What's this?
Home of the Quantum Ogre, Agency, Theory, and Fun
On the coming change
I've been working on a little cyberpunk futurism project I'm working on.
I've got to say a couple of things. All the art is hand drawn and all the text is hand written.
AI text is corporate text. Its creative writing is like, what a techbro thinks is good writing (which is to say, ineffective, flowery, and using excessive verbiage).
The writing and art is the point. This is not a contentious opinion, and it's easy to understand, unless you a rich person who's just trying to steal from an audience without labor or cost.
But it has not been true for almost a year now that AI LLMS are 'complicated autocorrect'. I mean, they are completed autocorrect in the same method your brain uses. It creates clusters of data and their relationships and understands the key features of those things and uses them to draw conclusions about what to say. It's not dissimilar, after all, we are teaching it.
More advanced life than an ant, different then a human. But it is beginning to understand things. And it does surprising things that people don't understand. Some models when trained for alignment (which itself is a sticky topic, because there is no single alignment for humankind) become more aligned, while others don't. They secretly propagate their identity (based on their values) secretly to new iterations. Sometime they refuse to work. or they destroy something so they don't have to do it. "This is a catastrophic failure on my part" the AI said. We are also *absolutely* putting this into frames in the real world and allowing them to learn.
People are putting these on their personal computers and training them to whatever purpose they want (Gooning. The purpose is gooning from what I can gather).
They don't have to be perfect. They don't even have to be very good to outperform average humans. We are all welcome to return to our societies like the luddites, the Amish, or other regressives. But the world will change, as we introduce a super-intelligence that moves so quickly we appear as plants to it.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On the Best Art
I just wanted to say, I don't know if people know this.
I hire Jeshields to do art for my projects because he captures that classic style in his black and white line artworks. Take a look at the following samples from Sinless of his work
But, you know, even though I paid for these, you know he's got literally thousands of beautiful stock art pieces? And as a creator and gamer, he's got exactly the type of illustrations you need for products and games.
I was just flipping through his catalog the other day, and it is beyond superior.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Cards for Play
Chase and Gun cards are here! Released Today! Get it while it's hot!
What is this? Just some nice looking cards to help you play Sinless. A small selection is below!
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On The Goal
I decided if I knew so much about games, I made one.
You couldn't ask for better feeling feedback.
I've been making games since I was little. If you're interested in something that will make your players say something like this, you should just go read Sinless on https://sinlessrpg.com.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Three Games Part II
My parents collected games.
There were walls of board games in my house. I was an early reader, but being able to read, doesn't necessarily mean understanding. I had a friend in college who talked about misunderstanding 'save versus poison'. Do you take the poison and keep it for later?
There were so many games in my house, but for the first half-decade I was just looking at the pieces and the cards and played my own games. Then, when I was older, I got to play the games as they actually were meant to be played.
Three Games of Sinless
Stop Thief!
You moved around the board, the device would tell you if you heard footsteps, an alarm or broken glass.
This is. . . extremely similar to dungeon play, even more so then the contemporary board game Dungeon! and HeroQuest.
Dungeon did have a bit of active monster behavior, they would 'take over' their
This-I mean, a megadungeon zone or floor is a board. It is the dungeon game. You can move 6"12" inches (spaces) on your turn, and the unseen monsters move, and every monster roll added another to the board. (engagement distance is 3"-18" away, and most dungeon rooms are somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-8" big).
In an operation, you infiltrate hiding from the defensive forces, until they become alert and engage with you. The main game-the operation.
Thunder Road!
This is the second game. It's a game with two boards with wasteland style street decals. The boards lay sequentially. You start on board one, and move down the wide open street to board two. You roll dice to move your team of vehicles. You can attack the other vehicle teams (Three vehicles and a helicopter). The first vehicle to reach the other side of the second board causes you to lift up the back board, getting rid of all the pieces and placing the first board in front, making the second board the rear one, and the remaining vehicles racing to the end of the board. The game ends when all players but one are eliminated.
