[Shock:] The Collections Agent, the President of Earth and the Revolutionary

[Judd]

I knew that my roommates, Bret and Jeff (not Jeff "Sons of Kryos" Lower, a different Jeff) would be down for some Shock:, a game I was eager to play since seeing demo's at Gen Con and reading over 1.1.

We had agreed to play earlier in the week, knowing that two other roommates would be out of town.  Bret and I are often on Googletalk during the day while Jeff is the only Luddite I've ever known who is a computer science professional.

Bret tells me over Googletalk that he had an idea for a Shock: and I'm all, "Keep it to yourself and we'll all go over it together with all three of us at the table...alright...tell me your idea for a Shock:"

His idea is a world where everything is a commodity, where everything is for sale.  I'm not quite grokking it but I played it cool and said that we'd talk about it when we played.  I was feeling shitty about doing any of the important stuff in Shock: before sitting down at the table.  Even if it was over e-mail, I'd have felt alright about it but over instant messaging seemed like a bad idea.

When we finally sat down, all three of us ready to game, we tossed out the Shock: first, when we should've been tossing out Issues.  Bret tossed out his Shock: idea and Jeff had the same look on his face as I did when I read it.

But I'd been kind of chewing on it and realized what was missing for me was a kind of science-fiction visual.  So, I pitched that this commodities market was a kind of digital implant in the eye that allowed people to see the value of everything, from friendship to a flirtation to true love to murder.  We all started to shake our heads and Bret tossed out the scene in Fight Club where the apartment is shown as a kind of digital Ikea catalogue but inserted in our eyeballs and we were on the same page.

So, we started tossing out issues.  We started off with really elemental stuff and got more specific as the minutae rolled all over the table on index cards.

The issues were Death, Greed, Sex, Revolution and Extreme Price Fluctuation.

Bret picked his character at the crux of the Commoditification of the World and Death, Jeff picked Revolution and I picked Greed.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here because before we came up with Protags, we had minutae.

I'm just writing the things that were put on index cards:

-Jetsons/Star Trek/Demolition Man: a shiny future
-Paying for crimes = Taxes
-Civilizations exist on one world, other planets are used for resources.
-Digital Eyeballs, Ikea-vision with pull down menus
-You can own stock and shares in politicians
-Death: You have to pay to continue living
-Nothing is illegal as long as you can afford it.  "Capitalism was always like this; we're just honest."

We absolutely forgot to use our minutae when using the audience's d4, which made them only color with no real bite.

Bret went after his Story Goal in his second scene, which caused me to have a "Wait, you can't do that!" moment but we read the rule book, realized that this is what Bret really wanted and went for it.  And it was fun.

Honestly, I felt like this game triggered some kind of -what gaming is supposed to be- instinct in me and once I let go of that and just had fun with the experience of Shock:, exactly as it is, I had a blast.  Once Bret's scene went by and was cool and we got to see Jeff and my scenes take shape, we were all much happier and less tense.  I'm not sure where this tension was exactly coming from.

Jeff had trouble antagonizing Bret's Protagonist.  Maybe when I post everyone's character sheets up, it will become clear as to why that was or maybe Jeff will log on in and speak about it.  It probably didn't help that I was the only one who had read the book.

We made some cool-ass fiction.  It wasn't the most fun I've had at the table but it was certainly the most writing-inspiring session I've had.  Usually, I keep the writing creativity and the gaming creativity a bit distanced from each other but something about the fiction that came out of this game just screamed to be written.  And dammit, with Jeff and Bret's permission, I'm writing it.  Its fun.

I want to play again.  I'd like to see Bret and Jeff read the book and for us to make up a big old sprawling space opera campaign with multiple shocks and issues running down the page and minutae all over the damned place.  It felt like we weren't using the game to its fullest.  Links weren't utilized at all, other than as background color; that's a problem, I think.

Those are my first thoughts.  Questions or comments are welcome.

More on this later...

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Links are fun, but there's something that makes people, including me, forget them sometimes. I think it's the "changing perspective" part, where you're putting your own resources at risk to keep the Fortune in the Middle. Like, the resolution *can* be done at that point, but it's not necessarily.

[Bret Gillan]

I definitely need to read 1.1. Gaming with Judd is awesome, but rules are not his strength. So I think if Links or Minutia got underused, it was just due to an overall lack of understanding of the rules at the table.

The game was possibly one of the most intelligent sessions I've ever played in. It felt like a thoughtful examination of... whatever... and I was waxing all philosophical and shit. At one point the collections agent had something of a breakdown when he realized that people were dying accidentally because of a bug in the accounting software. If people were dying as a result of mistakes rather than how much money they had, then life and death no longer made sense. That was a point where I felt like I'd really crossed over into an alien philosophy, but one that made sense.

Judd said this wasn't the most fun he's had, and I'd agree, but there was a different kind of pleasure to be derived from this game. It made me think. Most games don't make me do that. And the thing about Shock is that it's wired to make me think. It doesn't happen on accident.

