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Kai Tave posted:Inventing games just to solve them sounds like it would be in violation of the "no such thing as a free lunch" rule to acquiring charges, otherwise it would be a ridiculously easy way to gain tons of effortless mojo unless you designed it to be similar to one of the easy-come easy-go schools like Dipsomancy. It wouldn't be too terribly hard to limit it: the potency of the charge would probably depend on the complexity of the game (and thus difficulty of solving it), and you could pretty easily say that it has to be a game that other people have played - the more, the more potent. So sure, you could invent a game and solve it, but it wouldn't do anything for you unless it took time and energy to solve -and- you could get people to play it, which would likely require publishing to get past a few dozen folks.
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May 17, 2017 04:56
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I'm thinking with a joyphage, that might actually be taboo to create a new game, but it's not really a fleshed out idea. If you delve into math, there are a lot of games like Nim or Chomp that would be lucrative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomp Similarly, designing, and then creating chess puzzles might qualify. Since there's not much risk involved, I'd suggest that it requires a lot of time, or that the Omega be quite high. Solving Chess or Go would give a Major.
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May 17, 2017 05:15
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malkav11 posted:It wouldn't be too terribly hard to limit it: the potency of the charge would probably depend on the complexity of the game (and thus difficulty of solving it), and you could pretty easily say that it has to be a game that other people have played - the more, the more potent. The thing is that while people create games while blissfully unaware of how they can be broken over someone's knee all the time the key phrase there is "blissfully unaware." Someone whose driving obsession is destructively breaking down games into a single rote formula is probably not going to be as capable of turning that part of themselves off when it comes time to making a game themselves and retaining enough "unawareness" for it to constitute a novel puzzle for them to solve themselves.
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May 17, 2017 05:20
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If we're talking about game creation in this context, I would go with needing a critical mass of people to play (or have at least heard of) your game, and ideally for these people not to be initially aware that the game has a perfect solution -- that is, that it's perceived as a legitimately playable game, not a weird math joke or trolling exercise or whatever. This probably mandates that your game has sufficient mechanical complexity that it isn't transparently solvable to its audience, at least not immediately. D&D 3E charopt is presumably a joyphage paradise.
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May 17, 2017 06:51
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I think that to bring things full circle some hypothetical Joyphage charging method should involve creating a "solvable" game and/or game puzzle, releasing it to the wider world, and then it's based on how long it takes people to actively solve it (key word being actively...you can't pen a game or puzzle, release it to nobody, and hope to collect ultimate cosmic power because "no one's solved it in so long!") which means that for pretty bog standard chess puzzles and simple little microgames you might get minor charges while things like significant and major charges rely on you creating something that's A). compelling enough for people to continue to chip away at for long enough to cultivate the charge and B). actually solvable. Make your game too easy to solve and you just get scraps, which is especially disheartening if you made some big elaborate game, but if you make it too hard and nobody finds the solution then you get nothing.
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May 17, 2017 08:19
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I think creation of games is pretty antithetical to the whole idea. The school is about destruction inherent in caring too much about the game; like an overprotective parent pushing his kid away. Also I don't think Chess puzzles should count at all - they're not an actual game, but a mere game-themed puzzle: something that is supposed to have one solution. Nobody gives a poo poo about others solving the same puzzle, while clearly writing out an optimal mathematical solution on BGG ruins the game for everyone, rendering it useless and obsolete (see: A Few Acres of Snow). While the cycle of creation and solution is one way to game the taboo (much like some Oneiromancers use to calculate their sleep and awake cycles for particular purposes), it's not really as simple as it sounds. First, you need to make and publish a game that has some decent following (otherwise, what's the point if the collective consciousness is not involved?). Then, once you rip it in half - admit the fact your own creation is a worthless, solvable piece of poo poo - well, where are you going to find rubes to give a poo poo about your next product. Or third? (answer: be David Sirlin). The best gig for a Joyphage is having a secret contact within Magic: the Gathering future league, to give themselves all the time in the world to tinker with the One Meta Deck that will destroy any tournament variety. Just gotta spend that charge before the next set drops and resets all the hard work. Why do you think there still are people willing to play Vintage and spend the required cash on it?