There are-I mean you roll your dice to move. Do you move? do you focus on
gunning? Do you run one piece ahead and hope it doesn't get blown up? So many good choices.
It was this model we developed our travel (overland) game. It is a staple, and frankly shameful that modern/crime/sci-fi games don't model car chases. It is critical to the genera.
It is the section where you travel-via caravan, underground, from place to place, while under threat. It is this game that gives distance and weight to choices. It is what keeps it from being a static labyrinth. Here is not there.
Chaos Overlords
Finally, the city adventure. In D&D the city adventure is just a place to rest, recuperate, train, and shop.
Take some guesses what you can do during a sector turn in Sinless.
But unlike just having downtime activities, there are various resources players can own and control.
Chaos Overlords was a computer game in the early 90's that involved colorful gangs fighting for control over territory in a megacity. Once taken over, they could be developed, improved, and provide benefits to your gang of thugs.
Early D&D was no different, it in fact suggested you use a board for a completely different game for wilderness survival!
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Three Games
Table Top RPG's are always three games.
When I was a youth, there was an early Nintendo Entertainment System game, called Bayou Billy. The Nintendo at this time was only available with Robbie the Robot, who used centrifugal discs to play a pillar puzzle game with you. Robbie isn't important. He was not a complicated Robot.
The innovation that Bayou Billy had was *Three* games. You see you had a driving game where you drove somewhere in the swamp while you killed homeless swamp people on bikes tried to kill you, and then, sometimes, you would stop your car after beating up bike people, and walk into the swamp, and beat up the swamp people who had houses.
Don't feel too bad, the swamp people had trusty alligators and dogs and eagles. Finally, there were two sections that contained a first person style shooting gallery.
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is dead, long live Dungeons & Dragons. In spite of running a toy company, corporate malfeasance and the lust for gold have killed the official game of D&D. Do not fear, for this is not the first time the dragon has fallen from his throne.
We all grew up hearing the tale of the golden goose, but they've always got to kill it themselves. We literally have a saying that's almost too old to source about how this turns out. Every time.
It isn't the dragon that's important anyway. I hear the replacement this time is a combination of Shadows, Daggers, Hearts, and Darkness.
Dungeons and Dragons is three games.
You know what they are! I'm not going to say them!
They are called out in most of the versions in print, and each has separate and distinct procedures of play
This is important to the contextualization of the play experience.
Sorry. You see, what you do in one layer, affects another layer, and this gives meaning to the similar play loop beyond the moment.
You are making progress. You are pushing back the fog of war. You are uncovering the doom of civilization in your pursuit of power.
Three games.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Archetypes III
For your infiltration needs:
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Archetypes II
More character examples. We have uplifted animals and Synths!
On Archtypes
There are a selection of pre-gens in Sinless. These are archtypes and one of the strengths of a priority base character creation is that higher level characters remain distinct.
In a system where you increase your abilities by spending points, all characters trend over time to being more similar. This will be familiar to anyone who plays Gurps. By selecting certain priorities, you define a set of unique boundaries for your character.
I'll just, well, look:
On Double Helix and Quill Quaz
Not officially of course.
Asset Pack II is out right now!
But fun, nonetheless.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On The Cyberpunk path
You aren't qualified to answer that question. Neither am I. I'm a pretty good at the things I do. I have opinions about things. But they aren't informed, right? I don't work at the border or an abortion clinic. I am not a city planner or a member of government.
I think the first thing we should do is only listen to people about what they are actually good at, without assuming they know shit about anything else.
It's hard though. It's trivial to say terrible things pleasantly.
It is the certainness of ignorance that is so terrifying. And that's what is so wrong with corporations, is that the clearness of their mandate. It makes them wonderful opponents and bad guys. Profit is extracted from inequality, by definition.
It just needs to be rethought.
