Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

[Bloodstone]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

I'm posting this for a friend who's not a board member. He's in the initial planning stages for a setting that will involve a premise similar to the Matrix' date=' specifically that humanity is being held in a "virtual reality", a simulated existence generated and maintained by a possible hostile force.[/quote']

 

...are the players in on this facet or is he planning to pull the rug out from beneath them at some point?

 

Because I've had players call BS and walk from the game when I pulled a similar trick

 

(and it was years before the Matrix came out, so it's not like I had to deal with them thinking I was ripping off the movie...)

[phoenix240]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

...are the players in on this facet or is he planning to pull the rug out from beneath them at some point?

 

Because I've had players call BS and walk from the game when I pulled a similar trick

 

(and it was years before the Matrix came out, so it's not like I had to deal with them thinking I was ripping off the movie...)

 

As far as I know he'll be doing the twist as a surprise which he's done in the past or just say "There will be a twist to this game so be prepared." The group does pretty well with either.

[phoenix240]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

An amusing approach from the other thread I thought would be fun to share

 

Welcome to the Real World

 

MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living -

 

NEO (politely): Excuse me, please.

 

MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo?

 

NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?

 

MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?

 

NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!

 

MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?

 

(Pause.)

 

NEO: ...in the Matrix.

 

MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.

 

(Pause.)

 

NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?

[Bolon]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

I have been in a number of "Matrix" type games due to the concept of cyberspace. As a plot device, it has become like time travel and creates very poor storylines. The concept of most games involves the concept of balance within the game. The GM has no constraint and has no need to make sense within the environment. We have had people now just disconnect or even killed themselves out of a scenario based on how ridiculous it becomes once the rules are removed.

 

The shared reality of the game is now so badly out of balance since there are no rules at all. The gaming becomes "Monty Hall"ish to remove all sense of accomplishment and enjoyment from solving the challenges. It might be great for the creativity but is letting the genie out of the bottle. Personally, I had too many and find all these games to be a nice idea but impossible to maintain due to the lack of constraints. The players who are highlighted or spotlighted will like the attention but you will drive off the others. It is a great way to break up your gaming group or at least make them very suspicious and unable to trust you again. You need to define the world as the GM and be very strict or you are just pleasing and ruin your credibility. Sorry but I advise you keep all in control and tightly or else you will create something very ugly.

[csyphrett]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

I have been in a number of "Matrix" type games due to the concept of cyberspace. As a plot device, it has become like time travel and creates very poor storylines. The concept of most games involves the concept of balance within the game. The GM has no constraint and has no need to make sense within the environment. We have had people now just disconnect or even killed themselves out of a scenario based on how ridiculous it becomes once the rules are removed.

 

The shared reality of the game is now so badly out of balance since there are no rules at all. The gaming becomes "Monty Hall"ish to remove all sense of accomplishment and enjoyment from solving the challenges. It might be great for the creativity but is letting the genie out of the bottle. Personally, I had too many and find all these games to be a nice idea but impossible to maintain due to the lack of constraints. The players who are highlighted or spotlighted will like the attention but you will drive off the others. It is a great way to break up your gaming group or at least make them very suspicious and unable to trust you again. You need to define the world as the GM and be very strict or you are just pleasing and ruin your credibility. Sorry but I advise you keep all in control and tightly or else you will create something very ugly.

 

That's up to the gm. I mean this is like playing two settings for one. You have your simulated setting where the characters are superheroes and you have the real world where your characters act as themselves.

 

It's up to the gm to define both settings, what works, what doesnt, what is expected.

 

It's up to the players to bring two characters to the table and play them to the best of their ability.

CES

[Susano]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

An amusing approach from the other thread I thought would be fun to share

 

I like this.

[blackbird77]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

I would recommend you check out the movie "The Thirteenth Floor", which is very Matrix-like and often forgotten. The premise there was that the VR world was created as a game/sim for entertainment purposes - sort of like a ramped-up version of Second Life or The Sims.

 

From a campaign standpoint, it is different from the Matrix because people are not trapped within the VR world - most of them don't even exist outside of it - they are just computer-controlled NPCs. But there are a relatively small number of "players" who can enter the game and pretend to be normal citizens there.

 

I would need to think through the ramifications of it all, but it sounds like you could base a campaign on that:

 

The real world is much like our modern-day real world, just near-future with more advanced tech. A company creates this Second Life game, where you can enter the game and everything works just like the real world, except with super-heroes. And the world is 99% populated with computer-controlled NPC's, but those NPC's don't know that they are not "real."

 

Somehow, the game takes on life-and-death stakes in the real world. There are a lot of ways that could be made to happen. You could pick one way and expand it into an entire campaign, like a conspiracy that figures out how to use the game to re-write people's personalities in the real-world, or a super-villain in the game world has figured out that he is not real, and he is trying to find ways to enter the real world. Or the PC's get trapped in the simulation by a glitch and have to find their way out before another glitch turns them into permanent NPC's. Or you could create an episodic campaign so that every adventure was about another way that this simulated world was a threat to the real one.

[csyphrett]

Re: Potential issues with a Matrix like campaign premise

 

I think was also a premise for part of the .Hack series. Something was killing players in the virtual world and the real bodies would enter a coma. Company security and players were trying to figure out what was going on from inside the game.

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