1.) What is your game about?
An ancient conspiracy against all life in the universe.  One involving constantly battling occult secret societies, corrupt governments and corporations, extraterrestrial beings, ancient dark gods of chaos, interdimensional beings and unimaginable horror within multiple levels of reality. This conspiracy was devised so as to prevent us all from seeing our true potential.  We are ultimately used as slaves, hosts, vessels and food by the various conspirators without us even knowing it.  What happens when this is discovered is up to the characters to decide.

2.) What do the characters do?
The main activity of characters should be to travel throughout the universe, explore new planets, encounter weird aliens and struggle with corrupt governments and corporations while simultaneously struggling with their own inner demons as well as other people's.  Ideally these struggles will eventually lead to the characters eliminating their egos to a point where they are no longer anything but pure consciousness.  This will most assuredly involve death of the body.  It will most likely involve exploring different levels of reality and the acquisition of strange new powers and could ultimately result in widespread warfare of the most spiritual kind.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?
Each player develops a character and explains the ways in which it is involved in the conspiracy.  The players are responsible for role playing the character's actions and emotions as they experience ego loss and increased awareness.
The GM develops a story for the characters to experience and do the usual GM die rolling, storytelling, atmosphere creating in most RPGs.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
The future is full of possibilities and untold unimaginable hardship.  man's search for meaning in a cold dark universe is met with cold silent death.  The real search should be within, and ultimately the game mechanics encourage it just as the setting does.  A dark grisly future can be high tech or extremely low tech and is not intended to be historically accurate or an alternate history.  It is a representation of where we are headed in our current state and of what could be if we don't wake up.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
Central to the theme of the game is the idea of ego, which is the main characteristic of all characters.  To determine a character's ego one must choose emotions which are the character's roadblocks on the path of development.  Furthermore, encouraging the idea that everything else is of no consequence during character creation is the unlimited choice of skills, abilities, advantages and equipment.  To start a player chooses what deity the character is based on and then adds ego points to manifest it into the physical world.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)? Since ego represents fear based, self serving emotions and actions, these are the ones that are rewarded.  Acting in ways that are selfless, fearless and objective are generally punished.  Of course, this is all subjective and the GM ultimately has supreme executive power.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Rewards and punishments consist of the addition or subtraction of ego points from a character, depending on the actions and reactions involved.  Guidelines are to be followed as well as scenario specific and based on player character's decisions and the group's successes.  Obviously, power players are rewarded with power and success, but at the cost of more ego or negative karma.  This makes them more dependant on skills which are only another form of ego.  The concept is that all the bonuses make life so great that perspective is lost and consciousness dwindles.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
The GM is primarily responsible for running a smooth game and this will help all players to suspend disbelief but the players are also responsible for properly role-playing the characters they created.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
The game is not just a fun escapist hobby, but also an opportunity for players to learn about themselves and each other as well as train themselves to eliminate their own ego.  Ego itself is a representation of different emotions such as anger, greed, intolerance and fear that aid in creating an emotional connection between the players and their characters.  Scenarios are a vital part in keeping the attention of players so the game and it's mechanics are not geared towards any particular type of scenario.  Rules cover simulationist style players as well as gamist and narrativist styles.  The feeling of being held accountable for your actions on a deeper level than just "breaking the law" is something that will keep characters engaged.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Simple resolution is used to make the story flow quicker and minimize arguments and so as to not interfere with the atmosphere or break the mood.  For all actions and reactions, a single d10 is used with the result being compared to the character's ego.  Of course there are bonuses for skill levels and experience or lack thereof.  A roll higher than ego is a success, while lower than ego means failure.  A chart is provided to differentiate success from marginal to excellent but is not totally neccessary.  This same chart can be used to determine reactions to adversity.  Characters have a characteristic called Karma that can be used to add bonuses as well which are treated like luck or divine intervention.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Having a lot of traits and advantages makes the character interesting but also creates a lot of hardship for the character due to having a higher ego.  Success is not usually excellent unless highly skilled.  Characters that are not bogged down with ego are generally more successful without any skill at all and are also prepared for becoming fully aware.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
Character advancement occurs with either ego reduction or skill improvment (experience) over the course of play.  Ego points fluctuate up and down on a day to day basis for the characters but occasionally swing wide and cause a change in the Ego score.  A change in the Ego score itself is always a big deal and results in tears, hugs, long talks and sometimes insanity.  Lowered Ego means not only less hardship but also one step closer to full awareness.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
Ego loss and therefore character advancement is the main objective of the game.  Eventually, ego is reduced to a point where there is no need for a physical body and so the veil is lifted and a new world is entered.  This occurence eventually results in the character becoming a deity and ultimately pure consciousness.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
The game is designed to simply be fun and quick to play and enable not only rules lite play but also in depth simulationist play with combat rules for those interested in wargaming.  The game is intended to teach methods of ego reduction and spiritual awareness to the players as well as to simply incite discussion and stimulate thought.  The game could potentially enrapture the characters due to the emotionally charged nature of the game itself.  Overall, the players will be altered by playing this game due to their consideration of metaphysical repercussions of their actions.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
Aside from the obvious choice of the ego characteristic, the area of the game that REQUIRE the most attention and color are the 3rd dimensional setting and the overall cosmology.  These areas required the most work to complete and are integral to the game itself.  The setting could be anywhere, but the dark future offers much more potential and goes along nicely WITH the cosmology.  The setting is always an important part of the game and needs to be consistant AND detailed.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
Ego reduction and the effect it has on a character's life is what I am most excited about.  Having personally experienced some of the effects of this, I simply wish to "spread the good news".  The system went through many changes during it's development spanning YEARS of observation, experimentation, trial and error.  The concept of ego reduction itself came from YEARS of study, contemplation and speculation and is partially a direction I chose to take based on faith in something beyond our current realm of awareness.  Something that there is a lot of evidence to suggest is truth.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?
There are a few games that I have encountered that touch on these subjects, but none of them are designed outside the auspices of religion and athesim or something similar to that.  The cosmology and the character's exploration of it is something that I have not seen in any other game and was partially inspired by Itzhak Bentov's "Cosmic Book on the mechanics of Creation".  There are some allusions to major religions, but the game is not at all based on any religion even though there is an acknowlegment of a "God" and or "Gods".  Also, there are not many games that touch on conspiracy theory in depth and this one dives in head first.  Also, the setting itself combined with this type of cosmology is not one I have seen before in it's entirity and has some interesting results due to this.  This combination sheds a different light on the dark, used future making it fresh and new at the same time.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?
A game booklet available free online is my biggest interest.  If I could get some good art, I would most definitely want to sell it as opposed to offer it free, but even then I would offer the system without the background (wargame rules) free.  I have always wanted to make a graphic novel touching on this subject.  Again only if I could work with an artist sharing the same vision as I.

