Games we want to see: Kill all bots!

[Groffa]

In Kill all bots!, players take on the role of a spambot. They struggle for existence on various forums across the digital playground known as "THE NET" (all details not fully fleshed out).

GM: "Uh uh, there's a user on the forum that's trying to unmask your true identity."
Player: "Why? I haven't done anything?"
GM: "He read your last post about golf club merchandise."
Player: "So? Everybody loves golf?"
GM: "You wrote it in a completely different language."
Player: "Yeah? Well 'THE NET' isn't just for one type of..."
GM: "The only English word you used was 'penis'. And you used it 500 times. What do you do?"
Player: "Ah, well, I cast Hey Man, It's Only My Signature! at the other user. I got 14."
GM: "He doesn't buy it. He has reported it to the admin. What do you do?"
Player: "Ah crap. I go into stealth mode and....I got 2."
GM: "He finds you easily in the User Control Panel. He casts Captcha at you."
Player: "Easy peasy. First, I cast OCR on the captcha. Then, I cast grep $1 dict-en.oxt to..."
GM: "I'm sorry, what? Where did you find those spells?"
Player: "Here. It's in the Complete Bot Warrior Sourcebook. I multiclassed to Unixbot last time. I have all plethora of cool spells now! I can even count how many lines..."
GM: "Alright, alright. So what did your spells get you?"
Player: "Well... (rolls dice) grep found the word in the OpenOffice dictionary, so I responds with that."
GM: "OK, he buys it. What do you do?"
Player: "I cast sudo on him! I got...39."
GM: "...alright, you win. You are now an admin for this forum. Good game."

[Rob Lang]

Not a bad idea for a game. I think my anti-spam question was rubbish, so I've changed it. We're not going to stop the human spammers, sadly.

[Groffa]

Or....they did actually cast OCR and grep....

[Rob Lang]

They'd have to cast "Understand obscure Our Glorious Benefactor" joke, which takes 100 Netmana. That would leave them with barely enough Netmana to cast CAPCHA.

Realistically, the answer to the question was 2, which a scanning register system can work out. Now it's 2000, which most bots won't bother with. Hopefully.

[Rob Lang]

Just riffing off the game idea, would each adventure be trying to stay alive in an area of the net - for example RPGs being an area, Custom Motorcycles being another. Each area being more/less difficult. You could get resources depending on how long you stay on the board given how quiet it is.

[Groffa]

So resources gained are proportional to the intensity of the current board/thread visited?
Or should it be a mix of factors: <resources gained> = (<size of thread> * <# of off-topic posts>) / (<# of on-topic posts) ?

I think natural language should be a factor. "Oh my bot tried to post a coherent message about golf clubs, but I failed my roll so 34 % is scrambled" (random quoting from previous posters, random links, random BBcode formatting, etc.).

The end game should be called I'm A Real Boy!, where the players must convince the GM that they are in fact a real human being.

[Rob Lang]

I like the end game, it is essentially a Turing test.

I think there needs to be a bit more skill for the player. Perhaps they are given a thread and some clues of what it might contain and then they can decide what sort of spam they perform?

[Groffa]

Absolutely. And I think context is important. A human spambot (often) knows to what degree he's spamming (because he can spot the context of the current thread), whereas a pure computer spambot only follows directions (an algorithm). Or is it implied that the players all play human spambots?

[Evil Scientist]

I imagine this as a great party game - Werewolf/Maffia style. Just a basic concept. 7+ players. Some of the players are normal users, some are spambots, there are a few moderators. The spambots want to take over the board. The players want to ban all the spambots.

Preparation:
Take some pieces of paper (equal to the number of players). Leave most of them blank (or write "user" on them), write "bot" on three or more (depending on the number of players. Rule of thumb: 50% minus one). Write moderator on one of them. Fold the papers, place 'em in a hat (using a hat is very important!!), everybody takes one and keeps it in secret.

Then, make up a theme for the message board, something everybody's more or less familiar with. It can be anything, RPGs, football, politics, depending on the party, occassion, level of alochol consumption.

If you are a bot, you have to make up a secret spam theme for yourself (a single expression, like "golf" or "enl4rg3 yur p3n1s").

Playing the game:
The oldest player starts a thread: this is done by simply stating the subject and describing your opening post in a few sentences. Then the next player (clockwise) posts in it. If you are a spammer, you have to include your spam theme in your post. When everybody has posted, the round is over, and players can accuse each other for being a spambot. By a majority vote, anybody can be banned.




This is just a raw concept... I have no idea how to include the moderator. And there are more flaws. But this could be fun if done well in a geeky company.

[maledictus]

That sounds really interesting and fun!