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. 

What’s A PFA (To Us)

Photo by Shawn Smith

Shadow. Bad-Ass. Graverobber. The one thing we’re sure about: Professional Focus Achievements (PFAs) have awesome names. The majority of plot requests we receive at Dystopia Rising New York involve PFAs, as well as quite a few complaints. PFAs are some of the coolest things that can end up on your character’s sheet, and take the longest to achieve… you have to have spent at least 100 Build before you can have one, then put in a plot request. And then… to use one, you have to have an expensive piece of equipment or “be in the right place at the right time.” All this results in PFAs being a source of confusion for players and staff alike. So what is a PFA in DRNY?

A Disclaimer - No One Right Way

First, we’re just talking about PFAs in our local chapter. You might not like our approach, but we want to be clear and transparent about how we treat PFAs. Most importantly - we’re not saying “you’re wrong” if you disagree with us… there’s no one right way to use PFAs. We know that players are (rightfully) very attached to some of the PFA titles (more on that below) and want them to behave a certain way. What’s important is that we’re clear on how they behave at our game.

The Problem

PFAs are a relatively new game concept; we’ve only been playing with them for about three years. The rulebook doesn’t actually tell you what they are… pages 138 through 139 tell you how to get them, but not really what they are. The book does describe the titles associated with Professional Achievements, however:

Titles of Professional Focus Achievements are used as an honorific title related to a skill tree and the skill requirements of related equipment bonuses. They are not intended to be a literal description of any profession, title, or description can ever encompass all potential routes and mechanical design focuses an individual could use to describe a Professional Focus Achievement.

However, at the same time PFAs arrived, an older mechanic - Advanced Professions - disappeared. Advanced Professions were a mechanic you could purchase for your character that opened up unique skills: if you had an Advanced Profession, you could do things no one else could do, like perform Grave Mind procedures, raise the dead, and kill powerful undead by pointing a finger. To receive an Advanced Profession, you needed months of roleplay, with a minimum of three lessons. For most of their existence, these lessons could only be taught by NPCs, and for a time, advanced professions were extremely rare. For many, achieving an advanced profession like Grave Robber, Saint or Mercenary were long-term character goals. They’re very different from PFAs, which are really just capstones to individual skills.

But while PFAs and Advanced professions are different, they have one thing in common: the titles. Many of the old Advanced Profession titles (like the aforementioned Grave Robber, Saint, and Mercenary titles) became PFA titles. So while people remember how important those titles used to be using the old mechanics, they don’t carry the same weight under our current rules system. 

Further Complications

Let’s admit a problem: Advanced Professions went away because they relied on a gatekeeping mechanic. If you met the prerequisites, you could apply for an Advanced Profession and the staff would decide if your character was worthy of it or not. While this did keep Advanced Professions rare and prestigious, it also led to bad feelings if someone was not approved. Further, there were issues of favoritism and, even worse, biases as certain professions were gatekept unfairly. When PFAs arrived, they removed the approval process: while you still have to put in the plot request, you can’t really “fail” a PFA “test.” You just have to meet the prerequisites, put in the request, and after your mod, you put it on your sheet. This effectively solves the gatekeeping problem.
However, without rarity, PFAs lack the same prestige. You don’t “earn” a PFA; you buy it like you would Mind, Body or another skill. You receive a mod not to determine if your character is “worthy” of a PFA, you go through a story to make it more enjoyable. But what about the people who remember being gatekept out of their Advanced Profession, or never had a chance to achieve that goal, and remember what it meant to have one of those Advanced Profession titles? This introduces a new problem: the PFA title doesn’t match player expectations of what that title means.

So What Does A PFA Mean (and Do)?

The best way to approach a PFA in DRNY is to treat it exactly as it behaves mechanically: it means your character has achieved a certain level of skill and knows how to use specific pieces of equipment more efficiently. It doesn’t mean you’re inherently better at anything than other characters without the PFA.

