[Shock] A compilation of tips, clarifications & explanations

SETUP

Suggested order for world & character creation<Creating *Tagonists:

The Fulcrum can't be smaller than 3 or larger than 8.

Creating the grid:<Placing *Tagonists on the grid:<* If there's only one Shock, you have to put your Protagonist on it - but if more Shocks are added later, you have to move your Protagonist to a Shock you don't own.

Multiple protagonists can occupy the same crux on the grid.

PLAY

The structure of play:

Turns go around the table counter-clockwise.

After the first scene for each Protagonist, all following scenes should be framed by the Antagonist players.

Conflicts:

In a conflict, the Antagonist has a choice to spend a number of Credits, anything from one to ten.

In a conflict, you always have to roll at least 1d10 (they can't all be d4's). Otherwise, you don't really have an intention.

You compare only one of your d10s with one of your opponent's d4s, and vice versa. If you roll a lot of dice, that means you have more to choose from, but you only get to use one.

The Antag must choose the single d10 and d4 from hir pile that is worst for the Protag: the highest d4 sie's got and the d10 that is most advantageous to the Antag's Intent.

If you have multiple players offering minutae (and an effect on the conflict), whoever's rolled highest is first in turn to decide whether or not to use hir d4 to narrate Minutiae and affect the outcome. If sie doesn't want to, the next highest has the option, and so on. If you want a say, you have to narrate something.

Remember that anyone's Minutia can become true, but only one has an effect on a given turn.

In escalation, only the player whose dice wound up on the Fulcrum rerolls 10s. The opposition rolls 4s. What you do is "up" the stakes of the conflict. If you went into it with the Intent of "I want to steal the diamond" and you wind up having to escalate, then you might say, "I want to get away safely!" or "I want to blow the building up!"

Antagonists don't spend more credits to roll again when you're risking a Link.

Antagonists, like Protagonists, get new features when they lose a conflict. Unlike with Antagonists, these features have no mechanical effect; they're just for color.

Playing antagonists:

The Antag is the sum of all forces arrayed against the Protag. The Antagonist player is free to play all the forces the Antag represents; if the Antag is "Jill's uncle who wants her to go mad", the Antag is going to be playing the Uncle, when appropriate; the Hallucinations when she's hallucinating; the talking mayonnaise jar who tells her she's sane; the bumbling brain surgeon. Etc.

Not killing Protagonists:

You can't actually threaten a Protag's life without the Protag Player's consent until the Story Goal is at stake. But that doesn't mean that the fiction going on can't be life-threatening. We know the dude's not gonna die, but the characters don't know that.

Owning a Shock or Issue:

When you own a Shock or Issue, that means:
- You hold veto power over it;
- You can provide details about it when they're needed;
- You can bump in and narrate stuff about it in someone else's scene.

AFTER THE STORY ENDS<HOW THE GAME SHOULD GO

You start off falling. Only at the moment before game starts is the Protagonist in a static situation. As soon as the Antag opens hir mouth, the Protag is scrambling; things have gone out of control. Every time there's a scene, the Antag should be driving at that Story Goal, which is different from where the Protag is at this moment. All the stage sets are taken care of by the other players. The Antag and Protag should be wrestling over gnarly stuff all the time, until the end of the game.