This activity is a Live Action Role Play (LARP) mediated through the Zulip chat software and expressed and performed with live CSS fabulations in ChattyPub.
This activity is a Live Action Role Play (LARP) mediated through the Zulip chat software and expressed and performed with live CSS fabulations in ChattyPub.
This is the second version of this first live CSS roleplaying experiment
It’s been ten years since The Company rolled out the first line of brain chips, five years since having one became necessary to participate in society. The chips were sold as a new digital commons – the next stage of social media, connecting anyone with sufficient psychic affinity (as determined by The Company themselves). The aggressive advertisement tended to stifle any real communication and make things a bit sterile – but it wasn’t all that bad. This morning, without warning, The Company’s HQ went dark. No maintenance, no oversight, no support. With the chips still firmly lodged in your brains and no way of removing them in sight, can you build something better from this broken shell?
Description of the activity
The Setting
The game is set in an exaggerated version of the near future. The Company is a stand-in for any awful tech company you can think of; the brain chips are essentially Twitter But In Your Mind.
Having a brain chip has become pretty much mandatory if you want to get a job - hence a wide variety of people being patched into the network.
You don't get psychic messages from everyone at once - that would be totally overwhelming. Every day, you're patched into a new group of people, your 'locus'. Very little is known about how the brain chips choose these groups. It's not based on physical proximity, and it doesn't seem to be based on shared interests. Some people think The Company is using the loci to conduct some sort of weird social experiment - but that's just a conspiracy theory, right?
You can also choose to follow people - this means that you always receive their messages, no matter your locus for the day.
Immediately before time-in, The Company sent an enigmatic message to all users. Then, they went silent. Throughout play, there might be news reports that tell you more about the situation - but for now, you know nothing.
Character Creation
Character creation consists of deciding: - Your character's name - Your character's location - Your character's follower count (this can be randomly generated if you'd like) - How you feel about The Company - A secret you have
How to Play
Before we time in, we'll do a bit of collaborative setting building and come up with characters. We’ll also gauge how comfortable the group is with using CSS – the more experienced people (if they’re comfortable doing so) will be available to help out the novices OC.
After time in, IC communication will be entirely in ChattyPub. All spoken communication will be OC.
Players will communicate with each other by typing in the designated channel(s) in ChattyPub. This represents thoughts being consciously broadcast through the brain chip network. There is one rule governing these messages: you cannot straightforwardly express your feelings. OC, this is so we can get creative with the CSS. IC, this is because doing so tends to make the advertising algorithms target you very aggressively.
In the #rules channel, players will write pieces of CSS code, each one linked to an emoji. These can then be applied to messages by reacting with the relevant emojis. The CSS you write can be used by anyone, and you can apply CSS to anyone's messages, not just your own.
IC, the CSS represents your character's emotions towards each message - whether conscious or subconscious. When used by lots of different people, it becomes a way of collectively building a consensus.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO: Aaron writes ‘I think the people with the most followers should get to decide what we do’. Bea disagrees with this. She turns the text white so people can’t read it, and adds a red border to reflect that this suggestion makes her angry. Connor, however, has a lot of followers and thinks this is a great idea. He makes the background black so the text is visible again – but Bea’s red border is still there.
Safety & Sensitive Topics
Please be mindful when role-playing that you do not know the personal lives of everybody in the game, and that everyone will have a different level of comfort with sensitive topics such as abuse, pregnancy loss, or discrimination. If in doubt, steer clear or drop OC and check. If you want to include a sensitive topic in your character's backstory, it is a good idea to make sure the rest of the group are comfortable with it before the game starts.
LARP can get intense sometimes. To make sure everybody has a good time, the below safety calls are in use. You can either type them in ChattyPub or say them aloud. If these calls are used, you MUST respect them. Treat it like accidentally stepping on somebody's foot - don't beat yourself up about it or get defensive, just apologise and stop.
SAFETY CALL: YELLOW - "I am okay to keep playing, but please do not escalate things further. This level of intensity is at my upper limit."
SAFETY CALL: ORANGE - "I am okay to keep playing, but please de-escalate. I am not comfortable with this level of intensity."
SAFETY CALL: RED - "I do not want this to be happening. I am not okay to keep playing." If somebody calls this, immediately drop OC and make sure they are okay. If you want to call SAFETY CALL: RED but are having a hard time speaking, you can also cross your arms across your chest.