I've rarely loved anything the way I love Joshua A. Newman's Shock (stylized "Shock:" by the author). This is why RPGs exist. Those who know me are aware that, even back in my D&D days, I was never really interested in the whole "get loot, go up levels" focus of a lot of games. Shock is most decidedly not one of those games at all. Instead, it works like a collaborative world-building and novel-writing framework with a laser-like focus on the thing that makes the science fiction genre interesting, namely the way it explores extrapolated societies and their pressures. In a single sentence, Shock: is not quite a game, it's more like an engine for creating dense, meaningful, exploratory stories like Dune, Neuromancer, and The Left Hand of Darkness, and then watching them play out in realtime with a bunch of your friends.
The game starts with creating the world. There are 2 major elements that need to be decided upon, called Shocks and Issues. Shocks are the scifi insertions that separate this world from our own. Shocks can be anything: old classics like "Robots," "FTL Travel," and "Human Cloning" or stranger excrescences like "Death is reversible." The other category, Issues, Are the social concerns that will be important to the society. "Corporate Greed," "Human Rights," whatever, these are the confilict zones that will drive the story. Everyone comes up with these together, all the players building on eachothers ideas and tossing out suggestions until you have your shocks and issues set, as well as an understanding of how they intertwine to create a functional, realistic alien/future society. Each person gets to "own" a shock or issue, giving them final say on any matters related to that particular subject and how it pertains to any situations in the fiction. Given the conflicts at stake, you then create the Praxis Scales, the measures of how things are done in this world. There are 2, and each has 2 differing ways of solving problems that are emblematic of the culture and its core issues. For example, Neuromancer might look like this:
Shock: Cyberspace
Issue: Urbanization
Issue: Globalization
Issue: Wealth Gap
Praxis: Buying vs. Stealing
Praxis: Confrontation vs. Deceit
When you are done making the world, you populate it. Everyone plays 2 characters, a protagonist and and antagonist. Each protagonist is defined by his/her/it's conflict with one of the issues in play, which will form the backbone for their individual story. Each character is also given a rating on both praxis scales, showing what their most effective means of getting things done are. Once each player has a protag, they choose another players protag and create an antag for that character. An antag can be anything, an individual, an organization, a political movement, whatever. It's the force that drives the protag into conflict with their central issue. The also are rated on the praxis scales.
When play begins, you take turns going around the room, each player getting a turn to showcase a scene where their protag battles with their issue, and the person playing their antag trying to break them down or push them into greater conflict, and all other players adding details and subtly changing the outcome of events through their manipulation of the shocks and issues they own. Each antag has a pool of points they use to hamper the protags, and when they run out, that particular story enters its conclusion. You're basically guaranteed tons of interesting character play, a deep multilayered meta-narrative constructed from the individual protags' stories, and even some meaningful commentary in the course of a single night. If you're playing with smart, cool people (which you doubtless would be), you're probably going to end up with something that would be worthy of a Hugo nomination after a couple of drafts.
Addendum:
Kelly, Jon, and Ben, if you read this, we need to have another hot-tub Shock: party when I'm back in the US.
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