1.

Welcome to Sparta

IOSHI players handbook

Seven years ago, the government of Malta quietly faded away. One day, its representatives didnt show up at the office. The only power thy had left was over their own institution. They became a company like any other. Malta was the last nation in the world. Since that day seven years ago, theres only one city left: Sparta. Sparta stands at the center of world, which is everywhere. Sparta is a culture you freely choose to be part of. To be a member of Sparta, you click to agree with their terms of service. It includes all places and people that accept and follow those terms of service. They dont take your geographical position into account: Sparta is a country without borders. You place of birth is no longer a burden. Sparta is the global culture, the yardstick every subculture measures itself to. Since the founding of the Sparta Corporation fifty years ago, the terms of service have slowly replaced other forms of international laws and government rulings. They were obsolete. The TOS have become the dominant ideology. Those terms take two things for granted: human interaction create intangible economic goods, and every person should be a rational economic agent. When you ask a Spartan how much they love their mate, they may not answer, but they should know. A true Spartan wouldnt kill their mother not because its vile or people dont do that, but because the price is too high compared to the benefits. Spartans say the world is holistic. You can trade everything, you can learn everything and everything is connected to everything else. Anything you do has consequences across the globe. Everything is a sign. Anything means everything else.

welcome to sparta

1. Welcome to Sparta

a spartan way of life

Spartans live their life as rational an economic agent as they might be. That doesnt mean that theyre not passionate people: emotions have their place in a Spartans life, just not in their economic decisions. work Workplace is such a place emotions are frowned upon: Spartans view their work as pure economical trades, their time and expertise for. a fitting salary. They have no loyalty for their boss, who in return expect none from them. If you want to be sure your research staff doesnt spill your trade secrets, either make them sign a non-disclosure agreement or pay them well enough the stick and the carrot. On the other hand, you might do the same job every day at the same for ten years and without you noticing, you changed employers eighteen times. Workers are a talent pool for managers, sure, but managers are a sponsor pool for workers too, so it evens out. home Home is where the heart is, so Spartans carry their home everywhere they go. Spartan society see moving as a way of life, not a hassle or an adventure. Packing home is easy: you own more bits than stuff and most of your toys are nomad anyways. Social networking through d-space is painless and fun, so you wont be missing anyone. Service is everywhere. friends Geography doesnt sort your friends out anymore. Today, you meet people through d-space first, and in meatspace second. Virtual agents help you connect with people sharing your interests, tastes and whatever criteria you choose. Your tribe is worldwide: you can sport the colors of a gang based in Dublin and while you live in Tokyo, youre no less a member than the gangs mechanics who lives in Galway. evaluations Spartans love evaluations. Aspected experts work with powerful sharpware to determine ones economic worth in a given context. Spartans rarely deny the results of those evaluation, and wont get mad at their manager if theyre fired for subpar results: after all, getting rid of them is the most rational thing to do. projects Thats how you get things done: you gather a team, some resources and an operational objective. Projects are the basic unit of work: even when people manage their blog in their basement to fund their street-level way of life, theyre working on their own project. Most are straightforward like providing power and network to a community or building cars. Some are floating projects, think tanks were project managers brainstorm new ideas to reduce effective and opportunity costs.

