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Champion
 
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| Was talking the other day with a mate about a insectiod race we were thinking of putting into our new HF system (when we eventually get round to doing it) and one thing I initially wanted to do was give all the players of that race a walkie talkie with earpiece. They can all communicate remotely with each other, as they would as part of a hive mind. Thought about it a bit more and considered the possibilities of a Hive Mind LRP. The players are all either part of "ant colony" type arrangment, or Borg or something, and theyve got to use their Hive Mind advatange to take over other civilisations Or something.... Im sure this post was going somewhere when I started writing it
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- Brighton Below : Organiser
- Serenity: Capt Tom Crowson
- RL: Simon / Trez
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Wag
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| It works reasonably well on a small scale. No idea if it will work for all the players in a game but no reason why not. You do have to be careful of: - Radio deadzones - not a problem if the radio is actually a radio IC because all that means is that the radio has gone dead IC as well as OC but if your radio is actually phys repping some form of psychic link which in theory is impossible to interupt then you have problems. Though you can always say that the psychic link (or whatever it is) is also subject to interrruptions by 'strange forces'  Basically, be aware that not all players will be recieving the signal at all times unless you have really good (and therefore expensive i.e. professional police/army type) radios or the site is totally flat and not very big. - Logistics. Someone on the crew needs to be manning the crew room all the time or have a radio with them all the time in order to monitor what goes on, check for outages and generally be the 'hub' of the network. - Batteries. If players have to provide their own radios then fine but if not, you need to have a stock of batteries and/or recharging facilities. This means power points of some form. Assume one set of batteries for each radio for every 4 - 12 hours of use depending on the radio (test them). - Equipment. If you are supplying the equipment this could get expensive (about £30 per pair of radios with possible extra cost for hands free plus battery costs per event). However, you will know that all the radios are compatible with each other (because you will be sensible and buy all the same make and model). But, if you take the cheaper option of telling the players they have to buy the radios (which is what we do - though we have some spare crew ones the players can borrow if necessary) then you need to be certain of compatibility. You will need to write a list of requirements for the radios (usually saying 'PMR' is enough in most cases but not all PMRs talk to each other so be careful) and remember that radios made to British specifications and those made to American or European specifications may not be compatible even if they are the same make and model. We had this problem when one player bought some radios identical to the ones the other players used cheap from an American ebay auction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Prodigal
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balor (7/21/2006)
Logistics. Someone on the crew needs to be manning the crew room all the time or have a radio with them all the time in order to monitor what goes on, check for outages and generally be the 'hub' of the network.
Presumably your Hive Queen, who is made of solid ming but can't move, would generally oversee the network in this way.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Wag
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Yep. Makes sense. In Waypoint this is The Computer. Basically, we leave the radio lying around the crew room and let the crew pick it up and have fun whenever they feel like shouting/singing/speaking/whispering or whatever any random gibberish (with potential plot relevance) down it at the poor unfortunates who thought 'hive mind' was a merit not a flaw
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Knight
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ChessyPig (7/21/2006)
Presumably your Hive Queen, who is made of solid ming but can't move, would generally oversee the network in this way.
"Made of solid ming" is a quote im gonna remeber for a long time, tickled me so it did 
In fact its going in my sig
I do try and spell things right...
Dark Millenium: Unofficial Larp based on Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000.
"MADE OF SOLID MING"
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Prodigal
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To be fair, it isn't my idea, I got it from somone at Maelstrom (can't remember who); they said that nobody complained that dragons were made of solid ming because they had to wear 15' immobile costumes to get it all.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Knight
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I was looking at a hive mind for the game that has become know as Vapour Ware LRP (Prison Without Walls) as I'm never going to actually finish the ruddy thing.
It's going to be pure NPC so the radio dead zones would have been dealt with by each drone having basic set of instructions that they followed when out of contact which would vary depending on whether they are workers, soldiers etc. Think one mind with multiple independently mobile cells rather than many linked individuals. Each hive is essentially a single individual with it's own personality and mannerisms.
Something else to consider; If it is actually radio the drones are using to communicate rather than telepathy (and maybe even if it is telepathy, depending on how that works in your setting) then if there are multiple hives around there is a very good chance that they'll have evolved some sort of ECM to locate, jam, spoof or otherwise misdirect other hives and internal hive transmissions are probably going to be something similar to the encrypted, sounds like static, burst transmissions the modern military use in an effort to counter other hives jamming attempts.
Of course this means that when some PCs attempt to use standard walkie-talkies, every hive within 10 - 50 miles is going to know where they are and possibly even what they're saying and that the PCs will find their radios jammed to hell and utterly useless very quickly.
This sig left intentionally blank
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Heroic Knight
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It would be cool if we could have some way of properly phys repping an actual Hive Mind as opposed to a mere communications tool, especially if it's a distributed hive mind (i.e. no Ming Queen).
You're entitled to your opinion as long as you realise it's wrong.
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