[Misspent Youth] The Rise of Google 2.0

(cross posted from Story Games)

So I ran Misspent Youth for some friends yesterday at my house and for the first time I had a complete story from beginning to end that we didn't have to stop playing to figure out how the rules were broken. I was deliriously happy.

At first I was nervous because we were supposed to have 5 players and only 2 showed. However I decided to look upon this problem as an opportunity to stress-test the game and see if it worked. It totally worked, and that is in large part thanks to the conflict resolution help I had from Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks after my playtest with them this past Sunday.

In this session the Authority was Google 2.0. Google-gone-mad, voraciously cataloging everything and killing privacy. It was motivated by Utopianism, its visage was that of the Machine, and its victim was Freedom in the form of privacy. Imagine Google's mission statement, "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," read by a Big Voice Guy from movie trailers.

The spotlight Youthful Offender was the 15 year old August-8 220 played by Mike Y., a kid from a baby farm (Fostered) who was motivated by his high self-opinion (Pride) not to let the Authority take away his privacy. His method was to break the rules reflexively (Bad) and his Schitck was "Reckless agitant," meaning that he would rile people up to action without regard for the consequences. His signature item was an-only-10000-in-the-world black gPass (the mandatory and universal driver's license, ID card, ATM card, credit card, GPS, etc.) that belonged to someone else.

Shirley Sue, a 15-year-old boy played by Rick A., had been Neglected by his parents his whole life, and was driven by a belief that he could make the world better than it is (Optimism). He was extremely quick-witted and agile (Fast), his Schtick was "Compulsive Organizer," by which he meant that he tried to build coalitions and movements, but also that he planned things with exacting detail. His signature item was a quantum crypto box.

So the Operation was about Google sending a mapping truck to the neighborhood to upload every bit of data it could find. The kids decided they would screw with its information and Mike picked as his Spotlight trait after the kicker scene, "I'm gonna punk the van."

A signature moment was when the kids were hanging out at a skate park that had been blacked out and was off the grid. An ice cream truck came by and was offering free samples--free samples laced with mildly radioactive tracking chemicals. The boys tried to rouse the crowd but wound up rolling and hitting one of the Authority's numbers. I offered Mike the option to Sell August-8's Pride trait and flip it to Arrogant. If he did that, he would be able to single-handedly get the entire group to reject the freebies and keep the skatepark hidden. He chose not to do that, though, and instead his Pride led him to believe that he could taste the ice cream and not be taken in.

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It was a great game and I thank Mike and Rick for making it happen. I can't wait to run this at JiffyCon.