Background

In the theoretical future, a major data collapse happens.  A single service like Amazon S3 or one of those services to back up your personal data online falls to a natural disaster, manmade disaster or virus.  Much like trust in the banks is an issue today, trust in services becomes an issue.  It’s also just a plain-good optimization pattern, disaster or no, but sometimes people won’t move on something until after they should’ve so I pulled this scenario out of the blue as an example.

My solution is the cloud storage game.  It’s also sort of a cloud processing and cloud throughput / latency solution (see last post) but for simplicity of example sake I’m going to focus on storage.  It’s based on parity-driven data storage and delivery models like ZFS and BitTorrent.  Let’s say you take a picture on your phone – it needs to be stored somewhere.  It will of course also be stored on your phone, but that’s not enough because phones die and the data is lost for good.

ManyWhere Inc

Instead of storing it somewhere you store it ManyWhere (my name idea for this).  A number of possible storage vendors are all available for you to store this data with a single API (ManyWhere API) bridging their APIs.  However, as with all these systems, these cost money (in the cast of S3, transfer, request and storage over time are all charged).  Also there’s the trust issue.  Here’s where the ZFS-ish part comes in.  You have some thick hardware lying around – so do your friends and people you would trust to hold onto something.  Through a simple provider interface, they will store some of your data if you store some of theirs.  So now when you store something you have a list of places it will go and a cost threshold.  It will go to ALL of the places below the threshold.  Imagine data being stored (in an encrypted or parity form of course) across your entire social network.

Adding Game to It

Now while companies charge money for this, your friends instead charge points.  By providing storage or processing power for your friends you amass points from them.  Your points are visible as a ‘who owes you’ breakdown as well as an amass of total points owed to you.  You proudly display this on your social networks as a form of social capital realized.  Other friends-of-friends can see that many other people trust you with their data, so you must also be fairly trustworthy.  Local social networks and large groupings have leaderboards (this is again all based on offering up spare storage and cpu – so it’s of no real cost unless you decide to be philanthropic). In addition the number of parking wars -esque games that could be created on top of this is pretty epic.

Corporations and Causes

Ok, now we bring the companies back in.  Companies can be both sources-of-last-resort (trust * cost = social cost) – if you trust them enough and their cost is low (or nothing) they might also make it in past your threshold.  On the reverse side, companies may need storage or processing needs to offer in return for points.  Those points may be microtrans equivalent values (virtual currencies) which may be redeemable by them or by partner vendors.  For example, provide some extra CPU for big internet company A, redeem some virtual goods from MMO company B (a partner of A).  The leaderboard concept still applies and is already gamey (SETI and Folding are two projects doing this RIGHT NOW with no direct incentive).

Results

The end result of all of this would require a descriptor system (looking at you bittorrent, zfs), and would require that this be either decentralized (a DNS-like system or extension would work), or a part of a service (whether hypothetical company ManyWhere, or more likely a partner project with someone like Google).  However the ramifications are – less traffic and latency all around (using the description which is easily cacheable, you could always pull from a close, often local data/processing source), less storage and cpu costs for society in general (we’re not likely to ever move to a word of only thin clients – and due to that there are trillions of FLOPs and Gigabytes lying around dormant), a visualization of social capital mechanics (likely to breed its own decorum, but you can base some value decisions on it regardless), and an incentive for people to provide help to causes they care about (no one has to provide cpu to NastyMarketingCompany but many would choose to offer up social capital for HelpsFeedTheHomelessOrg).

There are some obvious technical limitations to the processing side (universal language – though that’s relatively solveable by bucketing the service into platforms), but the storage side is something people could work on NOW, so I think it at least deserves a PGI award (Pretty Good Idea).  [Edit: This also requires to a certain degree an embrace of OpenID or something like it.  Not from a technical side but from a society-accepting-distributed-trust-brokering side]

What do you think, internet?

The year is 2009, Microsoft never entered the graphics acceleration fray with Direct Draw and instead adopted Open GL (I know, lol).  Open GL over the years gets many extensions driven by the games industry and Microsoft’s foray into it.  A lot of work is done to maintain a steady state in video memory so that new data flushes were required less often (extensions for animation, culling and scene graphing) – due to the fact that the curve of memory costs increased far faster than the cost of bandwidth (due to buss switching and such, see also DMA channel 0, etc).  This focus on throughput optimization leads to a revelation and a very different form of OpenGL ES.  An Onlive-like service shows up (they’re not the first to do this by far), and instead of pushing HD pixels compressed, they’re pushing standardized commands filtered by a recognition of what the output device is.  The television manufacturers or the cable/dsl boxes add in a graphics card to turn the commands into video.  Phones are able to run the same way, with pixel resolution handled by the phones – so yes, hook up a bluetooth gaming pad to your phone and play Team Fortress 2 on it.  Now the problem is flipped on its head – throughput is no longer quite the factor is was and now memory is the issue (one in which we are currently excelling at progressing).  Also, the business is a distributed issue now:  ISPs provide graphics hardware in their black boxes (which has a planned obsolescence – a cherish business model), and partner with gaming companies, as they’d still likely want to house servers in their NOCs due to latency.  Now you don’t have on large company providing the ‘service’ (Historically, systems like Onlive which require absolute adoption and ‘cannot fail’ have been trumped by systems which allow failure to happen iteratively and distribute the cost of such failure).

Ok, so enough fantasy – that scenario obviously didn’t happen (and I could even point out a good many reasons why) – but it’s fun to speculate.  The base issue is an optimization one.  For anything digital it tends to be:   Memory – Processing – Throughput – Latency, with the last one generally intertwined with the previous three, so you could for simplicity sake boil it down to Memory – Processing – Throughput.  Much like other optimization triangles (Cheap – Good – Fast), the optimization patterns are typically: ‘pick 2′ or ‘pick 1′.  My above scenario was based on a Throughput optimization as historically it has the worst progression curve.  This optimization triangle is very interesting because we’re constantly playing with it.  The thin-client/thick-client ‘wiggle’ in history has been a product of this.  Back in the 70s when memory and processing were expensive, thin clients (terminals) were the norm.  In the 90s there was a huge shift from processing to memory (with more caches, etc) as the price of memory plummetted.

