Bath Salts

Mark McPherson (order #6359040)

Bath Salts A Game of 8 to 5

By Robert Nolan

Dedicated to Kristen Lindley

THIS MATERIAL IS PROTECTED BY THE COPYRIGHT LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

THIS PRODUCT IS A WORK OF FICTION. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental.


Contents

Introduction What is Bath Salts? 1 What do I need to play? 1 Customer Service Representative Name 3 Sex 3 Age 3 Approach 4 Compassionate 4 Indifferent 4 Insulting 4 Self-Control 5 May I Help You? Making the Money 7 Handling Complaint Calls 7 Choose Your Approach 7 Find Caller’s Frame of Mind 8 Get Target Number 8 Roll the Dice 10 Determine the Outcome 10 Unresolved Call 11 Spending Self Control 11 Escalate 11 Oh Snap 11 Resolved Call 12 Complaint Call Summary 12


Lunch Hour 13 Clocking In/Out 13 Pay Day! 13 Retirement 15 Motivation Quotes 16 Character Sheet 19


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Introduction

WHAT IS BATH SALTS? Bath Salts is a nightmare simulation of the lives of Customer Service Representatives (CSRs). All of the players of the game are CSRs.

During a game of Bath Salts your CSRs will be flooded with customer Complaint Calls which they must settle. Some will be easy calls, but most will not. Many will eat away at your very Self-Control.

Self-Control is the Silly Putty™ that keeps you sane and rational. If your CSR runs out of Self-Control, they lose control of their primal urges and proceed to eat someone’s face until law enforcement arrives and puts them down.

Should your CSR be skilled enough at dealing with the callers, they will end the week alive and get their pay check. Who knows, maybe they can hang in there long enough to get fired and draw Unemployment.

WHAT DO I NEED TO PLAY? • This book.

• 1-6 friends. That’s right, you can play with yourself!

• CSR Sheets and pencils.

• At least 4 six-sided dice.


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Customer Service Representative Now we get to create our Customer Service Reps for the Game! You can use a copy of the CSR Sheet from the back of this book to make things easier.

NAME Give your Customer Service Rep a name. If it helps, use the following statement:

“Hello and thank you for calling. My name is (Your Name). How may I help you?”

SEX Now you can decide their sex.

Why is their gender important? Well if you want a grittier more realistic game, females CSRs average pay will be about 22-27% less than male CSRs.

AGE Cool, now it’s time to give your CSR a date.

This might be a good thing, as an older CSR is closer to dying of age which may help them through the suffering.

Younger CSRs might still have hope of finding a “better” job. Callers will do their best to crush these hopes post haste.


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APPROACH Each CSR has a vast array of skills (three of them) to use for their Approach to the call. At the onset of a Complaint Call, they must pick which Approach they intent to use. Pick the wrong one to handle the caller, and it will cost you dearly.

Compassionate:

When the CSR deals with the caller like they are a fellow human being they are using Compassionate. This includes: sucking up, answering questions, or worse yet, complimenting them.

Indifferent:

When the CSR doesn’t really help the Customer, but doesn’t berate them either. This includes: “Accidental Disconnects”, faking foreign accents, and putting customers on Hold until they hang up.

Insulting:

When the CSR actively tries to belittle, or berate the Customer in order to get them off the phone. This includes: treating them like they’re stupid, repeating the same questions over and over, or swearing at them until they hang up.


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SELF-CONTROL Each CSR starts with 40 points of Self-Control. Think of these as your life, health, sanity, Hit Points, or any combination of them.

Once they are gone your character snaps, starts eating someone’s face. All of which ends with the Police coming in and shooting them.

At that point the CSR has three choices:

Kick the Bucket.

Push up the Daisies.

Die.


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May I Help You?

MAKING THE MONEY This is eight glorious hours of minimum wage earnings, a one hour lunch, and no benefits; how could anyone complain?

Well, here’s how.

Every hour the CSRs each have to handle one irate Complaint Call. So long as they use the correct Approach to handle the situation, it will pretty much go off without a hitch. If they use the wrong skill, it could be the deal breaker that sends them spinning out of control towards doom.

They will handle 8 of these calls over the course of a day, and do this for a 5 day work week. A typical game session of Bath Salts is one week long, ending on Pay Day.

At the start of the first hour of the first day of the week, each CSR must roll a d6. The person who rolls lowest is the one who made it to their desk first, and must take the first call. When a CSR’s call is resolved, it’s the CSR to their left’s turn to go.

HANDLING COMPLAINT CALLS Below are the steps to handling a Complaint Call.

Step 1: Chose Your Approach

When a CSR receives a Complaint Call the first thing they must do is choose which Approach they will use in their first attempt to resolve the Complaint: Compassionate, Indifferent, or Insulting.


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Step 2: Find Caller’s Frame of Mind (FOM)

With their Approach chosen, they must now roll a d6 to determine what the Caller’s Frame of Mind is.

