Musings on RPGs and "The Matrix"
Sea Wasp
point nagged at me which is applicable to RPGs. I call it the Stephen
Donaldson Syndrome: your protagonist tends to be much less intelligent
and imaginative than your audience is.
In RPG terms, The Matrix as a scenario would've lasted only about one
session, rather than being what amounted to a short campaign. Just as in
Donaldson's two Covenant trilogies or his Mordant's Need dualogy, the
introduction of an imaginative and determined protagonist would have
ended The Matrix rather prematurely.
As GMs, we have to deal with players who are resourceful, educated, and
experienced in the ways of the games. While more enjoyable, this is a
far more difficult task than dealing with rules lawyers, munchkins, and
cheaters; all these three can be dealt with in a straighforward manner.
A good and resourceful player, however, isn't a "problem" per se, but a
challenge that requires all our skills to master.
This is especially important to keep in mind when doing an adaptation
of a book or series or movie to an RPG (system or merely
scenario/sourcebook). Certainly the protagonists in a story have one
major advantage; they WILL succeed if the author wants them to, no
matter how improbable the odds. But it's also equally true that the
adversaries can be as stupid as can be and still be a challenge to our
heroes... if the author wants them to be. We, as GMs, can't make our
players stupid. So when translating something into an RPG scenario, one
must make a number of modifications to deal with this kind of
contingency.
Just a few random thoughts...
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Mark Threlfall
Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote in message
news:37F6A5...@wizvax.net...
> Just saw The Matrix for the first time. Pretty good flick. However, one
> point nagged at me which is applicable to RPGs. I call it the Stephen
> Donaldson Syndrome: your protagonist tends to be much less intelligent
> and imaginative than your audience is.
> In RPG terms, The Matrix as a scenario would've lasted only about one
> session, rather than being what amounted to a short campaign.
> experienced in the ways of the games.
> of a book or series or movie to an RPG (system or merely
> scenario/sourcebook). Certainly the protagonists in a story have one
> major advantage; they WILL succeed if the author wants them to, no
Two things first, I both agree and disagree that a character with
imagination (or player) could have succeded in The Matrix quickley.
I agree because I worked out quickley all you had to do was disbelieve the
illusion to be able to become "The One", and therefore realise you were able
to manipulate the world to your own advantage. However knowing that and
being able to do that is not hard, go ahead disbelieve in gravity why dont
you, and then put yourself into the Matrix. Fine someone is telling you it
is not real, but your own instincts tell you it is! That is why it's not
easy. However as a storyline it makes for a session or two as a problem to
solve.
Secondly the Matrix as a concept lends itseld for something to be added to a
science fiction game or a cyberpunk game, which I am planning on doing
myself, rather than use programs netrunners have to learn to manipulate the
imposed "reality" of the system to be able to hack and what have you.
Just some of my own random thoughts!
mst
Sea Wasp
> > point nagged at me which is applicable to RPGs. I call it the Stephen
> > Donaldson Syndrome: your protagonist tends to be much less intelligent
> > and imaginative than your audience is.
> > In RPG terms, The Matrix as a scenario would've lasted only about one
> > session, rather than being what amounted to a short campaign.
> > As GMs, we have to deal with players who are resourceful, educated, and
> > experienced in the ways of the games.
> > This is especially important to keep in mind when doing an adaptation
> > of a book or series or movie to an RPG (system or merely
> > scenario/sourcebook). Certainly the protagonists in a story have one
> > major advantage; they WILL succeed if the author wants them to, no
> > matter how improbable the odds. > --
>
> Two things first, I both agree and disagree that a character with
> imagination (or player) could have succeded in The Matrix quickley.
>
> I agree because I worked out quickley all you had to do was disbelieve the
> illusion to be able to become "The One", and therefore realise you were able
> to manipulate the world to your own advantage. However knowing that and
> being able to do that is not hard, go ahead disbelieve in gravity why dont
> you, and then put yourself into the Matrix. Fine someone is telling you it
> is not real, but your own instincts tell you it is!
Not quite. You're told, AND SHOWN, that the Matrix is nothing more than
one of those dreams that you find very realistic. I've been able to
control my dreams since I was five (I had a sequence of repeating
nightmares that pissed me off, so I told myself every night before going
to bed that these were MY dreams and what happened in them was under MY
control), so by itself that would have been enough.
However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T. And if
you can, why the hell are you limiting yourself the way they did? I'd
have turned into Superman. Or, actually, Son Goku.
> Secondly the Matrix as a concept lends itseld for something to be added to a
> science fiction game or a cyberpunk game, which I am planning on doing
> myself, rather than use programs netrunners have to learn to manipulate the
> imposed "reality" of the system to be able to hack and what have you.
This is one of the points I was making, though. In order to keep your
much more imaginative players down, you'll have to invent a set of
mechanics that limits what they can do, and how often, or they'll walk
all over their opposition. The machines, having made the rules, seemed
actually more constrained by them. Yes, they were faster, stronger, and
tougher, but the Agents weren't completely superhuman. They couldn't
either dodge or withstand a chain gun's thousands of rounds, while any
decent superhero or anime psionic would barely notice such a thing.
Perhaps, having laid down the rules, and being still more inorganic
machine than organic, they were less able to think beyond the rules.
back...@my-deja.com
sea...@wizvax.net wrote:
> Mark Threlfall wrote:
> >
> > Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote in message
> > news:37F6A5...@wizvax.net..
> >
> > Two things first, I both agree and disagree that a character with
> > imagination (or player) could have succeded in The Matrix quickley.
> >
> > I agree because I worked out quickley all you had to do was disbelieve the
> > illusion to be able to become "The One", and therefore realise you were able
> > to manipulate the world to your own advantage. However knowing that and
> > being able to do that is not hard, go ahead disbelieve in gravity why dont
> > you, and then put yourself into the Matrix. Fine someone is telling you it
> > is not real, but your own instincts tell you it is!
>
> Not quite. You're told, AND SHOWN, that the Matrix is nothing more than
> one of those dreams that you find very realistic. I've been able to
> control my dreams since I was five (I had a sequence of repeating
> nightmares that pissed me off, so I told myself every night before going
> to bed that these were MY dreams and what happened in them was under MY
> control), so by itself that would have been enough.
>
> However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
> that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
> that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
> arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
> should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
> consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
Think of it in terms of magic or the force. Suppose you know that magic
actually works and you know that others know as well - what you have to
figure out is how to overcome the consensus or rather impose YOUR view on the
consensus. You may be able easily control your own dream but a consensual
dream will have built in resistance, namely, the resistance to having YOU
control the change. Just because it is a dream does not mean that you can do
anything about it, and even if you can do something about it does not mean
that you will succeed on every occasion to effect a change. (see C&S 1 -
Basic Magic Resistance)
>
> Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
> thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
> soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T.
Again this is the difference between you own dream and a consensual dream -
you may or may not be able to change your own dream. You may be able to
change a consensual dream but still not be able to change all of it because
of the input from the other believers building the consensus with you.
I have not caught Matrix yet so I won't comment on how this would actually
apply. I have introduced players into a different environment by using the
idea that they are all part of a Virtual Reality experiment - they were
running themselves as initial characters who attended at a research lab, were
strapped into some kind of machine and injected with stuff that rendered them
unconscious - when they 'awoke' they were in a room with a window, etc.
I put them in an Victorian Fantasy world and when they were killed they woke
up in the lab. They then re-entered the 'game world.' Pretty soon they
started to do foolish and reckless things because it did not matter - the
'game' then became a contest between thier determination to leave the game
world and the game's determination to prevent them - odd coincidences began
to happen to them - a surgeon just happened to be present when they were shot
- they lived but lost a leg, etc. It pretty soon dawned on the characters
that maybe they were not going to get out.
--
Wilf K. Backhaus
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Sea Wasp
> > However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
> > that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
> > that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
> > arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
> > should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
> > consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
>
> Think of it in terms of magic or the force. Suppose you know that magic
> actually works and you know that others know as well - what you have to
> figure out is how to overcome the consensus or rather impose YOUR view on the
> consensus. You may be able easily control your own dream but a consensual
> dream will have built in resistance, namely, the resistance to having YOU
> control the change.
Unfortunately for that theory, there was no real evidence for it. "The
One" didn't learn a different technique. Other people had learned to
change the consensus reality on their own, and to be honest there was no
evidence that OTHER people believing, or not believing, had any effect.
In point of fact, the machines who DESIGNED that "reality" didn't
believe he could do it, and if ANYONE should have been a problem for him
it should've been the machine AIs that ran the whole shebang. Yet there
was no indication of this. The only restriction appeared to be his own
mind.
Guess his character never read a comic book in that reality. Perhaps
the machines had deliberately eliminated such material from the
concensus reality in order to prevent any such ideas from occurring to
people, but that would mean that they realized the possibility... which
doesn't seem likely.
back...@my-deja.com
I will reserve comment until after I have seen the Matrix - often what is
done for dramatic purposes in a film or TV series has to be smoothed out for
RPG purposes. As RPG has to support alternate versions of the same story it
tends to have slightly more background ingredients than the typical
storyline.
Dan Norder
> However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
>that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
>that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
>arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
>should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
>consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
That's what I found so stupid about the movie. Let's say you
are in a computer-controlled environment, and you know it's
just a computer simulation. How then does that logically
make you capable of breaking the rules? And even if you
knew you could break some rules, how would you know HOW
to break the rules and which rules could be broken?
I mean, when I play Myth or Myst, I know it's only a game.
That thought doesn't give me the ability to suddenly fly in the
game or try to change it like a lucid dream.
Even if the Matrix allowed "players" (captives) some ability
to change things, why would they allow you to break all the
rules? And, for crying out loud, the AIs inside should know
how to break the rules from day one, even if they weren't
capable of being too creative about it.
Stylish movie, things blow up (don't know if I could watch the
trenchcoat-wearing "heroes" slaughtering innocent security
guards in an obscene hail of gunfire that covers the floors
in bullet shells after the Columbine shootings, and I don't
normally have any problem at all with violent movies) but
the plot was just ludicrous. If they'd handled it as hacking the
system, or finding certain bugs in the programming and
exploting them creatively, okay.... but it was just a lone
captive in a phenomenally programmed prison (farm?) world,
deciding to do whatever he wants and it magically happens.
Dan "style still wins over substance, unfortunately" Norder
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> Just saw The Matrix for the first time. Pretty good flick. However, one
> point nagged at me which is applicable to RPGs. I call it the Stephen
> Donaldson Syndrome: your protagonist tends to be much less intelligent
> and imaginative than your audience is.
>
> In RPG terms, The Matrix as a scenario would've lasted only about one
> Donaldson's two Covenant trilogies or his Mordant's Need dualogy, the
> introduction of an imaginative and determined protagonist would have
> ended The Matrix rather prematurely.
>
Usually, I tend to agree with you about a lot of things, but, um, not on
this one.
What would an imaginative/intelligent character have been able to do that
would have changed the story?
If you're trying to say that he would have instantly become enlightened and
transcended the limitations of the Matrix, then I say you have a very trite
concept of enlightenment and awareness.
Having the information of how to do something isn't the same as being able
to do it. Pick an Operating System you've never used before (I'll use Mac
OS X Server as an example, but I don't know if you actually are familiar
with the Openstep programming model or not). Lets say you've never written
an Openstep program before. If I plop down the entire manual set of unix
system calls and Openstep class hierarchies in front of you, along with the
Objective C manual, would it be reasonable for people to expect you to
write a major application by the end of your first day? by the end of your
second day? (just how many days is it between the day Neo starts his
training and goes to see the Oracle? seems to me to be about a day or two
at the most ... and yet, the entire rest of the movie follows immediately
after that event)
Having the information about how to do something is not the same as being
able to do that thing. You have to digest the information, and you have to
practice using the information before you've really learned how to use it
effectively.
