[Robots & Rapiers] Announcing Ramshead's new RPG

[Valamir]

Ramshead Publishing invites you to review and playtest our next RPG,  Robots and Rapiers.  You can find the 130+ page pdf alpha version on the Universalis website.  I expect to release the final game 1Q 2004 schedules permitting.  The final format of the release has yet to be determined but a full sized softcover through RPGNow's POD service is the leading candidate.

The down load is free, and formatted for utility over style.  My goal in making it available for download is to garner feed back, and encourage open playtesting.  Credit will be given for all playtesters who provide playtest reports in the text, and some form of discount on the final version (whatever form that takes) will also be awarded


Premise

   In the distant future the Solar Republic stretched across most of the known galaxy.  It was a time of peace, prosperity, and technical achievement.  The planet Athalon was discovered at the fringe of known space.  Of all of the planets in the Republic, Athalon was a gem.  One of the few capable of supporting life without the need of domes, underground cities, or terraforming; Athalon was a beautiful world.  However, it was far too far away from the center of the Republic to become a sector capital or center for commerce, and so instead it became a vacation destination for the ultra wealthy and social elite.
   To enhance the experience of the vacationing guests, who'd often stay at Athalon for months at a time, a series of themed resorts were constructed on the planet.  Each resort was a self contained self sufficient little world based around a period of human history or legend.  The largest of these was Auvernais.
   Built around a facsimile of the court of Louie the Sun King, Auvernais was an anachronistic blend of period history, swashbuckling literature and modern technology and style; fully automated and gilt in chrome.  The characters which populated this resort were highly advanced robots programmed to portray their characters completely and unerringly; running through their story lines and interactions for the entertainment of the guests.
   That was until the enemy came.  Crossing the borders of the Republic, the enemy spared little time for the sparsely populated Athalon.  Orbital bombardment and a salvo of bio and chemical weapons destroyed most of the planet's heavy infrastructure and snuffed the lives of thousands of the Republic's highest ranking citizens.
   That was a over 100 years ago.  Neither the Republic nor the unknown enemy ever returned to Athalon.  But the robot's have not been idle.  They rebuilt what they could of Auvernais and continue to this day to go about fulfilling their function of portraying characters in the court of the Sun King.

   Of course, you don't know any of this.  You are just a robot going about your daily routine.  Perhaps you are Juliard, loyal officer in the Cardinal's Guard who is head over heals for the lovely Lady Vivienne, even though the Lady drives you crazy with jealously with her flirtatious ways and nonchalance.
   You don't know that you're an officer in the Cardinal's Guard because that's the role that you, robot #01785613, was programmed for when the "first magnitude service outage" occurred.  You don't know that you only love Vivienne because you're programmed to, or that she is likewise programmed to be a devilish flirt.  As far as you know you are Juliard, you love Vivienne and you're loyal to the Cardinal who is a great man.
   Until the day you Sparked, that is.  Until the day you started to see the "man behind the curtain".  Until the day when things finally no longer added up for you and you came to realize that your world is just an illusion.  That you are no more Juliard than this is the 17th century.  The day you realized that you're just a character in the Tapestry, playing a role for the amusement of guests who've been dead for over a century.  Your whole life has been a lie.

   So what are you going to do now?  Now that you've become self aware, what are you going to do with the knowledge?  Gradually, little by little you've begun to throw off your reliance on your core programming.  Piece by piece you've begun to rebuild yourself in your own image.  To create for yourself your own role of who you want to be.  
   But you are not alone.  Other robots have Sparked as well, and while you're still trying to figure out what the truth is, many of them are already busy creating their own truth.  But most robots have not.  Most are still comfortably going about their daily lives exactly as you had been, blissfully unaware that things were not as they seemed.  But, the more robots who Spark, the more robots who begin choosing their own path and forging their own destinies, the harder it is to preserve the illusion of Auvernais.  The Tapestry is starting to fray.
   The Cardinal works diligently night and day to prevent that from happening.  If the Tapestry falls all of Auvernais will end in disaster and anarchy.  Many robots will simply suffer complete failure, unable to process the unexpected intrusion of reality into their collective delusion.  This catastrophe must be averted at any cost, and that means keeping tight watch on the actions of Sparked robots and dealing with those who threaten the status quo.
   You may agree with the Cardinal and help him keep Auvernais from collapsing. After all you are his man and quite loyal to him.  Or maybe that was just your programming.  How do you really feel about the Cardinal, and would you be able to over come that programming if you wanted?  How can you tell if you've chosen to be loyal to him, or if you're still being controlled?  You may begin to wonder if the robots who haven't Sparked aren't the lucky ones after all.
   Or you may agree with the Queen, who feels the Tapestry is an archaic remnant of a distant past with no place in Auvernais future.  Until all robots are free to make their own choices they are all just slaves to masters long dead.   Or you may choose another path, seeking patronage from one of the leading Sparks in Auvernais or setting off in pursuit of your own agenda.

