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Ketamin Queen

Hat das Internet keine besseren Photos von Jasveen Sangha?

LINK: PERTINENCE > TRAGICALITY > [File attached: INC-102E-8.REP] < < what LINK TERMINATED < WHAT

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Built a town of what's left to do There's nothing new, oh, there's nothing new – i. there's a god so very hungry, by many tiny boxes

“you have got to be fucking kidding me.”, Sekri says, as Amry's newly cohered form curls up into a ball. She stretches out, her appendages slinking around as if she had no skeleton underneath. Her large, quadrupedal form paws fluffily against the carpet, sharpening her claws as if readying to attack. That's what she would be doing, under the assumption that she knew how to control the form that she inhabited. But she doesn't. Instead, she speaks up: “i'm stuck.....”, as her claws dig into the fibers on the ground. She, for a brief moment, is completely helpless, a state ill-befitting her kind. It feels like someone could make some kind of comedy about the antics a creature like her gets up to. The shelves are empty, and always were. The area feels hollow around them, merely coated in furniture with no purpose. The two have been floundering in the room for some time, attempting to reconcile with the events of Amry's actions. Less than courteous remarks were exchanged between the two, but none of them are especially relevant for your purposes. Sekri considers his options. He could: 1) tell Amry the exact document's contents, 2) tell Amry that they need to go back but not tell her why, or 3) tell Amry nothing. 1 is right out, she'd panic and attempt to stay, as few are as committed as he pretends to be. 2 would raise suspicion, and would require a rather good excuse. 3 would be similarly bad. Maybe she'd come to that conclusion by herself. After all, the narrative that he was told wasn't this one — it was one that was far more benign, one that exploited the fact that Amry trusted him and that he trusted Amry. He was told that Amry was too valuable a Retrieval officer to be discarded, one that required a specialized mission like this. At this point, he is well aware of the Arbiter's tendency to elide facts when unnecessary, but an overt lie is sincerely strange. Unprecedented. He obviously believes in the Arbiter's reign, as anything else is incognizable, but he would still appreciate some degree of transparency. ...Back to the options. He... doesn't want to do any of them but there's only three. Pick one, pick one. What kind of excuse can he use? Uh. Well, we've done our work here, haven't we??? We're good now, right. We're good. Amry, you're fine, you're doing fine. You can head back now. That's... a flimsy excuse. What else? What if Marka has fallen into deathly decay? No, that wouldn't work, he's shown no signs whatsoever, and she'd check in with him. Is he able to respond under these circumstances? What does “emotional considerations” even mean in this report anyways. It feels like whoever transcribed this couldn't even finish up the full details of the scene. What idiot would do that? Think, Sekri, think. You've got this. You're smart. You're talented. You're going to win at being a Retrieval officer, which is something both normal to want and possible to achieve. You have a really good ability to mask your emotions, since you've currently been standing entirely still for long enough to draw concern- “sekri?” AAUUGHFUCK. “yes? apologies, i was in the midst of a link”, Sekri responds. Clearly enough, he was trapped in his own head, but she doesn't need to know that, yet. Split-second decision making isn't his specialty, for sure. “is something troubling you? Σ8<”, Amry says. Her feline facial facade breaks, moving somewhat unnaturally towards the Σ8< that expresses her emotion, if you choose to read that as a facial expression and not a perversion of an emoticon. “no, it is simply a... degree of immersion that i enter on occasion. no matter- well, uh, much matter, actually”, Sekri says, tripping over his own words. “so much matter that it is difficult for me to discuss exactly how much matter it matters. the matter of the matter is that it matters, and i think that matter agrees with this one-“ “are you... okay?“ “the density of the matter is too great, the matter is too much matter and the fact of the matter is the truth of the matter, and that truth is relative, dense enough to become matter, mattering only enough to those who perceive that truth, perception is everything and he cannot perceive so why does it matter that-“ “...sekriiii Σ8{“ “and who is he to cast judgment, i am sorry but what a fucking bitch, he is always getting in your shit and in my shit and i am sick of having his matters up in my matters and who is he to bring to me divine will, i know forgery is impossible but it still the fact of the matter that he believes that i do not matter, and-“ “sekri.“ Sekri curls up into a ball on the floor and screams. Amry doesn't want to invade, but at the same time... well, she can't exactly help without knowing what's going on. She takes the communicator from Sekri's unfurled paw, lets him do his thing, and reads.

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This document is subject to standard recontextualization procedure. Contact your assigned Records envoy for more details.

