but it lands on the edge. The helicopter leaves. CRAP! The case is going to fall! Travis lunges at the case while the zombies are trying to break onto the roof. He just barely gets it (and narration rights). At this time, the other two tables in our Sweeps Week have finished and they’re all around our table. While we determine who gets narration rights, everyone at the table shouts "What’s in the case?" It was a beautiful moment.
Travis opens the case. A cassette tape. A map of the southeastern US. On the map, at the tip of Florida a big red X with the words "Hope’s End".
End of episode.
Next time on: "A cassette tape?" plus shots of trying to find a cassette tape player and being frustrated that everything they find are CD players or iPod/MP3 players. Jed saying that Hope’s End is a trap. A shot of the survivors on the road. A shot of one of the Ultramarine Terminators from Task Force Z removing her helmet: it’s the scientist/government agent that recruited Jeff.
We all had a great time, including the people that regrettably had to leave early. (It was the last game slot in the convention.) Several people are eagerly awaiting the next edition of PTA. The audience thing worked out well. However, if we do this next year, we’re going to have to promote it a bit better. We were at the far end of the gaming hall, and didn’t get as much traffic as we had hoped. Next year, we’re going to have a featured event thing on the website and (hopefully) in the program guide, which should draw more people to the event. We wound up getting a lot of fan mail flying from table to table. And it was awesome.
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