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[Breaking the Ice] AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION - check top of OP for updates! FIRST DATE!!!!!
weirdspaceships
i will eat your still-beating heartRegistered User regular
i will eat your still-beating heartRegistered User regular
FIRST DATE IS LIVE!: forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/28626881/#Comment_28626881
If you'd like to audience participate, we're looking for people to play the Civil War actors. No knowledge of history, the Civil War, or really anything is necessary. Make it as horrible as possible. When we get to that part, peeps can just jump in and make posts for it., I don't even care.
==========================
Breaking the Ice is a wonderful two player elfgame by Emily Care Boss. It's a dating-sim kind of thing: players play two characters going on a date, hoping it goes well, and at the end of three dates, we see if there's attraction, or if the flames just fizzled out.
It's charming, funny, sweet and fun, and a great game to play.
Today, though, we're just going to fuck everything up.
Enlisting the aid of one @simonwolf, we'll be creating horrible characters who will go out on horrible dates and do and say horrible things, and allow you - the people of CF - to watch the train wreck unfold.
Here's how the game works:
Over a series of three dates, we'll try to advance our attraction towards each other in order to ensure a happy ending. We'll try.
Each date is made up of about four to six turns. When it's your turn, you're the Active Player, and the other player is the Guide. As the Active player, it's your job to:
- set the scene, describing our location,
- determine how much time has passed since the previous turn, and
- narrate things happening during the date, hoping that the Guide will approve and award you dice.
The Guide, on the other hand, will:
- play their own character,
- give the Active Player feedback, and
- award the Active Player dice for doing good.
As the Active Player plays out their turn, the Guide starts passing out dice when the Active Player's character does things the Guide feels their character would be attracted to. The first kinds of dice you can get are Attraction Dice, which are given when you start out a scene that the Guide finds promising.
"we are going to throw a bunch of children in a river"
"that sounds fantastic, here are forty-seven attraction dice"
You also have Bonus Dice, which the Guide gives you when your character acts at a clear advantage. Things like bringing your traits into play, doing something nice for the other character, narrating setting elements that contribute to your success, or taking a suggestion from the Guide. For this game only, Guides are encouraged to suggest the absolute worst possible course of action.
"you stole all of that homeless man's pennies, now you have enough change to take over the world. here is a bonus dice."
"actually the singular of dice is die!"
"i hate you, like my father before me."
Your amount of Attraction Dice equals the amount of Attraction Levels you have currently checked off. The characters both share the Attraction Levels. Checked-off boxes are new levels which may be lost, but filled-in ones are permanent. Your amount of bonus dice, however, is three: you have three dice to award the other player!
We roll these dice, and if we don't like the result, we can go for re-rolls: narrating anything that would put your character at a disadvantage nets you a re-roll. You can earn a number of re-rolls equal to the number of fail results you got on your roll.
There's also Conflict Dice, which the Active Player can angle for by bringing in their character's Conflict: something that is preventing them from succeeding at this date. If the Guide agrees, they can give them three dice, which can't be re-rolled, as above.
Lastly, there's Compatibility Dice, which represent things we share and have in common. The Active Player describes one, and the Guide returns narration by engaging in the compatibility. This gives you two bonus dice.
Once we've got that mess taken care of, we look at our dice. Fives and sixes count as a success, and three or four successes allow you to raise an attribute that will help the characters fall in love. Three successes lets you raise their Attraction Level by one, and four lets you either raise the Attraction Level, or create a new Compatibility. If neither result happens, the date sucks and the characters grow distant.
Between dates, you've got these checked-off Attraction Levels. Roll a single die for each one - a five or six means it becomes permanent, and gets filled in! This is good news! If you fail a roll, you can re-roll a die by narrating something terrible happening to the potential relationship between dates.
"i am filled with sudden rage and horror and no longer wish to socialize with humans."
"ha ha ha, fellow human player, sounds like you got a re-roll to me!"
"the weight of these lies is crushing my optimism like a pyramid of skeletons"
After the final date, we roll again: roll all your Attraction Dice, plus an extra die for each Compatibility the characters share. Fives and sixes make a level permanent. We'll then consult some charts to see what's in store for our shitty characters.
Now, here's how simon and I will make characters.
