Countdown
| ||||||||||||||||||
This page contains details about an ongoing campaign. As a result, it may include false, incomplete, or misleading information based on the current shared knowledge of the player characters.
Countdown is a campaign created and run by Benjamin Swiatek. It centers around a media-saturated communistic society at the end of its prime. Or does it? Tune in to find out!
Contents |
The Players - Come on down!
Hotaru Clearwater
- full article: Hotaru Clearwater
Marketa Iorek
- full article: Marketa Iorek
Eric Sonthana
- full article: Eric Sonthana
Kate Whelan
- full article: Caitlín ó Faoláin
The World - Now 10% more filling!
The Daily Countdown
TV Listings by Channel
2. B&B Presents
- SEVENTH ISLAND: Thu 6:30 PM
3. Domicile
1. Hammer News
2. The Anvil
3. Fireside
- World of...: Mon 8 PM
- Meth's Lab: Tue 9:30 PM
1. UTD News
- "Video of the Week": Fri 4 PM
2. RealLife
- Excessable: Mon & Thu 8 PM
3. JoyTV
- Romulus Abandoned: Wed 9 PM
1. Extra!
2. Kid-Max
- Shmoopa Doops: Mon-Thu 10 AM, Sat 9 AM - 12 PM
1. YOYO News
2. Muse
- Top Ten: Daily 6 PM
- Up and Coming: Mon-Sat 10 AM - 2 PM
3. Fortune
The Islands
Guiding Concepts - Another cheesy slogan!
Player Experience
Countdown features an emphasis on player experience (as opposed to a final product). This means its focus is less on establishing a single, coherent storyline and more on making each individual session of play engaging. Naturally, larger networks of stories will emerge as a necessary side effect of this methodology. As with recent campaigns, the ramifications of player choice are explored with greater attention than are world events.
Postmodernism
This entails collage-like narratives, holistic worlds that operate independently of the players (but see previous point), emphasis on media (in both senses of the word), a tonality that tends toward irony, and exploration of typical postmodern themes including but not limited to triviality, human connection (and disconnection), and the reversal of the sacred and profane.
Immersion
As a facet of its postmodern nature, Countdown will feature a variety of experiments designed to benefit the player experience. PCs will be encouraged to create alternate email accounts, blogs, audio and video recordings, and other documents for their characters. Players will be able to use these materials to interact with NPCs and each other between sessions without requiring specific time commitments. There may be opportunities for the world to run in real-time even outside of formal sessions by use of these materials. Since each character will likely possess a cell phone, texting might be another means of interaction (without alternate numbers, players or the GM would simply supply the name of the appropriate NPC).
Some of these techniques will likely make complete documentation difficult, but given the emphasis on the playing experience over a final product, this is a sacrifice that will hopefully prove worthwhile. The GM should be kept informed of any relevant PC-to-PC communication, but will not require the disclosure of full documentation.
Basic Information (Pre-Campaign)
Economy is communistic. There's no hard currency. Everyone is automatically provided a certain ration of food and water, as well as a radio, cell phone with one half-hour/day, and basic housing facilities (dorm-style, with a communal bathroom/kitchen and a TV lounge open during primetime hours, 7-10 PM). These are all provided as long as you participate in mandated work shifts picked by lottery - these are necessary jobs like carpentry, home repair, garbage collection. If you want, you can "volunteer" to do more work for credits, which can be put toward larger living spaces, higher-grade TVs and cell-phones, "hours" for each, and other luxuries. Additionally, because the population is so high and land availability so low on the continent, there are mandated abortion laws for non-married couples, and even those who are married must forfeit a certain number of credits earned to have a child.
The whole system is managed by a huge system of independent bureaucracy called the Bureau, which operates like a purely domestic federal government, delegating resources to Networks (nations) by population. The amount of land owned by a Network is a factor of the Network's TV viewership, so borders are always subtly changing.
The Bureau handles all criminal cases and lawsuits, which work pretty much the same as in our world, save that things like debt cases are heavily biased toward the person in debt as opposed to the loaner, to curb the development of capitalism.
The most prominent religion, if you'll remember, is connected to how often a person appears on TV. As such, the Bureau does not involve itself with TV for the most part, calling it a religious institution and thus outside its jurisdiction.
According to "Divinity™ Satellism," the satellites that orbit the planet (which have no known origin) are considered to be sent from God as vessels to take followers to Heaven. All aired footage is archived in the satellites, and thus the more appearences you have, the more of yourself will be transported to Heaven when the satellites finally depart. As a symbolic representation of this, each TV appearence is listed on your gravestone, such that the more you have, the taller the stone. Other religions do exist, but Satellism is the most popular (on the continent, at least) by far.
There are six Networks, each with their own news program as their primary channel. As a rule, media is sensationalized (much as it is today), but ideological bias varies from station to station.
There are also six Islands, which are extracontinental nations which basically serve as providers and entertainment for the continent, as far as most people are concerned (ask the residents of the Islands and it's a different story, of course). Each Island provides a unique service or resource to the continent as part of an official agreement designed to guarantee the safety and stability of the Islands. The other major facet of this agreement is the "No News is Good News" law, which prevents a Network from reporting on any story unfolding within their own territory, designed to prevent governments exploiting their own people for news stories.
Technology level is approximately equivalent to the year 2000, as a rule, sans any flight, space or otherwise. Journalists comprise the "military" of the Networks, since wars are over news coverage as opposed to territory (except, of course, as news coverage increases viewership and thus territory); cameras are almost always equipped with firearms. Journalists are almost uniformly loathed in the Islands, as they often purposefully stir up trouble to create interesting stories. The Bureau trains an inter-Network police force to maintain domestic order, often comprised of former journalists.
