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IRL: THE MMORPG v0.35
Last Updated 2024/4/28 • Read Time 9min



Turning Life Into a Real MMORPG

You don't want to be the guy that looks like he drops common loot when he dies. We have found a way to gameify life (based loosely around ideas like these) by creating relativistic and publicly trackable stats for people, meaningful classes to spec into, and a gear ladder worth climbing. Playing this game has resulted in the direct improvement of people's lives and makes them more useful to themselves, the people around them, and society in general. A lot more will eventually be added to this page, but in the meantime, if you want to play with us or help us test IRL, you can join our Discord.




STAT POINTS

All stats are easy to work on and improve over time; anyone can become noticeably better at any stat and see a clear, objective improvement in their lives because of it. These stats are designed to start at an average score of 50 each and we use these to relativistically rank people. If you financially incentivized this score improvement, you could potentially have a whole culture that works towards all these benificial behaviors. Your irl stats are as follows:

[ MIND ]
MEM: Memory is your Dual-N-Back score for a standardized DnB of 100 rounds on 3-back, plus your score on a rote memorization test similar to the ones used in the POST exam; 50 possible points each for 100 total.
INT: Intelligence is your score on a game theory test we issue plus your score on a series of randomnly generated knights-and-knaves logic puzzles; 50 possible points each for 100 total.
CHA: Charisma is determined by your score on a reading comprehension test plus your score from three rounds of A Convincing Game. 50 possible points each for 100 total. If we find an easy and highly reliable way to measure temperament, we will also include that.

[ BODY ]
VIT: Vitality is 200 minus your age, minus your BMI, minus half your resting heart rate (an estimate of stamina), divided by 1.5, for 100 possible points total. This is an incredibly acurate way to measure bodily health. We will change age to cellular age based on senescence in the future when that becomes easier to measure.
STR: Strength is the number of pushups you can do in 1 minute, plus the number of squats you can do in 1 minute, plus the number of sit-ups you can do in 1 minute, plus triple the number of pull-ups you can do in 30 seconds, divided by 2.5 (tentative value), for a possible total of 100. We use a calesthenic metric rather than a weight-rack metric so that strength is a score relative to your own body size, what we might even call functional strength. The greatest limiting factor to this strength stat is lactic acid buildup.
DEX: Dexterity is a combination of flexibility, motor-reflex, and balance metrics. Flexibility is measured by whether you can do the splits, bridge, flattened butterfly (or both legs behind your head), touching hands behind your back (one over your shoulder), and have >90 degree rotation of your neck and back in all cardinal directions; six points each for 30 total. That number is added to your score from this motor-skills test (40 total). Lastly you add half your vestibular sense (balance) score by measuring how long you can walk on a straight narrow line before falling off of it (60 seconds max for 60/2 points total), for a possible total dex score of 100.

As an example, your stats could look something like this:
MEM: 76    INT: 82    CHA: 71    VIT: 86    STR: 77.8    DEX: 63
The average score is 76 and all of these can improve or degrade over time.

We track buffs and debuffs too. Debuffs are usually medical conditions (e.g., heart problems or nutrient deficiencies) but things like bad sleep (or no sleep) also count. Buffs are things like multivitiamins, cognition enhancing nootropics, and similar ingestibles. De/buffs are all considered temporary and conditional.




CLASSES

This is our current outline of IRL classes. Each class has three levels, and expert proficiency at any level grants you that as a [Subclass]. Real life is of course different than a video game and so there's no need to limit yourself to one class; anyone can become highly competent at a multitude of skills.

CLERIC
[Medic] You have worked as a healthcare professional or have received advanced medical and triage training.
[Herbalist] You know about the bioavailability of herbs and other natural remedies in your geographic region and are familiarized with cultivating and processing them (and keep some stocked).
[Poisoner] You know about regionally uncommon venoms and antidotes, as well as keep each stocked.

FIGHTER
[Soldier] You are proficient in the use of firearms, both handguns and rifles.
[Monk] You have a high degree belt in some practical martial arts like BJJ and Muay Thai (belt equivalent), or are proficient in some kind of movement sport (like free running).
[Pilot] You have a pilot license for helicopters, planes, or can competently operate a tank.

HUNTER
[Survivalist] You know several ways to start fire without matches or fluid and you can reliably capture & clean water.
[Tracker] You know how to fish, track game, and how to skin & gut animals. This requires proficiency with rifles or bows.
[Chef] You know how to smoke & preserve meat as well as dry & ferment fruit or grains.

ROGUE
[Thief] You are proficient in pin-tumbler lock-picking and common physical pen-testing techniques.
[Hacker] You are proficient in informatics, networking, and network exploitation.
[Stalker] You are proficient in the use of stingray devices, can track people via digital footprints, and know how to reverse-lookup image locations via google maps.

