hello girls and guy and memes,

i am working on &&paintPEOPLEblue, new game using memes. you can see basic draft under

http://paintPEOPLEblue.tripod.com

Note: VERY basic draft (missing: most basic gameplay elements, example of play (VERY IMPORTANT!), adventure ideas) but basics enough to understand -evoked- atmosphere i hope.

Please give suggestions and criticisms HERE in this thread, very much thanks!

&&paintPEOPLEblue

Well bring on the gameplay elements, the examples, the adventure ideas. You've got my attention.

-Vincent

Being as how I have no idea what memes are (I'm old - not really that old - and there are wolves after me), this game is totally confusing and makes no sense at all to me. At least, I hope it's cuz I don't know what memes are...

Memes are to culture what genes are to biology, the microfragments that make it up. To be simplistic: memes are ideas.

Very cool start, but very hard to grok at first read. If you could add a bit more clarity without losing the tone of writing I would probably be able to figure out what the hell you're trying to say.

I don't want to sound mean or anything, but this looks a lot like Timecube.

I guess it could be worse. It could look like FATAL.

-- Ben

Added possible play example to website (either direct, or over link):

http://paintpeopleblue.tripod.com/example.htm

NOTE: Play example not taken from game, but is simulation of how certain abilities within game matrix could play out... as demonstation of abilities and creative thinking expected from &&paintPEOPLEblue, but not demonstration of style/structure memeform of game. in other words: EXAMPLE IS NOT CANON &&paintPEOPLEblue GAMEPLAY

Play examples of &&paintPEOPLEblue using setting, narrative element will come later to showcase (=broadcast memes) of other elements.


Thank you for comments.

&&paintPEOPLEblue

As unusual as &&paintPEOPLEblue looks, I think Time Cube is worse. In addition to being incomprehensible, it's repetitive, and manages to use circular logic (that'd put the cubists into apoplexy...) without applying the logic.

If I knew what a meme was, I might could make some sense out of this, but Time Cube? Bleah.

So, enlighten us. What's a meme?

Edit: Crossposted with &&paintPEOPLEblue...

That's just bizarre. But it looks like it could be fun...

memes = living ideas... all ideas... concepts, traditions, social norms... even perceptions. memes live... memes infest brains... memes are viruses using people to spread to other heads...

to go even more: people are what they think. differant ideas form differant realities. man who believes in fairies will see see fairies.. fairies exist in his egoverse... man who denies fairies will never see fairy, even if it dance on his tongue --> rationalization... "rational scientific" memes rationalize to protect themselves, lest be pushed out of brain by superstitious memes, by "belief in fairies" meme. fight to death, or mutation and comprimise idea: "maybe there are fairies" meme...

people are pawns. memes are playing giant chess game of the world, survival of the fittest.

to quote:

society as it now exists is a living being, and it needs supportive vectors to exist: human beings. these humans allow the society and its social norms to exist because they are afraid of anarchy... a meme which is seen as destructive and deadly for many. the problem is, many people assume these norms only under protest, because they know that is the so-called "least common denominator".... in order to make themselves understood - but still retain partially extensive egoverses which are still "free"...

there are two types of corruptive people: those who are (more-or-less) free of the social norm... the so-called insane, loonies, ect... they are not that harmful, because people react to it and set up their barriers. the other kind, however, misuses, or abuses the social norms or communication to break down the walls from the other side... by bysliding the barriers which exist like viruses.

Hi there,

That's a fairly misleading pop-culture description of memes, with the added (and incorrect) injection of "success" and "control" concepts.

The real term and concept are much simpler, if you understand the concept of selection.

Reproducible features which consistently enhance individual reproductive success become more common, generation by generation.

Note that by "individual" in the above, I'm not referring to the feature in question, but rather to an agent/entity that includes that feature among others.

This principle may applies to anything that is reproduced and whose "offpsring" carry features of the "parent"; it happens to apply to organisms, but is not limited to them, to their mechanisms of activity, nor to their means of reproduction. Cultural items (weapons, fashions, technology of any kind, media items, language) are all good candidates.

One common misunderstanding is to think that genes (the units of inheritance) therefore necessarily control organismal responses in a 1:1 kind of way. Dawkins is careful to specify that a gene is a developmental recipe, not itself a trait or behavior. No one seems to pay his careful text in this regard any attention.