Table 3.1 – Caller’s FOM

Die Roll Caller’s FOM

1-2 Confused

3-4 Stupid

5-6 Aggressive

Step 3: Get Target Number

Now that they know the Caller’s FOM, they can determine how the Target Number they must reach to resolve the call.

Table 3.2 – Target Number based on Caller’s FOM vs. Approach

Compassionate Indifferent Insulting

Confused 20 15 10

Stupid 15 10 20

Aggressive 10 20 15


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Step 4: Roll the Dice

The CSR now rolls 4d6 and adds up the total. Based on that score we can determine if anything more must be done to resolve the Complaint.

Step 5: Determine the Outcome

Table 3.3 – Score Outcome

Roll Outcome

< Target Number Call Not Resolved. Spend Self-Control or Escalate.

= Target Number Call Resolved.

> Target Number

Call Resolved. Value over the Target Number rewarded as Self-Control.


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UNRESOLVED CALL If the Complaint Call is still unresolved the CSR has two choices:

Spend Self-Control Points or

Escalate

Spending Self-Control

A CSR can choose to spend the difference between their roll and the Target Number in Self-Control to resolve the call.

Escalate

The other option is for the CSR to escalate the call by changing their Approach and starting over with Step 1 of Handling Complain Calls.

When they reach Step 4 though, they roll one less d6 every time they escalate. In other words, a CSR can choose to escalate the call 4 times.

If at the end of the 4th try, the call is still not resolved, they MUST PAY the difference in Self-Control.

Oh Snap, Running out of Self-Control

Just keep in mind, if the CSR runs out of Self-Control they will eat someone’s face and then be put down by the cops. It’s really not the way you want it to end, is it? Unfortunately, you may not get the choice. Welcome to the World of Customer Service.


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RESOLVED CALL If the CSR scored equal to or greater than the Target Number with their roll, then the Complain Call is Resolved and they lose no Self- Control.

If the roll is higher than the Target Number, the CSR gets the difference in Self-Control.

COMPLAINT CALL SUMMARY Pick the Approach you will use for the Complaint Call.

Roll d6 to determine the Caller’s FOM.

Find the Target Number based on Approach and Caller’s FOM.

Roll 4d6 and add the results.

If it is equal to or greater than the Target Number the call is resolved. If it greater, the CSR gets the difference in additional Self-Control.

If it is less than the Target Number, the Complaint is Unresolved and the CSR must pay the difference from their Self-Control, or Escalate.

If the CSR Escalates, they will start over at Step 1 but will roll one less die to Resolve for each time they Escalate, to a maximum of 4 times.

If the Complaint Call is still unresolved after the forth Escalation, the CSR has to pay the difference for the final roll in Self-Control.


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LUNCH HOUR After each CSR has resolved 4 calls, it’s time for lunch. Hot Damn!

During lunch, players can take time for some role-playing of their CSRs and discuss how much they hate their job and their lives.

As an added bonus, any surviving CSR who makes it to lunch gains 2 points of Self-Control.

CLOCKING IN/OUT Each new day, the CSRs come in refreshed with an additional 2 points of Self-Control.

The exception being Hump Day, because the end is finally in sight! You get no additional Self-Control for Hump Day, just the satisfaction that it’s half over.

PAY DAY! Holy shit you made it!

If any CSRs survive their 5 day ordeal, they finally receive the fruit of their labor!

THE ALMIGHTY PAY CHECK!

At this point all CSR who received their check immediately lose 100 Self-Control.

Why?

Because who the fuck is FICA and why a do they have all your damn money?!?!?!?! That’s why.


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RETIREMENT Some people who are used to RPGs would be very upset if there was no advancement in the game, no goal. So we better come up with one.

If you can run the same CSR through 26 weeks, they can dupe their boss into firing them and collect Unemployment for 1-2 years.

CONGRATUALTIONS!


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Motivational Quotes “Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.” -Zig Zigler “The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” -Jerry Gergoire “Be everywhere, do everything and never fail to astonish the customer.” -Macy’s motto “Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.” -Stanley Marcus “It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” -Henry Ford “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.” -Chinese proverb “Make a customer, not a sale.” -Katherine Barchetti “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” -Roger Staubach


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“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” -Ross Perot “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” -Booker T. Washington “Give trust and you’ll get it double in return.” -Kees Kamies “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” -Sam Walton “Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” -J.C. Penney “Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction, you must improve.” -Horst Schulz “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” -Steve Jobs “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.” -John F. Kennedy ‘There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else.” -Sam Walton “Why wait to be memorable?” -Tony Robbins


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“If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.” -Ray Kroc “When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” -Robert Half “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not a single act, but a habit.” -Aristotle “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” -Walt Disney “If we keep doing what we’re doing…we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.” -Stephen Covey “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” -Bill Gates “Well done is better than well said.” -Benjamin Franklin “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” -Donald Porter “There is a spiritual aspect to our lives – when we give, we receive – when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!” -Ben Cohen


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Coming Soon!

Dude, Run! A Story Game of Paranormal Television

www.creepydollstudios.com


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Bath Salts