PDS Fakeouts

I've noticed that it's an often bemoaned fact of pose scripts like PDS that people will often just do a simple 'oh, sorry, PDS' and then brush things off like nothing happened.

Well, what if those poses had a random chance to not actually happen, and your character only thinks it happened? In other words, they print to your feed, but not to anyone else's. Then, if you go to just brush it off with a quick 'sorry, PDS,' people will, rightfully, look at you like you're insane, and then you're stuck explaining what you're even talking about.

This is not as applicable to some pose scripts like drug withdrawals, but if there are drug withdrawals that could potentially cause you to hallucinate, those would work too.

By batko at Apr 14, 2022 4:35 AM

We've been long talking about how to make PDS more interesting, including stat adjustments, berserk modes where a coded AI actually takes control of you and forces you to attack people while disabling your commands, and so on.

It hasn't been a high priority, but that among other suggestions are things on the "one day" list.

By MirageGM at Apr 14, 2022 4:38 AM

I was curious if PDS scrips might take into account the actual character stats. Because a noodle armed brain box going physically berserk could potentially feel unfullfilling and uneventful for all involved. Perhaps pushing PDS for more interlectual characters to hear voices or demands of a more incidious nature, causing havok and damage with their skill set. Double so for sometihng like a cyber brain.

My experience with the game makes me think that completely non-combat characters are edge cases, but would still be cool to have PDS be more expansive that mindless killing machine and potential for sociapathic, psychopathic enforcement bigger scale drives for characters of a the high interlect low combat skill architype.

To me personally, the psychology of Sindome is one of the biggest drawing factors and I love the systems that lean into it and exploring the RP roads that it leads to.

By fopsy at Apr 14, 2022 4:47 AM

Nope, they don't. They're completely dumb scripts applied the same to everyone.

By MirageGM at Apr 14, 2022 4:51 AM

Could they ever?

By fopsy at Apr 14, 2022 4:51 AM

Anything is possible with enough time, money, or patience, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

By MirageGM at Apr 14, 2022 4:52 AM

Holding my breath, let my next clone know I was far to hopeful.

Happy to hear PDS work is on the list, looking forward to call outs to help with script writing when it comes around. :)

By fopsy at Apr 14, 2022 4:55 AM

I have to say, part of me misses the days where SIC shouts were cooked into the PDS script.

Hearing random twiggy characters and corpie suits screaming about endoprine on SIC was -hilarious-!

One subtle tweak I could potentially see doing on the short-term is upping the verbal intensity of PDS attacks. Like, we see someone having a fit, I would think that we should act appropriate to the situation, but I've seen grand mal's get handwaved as having the flu or something, which is cheezy central.

Instead, if the messaging to the location read something like: "%N's eyes suddenly roll back into their skull, and their jaw clenches hard. %p vocalizes uncontrolled grunting as their body rapidly contorts into excruciatingly painful-looking joint-locked poses, and they heave and shake on the floor violently. %S foams at the mouth as the fit intensifies for several long moments, until it starts to pass..."

In such a situation, the observers in the area should have absolutely no ambiguity as to the severity of the attack, and attempts to hand-wave it by the character afterwards should seriously call into question their mental state and sanity (as it should, with PDS.)

By TalonCzar at Apr 14, 2022 7:37 AM

I don't think hallucinations or voices only you hear would do anything. They're MORE ignoreable if only you are seeing or hearing things. You don't even have to 'lolz, pds'.

By Johnny at Apr 14, 2022 8:21 AM

But if you are hallucinating your own character doing an action that is usually 'outwards-facing', that'd be what I'd call a fakeout. Something like staring at someone, or saying something. Just a thought :b

By batko at Apr 14, 2022 3:07 PM

If this idea is "tell the PDS sufferer that they're acting out but don't always really have them act out so others see it", then it would lead to the situation where the PDS sufferer just ignores it till someone else reacts to them, at which point, "lolz pds sry."

In other words, no different from the current state of the art at all.

By beandip at Apr 15, 2022 10:52 AM

This would probably be a bitch to code but public PDS displays would be great Chatter gossip item.

"Character A was spazzing out in Carnals last Tuesday."

The challenge would be the bartenders having to recognize the PDS emotes and create the appropriate Chatter gossip. Not to mention the character @name challenge.

By Hek at Apr 15, 2022 11:56 AM

This would probably be a bitch to code but public PDS displays would be great Chatter gossip item.

"Character A was spazzing out in Carnals last Tuesday."

The challenge would be the bartenders having to recognize the PDS emotes and create the appropriate Chatter gossip. Not to mention the character @name challenge.

By Hek at Apr 15, 2022 11:56 AM

This would probably be a bitch to code but public PDS displays would be great Chatter gossip item.

"Character A was spazzing out in Carnals last Tuesday."

The challenge would be the bartenders having to recognize the PDS emotes and create the appropriate Chatter gossip. Not to mention the character @name challenge.

By Hek at Apr 15, 2022 11:56 AM

Jeez. Holy triple post. 😕

A PDS public awareness campaign would be great. Use the TV forced emotes to educate players on common PDS symptoms.

"See someone exhibiting the following symptoms.....? They're likely in the middle of a PDS episode and could become violent at any moment. For your safety and the safety of others, report them to the authorities immediately."

In the recent case where my character was around someone who (I think) was having a PDS episode, my character asked the other characters there if the person was okay.

The response was a universal handwave of" They're fine. "

Lacking any IC reason to think otherwise, my character shrugged and assumed everything was okay.

By Hek at Apr 15, 2022 12:08 PM

Someone could blast me for not "being the change you want to see." Someone else could push back with "don't [use your character to push an OOC meta agenda to] tell other people how to RP."

But, gonna be honest - I don't even RP against other people's PDS symptoms anymore because fucking it off is so predictably universal.

By beandip at Apr 15, 2022 12:16 PM

Fair enough on all points, beandip's assessment that laziness is the path of least resistance in dealing with a fakeout like that is correct, I think. Good to hear that PDS might be getting some love in the future, though!

By batko at Apr 15, 2022 1:13 PM

a	Mench	24m	Doing a bit of everything.
-	Ralph	1h
-	Ameliorative	1h
And 12 more hiding and/or disguised

PDS Fakeouts No more explaining your PDS away!

PDS Fakeouts
No more explaining your PDS away!