But more importantly, this is a game about the endurance of humanity.
About the courage of heroes.
About the power of love.
About hope for the future.
- Ben Lehman
Right now, right as you read these words, humanity is struck by an alien attack from the edges of our understanding.
It is the first blow of a terrible war. Seven years later, armed with technology you cannot comprehend and can barely operate, you will strike back.
This is how.
"It's a lot like NeonGenesisEvangelion. You go on dangerous missions to defeat aliens that threaten all of mankind, and then you complain about how nobody understands how hard it is for you." - Seth Ben-Erza, QuotedForTruth?.
BlissStage is a RolePlayingGame written by BenLehman?, the author of Polaris?, among others. It is generally considered to be an IndieRPG? by the people who keep track of these things. Very Narrativist?. It is a functional NeonGenesisEvangelion - The RolePlayingGame. Hell, if you want to play AsukaLangley, just choose to play a female SeasonedVeteran?. ElliottBelser and by proxy EthanSinclair? are gaga over it.
BenLehman? has just announced the second DeadTreeFormat? edition of the game, Bliss Stage: Ascendant Stage. He deserves your money - get it at Indie Press Revolution if you can.
At the moment you sit down to play, Humanity as a whole is struck by an alien attack known only as TheBliss? (as its victims fall into a sleep with (judging by their expressions) blissful dreams.) It's a form of stasis: the victims do not waste away from lack of food and drink, nor can any known means rouse them. Only the adult population of the world, and all but a scattered handful of those, were affected. Cue LordOfTheFlies city-states in one year. Enter, stage left, alien GiantRobots? to finish their genocidal campaign, scouring the land with (in Ben's immortal words) SearingRaysAndNoxiousSmokes?.
And, oh yes, the survivors tend to fall to the Bliss soon after turning eighteen. It specifically targets adults, for a given meaning of that word.
Ratliff Gas.
Your references confuse this foreign person from the distant EagleLand?. - ElliottBelser
Wait... this wouldn't be a reference to a certian Doctor armed with a far-too-useful screwdriver of dubious phlebontinum power source, is it? - ElliottBelser, who's not sure if he's seen that episode or not.
Five years from the moment you begin play, a still waking (and likely RoundTheTwist?) adult organizes a fitful resistance from the child and teenaged survivors. Much to their astonishment, they actually manage to disable a GiantRobot? and reverse-engineer its control systems to create a weapon capable of killing the aliens - rather difficult, as they're BeingsOfPureThought?.
Known as an AlienNuminaInversionMachine?, or just ANIMa? (Best... BackRonym?... Ever.), it allows a teenaged ANIMaPilot? to enter the dreamtime realm of the aliens, and strike them with PsychicWeapon? GiantRobots? formed from thier intense relationships with other survivors. The chassis of GiantRobots? formed by ANIMa? are always formed from feelings for a PilotsAnchor? - part navigator, part psychologist, and almost always chosen for the job because the Pilot at least harbors PerverseSexualLust? towards the Anchor, and at best is actually in love with them.
The implications of ANIMa?-formed GiantRobots? sustaining damage in battle is... disturbing. In a way that is deliberately unaddressed in the rules, when an ANIMa? component is damaged, the relationship it represents is placed under severe stress. Relationships are frequently, and sometimes irreparably, damaged through battle with the aliens.
...huh. Huh. I proposed a /TradingCardGame to BenLehman?, as I was mucking about with in my CopiousFreeTime. I've been bugging him for permission: Ben finally got a RoundTuit. Check it out.
Each player controls a stable of child and teenaged survivors of the above referenced EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
Each non-GameMaster? player is encouraged to control one ANIMa Pilot, and another Pilots Anchor, as well as other minor characters to fill out the cast.
So Wraith for over-hormonal teenagers, then?
Not a bad way of putting it, actually - but less about highlighting differing sides of one personality. -ElliottBelser
The GameMaster? also controls the Authority Figure - a rare waking adult, probably insane and always insomniac, who leads the Resistance against the alien occupation. The GameMaster? is prohibited from portraying Pilots and Anchors.
The Biggest Bliss Stage Fanboy In The Universe recently got promoted; I'm working on an official VisualNovel and the BlissStageCardGame?.
For that reason, I would like to hire artists and voice talent at BlissStage/SpinoffRecruitment - particularly Mr. Morag for the long-awaited WebComic version of BlissStage/RapidEyeMovement?, which I feel is just good crosspromotion. Also, if any of you can pull off an African(American) version of Kasumi Tendo, I NEED you for voice acting before the end of October 2009. - TsundereLightning
We've gotten started: 2 pilots at this point, and a third player in control of minor characters. Should anyone else wish to jump in, discuss taking control of minor characters and I'll arrainge to promote them to pilot. Play is [here], and anyone is welcome to watch.
Starting up some wackiness. Bliss Stage, but not as you know it. The JusticeLeague?, but not as you know them. Against such nightmares, love is your superpower, and Lex Luthor Will. Not. Sleep. [Check it out here, if you DARE.] I iz a toothycat. I has a quotes page: CURS/BlissStageQuotes.
I can haz more quotes pages? CURS/ChildrenOfChildrenQuotes?
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