[Bliss Stage] Jude gets better, plus alien tentacles!

[GreatWolf]

...incoming transmission ...
... Peoria Resistance Group...

Bliss Stage makes me think of this.

Broadcast Archive: 

• Saved through childbearing
• Love and violence in Peoria

Last week sometime, my nine year-old daughter comes up to me and says that she has drawn up pictures of the entire family as Bliss Stage characters.  She's hearing that, in this game, you fall asleep and fight aliens, and that it's an anime game.  So she shows me the pictures and they really are quite good.  I don't mean "good for her age"; I actually mean, "demonstrating skill and technique".  I'm really impressed, and I tell her so.

Then she asks, "So, can I play Bliss Stage with you?"

Quickly, I blurt out, "No!"

Hopefully I kept the combination of panic and laughter out of my voice.

That's right.  The Peoria Resistance Group is at it again.  Jude finally begins to be a sympathetic character, we discover another resistance group, and we fight nasty aliens that look like flying Koosh balls.  So suit up, strap in, and prepare for launch!


Jude's big break

During the last mission, Jude's relationship with Rachel broke.  According to the rules, we needed to have a denouement action to close out that relationship.  So, we led off with that.  Crystal says, "Rachel comes into the base looking for Jude, and she shows up while Jude and Leah are having dinner."  And so it was.  Joseph catches her trying to sneak in, and he brings her to Jude, right in the middle of his romantic dinner with Leah.  This puts Jude in a difficult place, to be sure.

So, Jude goes off from Leah and confronts Rachel, pretty much discarding her like a tramp.  It was pretty harsh, actually, and Joseph was there, watching the whole thing.  In response, Rachel slapped him across the face and then kicked him in the groin.  Joseph was making sure that Rachel didn't escape, but he wasn't necessarily making sure that she avoided all physical contact with Jude.

After this, Crystal called for an interlude with Jude and Leah.  Jude dragged himself back to dinner and told Leah everything.  He sat there and dumped his entire life into her lap.

And she still accepted him.

We called this Stress Relief, because it couldn't be Trust-Building.


Anchor Training

I can be a sadistic GM.  I admit it.  And so, when the briefing action came down that Jared wanted Jude to train a new anchor, it was fairly obvious who he was being paired up with.

Along the way, Jude started asking Jared questions about this whole "getting married" thing.  Apparently, the group has an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer, and they read through the marriage ceremony (at least the bits that aren't water-damaged) to get married.  Jude is suddenly quite interested in this.

But then, when he arrived at the ANIMa crèches, he saw who he was going to be training.

Gloria.

Mission Brief
...begin briefing...

Anchor Training
Form ANIMa
Visualization test
Guidance test
If all successful, character is now an anchor
...end briefing...

So, uh, yeah.  This didn't really go well.  Gloria didn't really trust Jude, so she had her knife out on the console when he got back from getting changed into his pilot suit.  Then the mission started.

Gloria's inexperience was fairly obvious, but she did okay until the guidance test.  Gloria had Jude turn right around a corner and walked him straight into nightmare.  A dark cloud engulfed his ANIMa.  She tried to back him out, but it was getting worse.  In fact, the chassis took damage, breaking Jude's relationship with Gloria.  The dream started leaking across into the real world.  A black tentacle reached through the fabric of things and groped for Gloria.  She screamed and cut it with her knife.  Then she slapped the panic button.

As I recall, Jude completely went off on Gloria before stalking away.  Gloria yelled at him too, then stormed off the other direction.  On the console, the severed tentacle twitched.

Blowing off Steam
Jude blew into Jared's office and started screaming at him about his incompetence.  Underneath, Jude was afraid.  Very afraid.  He was almost lost in the dream because of Gloria, so he's turning his fear into the fury that he is venting at Jared.  I called this Trauma Relief.

In contrast, Marcus told Beth that he needed to get away for a bit.  So he spent the day away from everyone, not seeing anyone or being needed.  Trauma Relief.