Let me ask you this.. did you finish Doom (or Quake, or etc) the first day
you played it? If not, then you've no reason to expect Neo to have taken
less time to accomplish beating his game (which has far stronger
consequences) on his second day.
--
John "kzin" Rudd kz...@domain.org http://www.domain.org/users/kzin
Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm
ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last. (Physics of Quarks)
-----===== Kein Mitleid Fu:r MicroSoft (www.kmfms.com) ======-----
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
Frank J. Perricone
> Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
> thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
> soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T. And if
> you can, why the hell are you limiting yourself the way they did? I'd
> have turned into Superman. Or, actually, Son Goku.
Looking at The Matrix for plot holes is like wondering if there are fish in
the sea. But I have to agree with those who say "disbelieving" is not as
easy as just doing it, despite being shown it, and not as consistent as
you'd like it to be -- it's easy to imagine that you could disbelieve in a
simple thing step by step when you have time to think about it (to, for
instance, change the shape of a city street around you) but be unable to
maintain the purity of concentration necessary to sustain that through a
tense situation (like a fight, or "The Jump") while still being alert
enough to be functional. That was about the only thing about that movie
that didn't break my suspension of disbelief.
--
* Frank J. Perricone * hawt...@sover.net * http://www.sover.net/~hawthorn
Prism: http://www.sover.net/~hawthorn/Prism/
Just because we aren't all the same doesn't mean we have nothing in common
Just because we have something in common doesn't mean we're all the same
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
Sorry about the repeated posts... was having problems with my mail server
last night.
DrFaust
>
> Unfortunately for that theory, there was no real evidence for it. "The
> One" didn't learn a different technique. Other people had learned to
> change the consensus reality on their own, and to be honest there was no
> evidence that OTHER people believing, or not believing, had any effect.
> In point of fact, the machines who DESIGNED that "reality" didn't
> believe he could do it, and if ANYONE should have been a problem for him
> it should've been the machine AIs that ran the whole shebang. Yet there
> was no indication of this. The only restriction appeared to be his own
> mind.
>
There is a distinction between "the One" and between Morpheus and the
others. They all could effect how they interacted with the environment
- running up walls, moving extremely fast, super strength, etc. "The
One" took the extra step where he was able to change the environment's
laws rather than just how he interacted with it. The notable example of
this (and perhaps the only one in the movie) was when he stopped the
bullets in mid-air. There is a difference in disbelieving what is
happening to effect you ("this is not happening... this is not
happening..") and actually *changing* what is happening. That is the
distinction that the "One" has over the others.
Cheers,
--
dRfAuSt
*******************************************************
* Due to excessive spam, a spam-blocker is in effect. *
* Eliminate '~' and 'rem' to reply *
*******************************************************
DrFaust
> That's what I found so stupid about the movie. Let's say you
> are in a computer-controlled environment, and you know it's
> just a computer simulation. How then does that logically
> make you capable of breaking the rules? And even if you
> knew you could break some rules, how would you know HOW
> to break the rules and which rules could be broken?
>
I would theorize it this way: they must be some type of interaction
between the human and the Matrix in determining the state of "reality".
Perhaps the impossible things that were done by the crew was a type of
rationalization for the fact that they were not hurt (or whatever).
Otherwise they is no real way to affect what everyone is experiencing in
the Matrix. I mean, being able to produce a computer simulated reality
for millions of people takes an ASTRONOMICAL amount of computer power!
All of this just to keep the slaves happy and occupied?? Maybe linking
the mind and the program together is a short-cut to reduce the
requirements of the system. Food for thought.
whitman
Which is most complete yet streamlined?
Frank J. Perricone
Doug Berry
<whi...@genevaonline.com> channeled Elvis who passed this on:
>Which is most complete yet streamlined?
CP2020's rules, which are spread over several books (Nomad Tribes
and Maximum Metal mostly) have always worked very well for me.
--
Douglas E. Berry grid...@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/
"We are GURPS. You will be assimilated. We will add
your distinctive setting and background to our own. |
Resistance is futile."
Sea Wasp
>
> Sea Wasp sea...@wizvax.net entered these thoughts into the Matrix:
>
> > However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
> >that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
> >that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
> >arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
> >should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
> >consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
>
> are in a computer-controlled environment, and you know it's
> just a computer simulation. How then does that logically
> make you capable of breaking the rules?
Because you are directly connected to the program. Your own behavior
and change of personality are PART of that program, and you can modify
yourself, and through your actions, other parts. Given that, it's not at
all hard to see that such a complexly interconnected program could be
affected (hacked, in essence) by someone deliberately restructuring
their perception of that reality.
> I mean, when I play Myth or Myst, I know it's only a game.
> That thought doesn't give me the ability to suddenly fly in the
> game or try to change it like a lucid dream.
Myst isn't hooked into your brain, nor does it have the capacity to
adapt to what you do, think, and believe.
Carl D Cravens
> However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
> that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
> that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
> arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
> should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
> consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
If that's the case, why'd they have to wait for Neo to show up? Why
couldn't any enlightened individual (Morpheus, et al) have done anything
Neo could do? All of them knew the nature of the Matrix and had already
proven that they could bend it to their will... but only so far. Why was
Trinity apparently amazed when Neo "moved like they [agents] do"? While
Trinity knew it *should* be possible, she couldn't overcome her own
barriers against truely believing that it was possible.
> Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
> thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
> soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T. And if
> you can, why the hell are you limiting yourself the way they did? I'd
> have turned into Superman. Or, actually, Son Goku.
Because they were operating at their limits. When Neo came fully into his
ability, he was more than Superman. But until he fully realize the extent
of what he could be capable of, his own doubt limited his ability.
The thing is, Neo wasn't shown that he could manipulate any part of
reality he wanted. He was shown, a little at a time, steps into a larger
realm. It's like jumping off a building... so I can jump off a 10'
platform and not be hurt. So I get on the roof of my house and find I can
jump from there and not be hurt. But that still has done nothing to
convince me that I can jump off of a 20-story building without harm. No
matter how much you tell me that it's possible, my ingrained knowledge of
"what is" is going to fight against the idea that it can be done.
When Neo failed the jump test, he didn't fail because he didn't know it
was possible... he failed because he didn't truely *believe*.
And unlike you, I have rarely had lucid dreams, despite doing the very
same kind of self-conditioning that you did. It's not simply as easy as
telling one's self that "it will be so".
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
It's only a hobby ... only a hobby ... only a
Sea Wasp
> Let me ask you this.. did you finish Doom (or Quake, or etc) the first day
> you played it? If not, then you've no reason to expect Neo to have taken
> less time to accomplish beating his game (which has far stronger
> consequences) on his second day.
Not comparable. Doom et al. aren't following the same rules I live by.
The Matrix DOES. I interact with the Matrix by living and thinking. The
rules of the Matrix, AS DEMONSTRATED DIRECTLY BY AT LEAST THREE
CHARACTERS (Neo, Morpheus, and... urg, I can't remember our female
lead's name...), are shifted or changed simply by belief.
Knowing that this was, as Morpheus himself put it, just a realistic
dream, AND HAVING THAT DEMONSTRATED (the martial arts sequence), I would
be able to apply the precise same ability I've always had to change my
dreams.
Sea Wasp
So I get on the roof of my house and find I can
> jump from there and not be hurt. But that still has done nothing to
> convince me that I can jump off of a 20-story building without harm. No
> matter how much you tell me that it's possible, my ingrained knowledge of
> "what is" is going to fight against the idea that it can be done.
Even if you KNOW that this is a dream? Odd.
>
> When Neo failed the jump test, he didn't fail because he didn't know it
> was possible... he failed because he didn't truely *believe*.
>
> And unlike you, I have rarely had lucid dreams, despite doing the very
> same kind of self-conditioning that you did. It's not simply as easy as
> telling one's self that "it will be so".
Hm.
I always figured anyone could do what I do, if they tried. It never
occurred to me that you COULDN'T. Your dreams, your control. Whenever I
have a notable dream and it starts to turn bad, I just change it.
Usually at that point I really take control and change it in
entertaining ways, though it depends on how bad things are going. A
dream can need just a small shift to go from REALLY BAD to good,
depending on the situation.
So if I can do this easily, maybe I'm the One. :)
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address) wrote:
>
> > Let me ask you this.. did you finish Doom (or Quake, or etc) the first day
> > you played it? If not, then you've no reason to expect Neo to have taken
> > less time to accomplish beating his game (which has far stronger
> > consequences) on his second day.
>
> Not comparable. Doom et al. aren't following the same rules I live by.
> The Matrix DOES. I interact with the Matrix by living and thinking. The
> rules of the Matrix, AS DEMONSTRATED DIRECTLY BY AT LEAST THREE
> CHARACTERS (Neo, Morpheus, and... urg, I can't remember our female
> lead's name...), are shifted or changed simply by belief.
It is comparable because the fact that you are given instructions on the
control of a mechanism (the right keys to use in Doom) doesn't instantly
make you an expert on how to use the mechanism. You have to gradually pick
up the skill of how to manipulate the environment you've been presented
with.
>
> Knowing that this was, as Morpheus himself put it, just a realistic
> dream, AND HAVING THAT DEMONSTRATED (the martial arts sequence), I would
> be able to apply the precise same ability I've always had to change my
> dreams.
>
1) I took the Dream statement as a metaphore, not a literal "it's exactly
like dreaming" statement ... there was never any indication that "dream
skill" was the same as "matrix skill".
2) dream manipulation is not a universal ability in the real world.
Afterall, there are books published about how to start doing it ... if it
were universal, no one would need a book to _learn_ how to do it, and the
books would be rather short because, as you're implying, once you start
you're an instant expert with no need of progressive instruction nor
experimentation and learning (ie. any instruction after the first
chapter).
According to what you're saying, any person should only need one short
demonstration and suddenly be a complete master of how to manipulate their
dreams in whatever they want. I don't know about your experience with the
subject, but it has never happened at all for me. Any queue/realization at
all that I'm in a dream that can be manipulated, and I immediately wake
up. And, yes, I have tried a couple different techniques (I was briefly
interested in the subject about 10 years ago). So much for the idea that
every person becomes an instant expert after one brief demonstration.
If you were given an environment that allowed you to use your "dream skill"
to manipulate the environment that doesn't mean that someone else (Neo)
would instantly be an expert when dropped into the same environment.
Afterall, you've got years of experience with manipulating your dreams and
building up "dream skill". He may have had zero "dream skill" on the day
he was awakened from the Matrix.
Wil
news:37fec94f...@news.mindspring.com...
> CP2020's rules, which are spread over several books (Nomad Tribes
> and Maximum Metal mostly) have always worked very well for me.
ACK! Sorry, but Maximum Metal was atrocious IMHO. There was no way to
modify anything...it was just pick and choose from a limited tool box. Try
Mekton Zeta/Plus (which is geared towards mecha, but works for most
vehicles) from R. Talsorian Games or, even better, the Vehicle Design System
from Jovian Chronicles by Dream Pod 9. All you need is the Jovian
Chronicles rulebook (which, besides having an awesome setting has an
integrated tactical/rpg system) and the Jovian Chronicles Companion (which
has the design system).
--
-----
"I don't currently have a personal savior. Jesus Christ is my dog's
personal savior, but I'm still taking applications."
Warp & Weft for Tribe 8: http://www2.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/
The Atomic Rumpus Room (rpgs, PikaDance, Club Metro Survivor's Homepage):
http://www.keyway.net/~sinner/
.
