[Bliss Stage] Your hopes and joys shall lift us up.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

Here's a brief glimpse from our last session (delayed by me misplacing all the notes from that session).

Interestingly enough, what my nordic-immersive players seem to do is take a very character-centerd view on action motives (as opposed to calculating systems to best effect), and not seeking to play extended interludes (like Ben sarcasticaly predicted).

Background: There are three pilots, and a small crew, operating from within an old movieplex. Around them are roaming bands of gangbangers and bliss cultists, so it's not safe to venture outside. Pekka (a 13 year old boy, desperately seeking social acceptance) has just successfully completed a mission and located what they believe to be a signal mast that is supporting the bliss effect. While doing it, he burned out four of his relationships, including his big sister. So he's recovering, trying to patch things up. (And still believing that in order to fit in he needs to always succeed. No matter the cost.)

So Jouko (male, 14, youngest child of a big family) volunteers to knock out the tower. It's a classic flight dream, with his ED-209 style robot soaring the skies and shooting shut a cave with water falling from it. At which point the player (Joakim) rolls a huge load of 1s and 2s. Due to earlier Trauma, I got to threaten both mission success and his most important relationship, a girl he has a terrible crush on (the best friend of the third pilot, Tiina). Unfortunately, he'd also brought the second pilot along as a forcefield, etc.  meaning that he succeeded at the cost of 13 Bliss, four broken relationships and a complete Nightmare return scene. The only things he managed to preserve were his relationship with the girl, Lissu, and Mission Success. Between misions, he tries to patch things up, but doesn't get far, as the Trust Breaks eat away his interlude scenes.

Comes next mission. The Authority has triangulated two other towers, and Jouko, along with Tiina (female goth/wicca, 15 years, in an abusive relationship, intelligent but very biased in world-view) is sent to knock them down. As they do not agree on anything (due to the earlier burn-out and Tiina's boyfriend not permitting her to have male friends), they sekk out one tower each. Given their background, it's a very Tolkienesque dream, with black and white towers, etc. Tiina (black and pink organic robot, like an Ent) succeeds reasonably well, but takes some stress on her primary relationship (the abusive boyfriend).

Meanwhile, Jouko once again tries to both succeed and impress the girl, meaning he's using her as a part of the robot. "So she'll experience my skill first-hand." And Joakim again rolls a bunch of  low numbers by sheer chance, despite trying to balance he numbers. (Interestingly enough, he made a choice to call in insignificant aquaintances [1/1], so he could draw in extra dice towards potential mission success by accepting thet he'd gain some bliss as the people get alienated. Not a wise move as far as mechanics go, but very much in character.) With the Trauma he had, all Jouko managed to do was get a threatened Mission Success. And preserve one insignificant relationship that I could not threaten. That's it. As we rounded off the day, he's now got another two /major/ trust breaks to play, another 8 points of Bliss and a great opportunity to role-play a dramatic pre-relationship stage failure.

Unfortunately I did not write down every roll, but it was very obvious that with bad planning, you're racking up bad things very fast, But sthe system is geared so that even with good planning and die balancing calculations, under relatively good ("even die spread") conditions, you're taking quite a lot of damage. Which we think is very good, especially since the death/bliss end condition rules exist.

Side note (more will be given privately): Everyone loves being an Anchor player, but doing too many missions as an Anchor in a row is mentally very exhaustive. And a tendency to stage the conflict seems to crep into every anchor's tone. So, in essence, it's much more a question of joint game mastering than the rules depict. And it seems to work quite nicely that way, as long as someone has final authority.

We're enjoying the game much more than any of us initially expected. It's gotten to the level of intensity described in the finest segment of the manual ("What it's like for Anchors"), so we're actually living the tragedy very strongly. Despite the immersive feel, we'll intetionally test the multiple-pilot system this Thursday at our final session (it will be "defending the base", of course).

Comments? Systems questions? I'm happy to provide more details; it's just that I do not normally pay attenton to dice or details, just the flow of narration and character immersive play.

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Tuomas -- Thanks a ton for playtesting.  Your game sounds great.  Like many of the other Bliss Stage playtests, I wish I could play it with you.