On the Offensive

Soon thereafter, Jared summoned Marcus and Jude.  He had a major strike for them to accomplish.  He needed them to head north into enemy territory, locate the alien base, and plant another sensor package right in the base itself.  One of them would need to distract the aliens so that the other one could enter the base secretly.

Mission Brief
...begin briefing...

On the Offensive
(for two pilots)
(Must be done in order)
Deploy stealthily (both pilots)
   If either pilot failed, "Spot alien patrol" failed
Spot alien patrol (either pilot)
If both pilots failed, fight alien patrol (co-op)
Locate alien base (either pilot)
if either successful,
deploy sensor array (Pilot 1)
   if successful, allows for long-range warning against alien attack
distract defenders (Pilot 2)
         if failed, fight alien assault group (Pilot 1)
Return to base without being followed (both pilots)
   This is a secret goal
   If pilot "ejects", then one non-pilot character with relationship to pilot enters the Bliss
   If either pilot attempted and failed, defend base
      If failed, one non-pilot character is harmed (GM's choice)
...end briefing...

Marcus went on point and discovered the alien base.  Along the way, he discovered some objects that looked like alien trees.  He and Beth wondered if they were alien growth pods, but they didn't have time to investigate.  They noted the coordinates for later.

Jude had volunteered to be the diversion, because he wanted to impress Leah.  So he attacks from the one side, drawing off a large portion of the alien forces.  Marcus was able to slip inside and plant the sensor package in an orifice within the alien base and escape.

While the pilots were out, the anchors discovered psychic jamming of some kind coming from the alien base.  If the pilots were to be ejected from the dream, the psychic backlash would drop the anchor into the Bliss.  So the pilots needed to withdraw from the alien base the old-fashioned way.  This was easy for Marcus, but Jude had half the alien army on his back.  What would he do?

He headed for the Bigelow Boys headquarters.  The players all laughed when Crystal announced this.  We liked it a lot.

So Jude charged into the parking lot of the Cub Foods where the Bigelow Boys had holed up, with alien walkers and flying alien probes hot on his trail.  Then, as Jude watched in disbelief, two Bigelow Boys appeared in the dream.  Then they manifested ANIMas and began to fight the aliens.

In all the confusion, Jude escaped.


Weddings and Babies

In the wake of this last mission, we had a few interludes.  First, Marcus and Jude had a man-to-man talk about marriage.  Jude was confused and asking questions, which Marcus was doing his best to answer.  This seemed like Trust Building.

Then we cut to Marcus with his family.  They are on a picnic, celebrating Beth's pregnancy.  Marcus tells Beth that his initial response to her pregnancy was raw panic, but now he is really happy.  More Trust Building.

But the most important interlude was the one with Jude and Joseph.  Jude tracked Joseph down while Joseph was on patrol because Jude wanted to get Joseph's approval for his marrying Leah.  Jude spilled all this to Joseph.  Joseph thought about it, then stood up and said, "You're all right."  Then he walked off.  He meant yes.  More Trust Building.

...static...
...re-establishing contact...

[GreatWolf]

...signal restored...

Since we played again last night, I'm going to add last night's engagement to this report.

Alien Fury

We're getting closer to endgame, and I decided that the time had come to ramp up the pressure.  So we went straight into a briefing action.  The aliens were retaliating for the previous raid.  Marcus and Jude were each deployed to separate approaches to the base to fend off their assault.

Mission Brief
...begin briefing...

Alien Fury
Protect non-combatants
Prevent damage to base
Defeat enemy pilot
   Must be accomplished last
If any are failed, one non-pilot character is killed (GM's choice)
...end briefing...