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May 17, 2017 09:18
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I'm running a UA 2nd edition game (because I already own the books and am poor) and I'm having some trouble figuring out how one of my players skills should work. They're playing a student who is all about fighting games, and their obsession skill is Mind Games (which I talked down from Fighting Games because I am not a good enough GM to make that not a waste of points.) Their idea for Mind Games is that it's all about misdirecting and doing deliberately stupid stuff to mess with your opponent. It's a mind skill and it feels different enough to not be just another name for Lying. So far the best idea I've had is to make it like Doublethink, or to let him give shifts based upon him appearing harmless or whatever. I'm not really happy with these ideas though. Can anyone give me a hand?
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May 17, 2017 13:30
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Call it Yomi to make him happy and simply treat it as Bluff.
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May 17, 2017 13:34
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Strange Cares posted:(which I talked down from Fighting Games because I am not a good enough GM to make that not a waste of points.) Remember that there are skill penumbrae. Fighting games would let him know about arcades in the area (or if he's got a ton of points, all over the state or world). It'd let him fit in and interact in arcades, and he'd know about tournaments. He'd know about hardware, and maybe have a SF2 cabinet at home. He'd always have an excuse to have some quarters in any pocket, unless he's been completely stripped of clothing. Throw him a bone with a hex ritual, you need a fighting game that lets people make custom characters. You make a character that looks as close to the target as possible, even the name or an acronym of their name. Play online for as long as you want in one session with no breaks and lose every game while not making it obvious that you're throwing the matches. The next time your target fights someone who looks like any of the people you lost to, the hex hits, modified by how close the resemblance is. Kind of inconvenient, but if you're willing to play a little dress up, you can get an edge. Let him spend xp to discover other rituals, like one that lets you hide for a few minutes in front of any arcade game. And of course, arcades are part of the Mystic underground, just like casinos and strip clubs are. But make the character help you. If he wants that skill, make him own it.
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May 17, 2017 19:05
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The idea of the Fighting Games guy reminds me of an idea I had for the Virtual-Hermetic, an Adept who charges up by either playing normal video games "wrong" or by searching out and experiencing occult creepypasta games that test his Shock Gauges. Some of the fluff involved being exposed to the classic "Lavender Town Syndrome" pokemon ghost story.
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May 17, 2017 19:12
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All I can think of is Ulillillia jumping in the same spot in Bubsy for four hours straight. Of course, it could also be stuff like playing GTA Online while trying to not commit any crimes, obeying traffic rules, etc.
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May 17, 2017 19:16
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Everything Counts posted:I created an Unknown Armies adept school (about 95% complete, just need to flesh out a few sig spells) based on board games and would love feedback and criticism. The link, if you're so inclined. So can I play as this person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORGMRi_nAgM
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May 17, 2017 21:06
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:But make the character help you. If he wants that skill, make him own it. Can I Borrow a Quarter? - This is the minor/significant blast spell for the Arcadeomancer. For a minor charge, the adept can ask someone to perform for them some kind of trivial task ("can you give me your social security number?" or "can you get in that red car?" or "can you move closer to my friend that's holding the handcuffs?" etc.), and the target is compelled to obey as long as the request is not obviously suicidal, or directly threatens the life of someone with which the target has a Relationship, and does not take longer than a round to perform. If the target complies they have to spend their next action performing whatever command they accepted. If the target refuses the request, it forces a Rank 3 Self test on the target, as they attempt to rationalize why they were unwilling to show charity to someone in need. Each additional minor charge spent on the blast increases the Rank of the Self test by 1. For a significant charge, the adept can ask someone for a quarter of anything the target could feasibly, physically possess, and the target is compelled to obey even if the request is obviously suicidal, or directly threatens the life of someone with which the target has a Relationship; the action still can't take longer than a round to perform. The adept can't ask for ephemeral things like a quarter of your happiness or a quarter of your favorite childhood memory, but they could ask for a quarter of all of the money in your wallet, or a quarter of your cellphone, or a quarter of your left foot. If the target complies, they have to spend their next action attempting to provide a quarter of whatever was requested; they might have to smash their phone on the ground, or throw a wad of cash at the adept, or bust open an empty bottle and start digging into their foot. If the target refuses the request, it forces a Rank 6 stress test on the victim, which targets whichever stress gauge the request would likely affect (so Self if asked for a quarter of your money, Violence if asked for a quarter of your foot, etc.). Each additional significant charge spent on the blast increases the Rank of the Self test by 2.