Now the issues are less technical and more political – Trust, Social Capital, Privacy, Security, Availability.  The problem with the thin client isn’t really a technical issue so much anymore – it’s an issue of trust.  To describe the thin/thick issue another way, there’s the war between Distribution and Centralization.  Except that issue is largely gone – even our Centralization is distributed at this point.  Our centralized data isn’t often stored on a single server – and in the future (or present depending on the service), it isn’t processed on a single server either.

A possible dream for the future (in ARG game form!) is my next post (seperated so this isn’t a TL;DR).

They are often called the ‘eyes’ or the ‘arcane’, the 6 sense archetypes are the birthing grounds for magic.  Wheras the 10 Knowledge Archetypes govern skill and knowledge in the realms of the mundane, the sense cover that which is beyond the normal experience.  Each Archetype provides a single channel skill called a sixsense.  Like other channels, they must be activated and they use bandwidth while they are on.

It is common for avatars of one sense archetype to have more than one sense, and there are explicit uses found in combining them.  In addition, the sum of all 6 archetype values is the Awareness score, which is used for all passive sensory checks, and can be thought of the sixth sense.  See The Senses for more information.

These are the 6 Sense Archetypes and their abilities:

Magician – (Magician)

The Magician is the true physicist.  Waves, fields, particles, energies, bonds, and structures become directly visible.  The Magician is also a mathematician, able to see numeric relationships and the formulas or coefficients that compose any thing they can see.  A Magician (rank 2) for example would be able to look at a piece of glass and see that it has a refractive index of ~1.51724 just as easily as someone else might see something as ‘red’.  Much like all the senses. this information works like a parabolic microphone with a ‘tune’ control.  A little information can be seen about a lot or a lot of information can be seen about a little.  The Magician is able to see ‘magic’ often for what it is, and at very high levels, how to recreate it.  This understanding is a cornerstone for the practice of magic.  Common aspects are witchcraft, alchemy, chemistry, physics, biology, astrology.

Ability: Truth Sense

• Rank 1: Can sense relative power, notable/primary archetype, aura colours representing elements
• Rank 2: Can sense makeup, components, structure, ratios, proportion, full light spectrum
• Rank 3: Can sense causality, flow, rivers (coherence, energy, karma)
• Rank 4: Can sense capabilities, abilities, effects
• Rank 5: Can sense ultimate truth, reconstruction, formulaes (can copy an observed specialization as long as Truth Sense R5 remains on)

Witch – (Empress)

Wheras the Magician is concerned with discrete ‘things’, the Witch is more concerned with the bonds between them.  The Witch is often thought of as the female counterpart to the Magician.  When looking a chair, the Magician would see a base, a back, a hinge joint force, 4 legs, a dispersion force, the gravity, the grain of the wood and the jitter of the particles, the Witch sees a chair, the people who sit on the chair, the person who crafted the chair, people thinking about the chair, or creating similar chairs, and will see peoples’ relative desire to sit, and their usages of the word ‘sit’ in every language that they speak it.  To the Witch, these are the parts of the chair, just as much as legs, a cushion and a back might be parts.  This sense is far more powerful when also applied to things that create outgoing links, like things with a mind.  The thoughts appear as if thrown through the air or sribbles as images in muddy crayons and oil.  Words stream from all things and the strongly reinforced ones rise to the forefront as if spoken louder.  Witches are telepaths, mind readers, linguists, psychologists, match-makers, weavers, workers of fabric.

Ability: Link Sense

• Rank 1: Can sense quantum threads, physical entanglements, body links, sense links, possessions (can identify something’s owner through acclimation)
• Rank 2: Can sense mind links, telepathies (uses of link sense to view the mind – rank 2 or 3), probes, strong intent or emotions
• Rank 3: Can sense thought links (if anyone is currently thinking about something), loves, trusts, hatreds, empathy, surface thoughts
• Rank 4: Can sense soul links, puppeteers, summoners
• Rank 5: Can sense creators of things, the user of an ability, originations (homeworlds, etc)

Oracle, “Mother” – (High Priestess)

Most see things through the lens of the self – the bodymind.  The Oracle can sense things without the lens in the way.  The act of sensing, as if taking a photograph, leaves a record.   These photographs persist and can be found after the fact by the trained eye – The Oracle, the great historian.  It is commonly called Post-Cognition, but it is more than that.  It is relocation the sensesphere’s origin to a different temporal frame (different space and time).  Unlike the other sixsenses, temporal sense cannot easily co-exist with normal sensory information, so during the time this sense is active, the main sensesphere is not.  However, on occassion, strong interferences may ‘flash’ into an Oracles’ senses.  Since Oracles can choose their viewpoint, they can literally have eyes on the back of their head, or see around a corner.

Ability: Temporal Sense

• Rank 1: Can sense the just-past, echoes of change (diminishing heat, long tail sound reverberations, remnant air currents)
• Rank 2: Can sense from a distant point of view (any object within range – can be sense-point, however still cannot see past sensesphere), view strong traces of an objects’ or spaces’ past
• Rank 3: Can query a space (count of occurances in a time, look for sensable elements that are most or least – e.g., heaviest person to pass this point), and see from multiple distant points of view (think closed circuit security cams)
• Rank 4: Can maintain a distant point of view beyond the sensesphere
• Rank 5: Temporal Omniscience: can see everywhere, however filtering is required and takes time, can read an object to its origin and see everywhere it’s been

Explorer – (Hanged Man)

The Explorer is the selfless wanderer, always searching for what is just beyond reach, what remains undiscovered.  Much like the other senses, it works as a tunable parabolic-style focus – the further away, the less that is seen.  This can be applied to any sense, including the bodysenses.  In addition, the sense sphere is also extended, allowing the explorer to observe things within a much greater range.

