I have some things to answer on this one (I got an e-mail about it) and I'm hoping to get around to it soon.

First up, I'll say that I think they were reading things into the text/rules that just aren't there (you need to push someone? no, you push a chip), or looking for sub-rules where none are needed (you have to push at/disagree with someone specific? no, you just push a chip to whoever it says you hate). Anyway, here are my answers, which I hope are helpful.

-----
I really do not have any questions on character creation (or "making friends") except that the example on assigning hates in the rules is not consistent to the example (unless there is something I am missing).
-----

I'm a bit confused about the assigning hates not being consistent with the rules in the example. Could you point out what you think is wrong?

On page 10 Ruth gives 1 more hate to Alison, as Alison is sitting to the immediate right of Ruth. Basically, you all get, and give out, 5 hatreds. This is ensured by everyone following the rule of passing hatreds to the players to the right. (See page 7 for varying sizes of groups.)

If you could point out what isn't clear then that would be very helpful to me. Thanks!

-----
Now, this is were I think I am confused. When it comes to accomplishing things out side of the group, I had them all have to have the same score to succeed or else the ones that were under the difficulty number had to push. So, to sneak out of the school, they all needed to have a smarts of 2. Or when they got into a fist fight at the mall with a group of girls from an opposing school, they all needed to have a toughness of 1, etc. Now, if someone runs out of friend chips and can not do this, then the whole group fails. Was I doing this correctly?
-----

I think you have fallen over at this bit here. External adversity in and of itself is meaningless.

The game is all about the relationships between the Best Friends. External adversity only has meaning if it is reinforced by the group.

OK, say you have some thing that you all think needs Smart 2 to work. Well anyone with Smart 2 can do it. Anyone without Smart 2 needs to push, or they (themselves) fail. Not the group. Just the ones that don't have Smart 2 or better. Some might choose to push and the PCs they hate for being Smarter get chips. Some might choose to keep their chips and live with the failure.

Here's another example. Say a big bully girl from a rival school comes along, lets give her Tough 5, and starts beating up the girls. Well, what happens? If we think that's the way it would be then there's no conflict. She beats everyone up. But what if someone disagrees? Well, then that's conflict. So the Bully has Tough 5 and Mary, say, has Tough 0. Right now the Bully has Mary lifted up by the hair and is pummelling her. So Mary pushes and wins. "I scratch her in the face and muster all my might and for once I start to win the fight!" says Mary's player. Anyone object? If not then Mary wins and she beats up the bully.

But say another player thinks that's BS, so they push on behalf of the bully (NPCs can't push they don't have Friendchips) and they say something like "No Mary, you'll just get her angry! And the bully gets real angry and she kicks the living crap out of all of us and it's all Mary's fault!" Wow!

Anyone object or do we stick with that? And those two players can't push again -- you can only push once in a conflict. And you can't change fundamentally who the conflict is between or about. That was established when the Bully did one thing (a goal to beat everyone up) and Mary objected. Does that make sense?

-----
• When it comes to player characters opposing each other, then the lesser has to push with someone that is better than them with the stat they are using. Can they push the person they are opposing? Can someone be pushed by several people on the same conflict?
-----
No. The lesser player just pushes the chip to whoever they have to push it to. It could be the person they're in conflict with or it might not be. Pushing allows them to win because they're pushing. Really pushing for all they're worth.

In a conflict between PCs someone might have a higher stat, that's the one who starts off winning. Say it's about Social Status and we're looking at Rich. Sally has Rich 3 and Jessica has Rich 1. If Sally and Jessica have a conflict that is all about being Rich then Sally is going to start off winning. So Jessica might say what she wants to happen, but Sally then says what actually happens. She's richer and that's that. Jessica can then live with that or push (or someone else might even push on her behalf). Say Jessica pushes, now she wins. In pushing she send a chip to whoever is on Jessica's character sheet as who she hates for being Richer than her (and that could be anyone). Sally looks at where the chip has gone (maybe it's even come to her) and figures out if she can live with Jessica winning. Maybe she can in which case she just says "Fine, I go with that" or maybe she can't and she can push back and win again. At that point other players might push on Jessica's behalf and some might then push back on Sally's behalf. At some point everyone will have pushed once or decided not to push at all. That's when the conflict ends.

So you just choose to push or not. If you push then the chip goes to whoever is on your character sheet as the person you hate for whatever it is you're doing. And you can only push once in the conflict.

The conflicts are all about and driven by the relationships between the PCs. Anything external can be defeated by a push (and if no one disagrees). Knock out Mike Tyson? No way! I push. Way to go Carly!

If someone is short of chips then you can put them in awkward situations. Do they live with that or use their chips? Are you short of chips? Try to get chips pushed to you. Who hates you for what?

-----
Of course when someone pushed, I made them come up with a way to explain it in the story. For example, if they did not have the money for the ticket and they had to push someone with money, I made them roleplay it out (instead of just saying, I push Christi for the money).
-----

Every time they push or use their stats make them say it. I have Rich 0 and I want to own a yacht. Crazy I know! I don't have any Rich. So I push. I send the chip to whoever I hate for being richer and I describe it: so, my uncle left me this boat in his will; I won a boat in the lottery; can you believe that I'm the millionth visitor to the marina and they just gave me a yacht!

Does that make it any clearer?

-----
At the end of the adventure: to get out of trouble (or serious trouble), the three rich girls decided to use there riches score to intimidate the school, the the three poor (and tougher) girls had to push the rich (and weaker) girls to make sure they did not get the crap beaten out of them (instead they had to clean the bathrooms with their toothbrushes).
-----

One rich girl could just intimidate the school board, or one poorer girl could push. That's all it takes.

And the interesting thing is that you are all best friends, and sometimes that makes you worse than your worst enemies to each other. But through it all you're still Best Friends. There is no stat for love, it's just when you choose not to push against someone, y'know?

Anyway, I hope this helped.

-Gregor