Campaign Speculation: please read, comment

[Agemegos]

Re: Campaign Speculation: please read, comment

 

You obviously have some different ideas about artificial intelligence than I do. You can't program an entire personality.

 

Fair enough. I don't see that it is necessarily true that one can't program a whole personality. But it might just happen to be true, at least at a particular stage of technological development. So if you want it to work out that way I don't see any problem with that as s technological assumption.

 

I'd still expect a command economy directed by a psychotic robot to produce a miserable and improverished economic slagheap rather than a burgeoning economic miracle of material utopia. But what the Hell? You've got bug-bodied aliens invading a terraformed Mars: a little thing like ten insane AIs that are idiot-savant economic micromanagers isn't going to cost you anything that you haven't already paid.

 

But, economic nitpicking aside, what is your honest opinion of the setting?

 

I can't tell, because you haven't yet developed any of the sort of stuff that I am interested in: social institutions, customs, aspirations. I will say that I have always found it rather tricky to handle markedly unfamiliar cultures in times of strain and rapid change. Players have a hard enough time with alien cultures while they are static, or with changing cultures that are familiar. I would be afraid that players would find it difficult to learn and keep hold of their characters' motivations in a culture that was both alien and under strain.

 

I have to ask what some of the features are for. Why bother to have an inhabited Earth if nothing goes in and nothing comes out. It might as well be a cinder or a cesspool unless you are going to use it for something.

 

Every feature you put into a setting costs you. It costs you skull-sweat in working out its connections to everything else. It costs you exposition that has to be written and read. It costs you in raising the height of the learning curve that the players have to climb. It costs you credulity on the part of the players (they have only so much credulity to spread around on elaborate premises: use it all up and they start asking 'now why should that work out exactly right for that?'). I don't in general say "Keep it simple, stupid": complexity is fine so long as you are getting bang for your buck.

 

So far here it seems to me that you are spending all your bucks on keeping Earth and Mars separate, and nothing on making either of them interesting.

 

Why not forget Mars and move your setting to an STL colony in Epsilon Eridani? Then lightspeed delay (which comes free) will keep you cultures separate without your having to dick around with a sky ceiling (which costs you exposition and player credulity).

 

Why not make your communist AIs sane but inadequate, rather than preternaturally competent in one way and so badly flawed in another that it is incredible that anyone should ever put them in charge of so much as a cloakroom?

 

You may have good answers, but I haven't seen them yet.

 

General note: an interesting idea to think about does not necessarily result in an interesting setting to play RPGs in.

[Guest LordZarglif]

Re: Campaign Speculation: please read, comment

 

I can't tell, because you haven't yet developed any of the sort of stuff that I am interested in: social institutions, customs, aspirations. I will say that I have always found it rather tricky to handle markedly unfamiliar cultures in times of strain and rapid change. Players have a hard enough time with alien cultures while they are static, or with changing cultures that are familiar. I would be afraid that players would find it difficult to learn and keep hold of their characters' motivations in a culture that was both alien and under strain.

I do have notes on that stuff, very detailed notes, but not with me.

 

I have to ask what some of the features are for. Why bother to have an inhabited Earth if nothing goes in and nothing comes out. It might as well be a cinder or a cesspool unless you are going to use it for something.

It's a fight to free Humanity, man!!! And some have succeeded in getting past the Sky Ceiling.

 

So far here it seems to me that you are spending all your bucks on keeping Earth and Mars separate, and nothing on making either of them interesting.

The stuff I've told isn't really all that incredulable. And you haven't seen the least fraction of the material. It's quite an interesting setting.

 

Why not forget Mars and move your setting to an STL colony in Epsilon Eridani? Then lightspeed delay (which comes free) will keep you cultures separate without your having to dick around with a sky ceiling (which costs you exposition and player credulity).

I WILL NOT LEAVE MARS

 

Why not make your communist AIs sane but inadequate, rather than preternaturally competent in one way and so badly flawed in another that it is incredible that anyone should ever put them in charge of so much as a cloakroom?

THEY ARE NOT COMMIES

 

General note: an interesting idea to think about does not necessarily result in an interesting setting to play RPGs in.

Keith Curtis gamed a setting similar to mine, and did very well. See his Solar Colonies page.

[Capt JT Kohonez]

Re: Campaign Speculation: please read, comment

 

One idea you could use is to convince the offworlders that earth is lifeless somehow. Maybe using holograms or whatever the AI's convinced the offworlders that there was a massive nuclear war and everything is dead.

 

Then again there is the problem of those pesky primitive radios. But what about range? Maybe with a string of satelites around the earth they could create a jamming field.

 

The idea of AI's ruling the earth is one thing.

But what possible reason would they have for keeping humanity trapped on the planet? Wouldn't they be working to make things better??

For one by putting manufacturing offworld and developing sea beds into undersea farms to help feed humanity they might also alleviate or even eliminate hunger and pollution. And if the AI's are smart then wouldn't they be working a cheap clean energy source to power earth's cities and civilizations. Maybe if they keep the people happy, working and fed there won't be any reason other than a lack of freedom to fight the AI's.

 

 

 

 

Well. Every time I come up with an idea, you guys mercilessly pick it apart, telling me EXACTLY why it won't work the way I say it does. But I'm not bitter. It builds character.

 

Ok then. I'll concede that it is possible to send communications onto/off of Earth, but it is HIGHLY risky to do so. The Sky Ceiling will most certainly pick it up, and you're sure to be "subdued" then.

 

Oh, and this whole thing wasn't Mechanon's idea. First of all, this isn't set in the "official' universe, and second, it isn't the kind of thing he'd do. He wants to annihlate life, not conquer it. If he showed up, he'd take over the Sky Ceiling and blaze away. an remember, these AIs have the best interests of Humanity in mind.

[Guest LordZarglif]

Re: Campaign Speculation: please read, comment

 

That's it!!! I'm scrapping the whole thing. There's no point to the setting the way I've envisioned it, and there's no way to game it that I could see. Maybe it would be great for writing, but not for gaming. Thank you, however, for al the support you've showen me in my futile attempt. Admins, please lock the thread, this one is dead in the water.