War Games - The OODA Loop

Photo by Allana Marie

Larp is about making meaningful decisions: your character is presented with a challenge and you have to decide how to act. During a war game like our June Premiere event, Dogs of War, you’ll be given the chance to make choices that will decide the Battle of Requiem. However, most of us are not experienced military tacticians, and even those who consider themselves adept at strategy games might not know what to expect from a game like Dogs of War. So how are you supposed to make a meaningful decision in a war game?

The Problem: Don’t Take Too Long

Gen. George Patton said, “A good plan, executed violently now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” He was addressing a common problem, not only in warfare, but anytime a person might need to make a choice: decision paralysis. When in a high-stress situation, people usually don’t have all the information they need to make a perfect decision, and the risk of them making a wrong decision leads to them taking too long and not making a decision at all. In modern military forces, this is why we have a professional officer corp: while anyone with military experience knows a 22 year-old Lieutenant is probably ignorant to the point of being dangerous, they still get to give the orders. Why does this work? Because the young officer has been trained (and will continue to be trained by their troops) to be the one who makes a decision in a crisis. Early on, they’re given simple situations to command, and as they progress, they learn to be decisive in more complex ones. 

However, this is a larp, and our players don’t typically have years of experience or training in these situations. So what tool can they use to make sure they make quick and effective decisions?

The OODA Loop

The OODA Loop is a relatively modern doctrine that can be used easily in larp to make effective decisions in a crisis situation (like you can expect to encounter during Dogs of War). It was developed in the 1970s by a fighter pilot who used the acronym OODA (Observe - Orient - Decide - Act) as a model for military decision-making. It’s extremely effective in any sort of competition that’s not completely turn-based (and as such, is often applied in competitive situations such as business or politics). The basic idea is that instead of making the most optimal decision in a given situation, you want to make a quick but effective decision and get “inside” your opponent’s loop. As you make decisions and execute them, you change the situation, so your opponent’s “optimal” decision is now based on outdated information.

The OODA Loop consists of four steps, repeated endlessly in a cycle:

• Observe - Take in new information. In terms of larp, this might be a piece of intelligence, the appearance of new NPC enemies, or just noticing something new.

• Orient - It’s one thing to have new information, it’s another thing to understand it. This step places the new information in the context of everything you already know about the situation.

• Decide - Once you have an understanding, make a decision. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you’ve oriented yourself properly, you already know the options and risks involved. Don’t dwell on them, make a choice.

• Act - Once you make a decision, execute it. Acting upon your choice changes the situation, and generates new information that both you and your opponent will have to address… by observing the new situation, and starting the OODA loop over. 

Using the OODA Loop In Larp

Once you stop trying to make the perfect decision, and instead focus on quick, effective decisions, you’ll realize this is a good path toward success. Throughout Dogs of War, we’re going to be offering you the chance to gather intelligence… through spying, research, and role-play. You might want to gather as much information as you can before you make a decision, but that’s how you’ll fall behind: we’ll keep coming at you with new information that will change your understanding, and if you don’t make a decision and act, then you’ll fall behind. Conversely, if you come up with a decent plan right away - and execute it - you’ll probably be successful.

For example, at 0100 on Saturday morning, a research team might decode a message that reads, “The commanders will be meeting at the tent near the latrine tonight” (an observation). However, there are at least six latrines in the play area, all spread out amongst the different campsites. You know you want to capture an enemy commander (an orientation), but how do you do it? As you take 20 minutes to figure out what to do, the research team decodes a second message, “The meeting will occur at the campsite closest to the morgue at 0130.” However, that campsite is nearly a mile from the A-Frame… there’s almost no chance for you to get a team there anymore. 

Compare this to a group focused on agile decision-making: once they realized that there were six latrines, they quickly got a dozen people together and started sending people in pairs to each one (a decision). Now, when the team decodes the message, they have a dozen people closer to the objective: a single runner can probably alert them all with time to spare (an action). 

So What Does This Mean For Dogs of War

We want you to experience what it means to be making decisions during the stress of a wartime situation. You should be doing a lot, even if it doesn’t seem to do much, because it’s constantly putting you in a better position for when it does pay off. As we get closer to the event, we’ll make sure you have a design document that helps set the context for your decision-making: what the stakes are, what happens if specific things go wrong, and what you can accomplish if you achieve certain objectives. As you get a piece of information, use the OODA Loop to quickly make a decision. Not only will you likely be more successful, but you and those around you will have a fun time winning this war.

War Games - What To Expect

Photo by Shawn Smith

We’ve just released a Save-The-Date for our June Premiere Event, The Dogs of War, where we’ll spend the entire event telling the story of the Battle of Requiem. While this is far from the first time a Dystopia Rising chapter has simulated a battle, we want to approach this event differently. Often, larps about war focus on big battle scenes… that’s not what we’re going for. We want to bring you the tension and intensity of a wartime scenario, punctuated with brief and brutal episodes of violence.

So what does this mean when DRNY runs a war game?

