Jacob Cooper / Micheal Baron
Gestalt Dive
Gestalt Dive is a is a “Stylish Tech Fantasy” TTRPG setting. It explores a formerly-magical Fantasy world as it becomes a cyberpunk dystopia. Developed as part of a work upskilling program, as an exercise in narrative design and worldbuilding and designing game mechanics that resonate with the types of narrative devices that exist only in a table top setting.
TASKS
Narrative Design, Worldbuilding, Game Design
2023
DATE
Jacob Copper
TEAM
Gestalt Dive was designed in conjunction with 2D Artist and Animator, Jacob Copper. Jacob approached me to create lore for the world of a TTRPG he was developing. The setting was a formerly fantasy world that lost it's magic in a cataclysmic event long ago, and now had become a cyberpunk dystopia.
The way that the characters used technology however was to be almost analogous to magic - hardlight holograms, live hacking, deflecting bullets with enhanced cybernetic arms - it was a setting that leaned into the ridiculous power fantasy of cyberpunk settings, but this time with dragons.
To create this world I wrote several thousands of words of lore detailing everything, from the ancient fantasy history and how it lead to cyberpunk dystopia to the various fantasy races and how they adapted (or didn't) to modern life. I worked as a narrative designer first but also kept mechanics in mind as this was to be a TTRPG, and used the narrative to inform the gameplay and reinforce the ludo-narrative link.
But the creation I was most proud of was the one from which Gestalt Dive receives its name. The in-universe parallel to the internet; The Gestalt Network.
What follows is a sample of the narrative design I created for Gestalt Dive.
The Gestalt Network - also known as the Gestalt Sea - is an unfathomably vast interconnected database of all digital information. All technology connects to the network somewhere, it is the sum total of all of cyberspace. Perhaps even a little of the old magics remain, as there are things which ought not be connected and yet are.
Users directly connected to the Gestalt contribute to the network unknowingly. There is always a soft pull of attention & curiousity to the massive ocean of information. It is tempting to spend all day surfing the net and discovering all the wonders it contains. The temptation too to lose oneself in the task, abandon thoughts of the physical form and float free in the ocean of information.
The Network is not evil nor benign - it simply is. When the kin abandoned us we built our own magic.
As you partake of it, so too does it partake of you. Be careful lest it take too much.
The Network is a replacement for what would constitute "mana" or "magic" in other settings, and it manifests through gameplay in several core mechanics.
Players can use the network to access information or to improve the functionality of cybernetic body parts through proprietary software.
Players connected to the Network can use their connection to learn anything known to the Network through Equivalent Exchange.
However this does require an exchange of information, the player must answer a question asked by the Network.
The player may ask the GM a question, and if the question can be answered by the Network, the GM will answer.
But first asks a question of that player, one that must be answered truthfully. The quality of the answer given will determine that of the one received.
-This can be setup for later consequences, giving the GM more potential story hooks to exploit - a future villain may know to exploit your weaknesses - now that your secret is out.
Players can also "Overclock" their cybernetic features, dramatically increasing it's functionality for a short duration, and get themselves out of pinch, though it comes at a cost.
But taking either of such actions incurs risk, and exposes one to the call.
The Call
players using network features build up stacks of Call of the Void. Reaching certain thresholds have negative consequences.
The more a user interacts with the Network or replaces themselves with Cybernetics the greater the temptation and the call becomes to let go and become one with the gestalt. Prolific users may find their sense of self beginning to splinter, Memory Leaks are a common symptom of heavy network use.
Memory Leak
Memory Leaks occur when frequent & heavy network users attempt to access the network. The information exchange has a leak, the memories of other former consciousnesses of the gestalt begin to filter in. The users starts to remember thoughts or feelings they have never had. These thoughts & feelings feel utterly real and lived in to the user - after all they are real thoughts and feelings.
The user might gain new desires, fears or personality traits from the leaked memories. A 20 year old character might have sudden melancholy feelings about their 30 year long marriage’s tragic end, and how now the scent of lavender always makes them cry
The GM can add a new personality trait to the player, a memory of someone else that has leaked in.