Ability: Wandering Sense

• Rank 1: Sense range increased by 100% (2x – 200m)
• Rank 2: Sense range increased by 300% (4x – 400m)
• Rank 3: Sense range increased by 700% (8x – 800m)
• Rank 4: Sense range increased by 1500% (16x – 1.6km)
• Rank 5: Sense range increased by 3100% (32x – 3.2km)

Thief – (Wheel of Fortune)

The Thief (often also called the Gambler) sees everything as warm and cold.  These heat signatures dance and fluctuate in harmonic patterns similar to those of the Wave Function.  When dice are thrown in the air, the thief sees warm and cool numbers flash on the surface of the table before the dice land.  If someone asks the thief what the chance of success of a particular plan or set of actions is, they might respond with confidence “33.33 percent.. repeating of course”. However this does not mean that they can see the future, only the given probability of relatively contained conditions.  The Thief understands that skill and chance are one and the same.  Thieves are excellent gamblers, risk-takers, and opportunists.  They tend to be be self-centered, as opposed to the Explorer’s altruism – afterall, to take advantage of the best path is to take it from someone else.

Ability: Probabilty Sense

• Rank 1: +1 To any Skill Roll
• Rank 2: +2 To any Skill Roll
• Rank 3: +3 To any Skill Roll
• Rank 4: +4 To any Skill Roll
• Rank 5: +5 To any Skill Roll

Hacker – (Tower)

Much like Shiki from Kara No Kyoukai or Raistlin from Dragonlance, a Hacker (often also called a Saboteur or Assassin) can see the death of things.  It often manafests as cracks or visible points of light emenating from the weakest or strongest points of all things.  For others, staring at anything for too long will make the thing appear to shatter or wither away, or slowly seperate into all of its components.  These seperations happen along well defined lines A well trained hacker can attack or manipulate a thing along these weakest point, having a much greater chance of doing considerable damage.  Mastery of certain sword arts, atemi-based martial arts techniques (pressure points, chi flow and ‘death touch’), computer hacking, demolition, and acupuncture are all aspects of the Hacker.  A Hacker enjoys taking things apart, whether or not they plan on putting them back together again.

Ability: Fault Sense

• Rank 1: +1 To Damage Rolls
• Rank 2: +2 To Damage Rolls
• Rank 3: +3 To Damage Rolls
• Rank 4: +4 To Damage Rolls
• Rank 5: +5 To Damage Rolls

Combining Senses

Senses do not exist in isolation.  They work together to unveil that which is sought.  Usually sense related rolls will roll against the Awareness Stat (Magician + Witch + Oracle + Explorer + Thief + Hacker), which represents general awareness, intuition and perception.  However, sometimes a more specific roll is called for when, for example, something is being searched or queried.  Here is a simple list of some possible combination applications:

• Magician + Witch – sense the truth of a linked thing
• Magician + Oracle – sense the truth in the past
• Magician + Hacker – sense the truth of a weakness
• Magician + Thief – sense the probabilities that a truth might change, sense the probable other truths
• Magician + Explorer – sense the truth at a distance
• Magician + Oracle + Thief – sense the truth in the probable future
• Witch + Explorer – follow a link as see from it
• Witch + Oracle – sense a past link
• Witch + Thief – sense a possible link
• Witch + Hacker – sense the weakness of a link
• Witch + Oracle + Thief – sense a probable future link
• Oracle + Explorer – see further around in the past
• Oracle + Thief – sense the probable future
• Oracle + Hacker – see faults in the past, intrusions in the timeline
• Oracle + Thief + Explorer – see further around in the future, more possibilities
• Oracle + Thief + Hacker – see future cataclysms, major fractures in the timeline
• Explorer + Thief – see a wider range of probability
• Explorer + Hacker – see faults further away
• Thief + Hacker – see the most critical probabilities

Restrictions

In addition to Ability Variables, some abilities may also contain one or more Restrictions.  These work like negative variables (thought they often have less ranks, often only 1).  For each Restriction purchase during the usage of an ability, the total Rank Cost goes down by 1.

Duration and Bandwidth

Abilities in Tatha do not have ‘durations’ attached to them.  Instead, there are three types of abilities:  Instant, Channel, and Burst Channel.  Instant abilities subtract their usage cost from ones’ current stats immediately upon usage and have no lingering effects.   Channel abilities temporarily consume stats for as long as they are on.   This means that you record 3 pieces of information per stat:

1. What the current maximum stat is (typically 100, unless modified by abilities or equipment)
2. What the current stat value is
3. The sum of the currently active channeled abilities that use this stat as a cost

Of these three numbers, #2 is often called the Bandwidth.  This represents the current maximum for the third number, the Channel.  Any channeled ability can be deactivated at any time, but the effect is terminated immediately with it.  If at any point the available bandwidth is smaller than the current channel, then the player must deactivate channeled abilities of their choice until the bandwidth is equal to or greater than the channel.

Burst Channel is the last kind of ability, and it is simply a combination of two abilities: an Instant and a Channel.  As such it will be listed with two costs: the instant cost and the channel cost.  The last things that can come into the equation here are Overpowering, Contests, and Conditions – all of which will typically drain bandwidth (like an instant), but may do so on a periodic basis or based on a failed roll or other condition.

Collaboration

One might look at the Rank chart and say: “with only 100 Energy, what’s the point of having Rank 5 on an ability that costs 400 Unit Energy Energy – no one can ever cast that”.  And that would be correct – so you need to get more than one to cast it.  Collaboration can be a tricky however, and may not even prove fruitful (too many cooks can spoil a broth).  When collaborating, the output of the group is determined by the following ‘simple’ formula:

Total Output = Sum( Ability Unit Cost * ( 2 ^ ( User’s Rank – 1 ) ) ) – ( Ability Unit Cost * (Number of Collaborators * ( ( Number of Collaborators – 1 ) / 2 ) ) )

Whew.. Now this looks pretty complicated , but it’s not.  Another way to put it is that the amount of energy that this rank would cost if the user had the ability at rank 1 is added to a pool and the pool loses the cost of the ability times the number of unique connections between people involved off the top and that .  This pool is then used to cast the ability as if the caster had the ability at Rank 1.  To simplify calculating the number of unique connections, otherwise known as the Triangular Number (ref1, ref2, ref3), here is the following table for most real-world uses of this:

 1:   0
 2:   1
 3:   3
 4:   6
 5:  10
 6:  15
 7:  21
 8:  28
 9:  36
10:  45
11:  55
12:  66
13:  78
14:  91
15: 105
16: 120
17: 136
18: 153
19: 171
20: 190

Now some examples: (for all these examples, the ability cost is 20Energy).