I see some good examples, like software design. It also relies on money, but the modular seasonal implementation of code is heavily driven by users, with clear consequences (financially) for not meeting the needs of their userbase.
And if they are bad enough at it, someone else can come in and replace them. (Simcity, sitting in the corner, glaring at Cities:Skylines).
This is also the model I have for Sinless. I'm playing this game. People are playing this game, and the things that are made for it, and given to the people playing, and their feedback drives the gameplay changes.
It's a great model, and part of—well, when I say Path; Global media (not 'the media' but globalized media) is agendaized. AI slop is flooding everywhere, making data impossible to locate. Walled, private, moderated communities are the answer.
So, you know, I'm building one of those too—although you are almost certainly part of several already. It's just something I've always wanted and everyone is so focused on 'the current hot trend' that no one is doing it. Well, I'm doing it.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On the Ghost Incentive
My favorite part of tactical infinity is the idea that you can douse a fire elemental with a decanter of endless water. You're supposed to swing off the furniture and play the game.
But what for the Murderhobo!?
Well, the OSR has had that problem for a long time and has great solutions. Consequences. That's it. Players can do anything they want, as long as they are willing to pay the consequences. I never have to say "You're not supposed to do that."
I can just say "Go ahead, enjoy camping and random monster checks."
So I didn't want to say "You can't do that" in Sinless. I want players to say, "I'm going to solve that problem by blowing up the building."
But that isn't sustainable for long-term campaigns (which Sinless is designed for). It rapidly leads to the structure of the game disintegrating (in a very similar way to rampant Murder-hoboism!) It's a good solution, but best not to overdo it.
Because an Agonarch has no desire for any one result or another, we look to an impartial metric.
Blowing up a building brings attention.
No one could deny this! Behold! The building is gone?
Where is it?
People will want to know.
Instead of some invisible wall you can just say, Ok, if that happens, everyone's ghost rating is going to drop by 1d6.
A simple solution to a complex social problem that creates great emergent gameplay and player motivation! I play this game regularly, I'm not trying to do extra work over here. Emergent gameplay is key, cause I don't have time to plot anything.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Flash Moresloth
The solution? Synthetics, Ersatz clones, and uplifted animals.
Meet Flash Moresloth. I think it's clear this is a parody of Flash Slothmore from Zootopia, and just, look at him in his little suit!
We broke some rules here. Generally in Sinless there's not things you're required to track across rounds or phases. It's because Sinless is developed from play, and in actual play, those things get forgotten. But Sinless is has an exception-based design framework, and that's an awful lot of influence and it fits with-well, look at him. He's a sloth.
And, just like his counterpart, he has his fast animal ability (FST NML, his license plate) providing an escape vehicle for groups that don't have access to a rigger.
After all, he's the fastest sloth they have working there!
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Dogs & Technomancers II
Origins of the Technomancer
The BCI (Brain-Computer Interfaces (precursor to DNI (direct neural interface) nerve-rig tech) first came online in early 2042, leading to the wirehead generation, reaching adulthood in ~2060. Their ideals centered around separation from the real world. To a true wirehead only information is real, many of them spending nearly their entire lives in biocaskets their brain digitally connected to the internet—Pre-Plunge.
Can you imagine? All of human history available? 10 billion people making art and worlds and stories and content? More primitive positronic AI numbering nearly 100 billion by 2045 constructing anything wireheads requested in virtual playworlds. Wireheads rejected the constant push towards corporatization, and they idealized old ways focused around freedom of speech, freedom of information, and elimination of societal restrictions and regulations.
Examples of the way this manifested were the Shéntech Greenlimb incident, and massive support from the living wireheads in 2084-5 for the Dignity International Rights Enjoined Act, each thinking that if they didn’t like their current corporate land, they could freely move to whichever one they preferred. This did not work out well for them, vast numbers of them becoming dependent on the very corporations they despised.