19.) Who is your target audience?
The setting would be appealing to sci-fi fans and new agers alike.  The target audience would be 30-somethings particularly, but should appeal to anyone that is looking for a different type of game.  I would love to see table top role playing games to make a comeback and gain popularity with our younger generations and I think that a game like this one could do it since it is not too complicated mechanically and is easy to catch on to.  Fans of movies like Alien, Jacob's Ladder, Pi, What Dreams May Come?, and Phenomenon will dig it.

Greetings all!  I would like to share my ideas and get some feedback on this project of mine.  Known by many names including TOTEM and OMNI, it is now nameless.  I appreciate all the help I have been given in the past with this project and am here again just looking for more.  I think that I have expressed here what the game is about better than I did before.  I am totally open to any questions or comments and would love to work on this together.  I feel strongly that this game has a lot of potential.  It just needs a few minor tweaks with character creation and with the cosmology.  Maybe a few fresh ideas wouldn’t hurt too.

I Reposted this Power 19 because I did not read it before I posted it last time and there were a few corrections that needed to be made and I had some other ideas. 
1.) What is your game about?
There is an ancient conspiracy against all life in the universe.  One involving constantly battling groups of occult secret societies, corrupt governments and corporations, extraterrestrial beings, dark gods, interdimensional beings and unimaginable horrors within multiple levels of reality. This conspiracy was devised so as to prevent us all from seeing our true potential.  We are ultimately being used as slaves, hosts, vessels and food by the various conspirators without us even knowing it.  What happens when this is discovered is up to you to decide.

