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Ascension
2008-09-16, 08:37 PM
Has anyone here actually played this game (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16587&cat=0&page=1)? It sounds interesting... but I've been buying more games than I can possibly find chances to play recently. From what I understand, it's basically about fighting aliens with emotion-fueled Evangelion-esque biomechanical monstrosities, with your interpersonal relationships being more or less the only measure of your power. As TV Tropes handily points out, this can lead to powergaming-through-polyamory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MamboIntimacy5), but at least it would be much harder to maintain that level of intimacy with everyone on the freakin' team than it would be to, say, twink out a druidzilla. Anyway, it seems worth investigating, but I'd like to hear from someone who's experienced the game if possible.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-09-16, 08:39 PM
As far as I can tell, it is to Persona 3 what CthuluTech is to Evangelion and Robotech. And I'm not sure that isn't an improvement.

nobodylovesyou4
2008-09-16, 08:41 PM
"With love, anything is possible" takes on a whole new meaning with this game. Ill have to check this one out.

Ent
2008-09-16, 08:54 PM
"Seven years later, armed with technology you cannot comprehend and can barely operate, you will strike back. "

This is a great line.

Mewtarthio
2008-09-16, 09:28 PM
"Seven years later, armed with technology you cannot comprehend and can barely operate, you will strike back. "

"Ooh, ouch. There goes Bob. Alright, everyone, the pointy end goes that way!"

Frosty
2008-09-16, 09:41 PM
So these giant mecha are love-powered, but the only functional people are underage?

Ascension
2008-09-16, 09:43 PM
So these giant mecha are love-powered, but the only functional people are underage?

I guess you could look at it as the pedophila/statutory rape RPG...

black dragoon
2008-09-16, 09:44 PM
That does not sound right at all. Ascension please never say that again.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 09:49 PM
I have played it, and it is awesome... if you would like to play NGE the RPG (which I do).

I was introduced by a friend who knows the designer, and here are some points:
- You need to play with a mature gaming group. Rather intimate and in-depth RP is required to play this game, and folks who embarrass easily may not enjoy the game.
- Use a "relationship web" when playing the game so that everyone can easily tell which NPC is which.
- It is easy to GM. Most of the story is invented by the other players, so you only need to sketch out the barest of plots.
- That said, it is therefore harder to play, because the players need to take ownership for their characters and their story.
- Try to have the same players play the same NPCs, when possible. This helps establish "character"

Now, some features!
- At the start of the game you declare N-1 "Goals" where N is the number of players. Each "goal" is a major story milestone (communicating with the aliens, developing a superweapon, finding allies, etc.) which can only be accomplished when a character dies or "blisses out" (goes into a coma). Thus, the campaign only advances when a character is removed from play (note that he "lives on" through NPCs), and the game is "over" when there is only one player over. Every "bliss out" allows the removed player to narrate how a given milestone is completed.
- "Combat" takes place in teams. The "pilot" is a player that makes dice rolls and so forth, while the "anchor" is another player playing a specific NPC who guides the pilot through the world. This interaction results in cooperative narration that is loosely moderated by the GM to introduce new challenges and so forth.
- You recover from "combat damage" through social interactions outside of combat. The results of any given interaction is determined by a third player, who refers to a loose guide to see what kind of interactions result in what kind of "healing" or "leveling up."

Okay, now I will give you a brief summary of my play experience:
We set up a base in the ruins of Chicago's Field Museum, which was run by "Doctor Professor" - a former crackpot scientist from the University of Chicago who had been working on "dream technology" when the aliens attacked. He has kept himself awake through a series of chemical stimulants and "treatments" that have left him quite unhinged.

Our "party" consisted of an Innocent (Doctor Professor's nephew), a Grizzled Veteran (Doctor Professor's test subject who's sister went into a weird coma during a test of an experimental Anima Creche), a Rising Hero (a spunky young girl who was on a field trip when the attack hit), and me, the Hedonist (a former gang leader who left his gang to chase one of the girls working for Doctor Professor.)