It's interesting that you seem to think that you're missing out on a deep tactical level of the game.  Ultimately, I think that going from the gut is the best tactic in Bliss Stage.  There are three realms of importance (missions, trauma, relationships) and the ones that you feel are the most important will naturally thrive, and the ones that you feel are the least important will naturally suffer.  Managing your die pools and so on and so forth can go far in making the most important ones thrive a little more, or the least important ones suffer a little less, but ultimately that isn't really the point of the game.

(Ironically, I find burning small relationships for bonus dice, which you identify as a bad strategy, to actually be one of the better strategies in the game.  Heh.)

I'm really very over-joyed that you weren't tempted to take a long time with the interludes scenes.  If you weren't, then I don't think anyone else will be either (immersionist Finns being basically the strongest test-case I can think of for wanting to have long in-character dialouges.)

(As a side note, I've found that interludes scenes are almost always deeply immersive -- I have a hunch about this that spins away from playtesting and into theory: basically that the key to immersion is emotional sympathy with your character, and since the framing of interlude scenes cuts right to the serious emotional issues, that necessarily builds sympathy quickly, thus immersion.)

Even if you didn't write down all the numbers, can you tell me how many secondary characters there were and how many you ended up strongly associating with?  Also, I'd be really curious to know the rough length (in number of rolls and play time) of each mission, as well as the number of objectives you set, and which objectives were achieved.

With regards to the relationships that were destroyed early in play (before they had any interlude scenes about them) -- did you feel an emotional connection to those relationships or not?

Are you planning to play a second session?

yrs--
--Ben

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

It's interesting that you seem to think that you're missing out on a deep tactical level of the game.  Ultimately, I think that going from the gut is the best tactic in Bliss Stage.

Actually, it's more like an instinctive reaction from my players, who are simply used to more mechanics/tactics combinations due to WW games, etc.

(Ironically, I find burning small relationships for bonus dice, which you identify as a bad strategy, to actually be one of the better strategies in the game.  Heh.)

It is, that's obvious. But makes it very hard to succeed in the long run. (Side note: in order to toy with this, how about introducing an optional rule that if a secondary character loses trust relationships with all pilots, that person turns to a traitor...)

(As a side note, I've found that interludes scenes are almost always deeply immersive

They have a potential for that, yes. But on the other hand, the nature of the scenes made them highly narrativist for us. Whereas our mission play has been quite immersive.

Even if you didn't write down all the numbers, can you tell me how many secondary characters there were and how many you ended up strongly associating with?  Also, I'd be really curious to know the rough length (in number of rolls and play time) of each mission, as well as the number of objectives you set, and which objectives were achieved.

A total of eight secondary characters plus three Anchors, i.e. the minimum mandated by the rules. Everything from childhood buddies to a burn-out Anchor who lost her pilot, and is almost ready to succumb to the Bliss. Our missions have so far been, 1,1,1,2 objectives, in order to have a fluent test play. The players always favor Mission Success above all, because they realized at once that the risks of leaving that incomplete are even worse in the long run. (More rolls equals more chances to ruin relationships.)

With regards to the relationships that were destroyed early in play (before they had any interlude scenes about them) -- did you feel an emotional connection to those relationships or not?

About half and half.

Are you planning to play a second session?

Third one, actually, today. Then we'll have to end the playtest. I've already mailed you a thorough report of the first session, as there were suggestions I wanted to give you off-forum, plus character andd playetester info. Aparently you did not get it. I'll re-post or re-send it later today.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

I've already mailed you a thorough report of the first session

Wasn't as thorough as I remembered. But anyway, here it is. Final playtest session description, plus all the questions/feedback that rose up, in a few days. So, session one:
---

> How did it go?

First session went well. In three hours, we managed to create the backdrop (our machine is a techno-jelly-bathtub system that's rigged to the alien console, which is a system of semi-physical lights), characters and play one mission plus three interludes (2 trust breaks, one stress relief).

> What rules did you use a lot?

All of the basic stuff, epecially conflict rules. Went and re-went through character creation. We all agreed that the pilot templates were
extremely good, and the relationships reflected the character types really well. The conflict dice rules worked surprisingly well, and were quite fluid to use once you got the hang of what result is what.

> What rules chaffed?

The fact that in order to play scenes well, you need more information than what is in the char sheet. Basically, my players would have liked room to write down each side character's designated player as well as the relationship numbers of those characters to other characters. So lots of bookkeping.

