/tg/ - Traditional Games

I like it. Turn any session of anything into pure psycho hell.

Kind of reminds me of the Bernstein/Bernstain crisis /pol/ went through, mixed with the guy who was going to turn his zombie survival sessions into a walmart-pocolypse campaign, and that tNG episode where holo-Moriarty discovers a computer terminal.

(Deleted my post earlier since I left a trip on from an earlier thread).

So, like madness in COC but everyone acts like they are already mad? Neat.

Might have to rely heavily on players roll playing well, or just handing info to players on paper if only they can see it.

What happens when the players meet someone who's been like this for far longer than they have? Furthermore, what happens when one of the players tries to use this to his own advantage by say, tweaking the conditioning on a company's security to make them think that he works there? I see the potential for some real MK-ULTRA shit here, with hit-men who have had their thought processes torn down and rebuilt so thoroughly that they'd seem utterly alien to normal people, or killers that only exist in the mind of their victims…

Man, I can see paranoia and sanity meters everywhere.

>>201165

Where's "punk" in that?

>>201165

You could go for something like the mix of They Live, the Matrix and some tech from Alpha Centauri here.

Humanity's fucked beyond belief, to the point that merging with machines and kickstarting singularity was the only way of surviving. So every human being right now is a cyborg, with complex machinery running through them. Some mods let you work faster, some mods let you punch harder, whatever. You can even swap your limbs or body parts like you change socks. And if you do have some organic parts, they've been cloned and genetically augmented so you can survive anything, resist disease, and so on.

This, of course, means that no body part is really your own, and that you see your body as merely a vessel to do shit. It's a car, something made in a factory somewhere. Your mind is the one real thing about you. Even your fleshy bits are grown in some lab somewhere.

So, because your mind is the only real thing about you, the horror show starts. Because your eyes are robotic, you can be fed false data. You can see what isn't really there, and your artificial body will react to it. Instead of a grey corridor that stretches forever, your eyes see a colorful strip that would make Vegas look like shit. Instead of realizing that you're running around dressed in a matching uniform, you see and feel the most beautiful clothes on your skin. If your senses would stop lying to you for a second, you'd realize that there's really nothing out there but you and perhaps three or for other guys. Other people you run into? All part of a massive AR made to keep you in place and sedated.

And then you realize that your body can turn on you, since it's made by the same guys who keep the AR running. You can try to go to sleep (which is basically your mind slipping back from its body and entering the internet/VR), but even then you're not safe. Somebody can fuck with your memories. Someone can give you false news. Or you can be marked as "corrupted data" and be erased forever. The only real part of you, gone.

Throw in that the machines that run the VR and AR can and will bug out or are actively out to get you once you realize what's going on around you. The guy at the corner suddenly turns into a massive hulking beast, and starts running towards you. Even though you know its fake, your body starts feeding you data like you've been torn apart. You feel the pain, the sickness. You can shut it off, but you lose your senses in the process - you won't be able to feel, to breathe, and you'll feel nothing.

Of course, there's always the chance that the things that run the freakshow deliberately let you see how reality really is. So the question is why would they do that? Sick entertainment? Do they want you to see? Or because they don't care?

If someone can fuck with your mind on that scale, how can you say you're really safe? When everything around you is a lie created by someone (or something), what are you going to do? Fall back into the safety of your AR, or try and see what else is out there for real? Will you rebel against whatever is out there for a chance at a better future? Do you shut yourself out completely, becoming an individual again, but stuck alone in a completely alien and unwelcoming place forever?

>>201285

To quote /pol/ here, all the pills are red. Even if you put the blinders back on you're marked by reactions and cautions you would not otherwise have developed. The blue pill leads to a red death.

>>201291

Don't worry, you can be reprogrammed. Everyone can be,

You'll still be marked by everyone else as something to avoid. So the people you run into? All of them will be barely functioning simulations, created with enough functionality to appear human, but with zero substance behind them. After all, you don't want to waste resources on something that can infect the rest of the system, right?

You have the entirety of humanity to look after. What's one human losing his mind when the entire civilization is at stake?

>>201165

I just read that comic for the first time thanks to this thread. Enjoyed it, even though hypno's not my fetish even though conditioning is. It seemed to have a good rhythm going the first time around; why does the artist keep rebooting it?

This seriously reminds me of Syndicate game series. Video related, it's a Syndicate Wars intro which features brainchip of random civvie failing and the civvie getting shredded by minigun fire.

How do you intend to handle the whole mind control thing anyways? I see three options, each with their own positive and negative factors:

>People are mind controlled trough embedded mind control chips/electronic implants, like in Syndicate. Which means cybertech is pretty common, and stuff like hacking people's brains EYE Divine Cybermancy style is possible, but it also implies everything is connected, with trackers and all that, so characters are stuck being monitored and susceptible to mind control at all times as long as there are implants embedded in them, which contributes to atmosphere but stacks the game against the players.

>People are mind-controlled trough conditioning. The food is full of special additives, sometimes people you know vanish for a week or two for "special training" and return with no memory of what happened, and those symbols and other codes you are exposed to are just something your brain is conditioned to react to. If you stick with this, it means that player characters will have to live outside the grid if they want to remain free, as otherwise they'll be reindoctrinated back. Also, it might complicate the player attempted to mind control others, as PCs won't be able to condition multiple people for prolonged time, so if they'll want to infiltrate or sabotage a corporation office or something, they will be forced to manipulate the existing mind control measures.

