I'm looking for volunteers. Life here, in the old /tg/, yeah its safe. But, I know a few of you have been experimenting with 'net manipulation. A couple of you might have some potential. So, here's an open invitation. We'll be gathering in #Servercrash, on the old sup/tg/ IRC server, and hopefully make muster and get enough folks to set out. You know the way, I'm sure. Hope to see you there, and I hope to hell we get back alive.

It died. There's no point in looting the grave. Didn't work yesterday, won't work now.

Yo /tg/, DRYH bloke here, and I've decided to run a Server Crash game. For those not familiar with the fluff, look at the archive. For rules, here's a brief summary-

Based on Don't Rest Your Head. If you're not familiar with it, the rulebook is on /rs/. In short, dicepool based system, d6's, freeform powers, crazy shit can occur. Only adaptations are Exhaustion and Madness talents. Exhaustion Talent's are, in my rulesmod, some real world skill which can be applied to the net. Sprinter? You move like a motherfucker, even through digital space. Fisherman? Find files like nobodies business. Nothing blatantly freaky, that's where Madness/Integration talents come in.

Madness, or in Server Crash speak, Integration talents are where things get really weird. This is your hacking, probing, virus controlling and other shit which really should not be possible, but is because you're a fucking badass. Its not without cost though. Integrate yourself too much, and eventually you become something horrible. Be wary, these talents carry a lot of power, and a lot of fucked up shit along with them.

Most of this can be negotiated, worked through etc. Meet in the aforementioned channel (#Servercrash on sup/tg/) for discussion, character creation and scheduling. I'm bored, and have nothing else to do, so I'll be hanging around pretty much constantly.

>>6323877

Fuck that noise. I don't particularly care if people can't get it together and finish the Tier system, however much it was liked. I just want to run a bloody game for /tg/.

I forget did we lose the whole evil dark sentient internet god who hates humanity with a passion that's controlling all the cybers and the like and all the minor internet gods that are more like demi-gods?

I applaud you for doing this, but I cannot help you with crunchy rule type stuff. I just did some of the fluff and ideas. Oh, and finding the occasional useful picture. I've still got a folder of Sever Crash art I think.

Don't give up, but you may find you get a better response after the weekend.

>>6323905
Maybe. The guy that killed it at the end when it was basically five people REALLY KILLED IT. I still harbor a lot of resentment towards that individual, especially after all the work I put in organizing everything and working on the tier system with Tierfag.

>>6323924

I don't really need crunch. I was on the original design team, and It'd take so much work to do, I'm focusing on other projects. For now, I'm just using my scratch-built DYRH rip so a game of this can actually go on online, the way it was meant to.

>>6323905

There's still a big dark intellect behind the internet, somehow mixed in with the olds, and some sites still have their "Gods", but its left vague as to what they actually are, as far as my reading of the fluff goes.

Count me in. I love this game so hard. ;-;

What of those of us who can only interface in the old-fashioned way? We were offline when it happened. Remember, someone has to keep the servers running. That's why you haven't all ceased existing.

Yeah, I'm part of a group of - we call ourselves 'survivors.' Kind of arrogant, I think.

We've got electricty and agriculture, and a few doctors. We're still trying to figure out how to manufacture, and there are coyotes in the city.

I figure they must have been drawn by the rotting carcasses of starved pets with no one to care for them. We had to burn en masse.

We were in such a hurry to restore everything, and we could only break into so many places each day.

And we've got Gangbangers, Luddies, and other sociopathic jackasses to contend with too.

>>6323940

I'm kind of in the middle of finishing an MA at the moment, as well as another RPG project, but if I can spare the time I'd gladly help. I wrote ChaosButterfly.exe, Embrace the Virus and the Story of Byron and helped out on some of the other bits and bobs. Never got onto IRC, unfortunately, so I got a bit left behind.

>>6323855
I thought of an idea for a god in this world, a few I HATE TECHNOLOGY/Campers who were out in the boondocks when the people were turned into data. Some of them are dicks and program bad programs for their followers, some of them are more benevolent, and make better weapons/shields of GOD, but require items/data for reality.

