Proposed Concept: Continuity Be Damned
When I first tracked down the traces of Puzzlebox to see what it was all about, I read as much as I could find. I gathered that the world envisioned for the muck was a world in which literally anything was possible. One could do anything and have some reason for it built right into the concept of the world.
However, being on the muck for this long, I've noticed there are still rules to everything. People play by them or they don't...but it's usually easier to follow the guidelines to further the plot. Continuity, for example--one action follows another, and the previous action always affects the current action. What's done to a character goes into the character's history, most often. Transformation occurs, the character remains in the changed state until another transformation. The technology that is posited as working in this world works as described. We're often too tied to our character's desires and continuing history to so suddenly try something completely bizarre.
I'm not saying there's nobody who breaks the rules. A good deal of characters take a concept that's been accepted as being one way, and go an entirely different direction with it. That's usually the idea of Puzzlebox itself, trying to distort or reform the rules and canon of everything that already exists. But it's hard! Getting your mind wrapped around a concept, like Strangevirus, for example, is difficult even without trying to reinvent it.
So here's a proposition, in the interests of exploring a concept in some direction without any lasting consequences, or to have a fun time without worrying about 'Big Overarching Plot Significance'. Call it a Subjectivity Storm. Or a Dream Sequence. Or an anti-Causality Error. Or a Memory Failure. Or a Buffer Overrun. Or a Magic Flood. Whatever the case, be it a planned event or something randomly ocurring in time or spatial location, have a night/day where anyone can do anything, without fear of continuity. Nothing that happens will have happened, nothing that is done will have been done. Say the Puzzlebox suffers an glitch--temporal or possibily datasphere/backup related--which reaches into the future 24 hours. Everyone and everything is dumped into a temporary 'buffer' while the 'real' area or problem is repaired. For the duration of the glitch, all naturalistic physical and RP laws are suspended and everything is mutable. At the end of the period, the buffer is dumped and all are refreshed from the backup taken from the start. Think of it as a jam session, for the characters but as much for the players as well. Leakage of what happens may occur minimally, like the memory of a dream, knowledge of an event without change.
It would more effective to confine this effect to something locally. Puzzle Park, or a similar location, perhaps even randomized locations, like a weather effect. That way it would at least be opt-out, any character not wanting to have a chunk of time effectively erased could vacate the premises. For anyone staying, it could be like a drug trip or an extremely lucid dream. Magic, essentially, would be possible. Even stranger things that are hinted at in, say, otherMuck logs could and should happen. This is not to say that it shouldn't already be happening, but the main point is, making it a regular event gives a very justified excuse for being weird.
It could be a regular event, like Mardi Gras or some other Carnival. It could be a minor crisis Muckwide plot (Puzzlebox is losing control!), or some flurry of temporary localized problems. Or a particular room or area designed to suppress rules of normality. Or...here's another thought, it could be a user-selected function, like the OOC function.
Whatever the case, there are times when I just want to go all out without having to worry about creating a character that's always going all out. It could give old hats a change to stagnation, or newbies a chance to really dig into creativity and jam with the rest. Continuity be damned.
However, being on the muck for this long, I've noticed there are still rules to everything. People play by them or they don't...but it's usually easier to follow the guidelines to further the plot. Continuity, for example--one action follows another, and the previous action always affects the current action. What's done to a character goes into the character's history, most often. Transformation occurs, the character remains in the changed state until another transformation. The technology that is posited as working in this world works as described. We're often too tied to our character's desires and continuing history to so suddenly try something completely bizarre.
I'm not saying there's nobody who breaks the rules. A good deal of characters take a concept that's been accepted as being one way, and go an entirely different direction with it. That's usually the idea of Puzzlebox itself, trying to distort or reform the rules and canon of everything that already exists. But it's hard! Getting your mind wrapped around a concept, like Strangevirus, for example, is difficult even without trying to reinvent it.
So here's a proposition, in the interests of exploring a concept in some direction without any lasting consequences, or to have a fun time without worrying about 'Big Overarching Plot Significance'. Call it a Subjectivity Storm. Or a Dream Sequence. Or an anti-Causality Error. Or a Memory Failure. Or a Buffer Overrun. Or a Magic Flood. Whatever the case, be it a planned event or something randomly ocurring in time or spatial location, have a night/day where anyone can do anything, without fear of continuity. Nothing that happens will have happened, nothing that is done will have been done. Say the Puzzlebox suffers an glitch--temporal or possibily datasphere/backup related--which reaches into the future 24 hours. Everyone and everything is dumped into a temporary 'buffer' while the 'real' area or problem is repaired. For the duration of the glitch, all naturalistic physical and RP laws are suspended and everything is mutable. At the end of the period, the buffer is dumped and all are refreshed from the backup taken from the start. Think of it as a jam session, for the characters but as much for the players as well. Leakage of what happens may occur minimally, like the memory of a dream, knowledge of an event without change.
It would more effective to confine this effect to something locally. Puzzle Park, or a similar location, perhaps even randomized locations, like a weather effect. That way it would at least be opt-out, any character not wanting to have a chunk of time effectively erased could vacate the premises. For anyone staying, it could be like a drug trip or an extremely lucid dream. Magic, essentially, would be possible. Even stranger things that are hinted at in, say, otherMuck logs could and should happen. This is not to say that it shouldn't already be happening, but the main point is, making it a regular event gives a very justified excuse for being weird.
It could be a regular event, like Mardi Gras or some other Carnival. It could be a minor crisis Muckwide plot (Puzzlebox is losing control!), or some flurry of temporary localized problems. Or a particular room or area designed to suppress rules of normality. Or...here's another thought, it could be a user-selected function, like the OOC function.
Whatever the case, there are times when I just want to go all out without having to worry about creating a character that's always going all out. It could give old hats a change to stagnation, or newbies a chance to really dig into creativity and jam with the rest. Continuity be damned.