Posts Tagged ‘Indie Press’

Shock – Putting Social Science in Science Fiction

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Yes, it’s two game posts in a row. My knitting isn’t going well, so you all have to suffer the consequences. Besides, I realized when I mentioned Shock last week, that many people may not have heard of it (or indeed most, as like most Indie RPGs it has far too small an audience compared to the big dogs). This is my attempt to hopefully let even one more person know this exceptional game is out there.

Superlatives actually fail. I say things like exceptional or best or incredible far too often around here, and that weakens their sting. If I ever meant the words before, I mean them here – Shock: Social Science Fiction is the hands-down best SF rpg ever written. The reason why is simple – most SF games concentrate on the bang-zoom factor, the spaceships and laser guns and everything else. Shock turns that on its head by concentrating on the social issues the technology brings. Players choose a single “Shock” – the big SF thing that makes the world most different from now – and then each proposes an issue (often ripped from the headlines or science section of the paper) to be one of the issues explored in the game.

For example, if Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner were a Shock game, the Shock would likely be “Near-/Super- Human Replicants” while the issues might be “Nature of Humanity,” “Slavery” and “Fallibility/malleability of memory”.

Each player creates three characters , their primary character, and two minor characters (the ally of one player and the antagonist of another). Further, each of the primary characters is tied to a specific issue (so Roy Batty might be tied to “Nature of Humanity” or “Slavery” for example) guaranteeing that the issues get explored in that character’s scenes.

If it sounds like heady stuff, it is. I’ve never played a happy game of Shock, but I have also never played a game of Shock that wasn’t thought provoking and insightful. It plays like the greatest SF stories read, filled with fallible characters stumbling towards their own personal redemptions, against a backdrop that reflects their struggles rather than feeling divorced from it. If you are interested in a different RPG experience than the mainstream,  I cannot recommend it enough.

PS – in pulling up the link for this, I learned that Shock: Human Contact has passed its Kickstarter goal and will be out in February. Suffice to say, I’ve already got mine ordered.

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The Fate of Diaspora

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

So I am a lucky nerd, or so I’m told, and have had occasion to balance not one but two game nights in my monthly schedule. Sure it’s not the heyday of college, but when you’re a band of professionals old enough to know better, well, it’s a goodly amount. Regardless, the important point is that in addition to my Dark Sun game (currently on hiatus for the holidays) I am also playing in a second group that has recently started up Diaspora.

Diaspora, for those not in the know, is a Hard(-ish) SF game using the Fate system. Players represent people from a collection of systems linked together, but otherwise separate from the rest of the broad spectrum of humanity, which goes through phases of growth and collapse. It does a lot of things right, and gives an opportunity to make some great SF along the way (Not Shock-level great, but that’s a different review).

One of the things I like most is the way it handles world and character building. All the players are involved in creating the systems, and finding linkages between them that explain their sometimes unusual connections. Character development requires you to create ties to the characters around you, with each character playing a pivotal role in another character’s moment of crisis. In all, it’s a compelling game, with a lot to offer for folks who like independent games or science fiction. Set up takes a long time, but the investment in the setting makes it rewarding and worthwhile.

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Working on my indie cred…

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

In the film industry, if you take off and make a labor of love project you hope like hell that a distributor picks it up and it gets seen in arthaus cinemas around the country. In the already borderline-cottage industry of role-playing games, you fall back on word of mouth and producing a great game that does one thing particularly well. Hence, the joys of the Indie Press.

Of late, there’s a few indie games that have been close to my heart. Fiasco, the self-described game of “Big dreams and poor impulse control” is a narrative game designed to replicate the heist-gone-wrong films for which I have such a fondness: Three Kings, Blood Simple, Fargo, A Simple Plan. Fiasco is very true to its source material, and it does a great job of putting people in the position of making tremendous plans and watching them all go to hell. Of particular interest as a writer is their use of a two-act structure that hinges in the middle on what they call “The Tilt”. The Tilt is that moment where everything falls apart – the triggering activity that sends the plans into their death spiral. It is a game for fans of schadenfreude, which rewards people who are willing to screw over their fellow players. Just as it should be.

Zombie Cinema is another well done, genre specific narrative that I’ve played a lot of lately. Like Fiasco, it’s designed to replicate a specific style of film (I’ll leave you to figure out which). In this case, the narrative scenes are played out against a track that progresses the zombies’ presence within the story – from scattered news reports to total apocalypse. The players also move up and down the track, pushed around by the outcome of their scenes. Those players who fall behind are eventually consumed by the oncoming tide. Of particular interest to me is their method of randomly creating characters using role and attribute cards – addicted housewife, noble beggar, cheerful survivor. It creates some interesting dichotomies that allow for interesting characters and maintains everyone as normal people caught up in circumstances beyond their control.

So there it is, a couple of mini-reviews of Indie Games I love, and more importantly, why I love them as a writer. If you’re interested in narrative games at all (and if you’re not sure, I recommend a visit to @@SITE to review the elements of game theory – I don’t want to discuss it here), or you’re curious about the storycrafting process of these particular types of tales, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

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