INCIDENT REPORT: OVERLOAD-CLASS ENTITY

CASE ID: 102E-8

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: – [Some statements omitted — Records-B clearance required.] – To retrieve cultural candidates required for linguistic preservation. – To prevent decay among larvae and other low-priority populations. – To dispose of low-priority retrieval officer Her Emptiness.

UNDERSTANDINGS: [Collapsed for brevity.]

BRIEF: Temporary Retrieval team . . . . . . 008 was assembled and dispatched to entity location for further inquiry, comprised of His Tragicality and Her Emptiness. Seventeen ticks were spent between dispatch and arrival at entity location — routine tick checks revealed no abnormalities.

Her Emptiness, in advanced decay (at the stage of ontological dissolution), was dispatched to entity location as a final mission, and team . . . . . . 008 was told that the mission was to solve this issue. See Her Emptiness's case file for rhetoric.

[Repeated information collapsed for brevity.]

Further investigation yielded that the entity in question was comedic in nature, and could have been revered as a deity to local cultures (see E-WORSHIP.) Its genesis point was traced to a three-paneled structure within its place of origin, itself being low-density enough to be able to determine the prime Understandings. Due to the Overload-class density of the entity, it was determined that it was to be used for Culture dispersal far before the Retrieval team was dispatched.

Coherence officer His Pertinence was ordered to relay this information to Retrieval, which he did faithfully. He was dispatched to the Concept location within the Inclinosphere for standard retrieval, but Her Emptiness, in advanced stages of decay and significant hysteria, resisted, herself opting to also attempt to trace the Concept.

His Tragicality and Their Cleverness, during this time, attempted to prevent advanced decay by placing Her Emptiness in pod stasis. This resulted in inconsequential destruction. His Tragicality is still dispatched to entity location, whereas Their Cleverness merely provided advice via link.

[Information on Her Emptiness and His Pertinence's actions requires REPETAE clearance.]

RESOLUTION: Due to the nature of this violation, as well as the highly sensitive nature of REPETAE-classified information, a meeting was called immediately between His Pertinence and the Arbiter with no other aware parties.

His Pertinence was, by and large, unaware of the nature of his violation, stating upon multiple occasions that “I haven't the faintest clue.“

His Pertinence is to be assigned to retrieve any Culture artifacts that His Tragicality and Her Emptiness have gathered, and to extradite them, alongside the officers, to Cognis. His Pertinence showed mild hesitancy to perform this duty, citing various emotional considerations, but these were quickly discarded by the Arbiter due to the violation's density. This hesitancy has been noted, and further steps will be taken should His Pertinence not comply. Additionally, His Pertinence is to send this document to His Tragicality with no further communication.

His Tragicality is to report back to Cognis for further debriefing as soon as possible, and to avoid any contact with Her Emptiness following receipt of this report. His Tragicality is to be informed, via this report, that his position alongside Their Cleverness's was not in violation of consensus given the information that he had. His Tragicality may forward this report to Her Emptiness at his discretion.

No action is currently required by Their Cleverness.

Her Emptiness is to report back to Cognis for trial, and is pending termination.

yours faithfully.

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First step. Try not to panic. That much has already failed. There is good reason to panic, and it is fine that I am panicking. It is okay.

Second step. Try not to acquiesce into screaming, or letting anything escape my body. That much has already failed. It is okay to scream. I scream because I want to be heard, and it is okay to want to be heard.

Third step. Try not to let it be heard. That much has already failed.

Fourth step. Try to reaffirm myself. I am a Retrieval officer of Cognis, as I always had wished to be. I was well aware of the hardships that befall it. I scream not because I believe that those hardships are bad, but because it is simply my first time like this. Letting harm befall those I know is part of the job description. I am unrepentant, and I am a servant of the whims. Such is the nature of it, and the nature is as it is.

Fifth step. Try to feel myself in my form. I am present here, and I have not decayed yet. It slowly works to consume me, but I will consume before it does. I can still cohere. There is blue fur coating me, surrounding my appendages. There are joints I articulate in order to retrieve objects. Manipulators, in the general parlance. Some of them are meant to keep me upright, in a digitigrade fashion. My face...

There is a prevailing feeling of wrongness about my face, but that was always the case.

There is a prevailing feeling of wrongness about me, but that was always the case. I did this anyway, because I knew it would be good. I want to be good. I promised that I would be good. I am afraid, because I believe that I have been bad, and that badness means that I am more wrong than wrong. I want you to love me. I want you to care.

