I've gained a bit of distance from CottageCon II now, which means I've also gained a bit of distance from the experience of playing Primetime Adventures. It is quite different, and a heavily structured way to play, and it was inevitable the first post about it would concern itself with the system, my views, etc.

I can cast that aside now and just relish in the fact that Pulsars and Privateers is back! After an 18-month break. This creates the usual Doctor Who problem of is it session Seven or session One? It's back, and it was damned fantastic once you scrape away the new play structure.

It is almost impossible to translate a campaign that was already very story dense in terms of characters, which has become even more story dense to a concise entry. All I can do is narrow it down by focusing on what I see as important: (1) meaningful, dramatic character choice, (2) it all being about the relationships between the protagonists and other critical characters and (3) all that being done with no lonely fun. The session delivered on every aspect of it. Even with a very short list off the top of my head we had:

• Zeb (the ships experimental pilot) in denial over his AI girlfriends murderous intentions.
• Talia (the 'mystical' gunslinger with a dark past) confused over who is the enemy.
• Marcus (the spy and engineer) turning out to be traitor.
• Amarr (the adventurous Captain) risking losing the ships Privateer status.
• Samono (the Priest losing his faith) suffering an even deeper crises of faith due to discussions with Talia.

Each of those isn't getting the credit they deserve as each was revealed through good scenes (certainly good for a first attempt) and have a mosaic of other issues such as characrer relationships and the characters' dealing with their issues wrapped in them. It's difficult to digest that in a simple and short format.

It was all about the equal scene creation, and in some cases the conflict mechanic, though I weight it slightly to the scene creation. We had characters making dramatic, meaningful decisions. Relationships being set-up that actually have depth, and will be taken further in future episodes. It can even come down to the most innocuous of comments. A whole number of ideas based around forging new relationships and connections span off just from an innocuous comment by one character about bouncing Talia on his knee when she was a baby. This stuff can be quite big when the power to make something of it is your hands when your turn comes around (assuming you don't have 5 other choices).

The scene creation had another effect: it stripped away character mystery. I can hear some gamers now crying out at this, thinking it is terrible. It isn't. It's fantastic. In Pulsars and Privateers it wasn't about keeping secrets (though even that is bad, all the players want to know Marcus betrayed the ship), but more the fact that facets of characters remained obscure or had not been interpreted correctly. I learned small details about different characters that put them in a different light due to players choosing to play them differently or not having the chance to reveal it before. I know my character was more clearly communicated in that one session than she was in the previous six. This is because you have control of everything: words, physicality, actions, etc. I tend to think how a character does something is as important as what they do, so I like it to be understood.

The game is also great for anyone who thinks characters development is all about character relationships. You can develop a character independently, and that is a valid part, but in my view a character is only as strong as how he or she related to her friends and enemies. The sessions was amazing for that. I am fascinated with my character's relationship with Samono, Zeb and Marcus. What's great about it is you have the means, the structure and the tools to build upon these things. Yes, you can do it any other game, but it's much harder when the common tools and mechanisms (either by rules or common social contract) aren't present. My relationship with Samono was kicked off to a good start in two scenes; so much stuff swirling around with that one. I was building on something with Zeb. As for Marcus, well, that's been going for a while, setting up a bond even though we both know it's going to have to crash and burn and come out the other side.

I think the session has been overburdened by the system. I know I've been making all sorts of conclusions about Primetime Adventures. When you look at it, what was produced, on a very first, nervous and relatively unskilled attempt, was damned fine. It was also a sessions focused on exactly what I want gaming to be focused on. I do sometimes find myself asking whether the whole experiment has to be experienced like a fine wine, and given some time. It covered all the three bases that are guaranteed to take our games up a notch in my view. You can't really knock it.

Pulsars and Privateers is back. Next episode please.

Pulsars and Privateers. Primetime Adventures. A campaign that was really liked by everyone who played, and the experimental slot of CottageCon II colliding: did it soar or crash and burn? Well, I don't think it's too inaccurate to say that the experimental part of the equation possibly acted as a bit of a weight around the old birds leg, but it was a good session. I also think it will soar in the future, once Primetime Adventures becomes more familiar.

It is impossible to separate the experience from the system in this case, so a lot of it going to cover my view of Primetime Adventures, as the two are very much linked. It's also going to be long.

One of the main things it has changed is my view of games with less granular resolution mechanisms, either resolving at the scene level or other long conflicts. Historically, I've never been a big fan. It's no a surprise that Spirit of the Century, the first 'Indie' game I've actually run, resolves at a more granular level (with clear stakes). I've probably changed my mind on that now, and I'm perfectly fine with it as an option.

One of the players wasn't too keen that space battles would be resolved in one roll (and even then the roll wouldn't be about the space battle), and I can agree with him here. It can be fun to play out a physical conflict blow by blow. It can also result in story happening that wasn't expected due to the dice leading to an event or a place you didn't see coming when you started rolling those dice. I can also see the opposite of this in Primetime Adventure's case: you get to describe it exactly how you want (assuming it is irrelevant to any rolled conflict). Some some characters have an element of physical conflict, being able to author that as you intend can be character defining, whether it's a shoot-out, physical blows or space battle for an elite pilot.

I think the scene creation is great. In the first session we had players addressing the sort of issues and creating the sort of scene that usually gets lost in the mix. This is good. It's one of the elements that I hoped Prrimetime Adventures would address. I hope this carries forward to other games. I like the way scenes are created, though I don't think we've mastered it yet.

It's not perfect though, or it's not perfect yet. It has a number of issues. The first is quite simply the fact it's all too easy to fall into the trap of not playing it out. This either happens because the scene has had to be discussed at such length during set-up it's almost pointless. It can also happen because the ending has had to be discussed too much so you stop the role-playing early as you know the end conflict (I fell for that in my final scene). I think these two issues are just about practising the scene framing and the timing of when and in how much detail conflict and stakes are set.

It also tends to increase the chance things will be played out in third person. This one made me think a bit, because I'm not a 'my guy' sort of player, neither am I a consummate believer in 'actor stance'. At the same time, I found the move to a lot more third-person role-playing jarring. That was interesting. I think I want to author scenes. I want to lay out their intent. I then want to play them out. I don't want a load of third person description or I'd read a book. There is something valuable, not so much in the acting but in a group of people actually engaging. Third-person has it's uses, I'm all for it, but personally I'd work on any next attempts to make sure the system doesn't weight things in that direction possibly to its detriment. The other option when going third-person is to not just go straight, vanilla third-person, but to describe the actual scene that is playing out, like you'd describe a TV show you'd watched.

One other issue I always had with Primetime Adventures was the rigid structure: Producer creates a scene and then each player gets a chance to create one. Rinse and repeat. I never liked it because of the need to be spontaneously creative. Your turn. Create. Now. Bring the awesome. Didn't sit well. I suspect I wasn't the only one as a comment was made about being distracted due to trying to think of their next scene. Strangely, my view of this has changed, while it can be a mildly stressful at first you just have to accept the awesome can be distributed around the table and previous scenes often allow you to think of another one as a result of its outcome. At one point in the game the scene I had in mind was sort of taken by the player ahead of me which meant I was left without one just before my turn. I was thrown. I opened it up to the table and I was instantly pointed in the direction of a great one with an NPC I was overlooking. My new observance with the scene creation round-robin is the fact you only get 1 or 2 and then only at specific points. This can leave stuff undone! This is quite ironic, as one of my goals was to make sure good scenes didn't pass us by, now it may turn into we don't have the opportunity to get all of it in!

