Amaranthine is about people that, for whatever reason, reincarnate. From a certain point in their histories, these characters are reborn every time they die, until the end of time. Amaranthine is a game about the relationships you build and rebuild, as in their repeated lives, there are no coincidences. If you meet someone in this life, you’ve probably met them before. In fact, when you meet them, you have a glimpse of your shared past history. In a game sense, your game traits give you a certain amount of jurisdiction in improvising that history with the player of the other character.

That’s the micro end. On the macro end, Amaranthine tend to draw followers. Without even trying, they stumble across sycophants, they command small armies. They can’t help but to find themselves in places where groups of people do their bidding.

Each of these two sides of Amaranthine have a unique method of tracking. The macro end uses a chess board (more on that, later.) The micro end uses relationship wheels. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. The relationship wheel is tied to the game’s core mechanic, which is all about escalating conflicts. If you really want to succeed at something that’s integral to plot, you escalate up to three times. Each time you escalate, you make bad things happen later. Consider it karma. If you knock your lover out of the way of the speeding car, and have to escalate, to push fate a little further than it wants to go, bad things happen later. For instance, your nemesis might be at the hospital when you arrive at the ER to deliver your friend. When you escalate conflicts, you have Plot Points (official name pending,) that allow you a greater chance of success.

The Relationship Wheel

This is a rough sketch of the way I envision the relationship wheel. It’s a clockwise dial that you move around as gameplay progresses. You get one of these for every Micro-level character. Every villain, every PC, every et cetera. They start on either the Stranger + or Stranger – spot. You have an Intensity score with the relationship, that score will likely range from 0-3.

Any time you escalate a conflict against that character, with that character, or for that character, you move along the relationship wheel. You move a number of spaces equal to your Intensity plus one die for every step you escalated the conflict. There are two ‘neutral zones’ along the wheel. There’s a ‘hot’ zone, and a ‘cold’ zone. The hot and cold zone influences a few traits. For example, if the wheel is for a lover, the hot zone might offer bonuses when trying to influence them. The cold zone might offer bonuses to resist a strong emotional response when they’re in danger. With a nemesis, the hot zone might offer a bonus to all-out, guttural attacks against them. The cold might offer bonuses to attacking their sycophants to indirectly harm them. Those bonuses are mostly universal. The game assumes that enemies and lovers aren’t a hard line. Fucking a nemesis is absolutely something that happens amongst the Amaranthine. Why? Well, it’s dramatically appropriate. Also, you’ve probably both been enemies and lovers in a past life. Most importantly, when your (karma) points come back to bite you in the ass, the hot and cold zones affect the nature of the bite. A nemesis might get an edge. A friend might end up in trouble. The whole goal here is to simulate the ebb and flow of a relationship. Depending on its intensity, that might happen slowly or rapidly. You might be that couple that’s constantly fucking and fighting. You might have a lull. Amaranthine leans toward the former, more than the latter.

Every time the wheel gets completely spun around, you get a Plot Point. These are the points used to be more successful in escalations. Since every time you escalate a conflict with someone, you effectively put them in danger, the game actually rewards you for stretching relationships thin. If you want Plot Points, you have to have fiery, intense relationships. When those relationships are put into risk, you need Plot Points to protect them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also, I haven’t worked it out, but I think there’s going to be a minor flowchart system for relationship evolution as the wheel is completed.

Think about Spiderman, in the dramatic sense. When he stretches his relationship with Mary Jane thin, he brings her back into the fold by saving her from falling off a building. He does something epic and dramatic to return the relationship to a sense of normalcy. That epic and dramatic thing puts her in danger. That’s Amaranthine. Amaranthine is full of rooftop swordfights, high-speed chases and leaps over canyons. Why? Because you love or hate someone so much, it drives you to do these things. Amaranthine isn’t about resolving conflicts, it’s about exploring them, creating them, fostering them, then watching them explode.