IOSHI players handbook dataspace

The dataspace is what internet became. Nowadays youre always on-line, all the time. Pretty much everything is. D-space is internet superposed to the real world in augmented reality. Checking a restaurants website is as easy and natural as looking at its menu. When you look at someone, you can pop-up their social network profile right before your eyes. When you want to listen to some song, you access it in pinch. When you want to talk to somebody, you page them or call them. All this with a thought. AROs Those things you see suspended in digital air are called ARO augmented reality objects. You dont see every arrow you cross though: you only see those you have access to. Public AROs everyone gets to see and interact with them. Restricted AROs you need to be on their access file: for your average wearshop it means registering to the clients list, for your average military-grade warelab it means having the proper clearance. Most of your toys interfaces are on restricted access, and youre the only one in the access file. googles The most common way to access d-space is by wearing googles with two os. They look like a pair of glasses, but the lenses a screen and a cam, there are speakers and a directional mike in the branches, and the whole thing contains a brain scanner to pick up thought signals: you click with your mind. They come in various forms and shapes. Rich and trendy people get contact lenses, tiaras and earings that do pretty much the same thing or, if theyre really commited, get one implanted surgically in their ears, eyes and skull. online Youre always online: you may remove your googles or put your implanted system on hold, but theyre still connected. Being offline means something wrong happen to you. Staying offline means being dead, or you might as well be. callsign Everybodys got a callsign: its your nickname, your phone number, your mail address all rolled into one. Teenagers usually go through phase when they try dozens of callsigns a week before settling to one that might last forever: its a rite of passage of sorts, when you stick to your callsign for more than a year. When you want to contact someone, either by text or speech or even just checking their social networking profile, you follow their callsigns. avatar Callsigns are linked to your avatar: what you look like in d-space. Most times, you access d-space through augmented reality, so when you look at someone through your google, you see their avatar superposed on them, like a mask made of bits.

1. Welcome to Sparta

ID Your callsign and avatar are linked to your ID: a very long string of data your provider identifies you by. While you can change your callsign or your avatar with some social hassle, you cant change your ID: even if you change providers, your former one will transfer your ID to the new provider. Someones ID is a big deal. With someones ID, you can pinpoint them if theyre online (that is, if theyre alive), you can spoof their presence or authority, you can make payments in their name. Disclosing or tempering with someones ID is something heavily regulated by Spartas TOS. An ID today is akin to the True Name of hermetic traditions. sharpware & dumbware Anything you see has processing power, even your clothes. The division between hardware and software is blurry at best, often nonexistent. Now people divide their toys between sharpware and dumbware. Sharpware is ware that speculates about your intents and desires. You tell your googles to call that guy from the other day, you know, with the darkish hair and theyll know who. Sharpware has its limits it never goes beyond what you ask, even vaguely but besides them its pretty autonomous. Look at your fridge and think damn, Im out of mayo, and your household management system already ordered some. Dumbware is for stuff you dont want to talk back: the garage door, the livingroom light fixtures, your watch. They have online presence, of course, so you can access them with a thought from mile away, but hey only do exactly as theyre told, in a way they understand.

IOSHI players handbook individually organized science & hobby index

Every global cultural change comes hand in hand with new forms of delivering knowledge. Divine right dictatorships sprung from the monopole of writing. Republican revolutions were born with the printing press. Radio and television made the global culture possible. The web allowed to burry corrupt governments and corporations. The Individually Organized Science & Hobby Index is what made Sparta possible. IOSHI, for short, or the well if youre casual about it, came when the mystique of the brain died for good. Once you consider the brain as an organ no more important than the others, and that thought processes are what the brain does, just like your stomach breaks down food into energy and matter, you can find how the merry structure of the brain take inputs and translate them into behaviors. From there, you can extract not only factual knowledge, but whole know-hows. You can effectively extract your neighbors ability to play piano and store it. Its painless, and your neighbor still got it, but now you have it in a storage space somewhere. Then you put it back to someone elses brain. Its tricky than it sounds: no brain is alike, so you need to map the recipients brain in detail, so the bits you put in get in the right drawer, so to speak. It takes time, dedication and technique, and a period of adaptation from the recipient. Thats why it costs a lot of money. Thats how education is done today. Either you have a a lot of money, or someone will invest in you, then you learn a trade in a few days worth of download and adaptation, and youre good to go. submergence training Now learning to be a tinker, a tailor, a soldier or a spy is something alright, but you know whats better? Learning to be an Einstein, a Chanel, a Patton or a Mata Hari. When you take the holistic philosophy of Sparta and mix it with what IOSHI can do, you get an explosive cocktail: submergence training or, informally, aspect training. Submergence training involves spending weeks, not days, connected non-stop to the Well. You dive into pure knowledge until you drown, then learn to swim, and then emerge with a new understanding of the world. When the process is over, your way of thinking have taken new, radical patterns, and those patterns allow you to reach near-superhuman level of achievement. When you go through aspect training, you become exceptional. Few people can pay for this, and fewer people go through and put it to use. Unaspected people see aspect-trained people as demigods, able to do things only heroes of fiction can achieve, and in a sense theyre right: with submergence you can learn everything about someone in a glance, be precise and fast enough to catch a bullet with your hand, destroy a reputation with a word, or kill someone with a stare. All that with professional reliability.