It starts with a switch: something that we, as real life players, have, that we will switch around. For example, I'm a girl, and simon's a boy, so our switch could be that I will play a male character, and he a female. Next, we start a word web of colors: pick your character's favorite color, then we take turns associating a new word with that color (and in subsequent turns, with any words we've written down prior). Once we've got six each, we use these to make Traits. We make four to six traits under three categories: Self (things about you), Work (career), and Play (hobbies and interests), with at least one in each. During the game, you can give your character new Traits whenever you wish.
Now we make a conflict for each character. We'll ask the other, "What is problematic for your character about going on this date?"
And that's it!
We may call for audience participation - in the mean time, feel free to watch us fuck everything up.
If you'd like to audience participate, we're looking for people to play the Civil War actors. No knowledge of history, the Civil War, or really anything is necessary. Make it as horrible as possible. When we get to that part, peeps can just jump in and make posts for it., I don't even care.
==========================
Breaking the Ice is a wonderful two player elfgame by Emily Care Boss. It's a dating-sim kind of thing: players play two characters going on a date, hoping it goes well, and at the end of three dates, we see if there's attraction, or if the flames just fizzled out.
It's charming, funny, sweet and fun, and a great game to play.
Today, though, we're just going to fuck everything up.
Enlisting the aid of one @simonwolf, we'll be creating horrible characters who will go out on horrible dates and do and say horrible things, and allow you - the people of CF - to watch the train wreck unfold.
= = = = =
Here's how the game works:
Over a series of three dates, we'll try to advance our attraction towards each other in order to ensure a happy ending. We'll try.
Each date is made up of about four to six turns. When it's your turn, you're the Active Player, and the other player is the Guide. As the Active player, it's your job to:
- set the scene, describing our location,
- determine how much time has passed since the previous turn, and
- narrate things happening during the date, hoping that the Guide will approve and award you dice.
The Guide, on the other hand, will:
- play their own character,
- give the Active Player feedback, and
- award the Active Player dice for doing good.
As the Active Player plays out their turn, the Guide starts passing out dice when the Active Player's character does things the Guide feels their character would be attracted to. The first kinds of dice you can get are Attraction Dice, which are given when you start out a scene that the Guide finds promising.
"we are going to throw a bunch of children in a river"
"that sounds fantastic, here are forty-seven attraction dice"
You also have Bonus Dice, which the Guide gives you when your character acts at a clear advantage. Things like bringing your traits into play, doing something nice for the other character, narrating setting elements that contribute to your success, or taking a suggestion from the Guide. For this game only, Guides are encouraged to suggest the absolute worst possible course of action.
"you stole all of that homeless man's pennies, now you have enough change to take over the world. here is a bonus dice."
"actually the singular of dice is die!"
"i hate you, like my father before me."
Your amount of Attraction Dice equals the amount of Attraction Levels you have currently checked off. The characters both share the Attraction Levels. Checked-off boxes are new levels which may be lost, but filled-in ones are permanent. Your amount of bonus dice, however, is three: you have three dice to award the other player!
We roll these dice, and if we don't like the result, we can go for re-rolls: narrating anything that would put your character at a disadvantage nets you a re-roll. You can earn a number of re-rolls equal to the number of fail results you got on your roll.
There's also Conflict Dice, which the Active Player can angle for by bringing in their character's Conflict: something that is preventing them from succeeding at this date. If the Guide agrees, they can give them three dice, which can't be re-rolled, as above.
Lastly, there's Compatibility Dice, which represent things we share and have in common. The Active Player describes one, and the Guide returns narration by engaging in the compatibility. This gives you two bonus dice.
= = = = =
Once we've got that mess taken care of, we look at our dice. Fives and sixes count as a success, and three or four successes allow you to raise an attribute that will help the characters fall in love. Three successes lets you raise their Attraction Level by one, and four lets you either raise the Attraction Level, or create a new Compatibility. If neither result happens, the date sucks and the characters grow distant.
Between dates, you've got these checked-off Attraction Levels. Roll a single die for each one - a five or six means it becomes permanent, and gets filled in! This is good news! If you fail a roll, you can re-roll a die by narrating something terrible happening to the potential relationship between dates.
"i am filled with sudden rage and horror and no longer wish to socialize with humans."
"ha ha ha, fellow human player, sounds like you got a re-roll to me!"
