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Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 4:00 am
by madunkieg
A big thanks to everyone for the support. There will be no holding back. There will be no excuses. I'm going all out on this project, and you'd better be pushing just as hard on yours. Stay tuned for a ton more stuff in the works, such as:

"Surgery? What century are you from?"

Gone are the dreams of body part replacement. Oh sure, it's possible, but who really trusts their life to some crazy with a blade his hand, hopped up on surgeon drama sims? You want new wires? Punch the buttons on the vending machine to pick a flavour.

NanoDrinks

Red berry, brown chocolate, orange, and a few colours man was not meant to know. Each drink contains nanos that wire you up. Sure, the body will break it all down in a week, so remember to have another drink by that time to repair the system.

This means most cyberwear is oriented to information handling or minor appearance modifications. Get a tattoo, turn your eyes into video displays, listen to the latest tunes, call a friend, it's all just a drink away. Just make sure the can isn't past its best before date. You wouldn't want your systems to be out of date, oh no.

Inspired in part by the early Apple iMacs (which were marketed by colour/flavour) and Microsoft's patch tuesdays. Currently grooving to: Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:19 am
by madunkieg
"The street finds its own uses for things." - William Gibson, Burning Chrome

"If you use a tool in the way authority intends, you are just as much a slave as if you had obeyed orders. Freedom is found in rebuilding technology to your own purposes." - Keeton


Technological Re-Determinism

The rules for technology will be based on Joshua Newman's Shock: Social Science Fiction, but with the sensibilities turned on their head. Anyone who modifies a technology to bend it to a new purpose gets narrative control (essentially, GM-like authority over the story, but with a few limits) when that technology is used. If the technology is then used to establish or augment the practices of a group of people or subculture, the player's narrative control extends to that group as well as the character becomes their inspiration or leader.

With each reshaping of a technology it is given an extended function and also a limitation. Other players may then seek ways to further extend the function or reshape the limitation, passing the narrative control onto the next player and different social groups/subcultures. After a few shifts the gamemaster may attempt to make the reshaped technology go mainstream, become widely used by groups not directly influenced by the characters, taking back narrative control by accepting the influence of the technology on the social structures in the setting.

This is how cyberpunks change the world, not through guns and violence, but by modifying tools and products, creating and expanding subcultures to set the example for others.

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:50 am
by madunkieg
"Don't tell me what to do and I won't kick your ass." - Keeton

Keeton

Now that I've discussed technological re-determinism, it's possible to introduce Keeton. Keeton is one of the gamemaster's cyberpunks, able to modify technology to new purposes. A rebel who cares about nothing but himself and his own freedom, he is a philosophical challenge to the player characters, a stark individualist in a world built out of subcultures. He believes in doing it all yourself, that power comes from individual ability, and that social support networks lead to weakness. He modifies technology, but he doesn't share it unless there is direct profit for him. The player characters can find Keeton changing between ally and foe as the situation warrants.


"Technology made all my beliefs in invisible spirits come true." - Mr. Sojobo

Mr. Sojobo

Resident in the same group of capsules as the player characters is Mr. Sojobo. He's a kannushi, a shinto priest, a former video star and a cyberpunk. As everything in the world became chipped and started working at least partially of its own volition, Mr. Sojobo's animist beliefs adapted. He is a wizard of code, modifying the software that runs in the chips in every product, an exorcist battling the oni(demons)/viruses that occasionally possess them. Mr. Sojobo is a potential mentor to the player characters, offering them a worldview that will allow them to better understand technology. An old man with a long nose, Mr. Sojobo is based upon the Yamabushi Tengu.

Currently Grooving to Beyond the Invisible by Enigma

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Tue May 11, 2010 7:46 am
by madunkieg
I've gotten stuck trying to decide on a core system. The game will use a zero-sum game of some sort, but I want something with a strong emphasis on group actions. I'm also trying to decide if I want something that involves a process of building to success (building the river in Weapons of the Gods), or if I want some sort of instant resolution (e.g. dice in most rpgs).

Narrative control (being allowed to describe outcomes) is a second element that can be earned, but that will be left to the technology-related part of the rules. They don't have to run off the same system. This will be the central group activity. If you look at D&D every character has combat skills, and other activities are individual, giving everyone something to do together and something to emphasize individuality. So it will be with MPL, but with reshaping technology as the to-do-together activity.

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Tue May 11, 2010 9:23 am
by SheikhJahbooty
I'm sorry if I misunderstand your use of the phrase zero-sum. (I'm a mathematician so I use it the way game theorists use it, but I am aware that my wife, i.e. normal people, use the word differently.)

A perfect example of this is Greg Stolze's In Spaaace! (I'm not really excited. The exclamation point is part of the title of the game.)



Don't bother trying to ransom the game. Just go the the downloads section and get it. It's been ransomed years ago.

The game mechanics of In Spaaace!, called Token Effort, use token bidding that is almost entirely zero-sum. There are a few ways tokens can leave play, but mostly they just bounce back and forth, between players or between players and the GM to indicate who has more narrative authority.

That system, or a very similar one, might serve this game very well.

