Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

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Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521735

Hi all,

I enjoy roleplaying in SS13, and I believe that the tight mix of fast paced action and conflict with slower moments of downtime and peace make for a really unique experience that few other games can offer. However, while roleplaying as a badass fighting their way through a revolution is seriously fun and engaging, /tg/station has always been a little weaker when it comes to long, slower stretches of time where characters might talk about their own history and experiences. I think part of this comes from the game as a medium, but I also think a large part of it is because there's no real lore to /tg/station's branch of SS13 other than: plasma good, syndicate kill people, and whatever flavor of the month memes people decide to throw in piecemeal with their PR's.

Thus, about a month ago, I finally got around to a project I've been considering for a while, to get the community to come together and make lore! Frankly, I already wrote a long description of the project, its goals, and other FAQ type things on the Common Core/Sandbox homepage so I'm just gonna link to it and let you read that, then do a few FAQ points anyway.

START HERE for info on the project and basic setting descriptions, then follow the two links at the bottom to the sample entries and extended pages for more write-ups and examples.


How can I use this?
Have you read through the entire project description and basic lore and found you enjoy it? Great! You can help make this more of a reality by talking about it with other tgstation players and creating buzz for it, and starting to use it in your own roleplay conversations. Mention it in deadchat and in your metagang IRC discords of likeminded pals, and see if they'd be interested in it! The more interest the project gains, the more people will actually understand what you're talking about when you refer to it! (Obviously don't be obnoxious about it though)

How can I contribute to this?
Have you read through the entire project description and basic lore and found you REALLY enjoy it? Great! You can help make this even more of a reality by contributing articles and write-ups! Post in this thread, PM me on the forums, or catch me on discord (ping Ryll#0618 in one of the general discussions on the official tgstation discord or something) and pitch me your idea! We'll probably go back and forth a bit on how to best fit it into the surrounding lore, but that's the fun of design by committee collaboration! Once your pitch is approved, we'll talk through the drafts until we've got a bona-fide submission!

Once we're a bit more established, I'd be very interested in taking on some official help in the form of other editors and decision makers so that it can truly be a more communal effort. We'll get to that once we have more submissions though, so stay tuned!

I have other questions!
Cool! Post 'em here or contact me otherwise.


this thread, like both this project and me, is a continual WIP so keep your eyes peeled
P.S. Shoot Dr. Allen on sight and dissolve his body in acid. Don't burn it.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521737

[Reserved for book keeping]

WANTED ARTICLES: Published Contributors (updated 11/6/19):
Shaps - Basic setup, project description
Domitius - Donk Co.
RandolfTheMeh - DeForest Medical Corporation
BGOBandit - Syndicate Traitor Objective articles
Dorsidwarf - Animal Rights Consortium
EOBGames - Space Wizard Federation
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by oranges » #521738

this has my support

edit; to clarify, I wish to see this become the base for lore in the codebase, affecting things like the names of objects, people, ruins, backstory etc.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by wesoda25 » #521744

kinda sad that most new people know next to nothing about most of the lore, myself included. I think including it via code would really help and might make tg better.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Sandshark808 » #521746

Pretty cool! I might try to write some blurbs for this project.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Sandshark808 » #521749

"Wherefore art thou, lizardman?" - Transcript from a 3 part lecture series given at Federal University, Centauri

Over the last fifty years of stellar exploration, humanity has come across numerous species dwelling in isolation. Leaving aside the ubiquitous and unintelligent specimens evident in Cyprinus Astralii, which are seen to "swim" through nebulae and even harass vessels in deep space, most species we find are alone, trapped on the world that gave them birth. Aside from ourselves, there is one species for whom that is not so.

By now most people have become aware of the "lizardmen," as they have been popularly known. What you might not know is that Nanotrasen was not actually the first to discover this genus of reptiloid sapients, and their home is likely not in the region of the Corporate Sector. Recently unearthed records show that a TerraGov Marine survey team sent to Planetoid XLVIII, a Periphery world considered for colonization due to its planet-wide temperate rainforests, were ambushed in the jungles of that planet by "Gigantic geckos wielding spears." Though much of the information from these early survey missions is lost, the researchers were able to locate several photographs documenting the encounter.

