Today you get a special gift! As a Birthday Present, I have been given the day off. So, Today’s Pro-Tip Thursday is from Truate at the Experience Design Desk! Take it away Truate!
Good morning survivors! Today's Pro-Tip Thursday is coming from your Experience Design Director Truate. Over the last 8 months we have been making a lot of changes to make our experience better for you all. Well, what does this mean? It means we have several changes that we will be going over today.
Research:
Moving forward we are implementing a new system for all research. Any character with Basic Education will be able to do research once per event. To do so you must spend 10 Mind and 20 minutes of Active Roleplay looking into the subject you are planning to research. If you are asking a question using Lore Infection / Mortis Amaranthine you’ll go to the Morgue. If you are asking a question using Lore Animal about a sea creature you will go to the Docks. If you are asking a question using Lore Wasteland Science you will go to the Artisan Area.
Once you have completed your 20 minutes you’ll fill out a research form and turn it into OPs. This form will be divided into 3 sections where you put the same question you are asking and what lore you are specifically using for your question. Once this is turned in OPs will do one of two things. If they can’t answer the question they will tell you to come back in X number of hours for the answer. If they can answer the question they will answer it with the most direct and limited answer possible. At that point you can spend 1 Mind each asking clarifying questions about the answer you were given. NOTE: Not clarifying questions about the question you asked, but instead the answer you were given.
Once this process has been completed we will then ask you if you are keeping this research a secret. If the answer is yes, then we will cut out 1 of the research form sections and give it back to you with your answer and take the other 2 and keep it at OPs. If you say no, then we will cut the research form into 3 sections, give 1 to you, keep 1 at OPs, and put 1 on the town board so that others can see what research has been done and who was the researcher.
Can you share lores? Absolutely, although I would encourage you to do the research as well, so you get to ask 2 questions and get 2 answers.
What happens if everyone has done research, and we need to ask more questions? We have built other safety nets in place so that you can have other ways of gaining information about ongoing plots without only relying on research. Lores on Mods are being changed to be more direct about their information and to act as small research bites that when combined will paint a clearer picture. Also anyone can use a Faction Favor Token to ask them to do research on your behalf. You can give them what question you want answered and they will utilize their resources to get you an answer back.
Why the change? Well for starters this is to encourage more sharing of plot and getting other players involved. By creating this limitation this will naturally cause more players to have to be involved in order to discover what eldritch horrors I’m cooking up in the kitchen. Also this is to fix certain weaknesses in our story design that caused research to be the only way to solve certain plot lines. Moving forward there will be multiple ways to discover answers to your questions without only using the research mechanic, but it will always be a useful fallback for those that want to engage in research roleplay.
Player Agency:
Moving forward Player Agency is going to be more important than it ever has. This means that what you do as your characters is going to ripple out and affect the story a lot more than it has in the past. This means that new plot lines can open up based on the decisions that you make. This is both a blessing and a curse. This means that what you do affects our story to a greater extent, but it also means that you’ll see more responses to the actions you’ve taken. Which brings me to my next point, Consequences.
Moving forward the story will focus on player choices and Consequences. Consequences can be positive, negative, or neutral. Do you help out a stranded NPC from a disliked faction? Well they are gonna remember that and you may see aid offered to you at an unlikely time. Did you murder a farmer who was asking you to help fix his barn? Well maybe you start seeing higher costs for items you purchase. Do you prevent two NPC’s from fighting? Next time you see them they may have made a deal to not compete with each other due to your intervention.
This system is going to be pretty flexible depending on what you as players do. To give an extreme example of some of the extent the story will respond and the Consequences that can happen. Let's say we have a plot where Murder Inc is targeting characters that don’t help X faction in their time of need. Murder Inc is a heavy CVC and high combat faction. Now let's say that Delpho is specifically going out of his way to not help X faction in their time of need. Josh is a Non-Com and doesn’t engage in CVC, what does this mean?
This means that Murder Inc (The Story) will start to turn its attention to Delpho, and Josh is going to have this story start aggressively engaging with him. If Delpho continues to go out of his way to not help X faction after warnings from Murder Inc NPC’s then we as the Experience Design team are going to send out NPC’s to deal with Delpho the way Murder Inc would. We will still use the Non-Com combat system and not let other players involved Murder Inc engage in this CVC, but the story itself will respond and Consequences will happen.
Ways to Engage:
One of the things the Experience Design team has been working on is multiple ways for players to engage in any ongoing plots. We’ve already discussed how we are reworking our Lore Interactions with Mods to make them more engaging, but we are also opening up our PFA/CEA Interactions to allow a greater focus of inclusion.
Many of these will be so that a veteran player can allow newer players to use an ability normally only they would have access to, but to a lesser extent. You can see Shepherds of the Land supervising non-farmers on how to pull up Uncle Bill's farmland. Techno Savants instructing non-crafters on how to bend this metal tube back in place so the generator keeps on working.
Along with the redesign on mods, we are increasing our passive storytelling. Some examples could include finding a bird prop in the woods with wounds showing marks of MethGators in the area. ZOM’s and Hazards out there with a set of mechanics that also show that the Radiation in the area is increasing. NPC’s with burn marks from the town that blew up a mile away, even though they are there for a completely different reason.
As we continue this year we will be making even more ways for you to engage in our stories and have agency on where they end up. Depending on how the Scouts improve the camp we could even see such things like a kayaking mod, or swimming mod for specific rewards. All great things to look forward to!
There are many changes coming down the pipeline and we will announce those as they get closer. I do ask that you take the time to thank Cody and Ian for their help in this endeavor as I have been working them to the bone! If you have any questions about these changes or need clarifications feel free to reach out to me to discuss.
Red Ledger and CVC Content:
Each player is going to be reset for which faction they are taking jobs from. When a character gets involved in Red Ledger they will choose which faction they are taking jobs from. Each player will receive info on each faction on an out of character level. This will give them clear guidelines of what types of roleplay they can expect out of each faction. Once this decision is made they will get it added to their sheet and it can’t be changed easily. To do so will require multiple months of effort and lots of consequences for this change.
War Party will primarily be a chaotic faction that does jobs that can target any faction. These jobs can even target other War Party members. They will gain points for jobs performed and can spend these points on specific items. Many of these items are shady and focus on escape or murder.
Skybreakers will primarily be a lawful faction that does jobs that target the War Party. They will also have jobs that target criminal factions. They will gain points for jobs performed and War Party capture and can spend these points on specific items. Many of these items are law-abiding and focus on catching criminals and helping the town.
This system is designed to intentionally cause conflict between Red Ledger players. This will allow the players that have been craving CVC the ability to participate in multiple avenues of play.
Conclusion:
Like I said above, lots of changes, but change is a good thing! We will continue to change and evolve as time goes on and do bigger and better things. As always if you have any questions or concerns about this please feel free to reach out to me at Truate@DystopiaRisingAR.com or on discord and I’ll be happy to chat!