>>6323966

Holy shit I remember the Chaos Butterfly story, thought it was the best portrayal of Virus Riders ever. Fucking awesome that you're still around.

>>6323959
If memory serves, at the time of the Fall most jobs needed you hooked up on a computer. Very few survivors.

Luddites get to gloat, though. Although I've the image of the odd kid being curious and hooking up to the internet. And then being trapped there, forever.

OP of the very first thread here. Nice to see people like this thing and are willing to keep it alive after so long.

>>6323991
How many portrayals were there? I remember the Butterfly and the other one where a boy learns to be a Rider. That's about it.

>>6323991

I'm actually on almost every day. I help out with ideas and fluff whenever I can.

Thank you for your kind words. It's nice to be remembered.

You know, I always liked this setting, but it seemed a little too GRIMANDARK. So lemme suggest something.

The animu show .hack had a similar premise with dudes getting trapped in a MMO. Even during one of the seasons climax, with people getting sucked in by a rogue AI, no one died when they got killed in game, but instead they got put in a unreachable part of the server and made to think they were dead. So, when the heroes saved the day, everyone was saved.

I vote we fluff that in. Since time is so much faster than it is outside, even ingame "years" wouldnt last long. Eventually once there is an epic level "Save the world" campaign, everyone wakes up, even the ones who got "killed"

TL;DR: Make it possible to save the world, everybody lives as counter to grimdark, just make it nearly impossible.

>>6324007

There were a few others, but I can't quite remember them. They were generally cocky buggers with a devil may care attitude masking the fact that they were all going to die horribly.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:Server_Crash_Fluff

>>6323993

They might have been asleep - plenty of people work night shifts, keeping everything running.

>>6323993
Yes, but using a modern interface (by then LOOONG old) would let you log in without ENTER THE MATRIX, since the big deal is something has to power the servers.

LOL at the screenshot.
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

>>6324046
I think we also had that not all of it was a fight for survival. The closer to the "center" where the sentient internet has more control, the worse. So far out from the center life may not be too bad.

>>6324046

it's not necessarily too grimdark. The centre of the net is sprawling Lovecraftian hell from which few return, but the edges and the forts where most people live can be pretty nice. You can have grand adventures in realms of pure imagination, slightly dangerous adventures into abandoned fortresses where the rules don't always apply but it is still like the rest of the net and "Oh God everything's trying to kill me and I've just seen Godzilla being eaten by the floor" high reward quests closer to the centre.

>>6324046

Eh, I'm kinda ambivalent about this. The grimdark is part of the core of the setting, it is a dangerous world, but there's also hope- people are strong enough to make a difference. Not exactly grimdark, Nobledark might be a better fit. However, I'm a great believer in people making games work how they want, so I'll never say there isn't an option on saving everybody.

Also, I do like the idea, which has been around for some time, that in the net, time moves much faster, many many years for those inside being a few days for those outside. It allows for lots of fun interactions.

>>6324090
Didn't we make an organization that had found a way to communicate to those outside? But the time difference means they haven't got much done.

>>6324103
...This reminds me.

Y'know who we should put in? Anonbot. He's been portrayed many times. :) was my favorite.

>>6324090
Yeah, I pointed that out specifically so people couldnt say "Wouldnt they starve?". But did the the idea that help cant come from outside because any message that gets through takes forever and a day to get there.

>>6324117
... why do I see help packages as old data "burried," since from the outside its been days, for them its been years?

>>6324137
Yep, exactly.

The reason I want the "Everyone lives" ending to be possible is because of a certain piece of fluff that someone wrote. How a dude and his wife went to work through the internet, and that while they were in there, they held hands in the real world, and now because of "SERVER CRASH", he cant find her, even though they're holding hands in the real world.

Made me BAAWW a bit, but it got me thinking, everyone thinks the real worlds gone, what would happen if they got it back? Suddenly that guy who saw his friends get killed by cybers gets a happy reunion, while the dude who sabotaged his webfort for a handful of good porn clips suddenly has some VERY REAL problems.