I feel a stinging in the area, pins and needles constructing unnatural disasters, microcosms of true pain as if it is being peeled off of me. A fluid secretes from the area, and I am told that it is blood, though the concept is profoundly foreign to me. This won't hurt, it can't hurt. It's impossible for this to hurt. But the stress is not physical, but mental, as I felt myself slip, and slip, and slip.

I heard a laughing, and I was unsure if it came from within me or from without. But I had one thought that played over and over again, and I was unsure if it was true, but it felt true-

you did this to me.

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Sekri awakes, and finds himself in a drab room with green walls. A shelf lies to his left, full of TTRPG source books, yet not a single die, and video games... He's here, in his room again, on the ship. He's safe. A face is present, expressing concern however it can, and it speaks: “...that took longer than normal, didn't it?“ Sekri responds, managing to note Amry from the intonation, though his perception is still blurred enough to not fully let her cohere. “i... suppose.” His head is loud, and the walls are loud. Everything is loud, and nobody seems to understand how loud it is. “you know i do care for you, right?“ “do i?“ “i can never truly know that, but...”, Amry says, adjusting her quadrupedal form. She places her tail on the ground, plants her hind legs horizontally, and puts her front legs as if they were hands. You could swear she was used to being bipedal, as much as she could be used to anything. “i... am at least present of the common sense to let you process how you wish to process, and merely reconvene later.“ “i would have let you-“ “let me what?”. She pauses. “let me be servant to the whims both of us conscripted into? if the arbiter wishes for my termination, at the very least i am aware that was part of the deal..... as much as i would enjoy to have that not be the case! but i do not think you have done anything“ “how do you know about that?“ Amry rolls her eyes. “do you think i would leave a link that led you to go nearly entire catatonic unexamined? apologies for the blatant violation of your privacy, but i simply felt it was necessary”, she says, pointing at the communicator left on his desk. “...i understand but i wish you would not do that”, Sekri says. “you know that i wanted to shield you“ “i don't need shielding from anything!!! i just wish that you shielded yourself sometimes Σ8|“ “so what exactly... do you wish to do?“ “well... if i am to return to cognis and face the arbiter i will certainly face termination. we are, in essence, on an atemporal clock: if we do not return, we are to face extradition. i can functionally consider this to be a break up, i guess, but it is certainly not time to be worrying about such trivialities”, Amry says, wincing. “i am only half-aware of my exact actions with marka in the inclinosphere, but i suspect that whatever i said is likely useful, assuming he remembers it. i would love to dwell on my own perception of him but doing so provides highly limited information, and right now is the time to buckle up“ “when did you become me? you are talking in proceedings, almost“ “i am pretty sure i have to right now! so i am just letting myself deal with the material before the immaterial!“ “so... what do we do in the now?“ “you are not going to like this suggestion Σ8/“ “...“ “we explore!“ Sekri tries to wince, but he doesn't even have the energy to try and do so. He remains lying on the floor, and responds with “are you serious? that is exactly what got us into this situation.“ “well, listen – we are to be extradited alongside any entities that we encounter, and...“ “and you consumed the only thing that has any value, yes, yes, sure.“ “...right. well. this is a formerly thriving area, it certainly has more things we can learn about, things to see, things to bring back. culture candidates, even. we still have much to learn, much we can piece together from the ephemera“ “you want to... pillage it?“ “pillage is unsanctioned language – i wish to preserve it, and use what we can, and i think that bringing returns may prevent the case of my termination. the arbiter may still find the means to justify the ends Σ8}”, she says, disgustingly self-confident as ever. “i think that there is so much to be seen, and i think that even if we fail, we can still be useful!!! we can still provide relevant culture, and be immortal through it, we can still... we can still live on in ephemera as they once did“ “...how do you believe we can do that?”, Sekri says, sitting his body slightly upright. He sees the vision, the glimmer of hope. Above all else, this runs counter to Sekri's entire belief system, and he knows it. But in the moment of fragility he's in right now... he wants to believe in what Amry's saying, and he's willing to go along with it. He has been shaken, broken beyond repair, and he wants it to come back together again. His nature of morality won't let him go against the whims, no matter how hard he tries. The whims are all-encompassing, after all. Amry responds, her usual cheery enthusiasm distorted by anxiety. She doesn't actually think this will work, but at the very least, she'd like to go out doing what she loves. Her words are thus: “look out the window!“

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Hello world...

N.B.: Any post marked as a “Legacy Fringe Review” is an old blog entry moved to this one and lightly edited for format, with some minor errors corrected (and undoubtedly new ones added for balance!).

