Escaped gaming meme: Orange Team Utopia

[mithriltabby]

At long last, humanity has finally created a post-scarcity world where poverty, disease, and hardship are largely things you learn about in history class. This could be in the heart of Star Trek’s Federation, or another setting.

Your characters, however, don’t fully appreciate the peace and tranquility. They make trouble. And got caught at it. After some psychological profiling, you wind up in a very private presentation:

Utopia needs challenges to keep up its immune system. Orange Teams are secretly allowed to get away with pranks, heists, scams, and theft as long as they avoid actually endangering or harming people. Dangerous criminals go directly to behavioral rehabilitation, or are confined to the Chaos Enclaves where people go to opt out of Utopia. But merry pranksters and gentlefolk thieves have a niche in society making sure that the rest of the people don’t get too complacent.

And sometimes, Orange Teams discover real problems, and root them out before they become widespread.

Facing the choice between rehab, being surrounded by jerks in the Chaos Enclaves, and becoming a professional prank-and-heist crew, your team chose the latter option.

Comments

[canyonwalker]

I like this idea! I've always felt utopian settings such as Star Trek's Federation are hopelessly naive. Yes, solving for scarcity will eliminate much of the motivation that drives conflict— but it will not eliminate all of it. There will still be people who strive to have more than everyone else (for them there's never "enough") and to control others to satisfy their egos. The Orange Team idea seems to acknowledge this reality as the context for why there's a mechanism to address it. Criminals who have conscience are offered the alternative of joining a secret white-hat organization in lieu of exile.

Are you starting a game soon? 😃

[mithriltabby]

Currently I’m actively developing a Shadowrun game for Fate, punctuated by my brain’s insistence to also follow up on the idea “what if we reinvent D&D with the metaphysics of Delicious in Dungeon?” Maybe I should start coming up with titles like “The Dilithium Heist” and “The Romulan Caper” and see if my unconscious starts cranking out scenarios...

[mithriltabby]

In a Federation universe, Orange Teams would have been developed by Federation councilors ignorant of the existence of Section 31. Section 31 were delighted when they found out about Orange Teams and have a few of their own.