What does this mean for you? It means if you are getting the softcover, it’ll be in the mail tomorrow. If you haven’t, and you want to buy the print copy, you can for 29.99, including shipping within the United States. In fact…

Resources

You can buy it over at DrivethruRPG for a modest $8.99.

In specifically Machine Age news, you can check out some of Chuck Wendig’s fiction for Maschine Zeit over at Flames Rising.

We’re going to have a blog carnival. Here’s the trick, the whole thing is going to be in-character. If you don’t have a copy of Maschine Zeit, you can download the timeline and basic history Timeline and Blog Entries. That should be enough to get you started. The blogs should be written by SLClemins. SLClemins, as you know or will when you read the history, is a moniker used by journalists in the machine age when talking about the space station hauntings and conspiracies, to protect themselves from reprisal.

A couple of things on the blog posts:

1) They should be about a haunted space station. Here’s one little sample. They should be in-character, attributed to SLClemins. Think independent journalism in a world where ghosts might very well be real.

2) Posts should link back to this page so it tracks back. I will repost them at the SLClemins blog page (I’ll credit them, of course, and link back to you.)

3) Keep them in the 250-1000 word range if you could. If you have something cool and/or profound, you can go beyond those guidelines.

4) Post a link to the Maschine Zeit PDF. Use this link: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=81873?affiliate_id=270525

5) Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I’m giving until July 9th for this contest. July 10th, I’ll look over all the entries and post a winner ASAP. The winner not only gets recognized as a supercoolawesome person, but gets a supercoolawesome prize. By that, I mean a piece of original art from the game. This would be one of Ruth Lampi’s character pieces (you can find samples posted earlier on this blog.) I’ll send it within the US for free. Outside the US, you’d have to cover shipping.

Any questions? Toss them in the comments. But this is pretty simple.

The year is 2110. In 2105, over a tenth of the world’s population died when a number of space stations orbiting Earth went dead. The radiation that killed them had an unexpected side effect: The victims now haunt the halls, possessing machinery and threatening anyone that dares travel inside.

Maschine Zeit is a sci-fi/horror RPG from Machine Age Productions. The game’s mechanics focus on movie logic, encouraging dramatic behavior and offering players control over most of the narrative. The game emulates the conventions of such genre works as Alien, Pandorum, Event Horizon and Dead Space.

The game comes with a ZIP file, which includes an HTML version for ease of use on your netbook, iPad or other device.

Maschine Zeit is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Maschine Zeit can be now purchased in PDF.

We’ve released a short adventure called Ephesus Abbey to coincide with that, you can purchase the two together for only a dollar more here.

“Dude, that game of Maschine Zeit was so badass, it slowly walked away from an explosion, never looking back.”

Tell me that’s not the best quote ever? It makes me wish I hadn’t already submitted the cover. There’s always room for a second edition.

That would be the reaction Jared Axelrod had. He’s the writer of this great comic called Fables of the Flying City. Check it out.

Polaroid snaps the image, can’t capture the smell

or taste in the air. The feeling it left in the air.

Eight foot from floor to ceiling, the figure hunches

and fills the hallway from shoulder to shoulder.

Identify the parts you know, arms and head, legs

feet and a body. Only it’s rearranged and mangled.

Two, three torsos together, seven arms in all directions

reaching and groping independently, frantically.

A head off side, displaced, and functionless

at the awful angle of the hanged-man. It does not

lurch when it moves, too fast, intent to bring you into the

collective. The zeitgeist of the dead.

Polaroid holds the image, won’t capture the smell

or taste in the air. The feeling it left in on your skin.

You shoot, it looks flesh and it’s coming your way.

Pale, rubbery flesh blows free from the body but

does nothing to slow it. It howls from many mouths

you can’t see, a noise that’s only radio static.

It does what it must, gathering the bodies of your

fallen companions as it comes, making them a part.

A face, your lover, pressing out from the collective

She’s screaming only static and you pray there’s no

Immortal hand here behind this fearful asymmetry.

