Standard Deviants

[szilard]

Okay... I've been mulling around a few thoughts on a potential new game. This is still in the "random bits rolling around in my head" phase. It started with a fixation on the name (Standard Deviants), some thoughts on group behavior, and an article I read on Heidegger. I'm debating whether there is something here that might be playable. Feedback would be lovely. I may actually come up with some coherent questions toward the end of my ramblings.

Premise: At what cost Individuality?

Characters:

Each player group will be a unit of genetically-altered clones designed for off-world work. Herd-instincts will have been magnified tremendously within each unit, probably reinforced with pheremones (or some sort of psionic group empathy/hive-mind thing if I go that route). Characters will have some degree of specialty within their group, and will have the potential to specialize more. This will include physical differentiation, as the characters have been genetically engineered to be capable of unnatural physical adaptability (possibly psionic in origin, otherwise through some sort of nanotechie/virus thing). However, the more differentiated the characters become (either physically or by their role in the group), the more unstable they become (both mentally and socially).

Game Mechanics Notes:

Groups will start out with all members having identical base attributes at the beginning of character creation. If one individual wants to increase, say, their strength another character will need to decrease their strength.

Each character will have a two scores which will limit each other (i.e., added together, they cannot exceed a certain number... say 20 for now): Individuality and Community. Your Individuality is your base score for determining how easy it is for you to mutate, to learn skills not possessed by others in your group, or to take actions that others in the group do not approve of. Your Community is your base score for your Sanity, your Stability (the ability to control your mutations), and for determining how well you can cooperate with others in your group. Individuality may increase when you successfully mutate or take individual action that the group considers deviant. Community may increase when you integrate your new abilities into the group or otherwise improve teamwork.



Setting:

Still a little fuzzy. Science Fiction, clearly.
Probably far-future, off-world.
Possibly an emphasis on exploration and terraforming of other planets.
Possibly during (or after) a revolution of the genetically engineered.

I'm leaning toward the psionic angle, btw, as it provides both an easy way of linking the characters and allowing for plausible differentiation between them (the same process that links them may make their psionic talents unstable).


I'm not certain about a couple of things here.

First, this game would, by its nature, necessitate a different sort of group interaction than most. I understand that it wouldn't be for everyone - the player who likes playing maverick-types might get frustrated. I suppose my question is whether it is likely to be enjoyable for anyone?

Second, and this is my big concern right now: I'm still trying to figure out what it is that the characters will do. My emphasis in thinking about the game has so far been largely limited to interaction within the group. Maybe there is something obvious implicit in this that I am missing. My concern is that I don't want campaign ideas to feel tacked-on.

Stuart
(who typically goes by szilard in gaming-related circles, but generally approves of this whole real-name thing on the Forge)

[lumpley]

Hey Stuart.

1. Sure, pending 2.

2. You need some conflict.  What price individuality? says that the conflict comes from individuality being expensive.  Make it so.  Not in a resource management sense, of course, but in a moral, interpersonal sense.  During a revolution sounds likely, if the PCs are the revolutionaries and the revolution forces them to make decisions about individuality vs. collectivity.

-Vincent

[bluegargantua]

Each player group will be a unit of genetically-altered clones designed for off-world work. Herd-instincts will have been magnified tremendously within each unit, probably reinforced with pheremones (or some sort of psionic group empathy/hive-mind thing if I go that route). Characters will have some degree of specialty within their group, and will have the potential to specialize more. This will include physical differentiation, as the characters have been genetically engineered to be capable of unnatural physical adaptability (possibly psionic in origin, otherwise through some sort of nanotechie/virus thing). However, the more differentiated the characters become (either physically or by their role in the group), the more unstable they become (both mentally and socially).

I like the nanotech/virus/pheremone route over psionics...

Second, and this is my big concern right now: I'm still trying to figure out what it is that the characters will do. My emphasis in thinking about the game has so far been largely limited to interaction within the group. Maybe there is something obvious implicit in this that I am missing. My concern is that I don't want campaign ideas to feel tacked-on.

What do they do?  You answered that in the premise above:

A new life awaits you in the Off-World Colonies!

Uh...right after our genetically-enhanced slave units make it worth living on for you.

There's all kinds of great things for genetically-enchanced slave units (GESUs) to do.  Dealing with pesky alien flora and fauna, building spaceports and colony facilities, mining valuable substances off of planets no normal human could survive on, giving up their lives to defend Humanity or just to amuse it, the list is endless!