The Hope/Goal system's a bit too unclear. We thought there should be one more hope (so players minus one, not minus two). And Mission Goals vs. goals in general vs. objectives etc. should be more thoroughly clarified.

We would have liked some system beyond just role-playing that would reflect (or just clarify) situations where a relationship isn't equal.
Which score is reflected in, say, an abusive love affair? A pilot's love, or the fact that it isn't reciprocated?

We wondered whether it would be good to include some sort of a systems incentive for calling Betrayal scenes. Now, unless they're Trust Breaking, they are only used for narrative or vindictive reasons. In order to make them more popular for less experienced players as well, there maybe should be a benefit gained for calling such scenes. (Like, say, of the classic "after he insulted her, she ran into my arms" kind.)

> What rules did you change and how?

None this far, except it seemed that it's better if the player calling a scene also describes some of the initial situation, instead of the GM doing it all. So that we did change, plus we allowed a bit more input from other players during mission scenes than what the rules say.

> What fictionally happened?

Jouko (14 yrs) went on a recon mission. He's a shy boy, the youngest of a a family with five kids (two of whom survive and are a part of the group). He stepped into the vat, dreamed of a city landscape altered into smoky marsh. A bit later he encountered an alien patrol. He fought valiantly, but took a lot of damage. Laser beams, exploding gas, running. Then electric ant swarms and crumbling buildings as the Anchor started to lose control.

In the end his relationship with with both his sister and his secret flame (best friend of another pilot) were stressed, and two lesser
relationships took heavy trust loss (one of them was the abusive boyfriend of the aforementioned second pilot, Tiina). In the end, Jouko
managed to fight of the patrol without leading aliens back to the base (a big movieplex). After he woke up, he was first confronted by one guy he'd gotten harmed (from whom he ran away), then beaten up by the boyfriend.

Finally, he went and tried to talk to the girl he had a crush on. Over a can of peaches he'd been saving he tried to tell her that he'd like to pursue things further, but couldn't say it. But they solved some problems, and the relationship got room to develop again. (It was a
very lovely, very teen-awkward scene.)

> How did people feel before, during, and after play?

They were at first interested but a bit sceptical (Antti, especially). Afterwards, they'd definitely seen the potential, and said that the
very different (from what they usually see) way of carrying over the story was surprisingly nice. Mikko (who was the Anchor) especially liked it.

A point of contention was raised by the fact that once a player request a certain kind of scene, it happens. Thus it's possible for one person to dictate a bit too much, if he/she's blunt enough. We'll see how that develops.

We all enjoyed both types of scenes. Your appraisal of the optimal interlude scene length seems very accurate.

> What rules didn't come up?

Hotshot, all the endgame stuff, interludes we didn't yet get to play.

---

Here are the names of our playtest group, in case you need them for something: myself, Mikko Tolonen, Joakim Verkerk and Antti Vestola. All of us have over a decade of tabletop rpg experience.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

First of all, I'd miscalculated the number of side characters - I forgot to add the Authority. So the total is nine.
That is a very improtant difference, IMO, because one very apparent thing during the playtest was that the number of secondary characters available directlyu correlates with campaign length. Especially on multi-objective missions, during which it's easy to lose (for that mission, at least) over half a dozen components from your robot, even when you're just rolling averages and not just bad results. Likewise, it seems imperative that you emphasize how experienced pilots would use all chances (i.e. all interludes) to maintain their relationships, because a lazy player will be penalized heavily for not having strong relationships, and the /whole game/ will suffer as a result.

Here is the feedback from our third, final session. (I waited a bit so that I could get more comments from my players, in case something would turn up after the game had been over for a while. Didn't.)

We played two missions, the first of them a pre-planned one (for testing purposes), the second one ad hoc. Plus some interludes, of course. Unfortunately one player couldn't come due to force majeur reasons, so had to do it all with two players and a GM.

Mission one: Base Defense.

The Aliens are approaching the movieplex base, and coming in three waves. First wave is composed of dream-robots, the second one of alien, and the final one of ther elite and a Brain-Slime(tm) leading the attack. I Anchored, as both pilots were on the job. The first wave is disastrous: Antti (playing Tiina) rolls 3x-,1x0, 4x+, but Mikko (playing Pekka) 3x-, 2x0, 1x+. As there are Threats in play, Tiina tries to protect the boyfriend at the expense of everything except mission success. As they crush the wave, they enter a Nightmare, Tiina gets 7 Bliss and Pekka 11. Plus the Terror and Trauma, of course.

