User:Average/HackerWorldDomination

AKA Anarchist Redemption. To be printed on high-quality resume paper and posted on your bulletin board. Or put it in your un-conference and offer a reward to whoever ends with the most points. It's a self-organizing system, so light fuse, get away, and get ready for some phun...

Pangaia World Game

rev. 1.9999999999724 beta

Story: Bandits have absconded with all the wealth in the world and demoralized the population, threatening the future and life on planet Earth. As a concerned, responsible citizen, you can’t just stand by, so you gather a band of artists, hackers, and misfits together and form an organization. ;^>

Ahoy, adventurer! This is a LARP¹: a Live-Action Role-Playing game. Think theatre crossed with a treasure hunt! As such, it is extemporaneous and asynchronous. It is also a World-Changing game²: you’re encouraged to change the world to get to the End Goal and improve Player Status. A DM should be appointed to supervise and to create Quests. See BOTQs: Bounty-hunts, Offers, Tasks, and Quests.

The End Goal is to turn your hackerspace into a creative powerhouse, transforming the old economy into a sunny new one. You’ll be making a currency via the semi-anonymous voting system, exchanging ideas, artifacts, and actions to redeem the world and accumulate experience. You have this Board and the World to achieve it!

• The corked wall serves as the playing Board. There is no preferred axis or orientation thereon. It is The Apeiron. Should you decide to play, YOU are it`s Being-in-the-World -- the sprites navigating in-between the cracks of everyone else`s awareness.
• Anyone can play and everyone starts equal. There are just two special roles in the Game: DMs and Pixies. DMs administer the Board and Pixies are the administrators of the space.
• On the Board, one places nodes (starseeds): idea-seeds on which to announce an event, an idea, or player name. Colored markers should be available with which to write. Nodes should start triangular for ideas, square for events, and round for people. Such items pinned to the Board are worth a credit.
• If you wish to re-arrange nodes on the Board, find the implicate order motivating the act and consider a tag. See In-Board Dynamics. There may be a tag already for the note; in which case, fill in a circle with the tag color to show your support.
• The act of creating a node for yourself makes you a player. Choose a color for yourself and write your player name (an email address is a fine choice). Posting nodes to the Board earns you credits ($): place a tally behind your name.
• Posting a Name other than your own is an example of a bounty. Receive no points -- this is a type of gift. When the Person accepts the Invitation, they should collect the singleton credit implicit in the offer and become a Player.
• [Software version:] Players glom onto other nodes in attack or support. Ideally, glommed notes get diminishing fractional credits. When the activity is over, you have a little asteroid, with divots where attacked and smoothness where supported; size determined by number of total pieces.
• The pixies can make governance nodes. These nodes are for anything that interfaces to the old money system (:Acquire Plasticmaster 3d printer?). These seeds should be identifiable by a unique paper, dedicated to the purpose. You must go through the Pixie to use the special paper.
• You can entice people to do things with BOTQs (see Off-Board Activities). Use bling to attract their attention. Bling turns into schwag when the piece has been handed over and signed by it`s creator. Schwag can be attached and displayed on your Player node, worn like a Badge (becoming flair).
• Removing a node also earns a point – IF no one puts it back. This rule helps keep the Board clean. Don't remove BOTQ nodes until completed. Removed nodes should be placed in a History file.
• The DM may employ <colors> for certain kinds of seeds by use of TAGS. Endeavor to follow these conventions.

However, Clue #1: The world is your wiki.

In-board Dynamics

Currency is added to the game only by voting (work done by you) and fulfilling Quests (currency inserted by the DM). Such wealth can be traded among players via BOTQs below. (It leaves the game by votes on governance nodes--your little contribution back to the pixies.) Reputation is built from schwag earned by BOTQs and votes on Player nodes. The following dynamics implement the Game’s gravity model: game pieces re-arrange to reflect the Board`s order, forming constellations of activity.

