I go with set D here.

A few hundred years in the future the world are controlled by a seven big corporations. These corporations are incomprehensible complex, and no one really know who controls them, but the best guess is that it is not really humans, but intelligent computers, who makes the important decisions. The corporations are seen, by the common person, as being religions, and their central computer systems are views as gods.

Because of cybernetic implants people can be integrated into The Net to a degree so the virtual reality and the real reality seems to cross over. Especially computer savvy people can reach a state of transcendence where the two realities becomes one.

There is a few people who is not part of any of the seven corporation. On The Net some rouge AI have formed over times, which are look upon as being pagan entities, and which can give the same power on The Net as the AIs of the big corporations. People who worships these entities are called Cyber Barbarians. You will find these people at the lowest part of the cities where they fight for their right to exists, and in general are of annoyance for the people of the big corporations.

There Cyber Barbarians are what you will play in this game.

This is just some sketchy thoughts, and it may be to big to fit into four pages, but I think it is a idea  that will be fun to work with

- Anders

Yes, sounds like a cool setting concept. We'll see what will come out of it.

Also, remember to link to your main feedback thread from the main thread, for clarity (it will help me in creating a master list of participants, if it turns out feedback groups are needed).

I want some bloody and unspeakably horrifing rituals before altars made of barely working hardware junk
in deserted postindustrial complexes.

ja-prozac wrote:
I want some bloody and unspeakably horrifing rituals before altars made of barely working hardware junk
in deserted postindustrial complexes.

I like this idea a lot. I don't have a specific feedback right now other than that I like it. :)

//Björn

To make it easier to write I now call Cyber Barbarians Cyberbarians. I have some more ideas here, but unfortunately the concept just seem to expand.

The Cyberbarians

Cyberbarians are nomadic people. They sometimes lives in small clans, but you will also often find them by themselves, travelling around the rougher parts of the city. The players plays these travelling Cyberbarians. You should imagine people like Conan – strong and agile as a panther – but instead of a loincloth they wear old beat-up leatherpants and instead of a horse they ride around the city on bikes. As weapon they use swords made of crystals which can work both in the Physical world and the Virtual world and which are connected to the cybernetic hardware in their body. The most important piece of cybernetic implant the cyberbarians have is the so called “bridge”. This is their connection to the Virtual world which gives them the ability to exists simultaneous in the Virtual and Physical world. The Cyberbarians  also have other implants which gives them different powers.

The milieu

The game will take place in the lower and more rougher part of the city. Even though the environment reflect the high-technological future, the living conditions are more fitting the middle ages. There is a lot of organised criminality and drugs, and biker-gangs rules the streets around the abandon industrial areas. Everyone are grouped into corporations (apart from the cyberbarians, of course), and these group are often in conflict with each other.

The Virtual World

For the people with a bridge (which are by fare the most people) the Physical world and the Virtual world seems to merge together to one. In the Virtual world there are different types of entities and creatures which lives in places corresponding to the places in the physical world. Some people can gain power from the entities (AIs) they worship and make some magical things happen in the Virtual world. Because most electronic in the Physical world is connected to the Virtual, this magic can actually have effect in the physical world. Everything which are controlled by electronics – including cybernetic implants – can be affected through the Virtual world. Because of their agreements with the pagan AIs, the cyberbarians have a lot of power in the virtual world which they wield through their implants.

The Mechanics

I am not very fare here. I think that the characters will be build around cybernetic implants, which is  the equivalent of holy gifts. The characters will have a “bridge” and a sword from the start, but apart from that the players can freely choose a number of other implants/powers they want their character to have. There should of cause be some consequences with these powers, but I am not sure what.

I also want a simple way of creating situations, but I am not sure how or to what extend. The core part of the stories in this game should be about religious conversion, so the characters should take part of the fight for the human mind which rage between the corporations and the pagan AIs.

Well, I hope that I soon will find a more clear focus in all this.

ps. because of lack of time it will be very limited how much feedback I can give other people, so don't feel too obliged to give me feedback.

- Anders

I have to realize that I no longer like the CP settings, but this one could have something in it with those biker-barbarian-hacker-crusaders. :D

I could see a hundred pages of setting source material for this alone.

Forget the game.

V

I suppose you can fit the key concepts in four pages, and still have a page or so of mechanics. The problematic thing might be the list of implants, but they could be easily covered by making them freeform traits that work the same mechanically (e.g. offer rerolls a limited number of times per session, or whatever), with some examples given.