The other issue is conflicts. I'm all for conflict. I'm all for cutting out every extraneous scene that role-playing tends to contain that would end up on the editors cutting room floor if it was a TV show. At the same time, I'm not sure the Primetime Adventures approach is correct: there are just too many scenes that have content, but don't have a dice roll worthy conflict. The main reason for this is a conflict can be present, it's just no one really wants to compete the outcome! I can see this happening a lot. It may be we need to refine what counts as a conflict, but at the moment I'm seeing value in scenes that don't have a conflict roll, though I'd like to think it's because everyone is just happy with the outcome. I agree conflict is important, but I thinking a spread of choice ones that need a roll rather then forcing a roll on every scene is the way to go. As far as I'm concerned you'd only roll if two protagonists have a different view or if either result is fun and you're happy with either.

Overall, Primetime Adventures is interesting, but I'm not 100% convinced, as I think you can achieve everything of major value in Primetime Adventures without the radical play structure. Unless the radical play structure is the very thing you'd value, of course. I have a feeling it will be something that is mined for ideas and some elements integrated into our skill set (the way scenes are introduced, and focusing on good content) and games, but those future games won't be Primetime Adventures or be structured like it. It may well improve our gaming, but it probably won't become our gaming.

As for Pulsars and Privateers powered by Primetime Adventures? I think it's going to be great. It has a lot of strengths and the fact that the scene creation process may bring scenes to the table we might normally lose out on for a variety of reasons is a great thing. I think the session we have experienced generated connections with characters and more story. I am really looking forward to how it moves forward on that front. It's also going to be cool to master a game that has simple rules, but takes a bit of practice in execution. I suspect it also possess numerous advantages for the GM, as it fits into his low preparation approach by putting more of the weight on the players due to the way the game is played.

Funnily enough, I've been thinking about writing something about the slow, inevitable feel that Pulsars and Privateers wasn't going to see a session seven for about a week or so, but I held off as I didn't want to be a prophet of doom, or to sort of contribute to its end. I can now freely write about it as the Iron DM has posted on the game forum we use to discuss various ideas that due to workload he is doing a 'Fox' and cancelling the 'show'. While this doesn't come as an amazing surprise, it is disappointing.

It's disappointing for a number of reasons, the main reason being the potential in the characters that the players had devised for the game, as some seriously good stuff had been thought up and there was a heck of a lot of potential in each of them. What was also interesting was at least a couple of characters had the potential to move into some particularly interesting areas, questioning what the nature of reality was, as well as what constituted consciousness and the nature of being. While it'd never be a philosophy class, there was some good stuff to weave action and adventure plots around while providing them with some character-driven weight. The various relationships with the characters were forming, and had the potential for some great conflict in the future as issues of loyalty and betrayal came into focus as characters came into conflict with the group as opposed to their individual goals. It's probably safe to say, as a group of characters, they were the best the gaming group had ever created.

The game was also interesting in actual play, though slightly frustrating as well from a certain point of view, in that it was such a melange of influences. It was essentially space opera, but that is such a varied beast you sort of have to bring it into focus and that never really happened. As a result, it had too many influences, or so it felt like to me, at times it was was Star Wars, Farscape, Flash Gordon, Honour Harrington and all sorts of other things mixed together, all of which are substantially different. I always took it to be more like Star Wars and Farscape, but this wasn't really true in all cases, and I'm sure other players had other ideas. As a result, while it was great, I did find the lack of a coherent image of the series a tad frustrating, as at times, it was in conflict. As I say though, a hard beast to tame, especially when creating the milieu as a group from nothing.

Despite all this, giving the whole experience a feeling of being quite raw and new, it was probably the game that had the most potential in terms of what it could have been had it gone on longer and had some time dedicated to it. It certainly could have been a Crescent Sea and Slaying Days beater, if had been given the chance.

What is interesting is how it leaves the gaming group as a whole, as I suspect the cancellation of Pulsars and Privateers also represents an end, while not necessarily a permanent one, to the Iron DM's position as the person who runs the games with some longevity and/or completeness to them. I suspect some element of wanting to sit back and just play may be on the agenda for at least the medium term, which is fair enough and perfectly understandable. He has an alternative group running a superhero game, and whatever our group comes up with next, which is the big question as only the Iron DM has ever managed to run anything beyond 1-3 sessions in length.

As for me personally? Well, it has to be said that I'm slightly apathetic about role-playing all together at the moment. This has probably been reflected in the fact I've not overly pushed for Pulsars and Privateers sessions to actually happen since session five. To be honest, none of the group have pushed that much, at least not via the web, though I realise other avenues of communication exist. At the moment, I just can't get excited about it.

I'm willing to accept I have the totally wrong idea, due to being in relative isolation and not actually discussing it, but I do have feeling the group may be on the verge of collapse. Not total collapse, as in never speaking to each other again, obviously, because we do have the odd other thing that connects us, though some vastly more than others, but as a group of people that play role-playing games?

It's possible I think, if not on a permanent basis, but it's certainly possible.

Due to the fact I couldn't make it to session six of Pulsars and Privateers on the original planned date, we moved it forward a week. This week the heroic crew found themselves the captives of One-Eyed Alija, the mad, Cyclops like pirate who released the 'Zombie Gas' onto the star liner. Needless to say, despite the maniac having a different fate in store for each of them, the heroes not only escaped, they destroyed the pirate's ship and are now moving into his base of operations.

In short, we killed him and took his stuff, and much fun was had by all in the process.

It's going to be interesting to see how the base of operations influences the game, if it does at all. It does provide an extra location for the series to take place in, which provides regular recurring sets. These are important I think, as it provides regular and familiar places for scenes to be set in. They can also be on a larger scale than the sets on the ship.

It was another fun session, and since no cliffhanger took place to naturally lead on to the next episode, it means the next potential slice of excitement starts anew.

It's been over three months since session four of Pulsars and Privateers, one of the longest gaps we've ever had in any campaign. To be honest, I suspect any campaign that has suffered a gap anywhere close to three months hasn't survived. So, it was an important session, as we obviously wanted to get back into the mood and get things kick started again. There was no real possibility the game wouldn't go on after this session, but the gap was probably an issue in a few people's minds.

To be honest, the episode had been getting some level of hype for a while, due it being the grand Resident Evil, The Poseidon Adventure, Event Horizon, and probably more aptly a Hell Island affair, the grand disaster movie episode with zombies for added measure. I can't really speak about anyone else, but I was looking forward to tense, back to the walls combat (which proved problematic due to the hordes against a few rules issues most games exhibit), desperate situations with the various survivors dying at various opportunities, grand moments of jeopardy as the ship slowly fell apart and of course a final escape as everything counted down to destruction.

The interesting thing about the episode is, while it was tremendous fun and was fantastic entertainment value, which is what you want at the end of the day, I suspect, in part, it was entertainment value in a way that the Iron DM might not have been totally satisfied with. Glad everyone was entertained, kudos, success and all that, but still left with a slight feeling it should have panned out in a different way. The main reason I think this, is it was fun because it was entertaining in a social, have a laugh, collect and riff off the references, sort of way, which is good, and not in an experience a tense, dramatic disaster movie sort of way. As I say, nothing wrong with that, but I can understand the slight frustration, as a DM, when the whole theme and mood you intended, assuming that was the case, plays out a bit more towards the opposite end of the scale. It was a fun game that gets the group well back into playing, so it's applause all round really.

