TBG Forums

Premise:
The year is 3000. You live in a sci-fi technologically advanced earth. You answered a mysterious survey and then got invited to an interesting meeting. It's secretly a recruitment process used by a computer system to fight back against a virus transmitted through information.

Rules:
TL;DR How successful your actions are is decided by a d6, sometimes I use progress bars, and characters can have abilties, which usually give them extra d6 on rolls when they do specific things.

When your character attempts to do something, and whether or not they can succeed is uncertain, a d6 is used. You might gain more dice with Abilities. If you ever roll more than 4 dice, you'll just succeed automatically.
On a...
6: You achieve whatever you were trying to do to the best of your ability.
4-5: You achieve whatever you were trying to do as best you can, at least partially, but something goes wrong.
1-3: The situation worsens, and you probably didn't manage to do what you were trying to.

Sometimes I will use meters to track when something is going to happen. They will look something like this:
The Enemies Surrender: 0/4
The Security Cameras are Disabled: 0/6
They're Convinced to Help You: 0/8

When the meter fills from 0 to the target number, that thing happens. The meters are filled or depleted by things that happen in the world, from time passing to something your character does.

Character's Abilities have a name and an effect. The effect is often giving an extra dice under specific circumstances or when a character is doing a specific thing. However, abilities can also make a character better at something than other people, or able to do something at all. Some examples:
Effective Under High Pressure: +1d when fighting in a deadly combat situation.
"Lend me a hand please?": This character can almost always convince strangers to do minor favors, generally ones that don't take more than a few minutes of that person's time.
Exceptionally Well Rounded Zoologist: This character can identify almost any animal in the country.
Well Prepared: If they had time to prepare for a task beforehand, they always pull out one item you can say they just knew to bring with them for this situation.
Well Connected: This character can roll to see if someone they know can be called on to assist in this situation.
Fast Reflexes: If it's a question of who acts first, the answer is almost always you.

Remind me of your ability if it applies to the situation. I wouldn't be able to track everyone's passive abilities.

Character Sign up:

Name:
Occupation: (Optional)
Pronouns:
Appearance:
Personality:
Abilities: (You can put as many as you like, but I'll probably remove some if there are too many)
Other:

Optional Reading past this point.

Story:
TL;DR The setting is Sci-Fi, and a globe spanning computer system has anonymously sent your character a survey along with a meeting place and time. The meeting is stated to be about a topic that your character might be interested in, and the time is a convenient one.

In 2011, a surveillance computer system called Northern Lights was built in secret. Its purpose was to predict terrorist attacks and then notify its government. However, the creator noticed that the machine was predicting violent crimes of every kind, so they expanded the system to prevent those crimes to the best of its ability. In its own time, the machine expanded its surveillance and influence to span the globe, saving lives from the shadows. (The aforementioned government no longer exists in 3000, whatever it was.)

In 2089, a team of systems engineers discovered what is now scientifically referred to as Compulsology. This is a field of science researching ideas and information that force a person to think a certain way, leading to things like causing compulsive disorders in people, making them believe something that isn't true, forcing them to do things they normally wouldn't do. Compulsological ideas have to be developed by machine learning, using processing power that tends to belong to organizations like governments, not common people. Generally most people would regard it as a interesting science thing they read on the internet. From a real life point of view, compulsological ideas are 100% paranormal. More on compulsology later.

Now in the year 3000, the Northern Lights system discovered highly dangerous compulsoligical information. In its attempts to contain it, it lost most of its human assets, and has to get new ones. Meanwhile, your character got emailed a strange survey, and were then sent a date, a time, and an address, along with details of an interesting meeting...


Compulsology:
TL;DR A compulsological effect is like a computer program which can be downloaded into a person's brain through a machine learning generated piece of media. It then causes that person to act of think a certain way. Basically mind control.

An idea or information with compulsological effects causes a person to act a certain way. Ordinarily, people can react pretty strongly to information they receive, such as finding out their spouse cheated on them, or finding out someone close to them was killed. Such things can turn mild mannered citizens into killers.

Compulsological effects are like that, but targeted and, from a real life point of view, paranormal. Information with compulsological effects are like programs, which can be downloaded into a susceptible brain. They can be transmitted by a few sentences or a picture that's been glanced at. A specially engineered painting may cause someone to think they're constantly being followed for a dozen hours. A specific phrase can cause people to be filled with the desire to slap the nearest person. However, more complex and dangerous effects can be created with more complex vectors, but require more inaccessible levels of computing power.

A book that forces its reader to read the whole thing through can convince them by the end that they are in fact, a goldfish, and are currently drowning because they are not in water. A photo that is studied too carefully may force someone to go to a specific address, pick up a package, and deliver it to a local park, all while not remembering where they've been that whole time. A manual carefully read, can enable a person to know exactly what another person who's read that manual is most likely thinking. A carefully composed song can enable someone to instantly perform any mathematical computation (but not without side effects, because it's boring otherwise).

If you know of Memetic Hazards from the SCP series, it's basically that, but if you're creating a character who knows how to make these effects with the right computer programs and equipment, use the following guidelines, and I'll be more likely to let you succeed.
1. Some people are immune to specific compulsological effects. Some people are easier to affect. But it's not a blanket thing.
2. Effects that cause a person to deviate more from their original way of life and thinking require more complex vectors. Small effects can use a few sentences, big effects need a manifesto.
3. Positive effects almost always have some kind of drawback.

Characters: