Bliss Stage--How Does it Work?

[Amaril]

Okay, so I've recently come across Bliss Stage, and, being a fan of series such as Evangelion and of giant robot stuff in general (particularly in the Japanese tradition, which Bliss Stage seems to be, rather than the western tradition where the mechs only have arms half the time and move at the pace of molasses), it looks pretty interesting. However, I'm having trouble finding any information about the actual gameplay, and in order to avoid wasting money on the PDF only to find out it sucks, I'm kind of hoping somebody on here can give me a bit of an overview of how the mechanics work and how effective they are. Additionally, I'm wondering whether the game is popular enough that setting up a game would be possible (if it can be PbP, that would be enough to give me my giant robot fix).

So, can somebody help me out here?

[Tengu_temp]

Bliss Stage has extremely abstract and simple mechanics that are all about long-term resource management. From my experience they work extremely well for this game, but are so setting-specific that they fit nothing else. Even an Evangelion game is better off being ran using another system.

Another warning: this game is very badly suited for PbP. It's really something that has to be played in real time.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's the basic gist of the mechanics:
Each pilot has a number of relationships with other characters, each ranked from 1 to 5 in Intimacy and Trust. During a mission, you pick which relationships you use to form the parts of your Anima, and then roll a number of Fudge dice equivalent to their total Intimacy. You then assign these dice to Mission Objective, Pilot's Safety, and each of the relationships you used. A plus dice means that it went good (mission succeeded, pilot suffered no injury, relationship is still alright), a minus dice means that something bad happened (mission is a failure, pilot suffered a bad injury, relationship's Trust drops badly), a neutral dice is neutral (mission is stalled and you need to roll again, pilot suffered a small amount of injury, relationship is slightly strained). Unassigned plus and minus dice give you Bliss - when you reach 108 Bliss, something happens that makes you unable to play your character anymore, but you get an opportunity to either succeed or fail at one of the campaign's main objectives. This is the only way to resolve them.
You can heal, mend damaged relationships, and improve their Trust and Intimacy during downtime... But you can also lower their Trust if you're not careful! A relationship with 0 Trust is broken and bad things happen. You can never lower your Bliss, it can only raise.

[tensai_oni]

I've run this game and I can tell you the two biggest problems with it:

1. It needs all players to be on the same page. Since players, and not the game master, are responsible for narration during missions - everyone has to agree on what the dream world looks like and how the aliens are like. I do not say that everything has to be exactly set up, but at least some elements have to be agreed on. Otherwise you'll end up with an incoherent mess.
This also makes it hard to run as a PbP as Tengu said. Other players narrate way more often than the GM does, so giving everyone a chance to do that slows down the pace considerably. I'd probably homebrew rules if it was run in PbP.

2. There is really no reason not to ever put your best dice into resolving the mission, everything else is secondary. If the mission doesn't get resolved then you just open yourself and your relationships up for more hits.

On the other hand I really like the idea behind the game and its take on cooperative roleplaying. The fluff is neat, but mechanics seem not to have been playtested enough.

[Amaril]

Well, thanks for the info, guys :smallsmile: It doesn't look like this is a game you can run effectively online, and I don't think any of my friends would have much interest in it (or be mature enough to play it well), so I guess it's not really something I'll be playing any time soon. That said, I'm still in the mood for a good Japanese-style mech game--can anybody suggest something that can be run effectively as PbP so I can try and get a game of that set up?

Oh, one thing--I'd prefer no Adeptus Evangelion. The anime is all well and good, but I really don't think a game based on it would be the thing for me (Bliss Stage, having been originally designed as a game, would have been a different matter, no matter how much it's inspired by Evangelion).

[Rhynn]

Mekton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekton), Jovian Chronicles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovian_Chronicles), Heavy Gear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Gear)... can't speak as to specifics and running them online, but they're all mecha anime RPGs.

[Amaril]

Alright, I guess if I start a recruitment thread, I'll leave it system-agnostic to start with and see what people want to play. Thanks for the advice, everybody!

[The Rose Dragon]

I would suggest getting Mutants & Masterminds (2nd Edition) and Mecha & Manga.

[Amaril]

Just in case anybody here is actually interested in setting something up, the recruitment I just started can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=286202).

[tensai_oni]

I would suggest getting Mutants & Masterminds (2nd Edition) and Mecha & Manga.

This. Very much this.

[Amaril]

This. Very much this.

Okay, well, I've got the money to spare. I guess I'll do that.

Anybody else wanna play? Please? All I've gotten on my recruitment thread is one person talking about some show called Bubblegum Crisis that I've never heard of.