Polaroid holds the moment, won’t capture the smell

or taste in the air. The feeling that fills your mouth.

Back to the door, it’s closing in, and no force in

the universe can bring your last bullet back.

Anything but being another part of the hulk.

Anything but an end like that, another piece.

Metal sounds like screaming when it rends.

It smells like electricity and oil when it pulls itself

from the surface of the door and cocoons around

you. Your last thoughts are absorbed instead in the

station itself, your meat bonded and drawn into

the hull. Your skeleton will be left only half absorbed

but at least you aren’t in that thing, howling static.

A Polaroid lays in the hall where you took it,

But that won’t warn anyone in time.

We’re this close to completion. Way behind schedule, but that happens. We had a little snag with layout, but we’re getting into the final stages. I expect final proofs by Sunday. The ‘wiki’ version of the rules isn’t a traditional wiki, it’s an HTML page that’s HTML5 compliant, and works on pretty much every browser and device we tried. We’re hammering out a couple of little kinks in the next day or two. We have recorded an amazing theme song for Maschine Zeit (wait and see…) We have an adventure for release date with all text done, edited and laid out, with cover almost complete.

Since we can’t get hard copies in time for Origins, we’ve done a second print run of flash drives, these look a little different. We’re also making CDs for the convention. If you’re at Origins, and are interested in picking up a copy of Maschine Zeit, these are going to be your options:

1) Buy a CD. It comes with the PDF, some music, game art, the HTML5 version of the rules and a free adventure. This version is $10.

2) Buy a flash drive. It’s a 1gb flash drive with the Maschine Zeit logo emblazoned along its front. It comes with all the goodies from the CD version. It’s $20.

3) Buy a hardcover. We’ll ship it as soon as we get the print run in. In the mean time, you get the CD version for free. This version is $40.

Note that every single version comes with digital entitlements. If you buy it, we back it up. We’ll provide you with additional downloads of all the material at any time you need.

While we don’t have a booth proper, we’ll be at the convention all weekend. Toss me an email, we’ll hook up and make it happen. If you want a demo before buying, we will make that happen.

There’s the state of the Machine Age. We’re doing fun and exciting things. There are minor setbacks, but we’re still pushing ahead forcefully.

Your Dice Chakra

We’re going to do a little exercise. Bear with me.

1. Relax. You can do this on your office chair, sofa, or wherever you’re reading this.
2. Put your hands out, facing each other with fingers about six inches apart.
3. Breathe slowly. Take deep, cleansing breaths throughout the exercise.
4. Bring your hands together as slowly as possible. If you’re manually dexterous, consider doing this with your eyes closed.
5. As you get within an inch or so, pay close attention to the sensation. You might tingle. You might notice tension in your arms. You might feel resistance between your hands.

Got that? Good.

That’s a simple introduction to chakras, a Hindu concept. Depending on your beliefs, there are a number of explanations for that feeling. Science says your nerves are firing off, your physical senses are telling your fingers that they’re close to one another, and you’re particularly sensitive to it because of your slowed breathing and direct focus. The Hindus believe your body has connection with a second, spirit-body. It doesn’t really matter what’s correct; either way, it has everything to do with connectivity.

Now, it’s time for exercise two.

Look back on your experience with dice. It could be in roleplaying game form. It can be in Yahtzee form. It can be craps. Think back to a favorite experience playing a game using dice, particularly when those dice were in your hand. Close your eyes. Envision the context, where you were, what it smelled like. Once you’re there, focus on the dice in your hand. Were you on your last hit points, one critical away from slaying the dragon? Were you at the end of a winning streak in Vegas, one good roll away from the best vacation of your life?

As you mentally roll those dice, can you feel the resistance? Do you feel the near-identical tingle in your arm, do your fingers twitch and fight as your mind lets go of the dice? Congratulations, you’ve found your dice chakra.