1. Welcome to Sparta

the implant Accessing the Well is something else than going online. First you need to get an implant: a small machine they stuck in your head so that your brain can talk with the IOSHI network and libraries. Theres a small plug under a flap of flesh where you plug a cable when you need to access the Well a IOSHI library is far too heavy to be downloaded by through standard dataspace protocols. Good thing is: it works as an implanted google too. You dont even need to stuck anything into your ears and eyes: the implant can talk directly to and through your nerves.

the taint
Theres something wrong in the world today, and nobody knows for sure what it is. They call it datataint. Its something that changes you, and that makes you do things. Its something you catch in the Well. Or on the Sphere. Maybe it spreads through language. No one knows, but its wrong. Of course, nobody talks about it. When they do, then they lose credibility, or vanish off-line, or change their mind and its nothing after all. Still, people buy and sell and use datafilters, just in case.

spartan economics
Nations and old-fashioned corporations believed in credit, which is essentially taking money from tomorrow to spend it today. Credit slowly destroyed the old capitalistic model. When that model crumbled down, nations and big business followed it. Sparta is what took its place, and spartans believe in debit. You either pledge or click your money away. pledges & clicks A pledge is what you put in ransoms and auctions. Theres this house you want to buy, so you open your auction and pledge money on it. You dont spend it yet, you just promise the seller youll pay if you get it. Or theres this movie being made that you really want to see its in pre-production, still gathering money: pledge some money on its ransom. If enough people do so the pledged money meets the budget needed, everybody pays what they pledged: the money gets turned into movie. Also, the more you pledge, the more you get rewarded for it: if you pledged a few nanotabs, you might get a poster or a free viewing ; if you pledged a few microtabs, youll get to download the movies file for repeated viewings; if you pledged a few tabs, chances are youll get to be an extra in the movie. To pledge is to promise money for something youll get.

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IOSHI players handbook

A click is impulsive spending, like you drop change to thank or support someone or something. Youre listening to some song you got on the sphere, or watching some d-show to chill out, and you really like it. So with but a thought, you click the author. Theres this account you set up so you put some money into it and at the end of the month, they divide your amount by the times you clicked someone, and each one gets they share. To click is to pay for whats already done. keeping tabs All these transactions use tabs. A tab represent between 2.000 and 10.000 modern US dollars its hard to say, were talking different economic models here. Consider a tab to be good for one month of basic housing, energy, data service and food. If you want more, you pay more for it. Microtabs are change, around 10 dollars or so, and thats what you spend when you click someone. Theres also nanotabs (petty change, like 10 cents) and kilotabs (for big transactions, worth 1.000 tabs). A single-day session of IOSHI training (enough to download a whole subroutine) costs around 5 tabs. invest! In a debit economy, thesaurisation has really, really bad press. Imagine being a communist in the 50s US: thats what it feels like to keep too much money on your side. Spartas TOS threaten institutions that provide saving accounts with high costs of service. You dont save up anymore these days, when youve got too much money you invest.

altcultures
At first they were called subcultures but the word became an insult, like niggers and fags. Today we talk about altcultures, just like we talk about blacks and gays. Not everybody holds the spartan values are their only ones. In fact, few people do. Most people subscribe to another, complementary ideology that provides its own support group: a church, a commune, a company, a circle. Those ideologies are called altcultures, and the support groups that spring from them are communities. Most people are Spartan first, and altculture members second. A few people though subscribe so hard to some alcultures they have hard time interacting with the Spartan society at large. These are tiered individuals. They prefer to spend most of their time in a community tied to their altculture, where life is easy for them. Fist tiers usually have spartan jobs but live in the community. Second tiers provide services and goods from Sparta to the community. Third tiers live only for their ideology and the community provides for them in return. Fourth tiers are the gurus and pundits of the community: they live and breathe and eat by their ideology, and theyre so alien that normal Spartan cant have any meaningful conversation with them. I should note that some people take the Spartan TOS far enough that they can be considered fourth tier even for someone who identifies as Spartan first. Amazing, isnt it?