Each of the character archetypes cover a certain anime type. The Hedonist is someone who has seen the hopelessness of the conflict, so he immerses himself in satisfying his personal pleasures to block out the nihilism. My Hedonist was named Jonas "the Fire" and he was a man who enjoyed his vices. He smoked, drank and wooed the ladies; but he didn't woo the ladies to please himself, but because that was his way of "helping out" when they were sad or depressed. He liked making them happy, but they always got sad & angry when they found out how many of the ladies he was helping at a time.

Having settled on our characters, we then constructed all of the NPCs who would be around (the book gives you a number) and filled in details about what the aliens look like and what the dreamscape looks like. This is a group effort, and everyone made some characters that would be important to their PC. As this process went on, we kept adding new characteristics to the NPCs as the players established their connections to each of them.

As an example, let's take Anna, the Grizzled Veteran's sister-in-a-coma. Originally she was just the reason why the Veteran disliked Doctor Professor, but over time everyone ended up having a history with her. She ended up looking very much like the Rising Hero (causing Doctor Professor to constantly refer to the Rising Hero as "Anna"), she dated one of the Anchors, and she cheated on boyfriend with me shortly before The Accident. Drama!

Anchors are very important - every player also creates an Anchor (who works with a Pilot to actually go about in the dream mecha [Anima]) - and every player Anchors for a Pilot who is not themselves. My current Anchor was my current girlfriend (she was my second Anchor - my first girlfriend was also my first Anchor!), and I made an Anchor who was a nerdy child genius who worked closely with Doctor Professor... and had a crush on the Rising Hero!

After all of this creation (which actually takes a good deal of time) we had our first alert. Doctor Professor (the Adult, who is always played by the GM) called us together saying that an alien scouting force was in the dreamspace near our base, and one of us had to go out and lead them away.

Missions often are phrased like this. The GM makes a flowchart which has a number of "encounters" with the results for success & failure diagrammed. This is not given the the players, but usually it follows the mission briefing; here we had two Encounters, (1) lead the alien patrol away from out base and (2) destroy the alien patrol.

We only had one creche (the thing that projects our Anima into the dreamscape), so after the Innocent freaked out, I went in. First, I "manifested" my Anima - that is to say, I described what it looked like and what each "relationship" on my character sheet represented. Your relationship with your Anchor is always the Body of your Anima (mine looked like a giant suit of chromed plate) and you can manifest for any test any of your other relationships.

You use fudge dice (-, 0, +) to resolve encounters; the number of dice you roll is equal to the sum of the "Intimacy" ratings of all the relationships you've used. After you roll, you can place your dice into 4 categories - Mission Success, Pilot Safety, Relationships, and Other. You typically only put 1 die in Mission Success and 1 in Pilot Safety, and 1 for each Relationship you used Intimacy for that test; though if you take physical or psychic damage the GM can force you to place more than 1 in each, and take the lowest result. All extra dice go into the Other pile, and generally add to your "Bliss" total. You never heal Bliss, and when you reach 108 Bliss, you "Bliss Out" and enter a dreamless sleep. Every - you put in Other is worth 1 bliss, every + is worth 3, and every 0 is worth 0... so you don't want to roll too many dice at once, but any die slot which is empty counts as having a - in it, so you don't want to roll too few.

After you roll and assign dice, you get to narrate the results of your actions, based on how you did. A + means everything is A-OK (you succeed at your Encounter, you take no harm, your relationship isn't strained), a 0 is a mixed bag (you didn't succeed but you can try again, you took some damage, you strained a relationship), and a - is a Fail (you failed the task, you took serious damage, you severely damaged a relationship).

For example, when I attacked the alien scouts with an enormous sledge, I had a + in Mission Success, a 0 in Pilot Safety, and a + in Body Relationship and a 0 in Sledge Relationship. I knew that I killed the aliens, but I had taken some damage, and my Sledge had taken a point of stress, so I said "I leap up and smash the flaming bats (that's what my Anchor said the scouts looked like) out of the air and land heavily, my hammer looking worse for wear for the attack" at which point the GM took over narration (to describe the result of my damage - a 0 always results in a "nightmare" element that only the Pilot can see, and he has to respond to) to say "as you land, tendrils rise up from the swamp below you and wrap around the legs of your Anima, dragging you down into the muck!" To deal with this element, I decide to manifest a pair of pistols to shoot my way out, provoking another test and narration.

