[Bliss Stage] Winning and Losing

[Ben Lehman]

This is mainly directed at those that have read the Bliss Stage playtest document.  If you aren't one of those people, but want to be, please PM me your e-mail address and I'll hook you up post-haste.  However, I'll give a brief introduction to the game's basic premise so as to catch up those that haven't read.

The basic situation of the game is that, five years hence, a group of teenagers have banded together to repulse an alien invasion that has almost completely destroyed the adult population of the Earth.  To do this, they use their personal relationships to construct giant robots and do battle with the aliens.  (For those who have seen Evangelion or especially Gunbuster -- yes, very much like that.)  The basic system has two components, missions and interludes, and in mission scenes the pilots need to trade-off between mission success, personal safety, and the safety of their friends and loved ones.

It seems to me that one of the extant problems of the system is that there is no real consequence to failing or succeeding a mission -- they are essentially meaningless in mechanical terms, although clearly not necessarily in fictional terms.  Interestingly, none of the playtests have shown a problem with this.  So it is possible that the solution to this "problem" is that it is no problem at all.  But, then again, none of the playtests have (that I know of) gone beyond a single mission.

One of the things that I was thinking about doing was making each mission effect a general meter which is the "state of the war" and, at the end of a set number of missions, the position of the meter tells us what the end result of the war is, or if there is an end to it at all.

The problem with this is that it is conceivable that, at some point, the war simply becomes unwinnable.  After that, well, mission success is blatantly meaningless.  Note that I'm not unhappy with this as a possible ending, but I am unhappy with being able to calculate it from the raw numbers, because that trivializes the decisions in the Mission scenes.

Another problem is deciding what the stakes of each mission are in terms of moving the scale up or down.  Another problem is that it is a pretty simplistic sort of approach.

You can tell that this is pretty fuzzy right now, which is because I'm essentially dissatisfied with it as a solution.  I'm seeking some new ideas.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Would the game benefit from a total endgame in addition to the 108 Bliss pilot ending?  Any thoughts about how to implement endgame conditions in a less clunky and simplistic method?  Any other ways the make the Mission category mechanically meaningful, or arguments why it should not be?

yrs--
--Ben

[coffeestain]

Ben,

I haven't received a copy of the playtest rules yet, so I'm not entirely sure how well this jives with either the mechanics or the setting apart from what I've been able to glean from the Actual Play reports and what you've got on your blog, but I'm going to go ahead and throw out a suggestion or two anyhow.

First of all, it seems to me that one of the most important and distinctive parts of Bliss Stage play (and very possibly mechanics) is the relationship between the Anchors and the Pilots.  It would seem to me that the measure of winning or losing the war should somehow revolve around the strength of these relationships.

Secondly, in The Mountain Witch, Tim suggests breaking the overall story into a number of acts in which certain things should be focused upon, as well as into a number of chapters in which certain things must occur in order to begin the next chapter.  Many stories about alien invasions and the folks fighting against them follow a pretty forumlaic series of acts.  For example:

1)  Suffering.  The protagonists meet and bond through adversity and suffering, oftentimes being defeated by the enemy.
2)  Discovery.  A discovery is made regarding the weakness of the attackers.
3)  Assault.  The protagonists shift from defenders to attackers, seeking to gather the resouces to exploit the enemy's weakness despite the costs.
4)  Victory.  The protagonists implement the plan that turns the tide of the war.

Polaris almost seems to do this, as well, with the sudden shift between the Novice and Veteran.

Would it be possible to somehow tie a number of acts in with in-game events, whereby the act isn't complete until the goal is met?  Thus, the story progresses along a familiar line but the details of how the characters get to those points as well as what, exactly, those points mean is left up to the players.  Additionally, each act could have a different requirement for progress that would help further its particular theme.

Regards,

Daniel

[Mark Woodhouse]

I'm with Daniel. I think the game could do with a pacing mechanic that depends on BOTH successful missions and pilot Bliss. Right now, the first pilot to hit 108 Bliss can trigger his character's endgame, but the big, war-ending pilot endgames probably shouldn't be able to come about until some number of missions. Basically, as you win or lose missions, you 'unlock' different potential endgames. You might even have certain pre-set missions that the group can invoke that advance the 'plot' to a new stage - say 'capture an alien' or 'recover a sleeper'. Not to say that you have a pre-defined plot, simply a range of outcomes that become possible as the game proceeds.

[TonyLB]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Would the game benefit from a total endgame in addition to the 108 Bliss pilot ending?  Any thoughts about how to implement endgame conditions in a less clunky and simplistic method?  Any other ways the make the Mission category mechanically meaningful, or arguments why it should not be?

Well, what sort of danger are the Anchors in?  Do they come some meaningful step closer to a terrible end with each failed Mission?

[Ben Lehman]

Tony -- Good idea but I don't think it's feasible.  I sent you the draft.  In short -- Anchors are in danger from Pilots' decisions.

Daniel -- Nice outlining of the genre!  Bliss Stage is heavily centered

Mark -- Huh, that's an interesting idea.  How about meters which measure positive and negative on various "scales" of positive, negative, and mixed results "military victory," "corruption," "understanding," etc. and then your Endgame is determined by a mix of these, where pilot endgames have the ability to bump the scales in various directions?  Huh.  That's a little complicated but I like it.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ben Lehman]

I'm a dork and didn't finish my reply to Daniel.

Bliss Stage is entirely set in the third stage that you identify, so I don't know about heavily framing the game otherwise.  It puts me in mind of other alien invasion games, though.

I'm sorry i didn't get you a draft.  It's in the mail.

yrs--
--Ben

[coffeestain]

Ben,

No worries, I logged into my work email and was pleasantly surprised to find my copy!  So I've read through it and I can completely see where you're coming from.  I'll see if I can't come up with a couple of revised ideas shortly.

In the meanwhile, I got together with my gaming group tonight and it looks like we might try to take on some Bliss Stage on Friday.  Hopefully I'll have an actual play report for you soon and I'll be sure to ask them what they think about the structure of extended play.

Regards,

Daniel