The Base Mechanic: Hurry Up & Wait

“Hurry up & wait” is a common complaint in a war zone. You don’t know when the enemy will attack or reveal themselves, but you have to be prepared when they do. So there’s a lot of work to do, and you have to get it done fast to be ready… and then you wait. And while you wait, the work piles up again: the act of waiting expends resources. This creates tension where you always have something to do, but you’re also always waiting for something else to happen. 

This is our focus during Dogs of War. Some people want to be out in the dark, stalking their enemies, or on the front lines fighting all the time (and we’ll have plenty for those people to do). But we also have a lot of crafters and cooks, researchers and spies, and those people will be the focus of the story most of the time. This game will demand a tremendous amount of supplies… and those supply needs will be time-critical, forcing you all to work together and prioritize. Further, you’ll have the chance to gather intelligence and dictate the course of the war by the information you collect and the decisions you make with it. In fact, these decisions will be central to the event. 

The Focus: Decision-Making In War

We’re not going to line up your enemies in a shield wall all weekend and send wave after wave crashing down on you (although you can expect at least one pitched battle). This is a guerrilla-style war, where you have to put up patrols and test your enemy's defenses. This means that you’ll need scouts willing to sit out in the dark, waiting for an enemy to show themselves. When they do, you’ll need runners willing to bring the information back to your base, alerting the rest of your forces. And most importantly, you’ll have to decide what to do with that information. 

We’re going to develop scenarios that force you to make interesting choices. They won’t be terribly complex, but they will be time-critical and important. When do you attack? Which resources do you conserve? We’ll give you some of the information you need to make a call, as well as an idea of the consequences of your decisions. And those decisions will have lasting effects during Honor’s Fall and the future of Requiem and the Fold.

The Fighting: Nasty, Brutal, and Short

We’re expecting well over 100 players for this event… even for our stronger NPCs, we know you can overwhelm your enemy with sheer numbers. So we’re going to spread you out, and make you watch different areas of the camp. And when we attack, it’s going to be sudden and hard, making targeted strikes that end quickly. If you’re mobile, and run to the sound of combat, you’ll probably get there on time. If you don’t, you better hope your comrades are ready for a nasty fight. This will make scouts, stealth, and reinforcements more important than just getting all the fighters together and charging.

That said, you can expect some big fights as well. Without giving away our plans, we have some ideas to challenge you and give you some of the most memorable combats you’ve had in Dystopia Rising. And of course, we’re planning on the biggest fight Requiem has ever seen to cap off the weekend. 

Our Secret Weapon - The Return of the Trained Survivors

We’re going to be offering some special incentives to get you to take some extra NPCs shifts over the weekend, but we have one we’re really excited about. Old Timers might remember way back in 2015, when Dystopia Rising recruited military veterans at a national event to run special mods against their friends. These were called the “Trained Survivors,” and we’re bringing them back for our June Premiere.

The Trained Survivors will be asked to do two additional NPC shifts, one Friday night and one Saturday during the day. In return, we’ll comp their tickets and offer full Build, along with a very special “thank you” gift.  Your characters will also get special plot consideration, operating “far behind enemy lines” to bring back special intel. We will prioritize people with military experience and similar training for this crew, and you’ll be assigned your Guide to travel with you for your shifts. 

We’ll be posting more about The Dogs of War with our War Games blog posts in the months leading up to the event. Also look for information on our AMA events, where you can bring your questions and concerns directly to the staff. 

Grave-Diving

Photo by Shawn Smith

The Grave Mind is the weirdest part about Dystopia Rising, and players love weird stuff. It’s where our world becomes unique and unpredictable. Picture this conversation between a New Player Guide and newcomer:

Guide: So, this is a zombie larp.

New Player: Got it.

Guide: It takes place years after the fall of humanity, so no one remembers exactly what happens. Also, we’ve all evolved into slightly different strains of humanity.

New Player: Got it. Different strains of humanity. Got it.

Guide: Also, inside everyone and everything is a fungal strain we call Infection, and it’s why when you die you get resurrected; but it’s also why there’s a psychotropic hell you have to go through each time, and it makes weird stuff appear every now and then.

New Player: ???

Can it be confusing? Yes. Does everyone have a different opinion on how the Grave Mind should work? Seems like it. But if you’re new to Dystopia Rising and someone mentions there’s a fungal strain that creates a psychotropic hell, how many of you would make a beeline to any plot that had to do with it?  

Now you get our player’s obsession with “grave-diving.”

What Is Grave-Diving?

“Grave-diving” is a slang term we use for when players purposely seek to interact with the Grave Mind. This includes everything from using Death Brews to the Necrokinetics skill to being a full-on Graverobber, using the PFA with the Pallor Mortis procedure. Basically, if you’re having a Grave Mind scene and you didn’t just die, you’re Grave-diving. 

Let’s be clear: grave-diving is a fun and encouraged activity. We want you to engage in this part of the setting. So, before we talk about some of the problems with grave-diving, we’re going to give you a some of the more common ways to do it:

• The easiest way to grave-dive is with Basic Necrokinetics. Using this skill, you can (with permission) listen to another character’s Grave Mind scene. 

