DR: Live Item Conversion and YOU

Photo by Black Sky Photography/Allana Marie

Hey there Req-ers!

We’ll be moving completely into the DR: Live system in March 2025, but the network wide change over has begun February 1st!

In order to make March more about the narrative and less about bureaucracy, We’re hoping to get some of those item conversions done ahead of time so we can have the new item cards ready to go when turning in old cards. In the instance the name of the item hasn't changed, we will try and provide a sticker to update the mechanics to save on card waste! DRMA has graciously allowed the use of their spreadsheet, who have been graciously allowed to use the spreadsheet from DRTX as well!

[Link To Spreadsheet]

• Instructions for use, as DRMA had posted:
  
  Right click on the tab at the bottom of the screen titled “TEMPLATE: DUPLICATE THIS”, and click DUPLICATE

• For each character, you’ll create a NEW TAB, formatted as “[PLAYER NUMBER] [CHARACTER NAME]” (I.e. “19496 Kyle”)

Blueprints - Convert to its nearest analog, if the print no longer exists you may select another print of the same type, that is not a Necrology Print. Alternatively you may opt to take the resources needed to make the blueprint (according to Live resources, not 3.0)
Similar to DRMA, Criminal/Murder Inc based prints will find their nearest analog, provided you will have the appropriate level of related skill.

Items - Armor, Weapons, Shields, Gizmos, Brews/Meals, Traps, Vehicles and Area Augments will be converted to their Live variants.

Herb & Scrap need no conversion, scrap will instead be assumed to expire Feb 2026 if blank. Try to use older versions and blank versions first, as we want to cycle those out over time.

For items that restore Body and/or Mind, we will try to match the output to the closest analog, favoring the player in cases of rounding.

e.g. 3.0 Basic Uncle Todd’s recovers 10 Body, 4 of these would equal 1 Live Uncle Todd’s which recovers 40 Body. 3.0 Proficient St John’s recovers 20 Mind but could result in a Lineage specific brew that regains 20 mind, or 2 of the Proficient St John’s Brews could become 1 Live St John’s Brew (which restores 40 mind)

Similarly, we will try to honor Armor points in order to match as closely as possible.

Local Plot, Forage and Salvage cards won’t carry over, but exceptions may be made for items of sentimental value, which will be strictly non-mechanical. (Get a cool phys rep to show off!)

The spreadsheet should show the conversion as closely as possible, if the item isn’t sparking joy, you may exchange it for an item of the same type. Alternatively you may receive the Live Resources that make the item, except for Necrology Resources, a chapter’s game runners may not provide Necrology resources, that’s all up to players!

Expiration dates will carry over or convert to the lesser if the item in question has an expiration change in Live. 

e.g. Vehicle lasting 5 years, will convert to a Vehicle lasting 2 years.

Spreadsheet Organization

Below is what your sheet tabs should look like, with a drop down menu to keep the item types clear.

Here is the formatting you’ll need to follow for Item Card Conversions:

• ITEM TYPE

• ITEM NAME 

• # OF USES (IF NEEDED)

• EXPIRATION DATE

• NUMBER OF ITEMS (ie, how many Red Mist do you have with the same expiration date)

• This should be based on having the same expiration date - If you have two brews with the same name, and different dates, create TWO separate lines

An IMPORTANT NOTE for Item Formatting: Please use the FULL NAME of the item that you are turning in and receiving when you document them! This is immensely helpful for sorting purposes. Short hand versions (I.e “Todd’s” versus “Uncle Todd’s Healing Brew”) can slow down our process a lot. (Image taken from DRMA’s blog post)

A little transparency here: the reasoning behind limited blueprint transfers to Criminal adjacent prints (Called Dubious Directions) as well as the restriction on Necrology items, resources and prints is so that the game runners can seed these blueprints into the world (while you, the player, generate the Necrology resources needed for Necro-related fun-times). Regarding the Brew conversions, we want to try and balance the output of Body and Mind as closely as possible to the Live system so that everyone has an even playing field. We have a chance here at a fun and decent soft genre reset to get back into playing in a resource scarcity dystopian wasteland full of friendly player faces (and not so friendly character faces maybe!) so we want to try and keep the flow of items, resources and blueprints at a steady but controlled pace. Lastly, currently Sasha’s got the cards and some free time, so they are heading this up on their own for now, so it’s likely that they will hit a few conversions per person before moving to the next, so that everyone has a chance to get stuff converted. Classic “everyone gets served firsts, before anyone else gets seconds”.

Thanks for understanding!

