[Freak High] Second Draft

[Daniel Solis]

Let me start off by apologizing for my lengthy absence from the community. I've been gone for several months because of various RL reasons. Now that things are settled, I want to get back on some of the RPG concepts I brought up on the Forge but never followed through on. First on my list is "Freak High."  

Posted almost a year ago, the rough draft was just a quick contribution of material to the community's super-conscious. The goal at the time was to simulate superpowers as a social disadvantage and maybe use some archetypes from the Breakfast Club.

Yesterday, I went on a 12-hour creative spree, completely re-writing the concept and the system. (And pretty much exhausting myself in the process.) The result can be found here.

The one thing the system still needs is a play example, but those things are the bane of my existence so I'll hold off on writing one for now.

Some questions:

1. The system seems to predominantly focus on teen movie/high school simulation. I'm willing to accept it if this game has evolved into something other than the "mutants go to high school" concept, but I'd still like some suggestions on how to better merge superpowers with teen movie melodrama.

2. I plan on writing several example characters, each character concept being a combination of two Cliques with 'A' or 'B' grades.  So far, I have the following:

Bully (Jock/Rebel)
Star Quarterback (Jock/Princess)
Class Clown (Rebel/Princess)
Student Body President (Princess/Brain)
Reluctant Team Captain (Jock/Basketcase)
Goth Kid (Rebel/Basketcase)
Drama Freak (Princess/Basketcase)
Band Geek (Brain/Basketcase)

Any suggestions for Jock/Brain and Rebel/Brain? I was considering ROTC Kid and Hacker, respectively.

3. I really don't like this title much anymore. It doesn't roll off the tongue very well. I keep wanting to make a parody of "My So-Called Life" but have been unable come up with anything nice and clever. Help? :)

[Nathan P.]

1. The system seems to predominantly focus on teen movie/high school simulation. I'm willing to accept it if this game has evolved into something other than the "mutants go to high school" concept, but I'd still like some suggestions on how to better merge superpowers with teen movie melodrama.

Mmm...whats that superman-as-a-teenager show? Or Buffy? Do you think either of those is sufficiently different? The only other thing that comes to mind is family dynamics. Maybe something about "summer break" where kids are dealing with boring family vacations and annoying relatives. If that makes any sense.

Any suggestions for Jock/Brain and Rebel/Brain? I was considering ROTC Kid and Hacker, respectively.

Jock/Brain - Valedictorian, Mr. Perfect. This makes me think of a friend of mine who was a great soccer player and took all programming courses. Still doing both, actually. Good guy.

Rebel/Brain - Wanna-be Marxist, Know-It-All who knows it all. The kid that argues with the history teacher about foreign policy. I'm also thinking about the quiet kid who goes home and works on his time travel machine after school. Inventor?

3. I really don't like this title much anymore. It doesn't roll off the tongue very well. I keep wanting to make a parody of "My So-Called Life" but have been unable come up with anything nice and clever. Help? :)

I'm really bad at titles too. Maybe "This is My So-Called Life?" I dunno.

One question about the draft - you say that the Angst score doesn't indicate power levels. This seems awfully counterintuitive to me, just because I think everyone reads "this is a 1 and this is a 2" as one being better or more important than the ever. What about making Drama Point replenishment linked directely to the die roll? Like, 3-4 you get 1, 5 gets 2, six gets 3. Or maybe you get one for every relevent Angst applies to the roll. Or something. I dunno, something that jumped out at me.

Otherwise, its a cool game that clicked with me immediately (like PUNK, actually. You hit my buttons, I guess). I think this would be a fun one-shot for sure.

[Daniel Solis]

Mmm...whats that superman-as-a-teenager show? Or Buffy? Do you think either of those is sufficiently different? The only other thing that comes to mind is family dynamics. Maybe something about "summer break" where kids are dealing with boring family vacations and annoying relatives. If that makes any sense.

The Superman show is Smallville, which has some nice elements for this concept. Buffy, too.  Family life would definitely be something I want to get into the system, but it may already be covered by Angst. That is to say, if a player wants family drama to be an aspect of his character, he would choose something family-related as part of his Angst. I don't know if I want to force the issue any further through the system.