Terry Austin
>Mark Threlfall wrote:
>>
>> Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote in message
>> news:37F6A5...@wizvax.net..
>> > Just saw The Matrix for the first time. Pretty good flick. However, one
>> > point nagged at me which is applicable to RPGs. I call it the Stephen
>> > Donaldson Syndrome: your protagonist tends to be much less intelligent
>> > and imaginative than your audience is.
>> > In RPG terms, The Matrix as a scenario would've lasted only about one
>> > session, rather than being what amounted to a short campaign.
>> > As GMs, we have to deal with players who are resourceful, educated, and
>> > experienced in the ways of the games.
>> > This is especially important to keep in mind when doing an adaptation
>> > of a book or series or movie to an RPG (system or merely
>> > scenario/sourcebook). Certainly the protagonists in a story have one
>> > major advantage; they WILL succeed if the author wants them to, no
>> > matter how improbable the odds. > --
>>
>> Two things first, I both agree and disagree that a character with
>> imagination (or player) could have succeded in The Matrix quickley.
>>
>> I agree because I worked out quickley all you had to do was disbelieve the
>> illusion to be able to become "The One", and therefore realise you were able
>> to manipulate the world to your own advantage. However knowing that and
>> being able to do that is not hard, go ahead disbelieve in gravity why dont
>> you, and then put yourself into the Matrix. Fine someone is telling you it
>> is not real, but your own instincts tell you it is!
>
>
> Not quite. You're told, AND SHOWN, that the Matrix is nothing more than
>one of those dreams that you find very realistic. I've been able to
>control my dreams since I was five (I had a sequence of repeating
>nightmares that pissed me off, so I told myself every night before going
>to bed that these were MY dreams and what happened in them was under MY
>control), so by itself that would have been enough.
>
> However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
>that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
>that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
>arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
>should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
>consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
>
> Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
>thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
>soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T. And if
>you can, why the hell are you limiting yourself the way they did? I'd
>have turned into Superman. Or, actually, Son Goku.
I saw it this afternoon. I'm glad somebody else paid for the rental.
That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me. In this particular one, the whole
idea of "not being able to get out except at a certain virtual location" is
just plain stupid, once the Good Guys have physical control of a person's
body. There is one wire going into that person's head, and they control it,
and everything that goes through it.
If they have the ability to simulate the Matrix as well as they did, in the
movie, and they don't have the ability to intercept the signal going into
someone's head and replace it with a non-fatal one, _when they can see
what's going on for that person_, then they are idiots.
--
Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com> http://www.hyperbooks.com
"Terry's an artist and a master chemist; he can set fire to water."
--Sea Wasp, rec.arts.sf.written
Charles Frederick Goodin
>John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address) wrote:
>
>> Let me ask you this.. did you finish Doom (or Quake, or etc) the first day
>> you played it? If not, then you've no reason to expect Neo to have taken
>> less time to accomplish beating his game (which has far stronger
>> consequences) on his second day.
>
> Not comparable. Doom et al. aren't following the same rules I live by.
>The Matrix DOES. I interact with the Matrix by living and thinking. The
>rules of the Matrix, AS DEMONSTRATED DIRECTLY BY AT LEAST THREE
>CHARACTERS (Neo, Morpheus, and... urg, I can't remember our female
>lead's name...), are shifted or changed simply by belief.
>
>dream, AND HAVING THAT DEMONSTRATED (the martial arts sequence), I would
>be able to apply the precise same ability I've always had to change my
>dreams.
Not to defend the Matrix or anything (it, while looking really cool and
having a half-decent storyline, was indeed still as full of plot holes and
inconsistencies as the vast majority of movie SF), but that wouldn't
necessarily follow. Morpheus says it's just a realistic dream, but why
should we believe that? I don't know about you, but my realistic dreams
are not imposed upon me by an external source (like the "dream" people in
the Matrix were living in)...just because you can change your own dreams
at will (which is pretty darn rare, if it's even possible) doesn't mean
you would necessarily be able to change anything that comes from an
external source. Maybe that's the special thing about Neo...all he needs
to do is realize the 'rules', and he can change them.
That would be hard to implement in an RPG, though...how do you decide when
the players can do it? Roll against some PC statistic? Yuck...
--
chuk
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> I saw it this afternoon. I'm glad somebody else paid for the rental.
I agree wholeheartedly -- only I was dragged to see it *in the theatre*.
And had to pay for it. And had to listen to the rest of the audience,
almost all of whom were fooled, go on about how great it was and how
original the ideas were and how complex the story was. Blech. It may have
been the best commercial for a violent video game ever made, but how'd they
get so many people to pay *them* to see a commercial?
> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me.
Try "Strange Days" then -- you'll probably like it a lot better. It's set
in an alternate history's late 1999 and has a much more realistic VR. The
only suspension of disbelief you really need is the idea that they *can*
tape brain impulses from one person and then play them back on another.
(Actually they don't even seem to be able to artificially generate those
impulses yet, or at least, no one's doing it -- all they use is stuff taped
from another person.) It's a good movie, disturbing in places (but only
where needed) and much more determined to exploring some realistic
implications of VR. And the plot holds together remarkably well -- even if
you keep thinking about it after it's over.
Sea Wasp
> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me. In this particular one, the whole
> idea of "not being able to get out except at a certain virtual location" is
> just plain stupid, once the Good Guys have physical control of a person's
> body.
I *think* you missed a critical line in there which explains part of
that. I don't have the movie currently to check, but I think there's a
parallel in the Matrix between RL and Virtual phones. Cell phones can be
easily tapped without direct effort. Wired phones can't. Thus using a
cell phone would direct the Agents to the proper location.
Still fails the SOD, though, because once they KNEW that the AI was
aware of the hovercraft's physical location, they should've been able to
yank Neo back through that cell phone; it's not like you'd give anything
away.
As far as the "we got the wire" bit, well, yes and no. They added in
some dualist material there; your "mind" was transmitting signals back,
but it wasn't really IN your bod, otherwise all they'd have to do would
be to just pull the plug and you'd be back in the real world. We see
that that is NOT the case, so obviously that "wire" is more like a door.
Your mind goes through it, but you have to be AT the door in order to
get back. They can make that door connect through any virtual phone or
similar contact device, but you have to go back through it.
It was still a fun movie. If something can violate my SOD and somehow
still be fun to watch, it's okay with me.
You can also make it a LOT easier to swallow if you ask yourself... is
ANY of it "real"? Like Total Recall/We Can Remember..., I amused myself
by thinking that maybe we NEVER saw the Real World; the whole adventure
of the Matrix was just a VR game/simulation.
But as game material, it'd need serious tweaks to work without sending
me into fits.
Carl D Cravens
> I always figured anyone could do what I do, if they tried. It never
> occurred to me that you COULDN'T. Your dreams, your control. Whenever I
In the few dreams I recall becoming lucid, I had no control... I remember
thinking to my dream-self, "This is where <something bad> happens," but
being unable to do anything about it. Being able to control my dreams to
any extent would have been wonderful, considering how I was plagued by
nightmares every night for several years in my late pre-teen life.
> So if I can do this easily, maybe I'm the One. :)
:)
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming.
Carl D Cravens
> You can also make it a LOT easier to swallow if you ask yourself... is
> ANY of it "real"? Like Total Recall/We Can Remember..., I amused myself
> by thinking that maybe we NEVER saw the Real World; the whole adventure
> of the Matrix was just a VR game/simulation.
The Thirteenth Floor. The ending is a bit difficult to swallow, but it
was still a great movie.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
I *wish* I could remember where I parked my hard disk.
Steven Nelson
one the ability to believe that they can warp reality. For one thing,
controlling your dreams at the age of five is not the same as controlling
your waking reality in your late 20's. Remember that Morpheus said that
they usually don't pull someone out of the matrix when they are as old as
Neo was, because it's harder for them to accept that everything they knew as
reality for over 20 years is wrong. Maybe Morpheus and the post apocalyptic
world is the dream and the Matrix is reality.
For anyone who has studied Zen Buddhism and then actually practiced
meditation and Koan practice will realized that saying one thing and then
realizing one thing are two seperate stages of understanding. You can say
that "life is but a dream" all you want, but until you realize it part of
you will always doubt that this is the case.
The Matrix was hardly just a Science Fiction tale anyway, it was a tale on a
much more spiritual level, "Neo" is an anagram for "one", "Trinity", I've
heard that "Cypher" is derived from "Lucifer". I think the real tale behind
the story is a melding of Christian ideology mixed with the Zen Buddhist or
Existentialist belief that what we perceive is real is not real and that we
are prisoners until we realize this, then worked into a cyberpunk framework
of the Matrix. So nitpicking the science fiction aspect of the story is
pointless, when you should be looking at the deeper message contained
within.
It's much like the 60's British TV series "The Prisoner", at first you think
it's a story about a secret agent, but then as it gets more and more surreal
you realize that the real story is not told in plain black and white, but
hidden just out of view.
Just my 2 cents.
Steven Nelson
sdne...@advancenet.net
Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
>On Sun, 3 Oct 1999, Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>
>> I always figured anyone could do what I do, if they tried. It never
>> occurred to me that you COULDN'T. Your dreams, your control. Whenever I
>
>In the few dreams I recall becoming lucid, I had no control... I remember
>thinking to my dream-self, "This is where <something bad> happens," but
>being unable to do anything about it. Being able to control my dreams to
>any extent would have been wonderful, considering how I was plagued by
>nightmares every night for several years in my late pre-teen life.
>
>> So if I can do this easily, maybe I'm the One. :)
>
>:)
>
>--
>Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Paul King
"Steven Nelson" <sdne...@advancenet.net> wrote:
>The Matrix was hardly just a Science Fiction tale anyway, it was a tale on a
>much more spiritual level, "Neo" is an anagram for "one", "Trinity", I've
>heard that "Cypher" is derived from "Lucifer". I think the real tale behind
>the story is a melding of Christian ideology mixed with the Zen Buddhist or
>Existentialist belief that what we perceive is real is not real and that we
>are prisoners until we realize this, then worked into a cyberpunk framework
>of the Matrix. So nitpicking the science fiction aspect of the story is
>pointless, when you should be looking at the deeper message contained
>within.
I think you missed the (IMHO heavy handed) political message. If you
listened to Morpheus' speeches (and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't) the
Matrix as a metaphor for conventional society was rather obvious.
Frank T. Sronce
>
> John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address) wrote:
>
> > Let me ask you this.. did you finish Doom (or Quake, or etc) the first day
> > you played it? If not, then you've no reason to expect Neo to have taken
> > less time to accomplish beating his game (which has far stronger
> > consequences) on his second day.
>
> Not comparable. Doom et al. aren't following the same rules I live by.
> The Matrix DOES. I interact with the Matrix by living and thinking. The
> rules of the Matrix, AS DEMONSTRATED DIRECTLY BY AT LEAST THREE
> CHARACTERS (Neo, Morpheus, and... urg, I can't remember our female
> lead's name...), are shifted or changed simply by belief.
>
> Knowing that this was, as Morpheus himself put it, just a realistic
> dream, AND HAVING THAT DEMONSTRATED (the martial arts sequence), I would
> be able to apply the precise same ability I've always had to change my
> dreams.
>
>
>
> Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
> /^\
> ;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
> http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
I'd disagree with your basic premise, though. Belief (or lack thereof)
had almost nothing to do with it.