• More resource intensive, but still affordable, are Death Brews. Depending on the quality of the brew, you can be an unseen observer, be seen but not heard, or even fully interact with another character’s Grave Mind scene.

• When we’re talking about grave-diving, we’re usually referring to the Pallor Mortis procedure, particularly the master level procedure, the Infectus Mortis. This is where you venture into a Grave Mind scene with the intent of regaining lost Infection.

If you want to be a really proficient grave-diver, we’ve got two PFAs to recommend to you, and associated equipment:

• Grave Attuned (Necrokinetics) - With this PFA, you can “rescue” people who came into a Pallor Mortis scene with you: it’s essentially a ripcord that says “we’re getting out of here.”

• Graverobber (Medical) - There are two pieces of equipment that every Graverobber covets. First, a Superior Helscape Deathmask not only lets the user spend 10 Mind to avoid Resolve lost in a Pallor Mortis scene, but it also allows a Graverobber to remain in the scene 10 minutes longer with one additional target. Even better is the Forged Helscape Suit, which allows a Graverobber to give another character a Resolve during a Pallor Mortis scene.

These last two advantages speak to the problem with grave-diving, however: it takes a lot of build and in-character resources to be very good at it. Which means it’s supposed to be hard.

The Two-Fold Paradox of Grave-Diving

Grave-diving has two problems, from a design standpoint. First, because it takes a lot of effort to be good at it, it stands to reason that it’s supposed to be hard. Expert Graverobbers have invested in the ability to spend Resolve for other characters (see below for more on that) and to safely escape in case of emergency. They should be able to assist and save their patients in a Pallor Mortis scene. But… that means the scene has to be difficult enough that their patients need their help. Herein lies the first paradox of grave-diving: for an adept grave-diver, the difficulty of the scene relies on the people you’re escorting being challenged, so that you can help them. The grave-diver themself actually has very little control over the success of the scene… their abilities only prevent (or delay) failure.

However, success or failure in a Pallor Mortis is completely different from any other experience in Dystopia Rising. Most of our challenges either use an accepted set of mechanics (i.e. you get hit with “Takedown” and call “Balance”) or are “what you see is what you get,” where you physically encounter a challenge (i.e. you have to find a box in the woods). A Grave Mind scene, however, is always somewhat freeform, requires some sort of narration, and is extremely subjective in terms of success or failure (you succeed when the storyteller decides you succeed). So this is the second paradox: you have something that’s supposed to be very challenging, and no accepted way to represent that challenge. 

How do we overcome these paradoxes? We need to set expectations.

What To Expect When Grave-Diving

When you go grave-diving, particularly when you perform a Pallor Mortis, the staff at Dystopia Rising New York wants you to have some expectations. This will help you make your decision to engage with this aspect of plot at our events, and also make these engagements more enjoyable. Here’s what we want you to remember:

1.Less Is More

We have a large and growing game, and a lot of people who want grave-dive. At our January event, we’re expecting 14 Graverobbers, not including unplayed alts. If every one of them wanted to do a Pallor Mortis every six months, we’d have more than two scenes to run each event. Running a Pallor Mortis should probably be a once a year event for most Graverobbers, so we can make it special and memorable each time.

2. It’s Supposed To Be Hard, But Not Impossible

The Grave Mind is more powerful than you: you’re not mugging the Grave Mind and taking its Infection; you can’t overpower the Grave Mind and there should be a lot of risk. The trait we’re looking for in a Grave Mind scene is grit: we want you to try a tactic, fail, then try again, and fail, and maybe at some point you succeed. But you’re not going to get what you want from the Grave Mind by being clever or strong. That’s why the Pallor Mortis saps your Resolve as you encounter difficulties: it’s a matter of will.

3. Someone’s Going To Fail

If it’s hard, someone is going to fail. If you’re in a Pallor Mortis scene with five people plus the Graverobber, someone is probably going to fail to get their Infection back, maybe more. If you’re a patient, be prepared that “this might not work.” If you’re a Graverobber, assume that this dangerous procedure probably ends with you spending a ton of Resolve for your patients or yanking them out of the scene. That’s why you have the PFAs you do, after all… it’s not to help them succeed, but save them from the consequences of failure.

4. It’s Going To Cost You (Resolve)

The cost of going grave-diving is Resolve. How much Resolve? That’s up to you. If you’re in an Infectus Mortis with five people, assume one person is going to succeed pretty quickly, and one person just might not get it. Everyone else is in a fight, a contest of wills. If you’re willing to spend everything you have, including taking fractures, you’re more likely to get what you want. But realize that going in: when you come out, you’re going to be tired, possibly fractured, and definitely have less resolve than you went in with. 

5. The More You Give Us, the More We Can Prep

Grave-diving scenes are hard to run. The more time… and the more we know about your character… the better we can run it. At the very least a two month head’s up is preferred. If you want a personalized scene and the storytellers don’t know your character extremely well, the best thing you can do is offer a reference: another player who knows your character well enough to know what elements might make for a memorable scene. The more we have to work with, the more personal and memorable your grave-diving scene will be.

