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.

The Gravemind in Requiem

Photo by London Belli. Pictured - Daniel Carione

As we prepare for an event that involves a lot of zed, the staff at Dystopia Rising New York (DRNY) wanted to go over our local Grave Mind, and how it works. While we strive to match our Grave Mind lore with the network as a whole, each chapter runs the Mortis Amaranthine (the formal term for the Grave Mind) a bit differently, and we want to make sure everyone has accurate expectations.

The Grave Mind Doesn’t Care About You…

…Or anyone else.

With hundreds of storytellers across dozens of chapters, sometimes Grave Mind lore gets a little muddled. We stick very closely to the concept of the Grave Mind as described in the rule book: it’s a conceptual state of being, not a place or an individual. There’s no ego or intentions involved in scenes that occur “in” the Grave Mind - just your character’s perceptions of the world’s natural processes. That means that when the Grave Mind “does” something, it’s really just a consequence of previous actions, like a chemical reaction.

Weird Shit Happens in the Grave Mind

Things don’t always work “right” in the Gravemind. The skills and items you have work as prescribed in the rules and blueprints, but beyond that, when you enter a Grave Mind scene, be prepared for the storyteller to throw you a curve ball. Sometimes local items interact oddly, or there are additional effects or consequences beyond the rules. But remember, we do this for game play or dramatic effect, and not as part of an ongoing narrative. 

What does this mean? If you’re in a Grave Mind scene and another player wants to enter, we’ll find a way to make it happen. If things are going poorly and we want to help you out, we’ll make something up. We might add something to give you a jump scare or a surprise. What we won’t do is justify a plot or event as “Grave Mind bullshit”; for story purposes, we try to play skills and items as close as possible to the rule book. 

If you do see something weird, ask the storyteller after the scene. They’ll explain to you what happened, if it’s a deviation, and why. Remember, these are almost always one-off events (i.e. pulling a silent observer into a Grave Mind scene to help out a bunch of players with low Resolve) as opposed to a local mechanic.

Grave-Diving Has Consequences

You all like to go grave-diving. That’s awesome… we have fun when you use skills and abilities to explore the Grave Mind, and we hope you do to. But remember: actions have consequences. The more you go into the Grave Mind (i.e. “fuck around”) the more the metaphorical open wounds you leave behind will fester and spit out strange zed (i.e. “find out”). We do this for two reasons: first, we want to run a horror game, and in a horror game, actions have negative side effects. Second, we want to make sure the Grave Mind remains a strange and alien experience, and not a regular point of interaction.

You’re likely going to experience some consequences at our next event. Remember, the point is not to single out other characters as scapegoats or stop using Grave Mind-related skills and abilities. Instead, remember that the world of Dystopia Rising is a scary place, and get ready to be scared by new and interesting threats.

What is Survival Horror?

Two friends mourn someone who didn’t survive. Photo: Allana Marie. Pictured: Chris Moscato, Dylan Agan, Michael Bruni.

Dystopia Rising New York (DRNY) says that we’re a survival horror larp - but what does that mean? A lot of other larps also say that and some of them are pretty different from us. Rather than offer an academic definition, we want to tell you what you can expect from our survival horror game.

You may be a badass, but they are legion

Heroes in survival horror range from the person in the “wrong place, wrong time” to grizzled zombie killers. As you gain build in Dystopia Rising you will transition inevitably from the former to the latter. However, while all protagonists have the ability to overcome the first zed they encounter, the challenge is never the big, bad enemies who can beat you up… it’s that there are so many of them. Your goal is to survive (hence the name, “survival horror”), not vanquish. 

The choice you make now will bite you later

The most important element of our brand of survival horror is that if you use resources right now, you won’t have them later. We want you to have cool stuff to help you survive. We want you to use it and rely on it… and then we want you to run out. 

Expect constant attrition

We don’t want the first zombie to get you. Or the second. Or the tank. Or the big scary enemy in the woods. This is a game of attrition - we wear your character down throughout the weekend with our legion enemies and your dwindling resources. We don’t want to challenge you with an enemy with huge stats - we want you to win, and win, and win… until you just can’t anymore.

It’s the one you’re not expecting that gets you

DRNY is not a game about big, bad monsters. We have those, but that’s to offer memorable challenges and spectacles. Really, the threat lies in the “normal” monsters we send out late at night, or after large battles, or that you encounter randomly. We want to make the choice to use the last of your resources, a desperate one. You never know when you'll run into unexpected danger.

It’s about what you don’t see, until you see it

We like to send out challenges that hide in the dark, or make noises, or stalk you from afar. Part of survival horror is looking over your shoulder, because you know you’re going to get tired, and something is going to come after you at just the wrong moment. 

How might this work for you, the player? Let’s say you have the Mercenary ability that lets you drop a tank in one hit. In other games, you might expect to use it to kill a powerful undead threat, and end the fight. In DRNY, we want to create situations where you need to use it right now… where you’re surrounded by shamblers and fighting a tank and you need to get rid of one threat to deal with the others. Individually, neither the tank or the shamblers are a threat, but together, something has to give. Of course, now your character is tired, and needs to figure out how to prevent that situation from happening again… and here comes another tank.