What was also interesting, though again more in an abstract theory sort of sense, rather than any value judgement, is the observation that the TV series analogy we currently use may be changing in a way that may be starting to introduce negatives as well as positives. While in the past, in games I've run (a while back now) and previous games under the Iron DM, it's been entirely positive. It's hard to put a finger on why, but there seem to be a lot of self-referential conversations going on comparing scenes to other movies, creating scenes in exuberance that aren't really great scenes but just stereotypical moments from other movies. It's an interesting one, and it may, to a degree, be a symptom of this episode having so many iconic influences, but there may be an argument the TV series model has matured, or we are now taking it for granted and playing to it too much. Less script writers writing scenes in the moment, and instead just cutting and pasting in stock footage, as if we are using the TV structure as a crutch, or an easy way out, rather than something to challenge us further. A bit more original Battlestar Galactica than the new Battlestar Galactica, or Blake 7 rather than Farscape. Okay, that makes it sound terrible, even though I like all those shows, and that's unfair, as it was a great evening and it's a great game, but I'm working to try and describe the slight shift as best as possible. I still think this is partly influenced by the game having no real primary influence in terms of tone and setting, at times its Star Wars/Farscape, other times it's more like Star Trek, then you have the role-playing game Traveller sneaking in, and then at others its more like a Flash Gordon serial. As I say, not so much a big issue, just an observation from someone who admittedly thinks of these things too much.

What was really interesting was the plot made absolutely no sense at all. What is even more interesting, is some people seem to be able to get away with this more than others. The whole set-up was totally preposterous. We had a massive space liner infected with a disease that somehow turned people into Nanite controlled corpses. Not only that, in a totally, and apparently unrelated accident occurred which had the liner being pulled into a distortion between real space and hyperspace. Not only that, we finally discovered what was going on by our ships A.I pulling out an article on the Pulsars and Privateers equivalent of the Lone Gunman magazine. Not only that, the Zombie Gas was put on the liner by one of the sector's premier space pirates just so we would be sent to rescue one of the crew so that the people in suspended animation could be rescued, get on our ship and take it over. Obviously, this makes very little sense, but it was great fun anyway, so who really cares? No one has mentioned it or ridiculed it during the game, or will afterwards. It's interesting because of my rabbit in the headlights approach to gaming has me trying to cover all the bases so everything makes sense, this episode, and others to a much lesser degree, tell me I shouldn't concern myself with that at all and just throw cool shit into the mix. As I say though, I suspect not all games would get away with that to an equal degree, due to the people running, the people playing and the genre.

Anyway, next week we begin the game as captives of One-Eyed Alija, the pirate who risked destroying the known galaxy with the highly infectious Zombie Gas just to capture one man. It's safe to say he's a mad pirate. Find out what happens in the next exciting installment in two weeks time.

The Iron DM has been considering how to take Pulsars and Privateers to the next level, and it's an interesting post. It's not one I'm going to dissect and analyse because I agree with it 100%. What was more interesting is how it made me feel really, as it reminded me why I used to run role-playing games, and what I used to enjoy about them. Basically, the Iron DM discusses five ways of taking Pulsars and Privateers to the next level: character drama, enriching the Universe, sticking with the premise, enriching the environment and producing a website. Okay, I can probably give the last one a miss by and large, unless someone did it for me, but the others made me smile. In a good way.

The character drama, for as long as I can imagine this has been what a role-playing campaign is about for me. Everything else, even everything in this entry, exists to do one thing: support and foster the character drama, to provide an environment in which it can grow. Even going back as far as my first successful campaign, a Golden Heroes campaign, it was all about the character drama. Now, don't get me wrong, that Golden Heroes campaign had some weird oddities, due to my life experience at the time, but it did exist to challenge the characters and produce good stories. The rich industrialist superhero who was paralysed in a terrorist attack forcing him to make a deal with aliens for a cure? The knight from another dimension being faced with the choice of staying in his home dimension or leaving the love of his life behind? The same knight being exposed to a dangerous disease due to his lack of immunity to the viruses in our dimension? It had quite a lot of stuff in it. What it didn't have was me actively pursuing an agenda to get the protagonists to change and reassess their relationships with each other, but that would come in time. Each character exists to tell a certain story, and that story has to come out, and through that the character changes and as does his relationship with others.

It's all about the character drama.

I'm not a big settings person, but I do believe in enriching the setting, I just approach it from a different view than some people (not the Iron DM I hasten to add). I put a lot of thought into how things look in terms of the overall setting, and I put a lot of thought in terms of how things look and what exists in a scene. On a large scale, I tend to concentrate a lot on how things look, because I largely think visually. I don't devote ages to thinking about how a setting fits together and 'survives scrutiny' as most settings in genre products don't survive too much scrutiny as they exist to serve a dramatic purpose, rather than be 100% consistent and making total sense. Let's face it, role-playing settings have to survive casual scrutiny, and even then some of the most prosperous things can work as long they support good character drama. In fact, I believe the heart of any story, even at the heart of any plot, is the character relationships and desires that drive it.

When it comes to individual scenes, I put quite a lot of effort into those, beforehand and as they unfold. This essentially fits in with the idea that a role-playing game is essentially a bunch of writers hacking out a TV episode, the only difference being the scenes are played out immediately rather than written down. As a result, it adds loads to the scene to have characters not just talk, but act as they talk. By this I don't mean funny voices, I may change the tone and speed of my voice, and the types of words used, but I don't do accents, but that, like an actor, they use the props in the scene. A character might pace around the location of the scene, pick up an object and start playing with it, and all this stuff enhances the scene as the player can then respond, just like two actors turning a script into something real. I do this as a DM, and it enhances the scene, keeps it flowing, as a player might get his character to stop the character pacing in frustration? It gives material to launch things from. Since I do this as a DM, it occurs to me I should do my scenes more like this as a player, and I don't really, as well speaking as the character, describe her movements in the scene and her actions as she talks. I need to work on that. Scenes in TV shows use the location, so should the scenes in games. Little things like this transform the scene completely.

Sticking with the premise, an interesting one, largely because when I was last running role-playing games consistently I watched TV shows and read books but I didn't analyse how they worked. The idea is quite simple, most forms of fiction have a premise, the essential core of what they are about, a sort of lens under which all conflict and character development is envisioned through. What's interesting is, despite not paying much attention to any of this stuff, I ran campaigns back then. I don't now. I'm not really sure what that says, but today is not the time to look into that. It's probably safe to say I didn't actively imagine the premise, and call it by that name, but my games probably had one. The Golden Heroes game was obviously about the trials and tribulations of an Avengers type team. The Star Wars one, looking back on it, had an interesting premise as it turned out to be about a group of people finding their place in the turmoil of the Galactic Rebellion, made interesting by the three main characters being an aspiring Jedi, a Smuggler and an Ex-Imperial Captain all with radically different views on the Rebel Alliance, The Empire and The Force. No deep discussions, but some very interesting banter while running down corridors surrounded by a hail of blaster fire, and some interesting conflict as they each found their own place by the end of the mini-series. At times, even though you can't verbalise it or explain it at the time, premise happens anyway.

