[Misspent Youth] Power 19

[Robert Bohl]

1.) What is your game about?

Misspent Youth is a game about friendship, rebellion, and growing up.

2.) What do the characters do?

The Youthful Offenders stand up to The Authority, a powerful force which is ruining their lives and destroying the things they love.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

The players of Youthful Offenders take on the roles of teenagers in a near-future world. They take turns being the center of attention for one Operation, they frame attacks on The Authority, create scenes, and cooperate to create a strongly thematic adventure story and character exploration.

The player of The Authority takes on the role of all of the forces at The Authority's disposal, including strife within the YOs. This player is responsible for pushing the other players' buttons and playing The Authority in ways that will cause delightful outrage. Finally, this player is responsible for tempting the YOs to sell out for short-term gain.

All players use in-game resources to establish facts about the Operation, and at the end of the Operation, establish a Truth about the larger world.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

Other than rules that encourage the introduction of science-fiction elements to the game, there is no static setting. Setting is created by the players at the beginning of a series, and reinforces what the game is about by encouraging the players to create an Authority that they will feel personally outraged by and wish to overthrow. Given that consensus and cooperation are necessary at this stage, and that they are creating an Authority that the YOs will have reason to work together to face, it also reinforces the friendship goal. There is also a great deal of discussion during setting creation of what themes and content the players would like to see and particularly strong focus on consensus at this stage.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

Character creation involves picking Traits knowing what they will become as you grow up, and seeing what the future for your character will be. All but two of the traits focus on rebellion: what happened in your childhood to make you a rebel, why you can't just be a good and compliant kid now, your stance to attacking The Authority, and what your main trick in facing it down is. Friendship is reinforced in the Relationship Trait, where other players write on your character sheet what their characters think of your character, and the friendship question, where you ask one other player a question about the history and friendship of your characters.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

The game rewards cooperation, taking narrative control, the introduction of science-fiction color, letting your flaws cause trouble for you, making other characters besides yours look great, sharing attention and focus from session to session among all players, and playing and introducing elements that other players will find entertaining.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

Scenes and conflicts are assumed to involve all of the Youthful Offenders unless otherwise specified, and the odds of success in conflicts are much greater when the YOs work together. Caustic strife between YOs is played as an Authority Character or Force (ACF). Winning the Operation is based on the introduction of science-fiction facts, and the currency to add these facts is earned by letting your flaws get in the way of your goals, by other players rewarding you for making their character look great, and by doing things that entertain the person whose character the current Operation is about.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?

Something is considered credible and to have happened if everyone at the table approves of it. Nothing may pass this filter. Scene framing is achieved by the YO players introducing elements, and The Authority player framing the scene, with the person who introduces these elements rotating around the table. In conflicts, the YO players and the player of The Authority take turns narrating the back-and-forth, and the winner of the conflict narrates how it ends.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

The game is rife with flags that are identified as such. Communal creation of The Authority results in an antagonist that everyone is very eager to see defeated. All players are assumed to be involved in every conflict, and it is strategically optimal for all players to participate. If players are not giving out Cool Points to one another, or claiming them for themselves, their side will lose to an antagonist they've hand-tailored to get under their skins.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?

The resolution mechanics use a modified version of the dice game craps. If YOs don't hit a number that they automatically win or lose on, they are considered to be winning--the player narrates a potential win for the YOs--unless The Authority pushes them. Each push ratchets up the danger and the intensity of the narration, and increases the rewards if the game is won. If the YOs are going to definitively lose (by hitting one of The Authority's numbers), The Authority may offer to let them win by Selling a Trait, twisting it into an Authority-tinged version of the same thing (for example, Cool becomes Trendy). At a later point, The Authority may use a Sold trait to push again on what would otherwise be a win for the YOs. When YOs choose to Stand Up and push the conflict forward, they must make that decision without having chosen a Trait to use--the Trait is only chosen after the roll if it is needed.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

All characters are considered to be active in all conflicts. At every stage of conflict, players think their characters are winning--reinforcing their youthful exuberance. In that vein, the fact that they have to choose whether or not to Stand Up before they have a plan strongly reinforces the reckless abandon of these rebels. The selling-out process reinforces "aboutness" of growing up.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Characters slowly accrete Sold traits which cannot be changed back. Traits may change between games if there is a consensus in favor of it, but they may not be moved from Sold to Free.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The irrevocable nature of the sell-out underlines issues of rebellion and growing up, and the necessity for consensus on character change highlights friendship. If a Relationship Trait becomes Sold, this addresses themes of friendship in very interesting ways.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

I hope players will have fun, will produce characters that are really friends rather than co-adventurers, will explore some issues about growing up and the effectiveness or futility of standing against abuses by those in power, and will feel awesome and free.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

I certainly highlight friendship and consensus quite a bit because these are things that don't get enough attention in games in my opinion. I also spend a lot of time on flags, as I feel it's important to see the material we produce in our games as signals for what you are interested in playing, and I think it's important for rules to be explicit about this.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

I am really excited by Authority and character creation, by the fact-introduction processes, and the combination of task and conflict resolution I've managed to cobble together. I find cooperative world creation--especially one focused on antagonists--to be something that always produces fun, and to act as a great way to signal to everyone what you want to see in your sessions of play. I love the introduction of facts about the world to a game, and the fact that you win the session by making facts. Finally, I really like that in the game you get to set stakes and have that overarching goal in mind, while also having the fun and engagement of a back-and-forth resolution process. I have found that people don't enjoy one-test resolution and the story you wind up producing in the back-and-forth has been very fun for me.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

I believe that my game doesn't do any one thing that no other games do. Instead, my game is a particularly fun combination of choices and techniques. It takes just about everything I enjoy in game design and wraps it up in a single thematically strong package.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

I want to produce a moderate run of physical books that will fund itself and my next project. I also want as many people as possible to play and enjoy it.

19.) Who is your target audience?

I want those of us out there who like indie RPGs/story games, and adventure games, and games where you do stupid and insane crap with little thought about the danger, and games where you remind yourself why these people you sit down with weekly are your friends to have a game to play together. I am also writing this for fans of Han Solo and punk rock.

[Emily Care]

The game rewards cooperation, taking narrative control, the introduction of science-fiction color, letting your flaws cause trouble for you, making other characters besides yours look great, sharing attention and focus from session to session among all players, and playing and introducing elements that other players will find entertaining.

The relationships between the characters accomplish this so well.  It's really the heart of the game to me. When we played at JiffyCon, from the moment when we each established how we knew about eachother or what kinds of conflicts/entanglements we'd had with eachother in the past, the game really lit up for me.    I chose to play a male character, with fashion know how and an adept of the teen counter-culture body mod underground. Jon picked a female character who saw me as her rival and yet somehow her role model too--and we were off and running.

[Robert Bohl]

The relationships between the characters accomplish this so well.  It's really the heart of the game to me. When we played at JiffyCon, from the moment when we each established how we knew about eachother or what kinds of conflicts/entanglements we'd had with eachother in the past, the game really lit up for me.    I chose to play a male character, with fashion know how and an adept of the teen counter-culture body mod underground. Jon picked a female character who saw me as her rival and yet somehow her role model too--and we were off and running.

Yeah I've just made a change where I've taken out the Relationship Traits and in its place, I'm going to ask the Friendship Question at the start of every session as an aid to Situation-creation for the session.