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Primetime Adventures: Excerpts

From Basic Rules Concepts

Protagonists

Protagonists are the stars of the show. They are the characters the audience cares about the most, the ones the audience wants to see happy or victorious or safe. In a sense, this game is about the protagonists more than anything else, so the rules almost always point directly at them.

Episodes

An episode in Primetime Adventures is one session of play. Each time you and your friends sit down to play a game of Primetime Adventures, you will create one episode. Much like a TV show, a game of Primetime Adventures takes place in scenes, which can be initiated by all players. A scene is a segment of play that takes place in a specific area – like a room, or a roadway – and covers a specific agenda that the initiating player has in mind. That could include things like “gain more information about a person” or “chase after the escaped prisoner” or “make a good impression on the mayor.”

Story Arcs

Interesting characters are imperfect. They face internal battles and personal challenges, like redemption, self destruction, a dysfunctional relationship, or lack of trust. In the midst of earth-shaking crises and threats to all human life, these personal struggles make inconvenient appearances. Foiling a villain’s dastardly plans becomes all the more difficult when a hero is distracted with thoughts of divorce, for example.To reflect the importance of these more real-life problems, Primetime Adventures uses a technique called the story arc. Each protagonist has a personal story arc, which tracks the influence of a character’s personal matters from episode to episode. A story arc consists of an issue, which identifies the source of the struggle, and an episode track, which charts out how prominent the issue – will be from episode to episode.

Screen Presence

Screen presence is a measure of a character’s importance to a particular episode, and is used to resolve a conflict. A screen presence score will range between 1 and 3 from episode to episode, and determines the number of dice that a player rolls. Depending on what the dice roll, the player will be able to narrate a protagonist’s successes and pitfalls during a scene.Unlike many roleplaying games, Primetime Adventures doesn’t determine the number of dice to roll based on strength, or skill. Instead, the game awards protagonists with a number of dice based on how important that protagonist is to the story. If a protagonist’s screen presence is high for an episode, then that player will get more dice to roll during the episode. Likewise, if a protagonist’s screen presence is low, that player will have fewer dice.

Example TV Show: Bootleggers

Premise — A widower and his family in the 1920s are involved with the mob, running alcohol from Canada to Chicago. This show is somewhat gritty in its realism. There are no special abilities or pulp talents. It’s drama with action on top.

Episodes would revolve around the relationships of the family members with members of organized crime and with each other. The series would begin with them very distant to one another, and as the episodes pass, some will grow closer, while others grow even more distant. Each of them has issues that may require them to lean on another family member from time to time, for better or worse. They will also have to make hard choices about their connection to a criminal organization and what they get from it.

Cast

• James, the father — withdrawn since the loss of his wife, driven and unemotional. James’ issue is his failure to address his loss. It will strain all hi s relationships, and puts him at risk of making terrible choices, especially in terms of how he puts his sons in danger.
• John, the older son — high school football champion, king of the prom, and then war hero. His issue is the impact the war made on him, the horrors left churning in his head, with everyone around him thinking he’s invincible.
• Roxy, the daughter — left without a role model, Roxy believes she needs to look out for herself. Her issue is her relentless desire for fame and fortune, as she hopes to use the notoriety of the business to catapult her into high society.
• Billy, the younger son — rebellious, reckless, Billy’s issue is his feelings of inadequacy as he tries to live in the shadow of his brother the hero and gain the respect of his father. He will often make foolish choices in his effort to stand out.

Sets — Rooms in the family’s farmhouse, mob offices, speakeasies,Supporting Cast — Friends of the family, John’s ex-wife, various mobsters, the chief of police

From Creating an Episode

Spotlight Episode

Every protagonist has one spotlight episode per season, and it presents a player with a clear opportunity to reveal that protagonist’s complexity. Spotlight episodes are the ones where the studio knows they have a doozy and promote it like crazy all week. For this episode, the spotlight character blossoms in front of the camera, and by the end, that character can’t help but to have grown.

So how do you do that? Well, it depends on the kind of series being played, and the kind of issue the character has. The easiest way is for the producer to present a situation that brings a character up close and personal with his or her issue. If the character has romantic problems, have the episode be about a love interest. If the character is struggling to redeem him- or herself for evil deeds done, put that character into a situation where temptation beckons, or where former victims demand justice. The players have free will to decide how their characters will respond, and from that, everyone learns about who that character is, and where that character might be going.