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I felt a little bad for Tadk being the only one to have posted a thread so far, and I thought I'd be more likely to actually start/create/finish an entry if I stated it publically, so here it goes.

*tosses a few chips onto the table* Deal me in.

For now I'll just be posting a few random ideas and trying to work things out that way (I think better when I write), but you'll hopefully see drafts sooner rather than later.

Key Elements:
I will be stressing a few things that I noted in topic.
1) Things Replacing Things They Shouldn't (I came up with Religion taking over Big Business off the top of my head, but I am fascinated by that now).
2) Technological integration pushing the question of where the human ends and the tech begins (technology being loosely defined and thus including genetic do-what-nows).
2b) How tech also redefines what humanity is.
3) Dystopia v Utopia

Character System:
I generally believe that the setting and system should fit perfectly together, which means that each should be designed with the other in mind. This means an "original" system is needed. For the sake of time, though, I'll be going with the basic attribute/class/skill/items/maybe-other-powers paradigm. I like simple systems, however, so I am currently leaning towards 4 stats, hard-classes (ideally 7 classes, but might get bumped down to 4) that establish a character's general background and place in society, small skill set (probably primarily defined by class), items in general being rare and fundamentals. Maybe-other-powers will largely depend on how I develop "VR" for the setting.

Conflict Resolution System:
Basic roll die/dice, add bonuses, compare against target. Cortex System inspired implementation in general, however. Stats determine die type, skills determine bonus, extra "Sin" system can change things up a bit. Might use roll target number, rather than roll above/below.

Important Actions will be defined as "any action or subset thereof in which a loss on the PC's part will hinder character goals or reduce character effectiveness." These are fairly classical, with a slight eye towards being gritty. Negotiating a deal, attacking a foe, etc all count as individual actions.

"Sin System" is something I am currently playing around with and might not include. Each character will have vices and virtues that can be tapped in order to affect the outcome of a conflict. Success/failure might change that particular vice/virtue's score and opponents might be able to take advantage of this as well. A character with a high "wrath" score might be able to get a bonus to attacks when they are angry, but they would also be easier for a foe to goad into attacking. Lust might help them seduce others but also make them more likely to be seduced. Chastity, its opposite, might make them immune for being seduced but will also reduce their ability to seduce others.

Fluff:
Utopian exterior with rotting underbelly motif. Techtown (like "downtown or uptown") will be the paragons of technological advancement, with environmentally friendly everything and happy-yay-ness. Oldtown will be technologically discarded pieces of cities (a rapidly growing sector as new technological advances make even techtown outdated). Classic "mutant" population resulting from unregulated gene-therapies. "The Redemption Army" being an old charity that, after helping with enough natural disasters, began assuming para-political control in some areas. The Cult of Sisko, a religion-turn-megacorporation controlling manufacturing of certain goods ("forget coverage, our cell phones forgive sins!"). The Birds, an organization that is part political party, part street gang, and part televangelist.

Glad to see more thoughts, thought.

Hmmmm, some parts there to pirate and scarf up to throw into my own setting. Loving the Birds already. I like the physical distinctions in the locations already.

very Story Games feeling

It's the "televangelist" part of them, isn't it? Adding "televangelist" to almost anything makes it funnier/more interesting.

EDIT:
Doubleposting seemed uncessary, so I'll edit instead.

Classes are each associated with one of the seven deadly sins and corresponding virtues, to tie into the Sin System I noted in my first post

"Class" List:
Punk (Wrath/Patience)
Goth (Lust/Chastity)
Raver (Gluttony/Temperance)
Emo (Sloth/Diligence)
Rocker (Pride/Humility)
Thug (Greed/Charity)
Indie (Envy/Kindness)

Thug and Indie are the two most likely to get renamed. All of them sort of relate to a musical culture, but the names of these two (for rap music and indipendent music) don't really click with me. Speaking of which, classes may be refered to a Cliches or Clicks.

