A Dark And Quiet Room

This was cross-posted at the Forge and Story Games. You might find the discussion there interesting.

Right now, right this moment, right as you read these words, humanity is devastated by an alien attack from the edges of our understanding.

Introduction

I’ve been really curious about Bliss Stage ever since I heard about it a couple of years ago. I admit that it was something of a dark curiosity. On the one hand, I have a long-time fanboy appreciation for mecha. My first game was a mecha wargame, and my favorite bits about Games Workshop’s EPIC game was its mechs. So a game about mechs formed from relationships, piloted by angsty teens, seemed right up my alley. Add to this the fact that Bliss Stage was written by Ben Lehman, the author of Polaris, and I was ready to buy. On the other hand, though, I was concerned that the stories would necessarily degenerate into sexually vile territory. The idea that combat power comes from intimacy, which is best boosted by having sex, seemed disturbing. So I remained uncertain.

Then I heard about the mission mechanic (which I will discuss below), and I was pushed over the edge. So, when Ben announced that there were only a few more preorder slots available, I threw down my cash and bought in.

I do not regret it.

I know that Bliss Stage has been getting a lot of love around the Net, but now, the World’s Biggest Polaris Fanboy is bringing his power to bear on Bliss Stage. So, suit up, strap in, and hold on.

…incoming transmission …
… Peoria Resistance Group…

Bliss Stage makes me think of this.

We are the resistance

Last Saturday (8/25/2007), we sat down to play Bliss Stage. Here are the players:

Seth—That’s me. As I mentioned above, I’m a big fan of Polaris, I like mechs, I like tragedy, and I like mind-bending settings. That puts me squarely in the target market for this game.

Crystal—This is my wife. She likes immersive games that focus on relationships. Mechs don’t really move her, although they aren’t a turn-off either. She did watch Evangelion with me, and she liked it. And she loves me, so she was willing to give Bliss Stage a whirl.

Gabrielle—This is my sister, who lives with us. Gabrielle has had some exposure to the mech genre, especially while she was helping me demo my own mecha game. More importantly, she has seen all the Matrix movies, so the dream world mech concept clicked fairly easily with her. Plus, she is also a Ben Lehman fan, so she was interested in the game.

By mutual consent, I was appointed to be the GM. We even had a brief conversation about how long it’s been since we’ve played a roleplaying game with a GM. (About two years, if I recall correctly.) I read the “Seven Years” and “The ANIMa” sections of the book to them, and then we started brainstorming.

Of late, it seems like all my roleplaying is happening in Peoria, where I live. Dirty Secrets must be set in the players’ home town, my recent game of Breaking the Ice was set in Peoria, and now Bliss Stage is in the ruins of Peoria, seven years from now.

Ah, the many sides of Peoria.

Anyways, we finally hashed out our resistance cell. They are headquartered in downtown Peoria, where they have dug tunnels connecting the basements of the different buildings together. Not only are they threatened by the aliens, but they must also fend off the Bigelow Boys, a real-life Peoria gang that has only become nastier in the seven years since the attack. Also, at age 15, everyone in the group starts doing drugs in an attempt to stave off the Bliss. So far, we don’t know if it will actually work for anyone other than Jared. Here’s hoping.

Here’s our Dramatis Personae:

Primary Figures

Jared—our authority figure. Age 27, stays high to stay awake. Once he was a white trash stoner, but now he actually has a purpose. Sadly, if he gives up his drugs, he gives up the fight.

Marcus—Gabrielle’s pilot. Age 17. Devoted Lover. Marcus is a family man. At least, as much of a family man as you can be at 17. He is married to Beth, and they have a daughter named Renee. They love each other but their relationship is immature.

Jude—Crystal’s pilot. Age 13. Carefree Hedonist. Jude is an ex-Bigelow Boy who finally split with the gang after betraying them to rescue the resistance cell. Now he pilots the group’s second ANIMa. However, he is not integrating well into the group, as he constantly slips away into the ruins to visit Rachel, a whore that he holed up with a while back. He respects Leah far too much to make a move on her.

Leah—Gabrielle’s anchor. Age 13. Mousy and studious. Very nervous. Has a crush on Jude but is too embarrassed to admit it.

Beth—Crystal’s anchor. Age 15. Usually anchors for Marcus. Punchy and violent at times, yet deeply in love with Marcus.

Secondary Characters

Joseph—Chief Scout for the group. Age 13. Owns a pack of vicious dogs and a Big Ol’ Knife. Cold and dangerous. Now married to Gloria after rescuing her from being raped by the Bigelow Boys. Why yes, Jude was nearby when this happened. Why do you ask?

Gloria—no specified role yet. Mother of Nathaniel as a result of her rape. Married to Joseph. (Also, proof of Ron’s assertion here.)

Rachel—whore in the wastes. Age 13. Not part of the resistance group, but Jude’s current thing.

Eve—resistance group’s manager and everyone’s “mother”. Age 17. Married to Jared. Pregnant. She should give birth before her eighteenth birthday, so maybe she can get on the drugs so the Bliss won’t get her.

The Kids

Kay—Age 7. Was the child of Jared’s neighbor. Now Jared and Eve are taking care of her. She cares for the two little ones of the community.

Nathaniel—Age 2. Gloria’s son. Adopted by Joseph. Precocious.

Renee—Age 4 months. Daughter of Marcus and Beth.

And last, but certainly not least, our Hope:

“We hope that we can establish a stable community.”

Some thoughts on creating your resistance group

So, did you follow all that? If you did, then you’re a better person than me. We took somewhere between two and three hours to put all that together, which was somewhat surprising to me. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you. It’s just a matter of expectations. I had hoped to run through the first mission that evening, but by the end of creating our resistance group, we were all tired and ready to call it quits for the evening.

The quantity of characters can be a little overwhelming, too. I know that we’ve pretty much created all the characters that we will use for the game, but still, pulling out that stack of index cards and flipping through it can be quite the experience.

Also, I found that the pace of the game slowed down sharply when we actually created pilots. Before then, everything was snappy. Then, when the players were working on assigning relationships, the energy level dropped. I think that this is because we only have one copy of the book, so only one player could work on his relationships at a time. Also, there was a lot of referring to the character cards, trying to remember who all we had invented, and this slowed things down, too. So, something to be aware of. In the future, it might be good to scrawl down a character relationship worksheet for each player to use when creating a pilot. Afterwards, the information could be transcribed onto the character cards.

Reflections on the game

At a certain point during prep, Crystal cited this Scripture verse: “Yet she will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” (1 Timothy 2:15) As we were forming our community, we realized that a major factor was the need to bear more children. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anyone left to consolidate the gains that we made, even if our ANIMa were victorious over the aliens. I think that this is going to be a running theme of our game. Our ability to resolve our hope in any positive sense is going to have to include the foundation of families in a protected environment.

Also, it will be interesting to see how relationships with the children morph over time. We also have a couple different “origins” of the children. Renee is born to a married couple, while Nathaniel is the result of a rape. He has been adopted, to be sure, but still, I wonder how much his parentage will be an issue in this fragile community.

Jude is also big trouble. While he is a pilot and therefore important, he hasn’t really integrated with the goals and philosophies of the group. That will be a problem.

Next up, our first session of gameplay.

But for now, this is Seth Ben-Ezra, of the Peoria Resistance Group, signing off.

…end transmission…