Phractal City and Pikmin Games

Here's stuff I want to make.

Phractal City  

My buddy and I had an idea for a Real-Time Play-By-Post Roleplaying Game. I love the idea so much that I actually hesitate to share it, as so many people have been making so many RTPBP games ever since CATAPHRACT, and I don't want someone to do this idea before we do. And yet, someone else doing it would mean I don't have to do it...! So we ball. Behold: Phractal City. Get it, like Phract, like Cataphract

Ingredients:

• Girls Like Us: Spiceomancy's amazing NPCs-as-procedures for a city campaign, featuring the Hustle, the the Grid, the Noise, and the Dark of a city as both principles of the setting and as tangible beings. Fucking read it holy shit. We'll build off of this setting.
• CATAPHRACT, or rather Over/Under: Sam Sorensen's RTPBPRPG that launched a thousand RTPBPRPGs. Cataphract concerns the movement and combat of armies, Over/Under is a retooling that concerns the management and turf wars of factions on the Mothership space station Prospero's Dream, with extra rules for city living and civilian duties. We'll put a lot of those systems to use, plus my Many Wisdoms from having been there.
• The Chorus: Garamondia's non-commander player role idea for Cataphracts, where some players across all factions have access to a dreamscape channel and can only communicate in it with sigils from a set of about 50. Specific sigils in specific orders, combined with specific resource expenditure, will function as spells! But this isn't already known, and the methods must be found out in the world. This is the coolest thing in the world. Where will we use it? You'll see..!!
• A Discord server
• 100 people
• 10 referees 

Welcome to da big city 

Here's how it works.
10 city blocks, with 10 players in each! (Alongside an undefined number of citizen NPCs!) And "block" here is almost literal; think the giga apartment complex in Dredd (2012) or the infamous Kowloon Walled City. Why 100? It sounds right. 
1 referee per block! Why? To minimize the strain on any single ref. You submit your actions in a day to your ref, who is basically your landlord. A single ref should totally be able to handle 10 people RPing and occasionally submitting minor orders, like /buynewcar or /skiprent or /killneighbor. 

Speaking of, everyone is assigned a character. Cataphract style. Name, age, home, occupation, relations, duties, modifiers or special quirks, the works. Now, you're free to live however you choose, but the "buy-in" here is that you're stepping into a character and driving them around for X days (I've been imagining 50?) to see what happens. What does your version of James Q Cyberpunk think of the street riots? Or his blockmates, or their nightly activities, or his boss? 

Some people will be related, live together, work together, hate each other, and so on. Your capital g Goal would be to survive, but ideally you'll also manage to improve your lot in life and put out any personal fires that you start with or earn along the way.

I almost forgot, actually, a key part of Girls Like Us is that it's your character doesn't like certain parts of their body and the City is where you go to get that fixed. "Longer legs, fuller flesh, metal bones, extra arms." I'd like to retain a lot of that in this Franken-game (Franken-game's Monster?) but I'm not sure how much. For now, let's say that "fixing" your body and staying alive are basically tied in importance.

Some possible stations to occupy... 

Mayor, mayor's aide, rival mayoral candidate, sanitation worker, cabbie, restaurant owner, bartender, hover car mechanic, pharmacist, petty thief, awesome thief, straight up murderer, peace officer, political canvasser, corporate security, librarian, data entry, street sweeper, butcher, bodymod tech, tattoo artist, psyop writer, construction worker, firefighter, sewer mapper, window washer, tram driver, plumber, hotel doorman, chemical engineer, power plant worker, wedding planner, priest, jeweler, emergency dispatcher, EMT, musician, enemy musician, yuppie, number cruncher, lawyer, hot dog stand, and so on.

Work work work

One musing about my dockworker faction in Over/Under: while we were all doing a lot all the time, it never felt like we were dockworking (with good reason; we weren't!). I often wondered about some kind of container-moving minigame to have my 200-odd worklings play to supplement their automatic income, like maybe if they send a screenshot of a good score I'd wire them a bonus for the day or something. Maybe like, the domino-arranging game Pips on the New York Times website? It never went anywhere, but I was really fixated on the idea for the vibe it created. Everyone's got their little bullshit to do. Great for chitchat topics. So let's say you earn X credits automagically; send in a good score and you get 3X for the day. A high score? Raise! Promotion! 