Attributes:
Hardware - Body
Software - Mind
Netware - Net Abilities

Attributes are scored by die-type. Currently leaning towards a d8 being average, d6 being below average, d10 being above average, etc. GM determines what the action attempted relates to, tells the individual to roll that attributes die. Character advancement can up an attribute a die-step (d8 to d10, for example), and modifications (cybernetics, gene-manipluation, etc) on the other hand add a second die. Thus someone who's been genetically engineered to be strong might get a Hardware score of D8+D4. Maybe.

Netware might seem like it relates to a person's mind, but it is slightly different. It relates to how well one's mind can interface with networked devices (aka, VR). This largely has to do with specific conditioning.

EDIT Again:

I apparently lied. After working with it a bit more, a single "physical" and a single "mental" stat just isn't working like I'd like. Thus, they're getting split a bit into primary and secondary stats.

Hardware = Processor (Strength) & RAM (Dexterity)
Software = Engine (Intelligence) & Plugins (Wisdom)
Fleshware = Networking ("VR" abilities) and Geneware (Genetic augementations)

Health will equal hardware totals, "Humanity" (currently leaning towards a sanity-like system) will equal software totals, and Fleshware relates to "special powers."

How about 'cliques' as the name of classes? Instead of 'thug' try 'gangsta'. Instead of 'indie' try 'alt'.

Damn, that was the sort of thing I was thinking of.
And you've done it better!

Back to the drawing board

Corone, it's great to have you back for this new competition! Doom and Cookies still holds a place in the dark recesses of my heart.

I thank you kindly sir!

I'm trying to get the time to do an upgraded full Doom and Cookies.
But the Cubicle 7 guys keep needing help with Dr Who
(its a hard life)

Corone, please don't let me dissuade you from using a similar idea. For one, there's no guarantee that I'll actually finish (one of the reasons I posted a thread before I had much was to help motivate myself to work on it). For another, there is no guarantee that I'll pull off an idea well. If it's a good enough idea to interest you, you shouldn't deprive us of your interpretation!


Thanks Kinslayer; yeah, Cliques works nicely. I had toyed with Gangsta as well, and will probably end up going with it but... meh, it’s not quite what I have in mind either way. Suburban Gangsta might be a little closer, but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I am sort of looking for crossed with a rapper. "Chav" might also work, but being a Yank, I don't really know anything about them other than that would be a perfect name. As for Alt, still struggling with that one. All the other cliques are derived from pre-existing subcultures, but Alt (and indie) seems like a term coined specifically for the game (or maybe it is just a regional difference and I am thinking about it too much?). If a game says that a character is a goth, or a punk, or a gangsta, the reader will probably get a mental image of what that person sort of looks like.

Hmm... Hippie might work...

In other news, I've been developing the setting for my game and think I have some stuff static enough that, while it will probably change, the basic elements will stay the same.

Intro Text

You want to know about the future? People kept waiting for the end of the world to come. Or for the revolution. Or for some giant marker that would tell everyone “everything’s different now.” That never happened. The world is still here, and while things are different than they used to be, it isn’t that a revolution happened. Thing just… changed. Kinda slowly, actually, and very mundanely. Oh sure, the network blankets the planet, but that isn’t really a revolution, that’s just a convenience, right? It isn’t really all that different from the wired-world of the end of the last millennium. Oh sure, gene therapies help us combat diseases, but this wasn’t a miracle cure. The old diseases and the old medical techniques are still around. People still get sick, people still die. That isn’t that different, right? Does it really matter if we build computer chips up molecule by molecule using nanobots rather than cutting the same chips out of larger silicon wafers? It isn’t that different, right?

Right?

Sorry to disappoint, no revolution here. Just a bunch of people going about their daily lives. They’re unaware of the slow burn that is destroying the past while creating the future, but people always are. That’s history. Sure, the future might have new ways of doing things, but the most amazing thing about the future, if you will stop and look around, is that it’s stunning for its sameness. Wasn’t the future supposed to be some grand thing, full of flying cars and vacation resorts on the moon? The reality seems so mundane.

Ooops, sorry! It looks like my times up. I’m coming to look for me, so I had better get back to my body. See’ya.

The Wireless World (what is present is to be significantly cut down and new sections added).

Keeton, that is a name that history will remember for quite some time to come. Keeton was the one to bridge the Rosenthal-Collins Valley, which was the gap between the bioelectric and chemical signals of the human brain and the purely electronic digital signals of standard devices.