• 1 Person Rank 4:  160 (Rank 4)
• 2 People Rank 4 for both:  160 + 160 = 320 – (20 * 1) = 300 (Rank 4 – almost Rank 5)
• 3 People Rank 4 for all: 160 + 160 + 160 = 480 – (20 * 3) = 420 (Rank 5)
• 4 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 4 = 640 – (20 * 6) = 520 (Rank 5)
• 5 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 5 = 800 – (20 * 10) = 600 (Rank 5)
• 6 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 6 = 960 – (20 * 15) = 660 (Rank 6)
• 7 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 7 = 1120 – (20 * 21) = 700 (Rank 6)
• 8 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 8 = 1280 – (20 * 28) = 720 (Rank 6)
• 9 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 9 = 1440 – (20 * 36) = 720 (Rank 6)
• 10 People Rank 4 for all: 160 * 10 = 1600 – (20 * 45) = 700 (Rank 6) !!!

So if you notice this pattern here, while simplified because they are all using the same Rank of the ability, you will notice that after a while, adding more people becomes fruitless, even harmful.  Here are some more random examples:

• 2 People Rank 2 each: 40 * 2 = 80 – (20 * 1) = 60  (Rank 2)
• 3 People Rank 2 each: 40 * 3 = 120 – (20 * 3) = 60 (Rank 2)
• 2 People Rank 1 each: 20 * 2 = 20 – (20 * 1) = 20 (Rank 1)
• 3 People Rank 5 each: 320 * 3 = 960 – (20 * 3) = 900 (Rank 6)
• 2 People Ranks 2 and 3: 40 + 80 = 120 – (20 * 1) = 100 (Rank 3)
• 4 People Ranks 3, 3, 2, 2: 40 + 40 + 80 + 80 = 240 – (20 * 6)  = 120 (Rank 3)
• 4 People Ranks 3, 3, 2, 3: 40 + 80 + 80 + 80 = 280 – (20 * 6)  = 160 (Rank 4)
• 5 People Ranks 3, 3, 2, 3, 2: 40 + 40 + 80 + 80 + 80 = 320 – (20 * 10)  = 120 (Rank 3)

Some observations can be made about the following examples:

• The threshold for ‘useless addition’ comes sooner the lower the ranks being contributed are
• Conversely, the higher the ranks being added, the more resistant they are to the loss
• Rank 1s are always a hindrance, never a help (because the addition of 1 rank 1 adds at most Unit to the total, but will add at LEAST Unit worth to the loss)
• This isn’t to say that Rank 1 users can’t help, they just need to spend more than usual (instead of spending 20E, if they spent 80E, they’d be a rank 3)
• In the last example, the 4 people had an already stable Rank 4 usage – the addition of the extra Rank 2 user actually destabilized the ability, dropping it a rank

However, there is a way to beat the loss.  Any Soul Link groups are counted as a single person as far as the Triangle Number section is concerned.  This means that two users with a Soul Link have ZERO loss, allowing them to effectively double their output (which will mean if they are using the same rank, they will get 1 more than what they could have individually).

• 2 Soul-Linked People Ranks 4 and 4: 160 * 2 = 320 (Rank 5)
• 2 Soul Linked People Ranks 3 and 3 + 3 Non-soul linked Rank 3s: 80 * 5 = 400 – (20 * 6) = 280 (Rank 4)
• 2 Groups of 2 Soul Linked + 1 Non-linked People all Rank 3: 80 * 5 = 400 – (20 * 3) = 360 (Rank 5)

The difference between the 2nd and 3rd example there is not the addition of any people or any ranks, but just the linking of two unlinked users.

Notes

I will probably develop a simplified system for collaboration (based on tables of the likely outputs from this formula), but this system was developed by my usual means:  I know the curve/effect in my mind that I want, and then I look for the formula that produces it.  A simplification would probably look like a rule of thumb for ‘small group’ scenarios:  Everyone must use the same rank.  To raise the rank of the output 1 rank, you need 3 people, or 2 people under a Soul Link.

Every ability, and archetype works on the same sliding scale rank system.  Each ability or archetype has a ‘unit cost’.  This is the cost for an increase of 1 rank.  When creating a character this cost is spent in karma.  However, this is only valid for the 1st rank.  The second rank costs 2x the unit cost.  The third rank costs 4x, the fourth 8x and the final rank costs 16x.  All ranks work on a power-of-two scale.

This carries over into usage:  Each ability has a ‘casting cost’.  This is the cost to use the ability at the rank that you have on your character sheet.  However, this isn’t the only choice that you have.  You can increase the effective rank of the ability for this one time by increasing the cost by a power of two for each increase.  This also works in reverse: you can cast at a lower level for less cost.

To read the following tables, if you’re purchasing a skill use the first table and look at the first column for the rank you wish to purchase and the row starting with the ‘unit cost’ to find the cost. For casting cost, follow the +N or -N headers to find the difference between the rank you wish to cast and the rank you have (+ numbers for when you are casting a higher level), and then use the row starting with your ‘casting cost’.

