-
@@ -77,7 +89,7 @@
- You
About Post-Self
+About Post-Self
@@ -108,13 +120,14 @@“All artists search. I search for stories, in this post-self age. What happens when you can no longer call yourself an individual, when you have split your sense of self among several instances? How do you react? Do you withdraw into yourself, become a hermit? Do you expand until you lose all sense of identity? Do you fragment? Do you go about it deliberately, or do you let nature and chance take their course?”
This last was funded by a (wildly successful) Kickstarter campaign. One of the stretch goals led right back to the roots of the universe: a system that could be adopted to roleplaying.
Powered by the Apocalypse is a tabletop role playing framework developed by Meguey and Vincent Baker, originally for the game Apocalypse World but later publicly released for anyone to use. This provides ample opportunities for anyone seeking to make their universes collaborative to do so with low overhead. It seemed like a perfect for a setting so focused on stories, given its low emphasis on mechanics and focus on the storytelling. Post-Self in particular uses the minimal hack Simple World which aims to reduce complexity even further.
A perfect combination.
-About the Post-Self universe
+About the Post-Self universe
In this setting, your story takes place more than a hundred years in the future in a time where humanity has figured out how to upload consciousnesses to a digital world called at first simply the System (a holdover from its early days of secrecy, so vague a name as to keep discussions hard to trace) and later, after a launch of two smaller copies out of the Solar system, Lagrange, Castor, and Pollux.
-Sensoria
-Sims
+Sensoria
+TODO
+Sims
Locations in the System are known as sims, an artifact from the pre-System ‘net days. Sims may be public or private. Public sims are usually open to anyone and can be accessed by querying the perisystem architecture for their tags (e.g: Josephine’s#aaca9bb9).
Private sims are generally owned by a single individual, clade, or family. These sims generally have much more restrictive ACLs (from ‘access control lists’, but now generally used to refer to fine-grained permissions) which can limit who may enter, whether or not the location is visible to others, who in the sim may create new objects, modify boundaries, and so on. The owners have full ACLs, including the ability to grant others owner status and rescind their own (though every sim must have at least one owner).
-Forking and merging, individuation, and clades
+Forking and merging, individuation, and clades
Introduced almost by accident, the concept of forking allows one to create a new instance of oneself. This copy is completely identical, but as soon as they’re created and their experiences begin to differ, that instance starts to undergo the process of individuation. They form their own memories, and their experience of the world is colored by those memories.
An instance may quit. When they do so, their memories are provided to their down-tree instance to remember or not in a process called merging. A merge may be wholesale (sometimes described as blithe) or cherrypicked, wherein the down-tree instance is able to choose some of the memories but not others in a labor-intensive process. After the mid 2100s, instances which are quitting may attach a priority to the merge. A high priority will be felt by the down-tree instance as a greater pressure, perhaps with a kick of adrenaline, while a lower priority merge will be felt as optional. A merge with explicitly no priority will not be offered to the down-tree instance.
The greater the individuation between and up- and down-tree instance, the greater the chance for conflicts. These occur when memories don’t line up—that is, the experiences may be of the same event, but the conclusions drawn from the event may be different. As time goes on, individuation will affect the entire personality of an individual, as personality is built in part atop memories. Cocladists who have diverged by decades or centuries may find such merges incredibly difficult.
@@ -125,21 +138,22 @@Relying more heavily on forks to accomplish tasks, trackers may keep instances around for months or years, and sometimes more than one at a time. However, these instances tend to retain a strong sense of identity with their root instance and will almost always merge back down. Example: Ioan Bălan, as a tracker, forks quite often for eir work, but those forks tend to be associated with projects and, on completion, will merge back down into eir #Tracker instance (with a few notable exceptions: Codrin Bălan individuated enough to become eir own person, and Sorina Bălan forced her own individuation to leave memories behind as best she could).
