Hi Community! I'm working on an independent game project right now as the sole member of my team. The project, which I am woefully under qualified to tackle, is a new type of economic/guerrilla warfare simulator. It is a city simulator with armed and unarmed conflict from varying factions that arise organically within the city and fight for control of resources and influence on the cities government and businesses. As opposed to playing as a leader of a city of faction with in a city, each player plays as a Vampire attempting to manipulate mortals into pursuing their agenda by changing the incentives and circumstances they live by. You essential try to gain control of the cities economy from the bottom up by manipulating individuals and organizations. The moral alignment system revolves around which principles an individual holds, as opposed to good/evil dichotomies, and serves to regulate ai behavior and poses an obstacle to player characters. Whenever a player or npc makes a decisions that betrays their principles they suffer from cognitive dissonance which, once accumulated to a certain point, results in moral decay (the antisocial inversion of previously held principles) or mental decay (loss of skills). In this sense it is only rational for an ai or player to not be a hypocrite, but this poses many dilemmas when competing for resources with other individuals who do not have the same principles.

My experience coding primarily is in Texas Instruments Basic, but I also took 3 years of programing c++/java in highschool years and years ago. I have lots of experience with table top roleplaying games. My primary influences are The Wire, World of Darkness games, diplomacy, and Sim City. Once I get a competant programer to join my team I plan working with them on a combat prototype as well as some sort of moral dilemma adventure prototype, both of which will be made available to the public. I intend to work on the fluff and art assets as well as game mechanics and high level design along with my programer. Most of the graphics and general aesthetic sense will be social commentary and/or photojournalism.

I'm not recruiting right now as I don't have enough of my written outline organized or typed up. Just opening things up for discussion

An X (9 as of now) dimensional matrix holds all possible intersections of moral dilemmas. When a principle or principles are betrayed because of pragmatic concerns, cognitive dissonance is spread along all relevant matrix cells and the blurred 1 to 1.5 steps. When any cell exceeds a certain set of variables, mental or moral decay occurs. Moral decay results in inverted principles that compel antisocial behavior towards individuals and institutions that espouse opposite principles. Mental decay results in skill restrictions. An economic value is placed on skill use so that moral behavior can be weighed against economic incentives. All skill "rolls" are completely nonrandom, except for who gets shot in gun battles. Character traits are passed on memetically to fully grown random children offspring that periodically pop into existence after graduation or dropping out or further education.

All crafting tools are either highly expensive specialized industrial equipment or incredibly inefficient due to the nearly complete monopolization of the means of production. The home life is nearly nonexistant. Nearly all means of the individual being self sufficient without participating in trade are wiped out by ubermonopolistic capitalism. You can make your own products and subsist, partially, but producing goods to sell independently is so inefficient that one cannot be an independent worker. The profit margin and scale of production only exists for the largest corporations, the already wealthy entrepreneur, the black marketeer, or the criminal capable of stealing entire pieces of industrial manufacturing equipment. Monopolies are both horizontal and vertical. Manufactures directly wholesale to their retail outlets. The grocery store is the one exception. Each super-chain store is in itself a member of a retail monopoly that sells EVERYTHING.

Interesting concept, i 'd love to see this come into existence, a sandbox mode to play around with would be a must.

A few questions:

Both AI(factions?) and players(vampires) fall under this moral system and they both can make the choice to "betray" their morals ?

(it seems both more difficult to make an AI behave "intelligent" and it might make more sense to a player if the AI is more passive, assuming players are supposed to be in conflict with eachother)

What "resources" will the player be after ?

Groups form around shared goals and principles. Business Groups attempt to carve out a niche in this hostile market, but the cards are always stacked against them unless they resort to illegal means. Religious groups espouse principles, provide charity, and resolve dissonance. Charitable groups provide a means to buy off cognitive dissonance. A group becomes a front when it's actual objective differs from any of the acceptable actual objectives for the group type, but the nominal objective remains acceptable.

Player compete over blood, money, and access to useful mortals. AI lives and breathes in the sandbox and has all of the nonsupernatural methods of manipulation at their hands. Player characters actively seek to degrade their principles because they are an obstacle. They have to split blood between increasing skills and resolving their dissonance. AI completely run the world and the groups are just an extension of their actions that allows them to work together and pretend like they aren't disobeying their own code of conduct.

http://pobrth.tumblr.com/