During a mission, your relationships will take damage (stress). If you take too much stress on a relationship it "fractures," reducing the Trust stat of the relationship by 1. If the Trust in a relationship ever equals 0, then the relationship is Broken, which results in lots of Bliss for the Pilot (and if the relationship was with another Pilot, Bliss for them too!). The damage to the relationships is real, and must be RP'd once a mission is over. On my first mission, the stress on my relationship with the Rising Hero became so great that it Broke (stress is cumulative for Pilot-to-Pilot relationships) so when I got out of the creche, she chewed me out for hot-dogging it out there. I responded, cooly, that I did what I had to do, and besides, why get so stressed - the worst that happens is you fall asleep? Naturally, she flipped out, so I stalked off with my Anchor. :smallamused:

It should be noted that a Broken relationship is a significant loss in power. Every Relationship has a Intimacy (Strength) and Trust (Defense) stat, and when it is broken, each go down to 0. Intimacy and Trust must then be rebuilt, one point at a time, and no more than one point per interaction - and the number of interactions you have between missions is limited!

To repair relationships (or build Intimacy) you narrate out encounters with other PCs or NPCs, and you affect your relationship with whatever character you speak to. The most basic "action" is to do basic character development - that will remove all built-up stress on a given relationship; once a relationship is without stress, its Trust can be improved. It should be noted that you can always improve your Intimacy in a relationship, even if it is Stressed :smallbiggrin:

Most of your character (and other characters) are developed by these interactions. Whenever a player adds a new detail, you incorporate it into the game world and run with it. During the first after-mission period, the Rising Hero decided that she and my ex would steal my stash of hootch and get drunk while bad-mouthing me. So, in my next turn, I arranged to meet with our Scavenger and asked her to get me a new bottle of hootch because my secret stash had gone missing. Her name was "Raggedy" Anne, and I decided that she collected dolls and that Jonas had won her favor by finding and repairing china dolls from a broken display in the museum. In the next encounter that another player had with "Raggedy" Anne, the GM said that the Rising Hero bumped into her and caused her to drop the doll I had just given to her, and that formed the basis for that given encounter.

These after-mission encounters can provide a major portion of the plot. The Grizzled Veteran ended up befriending the Rising Hero, and the two of them hatched a plot to force Doctor Professor to tell them more about the Anima and his research - which meant they needed to convince me and One-Eye (my former gang lieutenant and current security chief) to back them. :smallamused:

Phew! Well, if anyone has any questions about the game, I'd be more than happy to talk about it. It's one of my favorite games, as I'm sure you can tell :smallbiggrin:

EDIT:
Extremely basic mechanics description!

Everyone 16 years or older fell into a coma seven years ago, so only kids and a few, extremely crazy adults remain awake. Through the technology of "Anima Creches" you can project a mental construct into the alternate dimension where the aliens attack from. This construct (also called Anima) is made up of the relationships that the Pilot has with the people around him.

Relationships are quantified by Intimacy (which provides the "power" for the anima) and Trust (which shows how much stress it can take before it breaks). Intimacy is built by the usual means (not just sex, but also stuff that makes you a closer friend with someone. Shared experiences, stuff like that), while Trust is build slowly by increasing the level of, well, Trust between you and an individual. Using a Relationship in your Anima exposes it to stress (that can erode and destroy a Relationship) which can only be "healed" outside of combat through trust-rebuilding and character development.

The result of this is that you want your character to better know his fellows, but your fellows are mostly teenagers too and so tempers can flare and drama can happen.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-09-16, 09:58 PM
- At the start of the game you declare N-1 "Goals" where N is the number of players. Each "goal" is a major story milestone (communicating with the aliens, developing a superweapon, finding allies, etc.) which can only be accomplished when a character dies or "blisses out" (goes into a coma). Thus, the campaign only advances when a character is removed from play (note that he "lives on" through NPCs), and the game is "over" when there is only one player over. Every "bliss out" allows the removed player to narrate how a given milestone is completed.
Oh, so exactly like Persona 3 then

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 10:03 PM
Oh, so exactly like Persona 3 then

Never played it, but I suppose so. I think it's a great pacing mechanism for a Narrative Game :smallbiggrin:

Ascension
2008-09-16, 10:07 PM
I definitely want to get this now.