As for enriching the environment, I'm its biggest fan. I'll use anything for that. Hell, considering I belonged to a role-playing group that went to conventions and did the whole fancy dress thing, there is nothing I've probably not done in the pursuit of enriching the environment. Music, been there and done it, both background music and theme tunes. The game I've ran the most is the Star Wars role-playing game, which comes with some of the best music ever, ready and available, you don't even have to look for appropriate stuff. We've had romantic scenes to the Star Wars sweeping score, we've had the Jedi being kidnapped, to the dramatic music of the escape from Cloud City, as her Wookie companion tries to desperately save her (he failed, and the Dark Jedi's ship did take off just as the orchestral score kicked in with the same riff as when Bobba Fett lifted off from Cloud City with Han Solo - expertly timed), and we even read out the opening crawl as the title theme played. We've even used props, we've had Star Wars models, replica guns, hell we even had a life-size R2-D2. During an FBI series we had suits, ID badges, replica BB guns complete with holsters, we had the bloody lot. While I'd not go that far now, enriching the environment is king, and I have to say, it all produced some amazing sessions. You come out on a high, quite literally buzzing. Interestingly, have any of the games with the current group, under the Iron DM, garnered such a visceral reaction? Mmmm, possibly a topic for another day.

A campaign website, great idea, and I think every campaign should have one, but I've always enjoyed imaging scenes in my head and planning out what the next episode might be rather than hacking a website together.

Fantastic stuff. Hell, what am I missing? Where did the visceral, intense and adrenaline pounding experience that is running a role-playing game actually go? Roll on the next session of Pulsars and Privateers, as it'll have to be the outlet for now....

When discussing session four of Pulsars and Privateers, and the comment that one of the drawbacks of planning your sessions as floating scenes of dramatic conflict can be you run out of material really fast (because all the scenes last five minutes), I proposed four related ways of making sure your session is more likely to over run rather than be short. The best way to use these four ideas is to organised them via a relationship map.

If you look back at the discussion of session four, the idea was to: (1) be clear on the intent of the scenes, (2) use the non-player characters as a protagonist and a scalpel to push the agenda of the scene (while keeping the player character the focus), (3) make sure you don't waste material as throw away scenes, and (4) do all the above while keeping the involved player character(s) potential story in focus. So, how does the relationship map relate to this?

Basically, a relationship map is the web of relationships between the characters involved in a potential story. So, you have some scenes planned out with conflicts that need resolving, and you have a map of relationships of all the characters, this map can then be used as a focus for the dramatic scenes you have planned, and as a way to quickly add other ones as the relationships change on the map. The role-playing game Sorcerer advocates planning out sessions exclusively based on relationship maps, and it works quite well.

If we take session four as an example. After rescuing Markus, Amarr was kidnapped via staged riot and taken to the 'undercity' to see the poor and oppressed that keep the world running. The trouble was this was sprung from nowhere, and then the leader of the 'peaceful rebellion' was a faceless man which no character had any connection to. This was the main area of wasted material as the conflict between the Caliphate Royalty, the 'peaceful rebellion' and the 'violent rebellion' and the role of those groups in the assassination and in potentially freeing Markus should have been woven into the fabric of the plot and the relationship map. The reason? Because it adds more material, and more importantly, makes the whole thing more intense as its driven by conflict and emotion.

So, let's roughly plan out a relationship map off the top of my head. Amarr's mother has a connection to Amarr because she wants him to be the perfect Caliphate son and wishes to steer him in that direction. The 'peaceful rebellion' leader is an exotic, but very low on the ladder, Caliphate princess who has chosen to lead the people of the 'undercity' in a 'Robin Hood' style but needs a better voice to speak to the rich in society, and her connection to Amarr is they know each other from their youth and she secretly loves him (and she should be designed to be a similar spirit as Amarr, to see if this pulls the player in with a potential romance plot, tied in with the resistance). The leader of the 'violent resistance' should have been the senior military aid to Amarr's family, their senior Mamluk, and also known to Amarr, potentially as a past friend or enemy? Either way he's been driven to his actions by how he was treat by Amarr's mother (maybe they had a sexual relationship), thus painting Amarr's mother as not exactly perfect. The result of all this is a web of relationships that provide conflict. Will Amarr fall in love with the 'peaceful resistance' leader? How will Amarr feel about his mother when he learns what drove the 'violent resistance' leader to revolt, and will he expose her? Will he confront her about it, thus changing their relationship? How will all this play out in terms of which resistance can help the main character's free Markus? How does such a senior Mamluk organising a 'violent rebellion' play with the rest of the military slaves, including Amarr's only personal Mamluk? The key is to establish potentially intense, dramatic relationships and then see them form and change. This could have generated scene after scene, involved all the characters in the debate, thus bringing the issues of other player characters into the mix, and also making these issues part of the problem of freeing Markus.

The above would potentially have resulted in needing a third session, and it would certainly have been a very dense session either way. It would also have resulted in more intensity for all the characters. Amarr might have gained a potential love interest, made an enemy or been re-united with an old one, really disapointed his mother by potentially siding against her. Dramatic choices. The other characters might have also changed. What would Markus do in light of this rebellion with his Argent Empire masters? How would Talia feel about the choices Amarr was making with respect to the two rebellions? How would this change the crew's relationship with each other? Ideally, it would create issues and choices that create scenes between player characters as they discuss the issues raised and the decisions they must make, so it also acts as a framework for players to spring scenes off. Not only that, even though you are using a lot of material in one session, it undoubtedly creates more than it uses as the scenes play out.

Anyway, the point is to always look for the set of dramatic relationships in any session, and if you can't find any then something is going wrong. Ramp up the intensity and come up with some. This then acts in a circular process to create more intense scenes, more scenes and also aids in adding new scenes on the fly as you use the relationship as a tool. It's also important because no matter what the mechanical set-up of your plot is, the real story is why people do certain things and what the web of relationships is that brings that about. There always is one.

Luckily, despite the cancellation of the session last week, we managed to reconvene a week later for session four. Obviously, session four was on the back of the experimental session three, which went really well. It was also the second part of a story spanning two sessions. It's probably safe to say this session wasn't as strong as session three, but then it had the issue of two of the characters being separate from the rest for the whole session, which isn't a problem, but can always be harder to accommodate. One character, Zeb, was unconscious, by player choice, and he spent the whole session unconscious. This worked quite well though, as all his scenes were flashbacks telling the tale of how he became forcibly involved in an experiment to create cybernetic pilots, and that story ended nicely with his coming around from his coma just in time to get us out of trouble when a rebel revolt kicked-off. Marcus, who had been imprisoned due to being 'implicated' in the assassination that ended session three, spent the whole time in prison, and didn't get much to do at all. These things happen though, and it balances out over time.

An issue raised by the Iron DM while walking back to our various cars, was that planning the episode out as a series of potential dramatic scenes can result in the episodes running short, as you don't know how much material you'll burn through, or how long each scene will be. As an example, it was obvious, after about 40 minutes, that this was happening this session, and it did turn out to be a short one. I'm not really sure how this is any different to how he did it before, but it is true you have to have an eye for having enough material. The key to this, for me, is to do a number of things: (1) ensure you are clear on the intent in the scene and how you are going to implement it, (2) use the various non-player characters (NPC) in the game as your dramatic protagonists, (3) making sure you don't waste ideas and material as throw away scenes, and (4) do all the above with each of the main protagonists potential story in focus.