Dispersionistas don’t give a fuck. They fork at need and those forks may quit, may retain some sense of their identity, or may individuate and become their own individuals down the line. Example: Michelle Hadje founded the Ode clade, which nominally has 100 members, but they’re not super strict about it and many have long-lived instances they don’t really talk about.
Clades can form quasi-familial units or not even really talk to each other; it’s really up to the individual. There’s a mild taboo against relationships between cocladists, though the greater they have differentiated, the less that seems to be an issue. While one can rescind one’s membership in a clade, this is similar to distancing oneself from one’s family: your down-tree instance is still your down-tree instance.
-Life beyond scarcity
+Life beyond scarcity
Contrary to fears, by the end of the 2100s, System capacity had far outstripped its actual usage. As space grew and grew, the cost of forking and creating sims dropped further and further almost to the point of becoming negligible.
“Cost”, though? Why would such a thing even exist in such a world?
Before this rapid expansion of technology, the trend was headed in the opposite direction, with usage increasing faster than capacity. In order to keep the System running smoothly after the advent of forking, a reputation market was set up. One gains reputation (denoted Ŕ) by a variety of means, from creating new objects, sims, or content to interacting with others. One spends reputation on acquiring copies of such items or by forking.
These processes are largely transparent (as is the market itself; anyone can check anyone else’s reputation via the perisystem architecture), with denizens largely acting on instinct. As with many sys-side activities, things such as forking and acquiring sims or objects are a matter of projecting one’s intent to do so. Should one have enough reputation for that, that intent feels very real and forking or purchasing eminently feasible. However, without enough reputation, one would feel that such an intent just…wasn’t possible.
As such, few think about the reputation market all that much after about 2220, with a massive wave of reforms to the reputation market hitting at the centennial Secession day in 2221 that essentially obviated it for most individuals.
-Eternal memory
-The perisystem architecture
+Eternal memory
+TODO
+The perisystem architecture
The perisystem architecture is the conceptual foam of computer-stuff in which individuals reside and items such as sims, food, very nice fountain pens, and very fine paper exist. However, it also contains large amounts of information in the form of books, the reputation market, and various information feeds.
Some maintenance of the perisystem architecture is required, usually by engineers both sys-side and phys-side. In the instance of the two launch vehicles, for instance, PA engineers managed the DMZ later called Convergence
-The shared dream
+The shared dream
The System is not a purely digital haven. It’s not a construct bound by our ideas of some virtual reality. They tried, at first, and some remnants remain from that — new creations or instances are still tagged with a unique hash in the form of eight hexadecimal digits and System denizens still speak of sims and avatars — but that’s not how the System ended up working. When it was first created, those who remained phys-side couldn’t conceptualize it in any other way. Those sys-side, however, knew better. Rather than an analogue to virtual reality, it was more like a consensual dream. What was possible on the System was limited to that which all minds could consensually dream.
This was, at first, pure chaos. That limit alone was not quite enough: what all were able to imagine did not guarantee that all sys-side actually experienced the same thing, and it wasn’t until late 2110s that work was put in place to ensure that experiences were truly consensual.
The fact remains, however, that the world has more in common with dreams than with a dream of the physical world than the ‘net.
-Timeline
+Timeline
- 2115 — February ??
- The first partially successful upload leads to a breakthrough and, shortly after, the foundation of the System. @@ -156,11 +170,11 @@
- 2408 — December 31
- A series of events leads to an interruption in the functioning of Lagrange lasting thirteen months and ten days. Nearly 1% of instances within the System are irretrievably lost.
Playing the game
+Playing the game
Post-Self is a tabletop role playing game powered by The Apocalypse, a lightweight framework for RPGs.
-MC and players
+MC and players
When playing, players are led along by a master of ceremonies, or MC, on an adventure. As they move through the story, they form relationships with one another and NPCs around them, specialize in skills related to the System, and work to accomplish their goals using the tools built into the world that they inhabit.