Marcus managed to do his part, despite some horrific dice rolling by Gabrielle.  Jude's battle was more gripping.  We had decided that, in the dream world, alien remotes look like important adult characters in the person's life.  I bent this a little and made the remote opposing Jude look like Rachel.  He waded into combat with it, first body-checking the remote and then blowing its head off.  Just in case you missed it, the body-checking is all about Jude's relationship with Leah.

But both pilots are starting to wear out.  At the end of this mission, each pilot was between 85-90 Bliss.  The game is beginning to wrap up.

Wedding bells

Jude came out of the mission and immediately went to Leah and said, "Do you want to get married?"  It took her a while to realize that he was proposing to her.  But then she said yes.  They hug!  Even though he hadn't cleaned the crèche goo off.  I called this Stress Relief.  I suppose I could have said Intimacy Building, but it seemed better this way.

Meantime, Marcus is just babbling at Beth, exulting in the post-mission rush.  Trauma Relief.

Then Gabrielle proposed an interlude.  Jude and Leah are over at Marcus and Beth's apartment.  Jude decides that he wants to get married right then.  Leah is surprised but agrees.  So they all troop down to Jared's office and say that they want to get married.

From one perspective, it was an awkward wedding.  Jared tried to read the bit from the Book of Common Prayer, but the water damage made it hard to read.  Finally he pointed at Jude and asked, "You want to get married to her?  Forever?  You promise to put up with each other, no matter what?"  Then he pointed at Leah and asked the same questions.  When they said yes, he said, "Good.  Um, by the power vested in me by the city of Peoria and the Peoria Resistance Group, I now pronounce you man and wife.  Go to it."  Or something like that.

Jude and Leah didn't kiss very well.  They were too embarrassed.  Finally, Kay pulled out a kazoo and played the Trumpet Voluntaire.

The players were all happy.  Yay!  They finally got married!  But I had something in my hip pocket.  So, when Crystal said, "And Eve had confetti ready!", I said, "No, Eve isn't there."  But we kept up the party, until later that night.


"It's not going well"

Jude and Leah had, um, retired for the night when Kay came running to get Marcus.  "Jared needs you right now," she said.  So Marcus ran after her.  Kay didn't take her to the office; she took him to Jared's quarters.

There was blood everywhere.

Jared is pacing back and forth, helpless.  "She's in labor, but it's not going well.  I don't know what to do.  You have to help me."  Beth came in close on Kay's heels.  She had spent several years living in the library, so she knew what was going on.

Honestly, I know enough about birth and pregnancy to know that things can go quite badly.  Crystal knows a lot, so I asked her for some appropriate medical technobabble.  She obliged quite nicely.  Beth looked in on Eve.  "She needs a caesarian.  We need to cut the baby out."

Beth needed supplies from the nearby hospital.  But, of course, that's inside Bigelow Boy territory.  By this point, word has spread.  Joseph turned up and asked Marcus what was up.  When he found out, he said to Marcus, "Well, let's go."

Kay wanted to go to help.  So, as twilight crept across the city, the three of them crept out into the ruins.


Hospital Raid

When I saw that it was possible to run missions in the real world, I wanted to give it a spin.  Everyone at the table had known that we would eventually do some sort of raid, but I don't think that any of us were ready for the intensity of the situation.

Not even me.

Mission Brief
...begin briefing...

Hospital Raid
(A real world mission)
(must be done in order)
Enter hospital without being seen
   If failed, fight Bigelow Boys and fail "Return to base without being seen"
      If failed, "Locate Medical Supplies" failed and character harmed
Locate medical supplies
   If failed, Eve dies
Return to base without being seen
   If failed, fight Bigelow Boys
      If failed, character harmed
...end briefing...

This sheet was sitting in front of Gabrielle, since Marcus was the pilot on the mission.  The simple statement "Eve dies" gave an incredible intensity to the mission.

And did you know that a real-world mission doesn't have a lot of dice?  We agreed that, once at the hospital, we could call on Beth for dice, but to get in and out, the only dice available were from Joseph and Kay.  Just for clarity, that's four dice, with no anchor rerolls.