For example, the Shadow PFA allows players to use certain Stealth related items more effectively: with the right items, they can stay in disguise longer and use “Never Here” more advantageously. It also signifies they’ve achieved a certain level of skill at Stealth, and suggests this may be a focus for their character. However, it doesn’t make them “more stealthy” than other characters, or mean they should automatically succeed at Stealth mods. 

But what about the ability to use PFAs in specific plots? Storytellers can design scenarios to include a special opportunity for specific PFAs to stand out with unique mechanics. While we do try to do this in DRNY, the numbers make this impossible - we have about 150 active players in the database, and well over 200 PFAs to account for. Further, this number is heavily skewed: at our last game, we have more than a dozen Shadows (23), Veterans (20), Mercenaries (20), Graverobbers (16), Assassins (16), Flankers (15), Bone Breakers (14) and Inner Circle (13). Even if we include special mechanics for PFAs in our mods, with these numbers, the mechanic has to be something multiple people can enjoy, as opposed an overwhelming advantage one person can use to “win” the mod. 

Big Picture: The Game Has Changed

It’s been three years since we introduced PFAs… the majority of our players never had an Advanced Profession, and at least 20% of them never played with those mechanics. However, when the rules changed, we didn’t emphasize the change enough, and some perceptions bleed over into how we think about PFAs. In human factors engineering, there’s a concept of negative transfer - where you take previous expertise in a situation, and apply it to a new situation where your expertise doesn’t quite fit. We have to remember not to apply negative transfer to our mechanics… a PFA is a cool title you can add to your sheet, and while it can be very important to you as a player, it doesn’t fundamentally change how your character interacts with the game as a whole. 

How Much Is Too Much?

Photo by Shawn Smith

When you design a boffer larp, you’re not really making a competitive game: the players are going to win. Like a video game, there’s an illusion that you’re struggling against an opponent, but in the end, the NPCs are going to lose, and the storytellers aren’t really trying to defeat you. Instead, there has to be an “illusion of failure,” mixed with actual setbacks, minor defeats, and “reach goals,” to create the sense that you have agency, when actually, it’s really hard to lose. So the biggest challenge for designers is how much adversity should players encounter before they win… or “how much is too much?”

The Adept Survivor Problem

In Dystopia Rising, as in other larps with quantifiable mechanics, we have a particular problem. The wastes are full of zed, raiders, and critters who want to kill and eat your character, and they know that… so they struggle to prepare for the worst. Not only do they spend Build to gain skills, Body, and Mind, but they also craft gear such as weapons and brews. It’s a feature of the system that the more games you attend, and the more crafting you do, the better prepared you are for threats. However, the better prepared for threats you are, the easier they are to overcome, and the “illusion of failure” disappears: you’re running roughshod over your enemies. But if the designer ups the threat, then your work is for naught; the perceived challenge remains the same no matter how bad ass your character gets. We can call this the “Adept Survivor Problem:” the more adept your character is as a survivor, the more they’ll encounter dire threats to their survival.

Compounding this problem is that all characters have a different level of survivability. This is a matter of character longevity (i.e. Build) and wealth, but also player experience (such as knowing what items work the best in a given situation) and interest (not everyone enjoys crafting or economy). When designing for large groups of players, the Adept Survivor Problem becomes a tricky balance. 

Lots of Solutions, But No One Way

There are lots of ways to deal with the Adept Survivor Problem, but really, no one solution will work. Designers have to use a mix of options to challenge players, particularly in large groups. Using one tool too much causes frustration, so it’s important to use a mix of them. Here are some tools we have as Dystopia Rising designers to create that “illusion of failure.”

• Respawning enemies: having lots of enemies to cut down lets players feel like a bad ass, killing lots of zed or raiders, and challenges them with attrition. 

• Control Calls: area of effect crowd controls and other similar effects create a moment of inescapable challenge, letting the enemies get a few hits in before they disappear.

