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update from sparkleup

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Madison Scott-Clary 2023-05-13 23:15:05 -07:00
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@ -346,30 +346,6 @@ Testing *Leverage* is similar to testing any other stat:
**Examples**
Rareș
:
TODO
Avery
:
TODO
## Sanity
In such a world where physical damage suddenly has less meaning, health is measured in terms of *Sanity*. After all, you have only a simulacrum of a body; if that gets damaged, why, just fork yourself a new one!
However, live forever with memories that never dissipate --- memories from however many instances, even! --- and keeping your head about you suddenly becomes far more difficult.
As such, your *Sanity* becomes a stat you track, just as you would track HP in any other setting.
You begin the game with a simple calculation: your *Sanity* is 20 - *Savvy*. That is, if you're more savvy in dealing with the System, then you're going to find yourself slipping just that much faster.
Your *Sanity* can be damaged throughout play when the dice turn against you on *Savvy* rolls, particularly when it comes to memory --- that is, merging and forking can lead to going just a little bit more crazy on failure.
Gaining *Sanity*, however, is much more difficult, and essentially comes at the whim of the MC, who might return a point of sanity to you when you, for instance, take a second to rest and process what you've learned, a bit of downtime to incorporate those memories; or perhaps when, in the course of play, your character has an ecstatic revelation.
**Examples**
Rareș
:
TODO
@ -402,9 +378,32 @@ Dispersionista
What this comes down to is the fact that, the more likely you are to fork --- that is, the closer you hew to a Dispersionista lifestyle --- the more likely you are to succeed, but the higher the cost if you fail. The less likely you are to fork --- the closer you are to being a Tasker --- the more likely you are to fail, but the lower the potential cost.
## Sanity
In such a world where physical damage suddenly has less meaning, health is measured in terms of *Sanity*. After all, you have only a simulacrum of a body; if that gets damaged, why, just fork yourself a new one!
However, live forever with memories that never dissipate --- memories from however many instances, even! --- and keeping your head about you suddenly becomes far more difficult.
As such, your *Sanity* becomes a stat you track, just as you would track HP in any other setting.
You begin the game with a simple calculation: your *Sanity* is 20 - *Savvy*. That is, if you're more savvy in dealing with the System, then you're going to find yourself slipping just that much faster.
Your *Sanity* can be damaged throughout play when the dice turn against you on *Savvy* rolls, particularly when it comes to memory --- that is, merging and forking can lead to going just a little bit more crazy on failure.
Gaining *Sanity*, however, is much more difficult, and essentially comes at the whim of the MC, who might return a point of sanity to you when you, for instance, take a second to rest and process what you've learned, a bit of downtime to incorporate those memories; or perhaps when, in the course of play, your character has an ecstatic revelation.
**Examples**
Rareș
:
TODO
Avery
:
TODO
## Player moves
*
* When you do something relating to [specialty], add +1.
* You have the ability to [do some sort of active special power]. It counts as a basic move using [stat].
* You have [some passive special power that has a constant effect].
@ -412,10 +411,6 @@ What this comes down to is the fact that, the more likely you are to fork --- th
* When you do [specialty], mark XP.
* Add +1 to [stat].
## Character sheets
[![Charsheet!](https://rpg.post-self.ink/filled-charsheet.png)](https://rpg.post-self.ink/charsheet.pdf)
# Preparing to play
Overview:
@ -436,6 +431,8 @@ Overview:
## Creating characters
[![Charsheet!](https://rpg.post-self.ink/filled-charsheet.png)](https://rpg.post-self.ink/charsheet.pdf)
Hand each player a character sheet. It should have the stat names listed, including the relationship stat. It should have a description of how the relationship stat goes up and down over the course of the game.
Place the character concepts in the middle of the table. Talk about what they might mean and why they might be cool. Have everyone pick one and fasten it to their character sheet (in the concept box) using a paper clip.
@ -450,9 +447,36 @@ Every character has a harm clock, with six sections. When characters take harm i
The next stage of creating characters is to pick 3 moves. When a player picks a move, they pick an option from the list below, give the move a title, and fill in the blanks. Each move gets recorded on their character sheet.
