Howdy! It’s Jonathan here with an important Summer update! We are still hard at work on preparing our next season and will have our team selection announcements soon. But, for now we have a special announcement about the next edition of our game, Dystopia Rising Live!
On Monday, July 1st, at 1:00 PM CST, we will be launching our tickets for the upcoming National DR event hosted by Texas, Downfall 2024! We are super excited to share further details about our event on our brand new homepage, which you can find below. You can find updated information if you will be traveling to our event, a synopsis of the story you can expect, and an introduction to the setting for the event, the Fallow Hope fortress of BASTION.
DR Live beta Rules released!
Additionally, Monday is also the release of the Beta DR Live rules, and you can finally read through the new edition for yourself! This will be the rule set we use for the National event in October, so you have plenty of time to catch up on how it all works. I’ll also have a series of blog posts over the next few months introducing the new system in my classic Rules Ramble style.
The majority of the DR Live Books will be released to the public on July 1st, 2024, with the Blueprint Sample List following soon.
You can download the new books on the Dystopia Rising Live website.
The following books will be available to read, with feedback to follow at a later date:
Player’s Guide
Guide’s Guide
Sample Zombie & Raider Threats & Support Materials
A Global Plot Kit - "Illusions of Civility"
A World Kit - The Grave Divers
A sample from the book in progress "Strained Ancestry" which includes how strain variants work (with the Devoted written as a sample).
We recommend starting with the Player’s Guide, but Michael Pucci has echoed our DR:TX tradition of Radical Transparency by making ALL of the books available to read for EVERYONE, including a sample threat guide. While we sometimes conceal certain elements of the threats until you encounter them in game, you’ll get to see for yourself that dangers that you will be facing in October. This is very cool, and we are so excited for a new edition.
Important Considerations for a new edition
Before you get started with the reading, let’s cover a few of our suggestions for the new edition to set proper expectations.
The is not the official launch of DR Live, just an early look
While we will be running the first ever DR Live event, this won’t be the launch of the new rules across the network. We will still have several events using the 3.0 Rules, starting with our season opener in September, THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. While we hope that the official transition to the new edition comes soon, we want to make sure we are ready for the change!
Preparing for Change
A new edition is very exciting, but it can also be a LOT. You don’t have to read this right away, and I’ll be working on a series of DR Live Blog Posts to share some of the changes, dive into some important Rules You Should Know, and help provide some context in the style you’ve come to know and love. But, with change comes some uncertainty too. It’s okay to be unsure of the new rules, or to worried about a new rule set. While the new edition does bring some big changes, I’ve been working on feedback on this edition since early this year and I’m so very excited to share why I think this is the best edition of Dystopia Rising yet!
Read First, and Write Down Your Questions
It’s exciting to read all the new rules, but I encourage you to actually READ the content that has been released as much as possible. Many of your questions may actually be answered in the book, so you may find the answer to your question as you read ahead.
We recommend starting with the Player’s Guide, as this will be where you reference most of the rules for your characters. You’ll find all the details there about Skills, Professions, and how to build a character. There’s a lot of detailed info about item cards, Fractures, and Diseases in the Guide’s Guide, but this is mainly a peek behind the curtain on how to run an event. If you want to keep a few surprises for yourself into the new edition, the Threat Guides and the National Plotkit may have some spoilers if you decided to take a look.
If you encounter something that you don’t understand, jot down a note on a piece of paper or in your Notes app on your phone or tablet, so we can help answer any questions you may have.
Ask Questions!
We already have some Discord channels set up on our DR:TX Discord for discussion on the DR Live rules, so we can already start fielding your questions. We will have some upcoming Discord hangout events as well, giving you a chance to ask your questions directly to us, and we will do our best to answer any concerns you have. Once the National Feedback opens up, you’ll even be able to share your constructive feedback on the National DR Discord in the coming months.
official FEEDBACK HASN’T STARTED YET
Michael and his team are planning on opening up official feedback channels in the near future, but for now we’d like you to really take time to absorb the new material and take notes. We’ve done a few passes of the books at the Director and Owner levels, and while we’ve caught most of the typos and layout issues, there might still be a few mistakes in the books. If you notice something you’d like to suggest changes for, take some notes and prepare for the announcement of when these feedback channels go live. I’ll have a blog post soon about some ways to craft effective feedback, so stay tuned!