There was definitely some tension in the game. I think I was in a defensive mode in the first place, so when Jeff and Judd were leaning on me to not go for my story goal in the second scene I got on the pissed off side of the spectrum. The tension broke pretty quick here when Judd and Jeff realized I was getting pissy and were like "okay, cool - do it" and I realized I was being pissy and tried to relax about it.

Overall, I think our session missed some of the rules. Pre-game setup bounced around between Shock, Issues, and Characters out of order, and we did drop Minutia and Links almost completely.

Judd, I am totally behind the Space Opera idea. A Game of Thrones in spaaaaaace!

[Judd]

I definitely need to read 1.1. Gaming with Judd is awesome, but rules are not his strength. So I think if Links or Minutia got underused, it was just due to an overall lack of understanding of the rules at the table.

I remember reading those rules out loud but I think we just missed 'em once we got into the heat of dice rolling and such.

The way I tend to learn games is to play them the first time as best I can, go back and re-read 'em (often with another player or players having read them too) and then play again with the full rules behind us.  That second re-reading, having played the game once and felt something missing tends to be really helpful and is the reading where everything really sticks.

Judd, I am totally behind the Space Opera idea. A Game of Thrones in spaaaaaace!

That is so on.

[Bret Gillan]

You did read them aloud. I actually remembered that bit of rules about halfway through the game (the tie between Minutia and Audience dice) but since we'd already been playing decided not to bring it up.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

For the record: addressing your Story Goal in the second scene is totally legit. It just can't happen in the first scene.

Judd, I learn rules the same way you do.

[Judd]

For the record: addressing your Story Goal in the second scene is totally legit. It just can't happen in the first scene.

Yeah, we went right to the book.

I was all, "Can you fucking do that?"  The book said it was kosher and Bret was all over it and we shut up and played.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Good plan!

With 13 Credits, it's possible to have as few as two and as many as four scenes per Protag.

[xenopulse]

Jeff had trouble antagonizing Bret's Protagonist.

I had trouble antagonizing Jake's Protagonist in our game. I would love to have some more guidance in the book on how to do setup well. That is, the book tells you all about how to set up, but not necessarily how to do it so it really hits home. That's one of the things I found difficult with Sorcerer, too. That is, since these games introduce not only new mechanics but new ways of structuring the situation, please tell me (with lots of examples) how to make the most of that

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Guys, I'd love to discuss this over at Xenoglyph. This could stand a full discussion, perhaps with multiple threads. I don't really know what makes it fly for me and not for other people, so let's hash it out!

[Judd]

The other thing that gave us pause was scene framing after that initial scene.  We just went with the Protag's player framing the scene but for a second, we were a bit puzzled.

The Praxes were Money-Humanity & Violence-Negotiation

Here are the characters:

Name: Null (The Collections Agent)

Features:
Does not own an identity
Owns a daughter, Ophelia
Kills with bare hands
Wrecked with guilt

Links:
Psychiatrist
Sensei

Story Goal:
To save someone's life.

Antagonist
Name:
The Collections Agency

Minutiae:
The Machine
Team of Engineers
Collections Manager

Protagonist
Name:
President Anastasia

Features:
President of Earth
Estranged Husband
Cabal of Constituents

Links:
Kept Man: Her Lover
Believes that the Market will sort itself out

Story Goal:
I want her to make the world a better place with her power and position

Antagonist
Name:
N-Lighten

Minutiae:
Corporate entity that own majority stock in presidency, N-lighten
Vast manufactoring and retail assets
CEO, Harr?? Glint

Protagonist
Name:
Midas (um, I didn't know that at all...nice name, JEFF!)

Features:
Can't be bought with normal money
Competing alternate currency
Messiah
Rich

Links:
First Believer
Permanent Life

Story Goal:
Wants the Revolution

Antagonist
Name:
Planetary Market Reserve
P.M.R.

Minutiae:
Planetary Market Reserve
Stock Trader Shock Troops
Price Virus (no idea what this was, never used)

What kind of threads do you want to see come out of this over at the Glyph Press forum, Joshua?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Judd, I'd like to discuss "How to be an Antagoginist" over there. It's not hard for me, but it's hard for me to say what I'm doing. I think some discussion will illuminate to me what's hard for some people, then I'll figure out how to say it.

"Does not own an identity"! Ha!

[Judd]

I'm not really clear on what the Antagonist's minutiae are supposed to do.

They fleshed out the Antagonist and gave us little details to play with but are they there for the audience to use like any other minutiae when they toss their d4 into the conflict?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Yeah, Audience can use them like any other Minutia. But mostly, they're there to flesh out the Antags. They don't have a whole lot of mechanical impact.

[drnuncheon]

Judd, I'd like to discuss "How to be an Antagoginist" over there. It's not hard for me, but it's hard for me to say what I'm doing

That would be great.  Maybe people can post sample *tagonists and then say "Antagonize me!" and you can teach by example.  I'll dig up some of the ones from our game when I get home.