• Weird Shit: in Dystopia Rising New York, we like to throw unique zed and calls at you that can surprise players and create a moment of confusion.

The Effect On Players

Because of the multiple ways to address the problem, players end up on a bit of a roller coaster. This isn’t a bad thing: remember, the designers are trying to create that illusion of failure, and that illusion will create frustration, fear, and anger in the characters. Sometimes, those emotions bleed over to the player… and that’s also okay, as long as it doesn’t disrupt their play. If a player can continue to play, they’ll eventually win or accomplish their goals, and that feeling of accomplishment will also bleed over to the player. But if the negative emotions stop play, then both the designers and the players have to work together to get the game back on track.

So what can you do as a player when you’re too frustrated to continue to play? First, while anger is a valid emotion, it’s often not a constructive one, particularly in a cooperative game like a larp. It might be best to take a break, cool down, and then either continue play (and send feedback afterwards) or talk to a guide. When you talk to the guide, try to focus on what you want to happen; this gives the storytellers an idea of how to move forward. And finally, remember this piece of advice: wait until the smoke clears. Often, your frustration peaks at the most difficult moments of the larp, and there’s a plan for what happens next. Sometimes it’s best to keep playing, and see how things turn out, than to stop a story before you get to the ending.

What Is Dystopia Rising All About?

Photo by Shawn Smith

A larp isn’t really an experience - it’s a chance to create your own experience with your friends. At Dystopia Rising New York, we offer many things to enhance that experience - antagonists, narratives and a beautiful campsite - and we have a lot of elements unique to Requiem. But what’s the core of the Dystopia Rising experience? When you and your friends get together and play Dystopia Rising, what do you expect? What about the game appeals to you?

We’ve come up with a few ideas… please let us know your thoughts.

Fighting Zombies (and Raiders and Critters…)

Dystopia Rising is a boffer larp, which means players expect there to be something to fight. It’s probably not the most common activity (if you have 6 to 8 hours of solid combat over a weekend, it’s probably a lot), but it defines the experience. You can hit your friends with foam swords at any boffer larp, but at Dystopia Rising, you get to fight zombies. It’s what makes the larp unique.

It’s also what makes it immersive, because the activity of boffer fighting aligns your body with what your character is doing. We may not be expert sword fighters or marksmen, but the act of swinging a foam sword in real-time in the chaos of a boffer battle feels more real than if we were playing a table-top game with dice. We think this is a major part of the appeal.

Hanging Out With Your Friends In The Woods In Costume

A big appeal of any larp is seeing your friends - larp is a social activity. Sometimes, we get too into it, and it’s our only social activity, but it’s a great way to reliably see a core group of friends every month. And when we do, we play… just like if we were in a bowling league or on a softball team, we play a game. This recharges us, because playing with friends (in this case role-playing) is a vital activity for adults to do.

With Dystopia Rising, we play in a particular aesthetic… and this aesthetic is important. We don’t just play for a couple of hours; we travel to the woods, put on post-apocalyptic costumes, and play for days. We don’t just role-play the exciting parts; we also cook in-character, we play music in-character, we craft in-character. Again, this is immersion, and it’s part of the unique appeal of a Dystopia Rising larp. 

The Weird Stuff

We don’t mean “weird” in a bad way… we mean the stuff particular to Dystopia Rising larps that no one else offers. This could be Gravemind lore. It might be religious roleplay. The economy of the larp is unique and a tremendous draw for some people. There are lots of things that make Dystopia Rising unique, and each one is special to some player.

The important thing with the “weird stuff” is that there’s something for everyone, but not everyone likes the same thing. Some players will jump into a Gravemind scene every chance they get. Others spend hours collecting every blueprint. Having opportunities for both draws players to the game, where they’ll have the chance to hang out with their friends and fight zombies. 

These are just our answers to “what is the appeal of Dystopia Rising?” What parts of Dystopia Rising do you come to game for?