This is an experiment. I'd like to start reviewing little-known RPGs, past and present, as a way of introducing concepts and ideas that are not known at all in the mainstream of our hobby and are often barely known even among the more … shall we say “obsessive”? … elements.

(Yes, I include myself among the obsessives.)

The first game I'd like to review is a came by a small-press Canadian publisher called Spark.

Spark is a decidedly non-traditional role-playing game. Because of this I cannot work from assumptions that most would share. Instead I will be using a form of critique I first saw in Goethe's writings when critiquing theatre. In brief, I will be answering three questions:

1. What was Jason Pitre, the author of Spark, trying to accomplish?
2. How well does he accomplish this?
3. Was this a goal worth accomplishing?

What is Spark about?

Taking a look at the back blurb we see three things in bold:

• Challenge your beliefs
• Make choices that matter
• Build and discover worlds

Inside, in the introduction, we get some more interesting insights into the intent of the designer:

• ...most important characters in a fictional world.
• Explore the themes and issues that matter to you.
• Make meaningful choices...

There is a consistent theme in all of this: meaning and choice. And note that second item where you explore themes/issues that matter to you.

How does Spark do this?

Spark is almost unique in how it approaches everything. From the setting to the characters to the actual game play, Spark is a very different game and those differences are focused on the actual goals in the design.

Setting

To enable this challenging voyage of discovery, the game involves, chiefly, the joint creation of a fictional world. Although the game comes with three sample settings (NeoNihon, Quiet Revolution, and Elemental Kingdom), the game is really intended to be played by people who've made their own settings jointly. The idea here is that having a custom-made setting makes the game context evocative and meaningful to the players, thus making exploration of its themes more personally satisfying.

Settings are created by cooperatively listing favourite media; gathering inspirations; describing some kind of genre from this (NeoNihon, for example, is “Shogonate Science Fiction”); establishing “Facts” (concrete, evocative places, peoples, etc. based on inpirations); providing a title; establishing the setting's “Beliefs” to help guide the themes and thoughts the group wants to explore; establish the GM's attributes (the GM attributes are used in playing the setting out): Body, Heart, Mind, and Spark; creating the setting's chief “Factions” and their mandates; creating the “Faces” (the most important NPCs story-wise for each faction), and create the ties between the factions. Once all this is completed, agendas are set—short term goals aimed at realizing faction mandates. Players are given “influence” at this point and the setting creation is complete.

This sounds like it's difficult, but the system is very regulated, very clearly explained and has very thorough examples to inspect to see how it all fits together. As a result even on a first run-through setting creation will take up 2-3 hours of your first session. Not bad at all for creating a whole world, is it?

Character

Once you've made the setting, the players and GM then cooperatively (yes, everybody gets involved) create their “Protagonist Characters” (PCs). The process here, as with the setting above, follows a simple, cooperative procedure. You start with a concept based on an agenda, and give the character a name. You then work on individual beliefs (which may or may not support or contradict or supplement the setting beliefs). You set attribute levels (same as the GM attributes above). You name talents (skills and abilities). You then answer personal history questions to help establish relationships among PCs and to factions. Each answered question gets an influence marker (which is the currency of the game play). Finally you narrate a prelude for your character.

Game play

To be honest, your first session of Spark will likely be just creating the setting and the characters. Once this is complete however, you start play. As with setting and character creation above, this is very formulaic and procedural. And this is where the game takes a hard swerve into unfamiliar territory for most role-playing gamers.

Overall a game session has three steps: Advancing, Scening, Reflecting. Advancing is the phase where the factions move forward on agendas and goals. Players work together to decide which factions complete their agendas, how the world changes as a result, and any new agendas that come out as a result. Play then advances into a series of scenes. When there is no more scening to be done, the players reflect on the events and use this opportunity to inspire each other, to confirm or change beliefs, or other such things.

Scening itself is similarly structured. Each scene begins with framing, proceeds into multiple series of collaboration or conflict events, and then ends with closing. Collaboration is cooperative in nature where players make “bold statements” to progress the scene. If all players agree with said bold statement, it is writ and becomes the truth. If, however, any player disagrees with the statement, conflict occurs, dice are pulled out, alternative statements are provided, sides are drawn, and dice are rolled to see which statement becomes the truth.

This will be the part where most traditional role-players balk. I've seen people recoil from this with a loud “that's stupid!” because, unlike most RPGs, Spark does not descend from competitive wargaming in its routes. It seems to descend more from improvisational theatre. The goal in Spark is not to compete against the world, against the GM, or against fellow players. The goal in Spark is to work together to tell a good, challenging story. Conflict happens when people have different visions for where the story should go, and resolution of it shifts that direction. It is not for everyone, but those for whom it is will find it compelling. (Like me.)

