[Bliss Stage] Endgame Report: One Kiss Kills

[cdr]

Let me start by saying I adore Bliss Stage and hope to run it a lot, probably mostly at conventions or game stores for people who have never played before but want to see what it's like before buying, like I've been doing for Dogs in the Vineyard. So my comments are from that perspective.

Last Saturday I ran it for four players at Endgame's minicon in the 8pm slot. All four players were men, and none of them had read it before, and only had a vague idea what it was about. One of them had seen Evangelion, the others hadn't watched anime. One had played Battletech. This was my first time running but I was familiar with the rules, and I've watched a LOT of anime. I had full page character sheets for the Pilots and shorter ones for everyone else, and 2-page rules summaries for everyone (Mission charts on one side, interludes on the other).
We set it in Oakland, although that wasn't important.

Player:   Pilot, Anchor, others

Lon: Sarah, A3 Alison*, Laura

Jason: Keenan, no anchor, Derek, Archer (took over for Anna and Alison)

Mike: Anna*, A2 Aurora

Troy: Josh, A1 Deborah

   Starting      Ending (after first mission)
   Bliss   Trauma      Bliss
Josh     75   4      93   
Anna     90   4      93
Sarah    84   3      98
Keenan   96     2             108 blissed out

As GM I played only the authority figure Jim Preston, Josh's estranged dad, who has kept himself awake for 7 years with meth and anger.

Anchor Deborah was carrying Keenan's baby but hadn't told him yet. (But they only have 4 intimacy - is Keenan such a studmuffin he can get girls pregnant just by kissing them??? Or had they broken off the relationship and already rebuilt it to 4/2 from 1/1?)

Sarah had recently kissed Keenan -- note the disastrous 4/1,1 relationship.

We opened with the Mission briefing, and in retrospect I should have encouraged more pilot and anchor banter here, so the players could get a sense of their characters.

First Mission - Defend the Base! Each pilot one at a time, with two goals: 1) Prevent alien from reaching the base, 2) Defeat enemy pilot. If either goal is failed, a secondary character is harmed (if they get harmed twice they die).

I'll use the notation 3/4,2 to show a relationship with Intimacy 3 (made food or gotten drunk together, cuddled, or fought but not physically -- 5 is the max) Trust 4 (5 is the max), and 2 stress. When stress exceeds Trust it resets to zero and Trust drops by 1. If Trust drops to zero the relationship is destroyed and both people get 3 times their intimacy as bliss. When your bliss reaches 108 or Trauma reaches 6 you get a final scene and you're gone, which destroys all your relationships, which can lead to a bliss cascade. I really like that mechanic, but it means that when a manslut like Keenan goes down he takes a lot of folks with him.

Eager young soldier Josh went first as pilot, choosing Aurora (3/4,2) as his anchor to form the chassis of his dream mecha (ANIMa). He also equipped his estranged father Jim (3/1,1) as a big black gun.  That gave Josh 6 dice (labelled with -, 0, + on 2 sides each) to roll and allocate. 

The anchor player narrates the dream world, and Aurora's player had a difficult time figuring out what to say. After the game several players suggested the GM should narrate as the first Anchor, then once people get the idea that Anchor can get handed off to a player.

Josh had Trauma 4 so all 4 categories (Mission, Pilot Safety, and his relationships with Aurora and Jim) were threatened, requiring two dice each instead of one and using the lower die. Any category that doesn't get enough dice is treated as a - (bad). He only had 6 dice, so he put his 2 +'s in Mission success and kept the alien away from the base, and the other three categories got minuses, bumping his trauma to 5 and terror to 1. (When terror exceeds trauma the terror resets to 0 and trauma increases 1. At trauma 6 you die.) His Relationship to Aurora became 3/3,3 and the relationship to Jim broke, increasing his bliss by 9 to 84. The anchor, Aurora, pulled the plug on the mission, ending it. Jim, who was supervising the mission, gave his son a look of disgust, and Josh stormed off.