Basically, everyone would start with a career, and in an ideal world, there'd be some interactive element somewhere that simulates your career's busywork. If Phractal City became some Big Thing, we could probably commission custom Discord bots for this, but a more realistic method would be submitting daily screenshots of your score in some relevant flash game. 

And if not that, do the more obvious thing and have dice rolls.

Whether or not we could ever actually make this part work, consider this: the Morale and Marching rules from Cataphract could be easily retooled to represent the working hours and stress of daily life in the city. Failing rolls and not taking enough action to remedy the situation could mean losing your career or even your home. 

Fancy meeting you here
In a given day, you're free to do what's available, but you're for sure going to meet 2 people; one person that you randomly roll, and whoever randomly rolled you. (100 people = D100 roll! What happens if you roll yourself? Who knows!) I suppose that would mean a fuckton of private threads being created, and I remember we hit the limit a few times in Over/Under, but IDK. Maybe these get cleared/archived where you can't see them (unless you take some specific action).

Point is, the pot will stir no matter what, at least a little bit. Maaaybe certain people would be exempt or have some other system, like criminals or high-ranking officials, but honestly it's kind of interesting this way. The 2 people could briefly discuss how it is that their players have come to meet before they play it out, ("Maybe you spot me at a salon and recognize me from my commercials?") or perhaps one of their refs could throw in a quick intro at the start of the thread after rolling the interaction; like "X sits next to Y on the train" or "X's lunch appointment with Y is in a grimy diner".

They walk among us

Okay, what if the powers-that-be from Girls Like Us were players too? I picture those avatars/aspects of the City as vaguely real, almost muse-like in their mental nature, but this would lean in a more god-like direction. You could call on the Dark for good luck in tonight's mugging with your crew. You could feed the Grid some secrets in exchange for a video feed search. Ooh, maybe it would take some kind of ritual to open a thread with a city aspect.

Maybe your character would start already indebted to or bonded to one of the aspects, or as a follower of theirs. That's probably a private matter, and perhaps there'd be ways to discretely tell if someone was "one of yours" or not. Secret phrases, signs, and trinkets. Not that someone who pays worship to Hustle is necessarily at odds with someone who pays worship to the Dark, but "birds of a feather" and all that.

Each week or every few days, something newsworthy will happen in the city, and it would benefit or relate to whichever aspect is "in the lead" in some invisible way. Most worshiped, most offerings, most impact recently... Or maybe it's random. Or maybe it's up to the player playing them. Or maybe they happen as a symptom of high activity, with zero or vague input from the aspect's player. Or maybe the aspects can cause things to happen through some sort of expenditure or exchange. Each deal / ritual by a worshiper fulfilled = 1 influence point? Cash in 20 God Tickets for 1 Major City Event? Who knows. Somehow, bit by bit, the aspects will exert influence.

Lot of Dark stuff lately? This week's headline is a prison break, and both crime and paranoia are at record highs. Grid? The city has mandated that all homes must have security cameras... in the bathrooms. Noise? Some synth-tuber has a concert tonight, and the city is gonna be abuzz for days! Hustle? The lottery, baby! Only way to win is to play, and good news: you're playing! But how many tickets can you afford?

This part of the thought is less concrete, but perhaps whichever aspect has been in the news the most determines the "end times" of the city (secret unmentioned ingredients: the Calendar of Nechrubel from MORK BORG / Miserable Headlines from CY_BORG). A Dark ending brings wanton bloodshed and fear, like a military occupation or societal collapse scenario. Grid encroachment can usher in a total cyber-police state that strips you of your final shreds of autonomy and privacy. As for the Noise, it'd be cool if brainrot lulled everyone into such deep lethargy that they all just fade away in their beds, with the Feed (see below) being the only channel anyone can talk in anymore. That, or some insane scandal rocks the city to its core and most people are forced to move. Hmm... Hustle, Hustle... I've got it. Recession.

