[Bliss Stage] First Impressions from the Last Sale of Gamestorm

[Joel P. Shempert]

So I've bought and read Bliss Stage, after playing a fifteen minute demo with Ben at Gamestorm. I've been ruminating, and I just wanna say this game us fucking fantastic. I just can't get over it. Several things that particularly blow my skirt up:

• The whole "what you do with this game" bit is brilliantly composed. It cuts right to "who says what and when and how" and draws comparisons between other forms of expression (both in roleplaying and out), in just the right ways, and without making any glaring assumptions. Other texts come close, but I think this is the first game I've read that actually nails it. Kudos!
• The structure of the game, from the smallest to the largest unit, is excellent. The rhythm of scene types looks like an effective pacing and flow framework (though of course I only played through two scenes-but I think I got a pretty good read from them of how a game would flow). And the manner of answering the Big Questions of the story, with the Endgame mechanic, is elegant and superb.
• The Mission mechanics are ingenious. 'm a big fan of "roll, then assign" type mechanics like Dogs in the Vineyard that preserve an element of uncertainty while still granting meaningful mechanical choice. And it's a great way for players to make agonizing choices about what's important.
• As a work of art, Bliss Stage is beautiful. As the setting and story structure unfolds in the text, it rises in a crescendo of misery until finally climaxing at the end of the book--the "What it's like for. . ." essays. I read the last one and finally cracked. I wept at the heartbreaking beauty of these lost children striving through the worst circumstances imaginable. Bliss Stage is a great and terrible thing.

A couple things that stuck in my craw:

• I know I just gushed in praise at the pacing mechanism, but I must admit I bristle that Bliss Stage is engineered to pick off pilots one by one until only one remains for the climax. That sounds like an awesome way for a Bliss Stage story to end, but I'd like it to not be the only way it can end. I'd like to have more possible combinations of the building blocks of story available at the finish. But on the other hand, I can't think of a way to solve this without marring the elegance of the system.
• I've got one minor gripe about presentation: I was rather unclear through about half the book on whether trust can decrease in Interlude Scenes. It's not listed in the possible mechanical results that a Judge assigns an Interlude, and while "Breaking trust" is mentioned as a consequence, it said nothing about the Trust score! I was wondering for the longest time, do you drop trust by one or just add stress? Or is there no mechanical effect besides the Privileged Scene for the breaker? Finally a play example referred to a relationship breaking from a Trust Breaking, so I could infer the rule from that. But in an otherwise shining jewel of procedural clarity, I'd love to see that cleared up, perhaps for Acceleration Stage?

Anyway, thanks Ben for the great game and being so hands-on and accessible in introducing me to it. I can't wait to play.

Peace,
-Joel
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[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Joel

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not quite sure I did as well as all that, but we keep trying.

As to your first gripe, it's actually a problem I have as well (although, technically, pilots can avoid dying by replacing the authority figure as their bliss out option.) My only excuse for it is that's how most of the source material works, but that's probably a pretty pale excuse. I'm considering adding an optional rule into later versions, something like:

If at least one character has died, and all players who control pilots decide that the war has been fought to its conclusion (whether victory, loss, or stalemate), the game ends. The GM gets to call for final resolution, and retains control during it, with the exception that the final resolution must leave ambiguous any unresolved hopes.

But I'm not sure if the GM should get control of final resolution. Perhaps, instead, the game should simply end at the end of that mission action, with no final resolution? But that's unpleasant. So it remains unadded.

As to the second gripe, check page 117.

yrs--
--Ben

[Joel P. Shempert]

As to your first gripe, it's actually a problem I have as well (although, technically, pilots can avoid dying by replacing the authority figure as their bliss out option.) My only excuse for it is that's how most of the source material works, but that's probably a pretty pale excuse. I'm considering adding an optional rule into later versions, something like:

If at least one character has died, and all players who control pilots decide that the war has been fought to its conclusion (whether victory, loss, or stalemate), the game ends. The GM gets to call for final resolution, and retains control during it, with the exception that the final resolution must leave ambiguous any unresolved hopes.

But I'm not sure if the GM should get control of final resolution. Perhaps, instead, the game should simply end at the end of that mission action, with no final resolution? But that's unpleasant. So it remains unadded.

Hmm. Glad to know I wasn't the only one hung up on this. Would it be too loosey-goosey to let the group of remaining pilots decide on the resolution between themselves and share narration? Or perhaps you could roll for narration rights a la PTA.

As to the second gripe, check page 117.

OK, me stupid.

Peace,
-joel

[Ben Lehman]

The problem with group consensus is that it allows the pushiest, rudest, noisiest player to strongly dominate the field of play. I say this, usually being this player when playing with those sorts of rules-sets.

So Bliss Stage uses "narration" in an interesting way. With certain exceptions (group generation, the aliens) narration is not "let's all talk about it and decide together" but "this one player has the right to speak now and everyone else shuts the fuck up and lets her talk."

For the end of the game, the key element is that it is a series of individual answers and individual visions, rather than something that is ever subject to consensus. Thus, there has to be someone on the spot for the early ending.

Oh. Maybe you can only trigger this effect when someone switches over 108 Bliss, and they're the one who gets the final resolution. That'd be like this:

If, when one pilot reaches 108 Bliss, all players who control pilots agree that the war has been fought to its conclusion (whether victory, loss, or stalemate), the game ends. The pilot who reached 108 Bliss gets to call for final resolution, and retains control during it, with the exception that his pilot must die or otherwise permanently leave the group and that the final resolution must leave ambiguous any unresolved hopes.

yrs--
--Ben

[Joel P. Shempert]

Y'know, that sounds pretty sweet.