Items (1) and (2) are related really, as the NPC's in the scene are the tools by which you control its length. Each NPC should exist as a protagonist in the sense that they are designed to act as a scalpel to peal away the layers of the player's character. So an NPC can have their own goals and agendas, but in many ways these should be designed to highlight the main protagonists. The fact, as the DM, you are controlling this NPC then gives you a voice in the scene to ensure a suitable dramatic and intense scene happens, the purpose being to grow the player's character through the NPC and further the scene. This then gives you longer scenes. It is fine for NPC's to be quite strong, and equal partners in scenes, as long as the focus is not the 'Mary Sue' the NPC and instead act as a way to further the dramatic story of the protagonists. Push the agenda, and challenge the main protagonist.

Issue (3) is just a matter of making sure you are using the material you have in the best way, by not allowing material that could offer a more intense dramatic opportunity get wasted. I think this happened this session. The focus was on the fact that Marcus was in prison due to a belief he was a spy and involved in the assassination. Nothing much actually happened in relation to that though, until it was decided we'd have to break him out. Once we broke out Marcus, we got separated by an organised riot so that Ammar could be kidnapped by a rebel group, and shown the 'undercity', the people who live in poverty and squalor to support the Caliphate Royalty. Some of these 'undercity' citizens want a voice to organise a relatively peaceful revolt, another group, responsible for the assassination are trying to organise an armed revolt. The trouble is it felt tagged on and relatively un-dramatic, rushed and forced, when the truth is the two elements could have been combined from the start and both been stronger as a result. For instance, why wasn't the 'rebel situation' brought in earlier, and that could have been used as a way to organise the break-out? This would have resulted in more 'conflict orientated' scenes with the rebels, and their agenda. A better understanding of the 'undercity', and they would have potentially known a unique and exciting way, action set piece way, into the prison. It's like the scenes were put together without thinking about how the whole could have been better than the sum of its parts. There would have been numerous ways to do it, and it would undoubtedly have resulted in a 'longer session'. Of course, whenever I've run games I've never committed to a bi-weekly schedule either, so its easy for me to say.

Issue (4) is about doing all the above and keeping in mind the story of the player character(s) in the scene, the issues they are dealing with and how they can move forward dramatically. The scene should touch upon those issues ever so slightly, unless it purely exists to move the plot forward, and then it should touch upon the character personally a bit, even then.

Anyway, the above approach usually means my sessions, historically, and even the odd thing I've run relatively lately, run over rather than run short. A good way to organise all the above is through a relationship map, but I'll discuss that another day. All minor stuff though, still a great game, still a good session. The characters grow a bit with each session, in a measured way. Looking forward to the next session.

To be continued...

One issue that can make or break a TV show is how it deals with actors leaving the show or becoming unavailable for periods of time. A few shows have used this to their advantage, while others have been destroyed by it. As an example, the X Files used Gillian Anderson's pregnancy to their advantage, it really ramped up the intensity of season two and went on to have long lasting effects on the series. It also gave Gillian Anderson's character a driving reason to stay with the X Files, as she wanted to know the facts behind her abduction (whether at the hands of aliens or not). Another example would be Doctor Who, a series which has managed to deal with the fact most British actors don't stay with a TV show for many seasons by turning the replacement of the actor playing The Doctor into an event.

The same can be true in role-playing games, when a player is not available for a session or longer, what do you do? In the past, people had all sorts of weird ideas for doing this, though thankfully I've not experienced any of them. A few common bits of wisdom involved having the character be present, but have everyone sort of ignored his existence. You also had people who seemed keen on the idea of giving that player's character to another player for the evening and having him play that character as a secondary one. I wish I could remember all the ridiculously options that used to get listed in magazines like Dragon. You also have the option of just cancelling, which sometimes has to be done if the character was the main focus and you're halfway through a session.

Pulsars and Privateers faced that problem this week, as the player of Zeb, the 'ailing' ships pilot who spends too much time in his virtual machine, was unable to come to the session. Luckily, his character, by his own choice, had fell unconscious at the end of the last session, unable to deal with the stress of the assassination attempt we became embroiled in, which ended session three. Lucky, the option of just leaving him unconscious was open to us. Ironically, the leave him unconscious option was exactly what was going to happen, but our group was unable to leave it at that, of course, instead it was an excuse to insert one of the eight or so episode ideas I'd sent to the Iron DM. This would set the scene for session four and five. It was going to be exciting.

Regrettably, the session got cancelled, so session four of Pulsars and Privateers didn't take place tonight.

So, the immediate season plan changed again. The plan to deal with Zeb's player being absent won't actually happen. As I've stated before, sometimes this unrealised story potential can be a bit frustrating, as the set-up to deal with his absence was very good. Still, the episode idea is there and can be inserted later, so the potential will be realised at some point. It does mean sessions four and five will revert to a different form. I'm sure session four will play out roughly the same in terms of general plot, I'm guessing, but this time additional scenes will feature as the players and the Iron DM can construct scenes around Zeb. Session five will be completely different, though I understand the original plan was to use one of the other episode ideas I'd passed on.

All is interesting, but it just goes to show, if you think of the campaign like an episodic TV show, the key is to realise the potential for drama when a player isn't available. We did this before in the Buffy campaign, with events that took place when my character wasn't present (first half of season one) effectively setting the tone of the whole series and creating character dynamics that didn't resolve until the final episode of series two (and gave us one of our best role-playing sessions ever).

To be continued...

The interesting thing about session three was it was an experiment. An experiment in moving the role-playing group to actually putting in scenes that matter and progress the characters. Ideally, scenes that deal with a central conflict, to get at the heart of character issues. This was to be done by allowing players to details scenes in advance to address a particular piece of conflict or character development.

Did it work? It was a very good first attempt. A very good attempt. And it also proved to be a dual layer experiment, as the Iron DM moved to planning his sessions in a different way, though some might say he actually moved to some semblance of planning (depending on your point of view).

If we deal with the player authored scenes first, it came to pass that two players added scenes, though one added them quite late and as result only one really got inserted, though I'm sure the others can flow over to the following session. From my point of view there was no real negatives resulting from the experiment, just a feeling that the process, which I'm sure will be a mainstay of the campaign, could get even better results. I enjoyed all the player authored scenes immensely, and they all started an embryonic relationship with each of the characters, that certainly needs more work, but the point was no real 'actually played' connection existed at all before (and would have took much longer to come through without these player added scenes).

The flashback scene in which Talia decided to leave the monastery she had spent three years at added some colour to her character. The scene with Captain Amarr didn't really establish a future narrative angle, and just really established Talia was free to stay despite representing a danger to it, it probably proved to be least dramatic or character enriching of the four. Talia and Zeb have discussed his devotion to being connected to the computer, he wishing Talia could see what he sees, which is something that can be grown into something. Talia and Marcus had a discussion about duelling culture, revealing some interesting back story about Marcus, and a friendly duel that set-up potential future scenes as he and Talia share the cargo space for training, which can be used for future scenes (and interestingly Zeb became part of the scene by watching the duel on the ships sensors, also good).

Did the scenes reach their full potential? No, but that's fine, it was a first attempt, and I think the strongest result, for me, was it felt natural to do it, it didn't feel uncomfortable or odd. It was also good that each scene, most of which will involve other player characters, had the full involvement of the other player. As such, I believe, it represents a good base to challenge the medium and go a step further. The challenge is represented by what is absent from the scenes, some of the potential in each scene didn't come out because of the way it went, the flow is dictated by two people after all, which means they always have a healthy element of unpredictability, and other times it's because I didn't take it far enough. As an example, Talia and Zeb might have an 'emotional' connection in that he finds sanctuary in the virtual world of his computer, while she left her safe haven, but this never became part of the equation and it might have added a bit of depth. This is fine, it can be established in a future scene, as there is a promise of more. The flashback scene could have been longer and involved quite a bit more depth, but that was purely my issue that it was so short. As I say, no negatives in any sense of the word, just an awareness I could get better results from the scenes when the set-up is actually played out.