>Mind control is done trough universal mind control tech. Think something like congitohazards from SCP Foundation. Pretty much everyone is susceptible to them, and they work immediately without any conditioning, simply perceiving or sensing the cognitohazards is enough to by effected by them. There's also a whole science behind them, and a pretty consistent one, so if your understanding of memetics is strong enough, you can easily manipulate masses, of course, this would require balancing to prevent players from exploiting the system massively once they reach a certain level of understanding. Also I would recommend adding robots in such setting, to guarantee the existence of enemies not affected by cognitohazards.

>>201347

Why not all of them combined?

If we go with the post-singularity humanity idea from above, you'll have all three:

>everyone is linked into a giant network, which can alter your memories, control your body and so on

>your body still needs fuel, especially if its organic - otherwise, there are certain zones that seem normal but force your cyborg limbs start behaving weirdly

>there are glitches in the VR which appear as cognito hazards, and even spotting one is enough to be infected with some mind-altering computer virus

>>201353

It seems like there are two extremes this can go

1. Relatively benign like the comic in the OP, does not really deserve the -punk label

2. Dystopian nightmare fuel like greentext/idea from the other thread where it most certainly does. The major turning point on whether it's punk or not becomes whether the characters are aware of what is being done to them.

Is that porn?

It looks like porn.

>>201285

>This, of course, means that no body part is really your own, and that you see your body as merely a vessel to do shit. It's a car, something made in a factory somewhere. Your mind is the one real thing about you. Even your fleshy bits are grown in some lab somewhere.

So, basically Eclipse Phase with less Wish Fulfillment and more Grimdark?

>>201449

Eclipse Phase, Demon: the Descent, and a pinch of Paranoia.

With grimdark on top.

>>201450

Jesus Christ dude, I feel sorry for your players.

>>201314

Conflict between wanting/not wanting the comic to be porn and lack of ideas on where to take it seems likely. Sleepy never did get to any kind of actual PLOT in any version of it, just worldbuilding.

>>201353

>Seriously, what's wrong with you people sticking -punk to just about anything, no matter whether it fills the requirements or not?

Yeah this grinds my gears too anon.

Why don't we just call them retards?

>>201438

Yep, just reverse image search it.

> Desire is only an illusion. Therefore, just as we can free ourselves from it we can also embrace it. Imagine, everything you could ever want created inside the contents of your own head.

- The Brotherhood of the Left Hand Path

This would work for the end goal of: >>>199032 (see also https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Transformative_Thought_Initiative).

I'm thinking mixing in some mysticism might be interesting. By engaging in eldritch practises, abstaining from ones desires and breaking the mind of logic one can become enlightened and free from the illusions of the demiurge, the massive computer network that coordinates mankind's shared consensual virtual reality.

I think we could also mix in some Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and have a version of Mercerism where a major ritual is for people to commune with one another inside of some virtual consensual reality network hedonistic game world. To feel the desires and passions like "lust, hunger, love and anger" is felt to be an essential quality of being human. Those who control or mute their desires and those who do not participate in the network are felt to be unhuman or the "unsouled."

okay, so the main concept is that the mind is a machine that can be altered and rebuilt.

what does that mean?

how is it altered? through magic, or advanced technology?

is this a new innovation, or has it been like this for a long time, or even forever?

what kind of world does it take place in? is it just ours, but with this added twist? or is the whole setting tailored to this specific concept?

Once all that's figured out, we can start musing about more specific details

>>201557

You fucked up your linking. Triple-arrows is only for crossboard linking. >>>/tg/199032 , >>199032

>>201285

>This, of course, means that no body part is really your own, and that you see your body as merely a vessel to do shit. It's a car, something made in a factory somewhere. Your mind is the one real thing about you. Even your fleshy bits are grown in some lab somewhere.

This actually sounds like the opposite of what is being proposed in OP. "The human mind just being another machine" means that your thoughts themselves are also embodied in physical substrate that was manufactured for some potentially sinister ends that do not align with your own.

(Of course, this is also just real life. The game idea is to call attention to it.)

>>201546

>Why don't we just call them retards?

I already do, but fuck, what kind of new fad it is?

Suddenly everything is -punk. What's next? SJW-punk?

Bumping. Here's some ideas for willpower I came up with in the meantime:

>Your character's force of will and mental strength is represented by Lucidity.

>Lucidity isn't something you're aware of in the pre-reveal phase of the game. Instead, your GM generates your character's Lucidity and keeps it secret from you until the time is right.

>For point-buy, GMs tell players that "good things happen" if you have unspent chargen points. These points are in fact spent on Lucidity. For random roll, the GM rolls Lucidity for your character as if you were rolling for it yourself. Of course these are just guidelines, GM can do whatever they feel is best representative of your character.

>Lucidity could be used in rolls to resist active mind control attempts by corporate agents, in context-sensitive actions, or as a limiter for installing "psychoware" like Essence in Shadowrun.

>Low Lucidity causes your sense of self to start going wibbly would impact mental rolls due to the cognitive clutter in your mind, cause your GM to distort your character's perception to reflect ambient conditioning at random, and cause other "fun" things to occur at GM description.

Bumping again.

>>201285

Would be fun if rich people could pay for making the world look more beautiful to them. So they could walk through Detroit, and all they'd see would be the Paris from the movies.

>>204245

Furries could pay to make the world their personal magical realm. Furries could be hidden in their fursonas (only viewable via the furtopia expansion pack) all around you. The hot dog stand vendor could be wearing his fursona right at the moment and you wouldn't even know.

>>201165

> The basic concept is a world where the human mind is just another machine, a machine that can be altered and rebuilt to suit one's needs. The game would focus on the confusion of reality and hallucination as a result of ubiquitous hypnotic conditioning

/wh40k/ and see "servitors". And sleeper agents, for that matter. And progena. And…

>>201165

Damn it I actually wanted to see where that comic was going. It just ends out of nowhere.

bump

Damn space elves…