[Attached to the transcript are three photographs presented during the lecture: One is of two marines posing with a highly perforated lizardman. The second is of a wild-eyed lizardman wielding a spear and gladiator armor riding on the back of an enormous leachie gecko. The third is of what appears to be a votive shrine. A large statue of a cute, wide-eyed lizard is carved in stone standing on a dais. Its obviously exaggerated features are reminiscent of a child's stuffed animal.]

Needless to say, this is an incredibly important piece of information. When Nanotrasen first publicized the existence of the lizardmen, dubbed Urosaurus Sapiens, they were believed to originate from a temperate world in the Corporate Sector. There too they were documented to ride larger land-lizards, the non-sentient Rhacodactylus Scaredii, a kind of mammoth tree lizard. However, this meeting seems to have been much more peaceful than the previous. The Nanotrasen survey ship had been struck with a plague of mice during its extended voyage, and upon stopping by the native village to parlay for supplies the swarm of them is said to have run from the cargo hold into the lizard village. Delighted by what appeared to be a bountiful offering of tasty live snacks, the lizardmen showered the newcomers with fresh provisions and a lasting bond was formed. The rest, as we say, is history.

But what of our topic? Well, you see, the exact same ecosystem was discovered on two planets. Not only were the lizardmen and their pets translated in exact mirror, but their planets differed in environment. The same life could not have evolved there in parallel simply by accident. What is more amazing, recent reports from the Nanotrasen Planetary Survey have suggested a third documented population of lizardmen, this one hailing from a volcanic, ash-blasted moon far from XLVIII. This environment seems wholly unsuitable for reptile development, and the native life is said to bear little resemblance to the ash-dwelling lizards.

My theory, therefore, is twofold: First, that the original planet of the reptilian races is not known to humanity at present, and Second, that they may have had the capacity to travel between the stars like we do. The mystery of their location is merely one element of their unusual history, but we're running out of time here today so I'm afraid we'll have to get into the complexities tomorrow. Before we break for the Q&A I'd like to ask you to please reserve all questions about high-tech artifacts discovered alongside reptiloid communities for tomorrow's talk, as we will be going over that material then.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by skoglol » #521750

Has to be something useful in between the smut
https://sb.atlantaned.space/library
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521751

Sandshark808 wrote:"Wherefore art thou, lizardman?" - Transcript from a 3 part lecture series given at Federal University, Centauri

Over the last fifty years of stellar exploration, humanity has come across numerous species dwelling in isolation. Leaving aside the ubiquitous and unintelligent specimens evident in Cyprinus Astralii, which are seen to "swim" through nebulae and even harass vessels in deep space, most species we find are alone, trapped on the world that gave them birth. Aside from ourselves, there is one species for whom that is not so.

By now most people have become aware of the "lizardmen," as they have been popularly known. What you might not know is that Nanotrasen was not actually the first to discover this genus of reptiloid sapients, and their home is likely not in the region of the Corporate Sector. Recently unearthed records show that a TerraGov Marine survey team sent to Planetoid XLVIII, a Periphery world considered for colonization due to its planet-wide temperate rainforests, were ambushed in the jungles of that planet by "Gigantic geckos wielding spears." Though much of the information from these early survey missions is lost, the researchers were able to locate several photographs documenting the encounter.

[Attached to the transcript are three photographs presented during the lecture: One is of two marines posing with a highly perforated lizardman. The second is of a wild-eyed lizardman wielding a spear and gladiator armor riding on the back of an enormous leachie gecko. The third is of what appears to be a votive shrine. A large statue of a cute, wide-eyed lizard is carved in stone standing on a dais. Its obviously exaggerated features are reminiscent of a child's stuffed animal.]