Get Ready For Honor's Fall

Photo by Ian Havens

It’s time for our game of the year. Tickets go on sale tomorrow for Honor’s Fall. We have a couple of things we want you to know… so read on for more information about August’s game.

What Is Honor’s Fall?

Honor’s Fall is the annual event that defines Requiem. For one night, from sunset to sunrise, all laws are suspended, and this town of outcasts, criminals, and killers has a chance to settle all the scores from the previous year. What’s more important, it’s a chance for political change, as Families can rise and fall, and even the authority of the High Lord Executioner can change. We’ll announce more details as we approach the event, but the bottom line is this: all night long, killers will roam the streets, and violence will determine the future of Requiem.

But it’s not just a night of violence… this is the most important weekend of the year. So it starts with a party, and on Friday night, we invite you to the Bacchanal. From game on until after midnight, we’ll host you in the Great Hall with music, food, and vendors. We’ll be putting out an all-call for people who want to sell food and wares next week and are working on the night’s entertainment. However, we would like to invite all players to host an After Party… pre-planned events of drinking and debauchery as those about to die the next night celebrate. The High Lord Executioner purposely goes to bed early, so that faiths (particularly the Light of Hedon) can organize parties as long as they’re indoors and not in the Great Hall. So if you want to have a faith-themed party early Saturday morning, this is your chance. 

The Festering Crystal Lottery

This year, we find ourselves with some leftover Festering Crystals and national currency from our premiere event. We also find ourselves in need of player support for this event, so we’ve decided to hold a lottery for these items (and more) on Sunday. This is an out-of-character lottery to thank you for your support and encourage you to get engaged in Honor’s Fall. We’ll give out details on the prizes and logistics closer to the event, but here are some ways you can get tickets:

• Volunteering for extra NPC shifts Saturday night beyond what’s in the database (we’ll do a sign-up after the Early Bird) - one ticket per two hours (plus the normal CAPs).

• Being a food or item vendor for the Bacchanal.

• Organizing a room party.

Getting tickets will require coordination with staff prior to the event… watch our announcements to learn more. 

Consequences

You all did an amazing job of taking care of business at Dogs of War and focused on eliminating immediate hazards through intelligence and crafting. However, everything’s a trade-off, and there will be some consequences of focusing on the battle at hand, and not long-term political consequences. Here are some of the “special effects” you can look forward to at Honor’s Fall, and perhaps throughout the Fall…

• The Zodiac diverted resources they’d normally use to keep their experiments in check. In the coming months, the Gravemind will be “clogged” again. As a result, our “No Room In Hell” mechanic will return at Honor’s Fall and last through the Feast of Flesh. 

• The Boone-Helm took heavy casualties and now can’t keep the local Raider population under control during Thrill Kill season. As a result, all Warpath and Thrill Kill raiders gain the Raider Rush ability through October. This ability does not affect Warband Tainted in any way. 

• The Tarrarians built many tunnels for this war and can’t keep tabs on them all. Undead have a tendency to come out of the tunnels. As a result, through October, room augments and gizmos that lock doors will not keep out undead that come through the tunnels.

Join us for Community Day

Photo by London Belli

Want to earn 10 additional Build at no cost? Come to Dystopia Rising New York’s Community Day, Thursday May 11th at Forestburg Scout Reservation!

In addition to the extra build, this is an excellent opportunity to give back to the community and interact with friends. 

Fill out the submission form to claim your spot and take part in our Community Day! 

You are not required to attend the full day, all help is appreciated.

What is Expected?

Cleaning and Maintenance are our core goals to give back to our site. This event occurs between 9 am and 7 pm on Thursday, May 11th… you must be able to be on site during this time. Tasks can include but are not limited to:

• Clean up commonly used areas

• Assist with upgrading the Med Sleep building

• Perform trail maintenance

• Collection and preparation of firewood

What’s the benefit?

DRNY wishes to give back to our site to thank them for allowing us to host our events and giving you a space to be the amazing badasses you are in our world of Requiem. As a bonus, you can expect the following for your hard work:

• You will gain 1 Build per hour of work, to a maximum of 10 Build per person split between your characters however you want!

• If you are asked to work over 10 hrs., you will be given Caps for your efforts.

• A lunch break provided by us!

• At 7 pm est., we will host a Potluck inspired Community Picnic where you can bring (but are not required to) your own food and instruments to cook and celebrate our community and enjoy a dinner provided by us!

There may also be additional tasks that may need to be completed Friday morning between 9 am and 1 pm Eastern.

