My Misspent Youth

The Post-Punk Prandulators

I’ve been playing Misspent Youth every week for the last couple of months with Evan Torner, Kat Jones, and the designer, Rob Bohl. It’s his first publication and it’s in ashcan form. I believe it’s sold out now (EDIT: It’s not! But there aren’t many left. Check the comments to get a copy!), but the ashcan phase is nearing completion, so you’ll be able to get the full version sometime soon.

It’s maybe 50 years in the future. New Orleans has been hit by hurricane after hurricane and its management has been handed over to the Mangrove corporation, a hotel and disaster population management company.

In the center of the city are the floating remains of New Orleans, repolished and slick for a few hundred “perfect” people living inside — perfect being a matter of genetic fashion. Outside is a ring of desperate people, used as cheap labor and fed on a nourishing but narcotic “Goo”. It keeps their bellies full and their motivation low.

goo

This vast ring is all floating rafts, lashed so tight and close you never see the water. People live in houseboats. Neighborhoods have tides and waves. And everyone knows that the Big One, the truly terrifying hurricane, is on its way. But three kids are tired of that shit.

They are Lillybelle (played by Kat), a hippie earth mother, genuine and naïve and infectious with her passion …

Sammy (played by Evan), a kid with money and connections whose firmest belief is that he is a great author and a great hero…

and Benoît (played by me), an Algerian/French punk raised on the inside by (and to be) a chef, back when they had real food in there and everyone wasn’t just to be fed Fancy Goo.

They wanted people to eat real food, smoke real weed, and fuck for love and passion. Together, they sold drugs (a lot of drugs), beat policemen very badly, did what you do to rats (a lot of rats) and raised a (frankly, shitty) popular revolution against Mangrove. They (at least two of them) fucked a lot and had a vague, 17-year-old kind of relationship.

We finished the game with some revelations about the characters:

Sammy was truly asexual — I couldn’t ever figure out if that was going to change about him, and Evan played him that way to the end. And it turned out, he truly had it in him to be a real author. His fake accent, attention whoring, and action movie heroics were just grist for the eventual mill.

Lillybelle was curious: alternately gracious and scheming, sexually free but manipulative, she first raised a crowd to our aid, then wound up founding a religion.

Benoît was furious at Mangrove. He wanted to simply kill every person therein and turn it into a populated greenhouse, with the able people from the ring farming and living inside in the safety of the dome. It turns out, the one thing that was in his way was Lillybelle. For all his narcissism, he actually loved her and knew that he relied on her to keep himself from self-destruction. In the final episode, in our epilogues, Benoît had sold out completely. He’d been willing to sacrifice everything for his revenge against the people in the dome, but Kat sold out Lillybelle to save him. She spread her religion — a watered down “Spiritual, but not religious,” crystal-waving religion — for Benoît. My big plan had been for him to self-destruct completely without his democidal dream to sustain him. But the rules intervened on Kat’s and Benoît’s behalf. Benoît wound up farming, teaching everyone how to cook again, and eventually finding a non-violent compromise when Mangrove came back to finish the job. It was in no small part due to Kat’s public, religious persona that Benoît was able to so negotiate. But he was so disappointed in her, they never managed to see each other again. Sammy wound up having a clique of asexual artists. They wrote together and formed the “creation myth of our society”.

The game does what it’s supposed to do. I was some extreme version of 17-year-old me, all violence and comedy. The dude got laid a lot more than I did, though.

There were also, of course, scenes of underwater action, a fight with not one but two hot ninja women, a storm that scrubbed away a city, a villainous black-eyed middle manager with an escape pod, illegal rooftop gardens full of tomatoes, basil, and marijuana, a plastic underwater chill room, Cajun sepratists, sabotage of the Goo network. The game gives plenty of latitude and direction on the aesthetics of the environment. But all of that is in service to the teenage rebellion that you are the center of — in our case a teenage rebellion about drug use, social class, and sex. Its story arc mechanics give you good direction on what’s to do at any moment.

The game really does what it promises. It’s a good time.

Eyes in the Night, Delivered To Your Doorstep

Beowulf. An epic game by Joshua A.C. Newman

Beowulf is off to press on the morrow! I’m doing a very limited run, Ashcan-style, so if you want to read the poem, consider the exegesis, play the game, and give me feedback, this is your chance!