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1. Welcome to Sparta

giri Reputation is everything and in Sparta, reputation is based on deeds. When you do things that please and benefit an altculture as a whole, or a community in particular, you insure a lot of project invites from their members and a lot of impulsive clicks for whatever you do. To get rich, get connected. This is giri: relationship at its most abstract or, as a shark once put it, moral duty as an economical good. core thesis Each altculture is build around a core thesis, a central idea that you have to hold true to fit in. Heres the 12 worldwide altcultures a community or an individual can identify with, each with their core thesis: Sparta: people should be rational economic agents at all time Anthropophobic: being human is too limited Artistic: if it doesnt make a statement, its not worth doing Corporate: a missed opportunity is a real price you paid Criminal: no law should be for all the people, all the time High Family: the rich and powerful deserves their power Maenadic: live for the rush, now and here Physical Idealist: you can be a perfect body Religious: you can find truth through faith as well as evidence Secure: its better to be safe than to be free Street: give me a chance and Ill be successful Technical: give me evidence or its not true

communities Altculture are abstract but communities are concrete. They are built around real people and resources and an altculture core thesis. Typically theyre tier one communities: a small group of people living in the same corner of Sparta pooling resources to live according to their common philosophy. With time they develop into tier two communities: a few core services are provided by projects managed by people from the community. Sometimes they reach tier three, where a few lucky ones get to live fully according to their communitys interpretation of their altculture core thesis and never speak to Sparta again, or even tiers four, where the community leaders influence their whole altcultures.

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there you are

You are something already. You have ambition. You dont buy in the Spartan model. Something is wrong with the world and you dont know what yet, but youll find out and youll change it. You feel that in your bones. You underwent IOSHI submergence training. You are a shark, a knife edge, a shaman, a healer. You understand the world better than most, and you know where to push to make things fall into place. You can do amazing things. People notice you and they ask from you: your time, your expertise, your attention, your presence even. Youre the best thing around. You believe the datataint is real. You dont know what it is because nobody does. But you used filters for your training. Its a big thing, and people talk about it when they know. So its all up to you then. Have fun fighting the system.

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2. basic rules

IOSHI players handbook

basic rules
how to play the game
You might know this already: a roleplaying game is a conversation: you all have your characters, and youre talking about what they say, what they do and what happen to them. You take turns, but its not formal like youre playing chess: its more informal like sometimes you correct one another, you all speak at the same time, there are back-and-forths between two players, etc. This conversation youre having about your characters is the story. In IOSHI theres a role set apart: the operator or OP for short. The OP doesnt have their own character: instead, they get to play every supporting cast non-players characters, or NPC for short your characters will encounter, and get to mess with you when the game gets boring. They still take part in the conversation, though. They ask and answer questions, feed in new elements and watch the continuity of the story. Along that conversation, someone will say something that triggers a rule, usually things like I want to know everything about that thing! or I shoot that guy!. Rules in IOSHI are called routines, and usually you get to roll dice.

