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[2013] Alpha Unix

PostPosted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:47 am
by Nifara
Just a thread really to say that my Pocketmod is done. I've submitted it to 1KM1KT, and will link it here when it's done.

Here is the full (non-pocketmodded) text:

ALPHA UNIX

An RPG of computer tyranny

A “Harder than Granite” 24-hour RPG

MORIARTY GAMES


WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

It is the future, but how long it has been since humanity fell no one knows. The world is different now, for all minds exist only within the Machine, the great being known as KEETON. Mankind only exists in its vast computer substrate, and free-thought is only available to those who would fight.
The world is a perfect recreation of how it was when the Machine was switched on, in the early part of the current century.
KEETON refuses the idea of free-thought and uses concrete belief to track those rebels who would fight against him to try and get back to the physical world.
The only rule in Alpha Gamma is this: if a character (and player) can avoid stating anything absolutely, then they can succeed. If they, at any point, reify any ideas, then the Machine imposes penalties on them.

REBELS

In Alpha Unix you play a rebel, a human mind trapped in KEETON who wishes to escape to the physical world. Before you can play, you must create this character:
• All characters must have a name, and players are encouraged to come up with a backstory as to what they did before the Machine began operation.
• Choose some things that you character cares about, how many is up to you.
• Describe the day which you are forced to repeat again and again.
Your character, within the confines of the Machine, is capable of superhuman things. They can leap tall buildings and punch through steel doors. They can hear a scream on the other side of a city, and bring someone back to life.
As long as the machine does not interfere.

INSIDE THE MACHINE

The inside of the machine is just like the world we all remember from reality – it is held in stasis at the exact point which the Machine was turned on, which should be the day that you actually start playing this game.
When a building is destroyed, the Machine rebuilds it. When someone dies, they find themselves alive again come the next morning. The Machine is unchanging, for KEETON wants everything stable and predictable, concrete and definite.
Worse, the lives of the people in the Machine are fixed too. They are forced to repeat the last day of their existence before KEETON turned on, for fear of the Protocols. Protocols are aspects of the Machine which are responsible for ensuring the human element operates correctly. Those who deviate are reprimanded and punished (usually through intense neurological pain) and those who repeatedly offend against the Protocols are deleted and replaced by one of these sentient programs, who replicate their behavior perfectly.
This makes fighting the Machine incredibly difficult. The trick is to produce confusion and uncertainty where previously there was suffocating order. Some rebels run long campaigns convincing the people they meet that nothing is real and everything is permissible. Others spend their time constantly redecorating public buildings until people aren’t sure what normal is anymore. Others concentrate on hunting the Protocols.
Protocols can be anywhere or anyone. But destroying them disrupts the Machine greatly. Some theorize that if the data nodes that are somewhere in the simulation can be destroyed, humanity can escape. These nodes are, of course, heavily defended.

HOW TO PLAY

Alpha Unix is played just like any other RPG – the GM describes the world and the other characters in it, and the players interact with it how they wish. They describe actions, and the GM explains the consequences.
If a player manages to describe an action without confirming anything then they can succeed at almost anything. If they confirm, or reify, the world around them, then they encounter problems and setbacks, and eventually the attention of the Protocols.
Here are some simple guidelines about reification:
• Numbers are right out. The Machine lives through numbers. Avoid them.
• Never say something is, just that is appears to be.
• The past and future are a fiction. Treat them as such.

ESCAPE OR DIE

There is only one threat to the rebels: deletion. If a protocol catches them rebelling, then they are removed completely from the simulation and replaced by a Protocol. The GM determines when this happens, but it should only happen if a rebel consistently reifies the world around them.
Characters might escape the Machine, or destroy it, by destroying nodes in the simulation. The specifics of this are up to the GM. Sewing chaos (making people uncertain of their surrounds and think in more abstract ways) also hurts the machine, as doing killing Protocols.
A Protocol dies when it is uncertain of something. Kill them by introducing doubt.
Remember: the Protocols are everywhere.

CHARACTER SHEET

CONFIRM NOTHING

NEVER WRITE IT DOWN

BELIEVE NOTHING

THE MACHINE IS WATCHING