The Bunk Problem

Photo by London Belli

There’s a disconnect between the problems that larpers talk about and the problems that they really care about. Some concerns are pretty clear and constant: people want a safe game with supportive players, for example. Other worries are more insidious. One in particular rarely gets talked about… it’s one of the biggest problems our players worry about before the weekend, but rarely gets a second thought afterwards. We’re talking about the bunk problem… and our unique solution to it.

What Is the Bunk Problem

The bunk problem is the problem that until you get to site and drop your stuff on a bunk, you don’t actually know where you’re going to sleep. And our sleeping space is very important (despite the fact that most of us don’t use it nearly enough during the event). We also tend to have a lot of criteria we’re looking for in a bunk. We might want a bottom bunk or a bunk with more support. We might want it in a particular cabin with our friends. We might want it to be safe from undead intruders or have a hiding space to avoid theft. Regardless, most of us have a bunk we really want. 

Whenever we get over a hundred people on site, we start hearing people say “there are no bunks left.” This is never actually true… we actually end up disassembling dozens of bunks because we have too many on our site, and we need more indoor space. It’s not that people are lying, what they mean to say is that “I can’t find a bunk that fits my needs.”

The Solution That Isn’t - Med Sleep

Some people have sleeping needs; for these people, we make reasonable accommodations. In the case of bunks, it’s almost always Med Sleep. We typically have the ability to help people out if they come to us with a specific issue (and without disclosing the requests people have made, we get some unexpected ones). But the problem is Med Sleep only meets people’s needs: it doesn’t help fulfill their wants.

Dystopia Rising is an immersive game, and sleeping in character is a big part of it. It’s not just the possible danger of being attacked at night. We want the camaraderie of bunking with our friends. We want to set up our character’s sleeping spaces and maybe even spread out a bit. We want the comfort of a short walk to the showers (or even the convenience of having one in our own room). There’s a reason people want these things in a sleeping space… they’re awesome. But the issue is that everyone wants the same thing, and we only have a limited number of bunks that have it all.

Bunk Anxiety

If there’s stuff everyone wants, and limited amounts to go around, people will start competing for it. Once we hit about 120 people on site, someone is going to have a quarter-mile hike to the showers. We’ve only got eight bunks that have their own shower and bathroom. There are only 12 spots in the cabins. If you want one of those bunks, you have to beat out everyone. And when you’re rushing to get out of work and get to game, you’ll probably develop some anxiety about it.

A lot of these worries come from other sites and older games. There have been plenty of DR games where the last people to show up have slept on the floor - this isn’t going to happen at Forestburg Scout Reservation. Regardless, it’s something that people feel, and unfortunately, it often drives us to break the rules.

The biggest problem that occurs is people saving bunks. We’re constantly seeing people put their stuff on multiple beds. While this behavior is wrong and a violation of both our chapter’s rules and one of the basic social contracts… we understand why people do it. Which is why we incorporated the concept of Bunk Slips into our Early Bird promotions.

Our Solution: Bunk Slips

Every month, we offer perks to folks who sign up early; one of these perks are the bunk slips. Essentially, it’s a way to save a bunk that’s allowed: when your friend shows up at site, they can grab a piece of paper with your name on it, and use it to save a bunk for you. People on Early Set-Up get first dibs, and usually the “Hotel” and the smaller cabins fill up quickly, as well as the bottom bunks in the Anderson-Ambrosia cabin or wherever Lonely Streetz is sleeping.
This is about as fair a way to reserve bunks as we could figure out. Remember, no one is entitled to a particular bunk - you don’t have a bunk that’s “yours.” The best thing we can recommend is to make sure you buy tickets during the Early Bird promotion and then volunteer for Early Set-Up. Not only will you be able to make sure you get your bunk, but then you’ll be able to grab your friends' slips and reserve theirs.

The Early Bird for April ends this week… if you want to make sure you get your bunk slip and choice of NPC slots, sign up today!

Something For Everyone

Photo by London Belli

As we prepare for Honor’s Fall, we spent a lot of time talking about Saturday night, when our players and NPCs all settle a year’s worth of scores between sunset and sunrise. But just as big an event is our Hot Zone, the special event mod we’re running that weekend. While we’re sending out dozens of mods and have a couple of staff shambles planned, the Hot Zone will be central to the event, and we want to make sure everyone gets a chance to enjoy our Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) wasteland. So how do we take what we learned with our previous Special Event mods, like our Train Job in April or our Jonestown Run last month, and scale it for a game that might reach 200 people? Read on to learn more…

Use Your Resources Well

The reason we love doing special event mods is because they use our most valuable resource well… our people. During a special event mod, our players split into two groups, with one group playing the antagonists and the other playing in the mod, and then they swap. This does a couple of things. First, it means we can engage a large number of players with relatively few staff members… we just need one guide to run the mod, and the NPCs take care of themselves. However, what makes them fun is that you’re fighting your friends. While some people enjoy their NPC shift, others consider it a chore. However, when you get the chance to fight your friends (particularly after those friends just wailed on your character), we’ve found you all enjoy that much more. 