The only obstacle is the dice.

Are there any online rollers that use Fudge dice? Are they d6s? How many plusses and minuses and zeroes are on them?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 10:11 PM
I definitely want to get this now.

The only obstacle is the dice.

Are there any online rollers that use Fudge dice? Are they d6s? How many plusses and minuses and zeroes are on them?

You can use individual D6 online rollers (or D3s), though I do not know of any Fudge Dice Rollers. You can sub regular D6's for your own games.

I don't recommend playing this online if you can avoid it. Game Creation, to start with, requires a lot of back-and-forth talk with your fellow players and GM. I imagine something would be lost if you tried to do it online, but I never tried it myself.

Ascension
2008-09-16, 10:15 PM
You can use individual D6 online rollers (or D3s), though I do not know of any Fudge Dice Rollers. You can sub regular D6's for your own games.

I don't recommend playing this online if you can avoid it. Game Creation, to start with, requires a lot of back-and-forth talk with your fellow players and GM. I imagine something would be lost if you tried to do it online, but I never tried it myself.

I'd prefer to play it in person, but... ehh, not sure if I can find people I can easily rope into something like this. Especially not a large enough group to really get the love dodecahedrons going on.

I'm not sure at what point in my explanation they'd start laughing, but it would happen somewhere.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 10:18 PM
I'd prefer to play it in person, but... ehh, not sure if I can find people I can easily rope into something like this. Especially not a large enough group to really get the love dodecahedrons going on.

I'm not sure at what point in my explanation they'd start laughing, but it would happen somewhere.

Actually, this plays well with 3-4 players. Remember that each player will control multiple NPCs (a Pilot and an Anchor at the very least). You could, in fact, play this with just 2 people (GM and Player) though it is definitely more fun with more. Too many, and things will get too confusing.

When I played, we had 4 players and one GM. If I had to do it again, I would have done it with just 3 - so that everyone could get enough Piloting time.

Ascension
2008-09-16, 10:27 PM
Ehh... I guess it couldn't hurt (much) to try and recruit some folks...

... but I imagine it would be significantly easier to find willing players in Chicago than in South Georgia (not the island, not the former Soviet Republic, the state).

Zeful
2008-09-16, 10:45 PM
It sounds interesting and I remember seeing a formula for fudge dice on the boards issues. Something like nd3-2n where n is the number of dice.

EDIT: I also think that if someone's going to run this on the forums it'd be a good idea to disable the gender Icon.

Grynning
2008-09-16, 10:50 PM
Man, just when I thought I'd already seen the weirdest RPG on the planet (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90953), someone shows me this.

I picked a bad week to quit smoking. Because without the calming effects of nicotine, I actually want to try them both...:smallconfused:

Edit:


EDIT: I also think that if someone's going to run this on the forums it'd be a good idea to disable the gender Icon.

Why? I think anyone who would play this is secure enough to mess around with gender identity a little...I've RP'ed females before, and I'd do it again :smalltongue:...unless you're trying to play that up even more, so everyone's second guessing...

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 11:05 PM
EDIT: I also think that if someone's going to run this on the forums it'd be a good idea to disable the gender Icon.

Nah. I should mention that our original group was all male, and yet half of the characters that were played were female.

Yes, it was awkward being the Hedonist in such a situation, but I RP'd it fine. You'd be surprised how easy it is to stay in character when you don't have to think about dice or stats :smalltongue:

Zeful
2008-09-16, 11:18 PM
I have a real bad habit here, I always snap over to the gender icon (if it's there) so I know what "voice" I should attribute to the words. It's weird to have the voice not match the words. At least it'd be something I'd do.

Ascension
2008-09-16, 11:32 PM
Nah. I should mention that our original group was all male, and yet half of the characters that were played were female.

I thought you said your two Anchors were your girlfriends? You didn't mean RL girlfriends?

If I were going to run this online, I wouldn't do it here. I might recruit here, but I'd probably run it somewhere with laxer rules about... things. Just in case.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 11:34 PM
I thought you said your two Anchors were your girlfriends? You didn't mean RL girlfriends?