A LARP Conundrum: Skill Calls and You

Hello Readers! We are back with another blog post, and this one serves a couple of purposes; transparency and bringing attention to collaborative play.

The Ground Work

At DR:NY, we have been lucky enough to enjoy some bigger games over the past few months but as we push into the colder seasons we expect to see some of our warm weather friends take a bit of a break which leads to some more intimate games. As you might imagine, as a game runner, large and small games present their own types of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is smaller NPC groups, because we love to push you to that ‘oh shit’ moment, and that is a lot harder to do when we have 3 people rather than 10.

Here’s the Scene

So, I want you to imagine for a moment - you’re out playing your character. Things have been pretty quiet… and then HARK! Are these the harmonious groans of zed? Or perhaps the grunting rumblings of some raiders!? You can feel your adrenaline start to rush as you reach for your weapons. You can see them now - only 4 of them. They engage with a group of people who had advanced to intercept them. “Mangle, mangle, break weapon, mangle, break weapon, mangle, break weapon…” One by one, the raiders are quickly dispatched. You didn’t get a chance to swing on them. Maybe they’ll respawn?  There! From the treeline- more raiders! “Break weapon, breakmanglebreakweapon mangle…” dead again. They don’t respawn. There weren’t enough of them, you never even got close enough to swing. You watch the NPCs march away into the night, because after all, there are other players that also haven’t seen any action for a while and they need to be entertained as well.

The Dilemma

There are two major points to this blog. The first is really to point out that we (your game runners, your Ops guides) want to send you that threat, we want you to have fun engaging it, it’s literally what we are here for. We all have these skills, all this mind, brews, meals, all this build and time we have spent acquiring the aforementioned skills/items but when it comes to some of those smaller NPC groups, some of those lower threat baddies, the player may want to think about how using those skills could negatively impact the scene. We’re not saying don’t use your stuff - that’s kinda the whole point of playing. That being said, skill spamming can really suck from both sides of the aisle for a multitude of reasons. You’ve all been on the NPC side of things and heard the whole ‘don’t skill spam - it’s no fun for the players who have waited for something to fight and want to get in there and feel cool. You aren’t the hero, they are.’ We don’t think about how it is for the people on NPC shift and the guides when we try to bring a low to moderate threat out and it gets steamrolled in thirty seconds. It unfortunately ends up being not that much fun for most parties involved - the NPCs don’t enjoy being immediately potatoed and not being able to engage their friends, the guide has to try to figure out if there is something they can do that would be fair but more engaging for the players that are there, and the players that are not the ones who immediately engage in the fight don’t get in on any of the action.

What We Don’t Want

“Okay, well, why don’t you just up the stats of the NPCs?” Good question. A lot of the time we do. Being able to adapt on the fly is an important tool out in the field. If I know I am hitting a bunch of veteran players, you better believe those NPCs will be above threshold. But there are also variables ( weather, temperature, how much combat that group of NPCs has already done etc.) that impact us being able to respawn for long periods of time, and just making a threat immune to skills or having ‘yes’ body is something we avoid, or don’t do at all at DR:NY. There are also the cases where the groups of players we see are mixed build levels. If we want to send something out the low to mid build characters can engage with and they happen to be hanging out with a couple players that have high build, it is very difficult if not impossible to balance appropriately. You can see how all of this can be quite a challenge.

What It Boils Down To

So what is the moral of this ramble? I guess it boil down to three things:

• Spamming skills has a time and place, and that is with a larger or higher threat group of NPCs

• Be mindful of the people you are around, they want to get in on that combat too. If one or two players engage the threat and beat it down in 30 seconds, that’s not nearly as much fun.

• The people you are fighting against, the NPCs, those people are your friends too. And sometimes they just wanna play wacky bats and steal your bucket…

Emotional Damage

It’s clear to us that our players have enjoyed the “Fuck Around And Find Out” mentality and ability to opt in that came with Red Line. While thats still very much on going, we would like to offer another opt in for “Fuck Around And Find Out” that’s a bit more in theme for the spooky season.

How do you get involved?

Once during game a cabin may register with Ops a negative emotion in the form of an “I feel _____.” statement. This could be I feel aggressive, lonely, melancholy, hatred, etc etc. This is done for the entire cabin, so please make sure to discuss with your bunk mates before registering. Once a cabin has registered with Ops, we will (at some point during either night) find a way to represent, create or embody that emotion in the cabin at our discretion. This could be a scene, a threat, some fresh new trauma for your characters to bond over or other various things that come with the season. The sooner a cabin registers the more time we will have to plan a fun encounter for all those who are staying there so feel free to start those conversations before game !

Unfinished Business

Photo by London Belli

Sure was a lot going on during Honor's Fall. Time to wrap up some loose ends as we roll on into SEASON TWO.

