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First, a caveat for the bread-and-butter gamers out there. This is an indie rpg, meaning it's worries more about creating a good story than endurance checks or range modifiers. Although you could make Shock: into just about anything, it doesn't lend itself to combat or leveling. I say that because I know many gamers want those in their rpgs. If you're one of those folk, I still recommend giving this game a try but be prepared for a different experience—no killing, looting, and killing again here.
Quick Summary
Shock: is a great game but the book is confusing (hence the high Substance score and the low Style score). You create a setting by picking Issues (big societal or political issues) and Shocks (cool scifi stuff). Your play two characters: a Protagonist (your main character) and an Antagonist that struggles against the player-character on your right. Conflict resolution is d10 verses a target number; success can be either roll under or above depending upon the intended results. Players can also roll d4s and subtract their highest result from an opposing d10 roll. Everyone takes turns in a big circle creating a scene for your Protagonist and playing the Antagonist for another player.
I recommend this game but be prepared to read it repeatedly to understand what the designer is trying to explain.
I don’t get it … yet.
The book opens with a short story, but it’s not just a White Wolf-style tone setter. It’s written based on a game session, emphasizing how Shock: creates stories. The story is very good. However, there’s sidebars explaining how the gameplay created parts of the story and this just muddles things. For example, when the main character is introduced, a sidebar explains his Issue, Shock, Praxis Fulcra, etc. What does that mean? No idea. It’s not explained until later. I have to skip ahead, understand the rules (which takes some time given their uniqueness), then go back to the start of the book and read. Why not put this story and its accompanying rules explanation after the rules are explained?
(Side note: The indie game scene gets a bad wrap for being clique-ish and elitist. Having the opening sample game played with Emily Care Boss and Vincent Baker, two big indie designers, does not help. All we needed was Ron Edwards to drop by for a beer.)
Then we get an overview, where the designer explains what the game is about. Fine, fine. Except … oh, God. The designer uses “zie” for “she” and “he”. He also uses “hir” for “she” and “he”. (How he decides between “zie” or “hir” is not explained.) Zie also invents the term “*Tagonist” instead of using Protagonist or Antagonist, except zie also uses Protagonist and Antagonist occasionally. Huh? Really, all of this gets very annoying (as you can see) and prevents me from getting into the book. Yes, English is bad. We get it. Now use “he” and move along.
So how do you play?
Okay, here’s how a game of Shock: will play out.
- First, you create a setting using an Issue/Shock Grid. This is the best part of the game.
- Second, you create a few details of the setting called Minutae. (Actually, it’s “Minutæ” but I hate finding that combined a-e symbol in Word. I mean, what’s the point?) You also create Minutae as you play but it helps to have a few sorted out beforehand.
- Third, you create characters (oops, sorry, *Tagonists) based on the above grid. Each player makes a Protagonist and an Antagonist. (Apparently, it’s okay not to use *Tagonist once in a while.)
- Fourth, the players take turns describing how their characters try to meet their characters’ goals.
There has to be some “gridlock” pun here, but I can’t find it
The Issue/Shock Grid is fantastic and works wonderfully. Here’s how you do it. Everyone playing starts throwing out two kinds of ideas: Issues and Shocks. Issues are big society-affecting problems like Class Warfare, Individualism, Adultery, or Child Welfare. Shocks are weird science fiction ideas such as Androids, Teleportation, Generation Starship, or Nanoplagues.
A player “owns” each Issue and Shock, meaning they get to decide all of the details about that Issue or Shock as the game progresses. If you own the Education Issue, you decide what the schooling system in this setting is like.
Why is it called a Grid? Because you lay out the Shocks on an X-axis and the Issues on the Y-axis to create a grid or matrix. Where an Issue and Shock meet, you write down a player’s name. This defines the conflict for your character. If you put your name down where Class Warfare and Teleportation meet, your Protagonist will somehow work with both combined: Poor people teleporting into rich people’s houses for a little crime, rich folk teleporting to work so they don’t have to even look at the dirty poor, or whatever you can come up with.
Really, you have complete freedom to create a game setting that you want to play in with stuff that’s important to you as a person. This makes a unique setting that’s you want to play in. At GenCon, we used the Issues of Education, Adoption, and Meritocracy, and the Shocks of Underground City, Memory Altering, and Teleportation. We spent time talking amongst ourselves and created this setting:
The City is a giant underground establishment created by apolitical scientists during the Cold War. They wanted a place to survive nuclear war and be free of politics and restraints on experiments. Over time, their technology has surpassed the surface world’s but their population has grown thin. To keep their city alive, they teleport to the surface world and kidnap intelligent children. Once back in the City, the children’s memories are replaced with a happy childhood within the City, complete with parents. Even the parents’ memories are altered to ensure the children are accepted as their own.
Sweet!
Yeah, “fulcrum” was a great choice of words
Let’s look at characters. For stats, they have Features, Links, Story Goals, and Praxis.
- Features are personal characteristics, items, quirks, or “destiny” that make the character into a person. Nope, no ratings here. You start with three Features, and the number of features you have equals the number of dice you roll in conflict resolution.