2.) What do the characters do?
The main activity of characters should be to encounter things that reveal the truth to them bit by bit as they travel throughout the known universe, explore new planets, encounter alien beings and struggle with corrupt governments and corporations while simultaneously struggling with their own inner demons and those of  other people.  Ideally these struggles will eventually lead to the characters eliminating their egos to a point where they are no longer anything but pure consciousness.  This will most assuredly involve death of the body.  It will most likely involve exploring different levels of reality and the acquisition of strange new powers and could ultimately result in widespread spiritual warfare (Armageddon).

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?
Each player develops a character and explains the ways in which it is involved in the conspiracy.  The players are responsible for role playing the character's actions and emotions as they experience ego loss and increased awareness.
The GM develops a story for the characters to experience and do the usual GM die rolling, storytelling, atmosphere creating as in most traditional RPGs.  The game's mechanics do require a little more storytelling capability from the GM because there are no specific guidelines to follow, only generic ones.  The GM may need to decipher results more often than in traditional games.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
The future is full of possibilities and untold unimaginable hardship.  man's search for meaning in a cold dark universe is met with cold silent death.  The real search should be within, and ultimately the game mechanics encourage it just as the setting does.  A dark grisly future can be high tech or extremely low tech and is not intended to be historically accurate or an alternate history.  It is a representation of where we are headed in our current state and of what could be if we don't wake up.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
Central to the theme of the game is the idea of ego, which is the main characteristic of all characters.  To determine a character's ego one must choose emotions which are the character's roadblocks on the path of development.  Furthermore, encouraging the idea that everything else is of no consequence during character creation is the unlimited choice of skills, abilities, advantages and equipment.  To start a player chooses what deity the character is based on and then adds ego points to manifest it into the physical world.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Since ego represents fear based, self serving emotions and actions, these are the ones that are punished.  Acting in ways that are selfless, fearless and objective are generally rewarded.  Of course, this is all subjective and the GM ultimately has supreme executive power.  A list of actions to punish should be provided.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Rewards and punishments consist of the addition or subtraction of ego points from a character, depending on the actions and reactions involved.  Guidelines are to be followed as well as scenario specific and based on player character's decisions and the group's successes.  Obviously, power players are rewarded with power and success, but at the cost of more ego or negative karma.  This makes them more dependant on skills which are only another form of ego.  This demonstrates that fear feeds on itself.  The concept is that all the bonuses make life so great that perspective is lost and consciousness dwindles.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
The GM is primarily responsible for running a smooth game and this will help all players to suspend disbelief but the players are also responsible for properly role-playing the characters they created.  The mechanics of the game do not really require a GM in what is called "Game time" which is more or less rules covering skirmishes like those in Warhammer 40K.  In the event that players simply want to build armies of Demons, Saints, Aliens, etc., they could easily do it and no GM is required because the Skirmish rules are easily followed like in Warhammer (only more generic).

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
The game is not just a fun escapist hobby, but also an opportunity for players to learn about themselves and each other as well as train themselves to eliminate their own ego.  Ego itself is a representation of different emotions such as anger, greed, intolerance and fear that aid in creating an emotional connection between the players and their characters.  Scenarios are a vital part in keeping the attention of players so the game and it's mechanics are not geared towards any particular type of scenario.  Rules cover simulationist style players as well as gamist and narrativist styles.  The feeling of being held accountable for your actions on a deeper level than just "breaking the law" is something that will keep characters engaged.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
The core philosophy of the game is to keep all rules as simple and generic as possible so as to glorify the complexity of the universe.  Simple resolution is used to make the story flow quicker and minimize arguments and so as to not interfere with the atmosphere or break the mood.  For all actions and reactions, a single d10 is used with the result being compared to the character's ego.  Of course there are bonuses for skill levels and experience or lack thereof.  A roll higher than ego is a success, while lower than ego means failure.  A generic chart is provided to differentiate success from marginal to excellent but is not totally necessary.  This same chart can be used to determine generic reactions to adversity.  Characters have a characteristic called Karma that can be used to add bonuses as well which are treated like luck or divine intervention.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Having a lot of traits and advantages makes the character interesting but also creates a lot of hardship for the character due to having a higher ego.  Success is not usually excellent unless highly skilled.  Characters that are not bogged down with ego are generally more successful without any skill at all and are also prepared for becoming fully aware. 

