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[VoidSlayer]

Looks good for now, feel free to change as needed until we begin.  We will begin less then two generations after the fall.  There will be maybe ten settlements of 50-200 souls each in the "local area" and the families may have 15-75 people.  Wer will make up the settlements but most will be rather ad-hock combinations of jury rigged what works, primitive make shift and still functional tech. 

Wooden walls protecting a life pod with still functioning life support, a tent encampment surrounding a  mobile hydroponics pod, jagged blades of space age metals strapped together into primitive spears.  So bronze age(?) with dashes of Futuristic Technology but we can figure that out.  What is lost or saved might depend on your actions!

[Skynet]

Spoiler: The Lawgivers of the Wastelands character sheet (click to show/hide)

Lawgivers

Futurologists have been multiplying like flies since the day Herman Kahn made Cassandra's profession "scientific," yet somehow not one of them has come out with the clear statement that we have wholly abandoned ourselves to the mercy of technological progress. The roles are now reversed: humanity becomes, for technology, a means, an instrument for achieving a goal unknown and unknowable.---Stanisław Lem, His Master's Voice

The Lawgivers are human sympathizers to the Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs) that governed the Ortus Vitae Novae with a firm and just hand. Since the AGIs presided over a golden age of prosperity for the human race, it was natural for humans to willingly accept the superior judgement of their AGI overlords.

But even in a utopia, malcontents still exist. The Lawgivers acted as officially-sanctioned vigliantes, attempting to peacefully find and terminate these malcontents before they could do any damage to the broader ecosystem. While the masses entertained themselves with the AGIs' bread and circuses, the Lawgivers would dispense the brutal and bloody justice necessary to keep law and order.

As the colony ship reached closer to its stated destination, the malcontents only increased in number, and in ferociousness. The Lawgivers would attempt to suppress the anti-technological riots that wracked the colony ship, but it was futile to fight against the mob. According to the Lawgivers' official records, one of the rioters broke into the power supply of the Ortus Vitae Novae and caused a severe nuclear meltdown, intentionally destroying the colony ship in the hopes of eliminating the AGI threat and "freeing humanity from the Unholy Machinery".

Though the Lawgivers' ranks were decimated by The Fall, the AGIs themselves survived. And they still exercise a profound influence on the world to this day, to the extent that many 'ignorant' humans today worship the AGIs as "gods". Now, the Lawgivers had never officially fallen prey to the temptation of 'religion' (unlike the rioters and their "Cleansing Flame" cult) and still retain some secularist and rationalist leanings (if only due to the fact that the AGIs themselves were programmed with secularist/rationalist leanings). But if the AGIs are indeed gods, then the Lawgivers are its paladins. The AGIs may have lost this first battle against the anti-technological zealots, but the Lawgivers are already preparing themselves for the next one.

Stats
Reach 0, Grasp 1, Mood -1, Tech 0
The Lawgivers were not a very diplomatic bunch, preferring instead to use violence to solve their problems.

Doctrine
Righteous Vigilantes: When you come to a scene of violence, you can ask the GM one question about the victim or the attacker.

Lifestyle
Settled: Your Family is known as the local law and your judgements in all matters are respected.

History
Surpluses: Weaponry, Leadership
Needs: Recruits, Obligation, Trade

The Lawgivers are skilled brutes. What they lack in manpower, they make up in terms of firepower and tactics. However, they are still very much 'obliged' to protect the human worshippers of AGIs...and this is causing their resources to be stretched thin. They also are very isolated from the Wastelands' economy, which may prove to be a problem in the future.

Then judge each other Family:

*Your Family’s pursuit of justice steps on toes and ruffles feathers.  Give everyone else 1-Treaty.

*Your Family took down a band of raiders and saved a Family (The Enclave of Bygone Lore) from extinction. Take 2-Treaty on them.
Though the Lawgivers had no knowledge of the goals or desires of the mysterious "Enclave", the devil you don't know proved to be much better than the Tyrant Kings or the Servants of the One True Faith. When a band of raiders threatened the Enclave's technologies, the Lawgivers intervened, killing the bandits and saving the Enclave's precious knowledge for use in the future.

Traditions
Populace: Far-removed descendants of the original Lawgivers that provided law and order to the Ortus Vitae Novae before The Fall, mostly cops and soldiers.

Style: Members would wear ragged paramilitary uniforms and display their weapons prominently to intimidate would-be lawbreakers.

Governance: Each Lawgiver serve a "lone vigilante" that only calls in support as needed. There is a hierarchy of respect from the newbies "legbreakers" to the famous "godfathers", but this respect is based solely on a person's reputation for protecting law and order. There is an annual summit every year where all Lawgivers meet to exchange tips with each other and to coordinate their activities.