1     2    3    4    5     6     7
+0   +1   +2   +3   +4    +5    +6
1,    2,   4,   8,  16,   32,   64
2,    4,   8,  16,  32,   64,  128
3,    6,  12,  24,  48,   96,  192
4,    8,  16,  32,  64,  128,  256
5,   10,  20,  40,  80,  160,  320
6,   12,  24,  48,  96,  192,  384
7,   14,  28,  56, 112,  224,  448
8,   16,  32,  64, 128,  256,  512
9,   18,  36,  72, 144,  288,  576
10,  20,  40,  80, 160,  320,  640
15,  30,  60, 120, 240,  480,  960
20,  40,  80, 160, 320,  640, 1280
25,  50, 100, 200, 400,  800, 1600
30,  60, 120, 240, 480,  960, 1920
35,  70, 140, 280, 560, 1120, 2240
40,  80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560
45,  90, 180, 360, 720, 1440, 2880
50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200

-0  -1  -2 -3 -4 -5 -6
1,   1,  1, 1, 1, 1, 1
2,   1,  1, 1, 1, 1, 1
3,   2,  1, 1, 1, 1, 1
4,   2,  1, 1, 1, 1, 1
5,   3,  2, 1, 1, 1, 1
6,   3,  2, 1, 1, 1, 1
7,   4,  2, 1, 1, 1, 1
8,   4,  2, 1, 1, 1, 1
9,   5,  3, 2, 1, 1, 1
10,  5,  3, 2, 1, 1, 1
15,  8,  4, 2, 1, 1, 1
20, 10,  5, 3, 2, 1, 1
25, 13,  7, 4, 2, 1, 1
30, 15,  8, 4, 2, 1, 1
35, 18,  9, 5, 3, 2, 1
40, 20, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1
45, 23, 12, 6, 3, 2, 1
50, 25, 13, 7, 4, 2, 1

Many abilities like ‘Jump’ (listed previously in this blog), have multiple “Variables”. When casting an ability with multiple variables, the final casting rank of the ability becomes a ‘pool’ which you can assign to the variables. For example:

Drana has Rank 4 Jump. The 3 variables to jump are Distance, Form, and Unease.  This means that she can spend a total of 4 points across the 3 variables: putting 4 into Distance means the other two are Rank 0. Or she could put 1 in each – which totals 3. If she does so, she casts that jump for less than the typical cost (around half), because it’s below her rank. If she wanted to have Rank 2 in all 3 of them, she would need 6 points, 2 more than she has. She could power up her Jump for that usage for a cost of 4X the normal casting cost to do this.

With variable abilities, one can rarely ever have a full-power-in-all-variables usage. It becomes all about tradeoffs and choices. But these are what makes a game.
Also this system is geared towards normalizing the relative effort of using an ability. Due to this, Tatha does not increase spell points or any of the pooled stats every level, because this is not needed – instead, the costs go down with mastery.

The Sense Archetypes

• Magician - (Magician) – see truth (of form and of function), auras, power levels, powers
• Witch - (Empress) – see links (things affecting, things binding), telepathy
• Oracle, Mother – (High Priestess) – see beyond, past, and distant
• Thief - (Wheel of Fortune) – see possibility, chance
• Hacker - (Tower) – see weakness, death eyes, cracks in fabrics
• Explorer - (Hanged Man) – see further

Awareness

Much like the 3 computed scores from the Knowledge Archetypes, the senses also have a computed score.  Called the ‘sixsense‘, named after both its original name – a long lasting meme through history, and the fact that there are 6 disciplines for its mastery.  The Sixsense is used in the plane that many games use ‘awareness’ and ‘initiative’ rolls – it represents the cumulative sensitivity to things that happen beyond the body.

Sixsense = Magician + Witch + Seer + Explorer + Thief + Hacker

The Sensesphere

To understand the senses one must understand the Sensesphere (or Ayatana).  The Ayatana is all of the sense objects found within one’s Local Reality (the unique world observed by the character).  It is all things ‘observable’ within a local sense.  The default size of this sphere for gameplay purposes is 100m, meaning anything outside of this is not fully observed within the local space (making out a shape on the horizon is only partially observing it – it could be something very different when it gets close).  This becomes the default distance for all abilities that aren’t denoted as “Far”.

The Senseband

The mind can only process a given bandwidth of information.  What this means is that one can focus a little on a lot (awareness) or a lot on a little (pick a single sense – like smelling for something – you might close your eyes and focus on just the olfactory).  As such, even though the sixsense are omnipresent it helps to focus them mapped onto another sense as a way of narrowing the scope – which the bodymind has an easier time assimilating.   These focus tradeoffs come in the form of quality of information versus distance.

Distance and the Body Five

There are 3 basic ranges within the Ayatana:

• Full: the entire range of the Ayatana with no notable restrictions – things within the ‘full’ range are using only a sixsense and so they’re more abstract feelings.  This includes all unobscured (by active concealment or other similar) things, regardless of obstructions (walls, floors, etc).  A turn of concentration will give vague hints of anything within this range.
• Distal: the senses as mapped onto a distal sense (Sight, Hearing, Smell) – as per the quality of that sense in the given body.  This allows full cognition up to the maximum Ayatana range for any unobstructed senses (Even a dog may not smell someone underneath you in the sewer).  When focusing the senseband on a distal sense, one can make out most of a things’ characteristics by spending a turn examining (on a single object) or a vague hint (as per the Full range) automatically as long as it is within the senses’ ‘field of view’.
• Contact: the senses as mapped onto a contact sense (Touch, Taste) as well as the usage of all senses in turn on an object of contact proximity.  One automatically receives any of the characteristic info that would be discerned by spending a turn using a distal sense, and by spending a turn or more one may examine a single object to its fullest – attempting to find things normally hidden from view.

…

Next up – each of the 6 Sense Archetypes and their Ranks

Many Abilities list a Knowledge Archetype as a prerequisite.