They selected their resistance fighters from people who had the knack
(psychic gift, right brain structure, whatever) of controlling the
Matrix. They identified them because those people could _sense_ that
they were in some sort of simulation, even when they hadn't seen any
evidence yet. Because of this power, they could bend the rules. This
was an incredibly useful ability, so they aggressively recruited for it,
looking for anyone who could manifest it at all. 'The One' was a guy who
was phenomenally good at that, light years ahead of everyone else. It
was just "psychic powers", basically. I mean, the oracle could see the
future- that's not something you can explain by just saying she had
learned how to control her dream-state.
So Morpheus had "The Power". Above and beyond what any of the rest of
them had. And, I'll add, while realizing that it was a simulation
seemed critical to successfully _using_ that power, his real potential
wasn't realized until the very end (admittedly in a very cliched way,
but hey- it was an action movie). Heck, it was implied that ALL of them
were capable of making 'The Jump.' But _no one_ ever managed to
maintain sufficient concentration to pull it off the first time...
So, from an RPG standpoint, you just give 'em some sort of Matrix skill
or power. And let 'em buy more points with XP. So Morpheus really DID
have to have all those adventures before he could use his full power...
he had to earn the XP to buy it with, first. :-)
Kiz
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> > You can also make it a LOT easier to swallow if you ask yourself... is
> > ANY of it "real"? Like Total Recall/We Can Remember..., I amused myself
> > by thinking that maybe we NEVER saw the Real World; the whole adventure
> > of the Matrix was just a VR game/simulation.
>
> The Thirteenth Floor. The ending is a bit difficult to swallow, but it
> was still a great movie.
I can't wait for this to come to video. I tried to see it in the theatre,
but it never came to any theatre around here, not at all, ever, anywhere.
We were calling theatres all summer. <frown>
Terry Austin
>On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 21:12:14 -0700, Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com>
>wrote:
>
>> I saw it this afternoon. I'm glad somebody else paid for the rental.
>
>I agree wholeheartedly -- only I was dragged to see it *in the theatre*.
>And had to pay for it. And had to listen to the rest of the audience,
>almost all of whom were fooled, go on about how great it was and how
>original the ideas were and how complex the story was.
People in large groups makes the concept of "lobotomy" redundant.
> Blech. It may have
>been the best commercial for a violent video game ever made, but how'd they
>get so many people to pay *them* to see a commercial?
Because Hollywood is far better at marketing than they are at making movies.
Since crap is the best they produce, and people live dull, boring lives, and
the best alternative to a crap movie is watching the cat puking up hairballs
(and that's a close call, in most cases), well, there it is.
>
>> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
>> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me.
>
>Try "Strange Days" then -- you'll probably like it a lot better. It's set
>in an alternate history's late 1999 and has a much more realistic VR. The
>only suspension of disbelief you really need is the idea that they *can*
>tape brain impulses from one person and then play them back on another.
>(Actually they don't even seem to be able to artificially generate those
>impulses yet, or at least, no one's doing it -- all they use is stuff taped
>from another person.) It's a good movie, disturbing in places (but only
>where needed) and much more determined to exploring some realistic
>implications of VR. And the plot holds together remarkably well -- even if
>you keep thinking about it after it's over.
If you die in VR, do you die?
Terry Austin
>Terry Austin wrote:
>
>
>> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
>> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me. In this particular one, the whole
>> idea of "not being able to get out except at a certain virtual location" is
>> just plain stupid, once the Good Guys have physical control of a person's
>> body.
>
> I *think* you missed a critical line in there which explains part of
>that. I don't have the movie currently to check, but I think there's a
>parallel in the Matrix between RL and Virtual phones. Cell phones can be
>easily tapped without direct effort. Wired phones can't. Thus using a
>cell phone would direct the Agents to the proper location.
Er, so? Everything in the Matrix is virtual. Period. End of discussion.
Why do they need a regular phone? Why not a banana? Why not a purple
rainbow? That's the whole *point* of VR, for cryin' out loud.
>
> Still fails the SOD, though, because once they KNEW that the AI was
>aware of the hovercraft's physical location, they should've been able to
>yank Neo back through that cell phone; it's not like you'd give anything
>away.
You're missing the point. They can simulate the Matrix. They *showed*
that, and Neo couldn't tell the difference. They don't *need* to yank him
back. They interrupt the real signal from the real Matrix, and substitute
their own, thus _completely eliminating the danger_, and pull him out five
seconds later at their leisure.
>
> As far as the "we got the wire" bit, well, yes and no. They added in
>some dualist material there; your "mind" was transmitting signals back,
>but it wasn't really IN your bod,
That's even sillier than the rest.
>otherwise all they'd have to do would
>be to just pull the plug and you'd be back in the real world.
The excuse - and that's all it is - that a real science fiction writer would
use is that sudden disconnecting would be a fatal system shock. They played
up that angle even with a controlled disconnect, with the gasping and
jumping at disconnect.
The point of "we got the wire," however, is that you can just interrupt the
dangerous real signal and substitute your own, not dangerous, signal.
Remember, they have a TV camera view of the action.
"Damn. Agent showed up. Interrupt the signal." Neo goes from facing agent
with menacing sunglasses to facing Bozo the Clown with a water pistol. And
since he knows this will happen, it's not much of a system shock.
>We see
>that that is NOT the case, so obviously that "wire" is more like a door.
>Your mind goes through it, but you have to be AT the door in order to
>get back. They can make that door connect through any virtual phone or
>similar contact device, but you have to go back through it.
Nice idea for a fantasy movie. Not science fiction, though, by any stretch
of the imagination. Same is true of every other VR movie I've ever seen.
>
> It was still a fun movie. If something can violate my SOD and somehow
>still be fun to watch, it's okay with me.
It was better than most of the drek out there, I'll grant you. But then, so
is the black filler between the commercials on TV.
>
> You can also make it a LOT easier to swallow if you ask yourself... is
>ANY of it "real"? Like Total Recall/We Can Remember..., I amused myself
>by thinking that maybe we NEVER saw the Real World; the whole adventure
>of the Matrix was just a VR game/simulation.
I was actively hoping that would turn out to be the case at the end. I was
very disappointed.
>
> But as game material, it'd need serious tweaks to work without sending
>me into fits.
That scenario would last about 30 seconds with our group. As soon as a PC
figured out what was going on, they'd probably just start killing people at
random for the experience points. There wouldn't be much other point.
Terry Austin
>Terry Austin wrote:
>>
>> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
>> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me.
>
>I went into fits of hysterical laughter when it emerged that the
>rationale for the whole thing is that humans are net sources of energy,
>and was helpless for the rest of the screening.
>
>I particularly loved the way the 'heroes' coped with the moral dilemmas
>posed by the fact that their actions in the Matrix could kill the
>innocent people in the real world, and by the fact taht their heroic
>diversions forced people out of a very comfortable state of affairs and
>into a hellish existence.
>
Unfortunately, that was about the most realistic thing about it.
OmniTechnica
>occurred to me that you COULDN'T. Your dreams, your control. Whenever I
>Usually at that point I really take control and change it in
>entertaining ways, though it depends on how bad things are going. A
>dream can need just a small shift to go from REALLY BAD to good,
>depending on the situation.
>
>
Only in your dreams ;-)
Brett Evill
>
> That movie - and pretty much all VR based movies - have some serious
> suspenstion-of-disbelief problems for me.
I went into fits of hysterical laughter when it emerged that the
rationale for the whole thing is that humans are net sources of energy,
and was helpless for the rest of the screening.
I particularly loved the way the 'heroes' coped with the moral dilemmas
posed by the fact that their actions in the Matrix could kill the
innocent people in the real world, and by the fact taht their heroic
diversions forced people out of a very comfortable state of affairs and
into a hellish existence.
Regards,
Brett Evill
Carl Perkins
You missed the point that it *isn't* a dream. You are pluged into the computer
network and there are clearly external manipulations going on, as evidenced
by the existance of the Agents and the fact that when you die frombad things
happening to you in the Matrix you die for real, but very few people die
from having a bad dream.
Presumably the people in the Matrix sleep, and when they sleep they dream.
So, OK - you'd be able to control the events in those dreams as much as
you can in your dreams now (not too surprising since you can't prove that
you are not in the Matrix right now). This is not the same as being able
to control the events when you are awake, but in the Matrix (as opposed to
being asleep, but in the Matrix).
} However, the other problem is that quite early on he'd ALREADY learned
}that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
}that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
}arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
}should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
}consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
}
} Again, it seemed to me that it shouldn't really be an incremental
}thing. Either you CAN change reality by believing it, in which case as
}soon as you do it even a little you can do it all, or you CAN'T. And if
}you can, why the hell are you limiting yourself the way they did? I'd
}have turned into Superman. Or, actually, Son Goku.
Your statements do not match what was shown in the movie. In the movie, it
is clearly an acquired skill (aparently requring some uncommon natural
ability before you can learn it). With practice, the skill improves.
Besides, Son Goku didn't learn everything overnight. I havn't seen all of
them, but what I have seen (probably about a seasons worth, starting
somewhat after the start) spanned months of real time, so actually the
Dragonball Z example is a better one than you seem to think it is. By
the end of the movie, Neo was extremely powerful and it took him a while
to get there, but a lot less time than Goku took (the advantages, I suppose,
of the technologically enhanced training that Neo was given which Goku missed
out on due to being in the wrong show).
}> Secondly the Matrix as a concept lends itseld for something to be added to a
}> science fiction game or a cyberpunk game, which I am planning on doing
}> myself, rather than use programs netrunners have to learn to manipulate the
}> imposed "reality" of the system to be able to hack and what have you.
}
} This is one of the points I was making, though. In order to keep your
}much more imaginative players down, you'll have to invent a set of
}mechanics that limits what they can do, and how often, or they'll walk
}all over their opposition. The machines, having made the rules, seemed
}actually more constrained by them. Yes, they were faster, stronger, and
}tougher, but the Agents weren't completely superhuman. They couldn't
}either dodge or withstand a chain gun's thousands of rounds, while any
}decent superhero or anime psionic would barely notice such a thing.
}Perhaps, having laid down the rules, and being still more inorganic
}machine than organic, they were less able to think beyond the rules.
}--
} Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
I don't think that it takes too much inventing, other than the details.
In the movie, there were clearly limits - presumably even for Neo there
at the end since he didn't just wave his hands and say "everybody's OK",
freeing everyone from the Matrix.
Clearly there would have to be mechanics to determine how good you are at
breaking the rules of the Matrix, and how you are doing when trying to
do so. You might try to have your character be faster, and the result
depend on the character's Matrix Manipulation skill - the better the roll,
the faster they are. Or some such mechanic.
The problem is, to the PCs get to be someone with the added natrual ability
that Neo has, ot just the ability of the other members of the group? If
the former, then sooner or later the thing will collapse as all the PCs
will eventually (and pretty quickly, based on the movie) become capable of
defeating an Agent (if they develop that level of ability before they get
killed) after which it is hard to say what they can do since the movie ended.
For purposes of a game, it might be better to restrict them to the abilities
of the other members of the group, or perhaps slightly higher - perhaps
maxing out at being equal to, or even slightly better than, a single agent
in most respects. This would make them very powerful but still, as you
pointed out, not to the extent that characters in a lot of Anime or Superhero
genre sources are. In a one on one fight, they could stand up to an Agent
(at least for a while, it looked to me that the humans still suffered from
fatigue and the Agents didn't) and have some chance of winning, killing off
that particular body (forcing the Agent to shift to someone else) or at
least beating him up enough to get a good opening to run away.
--- Carl
Carl Perkins
}> >that he could control that reality. Once you come to the realization
}> >that you CAN control things in that reality (doing super-movie martial
}> >arts when you were just a computer geek before), doing other things
}> >should come naturally. You now KNOW, not guess, that this is just a
}> >consensual dream, and that YOU can change the rules.
}>
}> are in a computer-controlled environment, and you know it's
}> just a computer simulation. How then does that logically
}> make you capable of breaking the rules?
}
} Because you are directly connected to the program. Your own behavior
}and change of personality are PART of that program, and you can modify
}yourself, and through your actions, other parts. Given that, it's not at
}all hard to see that such a complexly interconnected program could be
}affected (hacked, in essence) by someone deliberately restructuring
}their perception of that reality.
} Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
On the other hand, it is easy to see that "someone deliberately restructuring
their perception of that reality" could take a fair amount of time to do, and
that changing it a lot could take longer than changing it a little.
--- Carl
Marc
> Even if you KNOW that this is a dream? Odd.
>
Fear is irrational at times. It doesn't matter what you know, it is
what you believe that counts.
Marc
Carl D Cravens
> That scenario would last about 30 seconds with our group. As soon as a PC
> figured out what was going on, they'd probably just start killing people at
> random for the experience points. There wouldn't be much other point.
Why would they get experience points for killing random, innocent,
defenseless people?
Steven Nelson
assuming that all those people who are locked away in little cells serving
as batteries apply to that rule as well. So, I could easily see some gamers
I know (not to mention the KoDT) deciding that the best way to defeat the
machines is to deprive them of all their batteries. So if you can eliminate
the residents of the Matrix faster than the machines can replace them then
eventually the machines will not have enough energy to power them and they
are defeated. So you just go on a global killing spree and eliminate
everyone. After all, they aren't really living, are they? They are just
being deluded that they have a life, in reality they are essentially just a
brain in a vat. So if killing everyone in The Matrix would help achieve the
goal of defeating the machines then you'd think they would get experience
for it. Who'd think that you could make a serial killer the good guy after
all?
Just my 2 cents,
Steven Nelson
sdne...@advancenet.net
Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
Frank T. Sronce
>
> On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Terry Austin wrote:
>
> > That scenario would last about 30 seconds with our group. As soon as a PC
> > figured out what was going on, they'd probably just start killing people at
> > random for the experience points. There wouldn't be much other point.
>
> Why would they get experience points for killing random, innocent,
> defenseless people?
>
> --
> Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
> A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming.
Terry only plays 1st Ed AD&D. :-)
Kiz
James C. Ellis
>
> So, I could easily see some gamers
> I know (not to mention the KoDT) deciding that the best way to defeat the
> machines is to deprive them of all their batteries. So if you can eliminate
> the residents of the Matrix faster than the machines can replace them then
> eventually the machines will not have enough energy to power them and they
> are defeated. So you just go on a global killing spree and eliminate
> everyone.
Talk about your pyrrhic victories!
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> >Try "Strange Days" then -- you'll probably like it a lot better. It's set
> >in an alternate history's late 1999 and has a much more realistic VR. The
> >only suspension of disbelief you really need is the idea that they *can*
> >tape brain impulses from one person and then play them back on another.
> >(Actually they don't even seem to be able to artificially generate those
> >impulses yet, or at least, no one's doing it -- all they use is stuff taped
> >from another person.) It's a good movie, disturbing in places (but only
> >where needed) and much more determined to exploring some realistic
> >implications of VR. And the plot holds together remarkably well -- even if
> >you keep thinking about it after it's over.
>
> If you die in VR, do you die?
In Strange Days, you're just watching a recording of someone else's
experiences. Living through someone else dying doesn't kill you, but most
people find it very nasty -- emotionally and physically. (Naturally, some
people get off on it; such recordings are called "snuff clips".)
Die Killfile
>parallel in the Matrix between RL and Virtual phones. Cell phones can be
>easily tapped without direct effort. Wired phones can't. Thus using a
>cell phone would direct the Agents to the proper location.
It had more to do with jamming. ECM jams cellphones, but doesn't afect land
lines. Someone jacked in by cell phone would be dead with the signal disrupted.
It would be a quick way to kill off hundreds of outsiders in one fell swoop.
Still doesn't help with the SOD over the 'transfer of consciousness' between
the matrix and the outside.
D. Jorgensen
Alternate Realities Publications
http://world-of-barador.com
Cristalle 'Azou' Sabon
Why "Strange Days"? It seems so anemic when compared to "the original",
"Brainstorm" (SD seems to have less substance, made off for by more
violence).
Azun-"Can we go back to RP now?"-dris
--
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?114558-44 // Strange Days
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?85271-5 // Brainstorm
Carl D Cravens
> brain in a vat. So if killing everyone in The Matrix would help achieve the
> goal of defeating the machines then you'd think they would get experience
> for it. Who'd think that you could make a serial killer the good guy after
The goal isn't to defeat the machines... it's to free the human race.
Killing all of them defeats that purpose. There's no reason to defeat the
machines if the human race is dead.
Funny that they didn't have a lot of problem with killing people,
though... even to the point that saving one person (Morpheus) was more
important than all the people they killed to save him. (Of course, that's
one of those points where the movie doesn't work if they decide they can't
kill people.)
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Old beta-testers don't die, they just crash to DOS.
Steven Nelson
Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
>
>> brain in a vat. So if killing everyone in The Matrix would help achieve
the
>> goal of defeating the machines then you'd think they would get experience
>> for it. Who'd think that you could make a serial killer the good guy
after
>
>The goal isn't to defeat the machines... it's to free the human race.
>Killing all of them defeats that purpose. There's no reason to defeat the
>machines if the human race is dead.
I wholeheartedly agree with that, I was just referring to a statement that
was made many messages ago about how a gamer would have figured things out
much more quickly than Neo did and the movie would have ended after a few
minutes, I disagree with that... I think gamers would do what I was talking
about, which is to kill the entire human race off just to spite the machines
and rack up exp points...
>Funny that they didn't have a lot of problem with killing people,
>though... even to the point that saving one person (Morpheus) was more
>important than all the people they killed to save him. (Of course, that's
>one of those points where the movie doesn't work if they decide they can't
>kill people.)
Yeah, I noticed that too. All those poor security guards, all they ever did
was wake up and go to work. But then again in Hollywood, if you're wearing
a uniform, you're considered less than human and expendable.
My 2 credits...
Steven Nelson
sdne...@advancenet.net
A.F. Simpson
> Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
> >The goal isn't to defeat the machines... it's to free the human race.
> >Killing all of them defeats that purpose. There's no reason to defeat the
> >machines if the human race is dead.
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with that, I was just referring to a statement that
> was made many messages ago about how a gamer would have figured things out
> much more quickly than Neo did and the movie would have ended after a few
> minutes, I disagree with that... I think gamers would do what I was talking
> about, which is to kill the entire human race off just to spite the machines
> and rack up exp points...
OTOH, it could be a viable tactic if you knew what proportion of the
'energy sources' you had to kill off to cripple the computers. Maybe if
you could kill, to pick a random figure, half of the wired up humans you
could weaken the computer enough to take control of it. Then it becomes
a question of how many people is it right to kill to get a chance to
help the others.
If the players decide the most important goal is to destroy the computer
then all those wired up people would presumably die anyway when the life
support systems go down. They established in the film that very few
adults survive being taken out of the matrix, so either you have to
accept that all die or you have to find some way get control of the life
support systems when you destroy the computer. If that's impossible or
impractical, it becomes moot whether you kill the people in order to
destroy the computers or as a consquence of it.
There's the briefly mentioned city where the other free humans live. I
don't remember if they said how many there were, but maybe enough to
survive and breed.
> >Funny that they didn't have a lot of problem with killing people,
> >though... even to the point that saving one person (Morpheus) was more
> >important than all the people they killed to save him. (Of course, that's
> >one of those points where the movie doesn't work if they decide they can't
> >kill people.)
And to be fair, there's nothing to suggest they ever pretend to think
like that. Peaceful protest probably isn't going to get far with the
Matrix.
> Yeah, I noticed that too. All those poor security guards, all they ever did
> was wake up and go to work. But then again in Hollywood, if you're wearing
> a uniform, you're considered less than human and expendable.
Presumably from the point of view of the free humans one very talented
free human is worth a lot of brains-in-jars. Or maybe the
we-blow-stuff-up special effects people were getting restless.
They showed a definate Cyberpunk approach to the problem though, don't
you think? "Guns. Lots of guns."
> Steven Nelson
love
Anna
Sea Wasp
Steven Nelson wrote:
> Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
> >On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Steven Nelson wrote:
> >
> >> brain in a vat. So if killing everyone in The Matrix would help achieve
> the
> >> goal of defeating the machines then you'd think they would get experience
> >> for it. Who'd think that you could make a serial killer the good guy
> after
> >
> >The goal isn't to defeat the machines... it's to free the human race.
> >Killing all of them defeats that purpose. There's no reason to defeat the
> >machines if the human race is dead.
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with that, I was just referring to a statement that
> was made many messages ago about how a gamer would have figured things out
> much more quickly than Neo did and the movie would have ended after a few
> minutes, I disagree with that... I think gamers would do what I was talking
> about, which is to kill the entire human race off just to spite the machines
> and rack up exp points...
And what experiences have you had with gamers that you have such a sad
impression?
(I was the one who made the original remark, and I assure you that my
experiences with gaming are such that in a world where I had such power I'd be
playing the hero, not the psycho.)
Sea Wasp
A.F. Simpson wrote:
> Steven Nelson wrote:
> > Carl D Cravens wrote in message ...
>
> > >The goal isn't to defeat the machines... it's to free the human race.
> > >Killing all of them defeats that purpose. There's no reason to defeat the
> > >machines if the human race is dead.
> >
> > I wholeheartedly agree with that, I was just referring to a statement that
> > was made many messages ago about how a gamer would have figured things out
> > much more quickly than Neo did and the movie would have ended after a few
> > minutes, I disagree with that... I think gamers would do what I was talking
> > about, which is to kill the entire human race off just to spite the machines
> > and rack up exp points...
>
> OTOH, it could be a viable tactic if you knew what proportion of the
> 'energy sources' you had to kill off to cripple the computers.
The only question is whether they have backup systems. I suspect they do.
> > Yeah, I noticed that too. All those poor security guards, all they ever did
> > was wake up and go to work. But then again in Hollywood, if you're wearing
> > a uniform, you're considered less than human and expendable.
>
> Presumably from the point of view of the free humans one very talented
> free human is worth a lot of brains-in-jars.
There's also the very telling point that an Agent can and does manifest
through any living being that's connected to the Matrix (our Heroes were jacked
in through a pirate location, so they couldn't become Agent hosts). Thus, no
matter how much you might want to spare their lives, YOU CANNOT. Any human being
in the Matrix who sees you is an Agent waiting to manifest.
The point about life-support is an important one, and demonstrates why you
have to defeat the machines WITHIN their world rather than outside of it. If you
want to commit genocide on your own race, you can kill the machines by so doing,
but that's not a victory in most people's books. You'd have to beat the machines
without destroying the Matrix' s equipment, only slowly releasing the population.
> Or maybe the
> we-blow-stuff-up special effects people were getting restless.
> They showed a definate Cyberpunk approach to the problem though, don't
> you think? "Guns. Lots of guns."
I'd rather have "Gundams. LOTS of Gundams."
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
Steven Nelson
Sea Wasp wrote in message <37FB7C78...@wizvax.net>...
>
>Steven Nelson wrote:
>> I wholeheartedly agree with that, I was just referring to a statement
that
>> was made many messages ago about how a gamer would have figured things
out
>> much more quickly than Neo did and the movie would have ended after a few
>> minutes, I disagree with that... I think gamers would do what I was
talking
>> about, which is to kill the entire human race off just to spite the
machines
>> and rack up exp points...
