Welcome to Gaia! ::

The basic idea is sort of a Real World with androids -- Paradigm Shift is a 'game' about honing social interaction and trying to not creep the general meaty populace out through missing mannerisms and blatant faux pas. Of course humans would be involved, humans have to make the robots after all. XP They just mostly either sit behind the scenes or carry on with their lives with little or no idea of the grand scheme going on around them.

The point system, which I very vaguely hinted at in the intro, is based on a 'start at max and incur penalties' system. Everyone starts with the highest possible rating and is decreased with every mistake, glitch, or general error that occurs. If one's score hits zero, they're immediately eliminated, and the lowest-scoring half of every round's contestants are out of the running at the end of the round. Every round after the first, there are chances to raise score again, if the contestant in question has shown obvious improvement. (which is possible, considering every round is only a week -- that's four weeks plus change between rounds to patch things up if you're not nixed)

In order to get this score, there are many designated testers and observers who mill around casually wherever the round is taking place that month. Testers will usually pick out someone who hasn't had any/many score changes and put them in a tough social or operational spot. Observers will simply watch interactions and assign score changes from a distance.

The main goal of the RP as a whole is to get people to make characters and induce character development. Sure, the system behind the game might be a little convoluted, but it all boils down to people having fun and watching fictional characters interact amongst each other in fun and evocative ways. (it just happens to involve androids because dammit i like them!)