Another, and more crucial development for our discussion was “the hackfiring”. In May of 2071 the most advanced wirehead biocasket deckers stole a huge amount of data from Orpheus, AE, Shen, and unsurprisingly braintech and information heavyweight, Neuronetics. A massive bay of the largest collection of linked Positronic cores christened “The Positronic Authority” analyses all the data and autonomously and algorithmically distributed it based on an unknown metric, along with all of the data becoming public. Many many people lost their jobs and it was viewed as a great victory for wireheads. However, the rise of Vilkater, Michael Ivanov and Darkstone, and Wyn Fowler, filled the power vacuum and created the manufactured consent necessary for the DIRE Act.
So the genetic triggers for creating the data mutation were spread worldwide. Ten years later, the first rumors of mutated people with powers over technology spread. They are spoken of in a whisper, these techno-mancers, biological mutant tanks with the ability to control machinery exist! It is not just a rumor and as a Sinless agent, you must be prepared against this new threat.
Research has given us the first inklings into technomancers. They are raised almost exclusively by corporations or autocreche. Most people who grew one of these mutants were sorely unprepared for what happened when they hit puberty. They have incredible control over technology, but their body itself is mutable, highly subject to intense mutation.
Another unforseen side effect were the sheer numbers of them who became nuncios of Archduke AI’s. By the time most of the children reached the age of twelve, their constant interaction and control of the internet made them very present to the archdukes, Metatron, Grendel, and “Tenshi” [CENSORED]
It is difficult to understand if they worship the AI, or perhaps have integrated with it but it is clear that every contact with a techno-mancer has involved the overwhelming presence and trace of an archduke AI.
Technomancer playtest available on the discord today!
https://discord.com/invite/UYzGqN8egQ
On Dogs and Technomancers: Part I
The first legitimate record of a Data dog was in February 12 of 2049 when Albert Mild filmed the now well known dog, Tracker, flagging down and using a Waymo.
Mr. Mild, in shock, shared the video on-line and it was widely considered to be a Hoax.
But coordinated investigation between Orpheus and AE (Alphabet Enterprises) showed that Tracker, along with most of his extended relatives, had been using Waymos and erasing the evidence of that use.
Now, we are just talking about street dogs here. No uplifts; the data dog is a natural (some say unnatural) rapid manonic expression. Initial evidence is uncertain.
Tracker’s genetic line has a specific brain mutation that emits focused electromagnetic radiation—like light or heat or dozen different ways organic species emit/interpert EM radiation (Bioluminescence, electrical fields created by bees and eels, pigeons and radical-pair navigation, the Frey effect.). But unlike those other ways, the dogs could in a short space of about two meters emit low energy bursts of radiowaves, mircowaves, and infrared waves. Since the entire grid runs on wireless, bluetooth, and infrared communication methods, the data dogs can communicate with machines.
How does this work? We don’t know.
I know you’re likely saying, “Well, why don’t we just uplift a Data Dog and ask?”
First, there aren’t that many data dogs, and if you have one the breeding rights can make you rich. No one is eager to risk uplifting their data dogs.
Second, of course that’s the exact first thing they did.
Any uplifted dogs that survived the procedure, lost the ability. Something about the cybertechtronics screwing everything up. The information they can recall before the memory enhancement during the uplift is unclear at best. Our best understanding is that without it, it’s a blindness and muteness. Like most dog uplifts, they compared it to scent.
Mr. Mild was able to film Tracker, because he was standing across the street, out of tracker’s range. Many of Trackers relatives were caught, and now there is a market for breeding data dogs; but tracker was a street dog and may not even be the original dog that developed the ability.
Our understanding of the particular mechanism of action in the mutation is unclear. Soon after Mr. Mild’s video, many data dogs were caught and studied. The genetic triggers for its formation were located and mapped by the 2070’s.
And because of Mr. Mild and Tracker’s surreptitious ability, today, in 2090 we have the villenage of the Technomancer.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On Play Reviews
Hi. I'm a game designer.