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
Character advancement occurs with either ego reduction or skill improvement (experience) over the course of play.  Ego points fluctuate up and down on a day to day basis for the characters but occasionally swing wide and cause a change in the Ego score.  A change in the Ego score itself is always a big deal and results in tears, hugs, long talks and sometimes insanity.  Lowered Ego means not only less hardship but also one step closer to full awareness.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
Ego loss and therefore character advancement is the main objective of the game.  Eventually, ego is reduced to a point where there is no need for a physical body and so the veil is lifted and a new world is entered.  This occurrence eventually results in the character becoming a deity and ultimately pure consciousness.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
The game is designed to simply be fun and quick to play and enable not only rules lite play but also in depth simulationist play with combat rules for those interested in war gaming.  The game is intended to teach methods of ego reduction and spiritual awareness to the players as well as to simply incite discussion and stimulate thought.  The game could potentially enrapture the characters due to the emotionally charged nature of the game itself.  Overall, the players will be altered by playing this game due to their consideration of metaphysical repercussions of their actions.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
Aside from the obvious choice of the ego characteristic, the area of the game that REQUIRE the most attention and color are the 3rd dimensional setting and the overall cosmology.  These areas required the most work to complete and are integral to the game itself.  The setting could be anywhere, but the dark future offers much more potential and goes along nicely WITH the cosmology.  The setting is always an important part of the game and needs to be consistent AND detailed.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
Ego reduction and the effect it has on a character's life is what I am most excited about.  Having personally experienced some of the effects of this, I simply wish to "spread the good news".  The system went through many changes during it's development spanning YEARS of observation, experimentation, trial and error.  The concept of ego reduction itself came from YEARS of study, contemplation and speculation and is partially a direction I chose to take based on faith in something beyond our current realm of awareness.  Something that there is a lot of evidence to suggest is truth.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?
There are a few games that I have encountered that touch on these subjects, but none of them are designed outside the auspices of religion and atheism or something similar to that.  The cosmology and the character's exploration of it is something that I have not seen in any other game and was partially inspired by Itzhak Bentov's "Cosmic Book on the mechanics of Creation".  There are some allusions to major religions, but the game is not at all based on any religion even though there is an acknowledgment of a "God" and or "Gods".  Also, there are not many games that touch on conspiracy theory in depth and this one dives in head first.  Also, the setting itself combined with this type of cosmology is not one I have seen before in it's entirety and has some interesting results due to this.  This combination sheds a different light on the dark, used future making it fresh and new at the same time.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?
A game booklet available free online is my biggest interest.  If I could get some good art, I would most definitely want to sell it as opposed to offer it free, but even then I would offer the system without the background (war game rules) free.  I have always wanted to make a graphic novel touching on this subject.  Again only if I could work with an artist sharing the same vision as I.

19.) Who is your target audience?
The setting would be appealing to sci-fi fans and new agers alike.  The target audience would be 30-somethings particularly, but should appeal to anyone that is looking for a traditional RPG with a different take.  I would love to see table top role playing games to make a comeback and gain popularity with our younger generations and I think that a game like this one could do it since it is not too complicated mechanically and is easy to catch on to.  Fans of movies like Alien, Galaxy of Terror, Jacob's Ladder, Event Horizon, Pi, What Dreams May Come?, Powder and Phenomenon will dig it as well as fans of the games KULT, Call of Cthulhu, RIFTs, Warhammer 40K, TORG, BTRC's CORPs and Cyberpunk 2020.

I'm pretty sure I've read about this game before, and possibly commented, but as that is gone I'm going to come at it fresh based on what inspires me in it:

I like the idea of starting with a God and giving them more ego in order to build the character. My impression is that that ego score produces the skills/resources that the character has. Now here's what I would find cool; in every battle or conflict you could try to solve it on two different levels. Winning a specific fight would be governed by the skills and resources, whereas having a long lasting effect on the strength of the conspiracy etc would be done by rolling over ego. In other words my idea is that people can survive and fight their way through, but at the risk of getting incorporated back into the conspiracy, and perpetuating the very thing they are fighting. Whereas those more interested in the broader themes of the setting can reduce their characters ego by acting selfless etc, and so increase their moral effectiveness. So what's the catch? Why don't the characters give all their money to charity on the first day and ascend? It would be interesting to me if there is a requirement to fulfil the normal battle to a basic level of competence, so as not to die etc before reaching the appropriate ego loss, and the all pervading nature of the conspiracy would suggest they would have to keep their eye on the tactical ball quite frequently.