Lastly, there are the 3 Formations formed by adding each of the 4 domain Archetypes up:

• Soul = Artist + Philosopher + Trickster + Shadow
• Mind = Architect + Summoner + Scientist + Warrior
• Body = Knight + Priest + Musician + Assassin

These are common rolls to resist attacks and harmful affects, test against highly generic conditions, apply contests, etc.  In as such, Knowledge Archetypes can be thought of as a combination of

Karma - Soul – Void – Anicca – Mutable

• Artist - (Temperance, Sagittarius, Fire) – middle way, calm, beauty
  Skill keywords: visual arts, creation, imagination, painting, arts and crafts, and art appreciation, fashion
• Philosopher - (Hermit, Virgo, Earth) – solitude, mercy, research
  Skill keywords: investigation, languages, philosophy, writing, research, programming (language)

• Trickster - (Lovers, Gemini, Air) – harmonious opposites, desire, bonding
  Skill keywords: glib, bluff, acting, diversion, distract, seduce, drama, street smarts

• Shadow -(Moon, Pisces, Water) – secrets, hidden, anxiety, doubt, fear, illusion
  Skill keywords: hide, move silently, palm, sneak, disguise, acrobatics, tracking, trailing

Energy - Mind – Chaos – Anatta – Cardinal

• Architect - (Emporer, Aries, Fire) – responsibility, long term thinking, strategy
  Skill keywords: strategy, tactics, military, structure, formation, architecture, communication, communication systems, programming

• Summoner - (Devil, Capricorn, Earth) – domination, power, uncontrolled energy
  Skill keywords: demonolgy, business, finances, legal systems, haggling, merchantile

• Scientist - (Justice, Libra, Air) – intellect, reason, balance
  Skill keywords: scientific method, physical sciences, scientific equipment, medicine, biological sciences, technology

• Warrior - (Chariot, Cancer, Water) – victory, bravery, pride
  Skill keywords: melee weapons, melee weapon crafting, physical skills, climbing, running, swimming, lifting, morale, intimidation

Coherence - Body – Form – Dukkha – Fixed

• Knight - (Strength, Leo, Fire) – inner strength, compassion, perseverance
  Skill keywords: armour, armour crafting, defense systems, security systems, piloting, vehicles, navigation, drive systems, power systems

• Priest - (Hierophant, Taurus, Earth) – belief, knowledge, group coherence
  Skill keywords: social sciences, history, culture, etiquette, sociology, taxonomy, factions, occult, religion, memetics

• Musician - (Star, Aquarius, Air) – tranquility, calmness, harmony, trust, inspiration
  Skill keywords: music, musical instruments, oration, empathy, animal training, riding, psychology, interrogation

• Assassin - (Death, Scorpio, Water) – regeneration, change, conclusion, loss, inescapable
  Skill keywords: ranged weapons, ranged weapon crafting, ranged weapon identification, forensics, demolitions, poisons, traps, weapons systems

Stay tuned – next up is the 6 Sense Archetypes

Specifically the ability to imprint harmonic encodings that represent all ones thoughts, memories and experiences on one’s ālayavijñāna, and then rebuilding this bodymind after reincarnating into a new form.  The skill of jumping means to be able to influence the form that is created (often pre-conceiving the form through observation beforehand).  There are two primary types of jumping: Near Jumping and Far Jumping.  Near is categorized as within the mindsphere (the locations that the bodymind can observe at the given moment) – generally < 100 meters, and within a few seconds either way.  Far Jumping is far more complicated as involves taking an incarnation in a location outside of the mindsphere – this cannot easily be done without assistance (umbillicum or other gear, soul link assistance, etc) – as the location must first be observed.

However, Jumping is more of an art than a science – the science long being taken care of.

An example Near Jump in story:

“Rivari smirked as the spear pierced his chest – his almond eyes drifting off into meditation behind the thick spectacles.  The Asura looked around nervously, attempting to pull his spronged spear from Rivari’s flesh – but it was too slow.  An older man in a tweed suit leaned out from the alley and chanted a short mantra.  The last thing the Asura saw were a pair of similar thick glasses on the old man – one of many traits that were reminiscient beyond circumstance -  before it was engulfed in flames”

and in play:

GM: “Rivari is stabbed by the Asura’s spear causing 8 form damage.  You have 2 coherence left and are fading fast.”

Ted (Rivari’s player): “I spend the turn preparing a jump, distance 3: in the alley behind the Asura, dukkha: 2, form: 1 – I keep the glasses and my pocketwatch, spending my remaining coherence and as much energy as required to pay for that.  And I go out with a smirk.”

GM: “You are Frank Peddleton, who was taking a shortcut through the alley on his way home – a scrawny man in his early 60s with wiry short grey hair and a college professor stubble.  You have a tweed suit, with a familiar pocketwatch and glasses with a bent rim and an index of well over 1.6.”

Ted: “I’m so through with this guy… I peek out from the alley to orient myself and spend the entire turn chanting  my Flame of the Heavens mantra – power 4 on the blue skinned bastard.  I really liked playing that Greek.”

It’s important to note that jumping is not the same as possession.  The new form has a history and place in the world which the player can ask about or create, but it’s purely conjecture.  The individual is always at a moment of low-coherence.  Meaning, no one could have necessarily said for sure that they existed or didn’t.  As one’s Jump:Form improves, more thought is put into observing the new form before jumping.  Mechanically, the jumper is *creating* the new form before observing themselves in it, passing the soul across.

There are 3 primary variables in jumping:

• Distance – the distance (time and space) from the old form that the new form is realized.
• Form – the shape and characteristics of the new form (customization of appearance, skills, equipment)
• Dukkha (unease) – the length and depth of the period of disorientation in acclimating to the new form

The 5 ranks of Distance in a Near Jump:

• Distance 0 – Could be anywhere, anytime within the mindsphere
• Distance 1 – In most situations somewhere discernable (similar floor tiles, etc)
• Distance 2 – Likely somewhere within the bounds of distance 1 that you have been before (vicinity)
• Distance 3 – Somewhere you freshly remember or nearly observe (around the corner, etc – within a turn or a turn’s movement)
• Distance 4 – Exactly where or when you wish to be, the other one being slightly off (different initiative, facing or off by a meter or two)
• Distance 5 – Exactly when and where you wish to be, down to the motion vector (enter in running / falling)

Note about distance:  The ‘exactly’ is still within the confines of your mindsphere.

Note about jumping forward (time):  You land in your same timeline but to everyone else you are ‘gone’ (short of a few soul link skills and other tricks) in the intermediary time.  If no players are present to observe the time passing, the story immediately jumps to the next observed moment in time.

Note about jumping backward (time): Jumping backwards accidently or intentionally is dangerous – if the jump lands beyond the reach of any of your companions’ mindsphere and you don’t have the ability to re-establish a coherence via a soul link – then you create an alternate branch, and your companions’ incarnations may not be powered by the same set of principles (i.e. may not be controlled by the player).  This is a breach in the shared reality.

