2024 December - Doin' it Live

Hi, everyone!

As you likely have figured out by now, we are hosting an Early Preview of the Dystopia Rising: Live rule system for our last game of the season on December 13th - 15th. After the last year+ of its development, we’re pretty excited to sit down and play with you all together. We know many of you have questions about how we’re going about this, and hopefully this will help!

Overview

We will be using the DR: Live Ruleset, all of which is publicly viewable at https://www.dystopiarisinglive.com/books. This means that all characters, items, etc will need to be converted. The more that can be done in advance, the easier and faster it will be to jump into having fun on Friday night.

We will be running a modified form of the usual game weekend. Opening Announcements will still be at 9pm on Friday Night, followed by Game On at 10pm. However, we will set aside a specific OOC zone in Fogle Hall (“Town Hall”) for those who will need assistance making characters or with other logistical things. If other players would like to volunteer to help with assisting others, that would be awesome and appreciated.

On Sunday, we will then call Game Off at 8am instead of the usual Noon. The intent is for players to be able to sleep in, ease out of game space via soft RP, or even cook breakfast as they wish. We will then be hosting an Out of Character group discussion at 10am in Fogle/Town Hall, before proceeding with cleanup as usual.

We will be “taking” Infection from your experimental DR: Live character over the course of the game, should you lose any, so you can see what that mechanic will look like in play. By which, we mean that we will still write the appropriate numbers on your printed character sheet. In the end, however, it will not truly matter. All Live characters will need to be rewritten for March’s Season Opener anyways, at which point your Infection Pool will reset. If you are choosing to speed-run your Infection Pool in order to narratively “perm” your character so that you can make a new one for March, please talk with us when that time comes so we can give you the extra bells and whistles for that Last Walk like any character deserves.

As we will be expecting travelers potentially arriving after Game On, we are asking everyone who is able to to please use the cabins deeper into the camp. We would like to leave the Squirrel cabins in particular open and available for both late-arrival travelers as well as those with mobility issues. If we get many players and sleeping space gets tight, we may also ask you to share kindly.

With the recent changes in the Live crafting rules, this is also an excellent opportunity to try out something that many of our players have been asking about for awhile: Extending the CvC Wasteland areas. Since Items and Infection both will not truly matter outside of this game’s story, we are going to experiment with an “All Wasteland” game. There are a couple things to keep in mind with this. In the event that anyone takes Infection from anyone else, we will be doing a full sheet audit. In Character Theft also requires a Guide to prevent Real Life Theft of props. We also strongly encourage you to remember that each character is piloted by a fellow human being, and to treat them as such Out of Character by doing things such as checking in, guiding scenes and conflicts, etc.

TL;DR

  • Friday Night Game On as usual; Designated OOC space for those who need it

  • Sunday Game Off at 8am

  • Sunday Group Discussion at 10am in Fogle

  • Infection loss will not truly matter, unless you want it to. Please let us know if you are intentionally perming your character

  • We are asking for the Squirrel cabins to be left available for late arrivals and those with mobility issues.

  • This will be an All-Wasteland Game for Character vs Character Conflict purposes. Yes, even Town Hall. No, not the bathrooms; they are still Out of Character. Rule #1 always applies.

Your Characters

All characters will need to be made using the Live ruleset. All characters will have their Current XP in each slot to play with, plus the 50 Starting XP that all characters get. You will be able to do this yourself!

Character Swapping for those with active Advanced Memberships is allowed per the usual (“ABA”, or “ABC” swaps). We would like to encourage you not to, so that you may get a better feel for the full experience of one character in a given weekend.

If you wish to remake your existing characters under the Live ruleset, that’s cool. If you wish to make a one-off, starting build character, that’s cool too. We’re looking to present a low-stakes game with a high-stakes story; have fun with it. :)

Your Items

As this is an Early Preview of DR: Live, this game will be economically “silo’d.” Items crafted or looted during the weekend will not transfer outside of this game, whether back to 3.0 or carry over into March. We will therefore not be using Dystopia Rising Item Cards for this game; all Items will be written on 3x5 inch index cards instead. The only exception is Local Currency (Lug) and Trade Notes, which will exist as normal.

You will be writing your own Index Cards on the honor system. This will save us all time in the end and allow you to get into enjoying game faster. 3.0 Blueprints may count as-is, as long as there is a similarly named Live Blueprint for it to translate to; we will not be able to facilitate blueprint copying, unless you want it written on an Index Card for just this game. We are asking that you only write cards for the Items that you wish to import, and not write cards for things you want to play with but do not currently own. We would like to give the Artisans, Culinarians, and other crafters an opportunity to engage with their own gameplay loops as well.

It is our hope that Blueprints and related Item information will be available in the Dystopia Rising Database in time. If so, we will be using that information. If it is not, then we will default to an early preview of the Blueprints, as compiled by one of our local players and found here: The Long Goddamn List

TL; DR

  • All Items will be written on 3x5 index cards and may not be exported or converted outside of this particular game. Currency will be an exception, and may be gained, lost, or traded to each other as usual. NPCs will only accept Local Currency (Lug).

  • You may import your existing 3.0 Items for the purpose of this game, by writing them on individual 3x5 index cards before game. You do not lose your existing 3.0 items in this process; they exist as normal for the remainder of 3.0. This is on the honor system, and we are asking you to please not write cards for Items that you do not already possess. 

  • 3.0 Blueprints will count as Live Blueprints, as long as the Item names are similar.

  • Our plan is to use the Item Blueprints and Mechanics that will be released in the DR Database. If their release is delayed, then we will use “The Long Goddamn List” instead, linked above.

The Plot

Our weekend’s story will NOT be a fever dream or any other sort of “It was all an illusion!” story. Instead, we will be continuing with the story of Steel Horse Crossing from whence we left off. Events that occur to characters will have actually happened to those characters. There will be no skip, jump, or other passing of time except for the usual month between trade meets.

It can sometimes create a weird disconnect to bring up in an In Character conversation, things such as “that time the World broke/shifted.” Rather than call attention to it in your conversations with others, we would like to encourage you instead to portray your character in a way that simply accepts or minimizes calling attention to the new changes in mechanics.

Check In

Check In and Registration for our Event is now open! As this month will be a little different in many ways, there’s some special steps you will want to take!

  1. Check In via https://juno.dystopiarisingnetwork.com/dystopia-rising/events/1162/ Make sure to Sign In to the NEW DR Database! For those with an Advanced Membership, you should even be able to select which characters you wish to have sheets printed for; great for those with alternate characters that we don’t play often!

  2. Pay for your ticket at https://dystopiarisingwi.com/ticketsales also as normal.

  3. In the Juno Database, you should see at least one slot labeled (Experimental). It may take up to 24 hours for this to occur, especially if you have not attended a DR game in the last few months. If it’s been more than 24 hours and you still don’t have one, please send us an email along with your player number and let us know!

  4. You should be able to spend your XP on your Experimental Character Slots as you wish. Don’t forget to Unlock the Editing Padlock in the top right corner! The last day to do this will be Sunday, December 8th; after that, we’ll be printing sheets before game.

  5. Make sure to read up on the Rules, write up your Index Cards for any IG Items you wish transferred in for the weekend, and pack some warm socks!

If you run into any other problems, or have additional questions, please use our #questions channel in our Discord and one of our Guides can assist!