False Idol

Tired of seeing all your faithful friends murder each other? Hunt down the False Idol, put an end to it and maybe find out what or who it was in the process.

Red Line

Everybody loves Redline, but has anyone managed to figure out what it all does? Compare notes, get high off your ass, experience insane side effects, but hey where is it coming from anyway?

Meet The Families

Now that the dust has settled check out and rub shoulders with your new family heads and see the faces that will be wielding power in a newly reshaped Requiem.

Honor's Fall Recap

Photos by Shawn Smith

Over two hundred survivors descended upon the town of Requiem, as the Families observed their annual tradition of Honor’s Fall. While murder and death cast a shadow on the event, there were also fortunes found in the Hot Zone, revelry at the Bacchanal, and a very special concert. Here’s what you encountered this past weekend.

Food, Merch and Music

Honor’s Fall kicked off with the Bacchanal, where residents and visitors alike saw the best entertainment Requiem had to offer. Vendors filled tables with weapons, gear, and mementos, as others sold food as varied as pho and pizza. The entertainment for the night included an original dance, “The Honor’s Fall Le Ballet,” followed by burlesque dancing from our own Asriel Graves. Then, the electric guitar duo Asmodeus and Rev put on a five song set of metal and hard rock to set the mood and prep us for the main event. Finally, at the end of the Bacchanal, The Mary Lous played a full set of original and cover songs, capped off by a fireworks display. Of course, the fireworks drew a giant horde, but six or seven deaths were a small price to pay for such fine entertainment.

The Hot Zone

Throughout the weekend, survivors climbed to the far reaches of the Fold to explore the Hot Zone, a nuclear, chemical, and biological hazard site under the auspices of the SLOSHA - Slaghound Occupational Safety and Health Agency. In truth, the “agency” was actually Slaghound Salvage, an opportunistic group of scavengers, who took over the site from a group of actual scientists and were grifting visitors into doing the dangerous salvage for them. Despite the unsavory situation, those who entered the Hot Zone found all sorts of valuable items, ranging from cooking components to radioactive metal to all sorts of usable poisons. However, by far the most valuable were the festering crystals that brave and sharp-eyed survivors managed to take home.  

Careful investigations revealed someone had deliberately caused the spill by setting up explosives and sabotaging containment doors at an NBC disposal site. Some of the survivors engaged in a late night mission to disarm more bombs and fix the control panel at the site, and researchers managed to find a cure for the disease caused by exposure to the wastes. However, research into who made the bombs is inconclusive so far…

WARPATH LIVE!

Saturday morning, those attending Honor’s Fall received a surprise concert hosted by a raider clan who somehow learned to thrash. WARPATH LIVE continued their tour through the Fold with a return to Requiem. Fans subsequently lost their figurative minds (while seven lost their literal heads) and the band promises it will return one day.

Honor’s Fall

Of course, the most important event was Honor’s Fall itself, from sunset on Saturday to sunrise on Sunday. The violence began in earnest, and the Boone-Helm were quickly repulsed by the Devils, who took Polaris’ head as the first trophy of the night. The death peaked when the Zodiac Order made their way through town, turning half of the population into the undead and controlling them to take part in their necromantic experimentation. After that, Family heads rolled throughout the night, until there was but one left: Anton Anastasia. As the Families gathered in the Wilted Rose at sunrise, they affirmed the Patron Family status of the Devils and Lonely Streetz, and welcomed four new into their number: the Anderson-Ambrosios, the Blood Wraiths, the Stevensons and the Tarrarians. However, Honor’s Fall was not complete, as just when it seemed to be over, Anton Anastasia surrendered his own head to his second, Essex, who then claimed the title of High Lord Executioner.

For the record, as per Essex Anastasia, here are the Thirteen Families of Requiem:

• The Anastasia Dynasty

• The Anderson-Ambrosios Family

• The Blood Wraiths

• The Boone-Helm Collective

• The Brokentooth Clan

• The Devils

• The Lonely Streetz

• The Molon Collective

• The Stevenson Family

• The Tarrarian Party

• The Volkov

• The Warren Collective

• The Zodiac Order

Aim to Misbehave

Photo by London Belli

Requiem doesn’t really have laws… it has rules. The Treaty of the Fold binds the Families of Requiem together under the rule of the High Lord Executioner, but historically, people ended up here because they got run out of somewhere else. The Families more resemble a crime syndicate than traditional government, and the setting encourages sketchy activities like drugs, theft and murder (as long as you don’t get caught). While the staff talks a lot about Character versus Character (CvC) conflict quite a bit, there’s actually not much more CvC in Requiem than in other chapters. Most of the conflict remains CvE, which poses a question: if we’re not harming each other, how do we misbehave in a setting appropriate manner? Here are some ideas for both locals and travelers as we approach Honor’s Fall.