It basically comes down to having a better eye for authoring in elements during the actual play of the game. I'm very good at thinking stuff up between games, be it scenes, episode ideas, setting details, whatever, and I'm an equal player during the game, but I'm starting to notice I miss serious opportunities, from my point of view, to author the character as a protagonist in a dramatic story or to influence how the character is understood via imagery and physical action. The examples of how the scenes could have been improved, given above, are perfect examples, but other instances exist as I sometimes fail to take opportunities that come up to establish visuals, use role-playing opportunities, or whatever. I identified quite a few this session in retrospect, and I'm going to make sure I have a wary eye out for them next time. Thinking about it, it's the difference between the verbal and written mediums. This was one reason I liked Neverwinter Nights so much, as a player I'm much better at catching these opportunities and capitalising on them in a written medium, which Neverwinter Nights was. I'm also much better at doing it as a DM, rather than a player, which is a bit odd, and I need to look into that.

The second interesting element of the session, and I think this is easily as a good a reason as to why it was so good, if not more so than the scene adding experiment, was the Iron DM changing his prep method, and as said in the opening paragraph, actually doing what I would call preparation. Basically, he moved to preparing his session as a series of scenes, just like the player ones, so the session was a series of scenes with a purpose. It worked really well, but then I've planned my games that way for sometime, so that wasn't so surprising. The biggest influence on the session was actually that prep took place. I always here about people who run games with just a few visuals in their head and a core idea and then wing the rest, that's fine, each to his own, but whenever I've seen this done it is never as strong as when a bit of preparation is thrown in. The game feels stronger, everyone feels more comfortable when a bit of thought has been put in a ahead of time as to why scenes are taking place, what they are there for and what are the concerns, drives and emotions involved. The scenes are no doubt free floating, set-up in a way that can take place at an opportune moment, the important element is some thought has been put into why they exist. You can even add more on the spot, but at least you have a rough framework. A sessions that is 80% winging it is just so open to scenes that wander nowhere, a premise that falls flat halfway through, or what you have thought about not being seen by the players because of them being distracted by something you put in as a throwaway as you gleefully winged the situation.

It was a very good session, easily the best one, and one that spent half it's time just surviving off character development scenes without a plot as such to carry the game forward. I also feel, even in the embryonic stage they are in now, the added scenes, because they sort of had an agenda/conflict listed up front (if not a resolution), they had a slightly different quality. That could be just me, but I'm really looking forward to see how it influences the game over time.

To be continued...

As Sunday approaches, thoughts turn to the third session of Pulsars and Privateers, especially after the patchy results of the second session. In the post-blog review of the second session the issues raised largely concerned the problems related to the juxtaposition of setting information, and the fact the delivery of the plot structure seemed to be in a different genre completely (some of it true, some due to perception). In all honesty, this was only part of a mosaic of interesting issues, the other side of the coin was the virtual complete lack of interaction between the protagonists. Some of this goes back to the fact the players entered problem solving mode due to the set-up and of the plot, but not all of it.

The first session carried the players along on a wave of adrenaline, with the protagonists involved in action scenes, or a personal scene. Simple. The second session demanded that the protagonists interact on their own accord, or that the player's create their own scenes to add to the mystery being solved. In short, we'd been given the plot, but the character development that was to hang around it should have been provided by the players. This didn't happen in a big way, and contributed to the problem. The protagonists largely kept themselves focused on the issue at hand. It's the second session, so no big deal, from a certain point of view, but it also could be argued that this is a weakness in the group (and I include myself in this).

Basically, the role-playing group is highly imaginative and creative, and the games are excellent, but we often fail on the final hurdle: pro-actively creating scenes that have dramatic conflict. The killer scenes. As an example, in the Buffy game, one of the protagonists was indirectly responsible for the death of another protagonists love interest. While this did influence their relationship, and everyone had it in their minds, they never discussed it directly as a conflict in the game. It didn't even get raised when the character who lost his love interest sacrificed himself at the end of season two. We never made the killer scene happen. The DM could have set-up things to force it, but to be honest, it's not his job. It was the players job, and we didn't do it. So, the conflict of those characters was good, it changed both characters, and it was great it existed, but it would have been even better if the players had created a scene that dealt with it directly.

So, we are trying an interesting experiment. The Iron DM and myself are familiar with the game Primetime Adventures, and it has a unique play structure. To keep it simple, an episode of Primetime Adventures is created by the Producer creating a scene, and then each player creating a scene in turn (including the producer) until the episode reaches some conclusion. What the episode is about and how it ends is defined initially by the opening scene and then each scene in turn. The people involved are free to create plot scenes, which develop the plot, and crucially, character development scenes that have a central conflict. While we are going to continue to play Pulsars and Privateers in a more traditional way, the Iron DM has ask for scenes in advance the player's want to see for their protagonist, pitched in a Primetime Adventures style, these scenes will play out in the first half of the session which has been set aside for such scenes as the players travel to the next location.

This is a good idea as it basically puts the role-playing group in a position of stepping up and putting those scenes down, and then they will happen and we'll see what results. It is a mechanism that allows the group to author essential character development scenes, prepare for them in advance so they are not put on the spot, and play the conflict out. The way I see it is this, the role-playing group are essentially the team of writers on a TV shows, with the Iron DM as Executive Producer, the only difference is, after we've decided on what scenes will take place and what the conflict is, instead of writing them to see where the conflict takes us, they are 'played out'.

The results of the experiment will be seen on Sunday, but so far, as of 1200 hours on Thursday 16th December 2005, only one player has put his scenes (they are listed here) in. It'll be interesting.

You know when you are watching a new TV show, and it has you hooked, and you want to keep watching more? It may be the character(s) that hooked you? Or something about the way it's filmed? Or the themes it deals with? But even though you really like it, you are conscious that it's a bit embryonic, a bit raw around the edges and the creative staff, and all those involved, just haven't fully figured out where they are going with it and how it is all going to be presented? In short, the show hasn't coalesced into a cohesive, slick and well done product: themes, mood, imagery, the way stories are delivered, how the setting is presented, all aligned.

That's Privateers and Pulsars at the moment.

The second session was interesting. The first session seemed to survive of a total rush of adrenaline, pace and cool imagery, making it the gaming equivalent of the new Doctor Who series, or an episode of Farscape. It even ended with the promise of more. The trouble was, the second session seemed to change focus, and instead of being based on the total verve of it all, it slowed down and took on the mantle of an espionage show, with way too much emphasis based on the players solving the dilemma. The trouble with this approach is, it naturally leads to players wanting to solve the problem with technology, which is the last thing you want to do with a Space Opera game. To be honest, it felt a bit weird before the game even started. I'm not sure what it was, maybe the expectations had got so high there was no way it could have ever delivered? Or maybe just a combination of discernible factors got in the way, and the vibe just didn't really feel right. It was like the potential for something difficult was in the air before the game even started.

I think the main problem can be summed up by two words: juxtaposition and confusion. In short, numerous concepts and ideas, all of them not necessarily fully compatible being put side by side and causing confusion, and it was multi-layered confusion at that. In an of themselves, each of them is not that big a deal, but together they have an effect greater than the sum of their parts.