Jock/Brain - Valedictorian, Mr. Perfect. This makes me think of a friend of mine who was a great soccer player and took all programming courses. Still doing both, actually. Good guy.

Rebel/Brain - Wanna-be Marxist, Know-It-All who knows it all. The kid that argues with the history teacher about foreign policy. I'm also thinking about the quiet kid who goes home and works on his time travel machine after school. Inventor?

The Mr. Perfect idea came to me too, but I didn't know of the concept had any dramatic oomph to it. I like that Rebel/Brain concept though. I knew a couple kids in high school who were constantly adopting one "cause" or another and landed in the principal's office for getting a little overzealous sometimes.

One question about the draft - you say that the Angst score doesn't indicate power levels. This seems awfully counterintuitive to me, just because I think everyone reads "this is a 1 and this is a 2" as one being better or more important than the ever. What about making Drama Point replenishment linked directely to the die roll? Like, 3-4 you get 1, 5 gets 2, six gets 3. Or maybe you get one for every relevent Angst applies to the roll. Or something. I dunno, something that jumped out at me.

The idea I had with rating Angst that way was similar to the Styles in octaNe. The numbers don't represent anything except how much incentive the player chooses to give himself for getting into situations where that particular Angst is relevant. The overal mechanic may be too complicated though. Just getting a Drama Point for every relevant Angst is a rather elegant solution and doesn't force the player to assign arbitrary rankings. The rest of the stats have no numerical aspects, so why should Angst? I'll consider implementing it once I get some more feedback. Thanks!

[Psuedopod]

I like the idea - I just arrived so I haven't seen the rest of the game, but I like the idea of an Angst score.

This would make a great generic system for high school games...

[darthblevis]

Your idea sounds like Volcano High.  It's a Korean movie about high school students with super powers.  Kind of a matrix-esque style-over-substance film but highly visual.  Beware of extremely under budget special effects!!

Enjoy!!

[Daniel Solis]

Thanks for the info, I'll definitely try to find that movie. :)

[DevP]

I think more examples would help in the powers section. Not to recreate the shopping list, but to better help set the tone, since thinking through the game that's my first issue. Is the group going to make knockoff comic powers, or throwaway joke powers, or what? This is in fact a pretty key dial.

I think having Angst be a lot more important (re: Drama Pool) than Comments or such is good, and it might be interesting if, when you can't "pay" out of your Drama Pool, you're forced into a teen action. (A way to invert it is: "If you want to do something without angst, you have to pay 1 Drama to get yourself to care. If you want to calm yourself into a Mature move, you have to pay 2.")

Also, I think the scene-to-scene play - when to roll, how do new scenes come up that can inolve Angst, etc. - is an open question, although I might have just missed something.

Here's some food for thought: Angst + Comment > just Angst, but I'm wondering if that does matter, perhaps. Maybe Angst determines if you can earn anything at all, or if you have to pay to act, and that's good; while Comments/No-Comments alone impacts your success (and where that difference gets bulldozed by the importance of spending your Drama Dice).

More food: What if you were rolling against the Drama Dice you had left (i.e. how much Drama you're holing back? ooh, hold back = maturity & saving resources = non-teeen behavior).

Just some random thoughts, but I do like this muchly as is.

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think the key to understanding powers is that they are a positive comment under your "A" clique; they're something that makes you a better member of that clique! This is self-limiting and powerfully descriptive; A Princess might have the power to make people overhear things that are being said about them, while a Basketcase with a similar voice/perception power might have the ability to hear what people really mean, rather than the sounds coming out of their mouths. A Brain can make people lose their voices. A Rebel can control exactly who hears something he says. A Jock can cause something a person says to be ignored.

In other words, I think this game is really cool, because it's got my head all flowing with neat ideas.

[Daniel Solis]

I think more examples would help in the powers section. Not to recreate the shopping list, but to better help set the tone, since thinking through the game that's my first issue. Is the group going to make knockoff comic powers, or throwaway joke powers, or what? This is in fact a pretty key dial.

That gives me some thoughts of creating some examples of theatrical modes, like Jared Sorensen did in octaNe, to distinguish light-hearted Saved By The Bell games or more "mature" My So-Called Life games. Or rather, I could just pick a mode I envision this game being played and sort of insist that players play that way by only providing powers that reinforce that vision. I think I'd rather err on the side of flexibility though.

