If the thought of a game that allows you and some like-minded friends to create socially commenting SF stories ticks the box that says 'BIG WIN', then Shock: is beyond a 5/5.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Quote:
Originally Posted by budman
4/5 are you kidding me
the idea is a 10/10 but the rulebook is very badly witten
and I'm not talking about the hir thing
it's examples don't show the system well at all
Do you have the v1.0 version or the v1.1 version? If it's the v1.0 version, then I have zero argument with you. However, I found that the 1.1 edition enabled me to quickly and easily facilitate games of Shock:.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Sorry but I understood almost nothing about the game from your review. For instance, why does it deliver "social science fiction"? How does the game develop from start to finish? What are the aims for the players? And so on.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Quote:
Originally Posted by smascrns
Sorry but I understood almost nothing about the game from your review. For instance, why does it deliver "social science fiction"? How does the game develop from start to finish? What are the aims for the players? And so on.
The thing to remember about Shock is that it is a story game rather than a traditional roleplaying game.
While it has characters - players are more like collaborating authors, using the rules as a framework and guide as to how to tell their stories.
By getting the players to lay down the conflicts in a thematic/metaphorical sense at the beginning of the game, conflicts rarely involve combat, but rather how the characters react to the world(s) created by the game.
In my experience players don't really connect to their characters as much as their characters story.
So you might gloss over a punch-up, but spend a while roleplaying out a philosophical dispute between your protagonist and a fellow player acting as your antagonist.
The dice are rolled when a conflict occurs - and more often than not, that conflict is initiated by social interaction.
I liked the game, but it is a difficult game to play and not really a game for people who like to roleplay characters, per se - it will appeal more to people who like to tell stories.
Conan
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Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Menchi
The thing to remember about Shock is that it is a story game rather than a traditional roleplaying game.
Humm, but why does that particular branch of sci-fi (Social Science Fiction) lead to this type of game? What's the take of the game on its genre? How does it stay faithful to it? The review gives me some details about some aspects of the game but I didn't get an overall impression about it.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
It is funny, but when I first read "Social Science Fiction" I thought it was science fiction based off of the Social Sciences, rather than the hard sciences. I was almost disappointed to discover that it was merely a social Science Fiction game.
Having some training in the Social Sciences (anthropology, mostly), I was extremely curious how Social Science Fiction would work.
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Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malcolm Craig
Do you have the v1.0 version or the v1.1 version? If it's the v1.0 version, then I have zero argument with you. However, I found that the 1.1 edition enabled me to quickly and easily facilitate games of Shock:.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veiltender
It is funny, but when I first read "Social Science Fiction" I thought it was science fiction based off of the Social Sciences, rather than the hard sciences. I was almost disappointed to discover that it was merely a social Science Fiction game.
Having some training in the Social Sciences (anthropology, mostly), I was extremely curious how Social Science Fiction would work.
The game does attempt to reflect the subgenre of science fiction called "social science fiction". The issues (see the review) that the players choose determine this to a large degree.
Re: [RPG]: Shock: Social Science Fiction, v1.1, reviewed by Malcolm Craig (4/5)
Thanks for the review, Malcolm!
Budman, I'd be happy to clarify things for you. I don't remember, or maybe didn't know about, the thread you're talking about. PM me and we'll talk about it.
Veiltender, as RabidLurker says, "Social Science Fiction" is a subgenre of science fiction. How "hard" the fiction you create is, is up to you as a group. What it encourages, though, is an exploration of what happens at a societal level when Things Change.
A literary example is Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. She posits what a society would be like without (or nearly without) gender. I've played games where government-controlled Samsara is a method of control of the population, another where people cloned multiple spouses from themselves in defiance of polygamy laws and monogamist taboos, and another where religion was a deliberate construction to create a work ethic among vacuumorphic slaves (the example in the book).
The theme of these games are not the special effects of Samsara control, human cloning, and vacuumorphic humans, but government control of citizens' lives, romantic taboo, and religious manipulation of people. That's what makes it Social Science Fiction. And you build your fictional world out of those thematic questions, which is how the game generates it.
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