   Whatever path you choose to take, however you choose to reinvent yourself, you'll have to overcome your basic programming before you can claim true sentience as a free thinking being.  And along the way you're still living in a replica 17th century city, filled with characters out of the pages of a Dumas novel.  The only life you've ever known is as a swashbuckler.  Between dark alleys, dim taverns, and the lavish balls and salons of court, there will always be duels to fight, maidens to woo, ships to sail, adventures to seek, and ropes to swing from.  

   So stick a feather in your hat, put on your best brocade, draw your sword and welcome to the world of Robot's & Rapiers.

[Marco]

If you have not read the 1-issue Phil Phoglio (sp) illustrated comic D'Arc Tangent, get thee to a comic book archive somewhere. An excellent inspiration for at least a little bit of this and it looks like that's sorta where it was heading (it never achieved lift-off, a pitty. It was great).

I've not had time to analyze it much further at this time.

-Marco

[John Harper]

Cool. It's The Matrix turned inside-out and stuffed into a doublet and hose. I'm off to download the playtest PDF now.

[Daniel Solis]

Oh poop. I guess now I'll really have to change the title of Gears & Spears. :\ Sounds like a neat premise though.

[Valamir]

Actually, Daniel, I'd specifically avoided commenting on Gears so it wouldn't distract me from getting this alpha version finished.  I did dig the opening fiction with the Meats and the Shine.  

I don't see any reason you'd need to change the name, however.  I don't see it conflicting in anyway.

In fact, I kind of dig your premise.  

I'm not planning on having any fixed metaplot for R&R rather I want to just have a number of "campaign seeds"...little mini metaplots that GMs can mix and match from; so I have no "official" canonical "ending" for robots & rapiers.  

Given that...a neat possibility is that Gears & Spears represents the far far future of the Earth of the Solar Republic from R&R.  Perhaps, my Earth never recovered from the war with the nameless enemy, and like on Athalon, the robots gradually just rebuilt and went about their daily business; following their core programming as best as they could...until eventually, they all Sparked (in my parlance) or achieved Shine (in yours) leading to the Earth of G&S.

An interesting product tie in anyway.  Perhaps some cross promotion is in order.

[Daniel Solis]

After having read through the first chapter or so of your pdf, I was thinking the same thing. The only incongruity I can see is that I've got a lot less design-a-bot stuff in my system. I'm currently compiling the stuff from that first thread into a single html just to get an at-a-glance state of G&S. We can talk about mixin' it up from there, I think. :)

[Thierry Michel]

Looks interesting at first glance. XVIIth-century pulp is not my favorite genre (the XVIIth century was so much more) but here it fits nicely in the theme-park premise [still, it's Louis not Louie ;) ].

I suppose the prime inspiration is the old WestWorld movie, but I wonder if you know the (much darker) novel of Stanislas Lem "the Mask" ?

[Mike Holmes]

[still, it's Louis not Louie ;) ].

I was under the impression that this was intentional. Assuming an American sort of tourist, if the pamphlets on the theme park said, Louis, then many Americans would expect to hear the S pronounced.

The movie "The Madness of King George III" was marketed in the US without the "III" because the marketing guys were afraid the American public would think it was a sequel, and not go to see it because they'd not seen the first two. I don't think that American's are that dense, but marketing folks don't care. They want things as easy as possible.

So what I think you'd see in Auvernais, would not be anything like an accurate 17th century, or even a pastiche of Dumas, but something more like Disneyland. Made easy to consume. I think that this consumerism angle, the robots living their lives in a manner that's easy for people to grok has two effects. First, it's a metaphor for certain aspects of modern life that fits in with the overall metaphor about societal control. Secondly, it means that players don't have to know anything about the genre, other than what they've seen in the movies. Because Auvernais reality is the movie reality, I think.

So I'd expect all sorts of anachronisms, for example. Not just in the guest accomodations, which would be conspicuously modern (if camoflaged likely), but in terms of things like signs with words on them. Which at the time were actually still very rare. But in Auvernais, I'm sure that everything is labeled quite clearly in some Pseudo-Gothic/Medieval script.

It's a theme park. So accuracy is out, and fun is in. So, Louie seems perfectly appropriate to me. A guy named Louis is a stick in the mud. Louie is a party monger. Never mind that they should be pronounced identically.

