Introduction

The concept of Shock: Social Science Fiction intrigued me since I've heard of it on the rpg.net Open Gaming forum. Its a science-fiction game that is player and story driven instead of being driven by statistics and the tools. In short, something more like novels and movies than most other science-fiction games I've played and read. Sadly, I'm on a budget so I couldn't afford to buy it, or this would have come before now. But when Joshua A.C. Newman of Glyphpress (aka, monkeyking) offered a free pdf version for review, I raised my hand.

My only regret is that this cannot be a playtest review in time for the Sci-Fi Week at rpg.net due to time constraints.

What You Get

Currently, Shock is currently only available as a 7½” x 7½”, 82 page black and white hard copy, with an orange cover for $23.00 from either Indie Press Revolution website or the Glyph Press website. It will apparently be available as a .pdf file at some point in the future. It has 23 pages of fiction, “Who Art in Heaven” by Ben Lehman, used as an example of play in the game – so don't ignore it! Some of those examples in that are key to helping understand the game. It also has 4 pieces of black and white art, 2 of which tie to “Who Art in Heaven.”

Overview

Shock: Social Science Fiction is exactly what it advertises: a system to allow players to design a world around the Issues they care about, add the Shocks – the science fiction elements – to the issues to design the world. Note there is no mention of a GM, and it apparently doesn't need one. Once that is done, characters are created, a protagonist and an antagonist (*tagonist in the jargon of the game), and play begins.

Details

That's just the overview. The details are a bit grittier, and odder than what I'm used to, but I think they'll work.

World Creation

The world is created by choosing Issues and Shocks and writing them down on the Grid (yes, it is capitalized, that's not a typo and is typical of the game). Each player then owns an Issue and a Shock. Owning an Issue means that you either dictate the details of the issue, or have a protagonist that confronts it. Owning a Shock means that the player dictates all the details of that Shock. Then players write down the names of the protagonists in the Grid. I'm not sure why- the rules don't explain it and the actual play threads I read called it “living at the intersection” which doesn't really explain it.

The good news is that the game provides a lot of sample Issues and Shocks in its mediography, which makes life a lot easier for the players involved.

At this point, I know I'd putting down details for the world, like the impacts of the shocks, but players are encouraged to wait and do this later as Minutiæ during conflicts.

Character Creation

Moving along, players then create *Tagonists. To do that, they first decide on the Praxis – the manner in which all characters (Protagonists and Antagonists) deal with the challenges of the world. There are four elements to each Praxis, and they are always paired as X vs. Y. In the sample play threads I read, Praxes sets were:

• Buying vs. Selling;Acceptance of Yourself vs. Denial of Yourself

• Voluntary vs. Forced; Help vs. Hurt

• Denial vs. Acquiescence; Sex vs. Violence

While they did mention sample Praxis elements (p 20), there weren't any in the Mediography. A possible mistake in two ways.

With that, Protagonists are then created.

A Protagonist has the Praxis, Features, Links and Story Goal. The Praxis has two numbers, or Fulcrums, which must add up to ten. The pairs are placed above each other. When they are used, the top element of the pair must roll above the number, and the bottom element must roll under the number.

This can be used to represent the *Tagonist's attitudes on things in the game. So if in the second Praxis example above (Voluntary vs. Forced; Help vs. Hurt), I wanted to play a terrorist Protagonist, I'd pair it as Voluntary under Forced and Hurt over Help with a 7 by the first pair, and a three by the second. That way to Force another character, the Protagonist would have to roll less than 7 on a d10 for it to succeed.

Features are what makes the character different. They can be equipment, mutations, personality traits, fate and on and on. A Protagonist starts with three, and they determine how many d10's the player will roll in challenges. They're also a reward for the character suffering by losing challenges.

Links are connections to other people, things or organizations. A Protagonist can only have two and they are what is risked when the player really wants things to succeed.

Finally, the Story Goal for the character. Simply enough, its what the player wants for the Protagonist in the story that's being played out.

Now, Antagonists are created. The player that controls the Protagonist names the Antagonist. The player that sits to the right of the Protagonist controls the Antagonist and sets the details of Praxis Scales, Features and Credits (determined by the length of the game – a single evening's game gives an Antagonist 12 Credits, 3-5 sessions gives 27 Credits). Credits are used to give Antagonists additional dice during conflicts. Antagonists do not have any Links (more on this later).

While a player may name an Antagonist as a specific person, an Antagonist ranges quite a bit further than that and may encompass all of the forces opposing a Protagonist in the story.

With *Tagonists created for all the players, the first scene is played out. It begins with a Protagonist in a normal situation that becomes abnormal. Something that pulls him or her out of the every day and into adventure. The player controlling the Protagonist sets the normal situation, then the player controlling the Antagonist takes it and does something to pull the Protagonist out of it and towards the Story Goal. And this repeats around the table (or room, or whatever), moving in a clockwise manner.

Which leads to ...

Conflict

The system for resolving conflicts is a bit odd, but it seems like it would work using d10's and d4's. Conflict is required for each scene, be it an argument, a fire fight, hacking, a chase, a duel, the clash of armies or high stakes gambling.

First, Intent is declared. In that the players declare what they want as the outcome of the conflict. With some restrictions, they are wide open. Those restrictions are:

1. It cannot settle the Story Goals of a Protagonist until the Antagonist player decides it is time to do so (when they are at 5 Credits or less).