Plus, having a reusable mod space means we can go all out and make it different. For the Train Job, you got to see some of the 3D printed traps we’ve been making. For Jonestown, we used a part of the camp you might not have seen before. For the Hot Zone, we’re building special effects… unique lighting, smoke effects, and new props… to make sure it really feels like you’re walking into an NBC hellscape. We’ll combine this in a new contamination mechanic; that means the environment itself is trying to kill your character (and, of course, give you toys to help you survive it). 

Something For Everyone

As we’ve grown more experienced with our special event mods, we’ve managed to expand it beyond just combat. For the Hot Zone, we’re putting non-combat skills front and center. Not only will you have to use real world skills to avoid contamination, we’re also placing science stations throughout the Hot Zone, where your characters will have to perform tasks to figure out what’s going on and how to end the contamination. If wasteland engineering or research are your character’s focus, you’ll be able to engage in these tasks in a real-time environment, while your friends hold off the irradiated threats that are coming to kill you. Instead of research being something that happens before the big fight, in the Hot Zone it’ll be the main event.

In addition to the science you’ll get to do on your individual runs, we’re planning a couple of big mods that allow large groups to return to the Hot Zone to solve the problem once and for all. During this time, there will be lots of fighting, but plenty of opportunities for those with Civilized skills, including Education and Medicine, to get their chance in the spotlight. We’re working on challenges like you haven’t seen before, so that you’ll be fully immersed in the problem you’re trying to solve. 

High Risk, High Reward

In the Hot Zone, everything is trying to kill you, so there has to be a high reward. Luckily, we’ve gotten 50 festering crystals to give away throughout the event, and all of them can be found in the Hot Zone. We’re actually placing the physreps of the crystals throughout the space, where you can find them and take them back. If you’re an Early-Bird participant, you can then convert these physreps to actual festering crystals at the post office with your crystal harvesting perk that you receive in your packet. In addition, there will be plenty of other resources (and perhaps more) to be found throughout the Hot Zone.

Some of you might be thinking, “we can only harvest one crystal, but can we grab more than one physrep while we’re in the Hot Zone?” The answer: absolutely. But remember, taking more than your fair share of crystals is considered CvC, and remember the punchline of this joke:

If a Yorker and a Baywalker go into a Hot Zone with five crystals, and the Baywalker takes all five crystals, how many crystals does the Yorker have?  Answer: five crystals and a dead body.

Mechanics

Note! We’re still writing this mod, and the mechanics are subject to change. Check back before Honor’s Fall for updates.

• Containment Level - Players will need to manage their Containment Level to survive. Containment Levels are lost whenever a player goes into Bleed Out, is hit with Break Armor, or is hit by one of the Splash mechanics of the mod. When you reach 0 Containment Levels, you enter Bleed Out immediately and must activate your Emergency Beacon. 

• Emergency Beacon - Activating your Emergency Beacon allows you to survive at Containment Level 0 for five minutes. The only way to save a person after they activate their Emergency Beacon is to move them to the Decontamination Zone.

• Decontamination Zone - The only way in or out of the Hot Zone is through the Decontamination Zone. Players who reach the Decontamination Zone may request extraction at any time. If you use Master Stealth or similar skills in the Hot Zone, you’ll reappear elsewhere in the Hot Zone: you must reach the Decontamination Zone to get out. 

• Recovery - Players will be able to recover crates, canisters and other objects from the Hot Zone. They must place them in the Decontamination Zone, where their contents can be safely revealed.

• Samples - Samples are recoverable props that can be obtained in the Hot Zone through various interactive puzzles and challenges. They contain materials required to do experiments in the Science Lab. 

• Science Lab - Hope you like real-world chemistry. Note: for safety reasons, the lab will be in the Decontamination zone, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to collect the samples under attack.

• Mutants - Mutants may activate their strain advantage to delay the effects of the Hot Zone for 30 seconds, as long as their Emergency Beacon has not been activated.

• Protective Items - The Hot Zone requires protective items which will be provided by the kind folks at Slaghound Salvage. Equipment not specifically designed for the Hot Zone (i.e. death masks) do not provide adequate protection.