I like the setting, anyway :)

The setting is strong enough to work with minimal outlining. Write it in juicy and evocative
way and people will tell themselves the rest. Check Kumquat Tattoo, short setting but better
than hundred pages long bulky tomes. 

Yeah, not much to say on my end except that I enjoy the setting as well :)  And I think you can either go Filip's way and have freeform traits for cybernetics, or make a little box with eight or ten components that people can fit together at various costs.

Yes, the setting seems to be rather big right now, but I think it should be possible to focus it so I can squeeze the important part onto two to three pages. The problem is now, that the system I am thinking about also seems to fill a lot. So here we go: The Mechanics.

Implants

A character consists of a number of implants which corresponds to abilities or traits. Each implant have two values, one for the physical world and one for the virtual world.

An exception for this is the Bridge implant, which only one value (combine physical and virtual). The Bridge value denote the basic ability of the character (the Bridge will probably start at 6 for all characters)

Following is the other implants:

Power Sword: This is your character's fighting ability. Primarily this is, of course, sword fighting.

Natural biker: The character's ability to ride a bike.

Super strength: This implant arguments the character's strength.

Tactical instinct: A barbarian can really not be described intelligent, but they can posses a natural instinct for making good tactical decisions.

Panther agility: This implant arguments the character's agility.

Wild presence: A barbarian do not have any real social skills, but they can have this animal like charisma which some find intimidating and other find attractive.

These implants will have a physical value of 1 to 4, and a virtual value also from 1 to 4. Exactly how the start value should be I do not know yet.

The player should write a “Virtual Image” for each of the implants, which is how the implant/ability appears in the virtual world. The Virtual Image should be fancyful and fantasy like. Examples could be “Flying on the fire dragon” for a bike or “Green glowing snake tongue” for a sword.

Each implant will also start with two “special actions”. These are small description of actions which this implant is tuned to enhance. For example, Special Actions for Natural Biker could be:  Mad acceleration or Jump over cars.

Scales

There are two “scales” the player have to keep track of. One is Blessings and the other is Trouble.

You can activate the virtual part of an implant by calling on a blessing from your god. It is no trouble getting the blessing – you get it when you want it. But if you have asked for too many blessings your god may begin to ask something of you. So you have to keep track of how many blessings you have asked for.

When it goes bad in a conflict you can get Trouble. This is a form of bad luck you can accumulate. When you have got a lot of Trouble you will meet some hard challenge.

Conflict resolution

First the participants decide the overall stakes of the conflict. The conflict is split into rounds, or a series of actions, which proceeds as follows:

* The participant who has the upper hand in the conflict (who initiated the conflict or won the last action) will describe what action he is taking now, and the other participant will describe how he will react. If no one has the upper hand they have to agree on how they go against each other.
* Take the number of dice equal to the value of your bridge. This is you base pool.
* If you want, and can, use an Special Action, add to the pool the number of dice equal to the physical value of the implant of which the action is related (it is important that you keep the base pool dice and the action dice separate). There can only be used one action per round.
* Both parties in the conflict roll their dice pools, and count successes (4s, 5s, and 6s are successes). The number of successes a participant get is his “success level” and the difference between the two success levels is the “margin of success”.
* The one with most successes get the upper hand in that action, and narrates what effect that action has.
* The participant who lost the action should remove a number of dice from his base pool (not counting Special Action dice) equal to the margin of success.
* The loser of the action rolls the dice he has removed from his base pool. Any 1s and 2s on these dice will add one to Trouble, any 3s and 4s give a conflict wound and any 5s and 6s gives a long-term wound.
* Any of the participants who have used a Special Action should mark this Special Action; it can not be used more in this conflict (unless you call on a blessing to activate the virtual part of the implant).
* If a participant has no more dice left in the base pool he lose the whole conflict. If both participants still can (and will), continue with a new action.

After the conflict all marked Special Actions are cleared so they can be used again in the next conflict.

Blessings

During a conflict you can activate the virtual part of the implant. You can do this any time before rolling the dice. When you activate an implant there happen two things. All marked action in that implant will be cleared and the next time you use an spacial action from that implant you will both get the dice from the physical and virtual part. After activating an implant you can only use the special actions one time each (they do not stay cleared). An implant stay activated till the end of the conflict, and during this time any action taking with this implant should be described using virtual image.

There is no limit how on how many implant you can activate during a conflict.