The 5 ranks of Form in a Near or Far Jump:

• Form 0 – You could be anything living within the range of your karmic layer (however, still likely the same species)
• Form 1 – You will come back as the same species, but all variances are open.  You can copy a few accessories that are reasonable for the form to have.
• Form 2 – Your form is your choice of species variant (race) within your species.  You may copy any accessories that you wish, but only 1 piece of equipment may be moved.
• Form 3 – Your form is any reasonable species of your choice but the variant is random (or see form2).  You may move any equipment you wish and create any accessories.
• Form 4 – Your form is any reasonable species or variant.  You may move 1 artifact,  and create any equipment or accessories.
• Form 5 – You form is any accessible species.  You may move any and all artifacts and create any equipment or accessories.

Notes about form:  Accessories are clothing, etc.  Equipment is things that are useful (guns, food, etc).  Artifacts are things you take with you or are generally far more useful (think magic items).  The form chosen must still fit within the ranks of skills that you have.  You cannot choose to become a giant cthulhu monster that can natively teleport unless you can become big, have multiple arms and can teleport already.  This is what is meant by ‘accessible’.  ‘Reasonable’ however means fits the setting.  A slimy space alien appearing in 1950′s New York would not fit the setting.

Character goals are largely factional – there are a few common goals however (often shared in a faction):

1) Spread of a given philosophy or worldview (believing makes it so) – to craft a specific utopia (i.e. gather of comrades, so hence group/view Coherence).

2) Gathering of coherence through adversity view (basically terrorism… the more people see/fear them, the more they are confirmed)

3) Gathering of energy/resources to achieve group or personal goals. Often energy or resources are in other planes/times – bringing it back is the trick, but artifacts of power are great ways of storing energy in something that’s easy to believe in / observe across shifts.

4) Gathering for collection purposes (either vanity or to power 1,2,or 3) – for example collecting the souls of the 100 Asura (demons) from the plane of Sumeru

5) Worldcrafting – basically you can never affect your own timeline – anything that happens in a time causes another probability fork/split in the tree (actually doesn’t cause it, just sort of strengthens the observation of it) – including these future beings shifting in. However, if one were to go back in time on a timeline, strengthen the path where something happened, then all branches of this ‘new’ tree are now strengthened, making them easier to shift to. Then go to one of the new branches, making another new branch and make something else happen. Rinse, repeat, until you have what you want (either a nice summer getaway location, or some meticulously crafted artifact or technology or world to harvest). Generally this works best with larger groups, as if a single person does it, the coherence of the new branch isn’t very strong (what if they forget/die?).

6) Pure destruction

7) Pure hedonism

8) Personal Growth through varied experience

The archetypes have innate conflicts, kinships and rivalries. There is a skill that will allow you to ‘see’ what general archetypes someone applies to (basically an aura sight). Most of it is personality conflict. The real conflicts are typically amongst factions, based on philosophy/goals not personality, though philosophies tend to attract those of the same archetypes.

There are also skills called “Puppeteering” (which are a bit higher up), that allow a player in the Mainline to control more than one form at once, generally with a weaker coherence or ability for each. This can be extended to controlling them across different planes or times at once, but this takes far more resources (multiple umbillicums, etc).

Additionally, I’m looking into the idea of having your archetype and skill ranks have ‘observed’ and ‘real’ ranks. Basically, you spend karma to up a rank 4 of say, Warrior, to rank 5. You have rank 5 in ‘real’ now. However, next jump, you can shift a number of ranks around. But the highest rank you ever had in something is the ‘observed’, which is easier to shift back to.

Looking into skills that improve the amount you can shift, and possibly some things affecting when karma becomes effective (for example, when you ‘buy’ a new skill, you only observe the new rank, you don’t have it on this jump).

Eventually, a single player could probably ‘observe’ every rank, and gain a high enough skill in rankshifting and puppeteering that they could play 5 totally different characters who encompass totally different archetypes and skillsets. These characters are probably rare and basically Methuselah / Level 20+ in D&D.

The basic idea:

Quantum + Buddhism + Cyberpunk + “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Far, far future multiverse game pulling many concepts from nondualistic religion (incl. Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Sufism, Kabbalahism) many modern interpretations of Quantum Mechanics (incl. Many-minds, decoherence, relational, etc), many modern Metaphysics and psychology concepts (incl. Morphic Residence, memes, archetypes),  cyberpunk futurism, other rpg games (Unknown Armies, Mage, Rifts, Bathos, D&D, etc), anime (Noein, Chaos Head, etc), video games (Digital Devil Saga, Star Ocean, etc), and movies (Matrix, Existenz, etc), books (Childhood’s End, etc).

World

The “Maintime” (the base setting for the game) is highly post-apocalyptic.  Many things that are or were possible still are, but they require too much energy or coherence to pull off or to make it worth it.

In this future, nano technology is ubiquitous in the sense that technology is found in many things – and it’s still called ‘nano’ because the name stuck, but the technology is much ‘smaller’.  Humankind has also evolved, transcended, and other beings have been met.  Belief and Energy are the most important commodities.  With enough energy and belief reality can become like clay. However, both are in short supply.  Quantum decoherence and entropy are causing the known world’s fabric to crumble.  Belief in one’s self is not enough to keep one existing – all things need confirmation in some way from their surroundings. Particles are energy are falling ever towards the heat bath.  Similar to the Samvartakalpa.  Or similar to Noein’s future world for those who’ve seen it. There are many planes of existance (with infinite side pockets and timelines), and they have names many (though their Buddhist, Kabbalahist, and Greek names are most common) – from planes of Demons and things imagined in nightmares (and so dreamt, they are), to realms of only spiritual energy (Arayashiki / Alayavijnana).  The universe is found to have something called “The Recycling” – all things go through a minutae of creation, existance, and destruction and then creation as something else.  These ‘Crushing Gears of Time’ advances the concept of time forward and without them there would be no time or movement.