Who are the folks at Slaghound Salvage? Don’t worry, you’ll meet them, and they’re eager to help you. 

The Hot Zone will run between 10 am and 5:30 pm Friday and Saturday, with the last run beginning at 4:50. Can’t wait to see you there!

To Run or Not To Run?

Photo by London Belli.

This post is about transparency - we want to address the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and how we’re managing risk in regards to it. Over the past week, we’ve released a number of policies to manage risk… now we’re going to tie our efforts together and explain how we will make our decisions. 

First, a short description of how we approach risk management. The only safe larp is the larp that never happens; every larp has the risk of harm. Our job as event runners is to reduce risk to an acceptable level, and communicate that risk to our players. Once we’re comfortable with the risk of the event, we invite people to participate, and they make a risk-informed decision. To do this, we identify hazards, determine their likelihood and severity, and implement controls to reduce that likelihood and severity.

In regards to COVID, we have a clear risk with a bunch of data - we can go to various websites (including the CDC and New York State Department of Health) and find statistics of all sorts. Because of this, we can identify controls that will reduce the likelihood and severity of COVID-19 transmission at our event. The single most effective control is an up-to-date vaccination. Prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant, Dystopia Rising New York (DRNY) relied on the effectiveness of vaccinations to control the risk of COVID-19 transmission. A good review of the effectiveness of vaccines was released by the Massachusetts Department of Health last month, which showed that vaccinations prevent hospitalization or death in 97% of all breakthrough cases, and that vaccinated people were 5 times less likely to be infected with COVID-19 (with a booster shot, people were 31 times less likely). 

This is what we would consider our baseline risk: we accept this risk until the probability or severity of the risks change. The Omicron variant changes this risk in two ways:

1. Increased transmission rate in the general population make it more likely that someone will contract COVID-19 at an event.

2. Vaccines seem to offer less protection against the Omicron variant than they do against other variants of COVID-19.

Our Enhanced COVID-19 Protections seek to address these risks: 

• We’re doing everything we can to make sure as many people are boosted, in addition to vaccinated. As of Friday, January 7th, we’re at 71% boosted for our next event, and we are expecting that to grow. Getting boosted returns the protection vaccines provide against Omicron back to acceptable levels.

• We’re instituting other policies (such as encouraging mask use and testing non-boosted individuals) to reduce the likelihood of transmission.

• We’re monitoring several keys statistics, primarily the 7-day rolling positivity rate in New York State.

Why the 7-day rolling positivity rate? Because it’s readily available, and provides us trend information. For example, here’s the statistics for the last five weeks:

• December 3rd, 2021: 4.8% (up by 0.9%)

• December 10th, 2021: 4.6% (down 0.2%)

• December 17th, 2021: 6.3% (up 1.7%)

• December 24th, 2021:11.0% (up 4.7%)

• December 31st, 2021: 19.8% (up 8.8%)

• January 7th, 2022: 22.2% (up 2.4%)

We’re also looking at the NYC 7-day rolling positivity rate, because it seems to lead the New York State rate (i.e. what happens in the City happens a few days before the rest of the state). Here’s what the NYC rate looks like as of January 6th…

Click for the latest update

What we see is what we’re expecting: the positivity rate increases rapidly, and then declines rapidly (as was the case in South Africa). However, there’s a lag in the reporting (you can see the gray area on the map). What we really want to see is the data around Friday, January 21st - that will give us a week of looking at what the trend is when we’ve removed the holidays and given the spike a chance to die down. If we’re trending downward (i.e. we see a slight decline in the 7-day rolling average this week, and 5 - 10% decline the week after), we’ll feel confident we’re in the “back half” of the spike, and that our controls - a highly boosted population - will work. If not… then we have to rethink our risk mitigation.

One question is “why have they not called off the event?” First, cancellation is only one risk management tool, and we have other controls in place. Second, we want to look at the data. At this point, there’s little reason (from a risk control perspective) to cancel the event weeks in advance when we can wait and check the data. Our primary concern is our travelers who have bought plane tickets, but as the vast majority of them are flying an airline that doesn’t have change fees (and have not been contacted by any travelers in regards to this concern), we do not feel pressure to make the decision right now. 

However, there are factors other than COVID-19 statistics and controls that go into a risk-informed decision for our participants. One is mental health. Uncertainty leads to anxiety, and right now, we’ve had two years of uncertainty. We’re going to continue to prepare for the January event while we monitor the situation, and will continue to provide you updates. We ask that you make a decision that you’re comfortable with, and if you have questions about our process, contact us directly. 

Thanks, and still planning on seeing you in January (numbers willing)!