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Robert Bohl
– Admin
11:32 pm – November 18, 2009
posts 53 |
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54:46 long & 50.2 MB big
In this episode, Robert Bohl (designer of Misspent Youth) and Joshua A. C. Newman (designer of shock: social science fiction) finish developing the character-based situation for the game they’re designing — before your very ears! — then move on to discussing some ways that characters can be pushed to change away from baseline humanity
Rob’s during-the-show notes, the document containing the complete write-up of the relationship map, and Joshua’s ideas on the cloudkill technology.
- Rob does a staged reading of the lyrics to “Prevenge” by They Might Be Giants
- We reflect on how much podcasting is like The King of Comedy
- Obligatory references to Vincent Baker, Radio Lab, and Paul Beakley (we also talk about Ben Lehman)
- COINTELPRO
- The film Jarhead
- The Wire, Generation Kill, and Battlestar Galactica
- John Dillinger
- Toxoplasmosis, Brilliant Gameologists podcast, and Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
- Hampshire College, the college Joshua graduated from
- Crank, which has a sub-standard sequel
- Mortal Coil
- My Life with Master
- Cloudkill
- A Scanner Darkly
- JiffyCon
- There are mysterious goings-on on the Facebook page for shock:
You can subscribe to the show by plugging the RSS feed URL into your preferred podcatcher. You can also use the one-click iTunes button thingie:
The intro music is “Gotta Whizz” by Boris the Sprinkler, from the album Mega Anal. The outgoing music is “Prevenge” by They Might Be Giants from the album The Spine.
 Read original blog post
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Robert Bohl
– Admin
12:07 pm – November 22, 2009
posts 53 |
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Some thoughts I had while listening to the episode and cleaning and dancing in the nude last night:
- I want to make sure we retain the special rules for different “classes” thing. So when X happens, soldier can do Y. I really want these narrative powers to be qualitative rather than quantitative (although quantitative implications are cool).
- I think we have an interesting race-and-class-like matrix. You've got the stuff the Activist or Cop or Hunter or Reporter or and Soldier can do, then you've got the stuff that the antagonist or ally or protagonist can do. Maybe they interact so that when you're the antagonist and the Soldier there's one set of powers you can have, and that may be different in whole or in part than if you're the Soldier and the ally, or the Reporter and the antagonist.
- Ally players could be responsible for the world-not-antagonist stuff. I really like the idea of separating the antagonism and world roles that are usually folded together in GM duties.
- To further this, maybe the person who knows the rules best plays the protagonist, or the antagonist, or something? Maybe the person who's hosting in his or her home (or who found the public space that you're all using) is the ally role always, or stuff like that? I love the idea of rules flowing out of social structure, like that stuff in German board games where the youngest player goes first or something.
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renatoram
– Member
Milan, Italy 5:25 pm – November 22, 2009
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I have this nebulous idea in mind about a cool way that the killer cloud identification process could work, but it's not clear yet.
I'm thinking in terms of very practical, “fiddly bits on the table” process. Basically the various areas of identification (behavioral, consumer profile, and so on) could be marked on a track on the character sheet (with a colored pawn, or something), and what the Cloud knows at the moment would be a different pawn/token on the same track.
Every time the Cloud manages to get a clearer clue about one of the categories the cloud-pawn moves closer to the character-pawn.
Every time the character changes his/her/hirself invalidating one of the phrases on the charsheet (neat idea, that) to escape the cloud the character-pawn can be moved away.
When the cloud-pawns are all on the same place of the character-pawns (or maybe 3 of 4 of them, I don't know but that's a detail) then you've been found for sure and you're dead.
Another fiddlybit option: when as the antagonst you have SOME cloud-pawns in the right place on the target's sheet, but not enough, you can take your chances and activate the cloud anyway. Kinda like a bet. You might get lucky and get your target, but if you (say) fail the roll, the cloud kills someone else AND the pawns move.
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Ciao,
Renato
www.janus-design.it
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Dave (aka Nev) – Guest
7:36 pm – November 22, 2009
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Two words: Aquinas Protocol.
I will say that I find the “cloud can possess someone to attack you, but can't kill you directly” thing, while thematically interesting, makes no goddamn sense. Why doesn't it just possess you and make you jump in front of a bus? I mean, I get why that would be less interesting, but you guys seem to want to justify the technology in the setting, so I'm curious as to how exactly you'll explain that.
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Robert Bohl
– Admin
7:54 pm – November 22, 2009
posts 53 |
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Seven words. What the fuck is the Aquinas Protocol? :)
(NOTE: smilies, sub-verbal filth that they are, don't count as words)
Your second point is excellent. It's a big hole in what we had in mind. What about this? What if it can only act through animals or people it fully understands (zombies? willingly 'ridden' a la the loa (gods) from Vodoun?)?
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noahtrammell – Guest
11:08 am – November 26, 2009
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You've been talking about how to make changing yourself interesting on this episode, and also how to make precautions against the cloud cool, too. When you started discussing this, I got this image in my mind of people carrying around EpiPens that have been pre-loaded with a certain physical (or heck, why not psychological?) change. Once the cloud finds you, you stab that into your leg and…voila! You're an overweight Asian.
Maybe the Hunter just carries around a device that can mix up these substances. She or he or other just hits a few buttons, waits a few minutes while the machine synthesizes it, and then becomes someone completely different.
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Dave (aka Nev) – Guest
4:38 pm – November 28, 2009
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Robert Bohl said:
Seven words. What the fuck is the Aquinas Protocol? :)
(NOTE: smilies, sub-verbal filth that they are, don't count as words)
Your second point is excellent. It's a big hole in what we had in mind. What about this? What if it can only act through animals or people it fully understands (zombies? willingly 'ridden' a la the loa (gods) from Vodoun?)?
The Aquinas Protocol, probably best known from the Deus Ex series of games, but frighteningly close to actual NSA endeavors, is to have all data transmission monitored and collated at a single point- a digital panopticon, through which a global infocracy may be implemented and indefinitely sustained.
Hm. How about this: An entity's Profile in the Cloud is defined as a percentage. When it attempts to hack an entity, it has a P% chance to do so, per attempt. Following a failed attempt, a savvy entity (whether through some tech-based monitoring device/software or some biological or other means) will recognize that it has just repelled an invader, so to speak, and that entity may then try to reduce their Profile, thereby increasing the chance of thwarting subsequent attacks. This assumes the Cloud has refractory period between attempts. Perhaps during which it attempts to increase the Profile of the target through data acquisition, either firsthand observation, or background research/pattern matching.
Tailored to suit, both on the mechanical and fictional ends, naturally.
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Dave (aka Nev) – Guest
4:47 pm – November 28, 2009
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Also: A Pseudopod audio fiction about a future where becoming Disconnected is a fate worse than death: http://pseudopod.org/2009/11/2…..connected/
And a short SF video production about a future in which the Cloud not only doesn't kill you… but it won't let you kill yourself: http://strangerthings.tv/episodes/105
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