Happily, I found some threads of a couple of PTA games played by post by searching "primetime adventures play online," I think. Unhappily, it seems that both games floundered pretty early on. In reading the planning posts, it seems like the big problem was that there was extended back and forth as the players debated pitches and tried to flesh out concepts. I believe that spending weeks discussing the planning elements of a game - setting, character types, etc. - almost always kills the momentum.
So one thing that might be vital to keeping a game like PTA chugging along through the planning stages is to set short timelines for the decisions. In table play, the players are supposed to spend a very short time developing pitches and characters. In PbP, you'd probably need to say, "We'll have no more than three days of discussion of the pitches and one day of character-building." Otherwise, people will invariably go into more detail than they're supposed to, and that seems (according to the threads I've just read) to lead to one or two other players to decide that they really aren't feeling the game as pitched, and quitting before it begins.
Thanks for the Fiasco suggestion. I'll look those up, too.
Last edited August 21, 2019 5:33 am