I recently tried Shock: for the first time. It was a mixed experience; some scenes were wonderful, some dull, some protagonist/antagonist interactions faltered, some shone. All in all, I felt the game didn't have strong enough guidelines and advice for play.

Then I read a few fora (here, glyphpress, Story Games), and found all sorts of things like:

- Who frames scenes after the first scene
- Who fills out the grid & how, with how many issues & shocks each/altogether
- Praxis should be the last thing the group decides on

Joshua, how about compiling all this stuff in one place? It's essential information. I want this game to work for me, and I have a strong feeling it can, but (speaking as "customer to publisher", not "playtester to designer"): The book is incomplete. You need to help us more.

Yeah, I'm working on exactly that. I agree that the book needs greater clarity. There are some important things that are implied but not stated that really need to be said.

I'm glad you enjoyed the parts you enjoyed and I'd love to clarify the parts you don't understand so you can get everything out of the game that's there when it's working.

Thanks!

I think most of our rules questions have been clarified by what's posted on the fora. However, there's always the need for my group(s) to improve on narrativist techniques (like bangs) that seem to be fairly essential for this style of play.

I want to play again - but I'll certainly be paying much more attention to making good protagonist/antagonist pairs, ones that work in the types of conflict-oriented stories Shock is designed for.

Cool! Let me know how it comes out next time you play.

Out of curiousity, who is meant to frame scenes after the first? We defaulted to Antags, but I'm just wondering what was intended?

Every time the Protag player's turn comes up, they say what they're doing now. The Antag player gets to twist everything the Protag says.

Sometimes, it happens the other way around. If that's OK with the Protag player, it's OK. For the most part, that makes it easier on the Protag, though. Same with setting Intents in a conflict: if the Antag sets hir Intent first, the Protag gets to say something in response. But sometimes it happens and it's not worth interrupting play for.