- Links are things with a strong connection, like a wife, best friend, religion, career, snake cake, whatever the character has a strong emotional link to. Again, no numbers here. (Don’t panic—this is an indie game. It’s OK.)
- Story goal is what your protagonist to do in the story, like Become World Overlord or Finally Graduate College. You guessed it, no numbers. This is really important as it becomes the plot of the story for your character.
- Praxis (also called Praxis Scales) has numbers. (See? You can relax now.) These are the methods or philosophies that guide your character in getting things done in the setting. You create two sets of opposed pairs. For example, you might create a Violence vs. Persuasion pair, meaning your character gets things done either by talking nice or beating someone into submission.
What about numbers? Each pair gets one number between 3 and 8—you decide. This number is called a Fulcrum because that’s much easier and simpler than calling it a number, a rating, a score, or something similarly normal. (Sorry, would you prefer to say “Roll against your character’s left Praxis Scale Fulcrum” or “Roll against your character’s Violence rating”?) Lower numbers mean it’s easier to get things done with the first term in the pair; higher numbers mean the second term is easier to use. If I wanted my character to be a bruiser and I had the Violence vs. Persuasion praxis, I might write down 7 next to that pair.
Getting this done, eventually
Here’s what the numbers mean. When you have to roll dice for the typical rpg skill check or whatever, you roll a number of dice equal to the number of features you have. (Why? No explanation given. Do we need one? Well, I’d like one but I don’t think it’s necessary.) Since you start with 3 features, you roll 3 dice.
But first … you have to declare your Intent. This is what you want to happen if you succeed on the roll, such as “Shoot down the evil villain’s plane” or “Get that hot girl at Sbarros’s to go out with me”.
Then you have to pick which side of the Praxis you want to roll against, then pick which term of the pair you want. Using the Violence vs. Persuasion example so I use it to death, I could pick Violence as my way to solve problems. (Much like real life!) Since Violence is the first term, I need to roll above the Fulcrum with any d10s that I choose to roll.
That leads us to our last choice. You can roll d10s or d4s. D10s are compared to your Fulcrum (i.e. rating) as described above. Your highest d4 subtracts or adds from your opponent’s d10 result, whichever makes it harder for him to succeed.
Once a winner is settled, he describes how he accomplished his Intention. (“I tell that hot girl about my collection of Red Dwarf DVDs. It turns out she’s a huge Chris Barrie fan and she invites herself over to my place that very night!”)
Confusing? It was to me. I had to re-read this section over and over before I understood it, and although I’m not the biggest rpg geek in the pond, I am literate. I felt the rules, especially conflict resolution, are poorly explained especially given their unique nature. For example, the text says, “You’ll be able to protect your *Tagonist through another mechanism: the d4’s you’re throwing against your opposing *Tagonist player.” Okay—but we don’t know what dice we’re using, what we roll against, how to interpret the results, when to roll, etc. I don’t like being reminded about something I don’t know yet.
Since everyone plays an Antagonist to someone else’s Protagonist, and because everyone participates in creating the setting, there is no GM. Yes, yes, very indie—but it makes sense here, and in my opinion, it works. An entire game of Shock: is made on the fly, but the rules support that.
The rules also support the kind of scifi it purports to, namely a social science fiction. By combining real social issues with scifi stuff, the game will produce a story more akin to Solaris or Blade Runner than Star Wars or Aliens. Nothing wrong with those two movies, but it’s nice to see a game do what it says it does.
Odds and ends
Later we find the completion of the short story found in the beginning and some “Hacks” or hints about playing the game. Then there’s a Mediography at the end that’s very nice. It gives examples from various media of the kinds of stories Shock: is designed to explore. I’ve read/watched a lot of the suggestions so it helped me get a grip on Shock:’s expected gameplay experience. Lastly, we have character sheets and a Issue/Shock grid for our copying pleasure.
Artwork is sparse and B&W only, but it’s fairly well drawn. (Although it looks like sketches rather than finished art in a few places.) The book holds up well but the softcover stays bent pretty quickly. I’ve seen it cost around $20, which is a bit expensive given it’s only about 90 pages, but I’m okay with it.
I’m not thrilled with the staggered play—you roleplay your Protagonist, the player on your left roleplays his Antagonist, and everyone else watches. Sure, we can toss in d4s to help or hurt in conflicts and can add new Minutae, but I prefer troupe-style play where everyone gets to do stuff with their character.
Overall? Buy it
I recommend this because it has a unique take on setting creation, one that does a fantastic job of quickly creating a place players want to explore. While I mocked the designers word choice, I must say there’s a good game in here. I doubt it would make for a rich campaign, but as a con game or a one-off break from your usual game, Shock: would be a great experience. Buy it, play it, and never never never use “zie”.
However, I also recommend playing with mature players. Not mature as in “above 18” but as in “no power gaming and won’t cry if he doesn’t get his way”. There’s a lot of leeway in the rules that can lend to abuse. For example, in character creation, there’s nothing to stop you from giving your character a nuclear bomb so you can kill everybody. I doubt many players would do that but we’ve all met that one gamer who loves creating real-world drama and grief by being a jackass in the game.
If you've got a nice group of guys and gals that you play with regularly, buy this and give it a try. You will like it.