We have a very embryonic setting, which is formed by five very active creative minds, the only slight issue is it currently has no common framework which binds it all together. This is the issue with Space Opera, it covers everything from campy Flash Gordon right through to remake of Battlestar Galactics with all sorts in between. This means we have a melange of influences from different sources: Star Wars, Farscape, Fading Suns (the role-playing game), classic Flash Gordon, Firefly, Honor Harrington and even elements of Cyberpunk. It sounds great, but the problem is each of these influences has radical different approaches to tone, mood, theme and how technology is viewed and used in the setting. Not only that, some are actually westerns with laser guns, others are medieval dramas with laser guns, others are naval dramas, etc. This results in the players feeling like they are on shifting plates with respect to the setting as you're never sure what's possible, as an example, I'm walking through the game assuming I'm playing something akin to a western in space, a la Star Wars and Farscape, with elements of mysticism (which both shows have) but this is at odds with the technology of the settings which comes across as more contemporary hi-tech or semi-realistic like Battlestar Galactica.

What constitutes a Privateers and Pulsars session (or episode) is still in its embryonic stages, which is as you would expect, it's only the second session (and some TV shows take two to three seasons to work this stuff out). The first session came close to my vision of it, which isn't necessarily the correct one, but you tend to connect with what you are expecting, while this one had a set-up with felt more like a contemporary action/adventure show but with higher technology. The idea of extracting the spy from the invaded world was good, but it shouldn't have devolved into players figuring out low key things like kidnapping officers to question, which is the science fiction equivalent of elite spies resorting to micro-managed plans which involve being BT engineers. The rescue of the spy should have involved action and adventure, raiding confederation bases and all sorts of other hijinks. The character's go to the hotel they got the broadcast from, he's not there, he's been taken by the bad guys. Bang, people show up with guns. Stand off. They prove to be a small group who worked with the spy. Bang, the players go to their hideaway. They find out he's in the bad guys temporary base. Bang, they have plans that get them in via a power distribution tunnel, but of course this tunnel pulses every so many minutes, queue gunfight in power tunnel with the players getting in before the pulse incinerates them. Bang, they rescue the guy and get out, with the obligatory escape to hyperspace if necessary. In short, our version of going to Endor to destroy the Death Star shield generator.

Any colour that needed adding, such as descriptions of soldiers in the street, adverts proclaiming the wisdom of the Confederation occupation or the fact the Confederation was doping the water should have been facts just learned as the players went, not stuff left hanging as if it's something they have to figure out. You don't think too much about how realistic it is, or how it's even possible with so many troops on the ground and the 'realism' of blanket air cover in orbit - it just happens. The character's in Star Wars shouldn't have been able to escape Cloud City really, if you extend everything to its logical conclusion, but that's not really the point (though not extrapolating technology from today's standards helps in this regard).

Despite these speed bumps, the is still showing all the signs of one that is going to grow into something significant. We had a number angles that just simmered along or became centre pieces of the episode that will bring things to a head eventually. We had the characters on hover bikes being chased by light attack aircraft, which was a cool action scene in a series of ravines, and even involved some speeding through caverns. We had some further good touches regarding Zeb the ships pilot and his relationship with his computer equipment, specifically the seemingly artificial intelligence that seems to be inside it. We had some good stuff with Talia as she chose to literally walk up to the enemy and use her position as one of the ruling family of the bad guys to get information and retrieve the prisoner, this has a lot of repercussions for the crew and her. The murder of a number of Caliphate royal family is an interesting development (though in a cut scene) and the subject of the next episode. This isn't bad for only the second session, it's pretty damned good.

In a way, I suppose it was like an episode were the core premise fell a bit flat, but it had a great action scene and a couple of excellent pieces of character development that you know is going to build to something explosive. It has also reminded me that I've fell of the bike a bit with respect to role-playing games and I need to get back on and start driving things a bit more. I need to start playing a dramatic protagonist, not worry about gaming consequences or setting stuff, just play the protagonist, make the dramatic choices, establish the dramatic scenes and establish setting stuff myself and ride with the flow. As I say, it would appear I'm a bit rusty.

To be continued...

Last Sunday the first session of Pulsars and Privateers took place, and on it depended all our role-playing hopes and dreams. Well, that's a bit melodramatic, and probably stretching it too far, but it's true to say that if this had failed, and just become another mediocre experience, getting another one of the ground would have experienced an even bigger hurdle.

The good news is it was great.

We had about four hours, and we actually spent half of it creating the characters and setting up stuff for the game. We are using the Unisystem Lite system as featured in the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel role-playing games, largely because we are familiar with it, it's easy and it just doesn't really get in the way (especially when you throw in our unconsciously agreed method of only half following the rules and rolling dice almost for show). The process involved some imagination, as we'd not really gone into a wholesale conversation of the rules, more a 're-imaging and we agree to iron out any wrinkles when we encounter them' sort of approach. So, we did on the fly things like re-name qualities like Initiate Commando to Argent Empire Commando, for instance. It worked out fine, and went really well.

The four characters are also interesting, and I'm already seeing a web of relationships that can form between them, both to create firm bonds of friendship and conflict. This is a good thing. We have Amarr El Salee, 1602nd in line to the ceremonial throne of the Caliphate, but now a merchant captain seeking fame, fortune and adventure in space. Marcus D'Silver, a career officer and engineer from the Argent Empire navy who now finds himself on the Khanjar, but seems to have a past that involves more than just being an engineer. Talia Ishari Decados, daughter of the noble Decados line, leaders of the Decados merchant guild (allied to the Magellan Confederation), ex-gun slinger and Confederation mercenary and now follower of some obscure belief system. Zeb Thadius, the Khanjar's enigmatic pilot, who was found floating in his Confederation fighter still attached to the vessels systems via the modified flight chair, this is now part of the Khanjar, and he spends large proportions of his time linked to the ships computers.

The second phase of character creation was really some mutual world building and set creating, a time to establish things that will be recurring sets and features of the series. The most important element was the ship, as this would essentially be a fifth character in the game in the grand tradition of shows like Farscape and Firefly. It would be the place the characters live, breath and interact for large proportions of the game. It's essentially their shared home, so it was important to establish that shared 'character' and set in everyone's mind. This part of the creation process went off in a totally different direction than what I was expecting, which is often a good thing and one of the benefits of a group creation process. I was always envisioning a Millennium Falcon approach to the ship, something small and fast that lands on planets. This is probably a throwback to me playing Star Wars campaigns, which generally featured that style of ship even if it looked visually different. In Pulsars and Privateers we have the Khanjar, a retired old 'frigate' that has been converted for carrying cargo. This creates an interesting dynamic, as the ship is larger, can take passengers, it rarely enters a planets atmosphere, which means we have a smaller craft that lands inside it, it has two pulse lasers (queue scenes of people shooting them Star Wars style) and it escapes to hyperspace by taking a lot of punishment. This is a great idea as it gives the vessel potential to have more sets and bigger sets, it also has the opportunity to bring stories to it via the fact it has passenger space. In short, the ship creation process was great and the Khanjar is a central element of the series. I've sort of fell in love with it already, though that probably came after the opening scene of the session.