## Zero session
## Session zero
TODO
As an optional step before the game, it might help to have a session zero. These sessions are a good way to help strengthen both the players' bonds with their characters and with each other. There are many different ways to help get all the creative and social juices flowing. These aren't necessary, and need not even be their own sessions independent of the first session, however, setting aside time specifically to build up the world can be eminently useful. In fact, they can even be a good time for building the players' characters from the ground up in a collaborative and communal style. Here are some ideas for what to do:
Characters
:
The obvious thing to do is to ask about the character's past.
* When did they upload?
* *Why* did they upload?
* Where do they live in the System? Deep in a densely populated public city-sim, or out in nature, all by themselves?
* How have they gained reputation so far? Did they take a hobby from phys-side and turn it into something new? Do they even *care* about reputation? After all, later on in time, reputation matters less and less.
However, this can also go more in-depth:
* **How the party formed:** Session zero is a good time to decide how your party came together. If you're not planning on meeting within the first session, you can use this to figure out how the party formed. This should be a collaborative effort. For instance, have each party member state in one or two sentences how their characters met the next down the list or sitting to the right. Then, have that player add one or two sentences to that description. Do this for each combination of characters. This can be a great way to set *Leverage* stats, and is also a good time to specify how the characters got to the location where they met.
* **Rumors:** Have each player come up with a handful of rumors about their characters. You can divide these into good and bad rumors, as well as true and false ones. For instance, have players come up with four: one good and true, one bad and true, one good and false, and one bad and false. Whether or not the rumors are true doesn't need to be revealed right away, either. They can be sprinkled throughout based on interactions with other characters, players, or the MC. This helps both the other players and the MC interact with those characters in a more authentic fashion.
* **'Guilty' list:** Have each player come up with a 'guilty' list for their characters, containing three guilty pleasures and three guilty moments from the past. Even silly little things such as this can flesh a character out into something that is easier to interact with.
Setting
:
A setting can be a character in its own right. It can have its own story to tell. Within *Post-Self*, there's the obvious world of the System, but the System is merely a shell housing sims of nearly infinite variety. These, then, become the sims. Building this setting doesn't necessarily need to be 100% up to the MC, though. If the players aren't meant to be spelunking in undiscovered, unfamiliar lands, build the sim or sims together under the MC's guidance.
* **Pros and cons:** Have each character create a list of two or three pros and cons about the sim. For instance, it could have this *really great* noodle place over on Main, the sunsets can be absolutely beautiful, but whoever built it had apparently never seen real cobblestones before, as it's all but impossible to walk on the street without twisting your ankle.
* **Made-up history:** In a place where everything can be perfect, imperfection has become something of an art. Clearly, the sim designers were inspired by *something!* What was it? Some disaster they remember phys-side? Some bit of perfection that can only be accomplished by cutting corners elsewhere; what drew the designer's eye to that perfection? Have each player give a sentence or two describing the designer's inspiration, then let the next player piggyback off of that.
* **Copy of a copy:** After centuries, cities on phys-side go through many of their own changes, are built up, torn down, and rebuilt as almost-the-same. If a sim is a copy of a place phys-side, what has changed? What did the sim designers not see fit to bring over? What did they exaggerate?
Safety and expectations
: a
# Gameplay
@ -639,3 +663,9 @@ Questions for the MC:
*Post-Self*, as an open universe, invites the creation of your own story and explorations of the subtler implications of the mechanics. The world is what it is by virtue of what we, as participants in its creation, make of it.
As such, I freely invite you to share! If your story takes off, feel free to post about it, share actual plays, write up your plots into stories and modules! Hell, even if you don't want to share it far and wide, I would love to hear what you come up with; feel free to [drop me a line](https://makyo.is). If you're particularly proud of what you've done and are open to others experiencing it, I'm plenty happy to post your contributions as part of the 'canon', such as it is. Modules and RPG plots will be posted on [rpg.post-self.ink](https://rpg.post-self.ink) and stories on the Extra Stories section of [post-self.ink](https://post-self.ink/extras/).
# Resources
https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SB0jsx34bWHZWbnNIVVuMjhDkrdFGo1_hSC2BWPlI3A/edit
Of course, one possibility if you are planning on running a longer, more elaborate campaign, is to construct the sim or sims in which the campaign takes place together using something like [The Quiet Year](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year), a map-making game which is nominally focused on building a community after the collapse of civilization, but which can also be used to build just about any sort of lived-in world with a strong sense of community.