All Humanity wants is a nice, comfortable life.  GESUs do all the work.  Not that this work is all drudgery -- most exploration teams and first contact units are made up almost entirely of GESUs.  Most starships have a small human command staff and crews of speicalized GESUs.  Super wealthy Corpocrats have a suite of GESUs to make their lives easier.  So there's lots of different avenues to explore.

But here's the catch:  GESUs are super-adaptable.  This is good because you never know who or what you'll need when you go to strange new worlds.  But it's bad because if a GESU goes rouge, it may be impossible to stop.  The dark fear of every human is a fleet of GESU ships disgorging hordes of GESU super-soldiers who'll kill off last human in the universe.

So you create adventures where the players will want/need to alter their characters in lots of different ways.  You can set up the "herd mechanics" to help ensure that no single person goes off the deep end.  You could say that the "herd mechanics" will try to ensure three basic things:

No member of a GESU goes rouge (however that gets defined)[/list:u]

All new adaptations get shared with the full GESU (or it's a valid option)[/list:u]

All GESUs "return to base" for debriefing (which will include evaluating all adaptations)[/list:u]

Kind of a 3 laws of GESUs there...but basically, humans want to make sure every GESU is accounted for.  As a side note, if a GESU goes missing, there's probably a team of humans that have to go in after them and make sure they haven't gone rouge (I'd call them Bladerunners, but that's a sure route to litigation).  Playing a member of one of those teams might also make for a lot of fun.

One final thought.  Even by calling them "slave units", I've probably triggered the idea that there's this "slavery vs. freedom" issue and that the revolt of the GESUs could be a big deal.  And yeah, it could.  It's a pretty obvious idea and it's been alluded to in previous posts.  But consider this:

 GESUs like their jobs.  

Of course they do, they've been genetically modified that way.  So GESUs think that whatever they do, it's about the best thing they could ever hope to do.  And of course, just being a GESU in and of itself really rocks with or without mental conditioning.  So perhaps GESUs really want to use their abilities responsibly.  Taking Individual acts is dangerous but, if used properly, it's the only way that the team will succeed at their tasks.  Now you've got a scenario a bit more like Sorcerer or Vampire where people have great power at great cost/responsiblity.  How do you balance the two?

Anyway, there's lots of stuff for GESUs to do and the fact that you can come up with solutions on the fly for different encounters is a really neat idea.  Gotta climb a sheer ice cliff?  Grow claws and a thick fur coat.  Or shoot out a web line.  Or just grow wings and fly.  Of course, if mutations are a one-way trip, then you'll have to consider if you really want to be saddled with wings or fur for the rest of your life.

But anyway, cool idea!
Tom

[szilard]

Okay, some more detail on where this is going...

Standard Group: A group of cloned humans modified by the experimental
Li-Karovski Process. While not a true group organism, a Standard Group
demonstrates great abilities of internal coordination and cohesiveness,
while also exhibiting remarkable psionic potential and adaptability. This
makes them remarkably effective at a wide variety of tasks.

Deviant: A Standard Group member who has been cut off from its Standard Group or has otherwise abandoned its Standard Group in favor of individuality. Deviants are physically and mentally unstable and are considered extremely dangerous.

The plan, as it is evolving, is to set this on the brink of revolution. The masters of the Standard Groups, in the current plan, are known as the Lightbearer Collective, a religiously-based corporation which controls several planetary systems and aggressivelypushes its boundaries. Lightbearer dogma results in a niche that encourages extensive use of the Li-Karovski Process (which is not used elsewhere for a combination of economic and ethical reasons) - Standard Groups are considered natural but not human, and both artificial life and mechanical mockeries of life are prohibited. The Standard Groups are being used to explore a new world and establish bases in which terraforming equipment will be set up. Unbeknowst to the Lightbearer Collective, the Standard Groups discover signs of an ancient alien civilization to which they feel a strange affinity...

So... what do characters do? The game can support a few different types of campaign: exploration, politics, revolution, archeological mystery...

Stuart

[Mike Holmes]

What happens when a character does go rogue? I assume that the others are programmed to try to bring him back into the fold, or to retire him (ala Blade Runner)? My point is that this forces an end to the game, it seems to me, for at least one player. Unless that character is reintroduced successfully to the group. Is that the intent?

Mike

[szilard]

What happens when a character does go rogue? I assume that the others are programmed to try to bring him back into the fold, or to retire him (ala Blade Runner)? My point is that this forces an end to the game, it seems to me, for at least one player. Unless that character is reintroduced successfully to the group. Is that the intent?

Good question.

I haven't made a decision yet. As I see it, there are two main options:

1) This ends the game (or at least alters it significantly). Going rogue (becoming a Deviant) breaks the bond between members of a Standard Group, creating a bunch of Deviants. As such, Standard Group members have an incentive to prevent such an occurance.