So, any significant failure, and Eve dies.

I ramped up the tension, too.  As they headed north, they found an eight-year old boy, nailed to a wall, with the interlocked Bs of the Bigelow Boys carved into his chest.  Marcus found Kay's hand and held on tight.

Soon they arrived in front of the hospital.  Out front was a major gathering of the Bigelow Boys.  It was utter savagery.  I said that they were turning "something" on a spit over the bonfire, but left most of the details implicit.  Later, we agreed that they were eating a person, not for ceremonial reasons, but because it was the available meat.  There was probably gang rape going on around the fire, too.  We never actually said any of this until later; our minds filled in the horrors.

Now, roll to see if we get caught.

I'm the GM, but I'm on edge with everyone else.  It's like I put the situation into motion earlier in the game, but now I'm just as much a victim of it as everyone else at the table.

We pick up some stress ,but we get past the Bigelow Boys.

Normally, our missions are loud and boisterous, with loud gunfire and nasty alien creatures.  This time, we're quiet, huddled around the table, hoping that they won't hear us, praying that the dice won't betray us.

Now to find the medical supplies and get out.  We easily find what we needed, but as we prepare to leave, we hear a noise outside the room where we are.

Joseph moves to the door and looks out.  He gestures to us to follow.  We slip down the hall, then wait as Joseph slips ahead.  There is a wet gurgle from the darkness ahead and a quiet thump.  Then Joseph reappears, cleaning his knife and gesturing us forward.  We slip through the darkness, stepping over the body of the Bigelow Boy that Joseph killed, and escape into the safety of our home base.

We had the supplies we needed, but no one had the courage to actually perform the surgery.  Finally, Joseph stepped up and did what needed to be done.  Beth held down Eve, while Kay held her head and sang in her ear.  We gathered around her bed and held them up as they walked through this dark valley.

They lived.

Her name is Hope.


At the end of the night

Jude and Leah are away.  They don't know what happened tonight, except that they are together.  Intimacy Building.

Marcus is curled up with his wife and daughter.  They aren't talking; they are just holding each other.  Beth and Renee are asleep, while Marcus is still awake, watching them sleep.  Trauma Relief.

...static...
...re-establishing contact...

[Marhault]

Seth,

I wasn't going to buy Bliss Stage.  Maybe eventually, but certainly not right away.  Mecha don't get me going like they do with some people.  These APs have changed that.

Just so's you know.

[GreatWolf]

Seth,

I wasn't going to buy Bliss Stage.  Maybe eventually, but certainly not right away.  Mecha don't get me going like they do with some people.  These APs have changed that.

Just so's you know.

Another notch!

Seriously, let me finish describing the conversation with Arianna.  She thought that the idea of going to sleep and fighting aliens was pretty cool.  So I said to her, "Bliss Stage isn't about fighting aliens.  That's just what makes the story move forward."  Or something like that.  I was more eloquent then.

Bliss Stage isn't a series of missions interspersed with interludes.  It's a series of interludes interspersed with missions.

More on this later, plus post-game reflections.

[GreatWolf]

...signal restored...

Reflections on the game

So, where do I start?

The hospital mission was heavy.  I mean, really heavy.  We talked about it a bit afterwards, wondering why.  Yes, we know that the subject material was heavy, but the rest of it has been heavy, too.  Also, I'm specifically talking about the mission itself.  Here's what we came up with.

Part of it was that it was so gritty.  Missions in the dreamworld aren't quite "real", since you can always eject if necessary.  This...this had no easy escape hatch.

Also, the aliens are "just" nightmares and enemies.  Humans gone feral are worse somehow.  The aliens are opposed to us, but they aren't bent in the same way that the Bigelow Boys were.  Gabrielle said that Marcus was quite aware of this the whole time.  If they were surrounded and unable to escape, he was going to kill Kay before he let her fall into their hands.