Confusing Calls, Made Simple, Part 3

Photo by Allana Marie

This is part of a series of articles that attempts to make some of the more confusing rules calls simple. In this one, we look at some reminders from our Rules Guides. Don’t forget to check out Part 1 (particularly for damage reduction) and Part 2 (about ways to incapacitate someone).

Reminders

A couple of reminders from our previous parts:

• If you call “Bane” on a damage call against a creature with damage reduction, they just cancel out. Pretend it’s a normal damage call… it doesn’t get increased or decreased.

• We talked about untying someone’s bonds in a previous blog, but don’t forget: if you want to untie someone quickly (5 seconds), it takes 1 Mind to cut their bonds. Otherwise it takes 1 minute but no Mind. 

• If you’re Stunned (including Takedown), you have to crumple to the ground for 5 seconds. You can’t just stand there. 

Bleed Out

So… you’re reduced to 0 Body.  Congrats! You’re in Bleed Out. First, realize that you can’t fake Bleed Out, so if you take a hit, fall over, and start acting like you’re dying, you’re going against the rules. There’s no real reason to lie down in a fight if you’re not in Bleed Out, so don’t do that. Bleed Out ends when your Bleed Out timer expires (typically 5 minutes, but some items or skills can change that) or you receive a Killing Blow.  Once it ends, you’re dead and should lie on the ground for 10 minutes before going to Ops.

What’s a Killing Blow? Generally it’s a strike that takes three seconds, that you then declare. While you have to role play it, you don’t have to count out loud (although it’s a good idea if you’re an NPC to count to create a compelling scene). Murder acts as a Killing Blow as part of a strike, so effects that prevent Killing Blows prevent the effects of Murder. 

The Lexicon

We have some terms in the Lexicon that you should know; it collects a number of rules into one place.  Some highlights:

• Agony - This call is countered by Basic Mental Endurance if it’s an Area of Effect or By My Voice call, or by Avoid if it’s delivered via a Strike or Ranged Attack.

• Nail - This skill is countered by Avoid unless it’s an Area of Effect or By My Voice call, then you’re just stuck. It just forces you to keep your foot in the same spot on the ground for 1 minute or until you enter Bleed Out - you can still use skills and defend yourself.

• Terror - This skill is countered by Basic Mental Endurance, and makes you flee for 30 seconds. It’s different than Fear, which just prevents you from attacking the source of your fear.

On the topic of Fear, please note you can’t use Basic Mental Endurance to counter it, and it is broken when you’re attacked by any foe; it doesn’t have to be the creature that caused it, but it can’t be your buddy tapping you for 2 damage.

Other Notes

Some other notes our Rules Guides asked us to pass on:

• You can’t target yourself with a skill unless it says otherwise.

• When you use your last Resolve, you can’t use items that cost or make you lose Resolve for the remainder of the event (this means no injectables!)

• When you’re Blinded, you can’t use skills you’ve spent build on, so you can’t use Florentine. 

• If you Break something trapped, or the trap itself, you trigger the trap. Breaking containers Break the contents.

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!

Confusing Calls, Made Simple, Part II

Photo by Allana Marie

This is part of a series of articles that attempts to make some of the more confusing rules calls simple. In this one, we look at different ways to really incapacitate a character.

“Potatoed”

The word “potatoed” isn’t anywhere in the rules set; it refers to a character who has had all their limbs Mangled. What’s interesting about this state is that they’re specifically “Subdued,” a state in which you can’t use any items. So if you have an item that allows you to heal a limb or ignore effects of Mangled limbs (as opposed to preventing them), you can’t use it unless you have one working limb. 

Subdued

The “subdued” state is also not often understood. It’s explicitly different than being Stunned, and only happens if you have had all your limbs Mangled, are Unconscious, or are in Bleed Out (also tied up, but we’ll get to that). While you’re Subdued, you can’t use any items or any skills except for Anomaly skills (unless that item or skill specifically states you can use it while Subdued); you also can’t move. What players forget is that being unable to use items or skills or move (like when you’re Stunned) does not mean a creature is Subdued. This is important if someone wants to use a skill that requires a Subdued target.