>
>impression?
>
> (I was the one who made the original remark, and I assure you that my
>experiences with gaming are such that in a world where I had such power I'd
be
>playing the hero, not the psycho.)
I made that comment somewhat tongue in cheek. I also in a previus message
referenced KoDT (Knights of the Dinner Table) a comic book where the group
of gamers frequently resorts to violence to solve problems. Not all gamers
are like this, in fact I would say it was probably only about a third or
less of the gamer population that I know of and have met. I have been lucky
to get into a gaming group where we usually take a very thoughtful approach,
in fact we've been criticized of taking a PAINSTAKINGLY thoughful approach,
to a fault. Perhaps it would do us well to have an adventure where time is
of the essence and action is necesary. However, there are certain
adventures that are known as PC killers and we have survived the three of
these that we've played largely or completely intact, though in one
occurence the objective of the mission eluded us. One in particular is the
Deadlands adventure "Night Train" by John Goff. It's earned the nickname
"PC Death Train" from a lot of GM's who have run it as if the characters
just go in guns a blazing they are likely to be slaughtered. Since such
adventures get a reputation for that I think it's fair to say that there is
a sizeable portion of the gamer community that is hack and slash.
I have listened in on and been a member of some groups where every third guy
is a dark elf assassin worshipper of some evil god and will in the first
three sessions of gameplay inevitably try to kill another party member. I
have seen characters in gaming sessions of various different genres lay into
the innocent bystanders just to accomplish the game objectives. Not that
I'm trying to make some big morality statement here, a game is just a game.
And I think it's because a lot of players realize that and don't take it too
seriously that they will propose such extremist solutions to the challenge
in the game. Even the group that I'm in will occassionally joke by saying
"what's the population of this town? 57? I have that many bullets..." or
someone will start shouting "Black Ops! Black Ops!" in homage to the KoDT
story where they kill everyone in the town in order to not leave any
witnesses behind.
Anyway, my original comments were not intended to be so serious, I was just
making a snide comment, unfortunately due to the nature of written text it's
hard to sense or project inflection. And don't worry, I assure you that
my experiences with real life are such that in a world where I had such
power I'd be playing the hero, not the psycho either.
My 2 cents (with humor and good will)
Steven Nelson
sdne...@advancenet.net
John R. Snead
: The point about life-support is an important one, and demonstrates
: why you have to defeat the machines WITHIN their world rather than outside
: of it. If you want to commit genocide on your own race, you can kill the
: machines by so doing, but that's not a victory in most people's books.
: You'd have to beat the machines without destroying the Matrix' s
: equipment, only slowly releasing the population.
Yep, when looked at with even a bit of care freeing humanity has little
to do with actually freeing them from the matrix. Most adult humans (my
impression was easily 90%) can't handle leaving the matrix + the world is
seriously trashed, so I doubt that it would be possible to supply
billions of people with food, housing and similar necessities. Also, it
clearly took several days of intense effort, combined with a wealth of
high tech equipment to get Neo able to function in the real world. I
doubt this could be duplicated on a mass scale.
Basically, if humans gain control of the matrix, freeing humanity from it
would become a multi-generation process where young talented people are
recruited from the matrix to enter the real world to both help recruit
more people and to help find some way to restore the Earth to a more
habitable condition. I would also imagine some people would live inside
the matrix and teleoperate robots on the real world to help with
terraforming and similar tasks. It might well turn out that in several
100 years humanity would consist of two groups, some living in, and some
living outside of the matrix (with contact and even some "travel" between
the two groups).
I've heard they are planning a sequel, and I'm hoping that these issues
are addressed in it, rather than someone finding a way to free everyone
one at once and instantly retore the Earth to a green and sunny paradise
(which is a far too common Hollywood crap style answer).
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
Frank T. Sronce
>
> I've heard they are planning a sequel, and I'm hoping that these issues
> are addressed in it, rather than someone finding a way to free everyone
> one at once and instantly retore the Earth to a green and sunny paradise
> (which is a far too common Hollywood crap style answer).
>
> -John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
I'd be interested to see whether they include any sympathetic AI
characters. The ones in the movie demonstrated that they HAD
personalities, it's just that the ones we see depicted weren't very
nice... :-)
Kiz
James C. Ellis
>
[re: the _Matrix_ sequels]
> I'd be interested to see whether they include any sympathetic AI
> characters. The ones in the movie demonstrated that they HAD
> personalities, it's just that the ones we see depicted weren't very
> nice... :-)
Assuming that the Oracle wasn't an AI... <wink>
Frank T. Sronce
>
> Frank T. Sronce wrote:
> >
> [re: the _Matrix_ sequels]
>
> > I'd be interested to see whether they include any sympathetic AI
> > characters. The ones in the movie demonstrated that they HAD
> > personalities, it's just that the ones we see depicted weren't very
> > nice... :-)
>
> Assuming that the Oracle wasn't an AI... <wink>
>
> Biff
>
Hm. That certainly would be an interesting plot twist, but it still
wouldn't explain her precognitive powers unless you figured that she was
a _psychic_ AI. Hm. Come to think of it, I played one of those in a
PsiberChamps game... :-)
Kiz
-and that character ALSO wasn't very nice. :-)
Frank J. Perricone
<azun...@thepentagon.com> wrote:
> Why "Strange Days"? It seems so anemic when compared to "the original",
> "Brainstorm" (SD seems to have less substance, made off for by more
> violence).
That's funny, I found it the other way around. To me, Brainstorm was a
premise established clumsily in the first twenty minutes (almost all by
someone with Exposition written all over him, patiently explaining
everything to someone else while we watched); a special-effects sequence
payoff that was basically just what you brought to it and no more; and a
little more than an hour of filler in between in which nothing really
happens. It managed to explore only the most obvious commercial
applications plus one almost-metaphysical one, and didn't address at all
the question of what impact this could have on society, since it never got
into the hands of society.
Strange Days had more plot in an average fifteen minutes than all of
Brainstorm, covered all the same questions and a lot more, handled a lot
more of the exposition by simply doing things instead of standing around
telling you things (the "sales pitch to a nervous businessman" scene, the
only obvious exception, is a half-hour into the movie), and did it without
the use of showy psychedelic special effects sequences that were gee-whiz
for a few minutes, but on re-viewing, are essentially empty.
More violence -- that I have to grant you, but only because Brainstorm had
practically none. When it was all said and done, Strange Days had
considerably less than most action movies, and none of it seemed gratuitous
to me.
But less substance? That, I just can't see, on any level. At the end of
Brainstorm, I feel a need to breathe a sigh of relief and look for
something else to do. At the end of Strange Days, I just want to sit there
for a few seconds and recover, then say, "That was *only* two hours?"
Heck, "The Matrix" had more substance than Brainstorm. Okay, okay, I'm
just kidding about that. <grin>
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> Yep, when looked at with even a bit of care freeing humanity has little
> to do with actually freeing them from the matrix. Most adult humans (my
> impression was easily 90%) can't handle leaving the matrix + the world is
> seriously trashed, so I doubt that it would be possible to supply
> billions of people with food, housing and similar necessities.
This line of reasoning comes dangerously close to realizing that the
machines can't provide billions of people with those things, either, which
leads as many things back to the most glaringly obvious of The Matrix's
many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it). It
doesn't take a science genius to realize you'd get more energy by just
burning all the humans right off, to say nothing of just putting some solar
receptors on mountaintops or in orbit.
Sea Wasp
Frank T. Sronce wrote:
> "John R. Snead" wrote:
> >
> > I've heard they are planning a sequel, and I'm hoping that these issues
> > are addressed in it, rather than someone finding a way to free everyone
> > one at once and instantly retore the Earth to a green and sunny paradise
> > (which is a far too common Hollywood crap style answer).
> >
> > -John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
>
> I'd be interested to see whether they include any sympathetic AI
> characters. The ones in the movie demonstrated that they HAD
> personalities, it's just that the ones we see depicted weren't very
> nice... :-)
>
I'd contend that they'd HAVE to.
If we succeed in winning that war, it would only be though (A) beating
the hostile AIs, and (B) getting some number of AIs willing to stop the war
and work WITH us so that both the biological and the inanimate intelligences
could live together. We'd need their technology and tools to both rebuild the
world and help find places for what would relatively soon be millions of
people.
We could dream of such a sequel, in which we get to have plenty of
spectacular cool combats against the Bad Machines, but which also has a lot
of neat, tension-ridden negotiation and slow trust between humans and the
more reasonable AIs. Finally ending, perhaps, when the eternal storm over
most of the earth is broken by some jointly-designed program. No, it's not a
green paradise yet, but we see the (literal) ray of hope shining down from
the sky.
Sea Wasp
glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au wrote:
> In rec.games.frp.advocacy Frank J. Perricone <hawt...@sover.net> wrote:
>
> : This line of reasoning comes dangerously close to realizing that the
> : machines can't provide billions of people with those things, either, which
> : leads as many things back to the most glaringly obvious of The Matrix's
> : many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
> : source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it). It
> : doesn't take a science genius to realize you'd get more energy by just
> : burning all the humans right off, to say nothing of just putting some solar
> : receptors on mountaintops or in orbit.
>
> I always felt that the machines used the humans as energy sources because
> they could. Not because it was efficient, but just because they wanted
> too. It's the only thing that makes sense anwyay.
>
Yep. Since they made it quite clear that the AIs had emotions, I think the
only reasonable explanation for it is revenge/hatred. The AIs who designed the
thing rationalized it away, but in actuality it was just for the sake of
personal hostility. That's also why their initial attempt to make a "perfect
world" failed. Subconsciously they WANTED it to fail, so somewhere buried in the
code was a flaw in that perfect version of the matrix.
glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au
: This line of reasoning comes dangerously close to realizing that the
: machines can't provide billions of people with those things, either, which
: leads as many things back to the most glaringly obvious of The Matrix's
: many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
: source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it). It
: doesn't take a science genius to realize you'd get more energy by just
: burning all the humans right off, to say nothing of just putting some solar
: receptors on mountaintops or in orbit.
I always felt that the machines used the humans as energy sources because
they could. Not because it was efficient, but just because they wanted
too. It's the only thing that makes sense anwyay.
--
"I need a missile weapon. Preferably nuclear" - Kasin the paladin
Glenn Butcher
glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au
John R. Snead
: wrote:
:> Yep, when looked at with even a bit of care freeing humanity has little
:> to do with actually freeing them from the matrix. Most adult humans (my
:> impression was easily 90%) can't handle leaving the matrix + the world is
:> seriously trashed, so I doubt that it would be possible to supply
:> billions of people with food, housing and similar necessities.
: This line of reasoning comes dangerously close to realizing that the
: machines can't provide billions of people with those things, either, which
: leads as many things back to the most glaringly obvious of The Matrix's
: many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
: source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it). It
: doesn't take a science genius to realize you'd get more energy by just
: burning all the humans right off, to say nothing of just putting some solar
: receptors on mountaintops or in orbit.
When I think about it I just retcon that obviously impossible explanation
into one which says that the machines need to use the processor power in
human brains to augment their partial destroyed (in the war) hardware.
That would also explain why they need the humans to think and be jacked
in, and aren't using vatted rats instead. The only thing we have over a
similar mass of rats is more processing power.
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
Frank J. Perricone
> I always felt that the machines used the humans as energy sources because
> they could. Not because it was efficient, but just because they wanted
> too. It's the only thing that makes sense anwyay.
I don't claim to think like an AI, but creating a tremendous machine big
enough to hold millions or billions of people just to put them into a
realistic simulation seems like a much weaker revenge than simply killing
them all in any way you choose, torturing them, putting them into a "hell"
simulation, etc.