But we’ve found ways around it.  Through technology we can codeify the memories and existance patterns of a soul and rebuild them after a recycle to provide full continuity.  These is done through external watchers, and is the same way we are able to shift dimensions and time (though into strictly non-re-entrant timelines – no stupid paradoxes pls).  Also, see Noein – the Umbillicum (see also Astral Cord, Quantum Entanglement (within a relative quantum mechanics view), Morphic Residence, etc).

Mechanics

What this means in game mechanics terms is that you don’t play a “Character” per se.  More like a meme.  You spend points in “Archetypes” and “Skills”, which you can carry from existance to existance.  This allows a couple types of play:

• Session-based ‘travel’ – Much like a period piece or an episode of Doctor Who, you keep the archetype but create a new character in the setting you are playing in.  This can be thought of as either experienced through the umbillicum, logging into a cyberspace world, dreaming, or whatever as best suited by the campaign.
• Jumping – ‘rerolling’ effectively without changing much if any mechanics during a session.  This means that death is not as non-trivial as in other games.  And the experiences gained from each existance carry over.
• Mindfuck play – Being multiple people/places/times at once, possession, observer reinforcement, observer decoupling, etc
• Racial unity/disparity – As any world can be a period piece, a history, a shared vision, etc, it may be decided that the characters are all human, or all non-human, or it doesn’t matter
• Magic and Technology – Now play nicely together.. or not.  Bring your own favorite SoP (Source of Power), but don’t expect that it works the same for all others.

By now you’re asking… how is this different from Rifts / Whitewolf / Planescape / Unknown Armies / insert your favorite game here.

Well, the primary difference is that the ‘real’ (for all intensive purposes) world/character exists in the hyperfuture and that the other worlds and concepts are ‘places’ (you just occupy a place with a new ‘form’ – or craft it based on your original form).  The game requires a shared set of belief in the rules and concepts or a will to pretend to believe them (by setting it in a relativist reality, character dogmatism doesn’t really work and is heavily controlled by the rules).  So it’s a bit more wishy-washy, or wabi-sabi – take your pick.

The most important thing you should get out of this is that the character concept / mechanics are largely developed up front but do not dictate the setting or the specific avatarization.

I’m going to use ranks similar to Whitewolf / BESM / Hero / etc… but I’m on the fence as to how to base the dice system for diced games (any suggestions out there?).  I’m leaning towards dice pools of D6s (like roll 1d6 per rank, etc) – either with a target number or a target number of 4+ values.  I’m going to do some statistics math on it all – tough to find the right medium between granularity and randomness, but I want this to be more random than most of my games based on BESM (2D6 + mod).  Because this is a more random world concept, and because for pure irony – God does not play dice.

Stats

The primary stats are:

• Karma – your XP: can be spent on things (many things) – the game’s main currency
• Coherence – your ‘health’ for all intensive purposes (lots of things modify this however – think of it more like the strength of your existance in that form)
• Energy – soul power / magic points / whatever – carries over from form to form

These are all “pools” (there are skills out there that draw from any of them).  Karma, Coherence and Energy have ‘terminal’ points (i.e. maximum) after which the benefit of adding to them cannot be sustained.  Yes, even Karma – this means you need to spend it or lose it (this prevents some ridiculous karma battery tactics).  To increase the Terminals, you will generally need Archetypes.

Archetypes

Then you have ranks in zero or more Archetypes.  Archetypes are sort of like a cross between class / job / and primary attributes (strength, manipulation, body/mind/soul, etc).  Instead of having 2 points in Manipulation, you have 2 ranks in The Trickster.  Mechanically, they are passive skills and roll-check systems – and new ones can be added on the fly.  On a recycle, Archetype points can be shifted slightly based on a number of factors with the use of a couple skills if you have them.  Also note they are totally optional unlike other games (a ‘jack of all types’ hasn’t committed himself to any particular Archetype but this means that they aren’t benefitting from any buffs or suffering any hindrances of any archetype).  And I might allow negative points in this but I’m on the fence (if so they would probably be very specific and not zero-sum negatives).

Some example archetypes:

• Warrior (The Chariot) – can temporarily increase Coherence and Terminal Coherence based on the number of combatants/adversaries that can perceive you
• Scientist (Justice) – increased ability to filter assaults (disbelieve reality shifts directed at the scientist)
• Magician (The Magician) – can draw more energy per rank
• Guardian (Strength) – permanent increase in Terminal Coherence through self-belief
• Assassin (The Hanged Man) – extra rank towards all void attacks, decreased Terminal Coherence

Skills

Skills exist with ranks and have prerequisites (see also WhiteWolf, BESM, etc). Skills have a number of ‘variables’ which are like talents.  When you use a skill you may edit the variables but this edits this cost (probably via a power-of-two).  However, you can improve a variable permanently and this becomes your new starting point.

Also thoughts: possible damage types (Chaos, Void, Form) or (Mind, Soul, Body)

Some example skills:

• Jump – reincarnate as a new being   (variables: distance control-, dukkha- (unease after), form control+)
• Counter Shift – prevents a reality shift from occuring
• Sunyata – Voids a control, sustained, shift or effect (disenchant basically)
• Support – Reinforce what someone else is attempting (backing them up with your ranks)
• Observe – Heal ability – increase coherence on a target other than yourself
• Null – A void attack directed at a single target (does direct damage)

Finally a random notepad of sects/divisions/glossary terms:

• Architects:  Form (being) follows Function (purpose) – they call the self the Form
• Buddhists:  Seek release from the recycling
• Weavers: Try to connect all things to form utopia of oneness and control
• Neuros: Reprogram thought patterns, nano augmentation
• Divers: Explore time and space for fun and profit
• Believers: Summon a deity to empower them
• Summoners: Summon a being for them to empower
• Jumpers: Master the art of jumping
• Illusionists: Alter the beliefs of others
• Collectors: Subjugate others to affirm themselves
• Recyclers: Executioners (bring early recycle)
• Ghosts: Nano cluster existances – very hard to kill
• Clones: Automated jump technology – typically into another machine or constructed shell
• Nightmares: Quantum magic accidents, tapping the subconscious
• Sleepwalking: Walking another plane by dreaming yourself there