SORCERER
[Naturalist] You have a degree in biology or chemistry.
[Geneticist] You posses actionable knowledge of gene sequencing, editing, and plasmid-based biohacking.
[Pyro] You know formulations for various explosives and their construction, and you keep relevant precursors stocked.

WARLOCK
[Pact Magic] You have made a blood pact (business relationship) with an elected member of government, have security clearance in an intelligence agency, or have privac to at least one of the top five defense contractors.
[Reader] You have studied kinesics, mentalism, or are a licensed polygraph technician, and you can tell with greater than 95% accuracy when someone is lying.
[Bankrolled] You have either made, inherited, or won over 5 million USD and can therefore live comfortably off the interest alone.

WIZARD
[Sage] You have a degree in philosophy, psychology, or library science.
[Abjuration Magic] You are proficient in logic puzzles, rhetoric, and lateral thinking, as well as know the basics of linguistics, informatics, cryptography, and standard compartmentalization practices.
[Divination Magic] You use tools like Maltego, Metaforecast, or others to accurately track and predict sentiments around various topics. You must have greater than a 66% success rate for this to count.


There are some additional miscellaneous subclasses you can spec into.

[Escapist] You've taken multiple urban survival classes geared towards hostage scenarios, being kidnapped, etc. You carry and know how to use universal handcuffs keys and other common escape tools.

[Precog] You can consistently score higher than 33% on the sequences in the Rhine/Zener tests.




GEAR & MISC.

This section contains descriptions of clothing, weapons, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items needed to upgrade your IRL character sheet. There are five different values of an item's attribute: common, uncommon, rare, very rare, and legendary.

CLOTHING SLOTS
A lot of clothing is of course dependant on your personal tastes and the climate, but there are still objective traits that improve the quality and useablity of clothing, for example, wool clothing is naturally anti-bacterial and thereby stops it from becoming smelly as quickly. Generally speaking, waterproof and flame retardant clothing is also desirable, as is clothing that isn't too loose and likely to snag on fences. It is better for socks to be waterproof than it is for shoes to be since waterproof socks will still keep your feet dry when you are fully submerged in water, whereas waterproof shoes won't. As far as camouflage goes, most camo looks goofy in most regular environments; it's usually better to have solid-color gray clothing since this is more inconspicuous and still acts as camo in many urban, winter, and nighttime settings. There are however camo patterns that fool most AI camera systems and even some infrared camos - these can be incredibly useful. You can buy level II bodyarmor undershirts from some sites, and there are lots of options for level III or IV plates if you don't mind standing out.

PACK
You should be able to fit your whole life into three bags: a backpack for EDC items and two duffle bags for clothing and miscellaneous items like eletronics or guns. The lighter the packs, the easier they will be to carry, with 20-30 liter backpacks being ideal for extended hikes. Desirable attributes include being waterproof or submergable, and faraday shielded. Faraday shielding is also useful for wallets, since this stops people from being able to wirelessly card clone.

MOUNT
There are a lot of vehicle choices in real life, but cars tend to be better than most others because they can carry a lot of weight and double as a shelter. Of the various kinds of cars in the world, hybrids are currently the best since they only require half as much gas, you don't have to wait hours at a supercharger but can still use it to power external devices, and in a SHTF scenario where you can't garuntee the availibility of electricity or gasoline, you have a second option for whichever becomes availible first. Other desirable attributes include level III or higher bulletproofing, the interior being hermetically sealed to counter biohazards, and an exotic power source like a nuclear engine (in which case it's fine for the car to be fully electric).

WEAPONS & MISCELLANEOUS
Many of the items I recommend here come from /innawoods, specifically the fire, water, food, medical, knives, and guns sections. Those are all icredibly useful for basic survival and can easily be what determines your chances of making it through unpleasant situations. You can legally carry a knife on you in almost every country on the planet, and many places even allow you to carry a firearm as long as you purchased it legally and keep it concealed. Aside from these, it's also handy to keep a couple escape tools on your person (which are included on the /innawoods page) and some food and water in your backpack at all times. The only other things I would recommend are basic lockpicks and some electronics, like the Flipper Zero or Pwnagotchi, since they are all small tools and allow you access to otherwise inaccessible areas.






When finished, your character sheet should look something like the following.

Name:___________________________________________________________
Age:____  Sex:________  Height:____________  Weight:____________
Ethnicity:______________________________________________________
Religion:_______________________________________________________

MEM:_____  INT:_____  CHA:_____  VIT:_____  STR:_____  DEX:_____

Class(es):___________________   Expertises:_____________________
_____________________________   ________________________________
_____________________________   ________________________________
_____________________________   ________________________________

Items:__________________________   Buffs:_______________________
________________________________   _____________________________
________________________________   _____________________________
________________________________   _____________________________
________________________________   Debuffs:_____________________
________________________________   _____________________________
________________________________   _____________________________
________________________________   _____________________________