Network Mogul Pilot & Actor Ideas?

[Tyrel Lohr]

I will eventually get a playtest pack put together for Network Mogul, but before I do that I thought I would pick everyone's brain for any zany series or actor ideas/blurbs that could appear in the game? Jay has sent a few, but since we need about 100 pilot cards (potentially), it would be nice to have a healthy mix of ideas thrown into the pot.

Disclaimer: Any ideas you present should be your own, and by submitting them you consent to VBAM using them in the product. That is the reason for this thread, after all.

I just had get that out of the way, so that people don't think we are "stealing" their ideas. This is for all intents a submission thread, and I am shamelessly looking for ideas!

My plan is to collate all of these show ideas and then find an artist (or artists) with a whimsical style and see about having card art produced for each. That itself may mean my ambitious goal of 100 Pilot Cards may be out of line... but with 7 cards per player usually in play at any one time, I think it is a necessity, otherwise the same cards would keep repeating all the time!

Now, onto the nuts and bolts...

Each Pilot in Network Mogul includes a name, artwork (hopefully), short description, and a pithy quote from the show. For example, one parody one that Jay did that I liked was this gem:

Condo, D.C.
Being the attending, sassy chiropractor at Emerald Hospital isn't for the faint of heart.
(Sarcastic Sigh)

Yes, it's a parody of House -- but to me that's fabulous and funny! Or there's this one:

The Lonely Guy
What happens when we bribe people to date and marry for money?
"I would never date you otherwise, Harold..."

Each show is rated as to its Development Cost (paid to add the show to your "hand"), a Production Cost (amount paid each Week to play the card), and the show's rating in each of seven different Focus areas: Action, Drama, Comedy, Serial, Procedural, Genre, and Reality. Here is a breakdown of each:

Action: Guns, violence, gratuitious sex and nudity! Wham! Wham! Pew, pew, pew! These shows are perfect for people with short attention spans that like to watch things blow up. Repeatedly.

Drama: These shows tug at your heart strings or keep you on the edge of your seat! Unbridled angst and scene chewing at its finest.

Comedy: Laughs (with or without laugh tracks) by the dozen await! Let's just hope that last laugh isn't on the viewer.

Serial: Previously on your favorite series... to be continued! Serial programming requires viewers to invest in the series for a full payoff. Miss an episode and you will have missed out on a key puzzle of the often convoluted plot.

Procedural: The realm of the medical or police drama, Procedural series adhere to a strict formula that somehow manages to keep an audience coming back week after week, even though they know it's not Lupus.

Genre: Niche programming has a small but devoted audience. Usually the black sheep of network programming, Genre programs include science fiction, fantasy and western series.

Reality: Game shows, dating shows, and other manner of cheaply produced series fall under the Reality banner. If you thought you have already seen the height of public humiliation and exploitation, boy are you going to be surprised by this season's new reality programming!

A series can have a rating of 0 - 5 in each Focus, and a series with a Focus of 1 or more can compete in the ratings using that Focus. It cannot however compete in any Focus where it has 0 Focus. For example, Condo, D.C. above has 3 Drama, 2 Comedy, 1 Serial and 2 Procedural (a series with a fairly broad audience). It could compete in any of those areas, but it couldn't compete based on Action, Genre or Reality.

The Focus that a show can compete in gives it a bonus to its ratings rolls equal to its level in that Focus, plus the audience demand for that Focus. Audience demand varies between 0 - 5, too. If the viewers at home don't want to see another comedy series, trying to compete using that Focus isn't going to be a good idea.

To continue my example, the network airing Condo would have the best luck running it as a Drama (+3 bonus), so long as the audience demand for Drama was greater than or equal to that for Comedy or Procedural (its next highest two focuses). If Drama was 2, then Condo would have a 1d6 + 3 + 2 ratings share for the night. Each shows rating share for the night then will determine how many ratings points it has (or, more correctly, how many points the player can manipulate for that night -- but that is another story entirely). You can also add another die of ratings if you apply marketing dollars (in the form of marketing tokens) to a show, though that is expensive and not guaranteed to help you out.

Now, if two shows try to compete using the same Focus, both will incur a penalty to their roll. I am still trying to streamline this, but I think the penalty would probably be -1 per additional network competing in that Focus for the night.

Obviously with this setup, shows with higher Focus ratings will compete better against other shows with poorer Focus. However, audience demand also plays a major role in determining show success or failure.

In one test game using versions of real world shows, we ran into clear cases where counter-programming (a common network tactic) was a very good strategy. I think I had Desperate Housewives in play on Sunday nights, and an opponent played Grey's Anatomy. They both have high Drama focus and were both competing using that statistic. It was just a back and forth battle. I think the third player had played Buffy or Roswell on that night, and they gained a short reprieve from cancellation thanks to the back and forth ratings battle between the two juggernaughts on that night.