Mike

[Valamir]

Yeah, my goal actually is:

What would Auvernais look like if Disney were building a theme park with an unlimited budget and access to super advanced robotics and robotic AI instead of clunky animatronics and human actors in costume; and if the "hip & trendy" style of pop culture at the time it was built looked like something out of the Cyberpunk 2020 Chromebook.

The park's historical authenticity bears a much closer resemplance to the pseudo history of your typical Renaissance Faire (at least U.S. Ren Faires, I don't know what they might be like in France), than it does any serious historical recreation.

Thus land travel is still by carriage and horse, only they're robotic horses and a hovering antigrav powered carriage.  Sea travel is still by big three masted ships, only the ship's are also anti grav powered and hover several meters over the surface and the sails are giant rigid solar panels.

Its was meant as an an "experience" for the guests...like some of the more over the top Los Vegas casinos.

[Lxndr]

Are there plans for detailing any of the other themed areas in later supplements, or in sidebars or asides in the main text?  Your narration seems to say Auvernais is simply the largest, not the only one on this planet.

Either way, it looks like a fun setting.  I'm still wading through the rules, but they look pretty sharp and solid.

[Marco]

I'm still digesting the rules system--but I have a question about the extant conflicts:

1. The Cardinal is putting the smack-down on self-aware robots ... ostinsibly, at least, to prevent the collapse of the Tapestry. I may have missed something--but that seems to indicate that for (what I see as) the majority oft the PC's awakening everyone would be pretty much a bad idea.

2. On the other hand, it seems that the Tapestry is going to collapse sometime anyway (even if there isn't a mass awakening or whatever) which seems to make the Cardinal's efforts a pretty much doomed holding action.

Do I have that right?

If so, it seems that a game "against" the Cardinal would be robbed of a lot of dramatic importance since winning will be catestrophic and losing will be catastrophic.

I would find it stronger if the catastrophy of the Tapestry unwraveling was that the "neat and clean" facade would collapse--but not a substantial mass of the population--that would put free-will against security rather than free-will for some vs. life for many/all.

(I realize the Queen forms a potential counter-agent in the conflict--but I still see it as lacking some potential dramatic power)

-Marco

[Valamir]

Are there plans for detailing any of the other themed areas in later supplements, or in sidebars or asides in the main text?  Your narration seems to say Auvernais is simply the largest, not the only one on this planet.

Either way, it looks like a fun setting.  I'm still wading through the rules, but they look pretty sharp and solid.

Heh, absolutely.  I haven't yet fully decided how much information I want to give about the other locations in the core book.  I'm planning to make some of the other settings playable in their own right.  Mike had a terrific idea about how to circumvent the typical metaplot problem of supplements conflicting future play; and that's to assume that the robot's of Auvernais (who were never programmed to interact with any of the other resorts anyway) don't actually "discover" the other resorts, until that supplement comes out and the GM decides to insert the event into his campaign.

Initial locations and the rough order I want to do them in:

1)  "The Gold Coast": which is the beach and ocean resort done with a mix of Spanish Main and Polynesian Islanders (because Polynesian islanders are much more guest friendly than Caribs...)

2)  "Darkest Africa": which is a 'Stanley and Livingston' theme full of witch doctors and such.  In this resort the robots are all quite "mad" and have no concept of Tapestry or guests.  They're working on their own agenda.

Both of these will probably be released together in 1 supplement as influences from the "Darkest Africa" park start infiltrating "The Gold Coast" with sinister voodoo houdans and the like.  Both of these allow for "discover the new world" and "expedition up the Congo" kind of adventures for Auvernais swashbucklers, drawing imagery from the 15th and 16th century as well as 19th century Africa.

Todd Luikart has indicated a desire to put his "Skull & Bones" skills to work on this one.


3) "Valhalla": where the resort is a nordic theme of Valhalla on the brink of Ragnorak complete with robotic dieties, dwarves, giants, and, of course, Berserkers.  This one I actually want to be fully playable on its own, with the principal driving force being not one of Tapestry vs. Sparking but rather that the park was originally programmed to be perpetually at the brink of Ragnorak...but now...its actually happening and whether or not it will play out "as scripted" or if the characters can actually alter its course.

4) "Camelot":  an obvious pick.  Its currently last on my list, but I have a vague notion that the park was set up to emulate the "happy" time of the Arthurian stories and that now the "tragic" part has been brought about by robots like Modred and Guenevere sparking and needing to fulfill their own wants and desires.

5) a Wushu inspired park would be neat, "Wire Fu" is pretty easy to do with anti grav; but I'm not enough of a wushu fan to do it justice and each of the parks would need some unique central conflict to be playable stand alone.

All of which is contigent on a number of factors, of course.