Plus, we're not just talking inefficient, we're talking downright absurd.
The waste body heat a person radiates comes directly from their food. A
person eats about 1/100th their body weight per day in order to produce
that energy. So on the first day they have to kill 1% of the people in
order to feed the rest, and so on, even if the humans never defecate or
they can recover 100% of the defecation. I don't want to calculate the
compounding factor here, but clearly by 100 days into this program they're
going to have only a handful of people left. How long do you think it
would take to build this huge network of body pods and the associated food
and waste cabling and pipes? And how much of that paltry energy drained
off is needed to put back into the system to operate it, to give the humans
enough light and warmth to survive, to gather the minerals and vitamins
that aren't coming out of the humans in a form digestible by humans but
which are required, etc.? They can't be making anything off this, and if
they want it to last more than a few months, they will have to be putting a
huge amount of energy into it.
Cristalle 'Azou' Sabon
> I've heard they are planning a sequel
Keanu signed for two more Matrices, unless I'm *very* mistaken.
> (which is a far too common Hollywood crap style answer).
Hollywood usually lets the "Good Guys" win, which in this case
obviously would be the machines, giving people MUSH, er, Matrix for
free, free access to that net as well, take on the burdensome task of
GameMastering etc. -- as compared to the "Bad Guys", Neo and his crowd,
who want to steal your net access, put you in the hell and boredom of
the real world, and generally deprive you of beauty, vocation, etc.
Considering all that, I think it would be fair to say that even in
a setting with "Enlightened Ones", you'd have vast portions of the
mob against the cyber-terrorists, perchance coveting their ability
to manipulate the Matrix, but not embracing the idea of being "freed."
Azundris
--
"Good vs Evil, sugar!"
Cristalle 'Azou' Sabon
> many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
> source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it).
I don't think it was established that they used *only* the dead
to feed the living. I think they used the dead *amongst other things*,
and Morpheus only mentioned the dead because (speculation) either
it was the only thing he'd seen, and/or only this bit got to him,
as feeding the dead to the living would violate taboos, while feeding
them something else would not.
Azundris
red
> Yeah, I noticed that too. All those poor security guards, all they ever did
> was wake up and go to work. But then again in Hollywood, if you're wearing
> a uniform, you're considered less than human and expendable.
Got up my nose too.
red
> There's also the very telling point that an Agent can and does manifest
> through any living being that's connected to the Matrix (our Heroes were jacked
> in through a pirate location, so they couldn't become Agent hosts). Thus, no
> matter how much you might want to spare their lives, YOU CANNOT. Any human being
> in the Matrix who sees you is an Agent waiting to manifest.
>
This is true, but they could have had the decency to agonise a bit.
They adopted what was basically a "kill them all and let god sort them
out" approach.
red
> When I think about it I just retcon that obviously impossible explanation
> into one which says that the machines need to use the processor power in
> human brains to augment their partial destroyed (in the war) hardware.
> That would also explain why they need the humans to think and be jacked
> in, and aren't using vatted rats instead. The only thing we have over a
> similar mass of rats is more processing power.
>
Nice one. I have heard a rumour there are two sequels in the pipeline,
which may explore the holes. Anyone elkse hear that?
Carl D Cravens
> When I think about it I just retcon that obviously impossible explanation
> into one which says that the machines need to use the processor power in
> human brains to augment their partial destroyed (in the war) hardware.
> That would also explain why they need the humans to think and be jacked
> in, and aren't using vatted rats instead. The only thing we have over a
> similar mass of rats is more processing power.
I've decided that if I try to run a Matrix RPG I'll use a "computers
entrusted with the preservation of the human race decide that the best way
to protect them is to put their bodies somewhere safe and link them into a
safe VR world" type of scenario. Which makes the PC's war for freedom
even more interesting (IMO) and also makes victory more possible... all
you have to do is to convince the AI's that their way is wrong. :) And
the real world isn't trashed, so there's somewhere for the people to go if
you can free them.
Though in the universe of the movie, I don't think they planned to get
everyone out of the Matrix... just to free the Matrix and the outside
world from machine control so those who were already out (or could handle
getting out) could repopulate and reclaim the Earth.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
ZenCrafters: Total enlightenment, in about an hour.
Carl D Cravens
> I don't think it was established that they used *only* the dead
> to feed the living. I think they used the dead *amongst other things*,
> and Morpheus only mentioned the dead because (speculation) either
> it was the only thing he'd seen, and/or only this bit got to him,
> as feeding the dead to the living would violate taboos, while feeding
> them something else would not.
I think the point was to emphasize the cold, unfeeling efficiency of the
machines.
Carl D Cravens
> Plus, we're not just talking inefficient, we're talking downright absurd.
> The waste body heat a person radiates comes directly from their food. A
First, they were concerned with the electrical current the body generates,
then they hand-waved away the problem by saying it's "combined with a form
of fusion" so we can't argue against it because we don't have a clue how
it works. It's magic.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
I sue you, you pay me, Lit-i-ga-tions fun, you'll see.
John R. Snead
: John R. Snead wrote:
:> When I think about it I just retcon that obviously impossible explanation
:> into one which says that the machines need to use the processor power in
:> human brains to augment their partial destroyed (in the war) hardware.
:> That would also explain why they need the humans to think and be jacked
:> in, and aren't using vatted rats instead. The only thing we have over a
:> similar mass of rats is more processing power.
:>
: Nice one.
Thank you
: I have heard a rumour there are two sequels in the pipeline,
: which may explore the holes. Anyone elkse hear that?
Yep. One easy way to fix the plot holes is the fact that Morpheus and
his crew honestly have no clue how things work. From all appearances,
they're working on scavenged knowledge and guesswork. While the "human
are used as batteries" is clearly absurd, they might not know how it
really works at all. Hopefully the sequels will use such gaps to fix the
gaping continuity holes (but this is Hollywood, so who am I really
kidding :(
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
John W. Mangrum
running the Matrix until they can eliminate Zion...
John W. Mangrum
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> > Plus, we're not just talking inefficient, we're talking downright absurd.
> > The waste body heat a person radiates comes directly from their food. A
>
> First, they were concerned with the electrical current the body generates,
> then they hand-waved away the problem by saying it's "combined with a form
> of fusion" so we can't argue against it because we don't have a clue how
> it works. It's magic.
If you're willing to suspend the law of conservation of energy, then it
works (and very probably eliminates the need for a power source at all).
Otherwise, the energy a person produces comes from food, and you can get
that energy out of the same food a lot more efficiently by burning it and
using the heat to drive a turbine.
Frank J. Perricone
<azun...@thepentagon.com> wrote:
> > many glaringly obvious plot holes, the idea of using humans as an energy
> > source (and feeding them the remains of other dead humans to do it).
>
> I don't think it was established that they used *only* the dead
> to feed the living. I think they used the dead *amongst other things*,
Again, whatever they used to feed the humans could produce a lot more
energy if you just burn it. Besides, what else are they using -- crops,
perhaps, when there's not enough sunlight to put up solar cells?
Frank J. Perricone
<b.e...@tyndale.apana.snipthis.org.au> wrote:
> I found it rather weird while I was watching the film to recognise
> Sydney streets in what, it seemed, was supposed to be an American city.
> But this was not as weird as recognising the streets and buildings in
> 'Dark City', but seeing all the traffic driving on the wrong side of the
> roads.
What city were those sequences filmed in?
Neel Krishnaswami
>
>Yep. One easy way to fix the plot holes is the fact that Morpheus and
>his crew honestly have no clue how things work. From all appearances,
>they're working on scavenged knowledge and guesswork. While the "human
>are used as batteries" is clearly absurd, they might not know how it
>really works at all. Hopefully the sequels will use such gaps to fix the
>gaping continuity holes (but this is Hollywood, so who am I really
>kidding :(
Honestly, I am surprised that anyone is even *trying* to rationalize
that movie; the world makes no sense at all. And to their credit, the
Wachowski brothers apparently don't give a damn about consistency at
all. In the "making of" thing on the DVD, one of them commented that
they plotted the movie based on the core principle that the movie was
about "robots versus kung fu."
That's why I like the movie, actually. They took the core fantasy of
superhero comics -- unbounded, unstoppable movement -- and translated
them perfectly into cinematic idioms. (Ok, so they stole liberally
from HK action flicks, but dammit they stole from the best.)
Neel
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> Frank J. Perricone wrote:
> >
> >
> > What city were those sequences filmed in?
>
>
Parts of it were filmed in Sydney, and parts of the cityscape are Sydney,
but not all of the cityscape is Sydney. They specifically altered the
images of the cityscape to make it "not any actual city". So, you can
recognize buildings from several different cities, and you may recognize
street sets from Sydney, but you can't fit it all to one particular city.
--
John "kzin" Rudd kz...@domain.org http://www.domain.org/users/kzin
Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm
ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last. (Physics of Quarks)
-----===== Kein Mitleid Fu:r MicroSoft (www.kmfms.com) ======-----
Brett Evill
>
> Hollywood usually lets the "Good Guys" win,
Tiny quibble. 'The Matrix' was not strictly a Hollywood film. It was
filmed on locations and sets in Sydney, Australia, and I understand that
most of the editing etc. was done here too. Of course, it was made by
Fox, so you could argue that it was a product of the Hollywood culture.
I found it rather weird while I was watching the film to recognise
Sydney streets in what, it seemed, was supposed to be an American city.
But this was not as weird as recognising the streets and buildings in
'Dark City', but seeing all the traffic driving on the wrong side of the
roads.
Regards,
Brett Evill
Brett Evill
>
> On Fri, 08 Oct 1999 00:34:24 +1000, Brett Evill
> <b.e...@tyndale.apana.snipthis.org.au> wrote:
>
> > Sydney streets in what, it seemed, was supposed to be an American city.
> > But this was not as weird as recognising the streets and buildings in
> > 'Dark City', but seeing all the traffic driving on the wrong side of the
> > roads.
>
Sydney. They looked mostly like the inner South: Surry Hills and
thereabouts. I distinctly recognised Eddy Avenue, and a lot of the
individual buildings looked pretty familiar.
(Fox has a studio in Sydney now, near Centennial Park on the old Royal
Agricultural Society showground. I guess I am going to have to get used
to seeing Sydney locations in films, even ones ostensibly not set in
Sydney. But I guess the people of, for example, LA and New York have
managed it.)
Regards,
Brett Evill
Ville T Vuorela
explanation for the role of humans in it. Perhaps their randomness of
their collective consciousness and reactions/instinct could be used to provide
the AIs the curiousity and innovation they need to develop further and
respond to unexpected situations...
At least it would seem more plausible to me than the idea of human batteries.
--
Yours,
Ville Vuorela/BURGER GAMES
http://home.icon.fi/~bgames
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hell, where Satan belches fire
and enormous devils break wind
both night and day
-Black Adder
Frank J. Perricone
address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
> > > What city were those sequences filmed in?
> > Sydney.
> Parts of it were filmed in Sydney, and parts of the cityscape are Sydney,
> but not all of the cityscape is Sydney. They specifically altered the
> images of the cityscape to make it "not any actual city". So, you can
> recognize buildings from several different cities, and you may recognize
> street sets from Sydney, but you can't fit it all to one particular city.
That makes sense -- it seemed you couldn't even fit it all into one time
period, which of course was part of the point. I was looking at the IMDB
record for Dark City (got me the answer to my question just after I posted
it -- wish I'd thought of that before asking) and was surprised it was
listed as 1998; I thought it was older than that.