I think having Angst be a lot more important (re: Drama Pool) than Comments or such is good, and it might be interesting if, when you can't "pay" out of your Drama Pool, you're forced into a teen action. (A way to invert it is: "If you want to do something without angst, you have to pay 1 Drama to get yourself to care. If you want to calm yourself into a Mature move, you have to pay 2.")

I may exaggerate that, actually. Perhaps something like the "Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum" mechanic where you can act normally as long as you have bubblegum, but when you run out, your only solution to every problem is to "kick ass."

When you're out of drama, your only solution to every problem is to act as teenlike  as possible? That seems a little counter-intuitive. Perhaps you can have too much drama? I don't currently have an upper limit to Drama Points. Something to think about.

Also, I think the scene-to-scene play - when to roll, how do new scenes come up that can inolve Angst, etc. - is an open question, although I might have just missed something.

No, you're right. That's all stuff that definitely needs to be expanded upon.  Any references you can suggest for some good examples of these sorts of explanations?

Here's some food for thought: Angst + Comment > just Angst, but I'm wondering if that does matter, perhaps. Maybe Angst determines if you can earn anything at all, or if you have to pay to act, and that's good; while Comments/No-Comments alone impacts your success (and where that difference gets bulldozed by the importance of spending your Drama Dice).

More food: What if you were rolling against the Drama Dice you had left (i.e. how much Drama you're holing back? ooh, hold back = maturity & saving resources = non-teeen behavior).

I'm not sure I get what you mean here, can you elaborate?

I think the key to understanding powers is that they are a positive comment under your "A" clique; they're something that makes you a better member of that clique! This is self-limiting and powerfully descriptive.

Holy crap, dude. That's perfect! As you can probably tell in the draft, I was rather self-consciously trying to find justification for twink-prevention beyond simply telling people to not twink. I'll definitely be including this in the next draft. Thanks so much!

[DevP]

I think the key to understanding powers is that they are a positive comment under your "A" clique; they're something that makes you a better member of that clique! This is self-limiting and powerfully descriptive.

I think Shreyas wins it - this was what I needed to have read to understand where the superpower fits in, and to put myself back in the shoes of the "clique". There's still a dial of seriousness, but I at least feel adequately refocused by this.

...scene-to-scene play...

No, you're right. That's all stuff that definitely needs to be expanded upon.  Any references you can suggest for some good examples of these sorts of explanations?

I'm afraid that stuff (a la "when to roll!?") is notoriously under-explained in general, but I think MLwM has good firms tructure for how/when rolling works. Otherwise, just a paragraph or bullet-list or even mechanical flowchart of what the GM should do. For example, should she try, every scene, to frame a player into a conflict with their Angst? Or should they just come up with a wierd thing to happen, and have players drag their own angst in? So, yeah, a guideline of what stuff the GM should push is a good start.

I'm not sure I get what you mean here, can you elaborate?

Yup, I was posting too late. I'll try again.

Idea 1: As such, Angst is more "effective" at winning than just comments, and having both are best of all, but is that what you want? Angst is not about effectiveness. Perhaps you always roll 1 die by default, and 2 for having positive comments (so having comments makes you more effective), but as a separate matter you can gain Drama points on an Angsty action. The reward for being Angsty is, among other things, that the boost you get from spending Drama points in a pinch will outpace the advantage of comments.

Idea 2: You talked about the fact that there was no limit to how many Drama Dice you had. Well, what if there was some kind of opposed roll between your dice pool and the Drama Dice you still haven't spent? The purpose of this is that "conservative" strategies with your Drama Dice (hoarding, being thrifty) will work against you because you're rolling your few dice against the many you have saved up. Perhaps you can move the mechanics to opposed roles (off from the chart); for example, sometimes roll vs. your remainining Drama Dice, and other times just against a single die, with the exact situation depending on the varying Angst/Teen/Comments conditions of the roll.

Idea 3: If you're not doing something teenlike, you don't roll - you basically accept a very mediocre marginal result narrated by the Principal - you only half-get what you want because you're being all mature, but on the upside nothing awful happens. So the Teenlike/Mature switch is whether you choose to roll (and risk bad stuff) in order to get what actually you want.

