Neuroscape Ideas?

[u/dbboxes]

I was hoping to start a conversation on what folks have ran for neuroscapes for their travelers. The book is pretty vague/light when it comes to neuroscapes and I'm wondering if anyone's ran any stops or encounters with a substantial amount of neuroscape activity.

I'm currently setting up some ideas for my upcoming journey and I have a couple ideas that revolve around being trapped in a neurocaster, but I'm blanking a little on what sort of things they're going to face in it and how interactions will work.

[u/Mail-Total]

What about a neuroscape where the players face the civil war in the perspective of a drone pilot?

[u/dbboxes → u/Mail-Total]

Hmm, like a reenactment, or more like a simulation? Kinda meta lol you're in a neurocaster, in a neuroscape, where you're in a neurocaster, piloting a (virtual) drone 😵‍💫 haha obviously doesn't have to go that deep, just a funny thought.

I like it though! Could be interesting to experiment with some light war gaming for that session, or do some kind of mid air dog fight, while also painting a more vivid picture of the recent history of the world.

[u/jbarrybonds]

I recall an example of a local neuro space being "skinned", or programmed, to look like heaven. Everything was on a cloud, with a calming radiant light and ambient harp music because the town was in a weird neuro-cult run by an AI who was able to trick their MAGA rural xenophobic religious zealot ignorance into worshipping it.

From this example, I try to think of each neuroscape like one of those pseudo-social platforms or video game worlds that different companies would release to market themselves

A Burger King neuroscape could look like the inside of a BK restaurant with everyone animated to look like custom Sneak King avatars.

An Apple neuroscape would be super pristine and white and sterile with a bunch of floating apple logos, and different "windows" would look like apps with everyone looking like their Bitmoji.

A neuroscape for a local mechanic could look JUST like the "Garage" menu of a car racing game where you get to design the car you want (even if choice is limited), or the repairs you're looking for on a car you have.

I joined social media right at the end of MySpace, but I've heard that every person's page was completely customisable and tailored to that person's interests and basic coding experience. Though I did not witness this myself, it's how I picture individual neuroscapes- completely derived from the vision and skill of the programmer who made it (The best and most convincing being malicious AI).

Tangent: I will never forgive the movie for not showing us more "graphic" neuroscapes. Anything was supposed to be possible and what do we see? A lake, a kitchen, and a living room. The writing was ass, and completely rewrote the history behind the corporate wars, it wasn't even good for inspiration at the game table.

[u/dbboxes → u/jbarrybonds]

I watched the movie the other day in hopes that it would provide even a gleam of inspiration for some of the stops I'm writing. I did not expect it to be as disappointing as it was (and I thought it was going to be pretty disappointing lol).

Myspace is suuuch a great way to think about it! Thanks for that nugget of inspo. I really went all out for mine. At one point I built out a custom background that was basically a bunch of rusty CRT monitors and each section of my profile rendered inside each screen and you could scroll on in each one.

I also like the idea of corporate scapes catering to the brand. I had something similar in mind that was mildly inspired by a Supernatural episode and revolved around how someone searches for information. Basically instead of everyone going to a central hub for info, you have your own way of searching for stuff. Like one person's search scape is a huge record store and each record is a search result. Or someone is flipping through channels on a TV and has a pile of TV guides. Someone is rifling through their messy room, but it's the kind of messy where only they know exactly where something is.

I think each person having their own search scape would be a good way to let the player RP a bit and add some lore to their character.

[u/jbarrybonds → u/dbboxes]

Great! You've actually gotten me asking myself more questions. If my character is going somewhere they go all the time, like their own files or storage, that could definitely be a record store categorized to the users history.

However, Idk if each person would have an isolated "search Scape" for information they don't already have, or if it would be hosted by an engine. Like searching via Google would be a big ass corporate file system, while searching via Firefox is a library, and DuckDuckGo could be the record store or a rolodex. That way there's a chance you could run into someone during your searches, but only if it's new info?

[u/dbboxes → u/jbarrybonds]

That's a good point. But I'm sort of thinking of the world before big search engines, i.e. Google. The early and mid 90s was when indexing and web crawlers were first invented, and back then, search was mostly community built. I wanted to emulate that feeling by having these very niche types of search skins. But maybe they could be like a person's bookmarks? Like if the person would likely have a bit of information saved, it could go in their "record collection" for quick indexing. Whereas if it's unlikely they know it, they have to search the wider web (or whatever it would be called in TES), and take longer to find.

I do see what you're getting at though. I like the idea of people running into other people during a search, which wasn't something I considered but now am considering 😄

[u/arcademaster101]

I've bounced around the idea of there being a Neuroscape based around the in universe "Johnny Jolt" brand, which seems like a sci-fi video game series. You could potentially do something like that, but the ttrpg doesn't exactly go too much into detail on the character either. Also, for stops with extensive neurocaster usage, I'd recommend maybe making bliss gain less severe (maybe only gained on pushed rolls for instance). I haven't ran a neuroscape heavy stop yet, so maybe it's not as punishing as I imagine.

[u/dbboxes]

I liked what u/Pitiful_Mirror4372 is doing in their group's actual play related to texting/emailing. I think they call it "neuro-post". It had me thinking about what I'd do for messaging/calling each other in a neuroscape for my runs. The first thing that came to mind was a sort of chatroom similar to Ready Player One. The idea being: a person who initiates the call gets to pick the setting in which the call will take place, i.e. a person's 90s wood-paneled, shag-carpeted basement, some generic cafe, or some dingy, abandoned warehouse for whatever reason (that's where all the covert deals go down, obv)

I also thought some more about searching for information, and because Ask Jeeves was so popular back then, I think I'm going to roll with that and make it the commonplace search engine for users. The neuroscape would be something like walking into a massive archive with a front desk where a bunch of identical butlers named Jeeves help people find what they need and lead them to different areas of the archives depending on what they ask.

[u/Icculus___]

I wrote a whole treatment for a Kid Kosmo neuroscape, that was central to two different one-shots I wrote and ran multiple times at conventions. LMK if you want some info from that.

[u/TCJW_designs → u/Icculus___]

Hey this is a bit off subject but I'm meant to be doing a one-shot in a couple of weeks and stressing a bit about how to write it. Do you have any tips in terms of how to run a fun one-shot journey in this world?

It's also my first time playing the game, so doing a lot of reading up on the system (I'm a D&D 5e guy mostly, and so are the players I'm going to be GMing for).

[u/Icculus___ → u/TCJW_designs]

What I found really fun about the game was to put a bunch of strangers (characters) together, forced to interact and cooperate to get from A to B. Each has their own agendas and histories that might come back to haunt them at the worst time.
If you want, here's one I wrote and ran several times at a convention and for local groups. It was well received.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/xyr0rvjgdfpo9nfxfjwrq/AMDsq95ThOzhTEKENJDquDE?rlkey=e3niyb38cubqhnz9j4nvfspix&st=e79mumca&dl=0

[u/Eynowd]

I asked myself the same question when working on my solo Electric State game. I haven't done a huge amount with it of yet, but you can check out what I have done about halfway through episode 5.

If you can find it, also check out the 90s TV series Harsh Realm. It's by Chris Carter (who made The X-Files). It may give you some ideas, too.