Carl Perkins
}I liked the world of Matrix, but I wish they would have come up with a different
}explanation for the role of humans in it. Perhaps their randomness of
}their collective consciousness and reactions/instinct could be used to provide
}the AIs the curiousity and innovation they need to develop further and
}respond to unexpected situations...
}
}At least it would seem more plausible to me than the idea of human batteries.
} Ville Vuorela/BURGER GAMES
My theory: At some point someone told Morpheus (or a predecessor) that
the Matrix was powered by the humans and fusion generators. What they
missed (or that was dropped over time, before Morpheus was told) was
that "powered by" in the former case means "procesing power" and in the
latter case "everything else". I.E. a large part of the computational
power comes from the humans themselves, with the power to run the rest
of the hardware and keep the humans alive coming from the fusion power.
--- Carl
Michael T. Richter
news:37FD62...@tyndale.apana.snipthis.org.au...
> I guess I am going to have to get used to seeing Sydney locations
> in films, even ones ostensibly not set in Sydney. But I guess the
> people of, for example, LA and New York have managed it.)
Try Toronto or Vancouver. I'd venture a guess that half of the television
shows set in a supposedly American city are actually filmed in either of
these two. Highlander: The Raven leaps to mind, for example: Toronto.
X-Files until recently: Vancouver.
--
Michael T. Richter <m...@ottawa.com> http://www.igs.net/~mtr/
"get a life. its a plastic box with wires in it."
-- Nadia Mizner <nad...@onthenet.com.au> (in private correspondence)
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> On Thu, 07 Oct 1999 23:16:18 -0700, "John Rudd (yes, that's really my email
> address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
>
> > > > What city were those sequences filmed in?
>
> > > Sydney.
>
> > Parts of it were filmed in Sydney, and parts of the cityscape are Sydney,
> > but not all of the cityscape is Sydney. They specifically altered the
> > images of the cityscape to make it "not any actual city". So, you can
> > recognize buildings from several different cities, and you may recognize
> > street sets from Sydney, but you can't fit it all to one particular city.
>
> That makes sense -- it seemed you couldn't even fit it all into one time
> period, which of course was part of the point. I was looking at the IMDB
> record for Dark City (got me the answer to my question just after I posted
> it -- wish I'd thought of that before asking) and was surprised it was
> listed as 1998; I thought it was older than that.
>
OH, woops.. I thought you and Brett were talking about Sydney in "The
Matrix". My comment was about the Matrix, not about Dark City. I don't
know what city was used for Dark City... nor do I know what effects they
used to mask it.
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
>
> My theory: At some point someone told Morpheus (or a predecessor) that
> the Matrix was powered by the humans and fusion generators. What they
> missed (or that was dropped over time, before Morpheus was told) was
> that "powered by" in the former case means "procesing power" and in the
> latter case "everything else". I.E. a large part of the computational
> power comes from the humans themselves, with the power to run the rest
> of the hardware and keep the humans alive coming from the fusion power.
>
That doesn't really get you anywhere though. The purpose of "you're a
battery" was to give a reason why the machines _need_ the humans.
If you don't need them for power generation, just to be the CPU for the
Matrix, then why do you need them? The Machines don't like or even want to
be in the Matrix (according to Smith). The Matrix exists as a prison for
the humans.. so, if you need the Matrix for the humans.. and that means you
need to have the humans for something else besides the Matrix, otherwise
you can just ditch the Matrix and humans.
Now, maybe the exact form of fusion they are using requires that the atoms
being fused be in a particular molecular form that doesn't synthesize
easily. Maybe it requires a biological process to create the fusion fuel,
and humans just happen to be ideal for that.
Maybe the fusion is even a biological process itself. Afterall, there are
natural fission reactors.
Carl D Cravens
> Well, there is the dialogue mentioning that the machines are only
> running the Matrix until they can eliminate Zion...
[ In order to make the following statement, I must make a terrible
confession. I have seen The Matrix *in the theater* three times. I never
see a movie in the the theater more than once, and very often I wait for
video. This movie was just too cool to watch, regardless of the massive
flaws in the setup. ]
As I said, I saw the movie three times, and I don't recall any such
dialog. Agent Smith said that once Zion was eliminated, *it* would
be done with its job and would be allowed to leave the matrix... but I
don't recall anybody saying that the matrix would be shut down once Zion
was eliminated.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Some days it's not worth chewing through the restraints.
Peter Meilinger
: Carl Perkins wrote:
: >
: >
: > My theory: At some point someone told Morpheus (or a predecessor) that
: > the Matrix was powered by the humans and fusion generators. What they
: > missed (or that was dropped over time, before Morpheus was told) was
: > that "powered by" in the former case means "procesing power" and in the
: > latter case "everything else". I.E. a large part of the computational
: > power comes from the humans themselves, with the power to run the rest
: > of the hardware and keep the humans alive coming from the fusion power.
: >
: That doesn't really get you anywhere though. The purpose of "you're a
: battery" was to give a reason why the machines _need_ the humans.
: If you don't need them for power generation, just to be the CPU for the
: Matrix, then why do you need them? The Machines don't like or even want to
: be in the Matrix (according to Smith). The Matrix exists as a prison for
: the humans.. so, if you need the Matrix for the humans.. and that means you
: need to have the humans for something else besides the Matrix, otherwise
: you can just ditch the Matrix and humans.
The way I reconcile all the problems is to say that the computers
hate the humans so much that they use an obviously inefficient
process just because it lets them torture humanity. Otherwise,
there's absolutely no reason they'd still be on Earth. So the
sun no longer hits the Earth, so what? Machines don't need water
or air or gravity or any of the other things that keep humanity
from living full time in space.
Of course, the "torture humanity" theory would make a lot more sense
if the Matrix were set up to make people's lives lousy instead of
just like pre-Matrix life. But my rationalizations are rarely
perfect.
Pete
Frank J. Perricone
wrote:
> Try Toronto or Vancouver. I'd venture a guess that half of the television
> shows set in a supposedly American city are actually filmed in either of
> these two. Highlander: The Raven leaps to mind, for example: Toronto.
> X-Files until recently: Vancouver.
Actually it's kind of good that X-Files moved. It was getting embarassing
how many forests all looked like that one pine forest. :)
Brett Evill
>
> OH, woops.. I thought you and Brett were talking about Sydney in "The
> Matrix". My comment was about the Matrix, not about Dark City. I don't
> know what city was used for Dark City... nor do I know what effects they
> used to mask it.
But you were right nonetheless.
Many scenes in 'The Matrix' are recognisable to a Sydneysider, but the
locations tend to be further north, in the commercial hear to the City,
where the Victorian buildings have been replaced post WWII. For example,
the training sequence in which Neo is shown the capabilities of agents
looks as though it was shot in Martin Place. And the scene where Neo is
pick up in a car by the good guys was the Eddy Avenue bus terminus near
Central Station.
Regards,
Brett Evill
Robin Lim
<glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au> wrote in message
news:7tgr00$j2j$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au...
> In rec.games.frp.advocacy Frank J. Perricone <hawt...@sover.net> wrote:
>
> I always felt that the machines used the humans as energy sources because
> they could. Not because it was efficient, but just because they wanted
> too. It's the only thing that makes sense anwyay.
Shows you how people don't think alike. I always assumed they used humans
as energy sources because they needed psychic energy or something equally
esoteric.
Rob
Die Killfile
>wouldn't explain her precognitive powers unless you figured that she was
>a _psychic_ AI. Hm. Come to think of it, I played one of those in a
>PsiberChamps game... :-)
>
Bah, she merely evolved from weather forecasting software.
D. Jorgensen
Alternate Realities Publications
http://world-of-barador.com
Carl Perkins
}Carl Perkins wrote:
}>
}>
}> My theory: At some point someone told Morpheus (or a predecessor) that
}> the Matrix was powered by the humans and fusion generators. What they
}> missed (or that was dropped over time, before Morpheus was told) was
}> that "powered by" in the former case means "procesing power" and in the
}> latter case "everything else". I.E. a large part of the computational
}> power comes from the humans themselves, with the power to run the rest
}> of the hardware and keep the humans alive coming from the fusion power.
}>
}
}That doesn't really get you anywhere though. The purpose of "you're a
}battery" was to give a reason why the machines _need_ the humans.
}
}If you don't need them for power generation, just to be the CPU for the
}Matrix, then why do you need them? The Machines don't like or even want to
}be in the Matrix (according to Smith). The Matrix exists as a prison for
}the humans.. so, if you need the Matrix for the humans.. and that means you
}need to have the humans for something else besides the Matrix, otherwise
}you can just ditch the Matrix and humans.
On the other hand, perhaps the AIs need the processing power for something
else. They use some of it for the Matrix for the huamns, and the rest of
it for that something else.
--- Carl
Robin Lim
> > Shows you how people don't think alike. I always assumed they used
humans
> > as energy sources because they needed psychic energy or something
equally
> > esoteric.
>
> suggests to me that they were after good old-fashioned energy like you
> learn about in thermodynamics.
I suppose my reality filter must have blocked out that section, then :)
Rob
woodelf
my email address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
> I don't
> know what city was used for Dark City... nor do I know what effects they
> used to mask it.
um, all of them?
--
----sorry for typos; i'm switching to dvorak keyboard----
woodelf <*>
woo...@rpg.net
http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~woodelf/
I did not realize that similarity was required for the exercise of
compassion. --Delenn
Brett Evill
>
> <glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:7tgr00$j2j$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au...
> > In rec.games.frp.advocacy Frank J. Perricone <hawt...@sover.net> wrote:
> >
> > I always felt that the machines used the humans as energy sources because
> > they could. Not because it was efficient, but just because they wanted
> > too. It's the only thing that makes sense anwyay.
>
> as energy sources because they needed psychic energy or something equally
> esoteric.
They explicitly stated the power of a human in output in watts, which
suggests to me that they were after good old-fashioned energy like you
learn about in thermodynamics.
Regards,
Brett Evill
Die Killfile
>dialog. Agent Smith said that once Zion was eliminated, *it* would
>be done with its job and would be allowed to leave the matrix... but I
>don't recall anybody saying that the matrix would be shut down once Zion
>was eliminated.
Right. The agents exist to hunt down outsiders breaking into the system. Once
Zion and its 'forces' are destroyed, there won't be anymore outsiders breaking
in, hence no more need for the Matrix. The VR would keep right on chugging
along, with every human mind wired into it.
Keith W. Sears
wrote:
>>As I said, I saw the movie three times, and I don't recall any such
>>dialog. Agent Smith said that once Zion was eliminated, *it* would
>>be done with its job and would be allowed to leave the matrix... but I
>>don't recall anybody saying that the matrix would be shut down once Zion
>>was eliminated.
>
>Right. The agents exist to hunt down outsiders breaking into the system. Once
>Zion and its 'forces' are destroyed, there won't be anymore outsiders breaking
>in, hence no more need for the Matrix. The VR would keep right on chugging
>along, with every human mind wired into it.
>
I don't mean to contradict, but there is a problem with your wording
here. The Matrix IS the VR.
The Matrix is a VR network that allows all those human minds to
interact and live in a reasonable simulation of reality. The Agents
were not necessary before Zion was formed and begain invading the
Matix in order to free others. The Agents are the machines'
countermeasures against the invasion . . . sort of like sending your
own tame hackers against invaders. In this case they were machine
intelligences inserted into the Matrix environment. Naturally, they
had a numerous advantages over the human minds, allowing them to
change "reality" to keep them in line.
Smith stated that he hated being inside the Matrix, and once Zion was
destroyed he would be able to leave it. The Matix was not to be shut
dow. It still had a job to do... pacifying the human race.
Keith W. Sears
Heraldic Game Design
http://members.aol.com/heraldic