Now another question springs to mind; why on earth are these gods manifesting anyway? Is there some bodhisattva thing going on? Because your mechanics imply the opposite, that it is actually at the god level that you get the most influence. Or are they just playing an rpg of their own? Actually that inspires me; if you make the low ego states correspond to scene framing mechanics or some other narrative mechanic, then the growth of the character could be from one mechanical system to another, from "immersion" to a higher level view. In this way the character generation rather surreally corresponds to those games that allow you to buy "plot points" at character generation!

I have to say I currently have reservations about putting two reward mechanics against each other, unless you direct them in different directions, which I wouldn't mind too much.

So putting that back together, the skirmish type rules and perhaps some social encounters could be covered by ego-based skills, with a different more top-view perspective governed by the low ego states. What d'you think?

“I like the idea of starting with a God and giving them more ego in order to build the character. My impression is that that ego score produces the skills/resources that the character has.”

"Now here's what I would find cool; in every battle or conflict you could try to solve it on two different levels. Winning a specific fight would be governed by the skills and resources, whereas having a long lasting effect on the strength of the conspiracy etc would be done by rolling over ego. In other words my idea is that people can survive and fight their way through, but at the risk of getting incorporated back into the conspiracy, and perpetuating the very thing they are fighting."

"Now another question springs to mind; why on earth are these gods manifesting anyway? Is there some bodhisattva thing going on?"

"your mechanics imply the opposite, that it is actually at the god level that you get the most influence. Or are they just playing an rpg of their own?"

"Actually that inspires me; if you make the low ego states correspond to scene framing mechanics or some other narrative mechanic, then the growth of the character could be from one mechanical system to another, from "immersion" to a higher level view."

"In this way the character generation rather surreally corresponds to those games that allow you to buy "plot points" at character generation!"

I have to say I currently have reservations about putting two reward mechanics against each other, unless you direct them in different directions, which I wouldn't mind too much.

So putting that back together, the skirmish type rules and perhaps some social encounters could be covered by ego-based skills, with a different more top-view perspective governed by the low ego states. What d'you think?

"Whereas those more interested in the broader themes of the setting can reduce their characters ego by acting selfless etc, and so increase their moral effectiveness. So what's the catch? Why don't the characters give all their money to charity on the first day and ascend? It would be interesting to me if there is a requirement to fulfill the normal battle to a basic level of competence, so as not to die etc before reaching the appropriate ego loss, and the all pervading nature of the conspiracy would suggest they would have to keep their eye on the tactical ball quite frequently."

Well have you considered doing it by factors of ten? Hit zero and surprise! You hop into a new world where the original level where your mates are is gone, and your an average dude in god-world, back at ego 10 and probably dealing with weird high level Neal Gaiman style stuff. That way, you just need to get the rules tight for one factor of ten, and then transfer up, similar to how D&D approaches levels 1-10 and then maps that onto the other two, with slight increases in complexity.

This also opens a problem; group coherence when one of the team goes off to be an immortal. Solution? Peer pressure! If characters can affect each other's ego scores, then they can move more as a group.

"Making the rules mean less" can mean a lot of different things; you know how your swimming skill means little in a desert? The same principle can be used to make low ego overwhelm skill-check power, especially if the skills focus on task resolution, and all the tasks that are available are unenviable in terms of their negative side effects on others. I'm talking the kind of world where you have to backstab your co-workers to get promotion, rob stores to eat, put up with all kinds of cruelty and ecological "inelegance" in order to get the job done, thus perpetuating the same systems. If you fight the power and they put you on TV as a threat to cause fear and obedience, that's not helping you much!

But these things only matter if you take the higher view: Are you prepared for people to go pure shadowrun and just enjoy living that world? Because some people will if given that choice. You're only option to encourage people to start narr-ing it up is to slowly ratchet the futility through meta-systemic manoeuvring like I mentioned above, not literally grinding their noses in it, just making it more obvious how the establishment is adapting to them. Now if the players are willing to become TV gladiators, c'est la vie, but if they want to, the cosmos you make up is up there for them to engage with.

I quite like the idea of a reincarnation playthrough, solves the infamous death problem. I imagine adding a random dude generator, so that if they cannot think of a new concept sufficiently different from their old one, then roll it up. On the other hand, do you really want them playing babies? We better hope that conspiracy has invented high speed growth enhancements!

