Gameplay rules (read second)
This game uses a heavily modified version of the D20 Modern rules, but all of the game system will be run in the background. Also, because combat isn't the main focus of the game but still takes forever in PbP, I will usually automate it, so make sure I know what you want to do in a fight when it starts, please.
Anyways, on to the more specific rules.
1. This game is designed to blur the lines somewhat between game and metagame, and it's also designed to allow for adversarial character relations, but please still be polite and friendly out of game. This is the most important rule :)
2. The players take on the role of four mentally ill people (possibly later five, depending) dropped into a situation with no idea who they are or how they got there. They have no idea how they know they have objectives, they don't necessarily know how to accomplish them or what effect it would have, and they aren't under any compulsion to follow them. However, even though you don't know your character's history, their personality and actions are entirely up to you.
3. There is no metagaming in this game. I don't mean this in the sense that it's not allowed, I mean that all player characters share their thoughts at all times, as voices in one another's heads. Thus, anything written in an in-game post is considered to be mentally "heard" by every other character. The players also perceive one another's senses, so if I describe something to one player, all the others become aware of it as well.
-3a. Private messages between players will not be allowed unless they don't concern the game - it's difficult to conspire when everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts. Similarly, please don't conspire in the OOC thread, although you're otherwise welcome to talk about the game there.
-3b. There are no knowledge skills. If a player knows something, his or her character knows it. If you want your character to know about something, Google it. This subrule has three subrules of its own:
--3b1. This is still a role-playing game - you are playing a character, not yourself. Saying in character "I don't know how I know this, but there are 46 oblasts in Russia!" is appropriate. Saying "Oblasts in Russia? I dunno, let me Google it out of game and edit it into my post," is not appropriate.
--3b2. Your character is still your interface to the world for anything but knowing and reciting facts. If your character has no technical skills, copy-pasting "How to hotwire a car" and writing I do this at the end is not going to let you do it.
--3b3. I make no guarantees that this world is our own, so your knowledge of history, world affairs, etc. could prove very inaccurate.
4. All characters have a rating called Stability, which reflects a combination of their physical state (whether they're cold, hungry, in pain, etc.) and how they feel about their own mental state. I'll let you know periodically what your current stability rating is, and you can feel free to ask. Stability has an effect on how effective your actions are as well as how accurate I am as your window to the world. It goes from High Green (All's right in the world) to Low Red (Hallucinations, fainting, panic attacks, catatonia).
5. There's one significant way in which players can affect one another's stability - by reinforcing or sabotaging one another in the metagame. This is a hard one to explain, so a few examples might help.
Example 1:
Player 1
I toss the gun to Player 2. "Hey, you should take the clip out for safety."
Player 2
I take the clip out of the gun.
In this case, there's no change to stability - Player 1 made a suggestion and Player 2 followed it. However, consider this case:
Player 1
I toss the gun to Player 2. Hey, you should take the clip out for safety.
Player 2
I take the clip out of the gun.
In this case, Player 2 isn't acting on anything that was said out loud, he's acting on Player 1's voice in his head! Thus, he perceives himself as crazy and his stability goes down. (It's important to note that any variation on "I was already planning on doing that" will be ignored unless it appears in a previous post or it's blindingly obvious the player would have done it anyways.)
If multiple players confirm the voices to each other and collaborate on establishing that they're genuinely usable to convey information to each other, they can help lift one another's stability. However, other players can sabotage these efforts by pointing out the insanity of such actions. So it goes. Additionally, trying to snow everyone else with suggestions will dilute the effect of each; more than one or two per post and the other players can just ignore it as background static.
You can make in-game posts with no in-game content, just to communicate with other characters.
6. I'm the window into the world, and I don't know the knowledge base of all the players. As such, when I describe things, it's on you to ask questions. I'm not going to be a jerk about it ("You see a long, metal thing." "Is it a gun?" "You're getting warm!") but I will sometimes leave things vague. This is most important where things are so unexpected that your character won't necessarily make a connection. For example, if Abe Lincoln in modern attire appears to your group, I'll say "You see a tall, gaunt man with a beard, wearing a suit." It's on you to ask something as weird as "Wait, it's not Abraham Lincoln is it?" (As an aside, if your stability is low, I might say "Yes it is!" when it's just some dude with a beard. If your stability isn't green, don't believe that what you should be perceiving and what you're actually perceiving will line up 100% of the time. Actually, you may not want to believe that anyways.)
7. I am neither a cop nor a physicist, so we'll be using Hollywood Law and Hollywood Physics. I'll try to make clear when something genuinely out of the ordinary is going on, but you can always feel free to ask if something is working the way one would expect it to.
8. I am entirely in charge of the mental illness aspect of the game; it's inflicted from without, not within. If I describe the house you're in suddenly being engulfed in flames for no apparent reason, saying "Gah, this house can't really be on fire, I'm hallucinating!" or "Gah, this house really is on fire, I gotta get out of here!" are both perfectly fine role-playing; how you react to anything I describe is totally up to you. You are always in control of whether you believe the things I'm describing are real and how you deal with them. Even at Low Red, if you want to play a person who believes they're perfectly sane and experiencing some kind of drug overdose or something, be my guest. However, saying "I hallucinate that the house is burning down and I flee in a panic!" with no such description from me is not appropriate.
Rule 5 still applies to this rule. If Player 1 is green condition and Player 2 is red condition, I might say "Player 2 - The house is suddenly engulfed in flames!" Player 2 deciding that the house is not in flames is perfectly appropriate considering the context, but they'll still take a stability hit because they're getting that knowledge from the voices in their head. If Player 2 wants their stability to recover, they'll have to act as though the house really is on fire, or at least act appropriately when that's what all their non-crazy senses are telling them.
9. Feel free to color your statements; put them in quotes at a minimum. You may also want to bold or italicize actions you take, though it's not required. Everyone just needs to be able to tell what your character is doing/saying versus what you're conveying in the metagame.
10. Have fun! Thanks for reading.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:54, Wed 04 Mar 2015.
