[Inside] looking for the white rabbit

[kwill]

I recently got hold of Clinton's Inside supplement, what with all the praise it garnered, and brushed up on Sword in preparing to start a campaign

as a cyberpunk adaptation of Sorcerer, I think Inside has succeeded, but I am currently concerned that it removes the unknown element from the game, rendering everything previously unknowable as explainable, even familiar, "computer stuff"

now, as a computer-scientist-in-training I think it's obvious there's a lot of science fiction going on here (the resources required for an Inside are astronomical), but that doesn't stop it feeling safe and explainable from a game perspective - I mean daemons are just programs, right? this is just Virtuosity

contrast: the explanation in Sword (p. 49) that even in "the few settings where magic is a wee bit more common... sorcery remains a frightening, world-view-destroying thing, well-deservedly. Sorcerers are feared and hated because they have unpleasant habits and o'erweening ambitions, and certainly because of people's superstitions, but not because they obviously summon and command demons. The sorcerous activities are always whispers and rumours, not knowledge."

with: the suggestions in Inside (Describing Inside) that "people [might] come and go from Inside regularly", or that there might be "a relatively advanced setting where people live their lives Inside", or in the Frisco example setting "RealLife gave everyday people the chance to visit a new city... [and after the quake] [e]ntire companies moved their operations inside RealLife's Frisco, and families followed."

the contrast is between an arcane network experiment by a sorcerer named Berners-Lee (c 1992) and everyone and their dog blogging with friendly web interfaces (c 2002)

how do you reconcile the need for there to be everyday people Inside, with the fact that Inside is a no-when daemon-driven Mystic Otherworld?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi David,

This has been an issue for cyberpunk role-playing from the beginning. Back in 1989, a fellow complained ... "But the internet only seems to exist to allow hackers to fuck up corporations!" We actually came up with a whole set of ideas, although not rules, for people who just use computers and don't spike their hair.

My thinking is that Inside isn't just "on-line" or even just "VR." It's a degree of on-line/VR that requires a sorcerous level of transgression, coupled (for whatever reason) with the willingness to commit to the imaginary reality. So all kinds of people might be participating with the same programs and totally not be sorcerers.

Clinton, what do you think?

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

Sure, but it's only a mystic otherworld for sorcerers and hackers. See, the demons are real...real in that they're representational of real problems Outside. You don't have a girlfriend, can't keep a steady job, you're addicted to drugs...just go Inside and everything's ok.

You've got a hot chick who wants you (nevermind she's just a virtual construct), you're the go-to guy for people who want things (nevermind you're still dodging responsibility), and there's nothing like the power of being Inside (just forget you've exchanged one type of addiction for another, one illusion for another).

So, yeah, demons are "only" programs...but they're insiduously powered by the character's own broken ego, and thus dangerous. Inside is a warped and backwards reflection of reality for the sorcerer, who appears better than he really is, precisely because of the toys he chooses to use and the masks he finds to hide behind. Inside, complete with its programs and hacks, is a siren's call...beautiful and enchanting to our sailors of the electronic world, fleeing something Outside. And it is very deadly if you listen to it, because you'll end up the rocks.

That's one way to look at it, at least.

[Zak Arntson]

how do you reconcile the need for there to be everyday people Inside, with the fact that Inside is a no-when daemon-driven Mystic Otherworld?

Inside is emphatically not a daemon-driven Mystic Otherworld to most folks. Just as today where most people sit down at a computer to write up a document or an email, Inside is another place to get business done, chat with someone overseas, etc. In fact, Inside is very normal with things working just so and according to the expected laws of reality.

The Otherworld is superimposed over/under/within the Inside's "human world", from which a hacker can pull things from thin air and impossible constructs emerge. In light of Sorcerer & Sword, full immersion in the Otherworld is too foreign for a human being to do, justifying the damaging rules found in the sourcebook. The Otherworld is to normal Inside as machine code is to the modern computing world.

For a glimpse of machine code, here's some old code for the Commodore 64, and this is human-readable assembler, one step above actual machine language. The actual code is pure numbers, missing any comments and "friendly" mnemonics like "jmp". To understand that, whizzing by at light-speed, would be to know the Otherworld.

;*****************************************************************************
;* package entry points *
;*****************************************************************************
.$1300 [4c 01 15] jmp $1501 ;jmp to draw line/position pixel cursor
.$1303 [4c 11 13] jmp $1311 ;jmp to enter hires mode
.$1306 [4c 48 13] jmp $1348 ;jmp to exit hires mode
.$1309 [4c 10 13] jmp $1310 ;reserved
.$130c [4c 10 13] jmp $1310 ;reserved
.$130f: $b3 ;library loaded identifier
.$1310 [60 ] rts

;*****************************************************************************
 ;* enter hires mode *
;*****************************************************************************
.$1311 [a9 00 ] lda #$00 ;switch to bank 15 (kernal bank)
.$1313 [8d 00 ff] sta $ff00
.$1316 [a9 e0 ] lda #$e0 ;set color to light grey on black
.$1318 [a2 1a ] ldx #$1a
.$131a [20 cc cd] jsr $cdcc ; ROM routine to write VDC register
.$131d [a9 87 ] lda #$87 ;enter bitmap mode (note - for version 2 VDC)

By giving up attention and ties to the real world (humanity loss), a hacker better understands and can manipulate the underlying reality (the machine code) of the Otherworld. Most people have no humanity troubles with Inside, since an Inside phone is not a daemon representation, programmed to function like a real-world phone; It's just a phone. The hacker sees an Inside phone as a construct which accesses particular data nodes and carries peculiar functions, oh and this version contains a buffer-overflow bug which can be taken advantage of in order to make an untraceable call; heck, I've even used it to execute a spider-5 kill-utility on the other end of the line.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Clinton has been out of town and missed this, but Ron, Zak, and Raven have wrapped it up good. Inside is just another place to most people: it's only hackers - outsiders - to whom it is a treasure chest of daemons.

[tetsujin28]

I would highly recommend watching the Cronenburg film, Existenz, to get a feeling of what the isolation and reality-tripping might be like for a VR 'sorcerer'.

[Drew Stevens]

Thank you for exposing me to Inside, oh kindly poster of kwillness.  You rock. My one shot plans now procedde apace :)