Rule 0: Consequences, not laws

Requiem is governed by a treaty, not a constitution or a charter. In most governments, there’s an authority figure who has “legitimate” power over everyone who lives there. In a treaty, various groups agree to abide by the same rule and suffer consequences enforced by their peers. There’s not a whole lot that the High Lord Executioner can do to go after Seraphis Volkov if she kills someone in the streets of Requiem… except that the other Families would back him up, and possibly destroy the Seraphis’ entire family if she didn’t submit to his judgment. The threat of war (as seen during our last plot arc, the Reckoning) keeps the peace.

While all the Families care about the Treaty, it’s out of self-interest, not a sense of justice. If someone disrupts the peace, they’ll be dealt with quickly, but there’s not a police force investigating crimes in Requiem. Therefore, you have an unspoken rule that exists in many places, but is even more true here: don’t get caught. 

Vice Is Part Of the Setting

We’ve just introduced a new drug, Redline. The local bar, the Wilted Rose, is a brothel. We have heavy metal raiders. Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll are integral to the setting, and we encourage players to indulge their character’s vices. While we have to be respectful to real-world addictions and player boundaries, vice is one of the best ways to role-play Requiem’s lawless nature. It’s not that Requiem has vices you can’t find anywhere else, it’s that in Requiem, locals focus on vice as an enterprise. It’s not a Hedon paradise, because in Requiem, vice is a business.

How do you get involved in vice? Buy intoxication brews (and then role-play the effects). Do Redline. Frequent the brothel (just don’t expect actual sexual contact with the players!) Or start your own rackets: maybe you can learn three-card monte (and run it as an actual grift with a partner). Do some gambling and lose some bets. Cheat at cards. Find something that feels good, then charge characters in-game money to indulge.

Criminal Conspiracies

Requiem has a strong emphasis on Criminal Influence, as well as societies such as Murder Inc. We typically have our meetings early in the gathering, to provide guidance to players throughout the event. Our Criminal Influence meeting usually has over half the event in attendance (we currently have 110 players checked in with at least basic Criminal Influence), while our Murder Inc meeting usually meets in a smaller group that requires more effort to attend. These groups have a strong presence in the Families of Requiem, and typically offer an opportunity to get involved with plot in a setting-appropriate manner.

Remember, Criminal Influence is not a rare skill in Requiem. While it still values secrecy, when most of the game has the skill, it’s not an exclusive club. When you go to the Criminal Influence meeting, expect to see high-ranking Family members (both player and NPC) expressing political opinions, a couple of job offerings, and probably people fencing some sketchy items. Murder Inc, however, generally requires more commitment: you’ll be asked to use proficient Stealth to make a disguise, and then meet at ops to be escorted to the meeting location. There are often in-depth discussions of what the organization will do over the course of the gathering, and if there’s to be an assassination, this is where it’ll be decided.

Honor Amongst Thieves

The single best way to engage in Requiem’s setting is to embrace the idea of “honor amongst thieves.” The people of Requiem have various codes they live by. For example, they don’t rat people out (or at least try not to get caught doing it). If they shake on an agreement, they expect it to be honored; this isn’t a “Rover deal” but rather a realization that the other person might do violence if they welch. And they value loyalty… loyalty to their family, in particular… above all else. 

At Honor’s Fall, we’ll bring in a new item to focus on this theme, as we introduce special challenge coins. Extremely rare, these coins were inspired by the gold coins in the John Wick movies: they represent a favor more important than life itself. We’ll explain more about them in an announcement, but realize that they’re only given out to players on rare occasions, and if you have one, you can return it to an NPC to call in just about any favor you can think of from them.  

But I’m Not A Crook

Not everyone plays a criminal, but everyone in Requiem is playing in a town built by crooks, con artists and scoundrels. While, we don’t create plots that focus exclusively on these scoundrels, apart from a couple of Criminal Influence mods, realize that to a majority of players, the criminal aspect of Requiem is an important part of the game. If you’re playing a character who doesn’t have Criminal Influence, who doesn’t indulge in vice, or even plays law enforcement… cool. That’s also part of the setting, but we do expect you to interact with others with the knowledge that all the rackets, grifts and conspiracies that are going on around you, are important to other players. There are ways to get involved indirectly, with many criminal organizations maintaining strong ties to people otherwise on the up-and-up. We’re committed to not gate-keeping our plots and modules behind Criminal Influence or that sort of role-play, but realize that many of our plots are going to have that sort of aesthetic. By engaging with it, even in an antagonistic manner, you can get involved in a uniquely Requiem way - by indulging your vices, acknowledging the sense of honor amongst thieves, or even by refusing to give up your sense of law and order.

Honor's Fall - What You Need To Know

Photo by Allana Marie

For the past twelve months, we’ve talked about Honor’s Fall… it’s the climax of the year for Dystopia Rising New York. However, every year, Honor’s Fall changes a little, and it’s important to understand the “rules of the game.” We want to make sure all players, both in- and out-of-character, know what to expect this August.

In-Character Justification

For players who have attended Honor’s Fall in the past, you know there are always small changes as the staff adjusts to lessons learned. In-character, these changes are due to the authority of the High Lord Executioner, who has a great deal of influence over the process. Last year, we saw Anton Anastasia at the height of his power effectively control all aspects of Honor’s Fall, as he slipped into authoritarianism and was ultimately killed by Jones. This year, with Anton taking a step back, his second-in-command, Essex, has asserted his personality on the event. As a result, one can expect less pageantry and intrigue, as Essex favors the direct approach.

