Update PDS Scripts

Right now, the PDS scripts are largely forced, repetitive actions. I think it would be much better if they were increasingly severe thoughts and feelings. (Some of them are, but not many.)

Why?

First, I think that after not that long on the game you get used to the scripts. People see someone acting a PDS script and they accept people's statement that it's PDS. If the only thing a script generates is 'you want to hurt Person X right now', though, now there's an RP uncertainty if someone claims 'PDS made them do it.'

Second, the scripts often are immersion-breaking in the context of RP. They range from 'making no sense in the scene' to 'referring to things that don't match the description of the room at all.'

Ultimately, almost everywhere we have policies about how people should act, including prompts from the code, and enforce it with XHELP. It seems like a relic of an earlier time that we don't do this with PDS. We should be telling people how to feel and act and expecting them to RP accordingly, so that PDS feels like a natural part of the world and not a jarring intrusion into it.

It doesn't make you hurt people anymore? Huh.

Agreed, it sure sounds like a nerf to me.

Wanted to resurrect this thread. Certain prompts simply do not work as mentioned. Things like hallucinating a giant rat while in an apartment on Green? Not to mention having the same message play out every ten minutes gets too repetitive.

The most bothersome aspect is the messages are forced, it allows no room to RP PDS for your character and their personal issues. Any disorder or syndrome is going to be slightly different for every person and these scripts dictate far too specifically.

My suggestion would be to mention aspects such as a lack of caring, feeling separated from reality, sudden anger, etc...Let players riff off of these themes considering we are here to RP.

Totally agree with reefer here.

They used to be much more involved but we're nerfed due to consistent complaints from players that they didn't leave enough room for rp. Check out the scripting section. I keep an eye on that.

"Players: What kind of emotes, thoughts, tells, etc would you like to see in a revised PDS script? Please share your thoughts here and I will type something up in babble-on."

Perhaps something that mimics chrome worship? I myself have never had PDS, but I have seen a handful of people that have had very mild symptoms. I think it would be neat if a voice in the back of their mind was whispering about how shedding the flesh for chrome was really cool in a more palatable way.

I implied this as well but to make it explicit, I think it would be cool if mechanically involuntary actions were preceded by rising intrusive thinking about them. I believe these are called premonitory urges with conditions like Tourettes.

It gives players a little agency to think, okay I want to eat my boyfriend's skull I should maybe go lock myself in the bedroom for a bit, instead of players being constantly caught by surprise by their own sudden disruptive actions.

I think if you have enough of a lead up to compulsive hostile acts, you could actually have them start at much lower levels of PDS so players would be dealing with them routinely instead of almost never because really only extreme chronic PDS has them now.

Other real gameplay feedback that if replicated exactly akin to the real thing I think could make for powerful hallucinations:

Fires starting in the room.

Creatures entering the room.

The sound of explosions nearby.

The sound of knocking nearby.

The sound of footsteps on the roof.

The appearance of a door opening in the room.

The feedback of trashing the object the player is holding.

Lightning striking in the room.

Feedback that the player character is bleeding.

Feedback that a the player character is sick with an illness, or has radiation poisoning.

Feedback that the player character is undergoing nano mutations.

The appearance that someone in the room is scanning them with a scanner tool.

The appearance that someone in the room pulled out a bomb.

The appearance that someone in the room passed out, or died.

The appearance that someone in the room, or everyone in the room, is bleeding.

When the player character is on unstable footing, the appearance that they've start to fall.

I almost don't even want to suggest these things because they would be so evil but another alternative to extreme PDS events that force characters to perform actions would be taking character actions and making them cosmetic, ie. you are given the appearance of having done something (closed your apartment door) but secretly you didn't.

That would be beyond the scope of a BabbleOn script I'm sure but it might be some cosmic horror level of mechanic that could be considered for development in the future.

I personally don't want to make these too invasive as we've had invasive ones in the past and they were a constant source of complaints.

RE: Seeming to do stuff you didn't actually do. People already stress OOCly about stuff like apartment doors and adding additional stress OOCly is not something I'm willing to do. It's clever, and evil, but also OOCly unfun if you get robbed as a result.

I absolutely think if you take on more chrome than you can handle, then you're asking for problems. It's like starting as a non english speaker. You're seeking hard mode. Complaints to the contrary sound to me like people wanting their cake and eating it too. A hundred percent we should make life terrible for pushing bodies past their limits. Bring back involuntary attacks. Etc etc.

The goal is to balance out player clarity and real, raw effect of PDS, right?

Make it so your 'stats' screen will randomly display one of the random traits as a status line when you are suffering from a PDS attack, that updates once every 20 or so minutes with a subtle 'You feel very unnatural.' line that doesn't clutter the screen up but also lets you know that it's updated for you to look at, so that you can take a que about how your character is suddenly experiencing a change in view.

