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GM_notes
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GM_notes
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=================== Dungeon Master (plus one Pixie) notes =======================
You want the Game extremely accessible, so anyone walking into the space can participate. Simply writing an idea anonymously on a piece of paper is excellent! For the game to work well, you’re going to want some hippies. They provide the best creative spirit and outdoor adventure energy. Also D&D Gamers. Nurture them into your space. Techies and hard-core nerds. These are very good. Bicycle nazis: Yes. Hopefully, you’ll have a PhD leading...
Setup (in order of priority):
Board: Dark cork is best. At least 6ft tall and 8ft wide. Trust me, you weren’t using your walls nearly as well. It will always be useful to your space, so take the risk and get it.
Instructions: Print above instructions on high-quality resumé paper and tack it to the Board. You can hand-write “Welcome to the Game!” (e.g.) to lend your own personal invitation as GM, if you want. If you wish, you can print out the “Curious onlookers” page and mount it off-board, just under the GM score. It’s for business and government types.
Markers or colored pencils. For writing on game pieces. In an ideal game you’d have personal stamps for everyone, that they could carve themselves to vote with, with their own ink color that exactly matches their chosen writing color. Perhaps this can be done for a mature, advanced game. Stick with perfect rainbow colors and save black for anonymous players.. Players can write anonymously in black.
Item pieces: Pieces of white paper, cut into small pieces approximately 3.5” in size. Triangular is ideal, but you’ll need a special shop to cut that. The pieces can be different sizes, so people can pick what they need rather than constrain idea-generation.
Player nodes should be circular. Circular paper: not so easy to acquire. Probably, people will have to cut out their own. They shouldn’t have borders. People can decorate them based on the game colors to indicate affiliation. If you can find a way to make large number of circular pieces, you’ll be a superstar.
TAG nodes: Polygons of 5+ sides. A silver-paint marker would be good for these. Use pieces in different, solid colors for different Tags. Early use of these can start the trend of color-use. Ideally, TAGs have as many sides as there are votes on it and more color depth as more pieces get associated with it. Their color should be on all the nodes they represent. Player who created the node should keep their signature on the back.
BOTQ pieces: Fluorescent paper to stand out, soliciting.
Governance nodes: pick a solid color that heralds your space (like school colors) and is different from the TAG paper. Gift wrapping paper might be good. Secure a good quantity for the task. Do not place the paper near the Board, but give to your space Administrator and explain how they can use it to query the members of the space to create ad hoc governance. Since voters should subtract credits when voting on these items, the more votes s/he accumulates, the more value the Pixie is being.
Tacks for pinning stuff to the board. A neutral color might be ideal if you have a diversity of colored markers.
History Bin, for holding used nodes.
Thread for linking nodes. I don’t know if this will actually work on paper, limited to 2d. it’s really for a 3d software version. You might find that there’s just an subconscious “chaotic attractor” missing and if you just found the right TAG, the two pieces would gravitate towards it, helping the whole Board.
GM endorsement stickers or stamp: Use these for GM “votes”. Such can be placed directly on BOTQ items, for example. Let the predominant color be gray-black.
GM currency: Print 50pt currency notes that you use as GM and offer on Quests. These insert new money into the Game, so may be useful to have them separate, but redeemable.
Priming the Game: Post a few BOTQs to get some action started. Cut out some player pieces for those you want to invite into the Game first. They get to collect a credit as soon as they claim it. Seed some TAGS to set a direction.
It doesn’t have to all be perfect, but the closer you follow this, the more it will enhance the self-organizing capability of the Game.
Duties:
Ensure proper use of game currency. Note players who have a big mismatch between the tally on the back of their piece vs. the stickyvotes on the front. They may either be cheating or they’re an underappreciated user.
Re-arrange pieces using the gravity model. Positions on the Board are not meant to confer any particular axis or orientation. But, the number of votes on idea pieces counts towards mass. The number of votes on the front of player pieces count as reputation (=mass*polarity). Polarity is a special value (+/-1) that you keep to yourself and determines whether linked pieces attract (+) or repel (-). You determine polarity value based on whether they’re moving towards or away from the End Goal. Re-arrange the nodes when no one is looking to accurately reflect the Cosmos.
Stellar evolution. Ideally, idea Node radius expands in proportion to # of votes (incl. glommed pieces which show support) until they go supernova (see below). Player pieces should expand with # of completed projects. You can re-create nodes on larger paper pieces whose # of vertices = the # of glomed pieces. This should tend towards a regular polygon; however, pieces which were against the idea should create a concavity, whose depth is proportional to level of disdain (like little Atari asteroids). Glommed pieces should be transferred to the rear of your new piece for anyone who wants to see the detail and to clean things up. Votes should be tallied and the number written in a circle at a corner of the new piece, ideally with dominant vote-colors. Keep a tally for yourself for each glom item you clean up (the GM “work score”). Put that near but off-board. Supernova: Ultimately, a game piece that has completed it`s lifetime for the game (transformed into a completed project or a beloved member who has departed the Game) collapses, leaving only a small engraved metal badge (the “collapsed star”). Such a fragment should remain somewhere forever on the Board as a piece of hackerspace history. Smaller events just go “nova”, under In-Board Dynamics. In any event, put original piece(s) in the history file until other players are ready to remove it rather than delete all the subtle, handwritten histories.
Scrapbook: Clean History bin now and then, to see what’s there and that important pieces aren’t getting discarded. Save significant pieces for a hackerspace scrapbook.
Managing Tags. You can “vote” from the perspective of the tags with their special color. Such “tagging” should blend in with player-votes. A node can have more than one tag. Votes from others shouldn’t really be put on pieces after turned into TAGS, but shwag like fluorescent stickydots, can. Curate TAGS towards perfection, like brand logos. Yearn for single-word tags that pack potency.
Endorsements: Attach your own special flair (GM sticker) to Player pieces for highlighting understated or underappreciated pieces. You may want to print these, specially (“GM`s endorsement”).
Create Schwag: This is fun. When player flair from completed BOTQ activities gets excessive, make special level schwag (aka “badges”): [Custodian: level 5] means the player has completed cleanup Tasks five times. [Renegade: level 10] has completed 10 quests. These badges should be equal in schwag-significance (special metal work, perhaps) to the bling they’re replacing.
Police the Board: Just a general duty to maximize the visual order, and minimize the control.
Quests: Your other great duty. A compelling quest stretches people’s comfort zone and moves the Game closer to the End Goal: a greater, balanced economy. Put your endorsement sticker on these, so new player’s find the good stuff.
Pixies can measure their performance by the amount of votes earned on their governance nodes -- since this is the main (only) way money leaves the system. In other words, this is real value that can be used to motivate and evaluate creative work by administrators. In fact, they should keep a tally of all their votes (ignoring +/-), and then use them to offer on Tasks.
And finally: This is the Quest for you as GM: [create great quests: hugs]. For that, you’ll have to know your group and know your own comfort level. A good GM knows where the law can be broken and where it shouldn’t be bent. I must leave that to your imagination, but encourage you to read “Hack the Law” on wiki.hackerspaces.org. Cheers! :^)
Credit to MIT nerds, hippies, the “Gaia hypothesis”, and Buckminster Fuller (“World Peace Game”) for idea inspiration.