If I were going to run this online, I wouldn't do it here. I might recruit here, but I'd probably run it somewhere with laxer rules about... things. Just in case.

All the players were male, but half of the characters were female.

And you're probably right on the second point :smallbiggrin:

Zeful
2008-09-16, 11:43 PM
I thought you said your two Anchors were your girlfriends? You didn't mean RL girlfriends?

If I were going to run this online, I wouldn't do it here. I might recruit here, but I'd probably run it somewhere with laxer rules about... things. Just in case.

You think that people would post graphic descriptions of sex like out of a bad lemon fanfic? I mean they get half the words wrong, most of the time on purpose. (the fanfic writers, I don't know about the people here.)

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-16, 11:48 PM
You think that people would post graphic descriptions of sex like out of a bad lemon fanfic? I mean they get half the words wrong, most of the time on purpose. (the fanfic writers, I don't know about the people here.)

I'm sure he's more worried about depicting underage intimate contact... there's probably a rule against that, even if it's just implied.

EDIT:
Huh, here's the TV Tropes link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlissStage) to the game page. I wasn't expecting to see it there... but that's the Power of Wiki for you :smallbiggrin:

Zeful
2008-09-17, 12:00 AM
In MN it's not illegal for two people within 24 months (to the day) to have sex before the age of 16. I'm pretty sure other states are similar. Also looking through the Inappropriate topics header there's only a rule against explicit sexuality, which brief references to sex between consenting individuals doesn't seem to cover. This would be one of the things you'd want to talk over with a mod beforehand, but I see nothing about this game which would be against the rules.

Ascension
2008-09-17, 12:01 AM
I'm sure he's more worried about depicting underage intimate contact... there's probably a rule against that, even if it's just implied.

This. It'd just be awkward. I definitely wouldn't want it to turn lemony, but even if it didn't it'd still be awkward.

Also, I may have to find someone else to GM, because the more I read about this game the more I realize that there's going to be no way I can possibly create an Authority Figure who doesn't end up as a blatant copy of Gendo Ikari...

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-17, 12:09 AM
This. It'd just be awkward. I definitely wouldn't want it to turn lemony, but even if it didn't it'd still be awkward.

Also, I may have to find someone else to GM, because the more I read about this game the more I realize that there's going to be no way I can possibly create an Authority Figure who doesn't end up as a blatant copy of Gendo Ikari...

That's why the group collaborates on the authority figure, and all the NPCs. You do not have to make up anything for the first adventure. The game literally writes itself the longer you play - the GM just exists to spice things up and throw in monkey wrenches that the players may be reluctant to do themselves. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT:
If you want to make a skeletal plot, by all means do, but don't sweat the characters. You'll come up with neat twists as they become developed during Interlude Actions. Also, some non-Gendo Authority Figures:
- a nun who has kept herself awake via prayer and self-flagellation; she believes the aliens are Satan and that the children are the innocents who can stop them.
- a crooked cop who is addicted to amphetamines and uses them to stay awake; he looks after the kids because he'd go crazy being alone

Basically, the Authority Figure just keeps the players in line and forces them to pilot the Anima. So there's a little Gendo in all of them, but they may have different reasons for forcing the kids to fight.

Zeful
2008-09-17, 12:11 AM
This. It'd just be awkward. I definitely wouldn't want it to turn lemony, but even if it didn't it'd still be awkward.

Also, I may have to find someone else to GM, because the more I read about this game the more I realize that there's going to be no way I can possibly create an Authority Figure who doesn't end up as a blatant copy of Gendo Ikari...

What about Genma Saotome? He'd be crazy enough to expect people to go along with him. Or Happosai?

Ascension
2008-09-17, 12:20 AM
That's why the group collaborates on the authority figure, and all the NPCs. You do not have to make up anything for the first adventure. The game literally writes itself the longer you play - the GM just exists to spice things up and throw in monkey wrenches that the players may be reluctant to do themselves. :smallbiggrin:

That too. It would simply be more fun to be a player. You'd actually have more creative input that way.

It seems backwards at first, but I like that about this game.