They are everything

I'm gonna take the aspects and try to imagine gameplay actions out of their impositions on the city and their procedures, which of course will be expressed as ominous single syllable words. I sense one of you didn't read Girls Like Us; please scroll up and do so

• The Hustle requires that you work the Grind, and hopes you reap the Spoils. 
• Grind: Do your job, get paid. Take a risk, get super paid or super boned. 
• Spoils: The goods, services, and opportunities are so worth it, and an important part of staying alive in the city. 
• The Grid expects you to obey the Law, and allows you to surf the Net.
• Law: (Maybe Code instead?) You have to stay on the rails or face fees, beatings, prison time, and red tape. There's always a chance you're being watched. You'll have to go outside the Law sometimes, so try to do it when you think you're in the clear.
• Net: Good little tin machines can work the system to find or erase information.
• The Noise compels you to scroll the Feed, but at least you can wear the Mask.
• Feed: Social media brainrot is a real and literal rot, and it's omnipresent. So long as you have it, you can add to and drink of the info-deluge (distorted as it may be) for news and fulfillment. Find ways to medicate and unplug or you will numb your mind and soul.
• Mask: Perhaps you could also somehow wield social media and general tabloidery to boost your image, get dopamine, change your lot in life, or resist bad effects. Put on a smile, so to speak.
• The Dark will kill you unless you perform the Rites, and sometimes it lets you feed the Urge. 
• Rites: Without extreme vigilance and obsessive amounts of preparation, death will visit you in the guise of another player. Worse, there's always a chance that the Dark will wield you; you just "snap" and visit someone to kill them. Inflicting harm on others might stave it off.
• Urge: On the other hand, familiarity with the city's underbelly and a particularly intense motivation may unlock some sort of "do crime" action. 

Phone numbers / microchip addresses

I'll talk about it more in a future write-up, but in Over/Under, anyone could open a private thread with anyone else. As a faction leader, this sucked eggs. I was inundated from start to finish with people contacting me to try and get involved with stuff (not in like a volunteer work way. Like a "give me power" way). And having access to everyone else took away from the RP socializing a bit, where there wasn't anything between you and the ear of who you wanted.

I have an idea: to open a thread with someone, you must have their character's unique PHONE NUMBER or similar sci-fi implement such as a microchip address. Think of the stories there: some people, like families and friends, would start with each other's number. A journalist buys the mayor's phone number from an aide! An investigator finds a dead drug dealer, searches their phone's contacts, and chases leads! Block your ex-husband! Maybe pay a substantial fee to change your number?

Oh, related to private communication, but screenshots of messages would be forbidden. How the hell are you supposed to lie if someone can just ask to see the receipts, or if any and every conversation is leakable to the whole city with 2 clicks? Especially if these are supposed to be in-person conversations. You should be able to lie. The fact that I was an absolutely unforgivably evil ass liar doesn't even factor in here, it was a real damper on suspense.

Social media

I know that look; you're wondering about how The Chorus factors in as an ingredient. All will now be revealed.
The Noise! That buzzing in your brain when you need your fix of Content, that dull throb as your brain soaks up little dioramas of sense and excitement. It comes with perks!

So long as you have a level of the Noise, you're tuned into the Feed mentioned above. It's an in-universe player-driven social media analog. You'll have access to a restricted channel where people can only post pictures, followed by 3 hashtags. Like the Chorus, the pictures would probably come from a pre-existing set; public figures and celebrities, locations in Phractal City, current events somehow?, maybe player icons... Then you hashtag it to convey a very limited message. The tags could be anything, or maybe they come from an expansive but weird list, filled with slang and made up phrases that are supposed to be common parlance in Phractal City. Like #chunkme or something. People could also emoji react, but only with emojis from the server, obviously.