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May 17, 2017 22:24
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Manofmanusernames posted:So can I play as this person: Yeah brb, I gotta replace the entire write-up with this
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May 18, 2017 00:39
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Re: destroying games, I think the proper root would be "Ludophagy", and you could build a pretty decent set of effects around reducing something to a set pattern, or forcing people to carry out an Optimal Flowchart. Charge building based on reducing any Game/creative endeavour to a set of principles, a flowchart, a guide etc. with Minor or Significant based around either the time taken or the complexity of the thing broken/phaged? Major charges would be things like Solving Chess, or writing the definitive optimisation guide for an RPG (say, Treantmonk's wizard guide?), or something like devising and publicising the Golden Ratio of paintings? The paradox being that your end goal is to remove the intellectual or creative effort that makes an activity meaningful?
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May 18, 2017 01:34
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Ambi posted:Re: destroying games, I think the proper root would be "Ludophagy", and you could build a pretty decent set of effects around reducing something to a set pattern, or forcing people to carry out an Optimal Flowchart. It's interesting to me how multiple people have genuinely all independently arrived at this specific name for this idea, especially since it's a really great one. I think it was also brought up under that name in a previous UA thread on here?
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May 18, 2017 01:58
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Poltergrift posted:It's interesting to me how multiple people have genuinely all independently arrived at this specific name for this idea, especially since it's a really great one. I might have been one of the people who brought that up; that's also my Tumblr. I specifically came up with it after watching the "Half an A Press" video, and reading about the bizzare glitches in Pokemon Red/Blue, which can infect other cartridges; the single most UA thing I could think of It's still a rad name and I was probably influenced by Plutophagy when I came up with it/independently arrived at it. Bliss Authority fucked around with this message at 10:32 on May 18, 2017 |
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May 18, 2017 10:29
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Bliss Authority posted:I specifically came up with it after watching the "Half an A Press" video, and reading about the bizzare glitches in Pokemon Red/Blue, which can infect other cartridges; the single most UA thing I could think of Got a link? e: to the pokemon stuff, I managed to find the "Half an A Press" video Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 12:18 on May 18, 2017 |
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May 18, 2017 11:44
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Rad. I was mostly going by the Joyphagy stuff from above, but swapped it out for Ludo because that's the study of games/videogames. Also it is a real cool word. After reading the Speedrunning article I had a neat idea for some more elaboration on the charging, along a fun thematic line from the name: incubation time. If your aim is to provide The Best Solution, then it has to be proved as such, and as part of that has to be used, with minor/significant/major being based around how widespread the use is? Set major charge threshold at somewhere around a million, or maybe ten million since YouTube walkthroughs regularly hit breach 1 million for triple-A titles?
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May 18, 2017 11:45
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What about solving a game so thoroughly that they change the rules of the game? That would show more impact than viewership, I think.
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May 18, 2017 12:20
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I mean, I feel like "discovering the Hyrule Castle barrier skip" has to be grounds for a major charge somehow, just because of its status in the community.
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May 18, 2017 16:35
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I suppose Michael Larson on Press Your Luck would have to be the ultimate example.
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May 18, 2017 16:48
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Poltergrift posted:I mean, I feel like "discovering the Hyrule Castle barrier skip" has to be grounds for a major charge somehow, just because of its status in the community.
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May 18, 2017 18:32
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So I was reading about theosophy and found about this guy: Alexander Scriabin He was a theosopist Russian composer. He devised a mystic chord to be used in a multimedia performance at the Himalayas that would bring about the end of the world.