I’m selling it for $14+$5 S&H, or just regular $14 at Gen Con. Since the run is limited, I’ll be selling the remainder at Gen Con that I haven’t sold via my own site, so if you want to make sure you have a copy, preorder and I’ll shoot it off to you as soon as they get to my doorstep. If you want to wait until Gen Con, you can, but I’ve had a few people interested in preorders already, so you take your chances with the Wyrd.

Even better than picking up a copy at the Playcollective or Ashcan Front booths, order one from me, play with your friends, play with me at Gen Con, and give me feedback that will both be fun to generate and help produce a great final book.

It’s 244 pages long, 5″ x 8″, and I’ve made uglier things in my life.

Order Beowulf (sold out. Please give feedback!)

Shangri-La: The Eightfold Path of Submission

Shock: Shangri-La

In memory of a Shock: game at Dreamation last, I offer this, the flag of Shangri-La, a totalitarian state based on government-controlled reincarnation.

(I can’t for the life of me find my notes. If you could let me know that you were in that game, it would be great. I gotta give credit for the awesome creativity at that table.)

5-1=Three

Three Musketeers

I’ve just spent the last two weeks exploring the Mid-Atantic states, spending time with friends and family in Richmond, VA, Washington, DC, and Durham, NC. Thank you all for hosting me. I had a spectacular time. I am blessed with wonderful people. Thank you for your support, your indulgence, and your senses of humor.

A week ago Last Monday night, I landed with the Durham Three (who are, mysteriously, Four, but Jason was sick. And I was there. So that’s four…) for an evening and we played a game of Shock: about individuals sacrificed for politics, demagoguery, and the responsibility of the Press. These were amplified with the Shock of a robot running for President — John Toyota-Kennedy (he’d married in). He was running on the popular but divisive platform of citizen’s rights for all sentients. Political sentiment was anti-robot to the point that Green Cards — required for robots to work, since they’re not citizens — had been altogether eliminated. Many robots had become citizens over time, but the process of naturalization had been wholly suspended and now Joe’s Protag — a Salvadoran line cook — was the man with the Last Green Card. That made him politically valuable and a celebrity. His Story Goal was to be reunited with his family. Instead, the government (in the form of the Office of the Secretary of Media, played by Clinton as my Antag and the INS robot with a deep contempt for robotkind played by Remi) conspired to use him up and throw him out with false promises after making him do horrible things.

Clinton’s Protag was a militant Pete Seeger, a combat robot with a banjo and one leg. He traveled around the US and Canada as a veteran combatant pleading the case of his own obvious humanity to a receptive audience. His pleasant demeanor belied a calculating and clever politician — a very human character indeed. He eventually negotiated the secession of Alaska as a robot homeland to share with the First Nations who’d been (apparently) trying to figure out how do such a thing on their own. He wound up being assassinated alongside Remi’s Rabbi Vivek Shapiro.

R. Shapiro was alone in his niche. As the world’s religions had rejected the prodigious robotkind, he’d found himself in an amazing position: the only religious leader in the world for millions of robots using his television show to stay in touch with them. His wife, Hadassah, was a robot, and though she played little part in the story as a character herself, she set things nicely: in the opening scene of Remi’s story, he was confronted outside the TV studio where he worked by a woman babbling about her boy having been killed by a robot and it getting away scot-free. The Rabbi and she shot each other. The good rabbi had shot low and defensively. The woman, Susan, shot high at his face, shattering it. He’d decided to become converted, and in the process, became the Vice-Presidential candidate just as he was assassinated. The EMP bomb that killed him also killed Clinton’s protag — who later emerged, backed up, and still missing his leg. Hadassah also died in the assassination.

The whole time, my Protag, a journalist, was being yanked around by the atrocious Secretary of Media — Angelina Jolie on the outside, Joseph Goebbels on the inside. He job was to establish the safety of US media, using law, smokescreen controversies, and eventually assassination to achieve her ends. It was never stated, but she was pretty clearly the most powerful public figure in the country. In the end, she and her office’s mandate were exposed as violently anti-Constitutional. Also, I got to beat up my chickenshit editor. It was a rare shard of optimism for a game of Shock: frankly.