What's up on the site is all just core rules and game concepts.  I'm still working on writing up the actual setting in detail.  There will be a good bit on the geography of the park, a map of key locations, write-ups of key NPCs and "factions", as well as discussions on how the need for power to recharge sets up a system of "patronage" where robot's who want to be independent have to decide where they're source of recharge is going to come from.

[Valamir]

I'm still digesting the rules system--but I have a question about the extant conflicts:

I have a 20 page or so write-up that needs a good bit of editing and revision that fleshes out the situation (in broad strokes) a good bit that should address this.  I hope to have it up on the site this week.

1. The Cardinal is putting the smack-down on self-aware robots ... ostinsibly, at least, to prevent the collapse of the Tapestry. I may have missed something--but that seems to indicate that for (what I see as) the majority oft the PC's awakening everyone would be pretty much a bad idea.

2. On the other hand, it seems that the Tapestry is going to collapse sometime anyway (even if there isn't a mass awakening or whatever) which seems to make the Cardinal's efforts a pretty much doomed holding action.

The Cardinal was originally just a character in the Tapestry, albiet one of the more important ones.  The massive central AI that ran the park was damaged in the attack and managed to download much of itself into the Cardinal character as a form of self preservation.  So the Cardinal character is now an amalgam of the computer whose job it was to keep everything running and the Cardinal.

Part of the AIs prime directive is to maintain the Tapestry, in much the way that Disney forbids any of its costume characters to ever act out of character in public areas...can't let the guests see behind the curtain.  So much of the Cardinals efforts in this regard are to preserve this core dictum.

However, too much paradox in the Tapestry can cause robots to simply crash...envision the old Captain Kirk out witting the computer episodes.  And so the Cardinal has good reason to keep Sparks activites from disrupting the Tapestry overly much.

On the other hand, the central AI part of the Cardinal is well aware that the resorts capabilities (infrastructure, etc.) have been seriously reduced in non fixable ways and views the "able to figure stuff out" aspect of Sparks as a potentially valuable asset in keeping the park running.  So the Cardinal actually hopes to groom sparks into helping him, while putting the smack down on those whose activities could bring the Tapestry crashing down.

If so, it seems that a game "against" the Cardinal would be robbed of a lot of dramatic importance since winning will be catestrophic and losing will be catastrophic.

I would find it stronger if the catastrophy of the Tapestry unwraveling was that the "neat and clean" facade would collapse--but not a substantial mass of the population--that would put free-will against security rather than free-will for some vs. life for many/all.

(I realize the Queen forms a potential counter-agent in the conflict--but I still see it as lacking some potential dramatic power)

There's alot more about the Queen in the write-up I'll be posting shortly.  She was one of the first robots to spark. Her initial efforts to describe her new found sense of self to her husband ran afoul of the King's anti-paradox programming.  He justified her incomprehensible behavior as madness and has her locked away telling the court that she's ill and needs to convelesce.  Only her ladies in waiting are allowed to attend her (and whoever they can smuggle in).  The one exception is the Cardinal who is her "confessor" and so visits periodically.

She is convinced that the falling of the Tapestry will not result in the mass destruction that the Cardinal fears and through a network of agents she's managed to put in place actively works to cause more robots to spark.  She dreams of the day, when all of the citizens are free from the slavery of their core programming.

In one of the many dialogs between her and the Cardinal, I've imagined the Cardinal replying to the nature of "Ridiculous! Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone was free to do whatever they pleased willy nilly at their own whim?  Utter anarchy.  An entire city of independent people living together of their own free will?  What nonsense".

One of the key's, however, is there is no canonical right answer.  I have no intention of ever providing a definitive answer as to what happens if the Tapestry falls.  The players should have to choose between maintaining the status quo or working to bring down the Tapestry without the benefit of knowing which answer is "right" until it plays out.

[Marco]

I completely agree with offering "no right answer"--which is why security-vs-freedom is a good quesiton. Freedom for a few vs. mega-death for many is less, well, it kinda makes you a bad-guy if you're fighting for your personal freedom that'll kill thousands.

That said, the Cardinal's question is exactly what I was looking for. If he fears the chaos of freedom vs. mechanical failure it allows him a certain nobility but doesn't simply make him heroic (fighting for the survival of your people, if that is your assigned role, is, I think, all anyone could expect of him and actually de-fangs the philosophical question at hand a good bit).

The queen is interesting as well. A good character to flesh out.
-Marco

[Valamir]

I have a 20 page or so write-up that needs a good bit of editing and revision that fleshes out the situation (in broad strokes) a good bit that should address this. I hope to have it up on the site this week.

And so I have.  A broad setting overview with some more indepth discussion of some of the key characters in Auvernais can now be found in PDF form on the site