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May 18, 2017 23:16
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Got a link? This is a whole bunch of musing on Pokemon glitches as a magic system.
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May 19, 2017 10:05
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How does "American alien mythology adepts" sound, as a school? Xenomancers, with a central paradox of the way that your magick is built around creating the (false) signs of classical abductions, cattle mutilation, probes, etc. -- so you have to simultaneously believe in the mythology while playing an active role in maintaining the lie. Sure, you're the one making those crop circles that have the Roswell guys excited, and all the other Xenomancers you know are making fake crop circles to fool Roswellians, and Area 51 is actually a hoax -- you've proven it via your alien-detecting spell -- but there must be original, real crop circles created by aliens, right? And the government must have a real Area 51 somewhere, right?
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May 20, 2017 17:02
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Isn't The Esoterrorists all about fighting cultists who fake supernatural phenomena in order to shift the collective consciousness enough to allow the REAL Lovecraftian monsters to break through?
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May 21, 2017 01:52
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Halloween Jack posted:Isn't The Esoterrorists all about fighting cultists who fake supernatural phenomena in order to shift the collective consciousness enough to allow the REAL Lovecraftian monsters to break through? In the pomo magick source book there's a group called UFO (Unidentified Foreign Ontology) that trying to do something similar. They think all this supernatural phenomena is the sign of a coming awakening although there not sure what that awakening is.
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May 22, 2017 21:24
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So got some time off uni, figuring I might try and give Unknown Armies a go, finally. Are there any good modules or the like? It's kind of an intimidating world to try and come to, when mostly I've done bog standard D&D poo poo. I do have the books from the old bundle of holding, but are they compatible with the newest stuff?
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May 25, 2017 08:32
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The newer rules seem to be a lot simpler, but focused on creating a collaborative narrative experience. The goal, as far as I can tell, is that all the players are involved in creating goals, and your job is just to keep things going off the rails in a controlled manner. Start simple, and then let the players set things in motion and create reasonable consequences within your own mental image of how the magickal underground works.
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May 25, 2017 08:55
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Cassa posted:So got some time off uni, figuring I might try and give Unknown Armies a go, finally. The ideas from them should mostly work (except where time has moved on), the rules are a bit different but shouldn't be that hard to port I wouldn't think since they retain e.g. percentile skill checks and charge-based magic, etc. There's a reason they threw in a couple bundles of the old books in the Kickstarter as cheap addons.
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May 27, 2017 06:42
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So, I'm a big politics nerd, and I apologise if I'm pushing real world into escapism, but I was looking at some photos of a protest against a political candidate in my state spoilers She's Muslim and wears a headscarf but I wonder if the whole proud boy thing or incel movements could work as archetypes or adept schools. The whole incel movement just screams adept, with the whole "I'm going to go my own way, screw society" thing.
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May 27, 2017 07:08
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If you see something you think is strange, and think "Hm, could this be an Adept" the answer is always - Yes. The thing is, most people with strange or just non-mainstream conforming ideas generally are not adepts, because they don't have the amount of willpower and conviction required. Of the ones that do, most are also not adepts, because they are just not bent in the right way. But the ones that are do have the chance of breaking things just the right way to let magic happen. That's the whole idea, really - that when you see a crazy person on the street he might just be a crazy person...or he might be a crazy person that can turn your hands into chickens or something.
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May 27, 2017 08:49
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:So, I'm a big politics nerd, and I apologise if I'm pushing real world into escapism, but I was looking at some photos of a protest against a political candidate in my state spoilers She's Muslim and wears a headscarf but I wonder if the whole proud boy thing or incel movements could work as archetypes or adept schools.