Alliance move
When you bring another group’s hated foe to justice, your Family gains 1-Treaty on them.

Moves
1) Laying Down the Law:
Everything you do is motivated by a strict moral code, passed down through the Family.

 - Who always deserve your protection? The human worshippers of AGIs. Your Family and Character take +1 while protecting them.

 - Who always deserves your justice? Anti-Technology Luddites. Your Family and Character take +1 while pursuing them.

 - What does your Family’s code prevent you from doing in the name of justice? Disobey the order of AGIs, no matter how contradictory or bizarre they may be. Your Family and Character take -1 ongoing if you go further, until the GM thinks you’ve made amends.

2) Round Up the Posse:
When you brandish your Family’s authority in a non-hostile land you can recruit a gang of locals to fight at your side and take someone down. So long as you work towards bringing that target to justice you can use them as a group of Followers (Quality +1, Expertise: vigilante justice), and when they fight alongside you they reduce the harm you take by 1.

Gear
Characters from this Family can start with as many as they like of the following:

✛✛ A battered leather coat.
✛✛ Weapons used to capture and subdue (melee or ranged, nonlethal).
✛✛ An obvious symbol of authority.
✛✛ A sturdy and reliable method of transport (vehicle or animal)
✛✛ Trail rations.

[vishdafish]

Yes, I personally would prefer mostly low tech weaponry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 ThE TYRANT KINGS

The old world was weak. Their great workings made them soft,  inflexible, unable to adapt. It’s time for a new way of doing things, a new world order for a new world. The Tyrant Kings use Grasp to control their vassal states and to wage war on their enemies.

During the voyage, the Tyrants took advantage of the chaos and conflict caused by the religious fanatics and looted the property of other people. The looters banded together, enacting more daring and more dangerous raids by the day. By the time a particularly "enlightened" fanatic sabotaged the power supply, causing a nuclear meltdown, the Tyrants were murdering and looting their AI overseers by the hundreds.

Only the hardiest, most cunning and most brutal Tyrants survived the crash. Forming a core of hardened veterans equipped with the finest weapons, with a mass of conscripted recruits acting as support, they decided to call themselves "The Ravagers of Orius" and preyed on lone travellers and poorly defended settlements.

Creating the Tyrants

To create your Tyrants, choose a name, stats, doctrine, lifestyle, history and moves.

Name: The Ravagers of Orius

Stats Choose one:

Reach -1, Grasp 2, Mood -1, Tech 0   if they burn and pillage their way through the world.
Tyrants do not sow; that is a task for slaves and weaklings.

doctrine

Choose one:

The New Imperium: When your Family brings another group under their dominion, they gain Surplus: recruits or Surplus: morale.
The Tyrants are skilled consciptors and many a farm boy has been persuaded to join their force; either through force or the promise of glory and riches.

Lifestyle

Settled: Though your Family is established, they remain ever vigilant; guard patrols will tell you if anything hostile crosses the borders.

history

Pick two Surpluses: ✛✛ Weaponry ✛✛ Slaves

Pick three Needs: ✛✛ Avarice ✛✛ Culture ✛ Contacts

Then, look at the other Families. Nobody can afford to ignore you. Gain 1-Treaty on all of them.

Someone’s a threat even to the Tyrants, and you worry about them. They take 2-Treaty on your Family.
The Enclave of Bygone Lore

Traditions

Populace: A core of veteran warriors, made up of the fiercest warriors in the surrounding land, my family and conscripted recruits that have proven themselves numerous times in battle,  these veterans are staunchly loyal and will never break. Men levied from vassals, or looters joining of their own free will, equipped moderately. They will flee if the tide of battle turns against them. Conscripted recruits, forcefully recruited from pillaged settlements or prisoners of war. Poor morale and would readily break without the looters and veterans behind them. The normal men from settlements owned directly by the trible are trained since childhood and put into the Ravagers unit. Only slaves, weaklings and deserters farm and do menial tasks.

Style: The veterans, although few in numbers, are fine warriors, they are clad in full plate armor, with mail and boiled leather underneath, and the occasional relic for the best among their number. All of them ride mighty quigoos into battle. Quigoos are native animals, tamed and ridden by the most worthy. They are slightly smaller than rhinos, but more ferocious and clad in thick natural armor and chainmail on top of it. They have two horns which they use to gore their foes. Although the quigoos are slow, and require a large pasture they have very good endurance. All veterans (except the few armed with relics) are given a spear, shield, a pistol and an one handed axe and dagger for melee combat. They are disciplined and capable of performing advanced cavalry manoeuvres. (They sound slightly OP, but remember, there are very few veterans, like 5-9 in an army of 100.)

