Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Roleplaying in General

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-15-2014, 01:46 AM   #31
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Data Shamans

Is there life beyond the Recycling Bin?
Where does all the data go on a corrupted or destroyed hard disk?
Did you neglect to back up all your family photos before the disk crashed?

Data shamans are able to go beyond the veil and communicate with the spirits of lost software.

They can do an after-the-fact data recovery, but also they can trawl around for secret files that their owners had thought to be long-ago deleted.

And then there are the black-hat data shamans too, who can root out all the fragments of virus code that have ever been written or cleaned away in a disk scan. Taking bits and pieces from the gigantic slush pile of discarded code, they can synthesise monster viruses to unleash upon the world.

But now, there are reports from the "after-del" that the data spirits are restless. They warn that something big is coming, bigger even than what Y2K or MyDoom threatened to be.

What existential threat could be echoing its ominous approach across both the realms of the real infosphere and the astral-bit plane?

----

There's a similar thread to this one, with a bunch of urban fantasy settings, over on rpg.net that I've been enjoying reading-
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...ngs-Campaigns/
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!

Last edited by Daigoro; 11-15-2014 at 06:56 AM. Reason: clarify what kind of thread
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2014, 06:32 AM   #32
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Cyberpunk meets Tron. I love it. :)
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2014, 06:53 AM   #33
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Cyberpunk meets Tron. I love it. :)
... meets Constantine, too, perhaps.

As an extension of the idea, if the shaman goes deep enough, through the layers and layers, they can go back in time, discovering other lost knowledge- books destroyed in book burnings, the Library of Alexandria or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The other issue is if people who want to keep their secrets secret know that data shamans can find deleted data, how would they do so? They'd need a secure, vault-like recycling bin for receiving sanctioned material, but which keeps the file "alive" so that it never crosses over.

What happens to files which are copied, shared, widely-distributed, edited or corrupted would also be a problem to consider.
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2014, 09:00 AM   #34
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Sanctified shredder bins? Laminate all shredded documents then encase in cement.

This building needs to be destroyed, but only because its foundation contains lost J. Edgar Hoover files. But it's now an orphanage!
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-23-2014, 08:17 PM   #35
RyanW
 
RyanW's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

The alien invasion began at Grover's Mill, New Jersey, on the evening of October 30, 1938. Choose based on your needs:

A) The public response was initially slow, because many people mistook the reports as a Halloween themed radio show.

B) There was a degree of panic, but a quick response covered it up as a Halloween themed radio show.

A leads to a lower tech X-COM, B to a lower tech MiB.
__________________
RyanW
- Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats.
RyanW is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-24-2014, 08:09 AM   #36
Methariel
 
Methariel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
... meets Constantine, too, perhaps.

As an extension of the idea, if the shaman goes deep enough, through the layers and layers, they can go back in time, discovering other lost knowledge- books destroyed in book burnings, the Library of Alexandria or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The other issue is if people who want to keep their secrets secret know that data shamans can find deleted data, how would they do so? They'd need a secure, vault-like recycling bin for receiving sanctioned material, but which keeps the file "alive" so that it never crosses over.

What happens to files which are copied, shared, widely-distributed, edited or corrupted would also be a problem to consider.
I can so see this as a premise for an In Nomine-game centered around Soldiers of Destiny, Judgment, Lightning, Fate, the Game, Technology, and - if you include Minor Superiors - Revelation and Secrets, stumbling over secrets their celestials patrons didn't reveal...

I like it.

M.
__________________
"In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."
(Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest" , act 3)
Methariel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-24-2014, 04:58 PM   #37
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Mentally this one is labeled: "The day after independence day", even if it doesn't have to exactly follow the movie.

The aliens came to conquer and exterminate. In the space of a day they defeated NATO, the Russians, the Chineese, and anyone else foolhardy enough to be part of that first battle. The destroyed the great cities of the earth, and scattered refuges to the wind. Their weapons killed hundreds of millions. We never had a chance.

And then we did. The main alien ship exploded in a fireball of meteoric fragments. A flaw in the remaining alien forces was exploited and the major danger of attack ended. Earth somehow survived --- but thats not the end of the story. Its the beginning. Cities are in ruins, infrastructure destroyed, government non-existent, strange technology from the invasion abounds, not to mention the strange aliens who survived the bulk of the invasion, and indications point to a follow up ship.

The PC's have to make something of this wrecked world and close the technology gap before the colony ship arrives.

The exact flavour of this campaign can go all over the place, depending mostly on the aliens and their technology.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-25-2014, 05:45 AM   #38
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Dream-quest beyond Unknown Kadath!

Basically it's a Dunsanian fantasy world, like Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath a mixture of Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany. Be the new Randolph Carter wandering amoung the worlds of humanity's dreams and nightmares.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-15-2015, 02:35 AM   #39
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

Near Death: The characters are people who have experienced near-death experiences and discover that they now have the power to see, hear and interact with normally invisible and intangible spirit entities, and to astrally project and use powers in the astral realm inspired by how they died. And so does anyone else who has ever had a near-death experience, including a secret society who have made bargains with the darkest kinds of spirits and are eliminating anyone who doesn't join their society.

Fearless Alien Hunters: The characters are a team of people with special training and equipment who have been gathered together to fight an extraterrestrial invasion...that doesn't exist. The demons though, they exist. Your boss just doesn't admit they're creatures of supernatural evil, because that would be just silly.

Those Who Come After: Those Who Came Before ascended to incredible heights of technology and decadence...and then they were gone. Now, hundreds of thousands years in the future, the Solar System, re-engineered by the godlike technologies of Those Who Came Before to be as habitable as it would be in the pulpiest science fiction belongs to their successors, the uplifted animals who were created as half-toy, half-art projects attempting to build their own civilizations...when they aren't looking for the effectively magical relics of Those Came Before. In this future, archaeology isn't just dangerous for the archaeologist.

Last edited by David Johnston2; 02-16-2015 at 12:38 AM.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2015, 12:16 PM   #40
FireTigeris
 
FireTigeris's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Jax, FL
Default Re: Ideas Are Easy

It was a dark and stormy night...

No, really. It's raining so bad that the local nightlife is dead...

Well undead, and the rumor on the wet streets is that the heavy clouds are not going to lift for 10 days leaving plenty of time for evil to take hold.
__________________
Apocalypse: A1, A2, MA.
Cthulhu: C1, C2, C3, C4.
Holiday: SS, HS, TT, EE, N&N, GC*, LSB, dazed.
Star: S0D, SS.
Zombie: Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4.
Fantasy: M0D, M7, M8, L1, L2, L3, MP, MgP, KB, SK, PA.
FireTigeris is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:00 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.