Missing

I have not decided exactly how to use the accumulated Blessings and Trouble – but I have some ideas.

I am not sure what a wound should do.

I would like some mechanic (or just question) to create some juicy situations before play.

There should be some magic in the virtual world, you only can defend against by using the virtual part of the implants.

- Anders

ja-prozac wrote:
The setting is strong enough to work with minimal outlining. Write it in juicy and evocative
way and people will tell themselves the rest. Check Kumquat Tattoo, short setting but better
than hundred pages long bulky tomes. 

To try to get more into the feeling of the setting I have made a rough sketch (very rough) of a cyberbarian

I have thought a bit about the situation stuff. Basically there will be two kinds of achievements the character should aim for. The one is the personal achievement and the other is the religious achievement.

The personal achievement is some kind of mission or challenge the player decide. It can be something the character do for himself, for his friend or family or for his clan. It should be sufficient complicated so it will take about one session of play to resolve it. The Trouble which are generated will play into this by complicating the achievement, and the Trouble will be removed when the achievement have been resolved.

A resolved personal achievement will give some kind of advancements that can be used on the physical part of the character (Special Actions and the physical value if the implants). After the achievement have been resolved the player can make a new one.

The religious achievement is some kind of mission which is dictated by the pagan AIs (the GM). This happen when the character have accumulate sufficient Blessings. A religious achievement can ether be to convert a person to you own religion or to kill some important person of an other religion. The more Blessing which have been accelerated the harder the challenge will be, and the Blessings will first clear when the achievement have been resolved.

A resolved religious achievement will advance the virtual part of the implants.

- Anders

I like what I see so far. Evocative gonzo setting and pretty tight mechanics - looks like something I'd play :)

Defining the character entirely by his implants sounds like a good idea. However, the word "natural" doesn't look well in the implant list - I'd suggest making it "augmented", "enhanced" or whatever.

Wounds could work kind of like DitV Fallout - i.e. I suggest making it rather "consequences" than "injury". After the conflict the player could roll to check if consequences result in personal growth or some long-lasting penalties.

Filip,
Thanks for the interest.

Yes, I should probably rename some of the implants, and going with a DitV type fallout is certainly an option I will consider.

Some more setting stuff

For simplicity I have reduces the number of corporations to three. Here are a short description of them.

Zela Corporation: People of the Zela corporation are very xenophobic. They try to isolate themselves in their territory and act extremely hostile if you threaten them.
Reesux Corporation: They are the corporation which try hardest to convert people to their AI. They have a set of wacky morals (lot of things you must not do, and things you should do in a certain way) which they will preach to everyone they can get close to.
Baladia Corporation: They are the most aggressive. They have a tendency to seek out conflict with other Corporations and especially the people of the pagan AIs.

The three corporations have had, for some time, an uneasy peace. There are still small skirmishes at street level, but all out war have not been seen for a few years. The people of the pagan AIs are viewed with a lot of suspicion by the corporations, but because they are so few and because they are somewhat feared (the pagan AIs gives their people more power than the normal street level person have) they are normally allowed to move around on the street as long as they do not wander to fare into gang territory.

When not occupied by own agendas, the cyberbarians normally take jobs as bodyguards, bouncers or even mercenaries in gang wars.

People of the corporations which can be seen on the street level can be put into the following groups:

Street Priest: They are the ones who preach the message of the corporations on the street. In many case the street priests are magicians (people who can manipulate the virtual world in powerful ways). The street priests have a lot of power over peoples mind and soul.
Cult/Gang Leader: Charismatic and unscrupulous people who are the masterminds behind a group of mostly mindless henchmen (gangs). They often  participate in the activity of stealing implants, and through obscure rituals converting the implants to the AIs of their own corporation.
Mystic: Lone magicians. Who know what agenda they have.
Gangs (Biker, Criminal etc.): In many cases just henchmen for some charismatic leader, but can also sometimes be a loose collection of criminal individuals.
Citizens: Just the normal people at the street level.

There will also be other types of people, but those are the most common.

The situation

Before the game, or in the first part of the game, the players should decide on a personal achievement (basically a kicker).  It is probably a good idea if the players try to tie their personal achievements together. A personal achievement should be written as one to two sentences which describe what the character what to do in the next part of the game.

A personal achievement should consist of three things: 1) An object of interest and what you want to do with it (this can be an item or a person). 2) Some complication which will happen when you strive for this object. 3) A person or some people who will try to work against you. Number two and three should not necessary be specified explicit, but have to, at least, be implied in some way.

