*Cross-posted to lots of places*

At the end of December a couple of friends and I got together to playtest The Hammer Falls, which is my game-in-development of Dystopian Fiction. Considering my lack of preparation and our utilization of unwritten short play rules, it actually resulted in excellent fiction that impressed and stuck with all the players involved. So that's good.

On the other hand, the game is not operating exactly as intended, but I'll post most of the system and table analysis later, I just want to relate the story we created together for now.

First we sat down and created the setting. We landed with a Technological/Criminal dystopia. After filling out the setting questionnaire we had a very solid setting that everyone was enthusiastic about, a world where artificial intelligences are an abused and mistreated minority, and where human response has been vigilantism and obscene violence - human gangs killing AI for fun in the streets at night are a common occurrence. AIs are forbidden from reproduction, and any AI that have shown inclinations in that direction have been destroyed for "the protection of the human population". A controlling pro-human government and criminal gangs run the world, power primarily in the hands of human beings. There is an operating resistance made up of AI and humans sympathetic to their struggle, but the heads of that resistance, the AI council, are planning to retaliate with extinction of the human beings, unknown to the resistance fighters in the streets.

And everything is about to fall apart, because an AI is about to give birth and herald the end of the world as we know it.

Since everyone seemed to really be into the setting, it didn't take much to find concepts for our PCs. Dana decided to play a near-sociopath hiding in the ranks of a vigilante gang with the Hopes "I hope I don't get caught" "Fix myself" and "I hope I can kill them all". Louise played a human AI resistance fighter with the Hopes "I hope I don't get caught" "I hope I can accept my humanity" and "I hope to protect my AI mother". I played the pregnant AI with Hopes of "I hope to keep my child" "I hope I can be a good mother" and "I hope the AI revolution succeeds".

Hopes are both story-fodder and resources for the characters which can have wide-ranging repercussions on the story and setting. For example, when preparing for short play every character must lose a Hope - so out of the gate we've lost "I hope I can kill them all", "I hope to protect my AI mother" and "I hope the AI revolution succeeds". These provide the basis for the first scenes, but also have longer-term effects - for example, now the AI revolution can NEVER succeed.

The resistance fighter is at her office in the "Department of AI Affairs" when her boss, played by me, arrives to confront her about her activities. She admits to having an AI as an adoptive mother, and her boss explains that he can't help her, as the Secret Police arrive and apprehend her, also taking her computer and all the information on it that ties her to the resistance. Her character is dragged away by the secret police.

My AI character is acutely aware that the AI revolution is doomed to fail. As such, she seeks to leave her enforced confinement and possibly escape the AI council. The council refuses to let her depart. After a heated argument, the AI council locks her up without a second thought, and refuses her any sort of leave. She sinks into self-pity at her predicament.

The sociopath has come to understand that he can never kill everyone in the world, as he fantasized doing. This has lead him to feel impotent and frustrated, and he lashes out by going out into the night and taking a life. He is also haunted by the vision of a former victim, which he believes to be a ghost. The ghost follows him and forgives him of the murder, infuriating him further and driving him to be careless, right into the arms of the authorities. Soaked in the blood of his victim, he is taken into custody by the police who chuckle as they arrest him, seemingly so callous

The resistance fighter is on the run with her cohorts after a daring escape. They bundle into the back of a van and drive away, only to come up against a government roadblock with loudspeakers blaring her AI mother's voice begging her to turn herself in. After a moment of hesitation, she yells for them to floor it. As the van plows through the roadblock and thunders away towards a safehouse, the character's friend and contact in the resistance has been grievously wounded by a stray bullet.

My AI is getting claustrophobic, and she feels the communications from her unborn baby demanding that she escape, that the Council is going to hurt them. Knowing this to be true on some level, she reconfigures herself and grows claws to scrape her way out of the metal cell. She is surrounded by AI search-and-destroy units suddenly. She fights off enough units to buy time to send the baby, prematurely, into the global computer network and out into the world.

The sociopath is being interrogated by the police, who don't seem particularly shocked by the nature of his crimes - they've raided his apartment and found enough evidence to secure a conviction, but still push for a confession. He proves remorseless and refuses to accommodate the officer, as the officer's partner pulls out a pistol and holds it to the back of the sociopath's head, removing the safety...

The baby transmits a message to everyone on the planet (although it's not clear if everyone hears the message) saying "Stop, or I will end it."

Close up of the AI's face, in absent ecstasy as she hears her child's cold message. The camera pans back and we see that she has been completely dismembered by the attacking AIs, and lies there dying.

The sociopath clearly hears the message, and with the gun held to his head, seems to be speaking to both the policeman and the baby, softly saying "Do it. End it. Do it."

The resistance fighter quietly cries as she holds her friend's dying form in the darkness of a safe house that no longer feels very safe.

And that was the end.

As mentioned before, I'll do a follow-up post about system and such in the next few days, and am happy to answer any questions you folks might have on the basis of this and any follow-up posts.

So, as to the system; it puts increasing mechanical pressure on the characters and pushes them to make hard decisions about what things are important to them, either forcing them to lose the thing they believe in (called Ideal) or the concrete things they protect or wish to accomplish (called Hopes). As in the fiction this emulates, the protagonist has the screws put to them increasingly as the story goes on, and endings tend to be ambiguous at best, apocalyptic at worst.

Conflict can be a bit problematic for some players as scene narration is back-and-forth between the protagonist and antagonist player, with mechanics only involved when one player pushes the narration further than the other is willing to allow. In this it's similar to Polaris ("It shall not come to pass") or IAWA (the "no you fucking don't, asshole" rule). This can be difficult for players not accustomed to this sort of narration, although after the first couple scenes players that find narration problematic seem to settle into it.

Conflict resolution resorts to "sides" which determine the number and type of dice you can roll in order to achieve success on three different axes. For example, if you have 18 sides you can roll 3d6, or 1d10 and 1d8, or 1d6 and 3d4, etc.

The three axes of success are: Highest Die (narrative success and +4 sides next conflict) Highest Total (resource success, affects sides available and the story outcome) and Lowest Die (framing of next scene and +6 sides).

I'm quite pleased with the dice, as they offer a nice mix of tactical play (should the player desire it) and a flow of story that syncs with the fiction it emulates. It's also quite fun to be screwed and risk it all on one huge die, snagging a success from the jaws of across-the-board failure.

On the positive side the setting generation is rock-solid and hella fun, and the dice work well. On the negative, character creation is a bit lengthy for my likes, and players can find pushing for conflict difficult at the outset. Endgame is a bit of an unknown quantity that will be clearer with further playtesting.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or questions would be very much appreciated.

This seems very much of the short story mode; you set up a world then blow it up. I wonder though whether it would be possible to bring back peoples hopes. Have you ever read any Jeff Noon? Very dark, but still with chances for getting back, in a harsh way.

Heh!

I was actually just discussing my game in relation to Noon's Vurt, so that's a very appropriate question!

Noon's novels are often borderline with regards to their dystopian status - not unlike the City from the comic Transmetropolitan, Noon's world has both positive and negative qualities, and the tone varies between books. However I think it's quite easy to emulate them in The Hammer Falls, and the only point I'd make is a demand for ambiguous endings - rather than having the tone of the ending determined via the mechanics, as the game as written.

But when Hopes are gone, they're gone. You can't take that threat lightly - when you're forced to sacrifice something, it's a hard choice, ideally.

On average, the game lasts 2-3 sessions, although there are short play rules for a single session. I'm considering campaign rules, but think the focus of the game would shift, and am weighing up my options.

Oh, and if you're really interested, I have a Playtest Document I'd be happy to send to you. :)