Needless to say, this is an incredibly important piece of information. When Nanotrasen first publicized the existence of the lizardmen, dubbed Urosaurus Sapiens, they were believed to originate from a temperate world in the Corporate Sector. There too they were documented to ride larger land-lizards, the non-sentient Rhacodactylus Scaredii, a kind of mammoth tree lizard. However, this meeting seems to have been much more peaceful than the previous. The Nanotrasen survey ship had been struck with a plague of mice during its extended voyage, and upon stopping by the native village to parlay for supplies the swarm of them is said to have run from the cargo hold into the lizard village. Delighted by what appeared to be a bountiful offering of tasty live snacks, the lizardmen showered the newcomers with fresh provisions and a lasting bond was formed. The rest, as we say, is history.

But what of our topic? Well, you see, the exact same ecosystem was discovered on two planets. Not only were the lizardmen and their pets translated in exact mirror, but their planets differed in environment. The same life could not have evolved there in parallel simply by accident. What is more amazing, recent reports from the Nanotrasen Planetary Survey have suggested a third documented population of lizardmen, this one hailing from a volcanic, ash-blasted moon far from XLVIII. This environment seems wholly unsuitable for reptile development, and the native life is said to bear little resemblance to the ash-dwelling lizards.

My theory, therefore, is twofold: First, that the original planet of the reptilian races is not known to humanity at present, and Second, that they may have had the capacity to travel between the stars like we do. The mystery of their location is merely one element of their unusual history, but we're running out of time here today so I'm afraid we'll have to get into the complexities tomorrow. Before we break for the Q&A I'd like to ask you to please reserve all questions about high-tech artifacts discovered alongside reptiloid communities for tomorrow's talk, as we will be going over that material then.
I appreciate your enthusiasm to get started! That being said, please keep the contribution guidelines (which i've just updated the "how can I contribute?" section) in mind so we can stick to a consistent process.
P.S. Shoot Dr. Allen on sight and dissolve his body in acid. Don't burn it.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521903

We have a new channel on the discord, #lore-general for lore discussion and getting feedback/workshopping ideas!

Also, a few short articles on old traitor objectives by bgobandit has been published on this page! These are excellent examples of writing style and tone that are lighter than most of what I've written so far, and to good effect, so take inspiration from them!
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by SpaceManiac » #521936

suggestion: drop "space-east" entirely and just go all-in on spinward/coreward/anti-spinward/anti-coreward
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521939

Blorble I thought I got most of those, I guess a few slipped through ;_;

I'll fix the last of them tomorrow. In other news, a few more syndie entries from dorsidwarf and bgo!
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Qustinnus » #521947

The biggest issue with any of these attempts at lore is that they usually lack any type of insight in what currently exists in terms of story that feature coders themselves created. Are you going to approach that any different?
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Cobby » #521963

The approach is you make it fit with this before someone fits it in a way that you may not like :^)
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #521967

Qustinnus wrote:The biggest issue with any of these attempts at lore is that they usually lack any type of insight in what currently exists in terms of story that feature coders themselves created. Are you going to approach that any different?
If anything, I believe this will be a boon for feature coders by providing new inspirations. As stated in the core tenets, lore submissions are judged on the ratio of possibilities that a submission opens up with new connections to the number of opportunities it extinguishes, and we try to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Before, bits of lore would be added piecemeal as features got added and there was no incentive or drive to tie things together to make anything more. My hope with this project is that people can browse through the lore, find something they think is interesting, think "wouldn't it be funny/cool if...", then make something new based on that.

For example, Ninjanom originally wanted to tie his shuttles PR to Donk Co. but people complained since they were part of the syndicate, so he dropped it. The new Donk article was written with that in mind to support it, so he can add it to the game as originally intended.

And, of course, there's still good old story/gameplay separation and abstraction for mechanics that seriously don't me. As much as I love my intern horde emergency response PR in game, it'd be an absolute nightmare to justify in the context of the lore, so it doesn't have to be addressed with an article. Not everything has to be canon :)
Cobby wrote:The approach is you make it fit with this before someone fits it in a way that you may not like :^)
Also this, get in at the ground floor now!

