[Misspent Youth] Current status

[Robert Bohl]

So after Camp Nerdly, and between the small slice of time I had between the end of one semester and the beginning of the next, I got another draft of Misspent Youth done. I am contacting several friends who are within a few states of me asking if I can run a playtest session for them. I have been compelled to write up a "what the hell are you asking me to play?" statement, so I figured I'd share it here:

--

Misspent Youth is a roleplaying game set in the near future. The players collaboratively create a world and an antagonist, called The Authority, which seeks to destroy what your characters value. Features:

* Two kinds of traits: selection from archetype and open creation
* Conflict resolution in a craps game, rigged for thematic appropriateness, where you risk your youthful purity to be victorious
* Narrative control economy which encourages the introduction of thematic elements
* Rule bias toward player cooperation, but with short term advantage for betrayal
* Spotlight character rules

How far are you willing to compromise your ideals for the greater good or your personal glory? Find out.

[Robert Bohl]

After I run this series of playtests, I'm going to see if I can get some real writing done (assuming major rules surgery isn't needed and my classes this summer are as un-hectic as I think they will be). I may be able to ashcan soon, maybe by DexCon.

[Emily Care]

Glad to hear you are making progress, Rob. I asked you about your design process over in the Jiffycon thread, but maybe this is the more appropro place.  You talked about the game at Dreamation, did that seminar help you focus your design? What has changed for you wrt it since then?

best,
Emily

[Robert Bohl]

The seminar helped with the main issue I was having at the time, how to do "damage."

A little info about the game:

Conflict res is a craps game, where you roll 2d6 and if you're a PC (Youthful Offender) most of the time you want to hit a 7 or 11 on the initial roll.  If you do, you win the conflict. If you hit a 2, 3, or 12, the GM (The Authority) wins the conflict. The game calls this The Throwdown.

If none of those numbers is hit, whatever number you do it (for example, 5) is the Target. You then pass into a phase of conflict resolution called The Tussle, where if you hit 7 The Authority wins, and if you hit your target, you win.

In order that the Tussle not take 20 minutes (which it was at Dreamation), I arrived at the decision--with the help of people at Dreamation, especially Fred, Rob D., Luke, and Judd--of having people put their traits on the line in order to buy certain numbers. For example:

The target is 5, and now I wager my Anger trait (and must include in the narration being angry) to buy the number 9, so now I win on 5 or 9. The Authority can then buy a number too. Also people can help me by buying other numbers. Each non-Authority person can only buy 1 number per die throw, with the Authority buying 1 number per number bought by the YOs.

So the question was how do I do damage, and what does that mean, and at the roundtable Judd suggested that the trait should become Authority-like. Perfect! So now each of the Closed traits (ones you pick from a pre-defined list) has a Sold/flipped/Authority version, and if an Open trait (one you create freely a la Dogs) gets Sold, you must rewrite it as a Sold version of the stat.

There's a LOT more I can go into on this but that was the main innovation I got from Dreamation and it is really really good. The old way of conflict resolution, for example, was terrible because not only were you rolling back and forth forever, but you won the conflict based on how many traits you'd used so far rather than whether you actually won the craps game! How stupid was that?

[Robert Bohl]

I guess I should note why it's bad if a stat is Sold. Endgame mechanic counts the number of times you took the Authority line in a conflict to determine whether you become a new Authority or if you retained your non-assholeness when you grow up. Using a Sold trait means that in endgame, you get closer to becoming a bad guy. But Sold traits also allow you to initiate a conflict with the Authority's odds, which are much, much better in the long run.