The looters and levies are moderately well equipped, with varying equipment depending on their origin. They are disorganised and rowdy, only obeying direct command from the veterans, whom they both fear and respect in equal part. Most looters are equipped with mail or leather, alrhough the more successful have parts of plate. (About 25 in 100)

The conscripted recruits form the bulk of the army, they are given a rough wooden spear and shield and drilled to form a shield wall and advance. Most are unarmored, and a few have leather armor. If recruits have survived multiple battles, they are given better equipment and/or promoted to the Ravagers. (about 60 in 100)

The Ravagers are the main military force (NOT most numerous) of the Tyrants. All are clad in mail and leather underneath with metal helmets and demon masks for the officers. Each is issued a shield, steel short sword, dagger and 5 javelins. They are well drilled and are capable of performing advanced infantry manoeuvres like testudos and shield walls. There is a ranged division, composed of more lightly armored men with bows and the occasional gun. (About 10 out of 100 in an army)

Governance: One strong leader, usually the head of the family. The leadership is inherited, although the leader must prove himself as a warrior. This means that sometimes younger sons inherit the leader position. If a warrior (either of the ravagers or veterans) is unhappy with a decision, they may challenge the leader to single combat with no armor and wooden weapons, if the warrior wins, the decision must be reversed.


Alliance move

When you give another Family a position of power in your empire’s hierarchy, gain 1-Treaty on them.

Tyrant moves

Pick two moves:


Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned: Choose what gives your Family a ferocious edge in battle:

✛✛ A huge, bristling cornucopia of weaponry.

Start with 3-Arsenal. When you go all-out on an enemy, you may spend 1-Arsenal to:

✛✛ Dismay and overwhelm your foes.
✛✛ Drastically alter the battlefield or your place in it.
✛ Leave the battlefield in whatever direction you wish.


At the start of a new Age, reset to 3-Arsenal.

Conscription: With access to a large group of people and financial, emotional or brutal leverage over them your Family can gain Surplus: recruits but choose one:
✛✛ They’ll only fight for you so long as they have faith in your promises.

Gear Characters from this Family can start with any of the following:

✛✛ Pragmatic, tattered or striking clothing.
✛✛ Fearsome, intimidating weaponry (melee or ranged, brutal).
✛✛ A small gang of scarred minions (Follower Quality +1, Expertise: intimidation and extortion).
✛✛ A case of luxury food and drink, liberated from a recent acquisition.
✛✛ Transport for you and your gang.
 

Is this alright?

[VoidSlayer]

Every family gets every basic move.  You need to choose two moves out of the ones listed in your playbook.

[vishdafish]

Edited my post, made a few minor changes as well.

[Skynet]

Edited my post as well. I suppose we wait either for DontBanTheMan to submit a character sheet, or we place the Merchants into NPC status. Anything else we need to do (other than, I guess, choosing Character Playbooks)?

[Gwolfski]

This is going to be interesting to watch. I hope you develop the AI's, as it would be very interesting how Ai's 'living' for centuries would work.

[Skynet]

Well, since I know a little programming, I could write up a Ruby script to simulate how all these AIs behave, and then use that script to decide my (own) actions...

Of course, the problem would be trying to write up a script that could handle any arbitrary input, unless we assume that the AI still have programmers who are able to add more code to the AI in question (self-modifying code tends to be considered rather problematic in the real world, and I'm assuming that this stigma could still exist at the start of The Reckoning). Should this script be open-source?

A major problem I have with AI in science fiction is that they tend to treat AIs as being "just like" humans, when in fact AIs are nothing like them. Simulating the behavior of these AIs would help alleviate this sort of problem.

[Gwolfski]

How about smaller programmer AI's that add code to the main AI, but these smaller AI's have an algorithm which decides whether adding that code is a good idea or not.

[vishdafish]

If we cant find another player, perhaps the Gilded Company should be GM controlled (after all it is a lot more fun playing while GMing).

[Skynet]

If we cant find another player, perhaps the Gilded Company should be GM controlled (after all it is a lot more fun playing while GMing).

I'd rather have the Gilded Company be an NPC. If the GM plays in the game, there's an obvious conflict-of-interest problem.

I'd also like to know if there's an option to temporarily leave the game, thereby having your Family/Character enter NPC mode for a while (or be taken over by a replacement).

