Nerding Day: HYBRID🌭

Want to play a normal game?

Me neither.

Leave Midjourney behind. No eight-fingered stillbirth says more than this eye-punching rectangle. It hints at the authors’ era, state of mind, main interest, state of mind, sense of aesthetics, and shattered state of mind. That’s connection. That’s art. That’s losing your entire fucking mind.

Some art guides you through the creator’s brain. Hybrid’s like a tour in a language you don’t speak, on speed. In fact, this simile doesn’t need the tour. Hybrid’s like speed. Let’s take some speed.

Apologies, HYBRID V0.30. Precision’s important today: it keeps us accurately baffled. You wouldn’t want to misread this manic, 64k-word, single-page rulebook. HYBRID V0.30 is the future of tabletop RPGs. Assuming mankind evolves into something unrecognizable. It is for nerds made of light.

Just to establish base reality, for people with outdoor hobbies: this is, in theory, a game like Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: The Masquerade, or Bully Annihilator. In Matthew’s vision, four-ish friends would play HYBRID together on purpose. These games typically involve dice and a story lifted from Tolkien. Matthew makes different choices.

Here’s the disclaimer, which follows the color earthquake above.

I’m lucky. A reporter or adult would start with a futile stab at context. An analyst would touch that equation. I’m free to drop everything, and ctrl+f HYBRID’s mathematical explanation for homosexuality. Even if Calc 2 was my Verdun, I can’t turn that down.

Rule 187 gets us…

Slightly illegible. The highlighted bit says “but I’m sure Dr. Strange would prefer RULE # 187, to find or/and create the perfect woman.” Odd, when cosmic realdolls sound more Baron Mordo. I’ll mash enter until the equation pops up.

Ah, the mathematical explanation for homosexuality is also illegible. While black on blood red or laser blue is great for Creech-era character design, it’s an HTML hate crime. Fitting for the concept; advantage Matthew. I’ll switch to readable quoteboxes going forward. Just know that your eyes would struggle harder than your psyche to decode this:

Standard cloning equation.

Fucking what? After decades with Jamaican Baptists, this is the most insane theory of gay I’ve heard. My back catalog trained me for fraud, hate, and incompetence. Not sex ed for shoggoths. The lunacy’s so dense the brackets around young barely register. Don’t read this out loud: you’ll summon the creature under St. James.

The thing about HYBRID is…fucking what? I’m adrift. Mocking HYBRID’s horny (I think) regressive (I’m pretty sure) and deluded (certifiably) math feels like catching a fish with a cloning equation. Or describing basketball in Flatland.

And don’t worry, you didn’t miss twelve years of math. Or maybe you did, I don’t know your story. But whether you’re the next Turing or Mayweather, you’re unarmed for Matthew Math. The numbers are impressionistic. “COM” isn’t explained anywhere in the text. Just try to see the shape of rolling for hardness.

Here’s the closest we drift to a definition:

Nice and intuitive. Don’t worry if you don’t get it–COM only appears 111 more times. Mostly nested in other, equally intuitive equations.

We might not survive this. This psychic landfill’s between HYBRID’s equation for FTL travel and soul value. My mortal neurodivergence tells me COM’s something like battle fuckability and cribbed from a superhero game, but don’t quote me there. HYBRID is as far beyond mutants as mutants are beyond mankind.

Nah. Different sentences. Making FATAL gets you in Blackgate, laughing at Penguin’s jokes to survive. HYBRID lands you in Arkham, laughing at Joker’s jokes to die. Society gets half the blame.

Back to the equation for homosexuality.

Remember doppelganger theory? Simpler days. Matthew’s waifu-design rules demand eight times the patience for none of the dignity. Sorry, I mean 8*LOG(Clozapine)/Electroshock times the patience.

Sometimes, a madman demands less mockery, or even narration, and more translation. Those are long days. After squinting at this alleged English for a month, bothering other clowns (you can guess who) to triple-check if HYBRID’s a parody, and studying cutting-edge divination, I think I’m ready. Maybe.

Cool.

Matthew splits hotness into two stupid stats, and likes his TI84’s LOG button. Said stats are more racist than your parents, but less racist than your leaders. Then he cribs terms from a real game to deflect less-determined clowns, but the most brilliant jesters persevere to find: nothing. Research was a trap. Matthew Math is a poem made of numpad keys. Six number theory PhDs couldn’t tell you what that soup means. But one stoned editor can tell you that Matthew digs Caucasian men and Korean women.

Easy, right? If you’re not up on your anticalculus: “G” is the deviance powerstat. Expect an executive order against min/maxing within the week.

Give up that whole line of thought.