-Agendas and principles
+Agendas and principles
Agendas are the three reasons you play the game. The first two are filled in for you, but the MC should fill in the third for themselves:
- Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring. @@ -186,7 +200,7 @@
- _____
- _____ -
- Calculating @@ -358,7 +372,7 @@
- Avery
- TODO -
- Avery
- TODO -
- Tasker @@ -411,9 +425,19 @@
- 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]. +
- You have a [thing]. When applicable, it adds +1 to [stat] and [stat]. +
- When you do [specialty], mark XP. +
- Add +1 to [stat]. +
- Choose your name and describe yourself @@ -422,7 +446,7 @@
- Set your starting reputation and sanity
- Choose your moves
- When did you upload and why?
- Where do you live? @@ -430,7 +454,7 @@
- How have you gained your reputation?
- How do you know the other characters?
- Follow the PCs around, and learn what they’re all about. +
- Give the players a sense of what the world is like, and how it operates. +
- ____
- ____ -
- 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]. -
- You have a [thing]. When applicable, it adds +1 to [stat] and [stat]. -
- When you do [specialty], mark XP. -
- Add +1 to [stat]. +
- Taking action +
- Helping and hindering +
- Savvy
Virtues
+Virtues
Each player chooses three Virtues for their character. They pick two that the other characters know but one that they keep secret.
-Note: The MC may ask for the character’s secret virtue confidentially, but doesn’t have to!
@@ -242,7 +256,7 @@ -Stats
+Stats
There are six stats associated with characters describing how they move through the world
The Leverage stat
+The Leverage stat
Leverage is a unique stat that specifically deals with interacting with another character, player or non. Are you helping someone? Trying to stop them? These are the two main situations when you will roll Leverage. Every character has a different leverage score for every other player character and any NPCs added to the party, which are noted on the character sheet.
While the other stats are set at the beginning of the game and don’t change, Leverage changes as your relationships with other characters change. Every time a player has their character interact with yours and do something that strongly aligns with their virtue, they may increase their Leverage for that character by 1 (max of +3). If that character does something in an interaction that really doesn’t jive with a virtue, they may decrease their Leverage for that character by 1 (max of -3).
Leverage determines how characters can help or hinder others, whether the others are player characters or NPCs. For those other characters that one has a positive relationship with, helping or hindering them will be much more likely to be successful than not.
@@ -377,7 +391,7 @@Sanity
+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.
@@ -391,7 +405,7 @@Dissolution strategies
+Dissolution strategies
As mentioned, there are roughly three ways of approaching forking for those who live in the System: Taskers, Trackers, and Dispersionistas. These Dissolution Strategies affect how well you’re able to fork, but also how much more damage you might take on failure.
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.
-Character sheets
+Player moves
+-
+
+
Character sheets
Preparing to play
+Preparing to play
Overview:
Your story
+Your story
Creating characters
+Creating characters
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.
Tell them to assign the following numbers to their 5 basic stats: +2, +1, +1, 0, -1. If you only have 4 stats, instead assign: +2, +1, 0, -1.
@@ -438,10 +462,19 @@Each PC has a relationship stat with each other PC. Tell the players to do this: whichever PC they know the best, write +2 next to that character’s name. Whichever PC they know the least, write -1 next to that character’s name. For each other PC, write +1. Tell them to write “NPCs” and assign that relationship a 0.
Every character has a harm clock, with six sections. When characters take harm in the game, they mark a number of sections equal to whatever amount of harm the MC tells them they take. Point out the harm clock, and explain that when it’s filled all the way up, the characters are taken out of the action (in a genre-appropriate way).
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
-Gameplay
-MC
-MC Moves
+Zero session
+TODO
+Gameplay
+The game is like a conversation. People describe what their characters do, ask questions about what’s going on, and talk in character. If someone says something that seems untrue or unreasonable, the MC is allowed to say, “I don’t think that’s possible, but you could instead [make some other interesting choice], if you’d like.”
