Hello World

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It's an SOS message on channel 455. 

It's not what you were designed for, robot, but the call is urgent. Will you respond?

The MIRRORLab at the Colorado School of Mines is pleased to announce the Alpha Release of our new TTRPG, Channel 455. 

Channel 455 is a rules-light TTRPG built on the Resistance system, in which you play a group of robots responding to a call for help. 

Channel 455 has four unique elements to its design:

1. Before creating their robot characters, players create the robot's designer and owner, so that those designer and owners' values and priorities can help shape their robot design. 

2. Character sheets follow a unique design. On the back of the character sheet are spaces for each player to draw their robot, designer, and owner. That section then folds up to face the other players! 

3. The game has a unique narrative structure. The game starts with a city council meeting where the robots' designers have been summoned to testify about a negative incident involving the robots. The game then flashes back to the main adventure, where the players play to find out what went wrong. Finally, the game flashes forward, as the designers are asked to reflect on what went wrong, and why. Finally, the city council votes (based on the outcome of the players' choices) to see whether robots will be certified or banned within their city.

4. The game is about the harm robots cause, not harm caused to robots. Because of this, each character has a harm track rather than a health track. Whenever a player fails (or gets mixed success) on an action, they mark harm to that track to reflect the harm their robot has caused, and the GM helps to explain how that harm manifested. As harm builds up, the robots' capabilities are sabotaged -- their bad reputation spreads to other robots -- and eventually they are terminated (e.g., destroyed by a mob, factory recalled, or legislated away).

We hope you enjoy Channel 455!

Please send us your thoughts on this alpha release, either through comments, or by emailing us at mirrorlab.mines@gmail.com.