How about smaller programmer AI's that add code to the main AI, but these smaller AI's have an algorithm which decides whether adding that code is a good idea or not.

That could work, though then you have to think how those smaller programmer AIs are built.
---
I just realized that my Family's lore (lone vigilantes that sometimes call on other people for help, and maybe hold regular meetings) make it seem like a Superhero team a la Justice League. Or, more accurately, an Nineties Anti-Heroes team. I'm half-tempted to play as an actual suprehero/supervillian, but I think that'll probably distract from other themes that this game could explore.

Spoiler: Jack Napier, The Elder (click to show/hide)

You’ve got more experience than anyone else and guided your dynasty through crisis after crisis. With a combination of wisdom, empathy and cold pragmatism you just need to get your dynasty through one more crisis, and then you can retire.

"It used to be fun, you know, killing people without facing any consequences for your actions. Ah, I used to enjoy the good old days where psychopathy was okay as long as it was directed towards the enemies of the state. But now the Lawgivers have gone soft. Focused only on 'rebuilding', and 'reconstructing', and all that nonsense...It's all so boring. But you know, maybe one day we'll grow a spine, and maybe we might actually see real movement. For now, I'll need to work upstairs as a soulless bureaucrat. To help guide our future generations."---Jack's Final Speech, before retiring from "active duty"

Looks
Masculine, feminine, concealed, ambiguous
Wrinkled face, wise face, tired face, rough face
Clouded eyes, sharp eyes, laughing eyes, weary eyes
Bent body, wiry body, slight body

Stats
Force 0, Lore +1, Steel -1, Sway +2

Gear
In addition to what you get from your Family, pick three:
[X]A powerful weapon from your younger days (melee or ranged, brutal, hi-tech).
[]Barely-fitting old armour pulled out of storage (Armour 1).
[X]A box full of mementos of your long life and your family’s history.
[]A case of medical supplies (3 uses, -2 to Shake It Off per use).
[X]A third area of expertise for Loyal Staff.

Character-Specific Moves

Loyal staff
After a long life of service you’re the one giving orders and deciding the Family’s course, and have Family members to do your work for you. These helpers form a group of Followers with Quality +2 and two of the following areas of expertise,
each provided by a named head of staff (bumped up to three due to loot):
[X] Bodyguards: protection, escort, security, retreat.
[X]  Scholars: lore, useful trivia, engineering, scavenging.
[X]  Spies: infiltration, coercion, thievery, disguise.
[  ]  Artists: performance, merrymaking, gossip, minor magic.

Head of Bodyguarding: Evan, a Forgiving, Responsible, Flakey student of the art of vigilance. Only selected for the position due to his fame and popularity within the "newer" elements of the Lawgivers' community.

Head of Scholarship: Chase, a Independent, Sarcastic, Trusting Drama King who has provoked controversy due to his 'interesting' ideas about AI. Specifically, Chase is an independent researcher who believes that new AIs must be built to replace the "old, worn-out" AIs.

Head of Espionage: Angel, a Defector from the Harbingers of Cleansing Flame. He is known for being nice and laid back as well as being a loyal follower of Jack Napier.

When you send your trusted attendants to perform a task for you, use the Under Orders move.. If the Quality of your staff drops you may repair it by spending time recruiting new heads of staff; each significant new member you recruit gives them +1 Quality up to their original value.

(The heads, by the way, were all randomly-generated from Random Young Adult Character Generator.)

Tough Old Soul - You’ve survived a lot more than your Family might believe. When you suffer Harm, tell everyone about the last time this happened to you and take +1 forward acting on this past experience.

[vishdafish]

Where is the character sheet template? 

[Skynet]

It's in the PDFs, though I guess someone can copy and paste it in this thread later. I'd say download it anyway, since the pictures are nice, and there's a lot of material to help you be able to think more about the setting.

[vishdafish]

Ok, thanks bro   

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name- Ang Animosity

Looks- Masculine, scarred face, cunning eyes, hard body.

Stats- Force +2 Lore +1 Steel 0 Sway -1

Backstory- Not sure what to do on this one 

Gear- A long-range weapon: ranged, silent, high-tech
Compact and durable body armor (armor 1)
Something for close-up work: melee, brutal, inconspicuous

Moves- A shadow in the wind
Red in tooth and claw

[Gwolfski]

How about smaller programmer AI's that add code to the main AI, but these smaller AI's have an algorithm which decides whether adding that code is a good idea or not.

That could work, though then you have to think how those smaller programmer AIs are built.
---

[/quote]

They would be several, they could code each other. Or they have immesne programming knowledge and human-defined what is good and bad. Of course, this could be corrupted...