I’m not sure when the episode will be up. It looks like it’s the next one, but I’m not sure. But thanks, guys. I had a really good time. You really know how to bring it.

End

Believe it or not, it was a story with great emotional weight.

This last weekend, I went to Triangle, VA to go to Camp Nerdly, a gathering for self-deprecating awesome people. I played a bunch of games and all were good. But I’m looking for something when I go to Nerdly or a convention: I’m looking for a real experience, where I learn about myself and the people around me, where we make some really affecting fiction. This last weekend, that game was not either of the fun Shock: games I played, nor was it the game of Dogs in the Vineyard that I ran (the bloodiest one I’ve ever seen), but, unspurprisingly, a game of PTA.

It was called End and it was about trying to find meaning and human connection in a literally disposable world, where sex is used to control and maintain the status quo and never for love of any sort.

Remi Treuer Produced and I (Solin Trrur) played with Tony Lauer-Basch (Melody), Nick Novitski (Donnie), Krista Evanouskas (Kandra), and Travis Farber (Julien). Remi’s started an AP thread over here. It’s sexually explicit, but if you’re reading my blog regularly, you’re not put off by the F-word.

(The picture at the top of the post was cropped from one that came up in a Google search for “awkward sex”. I chose it for the detached expression on her face that I saw a lot during End.)

Spacecraft from Mechaton

You’re going *where?*

 

A few weeks back, Emily, Vincent and I got together to battle in the space over Tarkut. At issue was a communications satellite held by Emily’s Rasili Empire. Through it, any one of us could command the communications of the entire planet for propaganda purposes. Vincent made a big threat early on: “I’m gonna keep you from getting that satellite no matter what.” I took that to heart. I also realized that I wasn’t going to be able to fight off both of them, cuz they were both going to be gunning for me. So I started my setup with one guy out front to make Vincent think I was going to be fighting for the satellite, which got him good and committed. I placed the rest of my guys behind him. The look on both of our faces is Vincent going “Holy shit, how am I gonna pull this out?” and me thinking, “Have I just made a terrible strategic error?

Vincent didn’t pull it out. I didn’t win, but I got close, and in the Campaign rules, that counts for something. Next game, Vincent’s gotta be gunning for Emily again. I may find myself an ally. We’ll see.

In any event, I had three new models for this game. Here they are.

shuttle.jpg

The Shuttle. This came up from a remote launch point in the desert outside Tarkut. It was supplied by our mysterious benefactor.

spacecraft.jpg

The deep space craft. We hijacked this old piece of shit and use it to haul mecha around orbit.

shuttleandartillery.jpg

The only purpose-built space mecha among the Paktali. It was on artillery duty.

So there they are. We’re planning up another battle for the near future. Keep yourself appraised of actual events in the ongoing Battle of Tarkut here, or read scandalous propaganda over at Anyway.

Live, from New Jersey

A Nagra.

One of the nice things about Shock: is that it generates these artifacts from play; the Minutiæ, the Grid, and the *Tags. But those tell the stuff around the story, not the story itself. So I was very excited at Dreamation when Dan Ravipinto offered to record the game we were playing, Cannie Row (from a couple of posts back). He’s posted that recording (watch out! It’s 4 hours long!) along with the other games he played that weekend over at his new funspace, peccable.glyphpress.com. These are bound to be of greatest value to those of us who were actually in the games themselves, but if you want a full fleshout of how World Generation works in Shock: it’s a good way to get it. Dice hit the table at around 00:85 with a grouchy Orion dealing murderously with New Cannies. I haven’t finished listening to it yet, but we’re having a good time.

How to Make A Character You Care About: a case study.

A US Soldier in Viet Nam.

A couple of my fellow fiction game players have commented that I make characters who I get really into. I want to share my technique because it’s really satisfying to me. This is strictly for Narrativist play by the Forge definition; without rules to support this kind of play, I think you could really wind up making yourself unhappy.

First, some nondefinitive definitions:

  • Protagonist: An active character in a moral conundrum sufficiently similar to our own experience that we understand why that character behaves the way they do.
  • Antagonist: A character taking the opposite moral stance from, and acting against the interest of, the Protagonist.
  • Situation: The circumstances over which the *Tagonists conflict.

