[RPG] Why I'm enjoying PTA - The Other Side

I mentioned how much I'm enjoying our Tuesday night game of Primetime Adventures. Here are a few reasons why:

1.
We've created a setting that we all love, and want to expand on. Our sessions are filled with improvising new details and quirks, and creating incidental characters. I'm keeping a chart of all the characters we've met, which we refer to regularly to reincorporate them. I, for one, want to see a return of the married animated doors that guard the King's treasury.

2.
This is our second season with the show. We're familiar with what works, and we've fine-tuned what didn't.

3.
Not only that, but the characters are all in really interesting and totally unstable positions that have emerged naturally from the events of Season One.

4.
More focused. Previously Svend and I were co-producing, and playing a character each. Now Svend is the solo producer, he's dropped his character. It's more screen-time for each of us.

5.
Celeste is playing a KICK-ARSE character, and her performance is riveting to watch. She has taken a secondary character who we all loved from last year, and turned her into something magnificent.

6.
There's a lot of trust between all of the players that at any point we'll be able to come up with something fun/cool/inventive/appropriate.

7.
We playing by the rules, which funnily enough is making the game easier to run. In particular, we're doing two things. First, we're focusing the conflicts on what the characters want, rather than trying to invent possible outcomes for the conflicts. Second, we're trying to keep the game 'in the moment', roleplaying stuff out rather than just saying "Then [this] happens, and then [this] would happen." Both those things are making the game flow more smoothly and more vividly.

8.
We're using fanmail to reward the things we want to see more of - like Wayne being emotional, and Celeste being bold and evil. It's not just about input that we think is funny. I think the game is deepening as a result.