In 2018 the last satellite of the Archangel network went live, completing a powerful world-wide wireless network. From Brazzaville, Congo, to Walton-on-Thames, England, anyone could access the internet. Over the next several decades these satellites were updated, replaced, and new technologies came and went, but like the American Transcontinental Railroad, this was the historic first step that united the communications of the world.

August 27th, 2024 is when Keeton crossed the Rosenthal-Collins Valley. A “Keetonian Organ” was surgically implanted in a human brain, snaking from the Thalamus to the Cerebellum and other areas, ending in the primary motor cortex. Unfortunately, after two-years, this individual died due to unavoidable damages to the brain during this process. However, over those two years this individual developed what has been called a sixth-sense. The individual learned to perceive the wireless signals being sent from the Archangel network, as well as from specific electronic devices, and even began to learn how to generate its own signals to perform specific functions.

International treaty banned this surgical procedure being performed on humans that same year. Keeton, however, was not to be deterred.

Starting in 2016 with fundamental advances in production techniques, nano-technology was a rapidly developing field. Where once only a handful of devices could be constructed with painstaking effort and excessive resources, these advances allowed for mass and economical production of nanobots. Though a novelty in 2016, by 2023 nanomanufacturing of computer chips was able to compete with traditional manufacturing methods, and by 2025 it was responsible for eighty-seven perfect of the world’s electronics production.

Keeton harnessed this technology. With the development of nanomanufacturing also came nanobiotech, which excelled in the field of drug delivery. Combining these applications, Keeton created nanites capable of constructing Keetonian Organs directly in living tissue, without surgical complications. The international ban was circumvented only five years after it was enacted.

This new proband did not display any of the adverse effects of the previous surgical method and the individual is still alive today. Their development of the “sixth sense” was accelerated, which Keeton explained as resulting from the younger age of the test subject. Being twelve years old at the time, the proband’s brain was still in development and as such was better able to handle the integration of what was essentially a new sensory organ and limb. By a year, the proband was capable of distinguishing specific electronic signatures and performing basic wireless data transfers without the aid of an external device. By five years, the proband was capable of wirelessly interacting with computers to the same effect as physical interaction.

This technology disseminated throughout the population rapidly and by 2053 it was required by law in most nations that every adult citizen have a Keetonian Organ in their heads. Because of this, Keeton became a very wealthy individual. Retreating from the public spotlight followed suit and leveraging the power of the associated company, Keetonian International, nearly all traces of the individual’s identity have been erased. It is unknown, now, if Keeton is the individuals real name, and if so if it is the individual’s first or last. Indeed, it is even unknown if Keeton is a man or a woman.

There have been unfortunate side effects of this technology. First, as it became wide spread, criminals were able to hack into what were thought to be secure networks with nothing else but their minds. This escalated, however, into criminals hacking into the minds of others. As this was most easily performed on young individuals who are still developing a sense of self, laws were passed preventing children under the age of 16 from undergoing the Keetonization process. While this reduced the wireless capabilities of such individuals, as their older brains had a harder time adjusting to the new capabilities implanted within them, it provided a very effective means of stopping wireless mindhacks.

It is not unknown, however, for criminal operations to intentionally implant Keetonian Organs in fetuses. This produces what are called Nulls, human-appearing beings that are capable of interacting with the wireless world as easily as they interact with the physical one. These individuals are highly susceptible to mentalhacking, however, and few survive until adulthood uncorrupted. These Nulls are little more than shells, empty dolls dominated by the original hacker and willing to serve them loyally.

In all this, Keeton was assassinated, though no one has ever been brought to justice for the crime. The only evidence found at the scene was a stuffed toy. There are those who believe, however, that rumors of this mysterious benefactor’s death have been greatly exaggerated. There are those who, in traveling the wireless network, claim to have met him. He is said to be a ghost in the machines, now, watching the world and struggling to return to a body.

I always liked Thug, as in "Thug life".
For Indie/Alt/Hippy, maybe Folk.

Not that hippy is bad. The world could always use more hippies.