>>6324112

There were a few stories about pure AI communities. Perhaps the digital descendant of Anonbot founded one. That or they were re purposed into town cryer types. Maybe even slightly annoying quest givers.

"What are you doing here? Come to a-talk, we have a virus infestation. dghdagh"

Werent cybers just malevolent programs that were given shape by random.jpgs, .pngs and .gifs?

>>6324303

If I recall rightly they were actively malicious and deliberately sought out bits and pieces of net debris to twist into something horrifying. What they truly were was something of a mystery.

>>6324303
Malevolent programs made by the dark internet thing. It's first attempts were generally random, the later it's creations were more terrible as it's trying to inspire fear into us, make us feel pain, suffer.

So, Cybers are evil assholes created by the Internet to torment us?
Virii are more random and beatlike, pretty much just rampaging, and can be tamed and used to our advantage?
AIs are those robotish things, originally created by humans, that can still be programmed for human use?
And Olds are the nigh-indestructible cosmic horrors, like actual Internets inside the Internet?

>>6324341
Old are military projects very much like the Internet, yes. They are pissed at being forgotten, insane.

>>6324346
ARPANET! ARPANET! ARPANET!

ASDFGHDSGHADFGHSDGHADFH

>>6324346
The Olds are the elder Gods of the internet. Only half believed in and nigh incomprehensible. All that we know is that they are angry, and near unstoppable.

>>6324212

>Come to a-talk, we have a virus infestation. dghdagh.

Suddenly that random string of letters at the end of a bot message sounds like coughing. I'm imagining the 'bot as an old, undead-looking man with a long beard, coughing as it strains to focus on the conversation.

>>6324341
ARPANET is notably dangerous.

>>6324358

Maybe the reason that the poor bugger's mind is gone is because there is no Atalk anymore. Got eaten by the viruses, cybers and/or Olds years ago. But still they wander through the net, desperately looking for aid, their coding degrading all the time as no-one cares enough to repair them.

If anybody is willing to run an online game with the hastily-adjusted DRYH rules, I'd be willing to play. Anyone up for it?

>>6324358
doesnt need to look like a zombie, could be like a rusting robot, it has a human covering, but parts of it have fallen off, one of its eyes doesnt work that well anymore, and ti cant walk to good either.
>>6324389
that can be a good starter quest, "That AIs helped us out quite a bit, it'd be nice if we could fix him"

>>6324398

Its already happening, in #ServerCrash on sup/tg/ IRC

>>6324184
I thought the consensus was that it was basically a gradient of GRIMDARK to HIGH ADVENTURE the farther from the core of the internet you got. Near the middle the evil Internet is all-present and fucking shit up, but on the rim it has little influence.

>>6324421
Anyone else joining? There's still room.

>>6324513

I'd love to, but I'm about to get dinner. Damn this frail meat!

If you don't mind providing me with simple baby-step instructions of how to get on IRC I might be able to observe later though.

Server Crash has such potential as a setting, I'd love to see what you guys could do.

So, we have the cybers, which are basically generic low level goons I guess? and these huge lovecraftian horrors screwing around in the center. What would a mid-level threat be?

>>6324740
Cybers are everything from low to high tier. Virii likewise, except they can also be tamed with varying degrees of success. AIs tend to be more advanced, much of them in human service.

>>6324740
There's also HIs, Human Intelligences. Some people take the opportunity to become raiders or airship pirates or three foot tall dinosaur wranglers hell-bent on cannibalism.

>>6324567

The game is still in mostly planning stages, nothing has started yet. If you return from your consumption of protein and nutrients, you may yet join!

As for IRC, the simply way is going onto sup/tg/, opening the chat applet, and then typing /join #Servercrash. You might want to set yourself a name too, which is just /nick [Whatever name you want goes here, without the square brackets]. There's better guides on the site I think.

Its on sup/tg/. Huh.

>>6325153

Why is that surprising?

A game of this is actually going on? Fuck yeah!

A game of this actually went all the way to the end? Fuck yeah!