In the closing of a scene, the usual stuff like healing, etc. occurs, but too, influence points are awarded for people challenging their beliefs in the scene. Since influence points are how you win conflicts (partially) there is benefit to tackling the very themes you chose for setting and character both head-on in play.

There is a whole lot more to the game (obviously) than what I've outlined above, but what you get above gives you the flavour: you create characters who are important at a fundamental level to the setting. In the process of telling the story of that setting, you challenge beliefs collaboratively or in conflict. When enough beliefs change, so does the setting: changed characters change the world (so to speak). This is a very different notion of role-playing and it is one that needs to be tried — even if in the end it is not to your taste, it broadens horizons and it gives you, perhaps, ideas you can use in other games.

But is it any good?

Here's where we get to question 2: how well does Spark accomplish what it sets out to do? And the truth is that while it is my favourite game currently, it is flawed. The author thinks one of the flaws is that he didn't provide a setting so the game had no appeal. To this I say “poppycock!”. The fact that you make a bespoke setting tailored to your group is part of what makes the game so compelling in my view. Having a default setting would make this just another role-playing game with oddball mechanics.

Where the game does fall down, in my opinion, is where it pays homage to more normal role-playing games. Look above at how settings and characters are defined: Body, Heart, Mind, Spark. Characters are further defined with talents. We're not that far from the bog-standard “attributes and skills” model, and this model is not what Spark should be about, IMO.

Apparently the author agrees.

A setting published for this game—SIG: The City Between—makes several changes to the rules for that setting, but recommends that three of them be retrofitted into all Spark games. The first of these is the condensing of the attributes into “Spark” and “Smoke”: the first being your ability to impact the setting, and the second to govern how the setting reacts to you. This is a far simpler model than the one in Spark proper, and to me it reflects better on the core concepts of the game. (Other changes modify the procedures for game play slightly, but do not make as major a change as this core one.)

So, in terms of whether the game accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish, the answer is an unqualified “yes ... but”. It is not perfect, and the author himself recognizes these weaknesses. He also does a good job of refocusing on the actual goal in a supplement. That being said, “perfect” is the enemy of “good enough” and even straight out of the package Spark is more than “good enough”. It is superb and it accomplishes its main goal—telling challenging stories about conflicting beliefs—very well.

But is it worth doing?

That is, naturally, completely a subjective call. I've made no secret of my admiration for this game and thus the answer for me is “well, duh!” So the more interesting question for this review is “is this game worth you trying?”

And to this I also give a “yes ... but”.

Anybody who is tired of the wargaming roots of role-playing games who wants to try something different on for size, just to broaden horizons, should give Spark a try.

Anybody who has a friend or SO who is actively turned off by the wargames-informed nature of most RPGs might want to give this game a try with them to show them the joys of RP.

Anybody who likes the idea of a game focused on real-world beliefs being explored in a safe, bespoke way will probably do well with this game.

If, however, you're perfectly satisfied with normal role-playing games—and I stress that there is nothing wrong with this!—and especially if you don't understand why someone might even look for something else, you will probably not enjoy Spark and I would give it a miss in your shoes.

(But you'll be missing something sublime!)

Good News Update

Jason Pitre has, since this review was first written, released Spark as a “Spark System Reference Guide” under CC0 terms, making it freely available for use in other people's RPG designs.

#FringeReviews #TTRPG #RPG #Review #LegacyReview

A while ago I started a series of reviews on a game-focused web site. The intent was (and remains) to introduce games, both newer and older, that exist on the fringe of the role-playing hobby. Several things happened, however, that slowed me down and eventually ground the reviews to a halt:

1. The game site I was using had pretty bad tools for its blogging. It was always a chore to get things done. I was willing to do it, but it was friction.
2. COVID-19 happened and I spiralled into a bit of a dark space.
3. My personal life got very busy and made spending the effort of in-depth reviewing not worth the friction of the web site's tooling.

Gamer+ is now a Mastodon instance (where I'm still active for gaming-related interaction) which leaves my old reviews in archives and makes it impossible for me to continue them—just as I get the motivation to write new ones.

So this is where my Fringe Reviews go to now. I will be interlacing re-publications of my old reviews here with new reviews of games, both old and new, that I think are of interest for some reason or another.

#FringeReviews #TTRPG #RPG #Reviews #Introduction