I wouldn't have players able to reduce ego by just dying; the nice thing about such a simple measure is that you could create a character erasing all of the details relevant to a specific "density" and keeping all the higher level stuff, you know, to do with their characteristics in "god world", so depending on how you do it, you could have a character being associated with the same "colour" or "animal" or "key" or whatever aspects govern that world you create, but being a different age, sex etc. This would be like jumping back one stage of character creation.

Finally, you've got that issue of drive; what are the players supposed to be into?? Especially as they rise in levels. Such philosophies tend to have a hard time incorporating drive and hunger, associating them with ego and suffering etc, when drive and desire are classic engines of drama. Fortunately you have the conspiracy as a big bad to remove, (and here's where I get profound) and the level to which the players wish to rise could be the level at which they are willing to receive opposition from the environment; if opposition is truly necessary to the game, then reaching a sufficiently high level to battle oppression itself toe to toe and defeat it will essentially resolve the game, leaving the players to "ascend" out of it back to normal life, or dig around inside that world using their unopposed narrative power to shape it into whatever! Those who want to keep playing against the opposition rather than resolving the experience are necessarily complicit in the arrangement because they are the people who set up and perpetuate the game!

So in a sense then, if you insure that the conspiracy exists in some form at every level of the game, the idea of hopping levels should inevitably drop you out the other end in the real world! An rpg you can complete, if you are willing to destroy it.

Well have you considered doing it by factors of ten? Hit zero and surprise! You hop into a new world where the original level where your mates are is gone, and your an average dude in god-world, back at ego 10 and probably dealing with weird high level Neal Gaiman style stuff. That way, you just need to get the rules tight for one factor of ten, and then transfer up, similar to how D&D approaches levels 1-10 and then maps that onto the other two, with slight increases in complexity.

This also opens a problem; group coherence when one of the team goes off to be an immortal. Solution? Peer pressure! If characters can affect each other's ego scores, then they can move more as a group.

Making the rules mean less" can mean a lot of different things; you know how your swimming skill means little in a desert? The same principle can be used to make low ego overwhelm skill-check power, especially if the skills focus on task resolution, and all the tasks that are available are unenviable in terms of their negative side effects on others. I'm talking the kind of world where you have to backstab your co-workers to get promotion, rob stores to eat, put up with all kinds of cruelty and ecological "inelegance" in order to get the job done, thus perpetuating the same systems. If you fight the power and they put you on TV as a threat to cause fear and obedience, that's not helping you much!

But these things only matter if you take the higher view: Are you prepared for people to go pure shadowrun and just enjoy living that world? Because some people will if given that choice. You're only option to encourage people to start narr-ing it up is to slowly ratchet the futility through meta-systemic manoeuvring like I mentioned above, not literally grinding their noses in it, just making it more obvious how the establishment is adapting to them. Now if the players are willing to become TV gladiators, c'est la vie, but if they want to, the cosmos you make up is up there for them to engage with.

I quite like the idea of a reincarnation playthrough, solves the infamous death problem. I imagine adding a random dude generator, so that if they cannot think of a new concept sufficiently different from their old one, then roll it up. On the other hand, do you really want them playing babies? We better hope that conspiracy has invented high speed growth enhancements!

I wouldn't have players able to reduce ego by just dying; the nice thing about such a simple measure is that you could create a character erasing all of the details relevant to a specific "density" and keeping all the higher level stuff, you know, to do with their characteristics in "god world", so depending on how you do it, you could have a character being associated with the same "colour" or "animal" or "key" or whatever aspects govern that world you create, but being a different age, sex etc. This would be like jumping back one stage of character creation.

Finally, you've got that issue of drive; what are the players supposed to be into?? Especially as they rise in levels. Such philosophies tend to have a hard time incorporating drive and hunger, associating them with ego and suffering etc, when drive and desire are classic engines of drama. Fortunately you have the conspiracy as a big bad to remove, (and here's where I get profound) and the level to which the players wish to rise could be the level at which they are willing to receive opposition from the environment; if opposition is truly necessary to the game, then reaching a sufficiently high level to battle oppression itself toe to toe and defeat it will essentially resolve the game, leaving the players to "ascend" out of it back to normal life, or dig around inside that world using their unopposed narrative power to shape it into whatever! Those who want to keep playing against the opposition rather than resolving the experience are necessarily complicit in the arrangement because they are the people who set up and perpetuate the game!