Don’t try to rebuild your 3.0 character exactly, but capture the vibes instead!
The new edition has some dramatic changes to how you build your character. Because basically everything about skills has changed, every person will get to rebuild their character from scratch once the new edition arrives, using your entire pool of XP to re-imagine your character in the new world of DR Live. This means you can complete reset your character, including Infection, Resolve, and you can even take some different Professions or psionic skills!
I’d like to share probably my most important advice: Don’t try to simply recreate your character skill-for-skill in the new edition.
This was a learning lesson some folks learned the hard way during the transition from 2.0 to 3.0. Not every skill or profession made it into the new edition, so some stuff you used to be able to do will be different. Additionally, because some of the XP costs have changed, you might find it difficult to have every single skill you had in 3.0.
Instead, try to think of the core identity of your character, and what is most important to you. Are they a frontline soldier and want to invest into Impact Skills? Do you want to try your hand at crafting with the new easier to access Development Skills? Do you want to try a balance of both? There are loads of brand new skills, brand new abilities, and brand new professions. Instead of trying to recreate it exactly, try to capture the essence of what you want to do in the new edition instead.
Try something new!
A new edition is a perfect time for a BIG change for your character. Maybe it’s time to dust off that extra character you’ve been saving for a rainy day, or pick a brand new goal for your current character. Is it time for your character to have a crisis of faith and explore a different religion? Have you suddenly awake psionic potential you never knew you had? Maybe you have a new backstory update in mind for the new edition, or want to consider a new crew? Part of embracing the change of the new edition is going to be embracing that change with your characters as well. Don’t be afraid to try something new!
Five Cool Things to Look For in DR Live
As you get ready to dive into the new edition, here’s a few things I recommend looking for:
Impact Skills are awesome!
You no longer use Mind points to fuel your combat skills like Avoid or Break. Instead, you buy ‘uses’ of the skill that refresh every 20 minutes outside of combat. This means that you’ll be able to do that neat combat trick EVERY single combat. You won’t have to make the hard decision between using an Avoid to stop that big hit or saving the mind for making a crafted item later. This also really mimics the NPC experience as well, so it’ll be a great way to learn the new rules as you play the threats during your NPC shift.
Less Arbitrary Restrictions
The previous edition has some rules like limiting new Professions to one every 6 months, or requiring you to build expensive equipment before your PFA did anything at all. In 3.0, you couldn’t buy a Proficient ability until you had spent a number of XP, but now all of that has changed. The only restriction is how much XP you have - this means that even a brand new player can unlock a Master Developmental skill using only their starting points! And once you’ve purchased the right skills to unlock your chosen Profession, you’ll simply be able to learn it from an in-game teacher. No Action Request needed.
New Profession Skills
There are some crazy new abilities that you can unlock with a Profession. While you will be limited to three total choices of Professions, they now do a LOT more. Each Profession has two core skills tied with it, giving you some BIG abilities that can completely shift a combat in your favor, or unlock brand new ways to use your skills.
More Dangerous Threats
If you thought that DR was a bit too easy, you are in luck. Each of the threats, even Shamblers, have gotten a major glow up, adding brand new abilities and dangerous new attacks. There are even some brand new types of enemies to encounter, including scary Apocalyptic Threats! These new threats really bring the survival horror theme of Dystopia Rising back in style, and now you’ll need to be tactical about how you engage with monsters in the world. Make sure to bring a friend, ‘cause it’s dangerous to go alone!
Necrology!
There are a lot of new ways to interact with the Grave Mind, including brand new Necrology items. This is a whole new branch of crafting that can only be done INSIDE the Grave Mind. You’ll be able to descend into the Mortis Amaranthine to unlock this new level of crafting, as well as creating using new procedures, gizmos, and more. There are even GRAVE DIVES, that can result in encountering the most dangerous types of enemies, the WAHEL class-threats.
The future is so bright, you gotta wear shades!
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados! We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the new edition, and we are so excited to reveal more about our upcoming National event. I wrote a LOT of stuff for our new Downfall webpage, so check it out — you might even find a few surprises!
Tickets for the National event are on sale now, so don’t miss your chance to try out the new DR Live system in person, right here in Texas! See you soon, Vados!