Next up was just-been-kissed innocent sweetheart Sarah, who chose Alison (3/2) as her anchor. Lon handed Alison over to Jason to play, since you can't be the Anchor for your own pilot. Sarah also equipped Keenan (4/1,1) as a flaming sword, her brother Derek (3/5,3) as a shield, and Anna's baby Archer as a jetpack (3/4).  With 13 dice she accomplished both missions with only 2 stress from excess, but she had to sacrifice Keenan who took a point of stress, breaking the relationship and giving Sarah 12 stress (bumping her to 98), blissing out Keenan before he even got a chance to do anything (96 to 108), and cascading another 9 stress to Josh (93).  Sarah had a nice bit of description about hurtling through the heart of the giant alien robot with her flaming sword evaporating the way before her and coming out the other side with no sword as the robot collapsed into thousands of tiny screaming people raining down on the city below.

Keenan did get to narrate his final scene (with input from Deborah's player), getting into the tank with Deborah as his anchor, but still feeling the warmth of Sarah's lips against the face mask, and the scent of her breath. Deborah tryed to talk him out of the mission, and as he's trying to focus and concentrate to form his ANIMa she hits him with the news that they're having a child, and she's refusing to switch the machines on, so he reaches down into the equipment in a way that shouldn't have worked, through their mutual link to the unborn child, and turns it on, and goes into bliss.

We now had an unscheduled and unprivileged interlude with Anna and her trusted comrade Laura, in the suiting-up chamber. Laura had just gained 15 bliss from losing Keenan and couldn't bear losing Anna too, so she argued that instead of going on the mission Anna should flee with her and Archer and go back to the gang Anna used to lead. Anna had to knock her cold to shut her up. (But didn't cause harm, although she could have with Trauma 4.) The scene judge (always another player, not the GM) ruled that reduced stress (3/4,4 to 3/4,0 -- very helpful!).

They haul the blissed Keenan out of the tank with Sarah and Deborah crying and veteran Anna takes her turn, with her (and Josh's) lover Alison (5/2) as the anchor. She also equipped Laura (3/4,0) and her own son Archer (5/4) but not Jim (5/3,3) because with 4 trauma and 90 bliss, two - results with him would break that relationship and send her dangerously near blissing out.

Anna had 13 dice and she accomplished the first goal with some stress on relationships, and allocated a - to Laura so lost the dice from her for the next mission goal, defeating the enemy pilot.

With 4 trauma used to threaten categories and a bad roll we got to see the flashback rules (which rule!), as she put 2 -'s in both Mission and Pilot Safety and flashbacked to a couple days ago when Deborah came to tell her she was pregnant and ask about raising a child in this terrible world. They built intimacy, so Anna got a 0 for Mission (progress, try again) and equipped Deborah as a 4/1,1 grenade launcher that fired dream-fetuses at the giant aliens. But she wound up at 93 bliss, and the various stresses put Alison at 5/1,1, Archer at 5/4,1, and Laura offline at 3/3,1. Alison pulled the plug for Anna's safety.

That ended the Mission.

With 2 of 6 mission goals failed, harm came to Laura and Archer, which I decided took the form of alien infiltration because they were unconscious as the aliens approached the base through the dreamtime. Their shadows took on alien forms, and Laura's brainwaves and heart monitor in the infirmary sometimes formed into the alien glyphs. Archer started babbling in the same tones the aliens used in the dreamtime, although Anna wasn't there to hear it.

Now time for Interludes!

Sarah got Trauma relief and a reassuring hug from her big brother Derek.

Josh and his father Jim rebuilt their destroyed relationship (at 1/1) as Jim admitted Josh perhaps wasn't a total screwup all the time.

Anna poured out her feelings to the unconscious Laura, who woke up to listen before Anna realized she was.

Keenan's last words to Deborah over their link as he blissed out were to name their child Hope, and he resolved "We can raise a new generation."

And it was pointed out, interestingly, that just because someone's dead or blissed out they should still be able to appear in flashbacks, because that happens All The Time in the source material. Or dreams, perhaps.