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2. basic rules

before you begin

Print and assemble the aspect files, some routine files, an operator file and a first session file. Gather three players or more, yourself included. One of you get to be the operator: usually, the one who read the operator handbook. The other players select an aspect file and fill it up to create their player character or PC for short. Only one aspect per table, no duplicate. Once each player has a character to play and the operator is ready to rumble, get together, hand out giri and youre ready to play.

how to use routines in play

If a PC does something that matches the if-clause of a routine, then you all follow the instructions provided in the routine then-clause, in the order they are given. You is the player or the PC triggering the routine. Case of means the routine can go different ways depending on a dice roll or a choice. Select presents the relevant player with several choices. Rem is short for remarks and any text after a rem is just for your information and not like, well, a rule. Rem routines are both prescriptive and descriptive:when you say something that matches a routines if-clause, you follow the then-clause and roll the dice; when you want to roll the dice and follow the then-clause, you describe what your characters doing to trigger the if-clause. Rem calling a routine is usually the OPs job, but it doesnt have to. You can say I jump from roof to roof, am I taking a risk? or better yet hey, Keefer is totally playing with that poor Nancys feelings, Id say hes taking a risk? Like the risk is: does he break Nancys heart?, its all good.

rolling the dice

If a routine tells you to roll a metric then take as much dice as the metric and roll them. Case of: at least one die shows 5 or more: you count how many dice do: thats your hits none of the dice show 5 or more: you tell the oprator its a miss Then follow the routines instructions. Rem Im talking about six-sided dice here, if youve been wondering about that: you need at least 6 and a dozen at most.

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IOSHI players handbook basic routines

Every PC can do any of these. take a risk If you take a risk to do something or try to avoid danger then roll edgy. Case of: 1 hit: the OP will give you a condition for your success and select 1 option: you fulfill the condition and you achieve your goal you dont fulfill the condition and its a miss 2+hits: you do it without a fuss screencap someone If youre interacting with someone and you want to screencap them and get what makes them tick then roll smart and keep your hits. If you spend a hit anytime during the conversation, then select 1 question and ask that characters player: is your character telling the truth? what is your character really thinking right now? what does your character intend to do? what does you character want me to do? how can I convince your character to do ____? The player must answer truthfully: their word is bond. get intel If you try to get intel about a situation then roll smart and keep your hits. If you spend 1-hit during this situation then select 1 question and ask the OP: whats my best way in / way out / way round? which target is most vulnerable to me? which opponent is the most dangerous to me? what should I be careful about? whos my real enemy here? whos in charge here? If you act by taking the OPs answer(s) into account during this situation and you roll dice then you get to roll +1die. hostile takeover If you try to get access something through hostile takeover or try to defend whats yours by any mean then state whats at stake and roll hostile. You inflict your frag to your target, you suffer frag from your opponents, whats at stake didnt change hands and everybody is up for seconds. Then select as many options as your hits: you get whats at stake you overcome your opponent who leaves it as is you inflict +1frag you suffer -1frag Rem that means that you can take each option once, so if you scored 5 hits, too bad, still four options. 17

2. basic rules

apply pressure If you apply pressure on someone to get what you want or threaten someone with frag then tell them what you want them to do and roll hostile. Case of: 1 hit: the target selects 1 option : GTFO at once get cover and brace for impact give you something they think you want rem tabs, toys, or intel eg. back off calmly and try to appease you do what you told them suffer frag (as you established) 2+ hits: the target selects 1 option: they cave and they do what you told them they suffer frag (as you established) Rem yes, it means its the victim who chooses, either way. convince someone If you try to convince an NPC to do something for you and they ask you something in return then roll viral. Case of: 1 hit: if you do your part first then they do it 2+ hits: if you assure them you will do your part eventually then they do it If you try to convince a fellow PC then roll viral. Case of: 1 hit: select 1 option in the list below 2+ hits: apply both options in the list below if they do it then they gain 1-tab from your followers if they dont do it then they take a risk play coop/pvp If you try to play coop with another PC to help them on a dice roll or go player-vs-player and interfere with their dice roll then roll 2-dice plus giri with them. Case of: 1 hit: select either they get +1die or -2dice to their roll and if they fail you suffer the same consequence as them. 2+ hits: select either they get +1die or -2dice to their next roll If you try to help or hinder a NPC or a project then roll 2-dice plus giri with their altculture. Case of: 1 hit: select 1 option: you cause them 1-frag and you get noticed they get +1progress on one project and you dont get noticed 2+ hits: select 1 option: you cause them 1-frag they get +1progress on one project then select weither you get noticed or not