Finally, the city itself had gone feral.  Launching assaults into the dreamworld is still done from the safety of our base.  This involved physically leaving the base and venturing into the dark.

Um, yeah.  Let's move onto other things.

I keep forgetting to use Trauma in mission actions.  I probably forget half the time.  I forgot for the entirety of the hospital mission.  I'm not sure how to make sure that I remember.

The general consensus of my players is that Jared is a loser and a poor leader.  Gabrielle has decided that Marcus will take over once his Bliss hits 108.  Which, given her generally poor die rolls, could be as soon as next engagement.

Both Crystal and Gabrielle have commented that they have a hard time being anchor.  They say that they feel weird stating the obvious to the pilot.  There's this sense that talking through every little thing is dumb, but then they don't know how much to say.  They are also trying to stay in character as the anchor, which adds some more confusion.  So, got any advice or helpful pointers?

We noticed that we use a lot of body language when roleplaying.  Some of this is just jumpy gestures.  Some of it is specific miming.  For example, during "On the Offensive", Marcus took cover under one of the alien pod trees.  I told her that there were tentacles draped over her ANIMa, and, to demonstrate, I dangled my arm limply in front of her face.

Earlier in this series, I mentioned that I think that the most important "character" the GM plays is the War.  At this point, I'm going to stand by this assertion.  I've been ramping up the intensity of the missions, often by increasing the impact of failure or by increasing their length.  At the same time, due to increased Trauma and Bliss, the pilots are less able to handle what's coming at them.  This ramping up creates direct pressure on the relationships within the group, pushing the story through towards its inevitable conclusion.  To be clear, I think that the authority figure is the other important character that the GM needs to play, but I still think that the War is the most important character.  In this game, Jared is mostly a cipher, existing to look foolish and issue orders.  We seem to be doing just fine.

Finally, for some reason, Crystal can roll well in Bliss Stage.  You need to understand that Crystal is quite possibly the world's worst die roller.  Ralph can testify to this as well.  She can roll a critical failure in games that don't have critical failures.  However, in this game, for some reason, Crystal can roll a handful of dice and come up with nearly all (+) results.  Weird.  Has Bliss Stage cured Crystal's dice luck?  I guess we will find out when we play Steal Away Jordan.  So, Ben, stay tuned.  You may have an unusual selling point for Bliss Stage.  "Cures bad dice luck!"


Rules questions

We did end up with some rules questions.

--Does a denouement caused from battle damage count as a privileged interlude?

--If you successfully create a new anchor, does the new anchor get an anchor ability?  If so, who decides?

--During an anchor training mission, can the trainee anchor?  Or do you actually need to have an experienced anchor there, plus the trainee?


Closing

I don't think that we will be going much further with this game.  Both pilots have 91 Bliss, so they will both bliss out soon; probably during next engagement, in fact.  The end is near.

But for now, this is Seth Ben-Ezra, of the Peoria Resistance Group, signing off.

...end transmission...

[Gabrielle]

You may have an unusual selling point for Bliss Stage.  "Cures bad dice luck!"

As if! I can usually roll dice just fine. They don't always do what I tell them to, but on average polyhedrons and I get along just fine. For some reason Bliss Stage makes the dice hate me. It feels like I roll more (-)  than physically possible. If I have three dice I will four (-). So maybe the selling point should be "Reverses your usual dice skills". I can just see the advertising. "Do you normally roll well? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to roll suckier than statistically possible? Try Bliss Stage."

[Per Fischer]

Thanks for this AP,following it intensely, as we start a BS game tomorrow night after playing the intro scenario.

Both Crystal and Gabrielle have commented that they have a hard time being anchor.  They say that they feel weird stating the obvious to the pilot.  There's this sense that talking through every little thing is dumb, but then they don't know how much to say.  They are also trying to stay in character as the anchor, which adds some more confusion.  So, got any advice or helpful pointers?

