[Shock] A compilation of tips, clarifications & explanations

[matthijs]

SETUP

Suggested order for world & character creation

The order of operation in the book is logical, but it encourages wild creativity instead of focusing it. Here's a suggestion for how to do it:

1) Choose Shocks and Issues. (You might want to choose Issues before Shocks).
2) Choose who wants to Protagonize which cruces and who wants to Own the Shocks and Issues.
3) Write down a couple of Minutiæ, like 3-5, tops, about the world.
4) Write down your Protags' Features.
5) Agree on Praxes. (They should be informed by Issues, Shocks, Features and Links). Choose the Fulcra for your Protags.
6) Build Antags.

Creating *Tagonists:

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

Creating the grid:

Start with whoever wants to start creating the grid. Each player, in turn, puts one element on the Grid – either a Shock or an Issue. (Don't start with more than two Shocks; you can add them later in the game, if you need them, as your game world gets bigger).

Placing *Tagonists on the grid:

Place your Protagonists on the cruxes (intersections between Shocks and Issues) in turn. The antagonist occupies the same crux as the protagonist.

You can't put your Protagonist on an Issue or Shock that you own*. However, you don't have to own Shocks or Issues that you propose – if you arrange for another player to own them, you can place your Protagonist on them.

* 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

Just because a story ends doesn't mean you've used up the metaphorical value of the world you've created. Use the same Issues, Shocks, and Minutiæ, but make new Praxis. Or just keep the Minutiæ if you've explored your Issues and Shocks enough.

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.

[matthijs]

One question: In my notes (cut'n'pasted from various sources), there's some disagreement on this:

"You can't put your Protagonist on an Issue or Shock that you own".

Is this right?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Mostly right. When there's only one Shock, it's unavoidable and doesn't cause problems. Once you've got more than one Shock though, make sure the Shock owner takes a different Shock than zie owns by the next story.

Mattijs, this is a great service you've done. I'll sticky this here and post it over on Xenoglyph, too.

[matthijs]

Glad you liked it I'll edit the original post so your answer's in there, too.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Actually, do you mind if I repost? I forgot to ask that.

[matthijs]

Not at all!

[Anders]

This is very helpful Matthijs, thank you!

I had most of the implicit rules nailed but there's still some elusive stuff in there. To have this at hand as a check list for future games is going to be great.

[Pilgrim]

Very helpful.
I wish I'd found it before writing my review and that this makes it into subsequent editions.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Very helpful.
I wish I'd found it before writing my review and that this makes it into subsequent editions.

It's certainly working its way into future editions. I'm not sure how I feel about whether or not it was mentioned in the review. I don't think I can assume that players can fine my frickin' Forge forum.

That said, these clarifications make a lot of stuff work that didn't before if you just follow the rules in the book. It means that you can play much more satisfyingly.

If you want to do so, I think you can edit RPGnet reviews. Or mention it in a thread somewhere.

[Pilgrim]

Oh I plan to. I definitely plan to.