Action Requests & Plot Requests

It’s time for another Rules Ramble with Jonathan! Each week, I’ll introduce a topic in the DR rulebook in a deep dive that focuses on explaining it in more detail than the book alone can provide. There are four core pillars of the DR game in my mind: Combat, Roleplay, CvC, and Economy, and today’s blog post will touch on a few last things concerning Roleplay. This week is a discussing the differences between a PLOT REQUEST and an ACTION REQUEST.

We also previously covered Chasing Plot in a blog post, specifically dealing with some best practices for how to be involved in plot. This was published in a series of guest blog posts by Heather Halstead, which you can find here:

So let’s get into the differences between the two types of PLOT REQUESTS that you will see in Dystopia Rising, and some best practices for each.

Action Requests

Before we go into best practices for PERSONAL PLOT REQUESTS, let’s briefly cover the difference between the other more common type of plot request: ACTION REQUESTS. You can find the specific rules of Action Requests on pg. 13 of the DR Corebook:

A number of skills require communication between the event team and a participant before an event occurs. These skills may influence the direction of story, create specific scenes that Guides will then organize, or require a certain degree of planning. When a participant needs to communicate to the team before an event, they put in an Action Request. An Action Request goes through an outlined medium (often a web page form or email) and is then handled by the employees who oversee a specific branch. This process ensures that there a standing log of all requests that are made so that if there is an employee change for the branch, there are multiple individuals who have access to your request.

Action Requests are simply a plot request centering around the use of a Skill or an Item.

This is going to be the primary way that most players interact with plot requests, particularly once you’ve unlocked Master-tier Skills that open up regular modules each month, like Criminal Influence, Hunting, Sailing, and Financial Influence.

Here are the Skills and items that let you submit an Action Request:

  • Master Criminal Influence (p. 122)

  • Master Financial Influence (p. 123)

  • Master Hunting (p. 130)

  • Master Sailing (p. 131)

  • Proficient Necrokinetics (p. 135)

  • Pallor Mortis (Blueprint)

  • Other Item Mechanics (items like the Imprint Harvested Avontuur Map)

  • Retirement Arc Requests (p. 22)

    • SPECIAL NOTE: We’ve actually moved this option to our Personal Plot Request site in DR:TX, as it feels more appropriate there, but this is actually listed as an Action Request in the book, for the record.

Remember these must be submitted ASAP before a game! If you get these in too late, you may miss out on your chance!

Action Requests are likely to be bundled with other players who have requested the same type of request.

This means that if we have 5 players enter a request for a Master Financial mod, we will simply involve each of those players in the SAME MOD. This way, we can maximize our resources as the ST staff, and we can ensure that a module gets run during that next event. It’s far more rewarding to write one mod instead of trying to build out 5 individual mods.

Action Requests will be prioritized versus other types of plot requests, as many of these have very specific ways they are fulfilled. In fact, in DR:TX, we ALWAYS plan to have the four main types of Action Requests (Criminal, Financial, Hunting, Sailing) scheduled in advance. Even if you are a traveler, you can easily find a way to be hooked into these types of mods.

If you just want to be hooked into whatever mods are running for those skills each month, you can indicate that non-specifically on your ticket registration.

So let’s talk about the other type of Request.

Personal Plot Requests

FUN FACT: Personal Plot Requests are not in the DR Corebook. In fact, there’s only 6 mentions of “plot request” at all in the book, and most of these really refer to Action Requests instead (p. 22, 123, 135, 143, 144, and 164 for those that are interested..). Instead, these types of requests were first introduced in the National CAPs system introduced at the start of 3.0 to reward out-of-game behaviors that help our your local game.

I’ve included a list of the relevant points from the National site below.

We’ve set the standard amount of CAPS required to request a Personal Plot Request to 200 CAPs. These CAPs can either come from one player, or several players can pool their CAPs for a Group Plot Request.

The DR:TX team has also added a few additional types of Personal Plot Requests, particularly in the form of Faction Interviews to earn Proficient Society Membership and the ability to have another player teach you a Profession Focus Achievement. You can find all of these options on our website:

Because of the high-volume of requests, those who are spending CAPs will be prioritized over those who do not. Don’t worry, plot requests for PFAs or Faction Interviews do not require CAPs.

As you can see, there’s quite a few ways to request a Plot, and we’ve done our best to make this process easy and stream-lined on our website. So let’s talk about how the process works from there.

The Plot Request Process

Once you’ve submitted a request on our website, our wonderful Admin team will get an email about the request that we post to our writers and STs. If you chose to put your non-generic request into your check-in form, this is also where we collect those requests as well.

Each month, we plan on running four different Action Request mods, and we will assign these out to members of our ST staff during the first few weeks of our production cycle. We generally like to have a good idea of when or if these events will be run pretty quickly, so we can give our STs time to plan something special. The earlier you can complete the check-in process, the more likely it is that we will run that mod!

An example of a plot request we get from the website form.

For plot requests outside of Criminal, Financial, Hunting, and Sailing, we then look for submissions that have spent CAPs. We also compare how recently it’s been since you requested a plot request, as we will prioritize those that haven’t had a recent plot request over those that submit more regular requests. We want to get to as many players as possible within a given game or season!

We request that you allow for a cool-down between personal plot requests (of any type, including ST-Driven PFAs) of 4 months.

