[Bliss Stage] Kids having kids
Ron Edwards:
Hi everybody,
I don't know whether this is permitted by the rules, but it seems to me that if Iain had been present at Gus' birth, and I imagine he was, that we could change the Intimacy to 5. Again, I don't know if this is compatible with the rules that you get several specific numbers combinations and allocate them.
Tuomas, my only possible response is "yes!" and to point to your post whenever anyone asks me about Bliss Stage.
Best, Ron
Ben Lehman:
Hey Ron:
Have flashbacks!
Ron Edwards:
Hello,
We continued our game, although Jake couldn't make it this time. Therefore the Pilots were Tina played by Shweta, Timmy played by Sam, and Iain played by Phil; Peter hung out with us and was able to play one of the secondary characters, Will, during an Interlude. Fortunately both of our Anchor players were present, with Phil playing Sean and Sam playing Amira.
My main concerns as GM were (1) to turn up the mechanical pressure, such that both Trauma and Bliss would be front and center; and (2) put characters together in Interludes whose interactions seemed to me could be relevant to the Hopes. Part of the latter, too, was to play my characters with a strong sense of self and participation in the resistance.
We started with a Mission scene for the most inexperienced/youngest Pilot, Tina. It was quite odd - no alarms were going off, it wasn't during the ordinary time for investigative or patrolling missions, but rather in the middle of the night, under great secrecy. Dr. Montgomery told her and her anchor, Sean, that his research had revealed some kind of central alien location, which he called the "altar." Tina's job was to find it and return without being tracked.
This turned out to be a pretty elaborate mission. I found myself doing something I thought I wouldn't, and brought the parents into it after all, all webbed up and their brain cavities serving as hosts for the spider-aliens. I was pleasantly surprised on reviewing the group's Hopes that they included figuring out what's up with the Bliss, meaning, the added content was actually relevant. Eventually, Tina failed her goal of finding the "altar," but succeeded in some clue-hunting (a goal she stated in-mission) and in evading pursuit.
I borked her Terror rules again! I'd resolved that rules issue with Phil and forgotten that it applied to Shweta as well. Damn! Because of that, Tina probably has not mechanically earned all three points of Trauma she's carrying. I'll fix that for next session.
I ran a lot of Interludes, one for each Pilot in this case. The first introduced the supporting character Will, the tough kid who protects the small community from the feral dogs. Iain turned out to be concerned about safety in general, and his conversation with Will ended up forming a Relationship with him. I think it's important that Iain, the oldest Pilot and also the only father in the story, broke his relationship with Dr. Montgomery in the first session. I'm planning on working that up in an Interlude one of these days. But for now, it was kind of fun to see the character interacting while not in crisis.
The second Interlude was between Dr. Montgomery and Tina, debriefing the mission. My brief narration following the Mission showed him as pretty frantic about the altar, but he was calm and a bit detached in the Interlude and very interested in the clues she'd found. He told her very strictly not to tell anyone about the mission, and they were judged to have built Intimacy 3 via an involved conversation. Oh - incidentally, we've finished every mission so far with a visual account of how the Pilot emerges from the tank, which has turned out to be quite important for characterization.
The third Interlude was between Timmy and Sean, as the former had heard some noises in the night and was suspicious about the secret mission. Sean didn't fully disclose, but made at least one verbal slip that heightened Timmy's concern. His friendly slap to Sean's shoulder built Intimacy as well, as a friendly gesture.
We moved into the next Mission scene, which I decided to set up as a two-Pilot, fully allied situation for Iain & Timmy. They were to draw fire from the aliens, luring them 'way away from whatever it was that the aliens do when they're not raiding or being attacked. The observer (i.e. player, real-person view) could put two and two together, linking Dr. Montgomery's interest in the "altar" with getting the aliens distracted, but none of the characters had enough information to do so.
In this case, both Pilot players were playing one another's Anchor as well, which made for a very active verbal "space" across us. I played the aliens differently; in Tina's mission, they were constantly present and threatening as she had to work and sneak her way through their valued areas, whereas in this one, they were absent or nearly so all the way up into the roll, because the whole point was to get the aliens' attention. I quite liked the Threat rules and chose what to Threaten very carefully. The mission was successful but not without its damage, especially placing a lot of Stress into relationships. Timmy broke another one, and at least four, maybe five of them ended racked right at Stress = Trust.