• Grouping: Find a useful name that catagorizes a bunch of items together (e.g. "Mega-Laser Project") and write it on colored paper. For each vote your name gets (your grouping node counts as one), pick a node in the group and fill in a circle on the corner of that piece with the chosen color. When you get 3 votes, get the GM and transform it into a TAG, signing the back of it. It's now your little province and you can re-arrange the nodes as you like! You can remove any other colors. (You shouldn't re-arrange nodes until you have a grouping for them.)
• Nodes gather votes. Use your private pen color and put votes on people/items you like, filling in a triangle, otherwise don’t put anything. Votes add "mass" and count as the smallest quantum of work: record a tally for yourself for each non-governance node vote, concealing it behind your Name. Governance-node votes count as your contribution *back* to the hackerspace. Tags should be considered governance nodes of the DM. You can vote these up ↑ or down ↓, but you don’t get points. Votes affect prominence on the Board. Enough interest and a node can go nova.
• You can link nodes together. Try a piece of thread. This should create a gravitational force equivalent to your reputation (proportional to vote-tally behind your Name). Move node(s) on the board. Nodes cluster through attraction and repulsion. Adding links (that aren't undone) are worth 10 pts.
• Pieces e-x-p-a-n-d from activity (gloms/votes) and can go nova³ and become off-board activity. Gather all pieces and place a square NAME-claim (perhaps a TAG from above) over the “center of gravity” or main piece/starseed. More than one player can put a name-claim on a group. Such pieces should represent their player colors, like a flag. The Leader(s) can operate with the total points as a loan, until the concept completes. The Player(s) who complete the project collects the points and sheds them to the other players. This is the game`s currency flow. The pieces “collapse” leaving behind the more relevant piece as a remnant, turned over and decorated with all the player-colors who helped complete it. Yay! Worthy projects may stay there for long time, creating a center-of-gravity that other projects continuously link to. These are planetoids. You can turn a piece into bling and re-make it of foil, holding the original pieces in a crumpled ball, or engrave it into a metal name-plate.
• Player pieces >>>contract<<< from lack of activity, waning like a moon to show what's been active (or not), eventually dying out and disappearing to the History file if a player doesn't come and correct it.

The DM gets points for creating Quests and implementing the over-arching gravity model and should have a special tally off the Board. If the DM is doing a stellar job, reward him or her with off-Board goodies and reset the tally by placing a blank piece over their existing one. Put the accumulated total off to the corner.

Off-Board Activities

BOTQs: These are off-board interactions. Look for fluorescent items. All other nodes, except governance, should be strictly related to in-house, in-game activities. Creative use of “flair” is encouraged. Blinking LEDs? Yes! Users can tack additional bounties from their own cache on items that they like.

• Bounty items are for accomplishments on behalf of the house: [Bounty: pencil for the game --> 1 pt]
• Offers are for advertising things/services to the Game: [Offer: 60 pts <-- 6 seed bombs] means that you’ve made seed bombs and you’ll give them to another player for 60 points.
• Tasks are for getting admin work done: [Task: Clean kitchen --> 1 item from “the Box”]
• Quests are outside adventures that involve risk, rewarded to individuals: [Quest: Plant tree at Roper’s empty lot <-> engraving of your player name]. If a Quest might involve any kind of danger or legal entanglements, then you must ask higher-level DM.

The Game is asynchronous. These items should stay on the Board as long as they need until the right person comes along and fulfills it. In each case, the reward should be listed as the final item--as if a piece of fruit waiting to be picked. You'll see different directional arrows. Trust them. Use special markers for the four types of solicitation, so people can identify them easily. Collect no point when posting a Bounty or a Task, since you’re requesting work. Deduct from your credits when someone fulfills it. Tasks can be re-used or otherwise integrated into Player`s flair.

When an item is completed, sign the back of the game piece along with the final agreed-upon reward and relinquish it to the player who tackled it. A DM can give a reward without deducting anything. This isn’t cheating--it’s the generation of new value and how money works. Either way, you just created some fine schwag for the other player.

Note bene: No trading of legal currency directly to or from the game. Keep the boundaries clean--you'll be operating multi-dimensionally. Final hint: It's an Infinite Game: think Eternally...

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[1] Credit to MIT Assassin's Guild for concept of a LARP.
[2] Credit to Buckminster Fuller for the concept of a World Peace Game.
[3] Credit to the Nobel Prize Committee for arranging the field of science so that knowledge of stellar evolution could be learned.

See also: Talk page for GM notes.