2) Deviants are redeemable and can be brought back into the fold. There is still a slight bond as long as the other Group members remain alive. The Standard Group is crippled when a member is Deviant, however, so they have incentive to re-absorb them.

There is also a combination of the above, in which a member going Deviant causes the others to do so, but they can work to regain the group cohesion that they lost.

Suggestions are welcome. If you think one option would be more fun than another, let me know.

The first draft of basic game mechanics are almost done. Hopefully I will finish a draft before I leave for Florida this weekend. There will be two basic stats: the Standard Group Score (Communality?) which will be shared by the group - and Individuality, which will vary by group member.

Also, any potential reference/inspiration sources would be welcome. The explicit ones I am working from now are mainly A Fire Upon the Deep, Blade Runner, and some philosophical works on social conformity (most notable, John Haugland's article, "Heidegger on Being a Person.") I know there is a lot of stuff I am probably implicitly referencing and/or being inspired by, but I haven't been able to think of much...

Stuart

[szilard]

Right now, I know that I definitely want two set statistics. These are:

Unity – This represents the cohesion of a Standard Group, how well it works together, and how much strength and assistance each PC can draw from the group. It is a group statistic, and does not vary by individual PC.

Individuality – This represents the individuality of a Standard Group Member, both how well that individual can function without the entire
Standard Group and the lack of uniformity of purpose between that PC and the Group. PCs with high Individuality scores can be very effective, but run the risk of Deviance.


Beyond that, I have a lot of desires for how the mechanics should work, but that which I’ve come up with seems inelegant. Anyway, here is what I want:

(1) The Standard Group should, in every way possible, be the norm against which other things are measured. More on this below.
(2) The standard method of determining success should assume the presence and passive assistance of the entire Standard Group. There should also be a simple and straightforward method of treating the group as a unit for those times when it actively works together on a task (with greater chances of success than the standard method) – and this should somehow be based on the Unity score. There should be a way of determining success when a PC is isolated from some or all of the group or does not have the group’s support in the task being undertaken (with lower chances of success which can be mitigated at least to some degree by a high Individuality score).
(3) I’d like to refrain from having a specific list of attributes and skills. I’ll list some sample ones to give an idea of what typical Standard Groups are capable of, but they should be non-exclusive. The same will hold true for psionic attributes, though I will have a semi-comprehensive list of common psionic attributes.
(4) I’d like some sore of dice system that reflects the notions of unity and deviance. I’d also like to stick to my dice mechanics preferences: one type of dice (preferably d6, though d10 is okay), no huge handfuls of dice, and no need to have two different colors of dice.
(5) I want to keep this game relatively rules-light.

Given (1), I’d like to say that, by default, every PC has all attributes (other than Unity and Individuality) set to zero. This wouldn’t represent incompetence, but rather demonstrate that any skill level above or below that default is a deviation.

Under this system, all attributes are measured on a scale that takes the Standard Group as the norm. If Standard Group Members are stronger than average humans (as they typically are), then a Strength of 0 will represent a strength above that of the average human (who might have a Strength –2 on this scale). Similarly, if the PCs are wholly ignorant
of Quantum Mechanics, then a human physicist might have a knowledge of +18 (or whatever) in that area.

PCs wouldn’t all have identical statistics, however. PCs would have the option of specializing in some things. For each +1 in an attribute a PC takes at character creation, however, another PC will have to take a –1 in that attribute so that the group average is still zero (there may be some exceptions to this which would result in increased individuality and/or decreased unity).

I’ve been toying with a variety of die mechanics.

Method 1: 3d6, take the middle die. When the group as a whole is acting, take the top die instead (modified by Unity). When a single individual is acting with no support, take the bottom die (modified by Individuality). Doubles and Triples have special results when psionics come into play. Each +1 in an applicable attribute allows you to roll another die and add it to your total. Each -1 in an applicable attribute forces you to roll another die and subtract it from your total.

Method 2: As above, but attributes add or subtract directly from the result.

Method 3: Karma. Success at a task is determined by looking at Unity + appropriate attributes. When the group works together, each member adds positive attributes (but not negative). When an individual works without the group, success is determined by Individuality + attribute.

I’m torn on which of these (if any) to use. Method 2 is less clunky than 1, but it still seems a bit ad hoc. I’m not really a huge fan of all-karma systems. If there was some way of adding a bit of fortune to 3, it might make me happier. I might just throw a +d6 in there (or maybe a +d6-d6) and use that.