Tied Up

One such skill that requires a Subdued target is the use of Basic Malicious, which lets you tie someone up. It takes 5 seconds, and while the effects are very similar to being Subdued, they’re not exactly the same (specifically, only Anomaly skills will work when you’re tied up). Further, it’s possible to be Subdued and tied up at the same time: right now, there’s no item in the game that will work when you’re both Subdued and tied up. 

Stabilized

An important point in all this: a character who has been Stabilized by Basic Medical is no longer in Bleed Out, and is therefore no longer Subdued because of this. Although the book explicitly states a Stabilized character can’t use any skills… but they can move slowly and use items. So you could become Stabilized and drink a brew or a meal to regain body; and you can’t tie up a Stabilized character (unless you Subdue them some other way).

Waiting In the Wings - What Comes Next

Photo by London Belli

During our May event, you’re extremely likely to experience the conclusion of the Jones War and the end of the Anarchy (we say “extremely likely” because you can always throw us for a loop). But what about June?  And our premier event in August, Honor’s Fall? Role-play is a collaborative activity, and both the storytellers and players should work together to guide the narrative. To do this, we want to talk about three things: steering, pacing, and agency. 

Steering

We have our Future of Requiem discord chat - this is our “steering session” for us and our players. If you’ve ever played a tabletop role-playing game, you might be familiar with the concept of a Session 0, where both the players and storyteller get together and talk about the campaign they’re about to run to get on the same page. During longer campaigns, some storytellers have feedback sessions periodically to learn what the players want to see… what they would like more of, less of, and what new stuff they’d like to encounter. Similarly, during an ongoing larp, storytellers use a variety of feedback tools to learn what their players want.  This discord chat is one such tool.

During the chat, we’re going to talk about a couple of specific topics, including our plans for Honor’s Fall and the Treaty of the Fold. But the important thing is that this isn’t us talking to you, or you asking us questions: we want you to tell us what you want and your expectations are. Then, we’re going to take what you tell us and either figure out how to meet those expectations, or explain why we’re going in a certain direction. Remember, steering is a process, not a one-time event, so while our Discord chat is a major opportunity to work together, we’ll continue to solicit feedback and adjust our design based on your inputs. 

Pacing

We have two games before Honor’s Fall, our premier event and game of the year in August. We’ve had amazing engagement and buy-in from our players leading up to the end of the current plot arc, the Reckoning, and now we have to manage the pacing of the narrative so that we peak in August without either rushing or having a “down” event. To accomplish this, in May, we’ll focus on ending the Jones War and the violence known as the Anarchy.  We want to offer resolution to the crisis phase of events, and give you the opportunity in June to really decide the situation politically.

In June, we want you to have the ability to nail down the politics of Requiem for the next year. We’ll have NPCs facilitating the revision of the Treaty of the Fold, and defining how the Thirteen Families work, the role of the High Lord Executioner, and function of Honor’s Fall. This last part is the most important, as we want a clear understanding of what’s happening in August at the premier event.  

Then, of course, comes Honor’s Fall. You should expect a return of our signature event, with Saturday Night filled with violence and tension, running from sunset to sunrise. This year, we’ll reinforce the political consequences of Honor’s Fall, while maintaining a simple structure with which travelers can engage.

Agency

Player agency is vital, but remember, we have a lot of players, and we have to take care of all of them. People show up to Requiem for a certain type of Dystopia Rising game, and we want to make sure we provide for them. Too much agency, or agency without boundaries, can negatively impact other players and frustrate the staff. As such, we encourage players to remember that they play in a sandbox with defined boundaries, as opposed to a desert of unbounded sand.