+At some point, the MC will determine that something requires a roll. Actions require a roll when they are opposed by other characters or run the risk of interesting failure. When one of these conditions is met, the player needs to roll for a basic move. The MC will name which stat applies to the situation. The player rolls two six-sided dice and adds their stat to the sum. The effects depend on the basic move in question.
+MC
+Early in the first session, the MC should juggle two responsibilities:
+-
+
Astute players will realize that these two things can sometimes be at odds with one another. MC, the way you navigate this combination of responsibilities is by honouring your Agendas and your Principles.
+MC Moves
The MC moves are the specific things you say in any moment. There are two different cases where you use the MC Moves, and you use them differently in each of those cases. When the players look at you expectantly, you make a regular MC Move. When a player fails a die roll (getting 6 or lower), you make a hard MC Move. John Harper best described how to handle those two cases, so I’ll quote him:
When you make a regular MC move, all three:
-
@@ -475,20 +508,27 @@
PCs and NPCs
-Dangers and the bigger picture
-Players
-Player moves
+PCs and NPCs
+Dangers and the bigger picture
+Between sessions, or even during them, the MC can create Dangers. Dangers are things that might cause problems for the PCs, or fight them for resources, or block the PCs on their path. When you create a Danger, take an index card. Write its name, and its Ambition, and 1-3 MC Moves. Its Ambition is whatever this thing wants and strives for. If the PCs don’t do anything about the Danger, the Ambition will either happen or it’ll be attempted and disastrous effects will result. The MC Moves are things that the MC can add to their list of MC Moves whenever the Danger is afoot.
+Players
+Player moves
+Player moves come in three general forms:
-
-
Forking and quitting
+Taking action
+When you take an action that risks failure or opposition, roll with one of the basic stats. On a 10+, you succeed at your goal. As appropriate, the MC might award you: resource points, harm dealt, or a bonus to carry forward. On a 7-9, the MC will offer you a hard bargain or a cost. If you agree to that hard bargain or cost, you succeed at your goal (and as appropriate, the MC might award you resource points, harm dealt, or a bonus to carry forward).
+When someone succeeds (with a 10+ or a 7-9) on a Taking Action roll, it’ll sometimes make sense to represent their success with a number of resource points. For example, if someone tries to read a person’s facial expressions and determine their true intent in a conversation, they might make a roll. If they get a 10+, the MC might determine that they have 3 conversation points, and they can spend those points 1-for-1 to get answers about the character’s motivations and goals during the conversation. Resource points are always given a name and function at the time they are awarded. In most cases, resource points should be temporary, lasting until the end of a scene or situation.
+Sometimes, succeeding on a Taking Action roll means that the PC is set up for future successes. In these cases, the MC can award a +1 bonus that the PC can apply to their next roll. The player should mark that bonus on their character sheet.
+Helping and hindering
+When you help someone or hinder a player character, roll your relationship stat with that person. On a 10+, add or subtract 2 from their roll. On a 7-9, the MC will name a cost; if you accept the cost, add or subtract 2 from their roll.
+When you help someone or hinder a non-player character, roll your relationship stat with that person. On a 10+, they either succeed or fail – your choice. On a 7-9, the MC will name a cost; if you accept the cost, they either succeed or fail – your choice.
+Savvy
+Savvy moves are those that specifically deal with the System itself. While these essentially boil down to being the same as taking an action, they’re called out here due to each of them having setting-specific implications.
+Forking and quitting
An integral part of life on the System is forking, where individuals may create a copy of themselves, whether for a task or to live out on their own. Optionally, that fork may quit and merge back down, wherein the initial individual (known as the downtree instance) receives all of their memories.
Given the importance of being able to fork, this can play a large role in gameplay, and some players, depending on their dissolution strategy, may fork quite often.
After the early 2200s, forking on the System is essentially free, incurring only a small reputation cost. However, the dissolution strategy plays a role in one’s ability to fork and merge.
@@ -504,21 +544,23 @@ as a basic move using [stat].