It is very important that a achievement can be resolved. The thing you want to achieve should be very concrete so you know when it is done. A achievement should not be too complicated ether. It should be possible to resolve it in about a session of play.

Bad/Good Examples
“I want to get the girl” (bad). “I am completely taken by the daughter of a Zela priest, and want to make her my girl, even though my clan probably will be against it” (good)
“I want to kill the person who reaped my sister” (bad), “The son of a gang leader whom my clan is currently allied with has reaped my sister. I will have my revenge on him, even though it will course a war between the gang and the clan” (good)
“I want to kill the evil mystic” (bad). “A mystic has kidnapped children to work his magic on. I want to stop him, but he is protected by priests of Baladia (who normally don't protect mystics)” (good)

Now I think I have the setting and situation nailed down, so back to the system.

- Anders

I like the way this is developing.

..and like I've done for some of the other threads in this challenge, here's a few questions that I've been wondering about and my genre bending and paradigm shattering ideas. Use them if you want, bend to fit better with your vision, or feel free to ignore them totally.

My first ideas and questions are about the implants.
Are the implants physically implanted or are they grown by nanotechnology (eg. the Borg in Star Trek)?
If they are physically implanted, is this done at the clinical altars of the mega-corporations (where the technology is turned against it's former masters)?
Or is it implanted in secluded sanctums to the gods of the fallen ways (where the technology is symbolic of an underground resistance)?
If the implants are grown through nanotechnology, what causes new implants to develop? (This could link to an XP progression system)

The Bridge
This seems to be the fundamental implant around which all others are derived. Perhaps there is an intensity level for the Bridge, which roughly corresponds to an "experience level". The higher this is, the more power can be focused through the bridge. And the more control the character has over their implants.

If implants have a variable value in the physical and virtual worlds, maybe the total value of the implant cannot be greater than the Bridge intensity level. Bridge = 6,  so you could split the implant as 5 physical, 1 virtual or three of each. Once the character's bridge rating improves, they can fuel more energy to the implant and boost either physical or virtual level by 1.

Wounds
If the nanotechnology option were taken, wounds might not be much concern as they could continually rebuild the body, but this would then tie in with Filip's idea of consequences. Maybe an energy discharge causes the nanotech to lose aspects of it's programming and in turn the character loses access to certain implants until they are healed/reprogrammed. In this way physical wounds from mundane citizens don't have a lasting effect on them (maybe causing short term die roll modifications as the nanotech rebuilds the body), but damage from other cyberbarians is far more deadly because it has that built in energy discharge.

Quasi-mystic effects could even be created by shooting data that reprograms the opponent. This could be where the rebellion from the huge coroprations started???

I've got a few more ideas, but I've got to get to work.

V

Inspiration and possible reference - adventure game called Dreamweb.

Kickers - would they fit in 10 minutes preparations among other stuff?
Perhaps they're set in the first scene of the game?

Blessings and trouble - perhaps using blessings gives you trouble?
You're so into virtual world that you forget about "the real one", while
using trouble also boosts you, but at the cost of fallout.

Vulpinoid,
There is unfortunately many details there have to be left out because of the four page restriction. But the questions you ask are certainly interesting, and if I find room for it I will try to include the information.

Just so you know what I am thinking I will give some of the answers here.

I see the implants as physical which have to be surgically operated into the body. This is because it seem to be the more brutal way, and it open up for the possibility that you can steal other peoples implants, by killing them and cut out the implants. For the ordinary people of the corporations it is the priest who make the operations. For the cyberbarians - well, I have really not though about this, but I guess they must have some shamans who get the knowledge of surgery from the rouge AIs. There is also others, like cult leaders and mystic, who work with implants, but they will more often than not kill the subject they are working on.

There are a lot of information I would like to work into the setting I just have to leave to the players and GM to develop. I may develop the game further after the competition, when there is no four page restriction

You other ideas are interesting and will be considered.

ja-prozac,
I think I will cheat a bit with the kickers, and say it is something you have to decide on after the game have started. The problem with this game is that it does not have a build in situation, so there have to be some situation mechanic (I could of cause leave it to the GM, but I am personally against such a approach), and it is very hard to make such a mechanic so it will take less than ten minutes to create the situation.

- Anders

I feel your pain Anders.

The four pages is enough to add a bit of good background detail into the game, but not enough to really flesh outthe concepts.

I guess that's all part of the challenge.

V