Hybrid (role-playing game)

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HYBRID appears to be a generic role-playing game system created by an anonymous author named "Matthew/C++" and hosted on the website of Philippe Tromeur, where it is freely available. The game as written appears to be incredibly complex and nonsensical to the point of being wholly unplayable, and the game has achieved a status very similar to that of the Time Cube website among roleplayers.

[edit] Rules

Hybrid is famous for its many rules, more of which are added by the author from time to time. Currently, there are 552 separate numbered rules, which claim to govern everything from how well a demigod performs in martial arts to how one can create a utopian society. All of the rules require a long and complex series of mathematical operations, often including logarithmic operations, and frequently cross-reference other rules which may or may not exist or be relevant to the rule being discussed. The rules also reference rules in other role-playing games.

The rules frequently claim to be precisely applicable to how objects, people, and institutions behave in the real world, and degenerate into tangential analysis of sociopolitical subjects. For example, in rule #551, the author claims that Iraq sought technological aid from France because their scientists did not have the necessary statistics (as defined by HYBRID's "game mechanics") to understand the machinery with which they were dealing, while rule #427 calls for education reform and free universal health care.

[edit] Speculation

The motives behind the creation of HYBRID are the subject of frequent speculation in online forums dedicated to the discussion of roleplaying games. Some have speculated that the author is an undiagnosed schizophrenic. Because many of the rules attempt to analyze and explain historical events or social dynamics in terms of mathematical rules, it has been speculated that the author believes that he has discovered some sort of secret theory of everything in HYBRID with which all reality can be analyzed and explained quantitatively and mathematically. Others have speculated that the entire game is a deliberate attempt to parody and ridicule role-playing games, as well as pop culture and political debate.