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Tue May 11, 2010 8:13 pm
by madunkieg
Thanks, SheikhJahbooty. I'm thinking I'll leave narrative authority to the technology mechanics and keep the core system focused on success/failure competitions. In Spaaaaace reminded me of another secondary mechanic I needed, though.

He stood outside in the rain, staring in through the glass doors of the clothing store. He had the credit, why wouldn't they open? He was going to have to change facebanks, even if it meant higher service charges. This one just wasn't promoting him enough.

Face and Credit

Face is your face to the world, and your interface with its automated systems. It's a solid credit ranking, and the job of a facebank is to spread your info to all the right places, to everybody know you've got enough credit to be worth their while. If you've got the right face and the right facebank, signs will picture you as you pass, doors will open automatically to welcome you in as you approach. But you don't have the right face or the right facebank. Otherwise you wouldn't live at the Metropole Luxury Coffin.

The goal of the game is to get your Face rating up to 10, thereby gathering enough credit to be able to live someplace nicer than the MLC. While face adjusts slowly, credit covers your day-to-day expenses. The face systems check now and then to see if you've spent too much (at the end of a session). If you've spent enough credit to go below 0, your face drops by 1. Reach a face of 0 and MLC contacts an eviction service to haul you off to debtor's prison. If, however, you've earned enough that your credit has gone above your face (at the end of the session), your face gets raised by 1.

Cash? Nope, never heard of it.

Currently listening to Kingdom by VNV Nation

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 7:37 pm
by madunkieg
"Hey, is that an official Captain's belt?"

The young woman kept her eyes on his buckle, so he strutted two steps forwards, thumbs behind the belt, pushing it down just a fraction, exposing flesh and hinting at what might be below the belt should the buckle give way. He replied, "McWhirter, schnee, and only the schnee."

She stepped up to his chest, her own fingers now drumming on the buckle, her eyes narrowing as she shifted her gaze up to his, "yes, very the schnee."

Amonst the onlookers a few listened knowingly, but most stared mystified.


Forget skills and attributes, characters are pure style. Each location in their outfit (head, body, hands, feet, cyber) gives an opportunity to wear something that connects to a product brand, be it entertainment-related, neo-historical, or whatever. The more you wear of a particular brand, the better you connect to others that wear it too. Just be careful to adhere to the brand's image and use the brand's lingo. Above all, don't break the brand's taboo or everyone will label you a poseur.

There's only two stats on the entire sheet: face and credit, which I mentioned previously, Most of the character sheet, which I'm currently working on, looks like an armour diagram from certain other games, only each slot is a fashion opportunity instead. Characters aren't what they can do so much as they're who they try to fit in with. Players design their favourite brands at character creation, and the group chooses one that they've all got to have in common (at least 1 slot on every PC uses that brand).

Brands also give opportunities to connect with other groups within the Metropole Luxury Coffin. When you create a technology you can share it with a group that you also share a brand with. That transforms them into your groupies, who you can get to do things for you by spending face cards, which can also help with action resolution.

If I have space I'll include rules for character development (changing brand slots). It's not as easy as just changing clothes. You've gotta learn the attitude and the lingo, too. As it stands, though, this is secondary, as the most important part of character advancement is building face.

Currently listening to Smooth by IIO

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2010 8:42 pm
by madunkieg
Not sure if anyone's actually reading this, but here goes. Should I call money credits or minutes?

Everyone has a cellphone in their hand. Touchscreen on the palm, speaker in the middle finger, camera in the index finger, mike in the wrist. It also functions as a wallet, since all transactions are now electronic and cash has been eradicated. You have two financial stats. Face is your credit rating. If it dips too low (because you've stayed in debt too long), they send the collection agency to collect you. If it gets high enough, you can afford to leave MLC for a better home. The other stat is how much money you have or owe at any given moment.

So, should that second stat be called credits or minutes? The former is clearer, but the latter is more humourous and a reference to how important cellphones have become today, and I am making a satirical game. Your input?

Less than a week until the first playtest. Here's hoping...

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2010 11:16 pm
by vulpinoid
Credits are pretty standard Cyberpunk...but I like "minutes".

The only issue I can see here is that Minutes might get confusing in certain transaction types.

Using a phone for a voice-call, 1 minute = 1 minute.

Using a phone for a data download, 1 minute per Gigabyte? (at a dowload speed of X Gigabytes per minute).

Paying for a cab, 1 minute per mile? (even though it take ten minutes to get through a mile in all that traffic)

Paying for night at a capsule apartment, 60 minutes per night (what???)

Unless this confusion were deliberately incorporated as a part of the satire.

Re: Welcome Metropole Luxury Coffin

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 7:49 am
by madunkieg
Vulpinoid, the problem you describe, confusion created by a term designating multiple things, is called data fog, a game concept described earlier in this thread. Since the game is meant to be humorous and satirical, I guess the question is, will it be more funny or annoying? I sense a playtest coming on.

It's funny just how many subsystems this game has: conflict resolution, finances, technological development, brand tribes. And though they don't have to, they tend to cycle through in that order, too. The result (the fruitful void, to use a term from the story games forums) is the creation of a community.

Meanwhile, the goal of the game is to leave. Mechanically, working towards your goal involves creating a reason to stay, but thematically they're in opposition. It should be interesting to see the tension created between trying to leave and building a community.