Your dice chakra does the same thing your hand chakra does. It gives you a little sensation, a little tension. If you focus properly, it’s really rather intense. If you want to approach it from a spiritual angle, your dice chakra is your connection to the spirit-body that is your story. The dice have this great role to play. They’re pure tension, then they’re pure release (be it good or bad.) Alfred Hitchcock famously described the difference between surprise and suspense as:

“We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”
In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

The dice are your bomb. You can hold them as long as you’d like. At a certain point, the tension’s bound to become too much. If you’re playing a good game, you will need to let go and release that tension. It might explode. It might be a dud. Regardless, you need that answer. This is the purpose of your dice chakra. When you’re at the edge, peering over, needing to know what comes next, your dice chakra is the little push that doesn’t quite resolve, but instead teases. You’ve brought tension to the highest point you can alone. Your dice chakra turns it up to eleven, before allowing release. The reason your dice chakra is successful is that it’s out of your control. When you make the conscious decision to release those dice, you’ve said you’ve had all the tension your conscious mind can take. The dice chakra pushes just a little bit further. It elevates that tension beyond the conscious, into the spiritual.

Embrace your dice chakra.

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Maschine Zeit is a game about ghost stories on space stations. A Perfect Wasteland isn’t. Or at least, not exactly.

A Perfect Wasteland offers new angles on Maschine Zeit’s universe. From deadly reality television, to a former mining ghost town, to 1960s space race paranoia, to a supercomputer that pulls characters’ minds into a virtual hell, A Perfect Wasteland takes expectations about Maschine Zeit and turns them upside-down. As well, it gives detailed advice for developing and running Maschine Zeit stories, and bits of information on the game world, ready to plug and play in your games however you see fit.

A Perfect Wasteland is the first full expansion for Maschine Zeit, tentatively slated for a Fall 2010 release. It’ll be released in hard copy format, as well as PDF, divided into a series of setting kits for ease of printing. Featuring writing by Jennifer Brozek, Duane O’Brien, Eddy Webb, Rick Carroll, Mark Truman and Alasdair Stuart, primarily developed by David A Hill Jr and Filamena Young.

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Station M8G-3T0 was lost. It’s been found; it shouldn’t have been. Your salvage mission is in for more than it bargained for; the station is filled with the hungry corpses of a terrible experiment gone out of control. It’s grace that brought them safe thus far, and grace that will lead them home.

The Serpent and the Station is the first full adventure kit for Maschine Zeit, scheduled for release at the same time as Maschine Zeit. A mad scientist Cataclysm survivor has turned alien radiation into a tool for creating zombie slaves. It’ll be available as a landscape layout, printer-friendly PDF exclusive. Written by Bart Bechtel and developed by David A Hill Jr.

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On the topic of Maschine Zeit, layout’s almost done. It’s going a little slower than expected, we ran into some kinks. But, we’re almost done. Book’s still coming out in August, preorders should be ready right around the end of May. We’re at Origins this year. If you’re going to be there and would like to play a demo, let us know. Filamena and I are also doing Design an RPG in an Hour and Worldbuilding in an Hour. At Gen Con, I just found out I’m going to be present as a guest of honor. So I’ll be doing a handful of panels, in addition to Filamena and my Design an RPG in an Hour and Worldbuilding in an Hour panels. We will be running demos there as well. We even have some minions that’ll be running demos. Let us know.

In addition to the two listed releases, we have two more in the pipeline, not yet ready to be announced. We have another in the very earliest conceptual stages. And I’m working heavily on the next Machine Age game. It should see light of day around this time next year. Expect more soon. Long story short: The Machine Age is a busy age.

Here’s our material. Included is the outline, it’s pretty basic, but it’s there. Also, there’s a full audio recording. It’s a Rapidshare link, so let me know if you have troubles with it. The site doesn’t handle big downloads, so I couldn’t find an easier way to do it.

Excuse my annoying laugh. The audience questions aren’t very audible, but you should be able to pick them up from the context.

Listen to it! Let us know what you think!

(And if you have a convention you’d like us to contribute to, drop us a line. We’re considering schedule additions currently.)