(If I'm still not making sense, then feel free to just let it go.) Would you go more into the "asskicking & gum" thing? <g>

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think the key to understanding powers is that they are a positive comment under your "A" clique; they're something that makes you a better member of that clique! This is self-limiting and powerfully descriptive.

Holy crap, dude. That's perfect! As you can probably tell in the draft, I was rather self-consciously trying to find justification for twink-prevention beyond simply telling people to not twink. I'll definitely be including this in the next draft. Thanks so much![/quote]

Glad I was of service; it seemed to me that that was an idea your text was sort of dancing around (and hinting at when it mentioned that your power is listed as a note under a clique), but just hadn't found a way to express.

[Daniel Solis]

There's still a dial of seriousness, but I at least feel adequately refocused by this.

I may have been absent during the evolution of a new Forge term, what is this "dial" you speak of?

Idea 1: As such, Angst is more "effective" at winning than just comments, and having both are best of all, but is that what you want? Angst is not about effectiveness.

I like this idea very much. The reason I had Comment + Angst be the most effective mechanic was to encourage players to engage their characters' angsts. It's kind of a heavy-handed way to do it, so I'm wondering if your method would be more streamlined. It's certainly more a more subtle manipulation.

Hm. Perhaps it might be too subtle though. It may make Angst seem like a side bonus rather than the whole point of playing a teenager. At the other extreme, I could make having only Angst be more effective than having both Angst and a Comment. Basically:

Angst = 3 Dice
Angst + Comment = 2 Dice
Comment = 1 Die

That may be a little counter-intuitive though.  And it also makes comments feel like their actually a disadvantage. It's something to think about certainly.

Idea 2: You talked about the fact that there was no limit to how many Drama Dice you had.

(snip)

Idea 3: If you're not doing something teenlike, you don't roll - you basically accept a very mediocre marginal result narrated by the Principal

Ooh! I could combine these as something akin to the Dramatic Presence rules I've already established for conflict resolution. In this case, acting in a mature manner means you're acting against your own Dramatic Presence. Meaning that you must disregard a number of dice equal to your current Drama Points.

But I've already got a system of negative reinforcement to discourage mature behavior, that being the cost of 2 Drama Points just to have one die. Which would be the more streamlined method of discouraging mature behavior?

This also reminds me that I should explicitly clarify that just because the comments are called "positive" and "negative," that doesn't matter in actual task resolution. A relevant comment is a relative comment, regardless of whether it's in your 'A' clique or 'F' clique.


I'm going to write another draft this weekend and there are some issues I want to touch upon that haven't been addressed yet. Chief among them are that there is mention of physical mutations in some of the Infected as a side effect of their powers, but there is nothing in the system that encourages or even mentions these possible abberations.

[Shreyas Sampat]

I'm thinking that you could tweak the dice system to discourage mature behavior...like, for each Drama Point you don't spend, your dice roll is reduced by 1. So you can act mature for free, but you/ve got a 2/3 chance of having the Principal introduce a Complication, or you can spend the Drama and increase your range of successful results...the import of this is that acting maturely restricts your options and has stronger repercussions.

[Daniel Solis]

Well, I may have been a little ambitious when I said I'd write a complete new draft this weekend. But, I did edit and revise a big chunk of the game. Notable revisions include:

[*] Angst no longer has a number-rating system. You either have them or you don't. That means none of the primary stats have numerical rankings, which I think is kind of neat.

[*] Rolling a 1 or 6 earns 2 Drama Points,  2 or 5 earns 1 Drama Point. 3 and 4 earn none.

[*] I've added sections describing "animas," the possible outward appearances and side effects of powers, and pop psychological interpretations of what a particular power says about what's going on in a character's inner psyche.

[*] While I didn't create a shopping list, I have written down six example powers for each Clique. I tried to get some variety in there, ranging from true superpowers to "super-skills."[/list:u]


The real major undertaking I took was breaking down task resolution into this flow chart, which can also be found on the site. Now that it is in a visual format, I can see that there is still a lot of work I need to do to make it more streamlined. The entire resolution process is a tangled mess at the moment.

Any suggestions on how to remove or merge some extraneous steps in resolution?