A Dark And Quiet Room

When I heard that Shock: was being released in its 1.1 edition, I was pretty excited. I had heard some nifty things about the original edition of the game, but early reports on the game text were disappointing. But now they were fixed! Hooray! Plus, I discovered recently that Crystal really likes SF, so long as it’s more than just spaceships and laser blasters. Well, that sounds a lot like Shock:. (It also sounds like Sign In Stranger, which is third in our current game rotation.)

So, recently, we sat down to play Shock:. Due to fatigue over several nights and learning the system, it took us three sessions to play through the entire story. I think that we would be able to work much faster in the future. However, I will report the whole run in this post.

Tools of the Trade

Shock: colored beer—just because

Our Shock: soundtrack
Part 1
Part 2

Constructing the Grid

In Shock:, the players begin by constructing a Shock/Issue Grid (or Grid, for short). An Issue is a real-life concern of one of the players, while a Shock is a major way in which the imaginary world differs from ours. In the 1.1 rules, each player can propose one or two Issues, and then the group agrees on a single Shock. Then the group divides Ownership of the Issues and the Shock. If you Own something, it means that you have final say over the details of how that thing is expressed in the game world. Finally, you decide on a Shock/Issue intersection that is interesting to you, and that’s where you will make your character.

For our game, we said that we would deal with Issues that were important to us but weren’t hot-button issues. That way we could keep the intensity of the game down.

We lied to ourselves. Yeah, it happens.

So, our Issues were Littering, Public Education, Mood Suppressing Drugs, and Political Corruption.

Our Shock was “All Thoughts are Public”. This means that anyone can sense your thoughts, just like hearing or seeing you. As the game went on, we settled on various sense impressions for thoughts, which were a combination of sight and sound.

Then we spent some time making up details about our world. These are called Minutiae, and this is a great idea. With some quick brainstorming, we were able to have a reasonably realized world. I won’t bore you with our entire list of Minutiae, but here’s a sampling:

–Thought residue can be left around for others to encounter. This is called “littering”.
–Everyone takes a drug called Litox to control thought leakage and prevent littering.
–Thoughts are contagious.
–Redheads are trouble. Everyone knows it.
–Karma Police patrol the populace.
–Government is theocracy that combines Buddhist doctrine, Catholic hierarchy, and Islamic sharia law.
–“Dosing” on Litox is an act of prayer.

Finally, the group needs to define two sets of opposed values that will be used as Praxis scales. These are the ways to “get stuff done” in the game world. Our Praxis scales were Personal Happiness vs. Corporate Responsibility and Politics vs. Sex.

So, it’s Equilibrium without gun kata, and everyone’s a telepath.

Nice, huh?

Enter the Characters

Here are the characters that we hashed out. :

Martin
Played by Seth
Shock/Issue: All Thoughts are Public/Political Corruption

Personal Happiness vs. Corporate Responsibility 7
Politics vs. Sex 4

Starting Features: Mad Prophet, Ex-Priest, Redhead

Links: My heresy is the truth; long, wild hair

Story Goal: I want to expose the Hierarchy’s corruption.

Antagonist: The Karma Police, played by Crystal

Kanjo Teki
Played by Crystal
Shock/Issue: Mood Suppressing Drugs/Political Corruption

Personal Happiness vs. Corporate Responsibility 3
Politics vs. Sex 8

Starting Features: Redhead; Fiery Personality; Loves to Sing

Links: Wants to find mother; Honesty

Story Goal: I want to be myself.

Antagonist: The Hierarchy, played by Gabrielle

Mirrim
Played by Gabrielle
Shock/Issue: Littering/Political Corruption

Personal Happiness vs. Corporate Responsibility 5
Politics vs. Sex 8

Starting Features: Busty redhead; Intensely happy and excited; snake breeder

Links: pet snake named Mei-mei; my friend Constable Tam

Story Goal: I want to establish a life as a successful thought graffiti artist.

Antagonist: her supervisor Alan, played by Seth