(pic of the mayor's icon) #washed #old #countyourdays
(pic of Housing Structure Beta) #myzone #pullup #meth
(pic of a paste dog from Sal's Nutri-Weenies) #mine #splendid #splendid
(pic of the QQ21 Train Terminal) #byebye #splat #jk
(pic of a city peace officer) #grababroom #bum #bumass
(pic of a dead body) #yup #3186.2764.982 #hitmyline

The higher your level of Noise sickness, the more you'd be able to say in a post. Perhaps near-death social media addicts could squeeze a couple sentences, possibly in limited formats or structures, like mad libs, because memes have addled their online communication abilities. And maybe your career factors in? A journalist may be obligated / RP-inclined to post their findings to the Feed, and be able to type a tweet's worth of characters freely. And perhaps the Feed is where refs post current events as news bulletins; doomscroller's delight!

Okay Phractal City all done

That's all I've got in my notes here. If you do something like this, please Please let me know. Otherwise, stay tuned for an invitation to Phractal City sometime around 2060 when my buddy and I fully flesh out the game.

Here's another idea.

Pikmin Games 

A weird little moment from Over/Under inspired me. Due to 500 strange events, I was the leader of an expedition into the scary underworld of Prospero's Dream, the Choke. 25 of us descended into a hostile purgatory, outfitted with gear, oxygen, and burning questions. We could only manage to stay for a few hours. O/U was a play-by-post game, and of course real-time (like IMMEDIATE real time) play-by-post play is completely feasible, but how the hell do you manage it for 25 count em TWENTY FIVE people?

Sam Sorensen, the Over/Under himself, very generously ran a fast and loose Mothership-adjacent session for the expedition team. He would describe the situation in a main channel, we would react and plan in a little thread within it, and after some deliberation a group action would get posted back in the main channel and stamped with a ✅ seal of approval by most of the expedition team. Theoretically multiple actions could be proposed and we would vote with emojis, but for the most part we were unanimous on what actions made it from scheme-hole to real-world. 

(One fun part was everyone sending fearful emojis in the scheming thread if Sam was typing for a while in the main thread. Like... I thought we were just walking along, what's gonna happen to us??) 

We're very lucky that Discord nests threads in a little side feed inside channels. It made for an excellent dual view setup. Sam aptly described it as Twitch Plays Mothership, and the thin little chat column really added to that feeling. It was our little rapid-fire freakout zone and collab space for cooking up responses, neatly tucked against the big stage where legends were made and one guy died.

Check it.

And here it is in action:

There did end up being some good moments of independent action. 
The most iconic was the tale of Thelen Groos.

Behold. 

 

 

 

 

Less than a week before the end of the month-long game, one greenhorn gave his life to protect his comrades. It was so crazy cool. Besides Thelen, occasionally someone would put forward an Undiscussed Proposal or state they were doing something solo real quick, most often as an amendment to a group action (I watch our six!), or a situationally appropriate complication (I freak the fuck out!).

This expedition might have been my favorite part of Over/Under. There's no denying that it's partly because it was a nice break from my personal Evil Ass Liar subplot (there was even talks of intentionally dying on the expedition so I wouldn't have to face justice!), but it was mostly because of how frenetic, unpredictable, and mysterious the journey was. This was a way to play I had never thought of, and we had no idea what was ahead of us, and the stakes were quite high. Great combo.

Weirdly, it was also nice to know that it was a time-limited thing. While I love my games that start anywhere from 6 to 8 and go until we finish or get tired, we were told ahead of time this would just be a few hours, and it was. We filed in just after 2, launched just before 3, and wrapped around 5. And every person on that team was locked the fuck in for the entire time.

So, all that to say, I loved this PlayMode and wonder what else can be done with it. 
The main ideas were... 

• Large play group. Not 8 or 9 large, but 20+ large. 
• All acting as a (loosely) coordinated group. Rapid deliberation and action voting kept us as a very cohesive little swarm, but there was room for rogue agents, lone wolves, and conflict.
• Specified time window. If it went all night or was cut off to finish up later, it would lose something. We're against the clock here, people! Do or die!

The spooky yet tactical expedition was a good fit. I could also see it working in a war game (any era, really), or some kind of caveman clan management thing. Maybe the many thoughts swimming in one guy's head? "Everyone Is John, No Like Seriously EVERYone"?

So please consider the Pikmin Game. There is certainly a better name for this, speak up if you have one. Swarm games? Mob games? Ant games. Throng-alongs?