As far as the basic idea of the system goes, there are two basic problems that I can see. The first is that it assigns the same numerical score to a wide variety of competence levels (in different areas, at least). The second is that it necessitates comparing every NPC to the Standard Group (this would prohibit, for instance, publishing NPC statistics that could be used with any Standard Group). Do these seem like serious problems? Are there easy fixes that I’m missing? Is there another system that would do what I want? Does the system I’m proposing just really suck?

Stuart

[Shreyas Sampat]

Fix for comparing NPCs to the Standard Group:
Standard Groups have features just like characters do; these features indicate how the SG deviates from a larger whole still.  This whole is some big standard against which you measure everyone, but the double layers of differentiation make it possible to distinguisg SGs from each other.

Then you can very simply cast NPCs against the Standard, or give them a group, etc.  This layering could be repeated indefinitely.  Whatever.

[ethan_greer]

I don't have time to read through all of this 'cause I'm at work, but a quick skim leads me to believe that you should definitely check out an Ursela K. LeGuin short story whose title eludes me at the moment.  It's about teams of cloned workers.  

Boy, that's helpful, isn't it?  :)  When I get home, I'll post the story title and give some feedback.  Sufficient to the moment to say I like this idea.  Anyone else here familiar with the story I'm talking about?

[szilard]

Fix for comparing NPCs to the Standard Group:
Standard Groups have features just like characters do; these features indicate how the SG deviates from a larger whole still.  This whole is some big standard against which you measure everyone, but the double layers of differentiation make it possible to distinguisg SGs from each other.

Hmmm...

What might work there is to detail the average Standard Group... what they have after their "basic training". I could use that as the measuring stick. Then any specialized training they receive after that can be reflected by freebie-type points that the players can collectively spend on the group.

Now, the question still remains whether having the same numbers representing different skill levels is a problem. If my PC has a +2 in athletics (representing an increase over the standard group's already-formidable physical prowess) and a +2 in singing (representing that he is the only one in the group who can sing on key at all), he's going to be a great athlete but a barely competent vocalist.

Having come up with this, I can wrap my head around it. I don't know if it will be too complicated (or annoying) for others, though.

Stuart

[ethan_greer]

The name of the story to which I was referring is "Nine Lives" by Ursela K. LeGuin.  It's in a collection of stories entitled "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" which incidentally has some other cool stories in it.

After reading a bit more of your idea, it is my opinion that you should really check out this story.  :)

[ethan_greer]

I'm liking system 3 the most out of your proposed systems.  A suggestion:  Fudge dice might serve you well for a bit of a randomizer.  2d6-7 works well also, and of course +d6-d6 as you propose is good too.

Another thought that occurs to me is that this game might lend itself well to one-on-one play - one player as GM and the other controlling an entire Standard Group.

[szilard]

Ethan,

Thanks for the story tip. I will check it out.

Stuart
just back from vacation

[richks]

One thing that occurs to me: These are identical people.  They're all the same and work together as a team.  Tasks could be defined as purely deterministic in difficulty.  This would re-inforce the sense of "sameness".

For instance, a task can be defined as doable by one standard.  A harder task would only be doable by 2 or more standards working together.   If a standard is somhow better or worse at something, or wants to try to acheive something that they usually would not be able to do, they can start rolling dice.  But doing so increases their "deviance" (or something).  Each extra dice they choose to roll adds one to the effective number of standards present for each 1 or 6 that comes up, but if a 1 is rolled they gain some deviance in whatever area they were working in.

For example, 2 standard (we'll call them Tim and John) are trying to open a sealed door.  This is a job that requires 3 standards, but they are the only 2 around.  they beth decide to risk deviance by rolling a dice.  Tim gets a 4 and john rolls a 1.  That means they are as effective as 3 standards, but due to rolling a 1, John can now be considered slightly stronger than a standard.  Anytime from now on that John tries anything which involves strength, he is slightly stronger and counts more...

OK, it's still fairly half baked, but you get the idea...

Maybe they are part of a colony ship that left earth many years ago with frozen dna which would be "born" as colonists when it reached it's destination.  Something has gone wrong, and now only one type of DNA can be used to create viable clones.  This means that the powers at be hove no choice but to throw numbers at any skills shortage they have.

[szilard]

The name of the story to which I was referring is "Nine Lives" by Ursela K. LeGuin.  It's in a collection of stories entitled "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" which incidentally has some other cool stories in it.

After reading a bit more of your idea, it is my opinion that you should really check out this story.  :)

Ethan,

I finallt dredged up a copy and followed your advice.

Damn, but you're right.

Stuart