This is just a justification: your staff made changes to promote gameplay. We appreciate your buy-in on this: we’re being as transparent as we can, and would appreciate you steering your character towards acceptance of these changes. 

How Honor’s Fall Works

At sunset, the Treaty of the Fold is suspended, and everyone in town can do as they will. By tradition, the Heads of the Patron Families of Requiem hunt each other to retain their position and choose the High Lord Executioner. While the activity is simple, we have several rules in play that the Families are expected to follow:

• All Families of Requiem, Patron and Ward, standing and perspective, are expected to participate in Honor’s Fall. 

• For the sake of clarity, “participate” means the Family Head has to be “on the field”: visibly participating in Honor’s Fall. They should spend significant time (at least three hours) undisguised and out in the open where people can find them.

• Families fight to collect “trophies,” the severed head of the leader of one of the Patron Families.

• This year, as there are only 9 Patron Family Heads, there are only 9 trophies. To correct for this situation, the six remaining original families (Anastasia, Boon-Helm, Molon, Volkov, Warren, Zodiac) do not need to collect a trophy.

• The three more recent Patron Families (Brokentooth, the Devils, and Lonely Streetz), as well as any prospective Family, must collect a trophy and place it in the Wilted Rose by sunrise to retain or gain Patron Family Status.

• If there are more Prospective Families with trophies than there are available positions, the existing Families vote on who will become a Patron Family.

• Family Heads can’t make deals to trade their trophies. They must be taken by force. After a trophy is in one’s possession (i.e. taken from the corpse of a Family Head), deals can be made.

• Other than that, Families can do whatever they can think of to keep their Family Head safe. If they violate the spirit of the rules, they might find there are severe consequences.

• The last Family Head standing in the Wilted Rose by sunrise will be declared the High Lord Executioner (there’s a catch, however, see below). 

• Once a Family Head is killed, they no longer need to participate in Honor’s Fall, but they still need to show up at the Wilted Rose with a trophy.

The High Lord Executioner

The political purpose of Honor’s Fall is to pick the High Lord Executioner, who will enforce the Treaty of the Fold for the next year. Traditionally, the High Lord Executioner was the “last one standing,” which led to a great deal of wheeling and dealing throughout the night. Contrary to popular belief, the High Lord Executioner doesn’t have to be the only Family Head who survives the night… they have to be the last survivor who is standing in the Wilted Rose at sunrise. Some specific points:

• Only Family Heads can become the High Lord Executioner.

• If a Family Head dies during the night of Honor’s Fall, they can’t become High Lord Executioner.

• Unlike the collection of trophies, deals to determine who becomes High Lord Executioner are very common. If a Family Head hasn’t died, they simply step out of the Wilted Rose before sunrise if they don’t wish to oppose the claimant.

• If there is more than one Family Head in the Wilted Rose who hasn’t died by sunrise, it’s likely to end in a great deal of bloodshed. This hasn’t happened yet, and all the Families will do whatever it takes to avoid this sort of war. 

How To Enjoy Honor’s Fall

You have three options to enjoy the night of Honor’s Fall: political Character versus Character (CvC), political Character versus Enemies (CvE), or survival CvE:

• If you’re heavily involved in Family politics, you can actively hunt (and be hunted by) other players. If you play a high-ranking member of a Family, you’ve opted into this already; other players may choose to get involved in the CvE aspects of Honor’s Fall.

• If you want to get involved in the bloody politics of Honor’s Fall, but prefer less CvC, you can hunt and oppose the NPC Patron Families, who will all be out in force. Remember, they’re often as dangerous as other PCs.

• If you want to stay out of the politics of Requiem, you can just try to survive the carnage, and help others to do so. The battles of Honor’s Fall are known for their collateral damage, so there are lots of challenges for you.

All Night Long

We’ll be running Honor’s Fall plot from sunset to sunrise (7:50 pm to 6:14 am… almost 11½ hours). How do we expect you to manage that? 

First, to set expectations: after it becomes apparent who the High Lord Executioner will be (i.e. all the other Family Heads have died), the violence dies down. We’ll go all night, but realistically, NPC threats will be rolling back around 4 am (like a normal Dystopia Rising New York game). While you’re not “safe,” you can probably find someplace to sleep if you're not affiliated with a Family whose Head is still alive. 

That said, a lot of you will be up at sunrise to see how events pan out at the Wilted Rose.  First light is 5:45 am, and there will be important events that occur at this time. We expect you pace yourself on Saturday, and understand the staff are pacing ourselves as well. This includes a 4-hour siesta on Saturday, where no events will be scheduled. This includes player-driven events: please do not schedule anything during the Saturday siesta… this is time for you to relax and hopefully nap.

