I've been greatly intrigated by YGBM objects ever since I stumbled across the idea and I've been trying to come up with a way to make a campaign that focuses on them closely.
Presently I am considering a sort of other world design, centered on Mars, where the antagonist is not directly a Titan but a transhuman who discovers a YGBM variant in the deserts of Mars: a perfect tree which grows perfect fruit.
This transhuman is a brilliant psycho-surgical psychologist and believes that it has discovered the Platonic ideal of a tree, which if used properly could help create the new home-world of transhumanity. After a little experimentation it discovers that when a seed from the fruit is "planted" in something it quickly grows an ideal for of it (a new YGBM hack object based on the one the seed was placed in contact with). After "converting" a group of nomads and making liberal use of alpha forking it creates a desert "utopia" and starts sending out recruiters bearing the fruit of the tree.
The recruitment parties are collections of converted nomads and forks of the psychologist. Naturally each piece of fruit has its own awful surprise and each object created by a seed presents a new problem.
Does this sound like a viable backdone for a campaign?
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Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
Thu, 2012-05-31 14:53
#1
TadanoriOyama
Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
Thu, 2012-05-31 15:47
#2
Arenamontanus
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
Certainly. It is always nice to have weird threats that are not all insectoid robots.
I am reminded of a certain event in Girl Genius:
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070618
(and the next few pages)
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Thu, 2012-05-31 19:41
#3
Sepherim
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
YGBM? I'm not good with such abbreviations. What does it stand for? The idea of the campaign sounds interesting and original, but without knowing that word I know I'm missing an important piece. :)
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Thu, 2012-05-31 21:07
#4
Decivre
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
You Gotta Believe Me... a memetic virus, so to speak.
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Thu, 2012-05-31 21:53
#5
TadanoriOyama
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
"You gotta believe me" hacks. It's a kind of Basilisk hack that does shotgun psycho surgery on the victim, generally implanting a suggestion or command that can be triggered at a later date. This scenario uses a modified version that implants long term ideas.
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Fri, 2012-06-01 00:08
#6
nerdnumber1
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
Sounds interesting. I assume you have something in mind to hide the TITAN influence for a while or at least the complex itself, because any sentinel with an ounce of sense who sees an entire community of exsurgent-infected people living on the surface of mars would call in the erasure squad to nuke the place from orbit (or just a "teraforming accident"). The recruitment parties will have to be subtle and take care so as to take time to track down (they can't just hand out pamphlets telling the location of the main complex).
Execution will be the sticking point.
Fri, 2012-06-01 00:18
#7
Decivre
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
That's the danger of it; those infected with a YGBM hack aren't actually infected by the exsurgent virus. They are simply programmed with a temporary command.
Think Manchurian Candidate.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Fri, 2012-06-01 02:00
#8
TadanoriOyama
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
If the infection is known then totally. But a small collection of nomads in the outlands of Mars that happen to have settled down for awhile? That could be a little difficult to pick out of the "crowd" as it where, especially with the strange things already going on with some Barsoomian tribes.
Caution would have to be used by the recruiters to avoid massive attention. That's why I'm writing the leader as a brilliant but maddened psychologist. It understands transhumans and has determined they will not respond with total approval to it's message and takes pains to avoid having the tree itself discovered... yet. Or maybe not. Maybe the tree happens to be ground zero of an accidental meteor crash after only two sessions.
I want to design the game so it can go different ways. If the characters somehow track the events back to the tree quickly then that's exceptional, they've cut the root of the problem. But the problem has a dozen "heads", which are spreading themselves through the Martian population. If they stop the various "cults" springing up then exceptional, they've stopped the spread but the core problem is still somewhere out in the deserts. The exact number and planning of any given team of recruiters can be changed to meet the needs of the adventure to make sure that the entire campaign isn't cut off at the knees and ends too quickly.
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Fri, 2012-06-01 04:54
#9
King Shere
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
Hypnotic, might be a another synonym for it.
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Fri, 2012-06-01 07:30
#10
Arenamontanus
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
The standard description of YGBM hacks in the GM section suggests that they are hacks of transhuman cognition - a kind of hypnosis, if you will. But what if we take the title of the thread literally instead: there actually exists some kind of "higher reality" that we tend to perceive as perfect and innately desirable. This might not be the same thing as the Platonic realm of ideas, but it certainly affects transhumans - and maybe *all* sentient beings from this universe.
What if the origin of the tree really was angelic? And as anybody who has watched Neon Genesis Evangelion knows, angels can be quite alien, terrifying and dangerous... just because that higher reality looks fundamentally pure and desirable doesn't mean it is safe.
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Fri, 2012-06-01 11:55
#11
TadanoriOyama
Re: Platonic Idealism and YGBM Hacks
That could be interesting. It's presence might have resulted from a Titan experimentation but the tree itself is not related to them, meaning there would be no traces of exsurgent virus and that the mutations or changes could be the result of simply perceiving an alien realm. Be a heck of a curve ball to throw at players after a few sessions of chasing what they think is an exsurgent infection.
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