Intro to Eggshell campaign

[Flyndaran]

Merging discordant genres is a unique fun of Gurps. I just find it odd how few people want a THS as is campaign.
People add Lovecraft, aliens, magic, etc.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Clancy

The campaign starts with the party discovering, by any plausible means, an ancient (relatively speaking) space object (station, ship) which once was teeming with life, but then inhabited by single/almost single human, then ultimately desolated.

This is a problem all by itself. In the default Transhuman space game set in 2100 no real space habitat or long range ship is much overt 50 years old. considering that I (or a person like me but with better genes) could be alive and active (even young again) nothing that old would be considered "ancient" and it would not likely be forgotten either.

As to the "next step in evolution" thing, there was a point where Ebola Zaire was the next step in evolution for hemorrhagic viruses. As this "wraith" seems to inspire insanity, fanaticism and violence it's not going to be particularly more welcome. Almost certainly treated like other forms of emergent netlife and hunted down and exterminated. See Fifth Wave.

[Clancy]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As to the "next step in evolution" thing, there was a point where Ebola Zaire was the next step in evolution for hemorrhagic viruses. As this "wraith" seems to inspire insanity, fanaticism and violence it's not going to be particularly more welcome. Almost certainly treated like other forms of emergent netlife and hunted down and exterminated. See Fifth Wave.

That's entirely viable decision! Despite corruption lies outside of Wraith itself, and appears in the forks, not the original entity, this 'purge-it-with-fire' decision had the voters in the final sessions too.

Abount ancient ones: no artifacts of Pacific War and/or in the 'graveyard' orbits too? I entirely do understand we cannot speak about anything even century back, for the case.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Clancy

Abount ancient ones: no artifacts of Pacific War and/or in the 'graveyard' orbits too?

Stuff left over from the Pacific War has to be used carefully. It can easily become a cliché, and its technology is 15 years old, which means it's very obsolete. As it was explained when we found a cache of stored AIs and data from the period: "It's like WWII German aircraft designs as seen from 2005: interestingly divergent from modern practice, but there's no way that it can be competitive with modern stuff."

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

And yes, purging the users VIIs of malware is probably the correct response to encountering anything like this. Under my view of THS that's all it can be.

This is the view that includes changing sex like changing socks, right?

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

That was an accidental mis-remembering from a different game world, and I said so on the relevant thread. How many times do I have to retract and apologise for the same mistake?

I'm not blaming you for not having perfect memory, neither do I, but it seems like you have a lot subjective inclusions and exclusions wrt the subject matter. It's difficult to take part in a constructive conversation when it's only later you find the other person considers the relevant supplement "urban legend", or when the other person makes it clear they haven't read half of your post, and persists in not reading it when you refer their insistent questioning back to that half-post that plainly answered it.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Merging discordant genres is a unique fun of Gurps. I just find it odd how few people want a THS as is campaign.
People add Lovecraft, aliens, magic, etc.

Disclaimer: IME, anecdotal evidence, etc etc

Many gamers like things like psi, magic, monsters, aliens and the really cinematic fantastic elements in their gaming. Not all of them by any means but they are popular elements. Similar to how pure historical gaming or pure modern day setting are fairly niche.

Personally, I love merging different genres and playing with unusual ideas. There's no such thing, in my mind, as purity when it comes to a setting. Everyone is going to put their own spin on a setting barring a slavish adherence to published material down to only using official characters as PCs.

If I can run a modern day campaign and put in a secret society of mages or psi powers at some point. Why not THS? The setting's nature is going to color that element as much as the element is going to affect the setting. And how well it fits depends on the hows, whys and whats that result from the blending. I find that fascinating.

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

I never said it wasn't fun.

I didn't made any claim you said that.