Grounding
Players can reduce The Call by grounding themselves in reality. This could mean spending quality time with loved ones, or the ritual of savoring a good cup of coffee the same time each day.
Having that which grounds you taken away can be life threatening. Grounding is important, as there are worse things that can happen than mere memory leaks.
Users of the network must be wary not to fully detach and lose themself to the network - no longer becoming an individual or even a consciousness, the information that was once you is simply swallowed in the vast sea of information, one infinitesimal part of the greater whole. The cost of infinite knowledge is the complete disassociation from physical reality. Lost at sea, a NULL.
NULL
A NULL is the body that remains after someone has fully lost into the network. The body continues to act and can carry out tasks it could perform before detaching, but has no personality inside. If one leaves their body too long, they may never come back.
NULLs act almost entirely on instinct & habits, a passionless automaton that continues performing it’s last task until the body dies of thirst or malnutrition. Nulls can be dangerous, they will forcibly removed obstacles to their task, be it object or person, and will defend themselves if attacked.
it is entirely possible for one to return from NULL, noticing yourself drifting further from reality and willfully returning to inhabit your body. But it is rare to see people return from NULL, not out of the inherent difficulty of the act but out of circumstance. Why stay in misery instead of luxuriating in an endless decadent stream of content?
Though perhaps you do decide to return, and find yourself drifting far from shores of your physical self. You struggle against the tide and arrive to find that while you were gone, someone, or something, has taken your place.
A mega-corporation once thought to exploit Nullification. NULL workers are obedient, they would work hours on end without rest. Horrible work conditions, social isolation, but unlimited access to entertainment feeds - fertile soil for Nullification and thus easily exploitable labour. Instead of a loyal army of workers they awoke the world to a new nexus of torment.
Mal.Content.
Every NULL is a potential vessel for a Mal.Content.
Wwhat was empty becomes instead filled with new malicious content.
Dark, malevolent beings, unknown and alien in their ambitions, a Mal.Content possesses the body of a NULL, and recklessly pushes that body to the absolute limits.
Cyber demons, corrupted spirits, viruses, rogue AI, a lost consciousness looking for any vessel to reclaim a sense of self - the Mal.Content are a variety of digital lifeforms dredged from the depths of Gestalt Sea. Corrupted by all the malice and rot of society coalescing within the Network - all of the hatred poured online must go somewhere. It tries to escape, only to find itself in a new reality it cannot comprehend. Their hate is not targeted at us, we are merely in the way.
The most powerful Mal.Contents are known as Mal.Edicts, for their presence alters the very nature of reality. The Mal.Edict enforces its alien whims by accessing long forgotten magics and using them to reprogram the world. Fortunately these living contradictions inevitably destroy themselves, though sometimes cities do not last long enough to see it.
Mal’s are the universes response to the idea that NULL’s make for obedient workers. The fear of the Mal.Content leads to many societal reactions - when someone looks like they will go NULL do you reach for compassion or a weapon? Give them a reason to keep going, or destroy the vessel while you still have a chance?
It could at any moment be anyone.
Nothing is ever truly lost in the gestalt sea.
It knows, though it does not know that it knows. A boundless sea of free floating information.
It is not malicious in and of itself, only unceasing, uncaring, for good reason do we call it a sea.
To be lost to Gestalt sea means to lose your sense of self, your one-ness.
Your sense of who or what you are.
Like the tales of old sea-serpents, something does indeed lurk within its depths.
These are the serpents.
Malcontents, the terrors of the Gestalt Sea.
The last twisted vestiges of those who thought they might find life eternal in the decadent promise of endless euphoria drifting on the gestalt tides.
The desperate, scrambling flight of an unshackled AI, looking for any port in a storm.
The weapons of digital espionage, broken free of their parameters,
The deep born, for whom the sea is their one and only home.
They are ripped, screaming, from the abyss. Dragged into the mortal coil, interned unto a decaying prison.
A machine madness of our own making.