Against all odds, the equation explaining homosexuality’s a decent tutorial. HYBRID’s simple: the rules aren’t rules, the equations aren’t equations, and HYBRID’s not a game. It’s longform tranquilizer withdrawal. You’d never play HYBRID with a friend you want to keep. I haven’t followed the author, but I hope he’s having fun as health secretary.

The best part? We’ve only decoded the disclaimer. We haven’t started the game or this article. Now we’re ready to begin.

Handy warning. Hell, that’s practically the real disclaimer. Fair play, ashes of Matthew’s mind.

Handy summary. Though why you’d base a game on log functions remains unclear. Torturing Dante’s old DM? Texas Instruments cross-promotion? Culling weaker RPGNet users? HYBRID did start out there, where it remains an object of derision/love/fear. That’s the joy of old forums: they hunt madness, instead of breeding it. Insanity never needed a neolithic revolution.

Fair.

My point: Matthew’s basic motive is here, kind of. Maybe. He’s found the golden rpg ratio. By smashing the rest of pop culture into the LOG button, Matthew can create the perfect game. Bet. HYBRID’s risen from incomprehensible to baffling. Maybe we can decode the rules now.

I get this one! It’s dumb and flattening, with a crater-sized copout. But comprehensible. We’re learning to speak HYBRID.

I get this one less! It seems Matthew’s lonely, and has buried it in algebra and retro TV. You, however, can avoid this fate by raising your battle-charm. I think Matthew invented looksmaxxing twenty years early. Or rather, personal grooming six thousand years late. HYBRID’s grammar is elusive.

Zilch. Each letter defies me. We’ve learned next to nothing, aside from more loneliness. We can’t speak HYBRID at all.

Still, I think we’re closer. Too close to turn back, even. Matthew has more faith in his universal equation than I do in my neighbors. With why in hand, maybe we can reach how.

My goal today’s simple: to dig from “DISCLAIMER” to “RULE # 0.” Then we can be the second humans to understand HYBRID.

Ah, a second disclaimer. I’ve actually learned nothing. My birth itself was a mistake.

We persevere.

Finely understated. I owe Disney secondhand royalties for talking about HYBRID. Matthew’s version of the afterlife trampled three copyrights in one sentence. If The Mouse finds me, that blood is on his hands.

On that note: why Tron? Must we still prop up dork film’s false king? A Tron flick came out closer to this article than HYBRID, and I’ve already forgotten about Tron. I’m writing about Tron and I’ve already forgotten about…light cycle movie. Daft Punk? I love Daft Punk! Remember Daft Punk?

I feel for him here, and not just for medical reasons. It’s a rough lesson in perspective. Matthew takes the lack of d20s as HYBRID’s marketing problem, and host backstabbing as his biggest threat. Don’t let bitterness stop you from seeing the algebra in the room.

It didn’t shake out. And not just print publishing, which never had a shot. You may have noticed more than one stat, from more than one system, next to more numbers than there are stars. But now we know we’re only supposed to care about Psyche, and everything else is a pharmacy failure. We’re closer to speaking HYBRID.

Absolutely not. Try to keep up, I’m already confused enough for two.

Now, with the disclaimer behind us–

Another layer! I could pretend that this almost made me quit, but I’m half lunatic. A daywalker, really. My father self-published 101 Steps to Rasta Manhood: A Foundational Wytch’s Guide to Replacing Sons With Chatbots. Now my life is revenge. Matthew can loop disclaimers until the end of time, I’ll be there.

I could also jeer at the Dr. Doom wank, but I’ll always love the concept. What if someone had everything but enough penis to appreciate it? We only see that play out with money. Victor’s twenty minutes with a student therapist from melting Reed into gluons, and it’ll never happen.

Matthew expounds on Doombots and Doom 2099 for a bit, before changing Lunatic Studies forever.

Don’t panic, but Matthew’s killed us all. This Necronomicon-coded headache is inspired by the Anti-Life-Equation. It might be the anti-life equation. At the very least, the CostCo version. While the fancypants version punishes all life, HYBRID’s elf girlfriend rules focus on human neurons.

However you spin it, Matthew’s possessed. If you believe him, by soul-erasing space math. If you don’t, by pop culture and a fictional safety net.

I, for one, have no incredulity left. It’ll rule when we reach Rule 0. I have so many people to feed to Darkseid, and only half of them are in office.

Oh shit, the game’s starting! I skipped a Super Bowl party for this, so I appreciate the confidence. In fact, fuck the 1986 Marvel Universe TSR game. I bet it has fluff like characters and line breaks. Fuck that. Anti-life for life.

Fucking… have clowns overused Groundhog Day? We need a new go-to time loop. Palm Springs. I’m stuck in Palm Springs.

I’m still not quitting, there’s too much Matthew in me. I did curse in person, confusing an already-confused guest. Evidently it’s their first Valentine’s Day studying HYBRID. Mixed dating has challenges, but I think it’ll work out.

HYBRID’s disclaimers finally give way to examples. None of which are our first rule. I suspect that I imagined Rule 0. Or at least my chances of reaching it. Reading HYBRID linearly is like reading HYBRID linearly.

A trap. Matthew’s definitely trying to shake us. Nothing else explains pre-equation citations of later equations, pitched as tutorials. I hope Matthew’s still pitching publishers—name-dropping Tesla’s enriched frauds with half his spirit.

What a beautiful tangent. Not even in the same orbit as the words before, with more forethought for Operation Iraqi Freedom than the entire White House. From what I get of HYBRID Math, Iraq would’ve become unstoppable two weeks before the singularity. Matthew is now, sadly, my favorite pundit.

That’s the last example. Less instructive than the endless disclaimer, but that fits HYBRID’s style. Bringing us to Rule 0.

I’m not a total idiot. If I keep on saying it, eventually I’ll be right. Matthew can only insult the game he swiped his non-calculator stats from for so long.

There’s a novella of text before “2nd” and “3rd,” which are just time travel. Not knowing drove me insane, and I want you to sleep tonight. Said novella discusses Iceman, Thundarr, the stats of Earth 616 Mysterio, Ares’s sex life on Xena: Warrior Princess, Matthew’s resentful boner for Xena: Warrior Princess, and HYBRID’s simplicity.

Once, I thought there were a few thousand languages, generally scaled to history’s largest armies and wallets. Today,I know there are as many languages as movements and ailments. I’m learning Matthew’s because it looks insane and self-destructive. In my tongue, that means “commence.”

And boy, is this section commence. This note’s longer than my tax audit, and covers every six pack on nerd TV. Until, finally, we reach Rule 0.

Wuh?

log(Wuh)^2?

Matthew is no longer my favorite pundit.

Clearly, I bear the 1860’s darksign. Slavery rants will follow me until I die. Ideally free, though we’ll see what the next executive orders say.

Can’t have gold-diggers stealing Matthew’s HYBRID profits. Well, hypothetical gold-diggers stealing hypothetical profits. Shadowboxing phantom harlots is par for Matthew’s diagnosis, but should give abandoned men pause. The lonely lobby sounds like HYBRID without the fun parts, or structure.

Bringing us to anything but Rule 0. Eh? How about that.? Fake me out. Please.

Lesson learned. Don’t tempt the devil, or he’ll turn you into a low-fat baker.

The optional/HYBRID part is mixing blueberry cake mix and brownie mix. With strict limits on flavor-enhancing, cookware sparing oils. Personally, I prefer savory flavors with my fucking madness. The Lecter experience. Still, I love that Matthew’s victims get a sugar rush before the end.

My maniac blood begs to bake this. My sane blood begs to finish this article on time. My bro mind agrees about the sugar, and wants to find a linear squat machine. I’ll skip it for now.

[Update: It’s alright. Get ready to lose half the brownie to your ungreased pan.]

Every book longer than Pippi Longstocking should come with a recipe. Or at least a takeout number. “Eat this while I dazzle you” is a nearly romantic flex. If Matthew applied this to asylum dating, he’d be divorced by now.

Rule 0 isn’t next. Now that you’ve eaten, you can probably handle that.

That’s a lot of math to say “Will Smith is expensive.” I hope that, despite his quirks, Matthew can review movies for The Washington Post. They seem ready for his method.

Next recipe?

Nice try, but our fate is clear. We’ll journey toward Rule 0, forever. HYBRID loves us, and wants to keep us forever.

Finally! Our training is complete, and worthless. I don’t know what these sounds mean in this order. I suspect this text is alive, and stealing strength from its hosts. But that’s based on the blood trickling from my nose, not “Rules and/or equations grow.” Our journey here is meaningless, save learning Matthew intends to write more rules.

By tabletop rpg tradition, Matthew gets a saving throw.

My bad! Matthew’s message is simple.

See, I spent ages convinced HYBRID was a prank. Timecube by way of Real Ultimate Power, if you will. A polemic against rules-obsessed game design, from fans of the theater approach. Instead, it’s a polemic against Nurse Ratched for fans of rules.

And beautiful. My notes should clarify things. Here’s an abridged summary.

Do you see?

Do you see?

You see. Congratulations! Now you can speak HYBRID.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Christopher Worthen, who has three PhDs in math and still didn’t fully grasp the rules here. But that’s okay becau- DROP KICK