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Matrix Games are a wonderful creation of the social worker therapist and inveterate gamer, Chris Engle. Matrix Games is copyrighted by Chris Engle and Hamster Press and is used here with his permission. PGA is not a "pure" Matrix game, but we have incorporated many of the components of a Matrix game.
All Virtual Airlines are really some form of role-playing game. We pretend we are airline pilots who fly for our living (an understandable sort of dream, we think). Some VA's have sophisticated rules and well-developed backgrounds. Others have hardly any. The more the background is developed, the better the VA.
But there's a drawback. It takes a lot of work and maintenance to develop a detailed and enjoyable backgroundin any RPG, including a VA. The more sophisticated and developed the world is, the greater the workload to maintain it.
PGA has a very well developed world -- the best of any VA in our humble opinion -- complete with realistic and entertaining charters, promotions, payments, and newspapers. This puts a tremendous load on those who manage PGA. If it were managed in the traditional manner, burnout would not be a question of "if" but just a manner of "when." In fact, it was, at about the point where PGA was taking upwards of four hours a day to maintain.
Under the traditional management scheme, when a Pilot is promoted to Supervisor or Hub Captain, she sacrifices some of the time she can play in the VA world to allow others to enjoy it. If she is promoted to management, playtime is pretty well over and almost all her free time is eaten up keeping the VA alive. All work and no play make Jane a dull and grumpy girl.
By using a Matrix Game this can be avoided. A Matrix Game format will take most of the burden of running the VA off of management and place a small amount of work on the Pilots. Instead of a few doing the large amount of work for everyone, a Matrix Game has each pilot doing the small amount of work for himself.
Using a Matrix Game format makes PGA a Pilot-driven VA. This was the goal all along.
Using a Matrix Game gives everyone -- management, supervisors, and pilots, a chance to enjoy the benefits of being in a well-developed VA.
A Matrix Game is a derivative of a role-playing game with one big difference -- A role-playing game is Game Master driven while a Matrix Game is Player driven. In our case, that is Pilot driven rather than Management driven. It fits PGA needs just fine.
In a Matrix Game, the players make up the reality that becomes the make believe world. They do this by making arguments to have something happen in the reality.
The Referee rates their arguments somewhere between Very Strong and Stupid, giving them a chance to succeed or fail. In PGA, the pilots rate their own arguments for basic charters on the basis of established criteria. Don't worry -- help is available for beginners!
The player then rolls a die. If the roll falls within the range for success, the action becomes reality. If it fails, then the player's argument does not happen.
A Referee rates arguments as one of six ratings. Die rolls are made on a 6-sided die.
Very Strong: This gives the argument a very good chance of succeeding. It will happen on a roll of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Only rolling a 1 causes it to fail.
Strong: Succeed on a 3, 4, 5, or 6
Average: Average arguments succeed on a 4 thru 6 roll
Weak: Weak arguments only succeed on a 5 or 6
Very Weak: These arguments succeed on a roll of 6
Stupid: A Stupid argument succeeds on a roll of 7 on a six-sided dice. You figure the odds.
So why do we have written missions available if pilots create their own missions under the Matrix system?
We have found that it's difficult for many new pilots to get the hang of the Matrix system without quite a bit of help and guidance. It's also not always easy to come up with ideas for charters. Then too, the charters that were written up during the first days of PGA do give people a taste of what it is like to fly for our VA, and a feel for the people and places they encounter. For that reason, we rewrote the missions so that most of them -- if flown as written -- is automatically rated as "Very Strong." The few that aren't rated "Very Strong" tell you what they are rated and why. This means if a pilot chooses a mission appropriate to his rank, he rolls the die and is able to fly it so long as he rolls anything except a 1. If he rolls a one, he should report why his mission failed (maybe the passenger didn't like the look of the plane) and either choose another mission or try again.
There are 150 missions for Private Pilots, Commercial Pilots and Captains. Pilots starting out with PGA must fly 75 of these to be promoted from Private Pilot to Senior Captain. This is enough to keep most people busy for a while. There are other missions posted for all our operating areas. These are not required for any pilot to fly. They are there to help people get started and so all of our hard work that went into those missions doesn't go to waste!
This is enough information for the PGA Pilot to operate our Matrix driven world. I suggest going to: http://www.io.com/~hamster There you will find more information and details including a set of rules on how to run or play in a complete Matrix Game.
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