That was the 3 hour mark (including the explanation of background and rules and a break to shuffle cars around) so instead of proceeding to the second mission that would have killed everyone, we agreed that was a good place to stop and talked extensively about what worked and didn't, ways to improve it, things they liked and otherwise. Many thanks to the players for being willing to try something new and strange and offering lots of constructive feedback, the high points of which I now relate.

It was very rough going for the first anchor, with very little knowledge of the new rules, the setting, or the characters. It was suggested that when all the players don't know the game that the GM offer to run the first anchor for the first Mission, to provide an example.

Keenan's player was disappointed his pilot never even saw action because of a bad roll made by Sarah (he didn't blame Sarah, everyone was just learning the system). 4/1,1 is way too dangerous with bliss scores this high. Dog initiations are a safe way to learn the mechanics because you can't die, and by the end you see how things work and maybe get a little fallout to see how that works too. The first use of the rules should not result in losing a PC, but that's Sarah's only 4 relationship, and a pilot with 3 trauma equipping only 3 point relationships is going to be a problem. Since relatives get +1 intimacy, her brother Derek could be bumped from a 3 to a 4, if they'd made food together or fought.  (Do Siblings exist that never fight?)

Otherwise, I think it would be a good idea to make Sarah/Keenan a 4/1 with no stress, or else provide interludes before the first mission. And also to reduce starting bliss so that people can mess up on the first mission and still get to play the rest of the game.
 
I wonder if perhaps the mission was statted up back when a broken relationship gave twice the intimacy in bliss, and weren't adjusted when that was changed to three times? Or maybe it was mostly tested without Keenan, who is only used with 4 or more players.  As a workaround, Keenan could have to do his mission before Sarah's.

As suggested, we did name the anchors after people's school crushes (including a teacher) but players said afterwards their vagueness contributed to the traction problems. That got better as things went along.  The players thought there should be a 4th anchor so everyone gets to play one.  I think Derek and Laura work better as non-anchors: Derek because he's the techie that keeps things running, and Laura as the Outsider voice of reason. and it would be too freaky for 2-year old Archer to be an anchor, but yet *another* character? 

Then again, as it is now one of the anchors is going to have to serve double duty. By the way, the non-pilots should have bliss values listed too, since they can gain bliss from destroyed relationships, right?

Everyone's listed on the character sheets I made but I think a big relationship map to hang on the wall would help players wrap their heads around 12 names that they're trying to remember at the same time they're trying to absorb the rules and the alien setting.
 
The interludes were fun; people especially liked that they were kept short and the Judge (always a player, never the GM) could cut them when enough had been said to decide. There was some uncertainty between Trauma Relief ("action exhibits pilot's problems") and Stress Relief ("action exhibits relationship's problems") but I think we've all been there. :-)

While Josh was on his first mission, Keenan and Sarah's players were doing roleplaying sidechat quietly which I shut down because it belonged in an interlude, but that was totally bogus of me. (If you're reading this, SORRY Lon and Jason!) I should have ignored the scenario outline and given them a scene, because it would have been great to see what the casual hedonist Keenan and the innocent sweetheart Sarah would say between their first kiss and possibly their last mission. No anime director worth his salt would have left that out of the episode. But at 4/1,1 and 96 bliss, if Keenan breaks Sarah's trust he's out of the game.

So, live and learn. I'm going to make some tweaks and try it again, but I'm also going to try a First Mission. I think it can be offputting for first time players to play experienced pilots when they don't know the system and are just learning it. The way Hopes get resolved is interesting, but the descent into doom and tragedy is a lot more interesting when it's your own character that you created and are invested in and you've had time along the way to enjoy the spiral down. Some PC that you just got handed and will never see again after this session, perhaps not so much.  And having your PC taken out before you even get to do anything because someone else rolled poorly is Not Fun.

But those are scenario issues, not game problems, and thus readily correctable. As a game, it's all I was hoping it would be and more.  I'm looking forward to running it again as soon as possible.

My thanks to anyone that made it all the way to the end of this very long post; I'm happy to answer questions or clarify.

(Plug: I'll be at Orycon in Portland, OR 11/16-18 and would be happy to run Bliss Stage there for anyone interested.)