We ended with two Interludes. The first was between Amira and Tina, beginning with the older girl and essentially the mother-figure of the small community giving the younger a veiled warning about Timmy and establishing some foundation for support if needed, and she also inadvertently found out about the secret mission. (This may lead to a Humanization Interlude between her and Dr. Montgomery later, I'm thinking.) This scene built Trust. There was an implied more-sex scene with Tina and Jimmy as well, but since Jimmy was out of the camera's eye this session, we merely referenced it - perhaps it'll be a Flashback some time. Shweta allowed as how their Intimacy stayed at 4, though.
The second and final Interlude, like their Mission, included both of the other Pilots, as Iain & Timmy got drunk on vodka to celebrate and unwind from their joint mission. The conversation exposed irreconcilable differences between their views; Iain loathes the Bliss and the missions in general, and wants nothing more than to give Gus some semblance of a normal life, whereas Timmy uses the missions as a high, and also as an escape from the painful relationships he's wrapped up in. They gained more Intimacy on the basis of the drunken banter, but the actual content of that Intimacy turned out to be rather grim.
Things do seem to be proceeding faster than I expected, primarily due to the Blissfulness of breaking relationships. Iain is more than half the way to Blissing Out; Tina is (perhaps unfairly) halfway to dying; Timmy is alarmingly willing to start and break relationships, and Sam is getting interested in the rules for when you break a relationship with your Anchor and when you have no ANIMa to draw on. That's working out fine, but to me, it seems thematically sound to link the dream-fighting experience to Bliss a little more solidly. I guess if I wanted to tweak the mechanics at all, I'd increase the Bliss from Missions, denying the possibility of 0 Bliss, perhaps putting 1 Bliss per blank, 5 per plus, and 2 or 3 per minus, or something like that.
We haven't seen any Flashbacks yet, but we talked about the rules for them and everyone became very interested. So I suspect they'll show up later.
Regarding my prep and thoughts about the big picture, we know that the aliens are concerned with Gus somehow, and that they are involved with parents and the Bliss somehow, although the latter connection is clearly complex. I have to work a bit on how I want to throw observations about the parents at the characters, because unless I'm misunderstanding, the exact nature of that connection will be subject to multiple people's narration, not merely my prep.
Our Authority is coming off as a little scary with his occult/ancient obsession, his secret missions, and the fact that he assigned the two guys the mission goal of drawing fire but neglected to specify that they get back safely. I'm not too directed at this moment regarding how nuts or counter-productive Dr. Montgomery is, being more interested in how he's perceived and raising the issue of who's in charge. Although I have not yet concocted his rational back-story, to whatever extent there is one, I won't play him directly against the resistance cell's Hopes - whatever it is he's doing, and why, will be consistent with those, and play itself will show whether they're acceptable in terms of leadership and details.
I was much more careful this time to make sure that a given Mission goal was being directly sought before permitting dice to be rolled; and this time we also understood and followed the rule only one Mission goal could be addressed at a time. Both of these led directly to more vivid and more content-rich missions.
All of us enjoy the way that the Interludes and Missions are deeply connected in terms of pure plot, and at least one person has observed what I've also read on-line, that it's the Interludes which seem to be the primary scene type.
Best, Ron
Chris_Chinn:
Hi Ron,
Quote
They gained more Intimacy on the basis of the drunken banter, but the actual content of that Intimacy turned out to be rather grim.
I feel like Bliss Stage can be described as "Joyful Wincing" - the character interactions are very human and real, and yet the craziness of it all infects everything, forcing you to wince at the same time.
Chris
SamuelRiv:
Perhaps sex in our (Ron's) game has been taken a bit too lightly so far, as I haven't had any real winces yet. In fact, it is getting somewhat hard getting into the character of a 14-year-old, mostly because I'm not having many reminders in my environment to do so. That may just be my failing so far.
Regarding interludes, it feels to me that most of the character development has been during missions, with interludes not being very developmental at all. Therefore, limiting them does not seem a major loss. However, my character (Timmy) has not really fleshed out yet - I'm still not sure who he is, and maybe asking for a specific interlude can solve that.
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