part one - introducing the datasphere
part two - entering the datasphere 2a) datasphere access cyphers and artifacts
part three - translation into the datasphere
part four - places in the datasphere 4a1) the Avaloria Rex 4a2) Dangers of Avaloria
part five - adventuring in the datasphere
part six - exiting the datasphere
It feels a little cheap to just post a set of navigation links/table of contents... but sometimes that's what you've got. I'm pretty sure on average I'm still churning out more pages of free material than the spirits of capitalism could conscience.
There are a few concrete pieces of this whole exercise that I wanted to talk about but don't have a clear relationship to any of the individual sections. Basically, it comes down to the difficulty of simulating cyberspace/the datasphere/the matrix (a la shadowrun, not the Matrix movie). Without getting into a technical discussion about the way networks function, suffice to say that traveling from node to node and place to place inside a network is wildly unrealistic. It's the way people understand the internet generally, because that's how the physical world works and that's how we've shown and explained networks so much it's what everyone thinks of. Movies like the Matrix (which are excusable in that it's a computer system designed to be interacted with like the physical world) and Tron (which has no such excuse) simply exacerbate this by sinking it into popular culture. One problem is that it's really, really wrong. But, the bigger problem from a game standpoint is that most of the ways to do it are really boring. Mostly, this comes down to one player waiting for an entire game (or games) for their one time to shine while everyone else plays, then they shine while everyone else waits. One of the best known offenders was some of the older Shadowrun systems (I haven't had a chance to look at the newer versions, but rumor has it they've improved significantly).
So, I made a conscious choice with my approach to the datasphere which, ultimately, led me to dragooning the entire Strange game into service. That decisions was to embrace exploration of the datasphere as a fully-immersive function of the technomancy of Numenera than a strictly skill-based endeavor. While I left getting into the datasphere as based on the skills of a "hacker," and will probably at some point build more ways for hacker-types to "skim" the datasphere without diving in, making an adventure through the datasphere this immersive lets the entire party engage rather than the single player. It does keep the onus on the GM to ensure that a hacker-type is engaged throughout an adventure rather than relying on them shining for a few brief moments to be satisfied... which is probably for the best.
Y'know, I feel like there was more I wanted to talk about here, but I've got to get better at taking notes...
part two - entering the datasphere 2a) datasphere access cyphers and artifacts
part three - translation into the datasphere
part four - places in the datasphere 4a1) the Avaloria Rex 4a2) Dangers of Avaloria
part five - adventuring in the datasphere
part six - exiting the datasphere
~~*~~
There are a few concrete pieces of this whole exercise that I wanted to talk about but don't have a clear relationship to any of the individual sections. Basically, it comes down to the difficulty of simulating cyberspace/the datasphere/the matrix (a la shadowrun, not the Matrix movie). Without getting into a technical discussion about the way networks function, suffice to say that traveling from node to node and place to place inside a network is wildly unrealistic. It's the way people understand the internet generally, because that's how the physical world works and that's how we've shown and explained networks so much it's what everyone thinks of. Movies like the Matrix (which are excusable in that it's a computer system designed to be interacted with like the physical world) and Tron (which has no such excuse) simply exacerbate this by sinking it into popular culture. One problem is that it's really, really wrong. But, the bigger problem from a game standpoint is that most of the ways to do it are really boring. Mostly, this comes down to one player waiting for an entire game (or games) for their one time to shine while everyone else plays, then they shine while everyone else waits. One of the best known offenders was some of the older Shadowrun systems (I haven't had a chance to look at the newer versions, but rumor has it they've improved significantly).
So, I made a conscious choice with my approach to the datasphere which, ultimately, led me to dragooning the entire Strange game into service. That decisions was to embrace exploration of the datasphere as a fully-immersive function of the technomancy of Numenera than a strictly skill-based endeavor. While I left getting into the datasphere as based on the skills of a "hacker," and will probably at some point build more ways for hacker-types to "skim" the datasphere without diving in, making an adventure through the datasphere this immersive lets the entire party engage rather than the single player. It does keep the onus on the GM to ensure that a hacker-type is engaged throughout an adventure rather than relying on them shining for a few brief moments to be satisfied... which is probably for the best.
Y'know, I feel like there was more I wanted to talk about here, but I've got to get better at taking notes...
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