"Meme" is the term coined by the biologist Richard Dawkins for cultural items' inheritable units - the "gene" of cultural evolution. Cultural features and entities are left rather vague and remain a source of controversy; clearly they don't have to be exact analogues to organismal traits and organisms per se, respectively.

A basic example: an advertising jingle may be considered a meme with a high reproducibility - hence it's "fitness" is high, and it becomes common - represented in the "idea space" of the culture and/or tendency to be passed along ("reproduced").

A lot of people mistake momentary attention for high memetic fitness - I like to call this the Warholian Fallacy. Our new Forge member seems to be falling into this trap as well. If you'd like to generate something with high memetic fitness, then I suggest taking a few generations and a few cultures as your basis of data collection, not a few moments of bandwidth space.

Point of note: the term "survival of the fittest" is not useful for understanding the concept of selection. It is actually a Spenserian term, not a Darwinian one - Darwin references it briefly, that's all.

Best,
Ron

Awareness of official meme theory exists... yet gameability, as in most things, exists in exaggeration, in mythologicalization... in expansion of concepts to the greater... to quote:

who would want to play an rpg which you play a normal person in a normal life? i play them to experience things i never would otherwise

A lot of people mistake momentary attention for high memetic fitness - I like to call this the Warholian Fallacy. Our new Forge member seems to be falling into this trap as well. If you'd like to generate something with high memetic fitness, then I suggest taking a few generations and a few cultures as your basis of data collection, not a few moments of bandwidth space

Head explody!

Now that that's done, how does it become a game? Who competes? The memes themselves? Do they band together in a human vector/avatar and promise him lots of goodies if s/he spreads the 'good word'? Do they compete in Ideospace for who shall rule the mortal world? How does a meme die, fight, win, lose, etc.? Are they the puppeteers, or are we? What's the main conflict, whats the main theme?

IOW, we have quite a few games in development on The Forge right now that deal with this theme; what makes yours stand out? Why would I want to play it?

That's all for now.

Edit: just read the blessed thing. Slid into Grant-Morrisonesque sludge reality surrealists peeling off my armpits ohmygroin my nipples undulate with subdermal abandon force repel psychneurotic world-schism who's bra am I wearing?

Okay, I retract my previous statement. I read over the rules page again, and it made more sense to me.

It looks like fun. Trippy, wonky head-explodey fun, but fun nonetheless.

I need an aspirin.

-- Ben

This is stunning. Don't think it's "there yet" as a playable game, but an impressive density of cool ideas.

The main problem: too little to apportion authority between the participants. At the very least, add a whose-turn mechanism (bid for interrupt priority, or a queue, or maybe a stack) every event will be a fight over who gets to act first. And needs regulation of use of abilities on other player-characters.

The meme theme is just color here, of course. Specifically, blue.

Can player-characters paint puppies blue for Satan?

The structure of the abilities is beyond cool. (OROR should be XOR, no?) But way powerful. Like every player-character is armed with nothing but Wish spells. Possible bad result: wording loopholes become the main focus. Just like with Wish spells. Just like in the example.

(Though using the loophole wasn't actually necessary in the example... "painted chairs in room || we three in room" was already satisfied! siddith should have used && or made the second variable "we three out of room.")

Possible fix: modify ability roll based on player ownership of the variables involved. So for instance, a character is faced with severe dental plaque and responds with:

severe dental plaque && plaque-destroying mouthwash

Assume player has zilch ownership of the first, mm just introduced it, so it depends on ownership of second. If the mouthwash is not owned by player (perhaps not yet in the scene at all) there is no ownership so ability is less likely to succeed. If player has established ownership of the mouthwash, it's more likely to succeed but the outcome if successful puts the mouthwash at risk (the mm can opt to remove both). Tradeoff between chance of success and jeopardizing variables you've invested in.

- Walt

I got the "this is like Timecube" vibe on the first read-through too. Which isn't to say there isn't a certain amount of value, at least in parody, in taking on a little bit of that lingo but making it work.

And thus, on a semi-related note, I point out Mike Gentry's Timecube the RPG page which, while not exactly a playable game, made me hoot with laughter the first time I read it, and still gives me a giggle.