2. Intents cannot harm or impact another Protagonist unless involved in the conflict.

3. Cannot be defensive.

4. Cannot be mutually exclusive. In short, no “I win, you lose” intents.

Once the intents are chosen, its time to roll. Protagonists chose as many ten-sided and four-sided dice as Features he or she has. The d10's help the Protagonist achieve an Intent, while the d4's prevent the opposition from achieving theirs. Once the combination of dice has been chosen, determine which of the Praxis elements to use, keeping in mind that if using the top end of a Praxis the roll needs to be higher than the Fulcrum, and if the bottom end it needs to be lower than the Fulcrum.

For Antagonists it works a bit differently. Features are used to dictate the description of the Conflict, but Credits determine how many dice are rolled, and are then marked off the Antagonist's sheet.

Now, the players whose characters are not involved in this roll a single d4 each and use to either aid the Protagonist or the Antagonist, with Minutiæ, which are the details of the setting.

After, everyone rolls, the results are compared. If one of the dice rolled so it was successful against the Praxis and Fulcrum combination, dictate how the *Tagonist is reaching the Intent. The opposition will be doing the same.

Now look at the d4 results and if playing the Antagonist, take the largest showing d4 and change the opposing player's result by that much in order to move it a way from that end of the Praxis. If a Protagonist, you can do the same. Then you narrate how you are trying to stop the opposing player's action. At any point during all this other players can contribute that single d4 rolled earlier to change the result of the Conflict.

If the Protagonist fails, then that character gets another Feature. However, I can't tell what an Antagonist gets when it fails. Another Feature? A Credit? Nothing?

Now, if the results wind up right on the Fulcrum numbers (remember – it was less than or greater than, not less than or equal to, or greater than or equal to), the Conflict continues and escalates. At this point, the Protagonist re-rolls the d10's, the Opposition re-rolls the d4's (as do the other players). Now, I'm not sure if this means a re-roll of the conflict with higher stakes, or just as it says.

If a failure occurs and the results are not what is wanted, a Protagonist can risk Links in order to achieve that Intent. A new Conflict is started, with the same Intent, though a different Praxis element can be used. If the Protagonist loses the Conflict, the Link is transformed in some manner.

How To Play an Antagonist

This is advice on how to play the Antagonist in a meaningful way, and make the game worthwhile. This advice boils down to remember that an Antagonist is Protagonist's partner and how to use Links, Issues, Shocks and Story Goals to push the Protagonist along (though without examples). The biggest thing here is that once the Antagonist is down to five or fewer Credits, its time to confront the Protagonist's Story Goal.

Ending a Story

Once the Story Goals are confronted, the story ends. Ideally it ends with a statement of some kind, but it ends as every story should. Then you can see about continuing it, either with a new Protagonist or the old one. In either case, the Protagonist now has Credits that can be spent like an Antagonist's to influence Conflicts.

Comments

Phew.

That was a lot.

All in all, I like Shock, but it does have some issues.

• A lot of jargon. It could benefit from cleaner language or moving the glossary to the front.

  • I'm not sure the game benefited from the use of the genderless pronouns like sie and hir.

• Cleaner and more emphatic presentation of key information is a must, things like Credits and story length and how to resolve a Conflict. I'd suggest bullet points and/or bold text.

  • Related to that, some sort of one page summary of key information (World Creation, *Tagonist Creation, Conflict Resolution, How To Play an Antagonist) would be very useful.

• World Creation apparently needs to limit the number of Shocks and Issues based on projected length.

  • I wondered about this – it seemed like a single evening's play among a few friends could easily be overwhelmed by the number of Shocks and Issues. By reading through Glyph Press Forums over at the Forge apparently, the shorter the session, the fewer the Issues and Shocks.

• Examples of Story Goals would be helpful.

  • I got a few from the actual play threads that Glyph Press links to on their website, but like anything, the more examples you have (and with this game, the wilder the better) the more the readers are going to take their lead from it.

• Sample Praxes are a must.

  • Again, the actual play threads were a wonderful resource.

  • Similarly, examples of how Praxes can be tweaked for different characters in the same game would be very, very useful. I only picked up on this by rummaging through the Glyph Press Forums over at the Forge. And I honestly don't think players should have to do that.

• Examples of Minutiæ and how they are used.

  • This is one that particularly annoyed me until I read “Who Art In Heaven” all the way through. It looks like Minutiæ can be simple environmental factors (a floating piece of debris) or rather significant (Vacumorph physiology and anatomy).

• Needs the actual Grid and all *tagonist sheets from “Who Art In Heaven” to better illuminate what is going on.

  • The one Protagonist sheet and abbreviated Grid provided on the first two pages really are not enough for people reading Shock to help understand the rules and how to use them.

Verdict

Shock: Social Science Fiction needs more work. This is a gem in the rough at this point, but it needs better editing and broader playtesting to improve the clarity of the writing. It is a good thing that Joshua A.C. Newman is available on The Forge, Glyph Press own forums as well as at rpg.net, because sadly the game needs him to clarify what to do and how to do it.

As it stands, I don't think Shock is worth the $23.00 one would have to pay for it. A future edition with clearer writing and that has been put in front of more and different players would definitely be worth it. That or a cheaper .pdf file of the current product.