As for the non-Gendos, I like the nun idea. It's also the first staying awake explanation I've seen so far that doesn't involve drugs.

How about this: The Authority Figure didn't succumb to Bliss because he's actually the alien leader. He's manipulating you into fighting against his people as a test of your cultures' comparative worths. If he finds you to be worthy of life he'll cease the invasion. If not, well...

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-17, 12:30 AM
How about this: The Authority Figure didn't succumb to Bliss because he's actually the alien leader. He's manipulating you into fighting against his people as a test of your cultures' comparative worths. If he finds you to be worthy of life he'll cease the invasion. If not, well...

I mean, you can but I like having all humans personally. Plus, figuring out the reason the aliens attacked is part of the game (and might be a Goal for the PCs) and those sorts of things get narrated by players.

Now, while I agree that being a player in Bliss Stage is totally sweet, remember that as the GM you have control over the environment, the missions, and the aliens. You can have a lot of fun as GM (particularly if you enjoying getting provoking reactions from your players) but you won't do as much railroading as you can get away with in pretty much any other RPG. This means less prep time for you, but it also means you have to be ready to drop your plans and react to player input.

I'll say this about Bliss Stage GMing:

- if your players are comfortable doing Improv games, then everything should move smoothly; you as the GM just need to jump in to keep the story moving or to provoke conflict if the PCs are being too buddy-buddy on their way to Intimacy Five (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LevelUpAtIntimacy5).

- if your players are less comfortable with Narrative games and improvisation, you'll need to work harder to make them comfortable with it. The burden of "fun" is much more on the shoulders of the players of Bliss Stage than it would be for many other RPGs.

potatocubed
2008-09-17, 01:50 AM
Not wholly irrelevant to your discussion, might I suggest Roleplay Online (http://www.rpol.net) as a possible location for an online version of this game? They have a number of useful features and a less restrictive posting policy than this board.

Ascension
2008-09-17, 02:24 AM
I think I might just try putting up the faux-recruitment posters from the book, modified into actual recruitment posters.

HUNGRY? FOOD FOR GOOD WORKERS, in particular, ought to draw attention.

Sure, it wouldn't guarantee a perfect audience by any means, but it could be interesting just to work with whoever shows up.

I'd need an annoyingly large number of people's permission, though.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-17, 03:57 AM
Is it just me or does this game make Eva look sane and light-hearted in comparison?

Zeful
2008-09-17, 06:35 AM
How is this not light hearted, the mechs are powered by love.

Cubey
2008-09-17, 06:39 AM
I assume you're ironic.

But if you're not, here's my answer:
Well, so are EVAs from NGE. Only maternal love and not romantic, but you can't call the series light or mushy. Also, the world is a real crapsack: no running water, little food, most people are in Bliss and that will happen to the players too, unless they die sooner, they are bossed around by a half-crazy insomniac, etc. Oh, and there is a rule that characters have to die to accomplish major goals. Very light hearted, indeed.

Also, the characters are teenagers. Angst and conflicts WILL happen.

Zeful
2008-09-17, 07:06 AM
I knew that, and was being sarcastic.

Cubey
2008-09-17, 07:10 AM
Okay. I knew you know.

And I totally said sarcastic and not ironic. Here's the proof:


I assume you're sarcastic.

See? I didn't make a mistake by using an incorrect term, no sir'ee.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-17, 11:08 AM
Yeah, Bliss Stage can make NGE look cheery by comparison (and RahXephon look like Azumanga Daioh!), but it doesn't have to be.

For instance, your characters don't need to be ridiculously psychologically scarred. You can be more like Amuro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amuro_Ray) than Shinji (or like Kai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Shiden)). While there will be drama and angst, it's part of the fun!

But Bliss Stage is not a game for everyone. You have to enjoy (or at least tolerate) mecha anime and NGE, and you have to be comfortable with a Narrative game system. It is a really engaging game though, and the cooperative game-mastering makes it a nice "pick-up" game for when nobody is feeling particularly willing to GM; heck, you could even play with a rotating GM if you set up a system where Pilots could be absent reasonably (say, if you were an outpost of La Resistance and Pilots were brought back to Main Base for training periodically).