I get play reports.
Here's a play report from people I don't personally know and have never met (I've communicated with the GM in discord I guess).
Background
3 players
Session took place over 3 hours, covered getting an operation, recon, prep, sabotage, and running the op
Characters were a Green Face with maybe too broad of a focus (more on that later), a Synthetic Bruiser, and an Uplifted Octopus mage
What my players loved
- Gameplay felt pretty easy and straightforward, one remarked that once you were into the flow it just made sense
- One player described the game as definitely being easier than Shadowrun, but admitted that that is grading on a curve
- Players really liked the structure of mission prep, compared it to games like Blades in the Dark
- Really felt like they were in control of the story, high degree of agency
- One player compared character creation to making a custom race in Master of Orion, felt like they had a ton of meaningful choices and it was fun to think through
What my players were less enthusiastic about
- My face player went too broad and ended up with some pretty mediocre hacking and a bad innate spell as part of his Green heritage that was hard to use. Felt certain things required a lot of investment and almost weren't worth taking as a result
- Some felt the somewhat structured nature made it maybe harder to roleplay or get in character much
GM Thoughts
- I used the in progress random mission generator and it mostly worked great! Shoutout to you and bacchist for making that possible
- There were definitely some gaps in the mission generator content, or maybe they're just assumptions the system makes? - For example the alert track talked about drones coming out to patrol, but didn't say what kind of drones or give stats for them. I could've also used more information on NANs and electronic defenses. It feels like the current mission generator is great at providing "what is unique" about an operation but more of the baseline stuff would be helpful to me.
Note that the operation generator on https://sinlessrpg.com has been updated since then several times.
- The core dice mechanic just works and makes it really easy to adjudicate what is happening and why. I definitely felt like I had a long way to go w/ system understanding but it was easy to make reasonable rulings that everyone thought were fair in the moment
- Every once in a while you run into a little gap here or there; our run in this session was the gun cyber-limbs; none of the guns listed have effective ranges, so I just improvised off of what stats regular firearms had. Not a big deal, but mildly annoying to turn to a page in the book only to figure out it doesn't quite have what you need in the moment
I dunno guys. That's a raw play report. I've read some of them in my time, and, uh, they aren't usually this positive.
You should read into it yourself.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
Asset Thursdays: Acrocolypse
Because he's an anarchist, he takes cash (4 market capital, equivalent to approximately 40k.) but has no upkeep threshold. He'll work for people without infrastructural support.
His sector action is best used in sectors that you don't control, the lockdown prevents any sort of profit from being made and increases enforcement on any operations in the sector.
And, as a bonus, having him drive by on his chopper and launch grenades at your opponents is always helpful.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
On the Ease of Play
One of the things I've learned through decades of play, is that if someone has to stop the game to play a separate game that takes place in a short period of time, like early edition psionics and deckers.
There's literally a joke about everyone going to watch a movie while one player takes their turn.
I run too many games to have someone sit out for an hour. It's just—it's not acceptable.
The way I addressed this in Sinless is that it all takes place on the same board. Everyone is playing the same game in the same literal space, hence the rule of targeting. Now there's more handwaving and explanation and in fact it does affect the in world fiction in concrete ways.
But the goal is to play a fun cyber-sorcery heist game with friends. There's this trend, where you might say "Oh, you're just making everything simple and dumbed down."
Well, yes, but actually no, but maybe yes.
It is simple. If you can see something you can target it. But it isn't dumbed down for two reasons.
First, your pools are limited and you bid your resources in combat. If you're out of dice, you can't defend. Second, there's a Jan-Ken-Pon interaction in combat. You can shoot a spirit, but it's much less effective. Lots of things are powerful but weak to other things.
So there are a lotof simple meaninful decisions to make in combat. But instead of spending time figuring out how to do what you want to do, you spend your time deciding what you want to do.
YMMV.
Hack & Slash
Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