I am interested in hearing if you have any more specific concerns about how this may limit feature coders in the future, so that we can jump out ahead of them.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Mickyan » #521974

This is pretty inconsequential but for the sake of argument I'll use it as an example: I have my own head-canon on how the Happiness drug came to be but I never got around to expand on it in game and I hope to do so eventually. It'd suck for everyone involved if someone else came up with a story for it in the meantime and we had to argue over who has the right to decide what's canon, the guy who made the feature or the first person to come up with a story for it.

For the record I welcome this initiative but something to consider
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Qustinnus » #521992

Mickyan wrote:This is pretty inconsequential but for the sake of argument I'll use it as an example: I have my own head-canon on how the Happiness drug came to be but I never got around to expand on it in game and I hope to do so eventually. It'd suck for everyone involved if someone else came up with a story for it in the meantime and we had to argue over who has the right to decide what's canon, the guy who made the feature or the first person to come up with a story for it.

For the record I welcome this initiative but something to consider
This x100, I don't want to argue with brainlets who want to decide how my features fit in the lore when they have 0 investment in the feature. Telling people go be fast or fuck off is retarded in a case where features take multiple weeks to code at times and we don't want to fend off retarded idea guys
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by oranges » #522006

lore in game is limited to descriptions of things and items anyway, the most lore heavy things are fluff on space ruins.

In short, you're overthinking it


The answer is whoever actually bothers to put lore in their code, or someone else adding lore descriptions
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Stickymayhem » #522030

Qustinnus wrote:
Mickyan wrote:This is pretty inconsequential but for the sake of argument I'll use it as an example: I have my own head-canon on how the Happiness drug came to be but I never got around to expand on it in game and I hope to do so eventually. It'd suck for everyone involved if someone else came up with a story for it in the meantime and we had to argue over who has the right to decide what's canon, the guy who made the feature or the first person to come up with a story for it.

For the record I welcome this initiative but something to consider
This x100, I don't want to argue with brainlets who want to decide how my features fit in the lore when they have 0 investment in the feature. Telling people go be fast or fuck off is retarded in a case where features take multiple weeks to code at times and we don't want to fend off retarded idea guys
Devil's advocate, I'm not too invested either way, but what if the coder's lore sucks?

There's not necessarily an overlap between making ss13 features and writing ss13 lore in skillset, so does making the feature give you a right to make the lore whatever you want, even if you're shit at it?

I'm not saying that's untenable but is that what we're saying?
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Qustinnus » #522039

What I would like to see is people actually talking to feature coders (If they're still here) and at least discuss spirit of the PR with them. Every single lore attempt I've seen has written about one of my features, completely ignoring existing fluff, and then acted flabbergasted when I say that it's bad.

I don't think coders should have the last word but from what I'm seeing here it doesn't seem like they'll be approached for opinions either.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Mickyan » #522045

I want to make it clear that I do not think anyone "owns" anything they made because to me that goes against the spirit of open source

However coding features and writing lore are both creative processes and it's understandable people may find themselves protective of their work, and while I'd love to think we could just discuss differences of opinions like adults and come up with a compromise, in reality it doesn't always work out and I'd like to hear that both sides will be taken into consideration rather than defaulting to one or the other.
Bikeshedding wars between ingame descriptions and "official lore" is going to help nobody in the long run.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #522046

Counterpoint: things have been fine so far and we'll cross that bridge when we get there

Save the wild speculation for the lore ladies and gents

Got a few more articles going up today
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by Shaps-cloud » #522792

Published new articles on wizards and medical corporations, updated contributor lists! I'm reworking organization as new articles get added, so it's being tossed around a bit.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by NikNakFlak » #523277

redacted
Last edited by NikNakFlak on Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Common Core/Sandbox- A crowdsourced /tg/station lore initiative

Post by oranges » #523306

the old lore is not canon and was never accepted.

This lore is providing a concrete base of fluff for the codebase to use.
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