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May 27, 2017 16:34
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How about r/nofap but it works? You don't need to do any new writing. All their elaborate charts & rituals are already online, but in UA they'd actually give them power. If you're really not afraid of political controversy, there's a ton being written about 'Kekistan' and that whole dumb frog made up religion/trickster/chaos magic. Kinda reminds me of how Max Attax started as a joke but ended up with real power, but weirder. Maybe there are 1 in 1 billion rare Pepes that are powerful. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 03:05 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 02:59
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Strange Matter posted:Incels could very easily be turned into a School; it already practically embraces the magical thinking off "I deserve sex because I say I do, regardless of the fact that my every action repels that end goal." I'm reluctant to dig through r incel for inspiration, but one spell that came to mind was something like "Sexual Economics" that lets the adept figure out what the price would be to get a specific woman to have sex with him (although depending on how the taboo works, the adept probably couldn't actually take that as payment.) Maybe it gives them two options "$100,000, or cure my son's brain cancer." Or maybe some sort of "Chad" spell that lets them temporarily become some stereotype of a high school jock. Anyone interested in the Stratosphere thing they're launching? I might write up some stuff to put on there, it might be fun to collaborate on some stuff.
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May 28, 2017 07:22
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Count Chocula posted:Maybe there are 1 in 1 billion rare Pepes that are powerful. Now that's a campaign macguffin.
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May 28, 2017 09:24
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It's probably safest just to roll up all the Pepe/alt-right/Incels/MRA yuckiness into a fictional group, if they're in at all. Tho I guess the version of events where Internet memes elected a president is very 'You Did It' . That said, you could do something with a magickal meme or sigil that got completely corrupted/turned around. The original creator wants to do some ritual to 'fix' it, but they don't know how or need protection while they do it. Cue PCs. John Crowley just posted an article on UFOology: http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture/john-crowley-stranger-things-rise-and-fall-ufos-and-life-moon There's some great symbolic tension around wanting to believe, but also fearing what you believe. UFOs are half-real and half-fictional, but I'm not sure how to turn that into an adept school. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 10:43
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I've been writing out a few ideas I had for a UA version of the lovely part of the internet. I think I'm going to try to give this Stratosphere thing a shot when it becomes available. Basic premise is that some linux website created a discussion board called home/, which spawned several subforums like home/kitchen/, or home/garage/, and even an 18+ home/bedroom/, but what's really notable in the occult underground is home/basement/. Since the beginning of home/, users were permitted to register accounts with a username, or simply login as 'guest.' Once home/ started attracting tens of thousands of users, which due to a series of contentious decisions full of drama that are only interesting to frequent users of home/, led to guest users being limited to home/porch/, home/guestroom/ and finally into a permanent home in home/basement/. In time, home/basement/ became more popular than the rest of home/ combined. Basic structure for home/basement/ is that there's two types of users there, registered users and 'guests' (which will probably get a lot more detailed treatment, they're the UA equivalent to anonymous, and while only a small percentage of them have any mystical connection, with around a million users, they've attracted and/or created thousands of avatars of the faceless man, with varying degrees of mystical awareness.) Dr. Arbitrary fucked around with this message at 20:20 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 20:17
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Count Chocula posted:There's some great symbolic tension around wanting to believe, but also fearing what you believe. UFOs are half-real and half-fictional, but I'm not sure how to turn that into an adept school. I'm actually working on a school for this, though the symbolic tension angle is different. American UFO mythology is mostly a hoax perpetuated by xenomancers, who charge by convincing people that they've had close encounters or witnessed evidence of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth; the paradox is that while they fabricate evidence, spread rumors, etc., they simultaneously have to believe all their own hype, i.e., their taboo is that they can never deny something being touted as evidence of aliens is real, dispute theories about an event which claim that it was caused by aliens, etc. You believe not only without any substantial evidence, but also while you use a combination of magick and practical tricks to fake what little evidence exists, but you can never suspect that the stuff you believe was faked by other xenomancers, or even by ordinary people. Lots of spells for generating crop circles, introducing signs of photo editing/deceit into evidence, generating the appearance of alien life (either "revealing" someone was an alien wearing a human disguise, i.e., false memories + a costume fused to your flesh, or building an alien body wholesale and stuffing a demon into it), and blasting with cattle mutilation.
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May 29, 2017 00:25
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