At this point they realize that they can't win, if things proceed this way. (We also had a long analysis of game mechanics at this point, about 35 minutes IIRC.) So, as they enter the second stage and the aliens drop in on them, they calculate the odds and decide that Pekka will take all the hits that he can, thus preserving Tiina for the final strike. (Visualize the massive pink techno-worm coiled around the ebony goth tree, shooting wildly while taking and taking hits from enemy fire...) As they place all the bad dice on Pekka he, surprisingly enough, only nets some 4 Bliss and a few non-fatal trust breaks. But he is out of commission, along with his Trauma, and Tiina is free to continue. Pekka returns from the dream to the movieplex, knowing that in reality he is a hero, but still feeling bad when people start attacking him for getting them hurty in the dream.

The last wave is a shining success. Tiina aces through, wipes out the Brain Slime(tm), and returns home. She's a hero, but would not at all have succeeded if Pekka hadn't carried her weight earlier. (Tiina does get 6 more Bliss, as one relationship breaks during the fight.)

Mission two: Wipe out the Dream Machine

Tiina, again. (Mikko anchoring, as Joakim, the Anchor's designated player, was absent). With the enemies being inside the Turku Cathedral with their machine. Or so the Anchor said - remember that the pilot is an annoying goth/wicca "baby witch" with a load of religious prejudices. Antti rolls an incredibly good set of dice with just a few relationships, and kills the aliens and the machine dead at once. A bit of stress, but that's it. End of game - we decided that in the game, they'd now try to liberate a larger area and work toward the ultimate goal of wiping the aliens out, but our game would end here.

Systems & style feedback that wasn't already included above:

- A bit more info on how to add, eject or replace pilots during a mission would be nice. Not necessary, but still useful.
- More clarity on how to hanlde situations where a) the pilot hasn't drawn in enough resources and thus can't meet all Priorities and b) what if there simply aren't enough to draw on (esp. on a long mission, when too many components have broken down).
- How to deal with trust breaks that exceed not only the betrayals but also the interlude? (We got very close to that situation.)
- We found that one of the emotionally strongest moments for interludes was to play one between Briefing and Mission. AT that point, the sense of urgency and desperate farewells works really nicely. (And is, of course, a traditional strong storytelling moment.)
- We'd love to see some mention about the adolescents' relationship to Bliss mentioned in the setting material you mention as forthcoming. Are there bliss cultists? Bliss junkies? Fear? Should the fact that older secondary characters are closer to it affect the way they should be played in interludes?
- Losing pilot/pilot relationship should probably have a game mechanics effect, if they are on the same mission together. Maybe something about placing bad dice on the other guy?
- Consecutive mission objectives are really hard stuff. Which is something that should probably be said clearly in the rules.
- It seems that the kids are basically invulnerable in the dream, and it is only their own insecurity that gets them hurt. If that isn't your intent, wirte in a good explanation on why this isn't so.
- The chacatre sheet would benefit from having a place weher each realtionship can be written down as the component it represents.
- The smaller the number of players, the shoter the missions should be. This, again, is due to the effect the number of side characters has on relationship availability (and, thus, mission success potential).

That's it for now. We'll of course be happy to answer any questions you may still have. Good luck and endurance with finishing the actual product.

[ptikachu]

Interesting observations about # of players vs. campaign length/difficulty.

It seems more than a few people misjudge how hard consecutive mission objectives are. I now kind of like the idea of having each pilot's mission being carried out separately, plus having to deal with fewer objectives on average.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

I now kind of like the idea of having each pilot's mission being carried out separately, plus having to deal with fewer objectives on average.

As did we. But we also agreed on that there was some really strong role-playing potential in the long & joint mission systems. Especially when a pilot is either highly selfish or willing to sacrifice him/herself for the benefit of others. We luckily got to try out both.

Important side note: I completely forgot to say in my last post that despite the listed criticism, we enjoyed the game a lot. It has loads of potential, especially for immersive play with strong narration. Very good indeed. Really looking forward to seeing it in print.

[ptikachu]

Immersion? In a Forge game? Heavens forfend! ;)

Among my playtest group we do have one player who's real into immersion. Bliss Stage does seem to have particular appeal to him.