So, let’s take a look at my character, “Jesus” (pronounced the English way, not the Spanish way) from last weekend’s game of carry, a game about war. The following is kind of explicit, so I’ll put it behind a cut so you won’t accidentally read it if you’re not up to hearing a story about soldiers losing their shit during the Viet Nam War. Continue reading “How to Make A Character You Care About: a case study.”

Canny Row

Europa

At Dreamation, I got to run two games of Shock: Social Science Fiction. In the first, the Shock was “Post-Scarcity”. It was a good game, but overbooked. I wound up sitting out and trying out an improvised “audience” role. It worked just fine. I wish there’d been four Protags instead of five with someone else playing the audience, but live and learn. In any event, it was enjoyable, but eclipsed by the second game on Saturday night, Canny Row.

But that was far from all. Here are the bands I got to play with:

Friday

  1. Mechaton with Ben Lehman. He’d finally gotten his mecha after they’d been lost in the mail on their way to him in China for months. He won. I made a bad strategic decision followed by a bad tactical decision and he didn’t make any bad decisions. That’s how that game works.
  2. Shock: with Matt, Jeff (a Son of Kryos), Luke Crane, Shane, and Phredd. Post-Scarcity highlighted issues of Unemployment, Deception, Duty, and Love. It featured rival economists (one of whom was an AI modeled on Yogi Bear), a nanobiologist trying to cure a disease brought about by the ubiquitous nanotech in the wold, and a universal personal integrity rating system being hacked for social currency by a broker and a rogue nanobiologist. The integrity network wound up playing heavily in the story, with the irony being that the highest integrity seemed to be gained by those with the least scruples, and the earnest losing their integrity as they fought it.
  3. carry, a game about war. This was played by me, Nathan Paoletta, Dave Cleaver, and Adam Dray. I’ll write more up about this later. The game’s about soldiers in Viet Nam and was pretty explicit.

Saturday

  1. Burning Wheel with a pile of people, plus several other peoples’ worth of Luke Crane. This game sure does what it does. I’m pretty certain that this game’s not for me. If you want a traditional-looking fantasy game with lots of gnarly character stuff, where tactical thinking and dramatic conflict are both significant, though, this is one rockin’ game. It featured lots of lying characters and bigotry. Good stuff.
  2. Shock: Canny Row. See below.
  3. Verge. This was a very productive playtest with designer Adam Dray, Ben Lehman, Dave Cleaver, John (sorry, man, I don’t remember your last name), and me. The game uses a focused brainstorming process, the product of which is a game board on which you play the story. Weight is given to players whose ideas are best liked, which is important for a Science Fiction game. By the end, we’d eliminated the need for a GM, realizing that Adam was playing a part like anyone else. I eagerly anticipate its completion. I’ll be very happy to play this with my friends. This game started while Dave, Ben and I were coming down from Canny Row and we very excitedly leapt into another SF story. We stopped play around 4 AM. Ben and I talked about it until 5. Then we passed out cold.

Preview of Shock: Canny Row

Issues:

  • Immigration
  • Xenophobia
  • 2nd Class Citizenship

Shock:

  • Planetary colonization

The players were, from my left:

  • Dan Ravipinto (Who was nice enough to record the session)
  • Dave Cleaver (for whom I ran a Shock: demo via chat over at Story Games a few months ago and also played Carry with me a few hours before)
  • Ben Lehman (who wrote Who Art in Heaven, the fiction in Shock:)
  • Me (who wrote the game and was kind of sleepy)

I’ll have a full Actual Play up as soon as I can. That report will sell games. It was such a good time. We made a really good story about ethnic divisions on Europa and just how poorly people can get along. Plus, sex!

Dan recorded the whole thing. I look forward to listening soon! Dan, if you’re reading this, please contact me. You’ve got my card.At the end, we started speculating about a sequel. I think that’s how I’m going to consider “campaign” games from now on: distinct stories in series. We really wanted to check in a century later, around 24oo CE. If we’re together again, I’d really like to tell that story. Maybe we can arrange things that way?

The whole con was great for the indies. We were tremendously overbooked (I had twice the signups that I had space for. It’s a good thing people were sleepy by Saturday night and only three people showed for my three slots). Vinnie, one of the organizers of the con, said that we were the majority draw for RPGs this year as a group. He encouraged us strongly to spread the passion over to Dexcon, in July. We’ll have to see if we can do that.