Trophy Hunting

Collecting heads is very important to Honor’s Fall, and we have a local item to do so. It’s the Boone-Helm family item, the Blood Covered Artist’s Toolkit:

A kit used to make trophies. Requires 30 seconds of role-play. When combined with any level hooch, allows the taking of a non-mechanical trophy. If used on a recurring named NPC, or local unique high level threat, it will produce a Creature Comfort card. The card produced lasts 3 years.

So to collect a head, you need this item and a bottle of hooch, and take 30 seconds roleplaying collecting a trophy from a dead Family Head. For Honor’s Falls, we have some special things we’re doing to make this easier:

• First, the Boone-Helm are happy to support the artistic endeavors of all this Honor’s Fall. You can buy a Toolkit at the Post Office for 5 wagers or 1 wager signed by Polaris Boone-Helm.

• You have to have some sort of physrep for the kit… it doesn’t need to be elaborate, but it should be something you’re carrying around. Additionally, you should have some sort of physrep for the trophy you collect with it, if at all possible.  

• Family Heads (including PCs) will have a creature comfort card on them representing their “head.” This item card can’t be used, traded or stolen until someone kills the Family Head and uses the Toolkit on them. The Family Head will then hand the person who used the Toolkit the card.

The Contenders

If you pay attention to the politics of Requiem, you’ve probably heard someone mention “the Thirteen Families.” The problem: there aren’t Thirteen Families. The number shifts, and depends on how you count them… so we’ll just talk about Patron Families that exist right now. As of the summer of 2022, we have nine Patron Families - six Families with NPC Heads (Anastasia, Boonhelm, Molon, Volkov, Warren and Zodiac) and three with players leading them (Brokentooth, Devils and Lonely Streetz).  So with only nine Patron Families, what happened to the other four, and where do we go from here?

Why Are There Not 13?

The short answer: there were 13, and then things changed. Families die, vie for power, lose their position and evolve over time. Often, they meet bloody ends (like the Jones Collective at our last event). We also want to make sure there is room for player-created Families, and make sure there are significant stakes at Honor’s Fall. 

When we returned from the Pandemic in August of 2021, we re-evaluated every Family, and ended up with eight: seven NPC-led Families and Brokentooth. Over the last year, we added two player-led families, and saw the demise of Jones, which lands us at our current number. During this Honor’s Fall, we’ll see the number grow to 13 again, as the players help decide which groups will enter the ranks of the Patron Families.

Who Are the Contenders?

During Honor’s Fall, the Families will vie for power in Requiem, and try to ensure their own survival as a Patron Family.  While they do, a number of contenders will jockey for power, hoping to be elevated to the their status. If you’ve played in Requiem this year, you might have met many of these groups, but here’s a refresher:

• The Anderson-Ambrosias - A player-led Ward Family, the Anderson-Ambrosias are led by the Faithful of both the Sainthood of Ashes and the Nuclear Family. After the fall of the Jones Collective, they seek to position themselves as the “tenders of the Faithful” in Requiem.

• The Bloodwraiths - A mercenary company who made it a practice to pursue “big game”; they entered the Fold tracking the undead creations of Zodiac. They believe that the “weak can become strong” and seek to help people defend themselves, but as a mercenary company, they’re also known to be more than a bit greedy.

• The Dioscuri Bloodline - A family of psions who deal in a strange sort of “crystal-tech” that they manufacture with their abherrent powers. While little is known of them, rumor has it that they seek to protect the “Gifted” from the “Unworthy,” although it’s not entirely sure what that means.

• The Doctorium - At their core, a group of well-guarded Doctors, this faction seeks to develop a panacea for all diseases. In Requiem, they offer medical treatment in exchange for compensation. However, beneath such noble goals, there are rumors that they’ll perform less-than-ethical experiments on “volunteers” - individuals who failed to pay their contracts.

• The Knite Council - Newcomers to Requiem, most people of the Fold haven’t had much interaction with this group except with their pig-faced leader (prophet? god?) Argor. Concerned primarily with cleaning the corruption they find blighting the land, Argor’s followers have begun to reach out to the Families, seeking to join them. 

• The Stevensons - A collection of Landsmen… heavily influenced by faith the Nuclear Family… the Stevensons have a long history in the Fold but have avoided entanglements with the politics of Requiem until the Reckoning. Farmers by trade and soldiers by necessity, they want to assert themselves as the voice of the common folk.

• The Tarrarian - This faction believes in self-control and rehabilitation; they dwell in the tunnels beneath Requiem, and are actively attempting to make their living space accessible and hospitable. Of course, a clan of gorgers has some obvious… conflicts of interests cohabitating with those who could also be their food supply.

Other contenders might still emerge, including player-led Families who meet our requirements (if you’re interested in contending for Family status at Honor’s Fall and have the appropriate number of people, make sure you give us at least 30 days notice with an action request).

What Happens Next

With Honor’s Fall coming up, there will be openings for new Patron Families… but not enough room for all the aspiring and current powers-that-be. Player actions will determine which families remain after Honor’s Fall, and who gets to take their place.