Edit: Maybe this tangent should move to the "What do you want from a THS game thread" or its own so Clancy can have a useful thread about The Eggshells campaign.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Disclaimer: IME, anecdotal evidence, etc etc

Many gamers like things like psi, magic, monsters, aliens and the really cinematic fantastic elements in their gaming. Not all of them by any means but they are popular elements. Similar to how pure historical gaming or pure modern day setting are fairly niche.

Personally, I love merging different genres and playing with unusual ideas. There's no such thing, in my mind, as purity when it comes to a setting. Everyone is going to put their own spin on a setting barring a slavish adherence to published material down to only using official characters as PCs.

If I can run a modern day campaign and put in a secret society of mages or psi powers at some point. Why not THS? The setting's nature is going to color that element as much as the element is going to affect the setting. And how well it fits depends on the hows, whys and whats that result from the blending. I find that fascinating.
....

I like kitchen sink games some times too. I just find it slightly depressing when virtually no one plays science fiction anymore. It's always sci fi - fantasy, sci fi - supernatural horror, sci fi - etc.
Why buy a setting if it so doesn't fit one's gaming preferences? Putting magic in it destroys what makes it unique in my opinion; its cultural "alieness". Soft sci fi robot in the FUTURE settings are a dime a dozen.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It is weird how many keep wanting to add magic to one of the hardest science fiction settings in gaming.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Toxic Memes, p136. They're a kind of technologically mediated group mind, which provides a modified version of the Intuition advantage.

The Wraith is rather a stretching of that idea; it isn't completely implausible,

I'm kinda annoyed that a slight modification of things in a radical hard SF setting get called magic. Cabals harnessing crowdsourced subconscious processes are a thing (TM136). Mindshare for Infomorphs granting Gestalt Intelligence is a thing (TS130). Non-Infomorph-based Gestalt Intelligences with greatly boosted IQs made through linking of modified VIIs are a thing (DB114).
The only thing that's not taken directly in the book is that the gestalt intelligence - the Wraith - is somewhat less consciously manifested and more separate from the conscious minds of the members.

Throughout the campaign, there have been many times when I said something "Clancy, you promised no magic and no aliens in the campaign, are you absolutely sure you were telling the truth?", and each time it turned out that no magic was thrown into THS even though it looked like there was; the bit about Gestalt Intelligences is not one of those cases - GIs are firmly within the bounds of THS hard tech.

There were two very disturbing moments in the campaign; one of them was when an EI-SAI NPC predicted the outcomes of the quantum RNG of mine. Turned out I was hacked.

Originally Posted by johndallman

If memes aren't powerful in your version of THS, then Wraiths are impossible anyway.

Originally Posted by johndallman

but if I encountered it in a campaign I'd definitely start looking for malware on the relevant people's VIIs. You stop it working by shutting down the relevant people's communications, then clean out any malware and give the people counter-mimetic treatment, just as you would for people affected by any other kind of mimetic attack.

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

And yes, purging the users VIIs of malware is probably the correct response to encountering anything like this. Under my view of THS that's all it can be.

Cleansing the VIIs is certainly a smart idea. See above about being hacked and fed fake QRNG numbers.
The problem was (a) finding what causes weird behaviour in people we were unable to analyse directly for most of the campaign and (b) convincing the gestalt-members to give us the opportunity to check them and (c) convincing the gestalt-members that they want to be cured from their addiction. We ultimately did reach the main Expansion Cabal, showed them that their behaviour has very bad side effects, they wanted to get rid of the addiction, and after a long negotiation they surrendered to our faction on the conditions of treatment. (And yeah, I did buy up Diplomacy to 20 right before the final session.)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

Ah, Toxic Memes. The book that dare not speak it's name in some circles.

Harsh.

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

Most of that book is a bit implausible and even as published comes with warnings that a lot of it isn't true. I think of it as a book of Urban Myths for THS.

It has a chapter on Urban Myths.

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

And yes, purging the users VIIs of malware is probably the correct response to encountering anything like this. Under my view of THS that's all it can be.

Yes, see above.