New Guy - The 24-Hour People

[Some Guy]

Hello there! This certainly sounds interesting, so I'm going to throw my hat into the ring and see what happens. Here's a rough idea that I've had for a game.

The 24 Hour People

The world is bigger, faster, louder, brighter, better, because people can't handle it not being that, if we were to consider the idea of the world not being bigger, faster, louder, brighter, better we would get bored so easily and we don't want to be bored that would be bad that would be more than bad that would be absolutely atrocious, I mean imagine being in a world that's not bigger, faster, louder, brighter, better, if there was even a moment of silence or stillness we would go nuts, it would be unbearable it would be terrible it would be atrocious, I mean I do my work I get my pay and then I still have 16 hours to fill before I clean and go back to work and then have 16 hours to fill before I clean and go back to work and then have 16 hours to fill before I clean and go back to work and then have 16 hours left to fill...
- 'Leddy' Eddy, Office Worker

New York, Yew York; The city that never sleeps. Literally.

It was about 20 newyears ago when they made the what has now referred to as the single most important piece of technology in human history - the Buzzchip. The Buzzchip is a small cerebral implant, now inserted in-utero, that removes a person's need to sleep. People never stop anymore, never need to rest - perpetual energy. People suddenly had 8 more hours in the day, and never needed to stop to 'rest their eyes' or take a nap or even sit down. Everyone wanted one, and soon nearly the whole world was Wired. Without needing to stop, without fatigue work became vastly more efficient - scientists and engineers could work 24/7, so technology developed at an even faster rate. Day and night became irrelevant - they even starting referring to newyears not in days and weeks and months, but hours. 8670 hours in a newyear.

But then something happened, something terrible and heartbreaking; something that truly changed the world forever.

People started getting bored.

The human mind wasn't made to cope with constant action, never made to handle life without rest. The Buzzchip meant that the brain never degenerated, but people still needed to fill their day. Entertainment boomed, as people wanted, needed, something to occupy them every second of every minute. Film companies churned out movie after TV show after cartoon. Video games began to work on the 24-hour lifestyle, where people jacked in one day and jacked out a week later. Peoiple became addicted to information - they needed to know what was happening where, why they weren't involved and what their friends thought of it. Information screams across the cities down, in radio waves and light pulses, and people eat it up and shoot out their own data back - people now blog every moment of their life in high definition, while watching the lives of a half dozen other people, only stopping when someone becomes passe or boring. Soon the entertainment industry was having to go to greater and greater lengths to thrill an increasingly jaded and bored audience, but almost every penny a person had was going to them. Most have now merged into the all-powerful megacorp, U-Like, and their mascot, the great and glorious Keenton is almost omnipresent.

Well, you've got 24 hours left today. What do you want to do?

System Thoughts
I'm just going to go with an reasonably simple d6 pool, with 1-3 on the dice being a failure, 4-6 being a success.

I want there to be a certain amount of impermanence to the characters. Sure, with each game they'll be the same person, but things on their character sheets will change to 'suit the times', as it were. To that end, the main thrust of characters come with two sides.

"Work" is binary. There are going to be a short list of areas that a character can work in at any one time (since rest has been eliminated, shifts are kind of a thing of the past, and people join and leave companies and careers at an alarming rate), and if that career would work with the current activity the character is attempting ("IT Staff" to hack computer systems, for example), they get an extra dice. However, if you want to get something through money, you use a number of dice equal to each type of Work you are currently in, and roll that.

"Play" is sort of a combination of skills and statistics. It represents what you're 'in to' at this time, and are represented by the areas:
Sports - Representing physical activities
Fashion - Representing area knowledge and networking (large-scale social interaction)
Clubbing - Representing personal social skills and fame (small-scale social interaction)
Gaming - Representing mental acuity and wit

There are also two areas that add a sort of meta-game context to the RPG, and I think would add a level of emphasis to the themes of the game.
Firstly, there is the Crash Pool (CP). CP represents the way humanity has changed and become dependent on fickle fashions and distractions to cope with the mental stress of constant activity. If people don;t have a constant stream of information and entertainment, there's a chance that things will move on without them. If people feel that they've fallen out of sync with the rest of the world, or gotten bored, they'll go through a Crash. This is basically a pool of points the GM has to cause problems for the players, either through straight penalties or adding complications to their plot. Now, the important thing is that this pool is added to at certain increments of out-of-game time, which I feel can add a certain amount of interesting meta-game anxiety to the whole affair

Secondly, there are Fads. Fashion, as everyone knows, is fickle. Things come in and fade to the background at an astonishing rate - even more so now that people have this addiction to distraction. Each game the GM hands out a certain number of Fads to the players, little bits of information as to activities that are in vogue for the moment. Fads can be used to either add to rolls they are appropriate for (Sword Duels, for example, could add to sports when using swords, or Country Music could be used with Clubbing when attempting to sing country) or they can be Indulged to remove points from the Crash Pool. Using Fads in such a way either removes a player from interacting with the game for a certain amount of time (the more points removed from the CP, the longer the time) or are risky to the character indulging the Fad (the more points removed, the higher the risk).

Well, there are some basic idea outlines I've had. Any thoughts?

[misterecho]

I've posted this in the announced games thread. Welcome aboard!

[SheikhJahbooty]

Ouch,

This concept is really solid. There's some serious competition going on here.

It reminds me a little of Story Engine, from PIG.

Sadly, not free

One thing you might want to steal from them, if you weren't already thinking this way, is to let one number get you an extra die to roll. For them success is an odd number, and a result of 1 gets you an extra die, and it's assumed that you have a bunch of d6s or d10s that you're using for the rolls so 1s will be fairly common, but not terribly so. This makes it so that if you roll 5 successes, and your opponent is only rolling 4 dice, you are probably safe, but it isn't guaranteed, he still gets to roll.

[Some Guy]

Thanks the compliment, SheikhJahbooty! I have to say, your stuff is pretty fascinating as well.

I do like the idea of the 'momentum'-like rolling up, so I'm going to say if you roll a 6, you continue gain another dice to roll.

I've also had a thought for combat - I want it to be as light and fast as possible, so I'm just going to go with this:

When combat starts, go down in order of Sports, with PCs gaining preference in case of a draw (in case they are both PCs or NPCs, each person rolls a dice, highest roll wins). The person then:

Chooses a target or chooses to defend

If the person chooses to attack, they then choose the level of injury they want to cause their target, one of Defeat, Wound, Maim or Kill.
Defeating an opponent drives them off, but they are not significantly injured and the GM reserves the right to bring them back during another session, or may spend a point of Crash to have them remain in the fight.
Wounding an opponent causes them a significant injury, which reduces all their dice pools by 1 until they spend time away from strenuous activity and make a Resources roll with successes equal to the number of times they were Wound. The GM can spend a point of Crash to have them remain in a fight, otherwise they flee.
Maiming an opponent is the same as Wounding, but all dice pools are reduced by the 3 and the Resources roll must succeed by 3 for each time they have been Maimed. The GM may spend 3 points of Crash to have the opponent remain in the fight
Killing an opponent is...well... killing them. Topping them. Shuffling them off this mortal coil. They're dead.

The attacked and their opponent collect the dice (adding Work and Fads, should they so choose) and roll as normal. Each level of injury requires the attacker to beat an opponent's roll by that much. This is called the Margin of Victory, and it as followed: Defeat is 1 success, Wound is 2, Maim is 3 and kill is 4. If you roll less than the required Margin of Victory, nothing happens. If you beat the level, then the level of injury you wished to cause your opponent occurs.

If you choose to Defend, the Margin of Victory required is doubled.

Any thoughts?