As well as the strength of the characters, the series is just so vibrant in terms of the visuals and story potential, and wide open for all the people involved to add to the mosaic which, as I mentioned before, is very important to any game we play actually being successful. In my head, I imagine the series a bit like Farscape, it has that whole rich quality in terms of the design of the sets and the visuals, such as Point Damascus, or the gorgeous imagery of the pilot in his chair, pulling up screens Minority Report style. I also imagine the camera work being like in Farscape, with the camera zooming down the corridor following Amarr and Talia to the pulse lasers as they try and escape the pirate assault and get into hyperspace. There is also a whole host of gorgeous visuals in terms of how we picture the various ships in the game, the sweeping arcs of the Argent Empire, the functional blocks of the Confederation, and the crescent designs of the Caliphate. It even goes down to simple things like establishing scenes in different parts of the ship, we still haven't fully established the bridge, and haven't even visited the expansive cargo hold, the individual character's living quarters, the guest quarters, etc. There is innumerable other planets and just exciting stuff, be it costumes, customs, technology, etc. A bit like Farscape (and Star Wars) getting to see new stuff, whatever it may be, is just part of the experience.

We had about two hours of actual play, and even though it was really set-up to establish an opening action scene, to give the ship combat a dry run to see how exciting it was, a bit of social interaction to establish the dynamics of Port Damascus and a personal combat scene, it was really good. In all honesty, I think the killer scene was the opening scene, which sort of sold the game to anyone that might still have not been sold (which I don't think was the case). It had the Khanjar fleeing a pirate cruiser and it's fighters having rescued an important guild VIP from his wrecked ship just before the pirates arrived. It instantly conjured up images of the not too fast, but tough, Khanjar fleeing with its engines at full throttle, fighters zooming in to strafe the ship with pulse laser fire, the shields diminishing, Amarr and Talia spinning around and shooting at fighters in the pulse laser turrets (Star Wars style), and the tension when the missile alert went of and the countermeasures were launched was palpable. Great stuff. It was the killer scene. You can't beat starting these space opera games in media res.

The question remains: was there any problems at all?

Not really, the only issue I could see and it's more an interesting observation of how these things go than a problem, and always a facet of the first sessions as people seek to image their characters and establish scenes which put them on the map to get the series going, was my character came across as a bit of a sad gamer stereotype for a brief moment. The character fell momentarily into the trap of all the Matrix imagery, complete with billowing coats and stuff, before I had to change it on the fly to the Wild West gun slinger sort of vibe I was going for. Cool under fire, and serene even in the face of chaos. The spiritual side of the character was also a total blank for the session, but that's a good thing in the long run as the slightly cold, calm in the face of violence aspect can come first and the deeper stuff added later, which is probably the best way. The characters brings wider spiritual and mystical element to the science fiction game, which will hopefully be a larger part of the game as we progress. It's early days.

To be honest, first sessions are often problematic for me, in terms of aggressively establishing character anyway, as I tend to take an approach of sitting back and soaking up what is being established in order to work on playing more pro-actively in session two and onwards. This was magnified by the fact I was the character left with little direct to do (though balanced by an interesting scene next session, for sure). Amarr had his next job to arrange, Marcus was seeing his contacts and Zeb had his whole computer thing to establish. I had the action scene, which then became part of the problem. As I say though, a very minor crack in the road, and interesting rather than a big problem. The first session has established various things in my mind of how I understand the characters, the setting and the visuals of everything, and the in the next sessions I'm going to take it a step further. For example, I might totally accept the fact we see it as a TV series in role-playing form and establish scenes to the point of describing how things are shot and directed. I tend to do this when running games, so why not as a player? Definitely the way to go.

The future is really exciting on the role-playing front. It's just a pity it's two weeks between episodes, especially since it was left with numerous questions hanging in the air.

To be continued....

The next role-playing campaign even has a name now: Privateers and Pulsars. That's sort of it's under-development name, which will probably stick as a moniker just because it serves as a reference, and that will do. The concept documents have been going backwards and forwards, and like I said in my last post about it, it has that essential something, that element that was missing from the previous ideas. At least it does as far as I'm concerned.

I think Privateers and Pulsars will succeed and be the third consistent campaign for a number of reasons.

The types of stories that can be told in the medium are varied. The space opera landscape of Privateers and Pulsars can play host to single-session stories or epic mini-series runs. It can accommodate character focused stories, or more action orientated pieces. It can fill us with the wonderful vistas of space, or have us looking over our shoulders in a more claustrophobic view of the black expanse of nothingness. One week it may be an exciting battle through an asteroid field, the next it may be a tense 'submarine' drama deep into enemy territory. At times it may be a game of smuggling or risky trading, at another time a heavy militaristic tone may come into play. Fancy doing a heist episode? The Poseidon Adventure on a doomed battleship? An undercover extraction on a luxury space liner? It's all possible. It also provides a highly visual, set of standard sets, the vessel Aegis, and it's mobile to boot. It really is a varied canvas in terms of the types of episode that can take place.

As well as story variety, it also has character variety. I don't mean in terms of character function, but in terms of character history, issues and overall potential for drama. The characters can truly be a varied, rag-tag bunch of people trying to make a living for whatever idealistic or selfish reason they desire. This will create both interesting character dynamics, and also a rich set of character histories to draw from and develop in order to generate character-driven stories. This was one of the key failings of the aborted Werewolf campaign I thought, the characters didn't seem to have enough differences at every level due to the set-up of the game itself.

It's setting lite, and this is very important, as we don't really play games with heavy settings that are ready and waiting to be used. I think this was another reason that the Werewolf game failed. Crescent Sea started from nothing and was created as a mutual work. Buffy, while it does come with a setting, it's pretty light and open to adding almost anything to it, or twisting it to represent your own themes, ideas and concepts. Privateers and Pulsars goes right back to the Crescent Sea approach, with very little existing up front and the rest being left for the people involved to develop as needed.

It's visually exciting. All the campaigns we've played so far have had a visual flair, and an imagery we can form a group consensus on. It's either been the shared world we created as part of the Crescent Sea, or the familiar visuals of the Buffyverse. Either way, the campaigns have had a strong visual element which we enjoy imagining together and extending. Privateers and Pulsars has that.

That about sums it up I think, and I'll be very surprised if the game doesn't fly and come to be the third campaign we talk about with great fondness.

A while back we had the gaming summit meeting in the pub to try and get the gaming going again. The decision was to play season three of the Buffy game, a promotional graphic even got produced in a moment of keen enthusiasm. Then a cancellation or two hit the Thursday night slot before it really got started, followed by a relatively long-term cancellation from a player snowed under at work.

Christmas rolled by and nothing really happened, other than World of Warcraft of course, which is sort of a universal constant, myself included. Would a fresh New Year alter things? As is the spirit of these occasions, would it inspire use to take a new approach and try and jump-start things again? It would seem the Iron DM thought so.

The good news is we now have a new slot: Sunday evenings. It would have been better if it was Sunday afternoon, but this hit a problem with one of the players. A pity, as Sunday afternoon is better, as you can game and then come home and chill out before work in the morning. Still, it's better than a weeknight I think.

I also think the old excitement is back. All the games post the last Buffy series had a certain lackluste quality to them. I'm not saying they didn't have their moments, or that they weren't fun, but they didn't have that essential something, the buzz, that both the original D&D game that sort of brought us together and the Buffy game had. The idea of running a third series of Buffy has been dropped, but we are now moving into Space Opera territory, with the idea being to run a Firefly, Flash Gordon and Star Wars-style series of adventuring traders and privateers in a galaxy full of adventure, politics, exotic aliens and all sorts of other cool stuff. We've not created characters, or even seen the usually short promo piece to serve as an introduction, but it has the buzz already as far as I'm concerned and I've already done my character pitch.

This ones going the distance, I can sense it.