"the weight of these lies is crushing my optimism like a pyramid of skeletons"
After the final date, we roll again: roll all your Attraction Dice, plus an extra die for each Compatibility the characters share. Fives and sixes make a level permanent. We'll then consult some charts to see what's in store for our shitty characters.
= = = = =
Now, here's how simon and I will make characters.
It starts with a switch: something that we, as real life players, have, that we will switch around. For example, I'm a girl, and simon's a boy, so our switch could be that I will play a male character, and he a female. Next, we start a word web of colors: pick your character's favorite color, then we take turns associating a new word with that color (and in subsequent turns, with any words we've written down prior). Once we've got six each, we use these to make Traits. We make four to six traits under three categories: Self (things about you), Work (career), and Play (hobbies and interests), with at least one in each. During the game, you can give your character new Traits whenever you wish.
Now we make a conflict for each character. We'll ask the other, "What is problematic for your character about going on this date?"
And that's it!
= = = = =
We may call for audience participation - in the mean time, feel free to watch us fuck everything up.
weirdspaceships on
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Posts
Borrowing from a pun you once told me, I am going to be playing Joe Paturnip: a turnip who looks the other way. His favorite color is peach, like the beautiful, glowing skin of victimized children. GO!
I will be Princess Annabellastasiana Alexandrachelope Margarethelissa von Liechtenstein. Her favourite colour is purple, because she is a fucking royal you peasant.
peach ... georgia
georgia - missing teeth
Peach, Georgia, Missing teeth, Institutionalized racism, Mad Men, Paula Deen, Butter crime, Kosher, Vietnam War, Ham, Christmas, and Disappointment
Purple -> nobility
obviously
Purple, Nobility, Grimace (the McDonald's mascost), Childhood obesity, Ranch dipping sauce, Fox hunting, a fancy crown, jewels, Jughead, animal cruelty, America, Guns, and Gun (but like, your arms, biceps)
Princess Annabellastasiana Alexandrachelope Margarethelissa von Liechtenstein! Looking at the traits, I think it's fair to say that she's the crown princess and heir to the throne of Liechtenstein. She is also a big fan of American culture, which is why any royal feast she puts on is basically just upscale versions of the Mickey Dee's menu. Her hobby is collecting Archie comics! She is also an active athlete and does a lot of sport.
So, putting those under the headings:
Work
Crown Princess of Liechtenstein
Self
Americaphile
Play
Collects Archie comics
Active athlete
Self
- war veteran
Work
- competitive eating
Play
- fan of racists
- mall santa civil war re-enactor
What is problematic for your character about going on this date?
Also, did you want to say we found each other on a dating website, or something else?
I want to say that her conflict is going to be tied into how she's slumming it up with ol' Paturnip here? Like, she's meant to be marrying the prince of one of those other tiny European principalities, maybe she was engaged to one for a while. Jealous ex, the Prince of Monaco?
Joe's complication is, hmm. He compulsively wants to assist ne'er-do-wells accomplish their goals. Like he sees a robbery and he totally wants to help out by not saying anything.
Or, actually, maybe he just has incredibly unpopular views re: celebrities in scandal and can't shut up about it.
OKAY! That means it's time for the first date. You want to be the AP first, or Guide?
We head to a Civil War re-enactment, which I believe the Princess will enjoy, because I think all foreigners are from war-torn third-world countries. We get some cotton candy, and I give a silent prayer that this won't give me flashbacks.
Charlie all around us. In the dirt, in the trees.
Joe Paturnip pulls up in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, blasting his one and only CD over the radio: a mix-tape containing a single song, "Break Stuff" by Limp Bizkit. Princess Longname is in tow. Paturnip bobs his head, rocking out with his prescription sunglasses. He has the body of a man, but the horrible head of a turnip.
"BREAK SOMETHIN' TONIGHT," he screeches, Tokyo Drift-ing his Jeep into a parking spot, almost running over a dog in the process, and actually running over a different dog. The hound's death screams are indecipherable over the radio.
"These guys do a fuck of a job," Paturnip tells his leading lady. "They've been at it for years. Most of 'em never graduated High School, and probably all of them have never known the touch of a woman. Hey, you want to get some cotton candy or some apple candy or something while we rock this motherfucker?"