In our group it's my impression that the anchoring was very fulfilling and enjoyed by the Anchor players. We did use the book's suggestion to state questions a lot, though, instead of simply describing. Like "there should be a hatch above you, do you see it?", or simply: "What do you see?"
or
Anchor: "There's three of them approaching from behind!"
Pilot: "I don't see them. The sky is covered in clouds."
Anchor: "There in the clouds! Get out!"

And so on...

Per

[GreatWolf]

Hi, Per!  I listened to your AP recording.  Fun!  The cascading doom at the end of Final Act is an interesting feature and I'm wondering if it's just that scenario, or if it's part of the Bliss Stage end game.

Hmm.  Questions.  That makes sense to me.  Gabrielle is watching this thread, so I'll ask her.  Does that help at all?

I hope that your game goes well.  One thing that I'll note:  do expect to spend an entire session on game prep.  I'm mentioning this because I recall a comment from your AP report about Bliss Stage being quick to set up when playing Final Act.  So, FYI and all that.

[Per Fischer]

I hope that your game goes well.  One thing that I'll note:  do expect to spend an entire session on game prep.  I'm mentioning this because I recall a comment from your AP report about Bliss Stage being quick to set up when playing Final Act.  So, FYI and all that.

Thanks, Seth. I did have in mind spending an evening on game prep plus socialising a bit, as I only know the other players from a short session of play.

Per

[Gabrielle]

Hmm.  Questions.  That makes sense to me.  Gabrielle is watching this thread, so I'll ask her.  Does that help at all?

It helps a bit, but I don't think it really touches the hang-up I'm having. I am finding Bliss Stage to be a deeply immersive game. I actually sometimes have two very different thoughts come to mind. One of the thoughts is mine and the other is the characters. It's an odd feeling. But suddenly, when I'm the Anchor, I either have to pull out of the character and, in essence, run GM for the Pilot or I have to stay very much in character and figure out what's going on in the Dreamworld at the same time. I would prefer to do the second and I think we've come close to Anchoring this way in our second session, but for our third and fourth either Crystal or I was brain-fried going into the session. And it is very difficult to juggle multiple trains of thought when one is brain-fried.

I think that's more the problem. I could either be in character or I could GM the mission, but not both at the same time. So I chose be in character and the Anchor and Pilot end up just staring at each other across the table.

[Ben Lehman]

--Does a denouement caused from battle damage count as a privileged interlude?

A denouemont is a privileged action, seperate from the privileged action that a pilot receives for going on a mission. It's quite possible to stack up two or more privileged actions.

--If you successfully create a new anchor, does the new anchor get an anchor ability?  If so, who decides?

Like with all anchor abilities, the GM decides.

--During an anchor training mission, can the trainee anchor?  Or do you actually need to have an experienced anchor there, plus the trainee?

My thought here is that the trainee does the anchoring. That's how we handled it in our play. You could handle it in the other way without trouble, though. It depends a lot on your group's established setting and color.

As for the "anchor out of character" thing, here's some approaches that I've seen used:

1) The anchor, in character, has a fair control over the dream. So a nice anchor will show the pilot a nicer, more relaxed dreamworld. And an aggressive anchor will show a more militaristic dreamworld. One of my favorite bits of play to watch was when my friend Kate was playing an anchor for a mission that had gone off the rails, and took about 5 minutes to just create a nice vision of an empty clearing, surrounded by fruit trees, with a burbling brook, etc and waiting until the pilot had calmed down to go out on the mission. This really displayed the anchor's personality, I think.

2) Another approach is to play the anchor passively -- just describing what the anchor is perceiving -- and assume that the anchor has some sort of "bird's eye view" of the dream world. This results in some wonderful moments as well "Oh my God get down!" lets the pilot know the panic without letting the pilot know what to see, which can be great for ratcheting up the tension.

Looking forward to your climax.

yrs--
--Ben