'!!You are hallucinating !!'
'It sounds like someone is threatening you...'
'I SEE YOU I SEE YOU I SEE YOU'
'You feel an unbelievable blood fury welling up inside of you...'
'What have you DONE to yourself?!'
'Meat is so worthless...'
'Fuck this shitty world. Time to raze it.'
'Fuck this shitty world. Time to leave it.'
'Did you remember to lock your door?'
'Your pockets feel lighter...'
'They're dead and you let it happen you stupid fuck.'
'CLONE OF A CLONE OF A CLONE OF A CLONE OF A CLONE'
'Doesn't like an infinite sea of oblivion sound so peaceful right now?'
'WHY IS IT SO LOUD?!'
'Why is it so quiet?!'
'Was that a sniper scope?'
'You feel something whizz just by your ear...'
'What is that buzzing noise?'
'Something smells like burnt meat.'
'Your hands won't stop quivering...'
'Your eyes can't seem to focus properly...'
'Your stomach is churning.'
'You feel your teeth digging into your gums.'
'Your tongue can't find a comfortable position in your mouth.'
'You have to actively focus to breathe, you're not doing it automatically anymore.'
'Everything hurts. Everything hurts. Everything hurts.'
'When the beat drops I'm going to fucking kill myself.'
'I'M FUCKIN' INVINCIBLE!'
'Look at these lesser lifeforms and laugh.'
'You're untouchable. You're unbreakable. You're diamond tough.'
'You're jazzed up lightning in a bottle, baby!'
'Why is everyone so fucking stupid?'
'Everything around here is just so ugly compared to you. You're stunning.'
'Nothing hides from you. You will find the truth.'
'Fortune is yours. God is on your side.'
'Fate has turned against you.'
'Your brain feels like it's full of frozen mud.'
'You cannot seem to concentrate whatsoever.'
'You're pathetic.'
'Every movement feels like slow motion.'
'You're not even a person anymore. You're a thing.'
'You taste copper for a splint second, then it's gone.'
'You've bitten your tongue. You taste a little blood.'
'Your teeth are grinding.'
'Your bones are itchy.'
'There's something whispering in the back of your head...'
'THEY'RE ALL FUCKING IN ON IT! WIPE THE SLATE CLEAN! BURN IT DOWN!'
'KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL'

(Edited by Mench at 8:52 am on 4/18/2025)

For those curious about the syntax - here are two examples:

tell %npc "You wonder how long it's been since you actually felt *tired*. Not the physical kind, but that human weight behind the eyes. You think maybe exhaustion was a bug, and now it’s patched out."

pause 5

force %npc "/system"

pause 5

force %npc "think Systems report: energy steady. So why pretend?"

randommark "%dobj"

tell %npc "%d whispers, \"Glory to the machine god.\" to you.

My goal is to have about 100 of these with 10 that incorporate forced actions. Ideally, low, mid, and high-tier would all life from the same table of 100 'barks'. However, only the high-tier of PDS would incorporate all 10 forced actions wherein low and mid would come short of losing complete control. Ideally, I think barks would be between 30-90 minutes apart, but the original scope is a more common.

Check out help scripting to access the document. :-)

I really really like this portion by Kalii. The tv ads are a nice touch and the sic private messages are really nice too.

I probably have as much experience roleplaying around extreme severity PDS for very long periods of time as any other player has ever had and I can say with absolute certainty you have to pick one or the other between having them and characters always roleplaying their PDS.

Incorporating PDS into roleplay is important but if you're having forced actions ever five minutes or every ten minutes, you are basically telling players not to roleplay. If you have two or three weeks of roleplay ahead of you and you've already spent five straight hours roleplaying PDS symptoms, there is some point at which players will stop giving a shit.

It's okay to have something that is impactful without it just dominating every hour of someone's play, which is often how I feel when players talk about PDS without having dealt with chronic cases of it.

It might be funny if PDS messes around with appearance stuff as well, like shifts good-looking stuff away from charisma and into how openly chromed out someone is.

PDS 2.0 now consistent of a series of tell and subsequent hallucinations covered across the 100 messages discussed previously. I think the main thing needed from babble-on is a Visual Optical Overlay Module (VOOM) command - a command I expect already exists based on the malfunction scripts.

If a sample could be provided here or on help scripting - I think that would be sufficient to finish up the script. Also, further ways to interact with cyberware chip load in babble-on would be an effective way to trigger other malfunctions which would be perfect.

Overall, this has come pretty far, and I appreciate the feedback and assistance of everyone involved.

Digging into Babble-on it appear there are a few methods to add more interesting hallucinations.

The TV command. Which if I'm correct is a way to project a hallucination onto a tv screen for everyone at a %location, %channel, or a solely to one %player.

I think this would be largely directed solely at the %player but we could get pretty weird with it. The impacts of PDS could influence the world around you.

The has_implant command which is a little less clear to me, but I speculate could be used to reference a VOOM, or other chrome to make the PDS experience more bespoke to the chrome you have. I need more clarity on using this command in Babble-on if staff would be so kind to oblige.