A bit of the intro to the PBX RPG [10 Oct 2008|10:17pm] puzzleboxmuck [aliasisudonomo] Nothing much, just to give you the idea of where I'm going with it. What is the Puzzlebox? The Puzzlebox is an artificial world roughly the size of a galaxy. An anarchic miracle of technology, whatever and whoever made it were capable of modifying physical laws. The two primary things a visitor is apt to notice are the instantiator and the backup system. The first is seeded into the very atmosphere itself; with just a thought all the necessities of living can be fabricated from nothing. The backup system can effortlessly restore the dead, the maimed, and the mind-shattered to perfect health. The Mess In the same way New York City dominates the state of New York, so does the Mess dominate Puzzlebox. Although larger than Earth several times over, it is tiny in comparison. The Mess is where all the cool kids hang out and the fashions of the city are the things the rest of the 'Box will wear in a year's time. The already forgiving laws of the Puzzlebox are thinner here, making the Mess weirder than the rest of the Puzzlebox(which is pretty damn weird). Reality is fluid, with subtle changes in physics and psychology happening hourly. Technology is sufficiently advanced. The whole far-flung city is connected through many means; from the 'magic mirror' teleportation system to traditional vehicles to simply walking where you need to go. Despite the vast distances, the rubbery physics of the Mess make it a practical option even where virtual immortality does not. The primary limits are those of the instantiator, the backup system, and consensuality. The instantiator is purposefully limited to bland and rather ordinary objects, the kind of quality you would be able to purchase at an inexpensive discount retailer. Individual components of dazzling quality can be fabricated, but artisans are intentionally left room to work. The backup system, by default, takes one snapshot a 'day', although additional snapshots can be willed. If someone is killed, they are restored from the most recent backup, with no memories of what transpired since then. (This can lead to unfortunate loops until a friend happens to notice you're trotting off to certain doom for the tenth time that day.) Bodies are restored to perfect health; minds are kept functional although the system allows for much greater variance here and does not insist on perfect rationality and sanity. The last limit is that of consensuality. The Mess' unique flexibility means that reality tends to organize itself along democratic lines. As a result the city is divided into six primary districts, the Warps. Each Warp has innumerable variations on a theme, although a single basic 'philosophy' tends to dominate. The difficulty of enforcing one's will on another means even in the most downtrodden and unpleasant areas... the locals like it that way. Physical violence is uncommon, except as performance art with few long-term consequences, but that does not mean conflict is entirely extinct. Artwar Since forcing someone to go along with you is virtually impossible in the Mess, propaganda has been refined to a high art. “Artwar” is the term of choice for the subtle battle for hearts and minds between the various factions. This is most common inside a Warp as interpretations of the basic philosophy struggle for dominance, but inter-Warp artwar is far from unknown, especially in the inter-Warp “parks” where the districts mingle and blur. Speaking of which... The Warps The six Warps are heterogeneous, but can be loosely summed up in the way they approach living and the world. Upwarp: a technocratic society devoted to humanistic science and rationalism. Downwarp: an urban wilderness filled with unconventional artists and philosophers. Topwarp: A land of social contract and civilized restraint, if only to have rules to break. Bottomwarp: An endless street festival where shame is unknown. Charmwarp: A fantasy land of bright colors, whimsy, and innocence. Strangewarp: The twisted mirror-image of an elegant city, full of nasty, corrupting things. The Warps can be grouped together in various ways; the method chosen says as much about the one choosing as it may about the Warps. The Warps can be roughly grouped into two triplets: an Apollonian triplet (Up, Top, Charm) and a Dionysian triplet (Down, Bottom, Strange). They can also be grouped into Freudian pairs: the ethical Superego (Up and Down), the social Ego (Top and Bottom), and the impulsive Id (Charm and Strange). Another scheme: Up and Down are the Machines (or the Environment); Top and Bottom, the Senses (or the Body); and Charm and Strange, the Mysteries (or the Mind). In Up and Top, order comes through acceptance of authority and social structure. Order in Charm and Bottom arises through harmony between individuals. Order in Down and Strange arises spontaneously in the midst of what seems at first to be decay and breakdown. Specific mental states and cognitive processes can be associated with each Warp: reason with Up, instinct with Down, discipline with Top, passion with Bottom, wonder with Charm, introspection with Strange. A Last Word Before Continuing It is common in fiction and in gaming to assume any utopian setting must inevitably have a dark and corrupt secret. Soylent Green is made of people, Omelas lives a carefree life only because of the suffering of one small child. This is not true in the Mess. It really is a functional utopia. The conflict here comes not from fighting an evil overlord or an invasion, but in bringing others around to your vision of utopia. If the factions indicate anything... it is that even in paradise, suffering just got too good to some. Whether this is a tragedy or a unavoidable fact of life depends on your perspective. 1 comment|post comment

Squeecute! [28 Sep 2008|02:52pm] taliabear [ mood | bouncy ] This is one of the cutest things EVER. ^_^ 3 comments|post comment

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