What does this mean? Expect us to apply some boundaries over the next few games. Most of these are relatively broad, but we have a few we need to share:

• First, we need Requiem to be “Requiem.” To us, that means as a minimum: Honor’s Fall, the Treaty of the Fold, the Families, and in particular the presence of the Anastasia Family. 

• Second, we need Honor’s Fall to remain similar to what it’s always been: a free-for-all night of violence that determines the future of Requiem. We also need it to remain simple, so travelers can pick a side or just engage in the melee, without requiring complicated explanations. 

• Third, we’re going to push for an NPC High Lord Executioner, so that we don’t have player characters with blanket authority over other player characters.

This last point requires some expansion, as it’s a pretty big boundary.  We’ve talked before about the problem of effective leadership in larp leading to less dramatic play. However, we’ve also had mixed feedback about the disappearance of the High Lord Executioner, and the lack of structure that the player character family heads had after that disappearance. We want to work out a structure with players that respects their recently established importance, but also lets us use the position of High Lord Executioner to steer the game from a staff perspective, as opposed to the interest of individual players. 

The important thing in all of this is communication, and communication is a process… it’s a loop where one party says something and the other hears it, considers it, and responds. We’re always open to your responses, so that we may consider your ideas. The best way to do so is either fill out our feedback form or email us at info@dystopiarisingny.com.

How To End A Story

Photo by Allana Marie

Our May event, The Reckoning, concludes a plot arc that began in January. We’re very excited about what we have planned, including the final showdown with Jim Jones, and the return of Anton Anastasia.  We’re extremely excited to see what our players do when he shows up. But as we prepare for the end of The Reckoning, we have to ask… how do we end a story in a larp?

Make It Big

There’s a conventional wisdom in experience design that applies to larp. People remember two things from an experience: the biggest thing that happened, and the ending. If you watch a Broadway show, they often put the most popular song in the middle (the “showstopper”) and then have a really big finale. In larp, players are co-creators, so while their designers can set-up showstoppers, the most memorable experience is typically different for each individual. As such, the single event they’ll all have in common is the ending. So it’s important to make the ending “big.”
From a story-telling side, that involves making a lot of options available. In The Reckoning, that means you should have the opportunity to kill Jones, or change the regime, or get in a huge fight, or complete your research. From a player perspective, we need you to commit to large, dramatic moments that impact those around you. This is the time to yell, to cry, to give a dramatic speech, or finally enact that betrayal you’ve been setting up for months. This is the end of the arc, so it’s time to put all your cards on the table. 

Make It Hurt

An ending should come at some sort of cost. This isn’t a children’s cartoon where the heroes triumph without pain or loss… this is a game of survival horror. As players, we’re not trying to win, we’re trying to tell a story. At the end of the story, if there is victory, it should come with a price and have been hard-fought. If there’s a loss, then all the better in this genre.

As storytellers, our job is to provide you a challenge. We need to give you a chance to use that injectable you made, or spend all your Mind and Resolve, or sit by the morgue waiting for a fallen friend. The challenges we provide aren’t to defeat you, but to make you feel like your character overcame a challenge. For your part, we want to make sure you’re ready to lose, at least a little bit. You’re going to be coming into The Reckoning with full health, full mind, and all the items you can. At the end, we want you to be prepared to have a little less… the cost of victory.

What Comes Next

If this were a movie, or even a one-shot larp, we’d wrap everything up without any concern for a sequel. However, it’s a campaign larp, and we have a game in June (and a really big game in August). After you defeat Jones, after Anton comes back, we have to run a game next month. That game probably won’t have the same stakes as The Reckoning, but it will have to be interesting, and it will have to be recognizably “Requiem.” You probably won’t tie up all the loose plot threads (and if you do, we’ll still have more for you, including the creepy pig-skull thing you met in April). 

Regardless, we have a climax coming up in May, and we’re going to end this plot arc with a bang. We can’t wait to see you there, and you better be ready to play.