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IOSHI players handbook

follow the flow If you follow the flow and ebb of data to find some anwsers then roll wired. Case of: 1 hit: the OP will give you a vague impression of whats happening and will ask you a question or two 2+ hits: the OP will tell you something new and useful about the situation and might ask you a question

giri routine
If you have 3-giri with another PC or an altculture and you get +giri with them then you get 1-tab and you reset that giri to 0-giri. Rem you cant rest on your past action too long before people get bored, so when your efforts cash in youd better be working your next big thing already.

All these routines manage the ebb and flow of tabs.

trade routines

clicked metrics If you roll a clicked metric then you gain 1-tab right now, no matter if its a hit or miss. invest! If you spend 5-tabs to get an investment (cf) then select one item on your investment list and cross it: you get access to all its perks but cant take it again in the future. no thesaurisation If you already have 6-tabs in your tab progress bar and you get +tabs then you dont get any. Rem thesaurisation is bad for the economy, youre a bad person for doing so and nobody worth anything will garantee your savings: you should invest instead. go shopping If you go shopping for something then roll smart. Case of: 1 hit: the OP selects 1 option: it costs +1tab its available only through one single source you have to meet somebody else (callsign: Rolfball maybe) got the auction or the ransom before you; maybe you can get it from them this particular model isnt available anymore but heres something pretty close 2+ hits: you can buy what you want just like that

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2. basic rules

provide service If you provide service to a NPC or a project for free or give them tabs no question asked then spend as much tabs as your giri with their altculture or provide them a service worth as much tabs as your giri with it and you get +1giri with it. drop some tabs If you spread the word you want something and you drop some tabs to get it done then roll 2-dice plus tabs spent. Case of: 1 hit: you get something close, with strings quite attached 2+ hits: you get it, no strings attached If you drop 1-tab whole to someones lap and ask them something then proceed like you convinced them with 2+ hits.

frags & firewall routines

Frag is what you get when you get hurt. A bullet can puncture your lung. A viral video showing your inability to manage a project can hurt your percieved professional worth. A computer virus can mess with your digital life and leave you in want of certain vital services. A romantic failure can fuck you up real good, and make you unable to perform well. But most of the times the bullet hurts more. Firewall is a metaphor for anything that help you prevent frag. A bulletproof jacket, a secure digital avatar, you own aura of trust, anything. But most of the time its a bulletproof jacket. suffer frag If you suffer frag then you deduce any appropriate firewall from the amount suffered and you check as many box as the result on your frag progress bar. Then you roll 2-dice plus frag boxes checked. Case of: 1 hit: if you do anything next then you take a risk: does your harm prevent you from achieving your objective ? 2+ hits: the OP selects 1 option: youre out of action and the OP tells you how long its worse than it seems and you check one more frag box miss: you shrug it off and can go on. Rem this subroutine works a little different from the others: youre supposed to miss that one, and any hit means a bad thing.

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IOSHI players handbook

disability If you check any frag box past the third then select 1: you dont check any box and check a disability instead you check all the boxes you need to Rem its the little boxes, not the large ones; a disability reduces one of your metrics by 1 die permanently. heal frag If you heal another PCs frag then you get as many giri from them as the number of frags healed. inflict frag If you inflict frag to another PC then they get as many giri as the number of frags inflicted.

start of session routine

At the start of a session erase any clicks you have then everybody takes turn. Case of: On your turn: select the PC you have the most giri with then their player clicks one of your stat rem in case of tie, you break any way you like. On the OPs turn: for each PC, the OP selects a stat thats not clicked yet then clicks that stat

end of session routine

At the end of the session, everybody takes turn. Case of: On your turn: tell which PC you feel was the most supportive of your character and they get +1giri with you. On the OPs turn: for each PC, the OP selects which altculture they feel this PC showed the most support for and this PC gets +1giri with it

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