Another interesting tidbit, though not germane to this discussion, is that the amount of ratings points available to play for each night is the same for Sunday - Thursday (5 ratings points per player), but on Friday that goes down to 4 per player, and Saturdays 3 per player. This adequately simulates the poorer TV ratings on those nights. It also means the weaker shows are moved there to compete for fewer ratings, though we had some success playing cheap-to-produce reality shows on those nights. Regis Philbin kicked people's butts one game when Who Wants to be a Millionaire was played on Saturdays

So any interesting show ideas or parodies? In addition, any goofy, ficticious actors/actresses that could appear as Actor Cards? Actor Cards are special character cards that add to the Production Cost of a show, but provide a small bonus (+1 or +2, very rarely +3) to one or more focus areas. This allows a series to compete in an area it normally couldn't, or else give it a small bonus to its ratings share.

Let's brainstorm!

[mwaschak]

Let's indeed!

I think this game is going to be a blast and support the need for the 100, or even more pilot cards. Since each season, and each game depends heavily on the "new" pilots available we are going to need variety, variety, variety.

My perception is that the actor cards are the "Wild" controllable factor to the fickle viewing audience. So putting Harold McGill on the Today Show, and making a fool of himself is a good ploy to get viewers. I think balancing what you can control "Do we pay Harold $5 a show for that extra X Action Audience?" will be the decisions that make or break a show.

Something else to consider is the after-market for some shows as well. I believe we discussed DVD sales. Firefly may flop on tv, and have no sponsor, but the DVD sales may make up for that since it is a genre piece. Reality tv, for example, probably has a terrible after market value.

When we are further along I will make a cyberboard for this, which will let us test ideas, shows, and actors between several of us like we did with Polis. It is much more economical than printing and testing.

[Tyrel Lohr]

My perception is that the actor cards are the "Wild" controllable factor to the fickle viewing audience. So putting Harold McGill on the Today Show, and making a fool of himself is a good ploy to get viewers. I think balancing what you can control "Do we pay Harold $5 a show for that extra X Action Audience?" will be the decisions that make or break a show.

The scenario that you are talking about there is a tangent to the actual actor cards, and would actually be the effect of a Studio Card (I am thinking Industry Card sounds better, though) being played against a specific character. Most actors will only add a small bonus and cost a small amount of money per week to maintain (otherwise they wouldn't be worth it), but you could use an Industry Card (like that name better) to interfere with a show's actor(s) -- for good or ill.

Something else to consider is the after-market for some shows as well. I believe we discussed DVD sales. Firefly may flop on tv, and have no sponsor, but the DVD sales may make up for that since it is a genre piece. Reality tv, for example, probably has a terrible after market value.

That's not really an issue for the networks; that is a studio-level thing. Unless their contracts say otherwise, they wouldn't see any residuals from other releases, because they don't own the show. I did add a card for you, Jay, that allows a network to gain those residual rights for one of their shows, which effectively decreases the production costs of the show by a $1 per week.

[mwaschak]

The scenario that you are talking about there is a tangent to the actual actor cards, and would actually be the effect of a Studio Card (I am thinking Industry Card sounds better, though) being played against a specific character. Most actors will only add a small bonus and cost a small amount of money per week to maintain (otherwise they wouldn't be worth it), but you could use an Industry Card (like that name better) to interfere with a show's actor(s) -- for good or ill.

I see where you are going with this. So in a tight game I may see that Jet Jeeterson is causing Condo, D.C. to shoot up in the ratings just enough to beat out Blue's Dicotomy from my studio, and I could use an Industry Card (do these cost money, or are they drawn) to slander him in the press, perhaps enough to drive viewers away.

So these are things like OYL in BSG that drive viewers away .

"Hey, this show is going great."

OYL

-2 Viewers!

That's not really an issue for the networks; that is a studio-level thing. Unless their contracts say otherwise, they wouldn't see any residuals from other releases, because they don't own the show. I did add a card for you, Jay, that allows a network to gain those residual rights for one of their shows, which effectively decreases the production costs of the show by a $1 per week.

Thanks. I remember reading an industry report recently on some random news or movie site that discussed this being a good reason to keep some sci-fi type shows going because the after-air monies are pretty decent.

-Jay

[Tyrel Lohr]

I see where you are going with this. So in a tight game I may see that Jet Jeeterson is causing Condo, D.C. to shoot up in the ratings just enough to beat out Blue's Dicotomy from my studio, and I could use an Industry Card (do these cost money, or are they drawn) to slander him in the press, perhaps enough to drive viewers away.

Minus the studio part (as you are a network in the game, not a studio), but yes. An Industry Card that incited a scandal would do that.

Players start with two Industry Cards at the beginning of play, and receive one more each Turn (12 turns total). Extra cards can be purchased from the deck, probably at about $5 each (The same as a marketing token).

Thanks. I remember reading an industry report recently on some random news or movie site that discussed this being a good reason to keep some sci-fi type shows going because the after-air monies are pretty decent.

I haven't read anything about networks taking a hit to keep the shows on, but the studios often negotiate a smaller per-episode cost to keep a show on if they think that ancillary sales will balance out the lost revenue.

[mwaschak]

I haven't read anything about networks taking a hit to keep the shows on, but the studios often negotiate a smaller per-episode cost to keep a show on if they think that ancillary sales will balance out the lost revenue.

I think it was with regard to 30 Rock, actually.

As was quoted at the awards, "I want to thank our dozens and dozens of fans."