Generally our Storytelling Senate chooses from the list of plot requests those stories that speak to them and spark their creativity. We work our way down the list, so it may be a few games before we get to you. If no one picks up your plot request after a few months, go ahead and re-submit it. We’re looking for compelling stories that fit well into our setting and sometimes a story is just hard to translate to compelling mods and NPC interactions.

You do not need staff permission to plan your own scenes among friends or to say that something fun and exciting (or traumatic and dramatic!) happened off screen to your character. If you feel like you might be stepping on something that needs plot approval, just drop us a line.

There’s nothing worse then preparing a big mod and then the player not being there for it! We reserve the right not to schedule personal plot for events where the requestee’s attendance is in question, so please pre-register, and contact us if you have a pending request and won’t be attending!

writing better plot requests

I’ve actually already covered some of the best advice I can offer for plot requests in my last blog post on Writing a Better Backstory. I’ll adapt a few of the best pieces from there today, but most of the big principles are the same.

The number one rule of a getting your Personal Plot Request or unique Action Request noticed is simple:

Make it Interesting

We empower our STs with a lot of agency in DR:TX. The job needs to be as fun for them to tell stories as it is for you to experience them. There’s an element of service to the community, to be sure, but we also want to avoid burnout in our staff as well. If an ST is interested in your story, they will WANT to spend time writing a compelling story for you. Think about the pitch for your plot request, and let us know why it is important to you. I spent hours crafting a story for our last game about how a player could boil a tree all because I found it hilarious to write.

Think about your request as if it was a PLOT HOOK. This means you need to include a few things into the request:

  • Who’s involved? A good hook tells us immediately who the protagonists are. Even if this is for just for you, let us know who might also be interested in the story. The more people we can include into the pitch, the easier it can be to write a compelling story. Think of the people near you that might also care about your story. A story that only involves one person is still possible, but we are also looking to tell stories for an entire game worth of players. The more people your request involves, the more likely we are to pick this plot request to run. A story about Romeo isn’t the same without Juliet, after all.

  • What’s the conflict? We need to know what problem or story you want to tell. Keep it simple, but focus on the big beats you want to see in your request. If you want a duel with your rival at midnight in the crossroads, TELL US! If we have a clear way to build tension or include a specific type of conflict, it can be a great inspiration for how to work your plot request into our story.

  • What do you hope to achieve? What’s the payoff? What do you want to accomplish or what result are you looking for from your request? Tell us in broad strokes what you want the story to be about, and it will be easier to craft a satisfying conclusion to your story request. You don’t necessarily have to make it a defined answer, as a good hook can be a question — How will you overcome this challenge? Will Johnny catch the murderer? Will he lose the girl?

The next suggestions are variations from my Background blog post, so we will cover them quickly here:

Keep it Simple

Use bullet points, or just a few short paragraphs. The longer and more flowery the prose is in your request, the less likely we will be able to include everything into the request. Part of attracting the attention of a writer is to not fill in all the blanks for them. Paint us a picture, sure, but leave some of the painting to us!

keep it relevant

If you can find a way to make your plot request tie in with the event’s premise, I promise we can find many more ways to make sure it happens. We usually post our premise for the next event during the first week of ticket sales, so you should be able to use that blog post as a springboard for your request. A good plot request that ties into the overarc basically writes itself, and gives us a reason to help you find a spotlight!

Ground your Request in the Setting

We’ve written a lot about the setting, so requests that let us bring in characters, places, and things from the history of our game can be evocative ways to catch the ST’s attention. You can also apply ideas from your Background — don’t be afraid to reference characters or ideas from that to include into your request. That extra info can be valuable for us to create an interesting story. Names, identities, and figures of importance can be great ways to tie your plot request into the overall narrative of DR:TX.

Leave some Unanswered Questions

Part of attracting the attention of a writer is to not fill in all the blanks for them. Paint us a picture, sure, but leave some of the painting to us! Try not to answer every single plot thread in your request, but leave some unanswered questions that we can help answer. If you’ve outlined every chapter in your story and told us each twist and turn, it will be a little boring for the ST to craft into a story they want to run.

Keep Connections in Mind

I mentioned this above in my example of a plot hook, it’s important to consider the other people we can involve in your story. Often, an ST only has so many NPCs on a given shift, and has several other stories they have to include into the metaplot of the weekend. Between sending out raiders and zombies, backing up whatever big bad or research story we have, we need to be efficient with our resources. If I know that your story can involve and entertain an entire group of people, that’s just good math. Our job as an ST is to include as many people as possible, so let us know who else we can involve into the mod.

Be Flexible

Lastly, be prepared to make some changes. The best plot requests are FLEXIBLE. Let the ST have a bit of creative leeway with your idea, and we can tell a better story together. It takes a bit of trust, but when you let us create a story with a few of our own surprises, it’ll be a better experience for everyone. Being flexible is especially important if you are involving major NPCs or Factions into your story, as we might have to change or massage those ideas into something that works within the big picture of the game. We want to help you find a way to tell your story, so being willing to adapt and change is a great way to get an ST involved in writing your plot request.

wrap up

We’ve covered a lot today about Plot Requests, and I’m hard at work on a Story Recap for our last event, COLLECTION DAY. You might have seen some teasers posted on Facebook about the Morgues of the San Saba experiencing a bit of… difficulty. Tickets for our next event, THE CICATRIX are up now, and you can pre-reg for the event, sign up for your Action Requests, and get that Plot Request in for our finale! See you soon, Vados!