Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our penultimate 3.0 event THE FUTILITY OF EVIL! This is one of the last events of the 3.0 rules system before we launch DR Live, led by Jared Schlabra. Each week, I’ll discuss in detail an aspect of the upcoming event, compiling the rules and lore into one easy place to read! This week, we are covering the premise of our event, some content warnings, and some teasers about our upcoming event!
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Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Lily-Jay Jones and Max Pohlmeier.
PREMISE
You hear a threatening radio broadcast on a nearby frequency:
“Bravado, your strength and ruthlessness are admired, but are you not tired of this facade? For I Am The Cannibal Crown! I am The Voice Howling in the Trees telling you everyone lives and dies alone. I have seen what you and yours do, and you make me so very happy. Is it not the only law of this land of ours that ‘The Strong should Devour the weak’? Is that not the weak’s sole purpose?
My Malefactors See you, Know you, and Love you. Oblivion has seen your flying beacon of progress brought low. Vengeance has seen your Monument to the repeated injustices of the so-called Board. Avarice has seen your resources thrown into the fires of war so quickly. As the Cannibal Crown approaches, your defenses pale against our numbers. I am The Blood Upon the Ashes of those who committed the sin of existence upon my path. I am The Dream of Deafening Silence. I am The Dancer Upon the Grave of The End. I am Th-….”
A crackle of static, and the voice shifts in tenor.
“Ar-are they gone? Great. I’m in way over my head and I need your help!”
“Listen, we all make mistakes. My ‘followers’ wanted to ‘devour the strength of Bravado’, and I couldn't exactly tell a RAVENING HORDE OF CANNIBALS ‘no’ could I?! I know, I know. A ‘responsible person’ would have stopped when their merry band of bandits became a merry band of Cannibals, or when some seriously unstable individuals started calling themselves Malefactors, or when they started building A FREAKING FLESH PILLAR! Instead of doing what I did, which was double, triple and quadruple down.”
“But how many times has your town been attacked by some unstoppable threat and survived? Undying Psi-Kings? The Board? Tax collectors??? These jerks are pretty much doomed.”
“So. Here's my offer: I’ll help you stop this rampaging horde of cannibals before they can hurt other, less dangerous people. The Malefactors, the FLESH PILLAR – all of it. And in return y’all can help me escape this ever spiraling series of events that I have long since lost control over.”
“It won't be easy. You're going to have to make some hard choices, sacrifice a lot of blood,sweat and treasure and maybe even your very morals. All to benefit people you may never meet and may never know the good you’ve done for them.
I mean, unless you’d just rather take the quick and easy routes and just kill lots of folks. I’m sure that will have no repercussions whatsoever.”
“So Bravado, what do ya say?”
The radio cuts short, leaving the peculiar request ringing in your ears…
INSPIRATION & TROPES
This season in Bravado we have focused on bringing some new elements of Survival Horror to the forefront of the story. In our tradition of Radical Trust, we want to share some of the inspirational bits of media and movie magic that we feel help capture the themes and feelings of our upcoming event. If you are looking for a movie to inspire your role play for this event, here’s a list of our favorites to get ready for THE FUTILITY OF EVIL:
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Wrong Turn
The Hills Have Eyes
One big theme of the weekend in November is “choices” and “consequences”. When the Cannibal Crown arrives in Bravado, their leader has an interesting offer for the residents. He is offering a solution to the rampaging horde of cannibals threatening the area, if you help him escape from the choices he’s made. But can the Cannibal Crown be trusted to do as he says? Will you take the easy path or the road less traveled?
But, at the heart of this weekend is a bit of humor. The leader of the Cannibal Crown is a bit out of his depth, much like the heroes in Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Comedy and horror are interlinked in many ways, so a bit of the lighthearted feel will help underscore the monstrous undertones of this story. The leader is a bit erratic and his behavior questionable, but one reason we chose this over arc was for the subversion of the usual monster-of-the-week stories. We hope that you will agree.
Finally, the viciousness of the cannibal horde is echoed in movies like Wrong Turn and the Hills Have Eyes, with terrifying flesh-eating cannibals as the primary threat of the weekend. These will be intelligent threats, survivors that took the quick and dirty answer to survival in the wastes. Eating and devouring those weaker than you means they never have to look hard for their next meal, but cannibalism is ultimately a self-defeating philosophy as the cannibals eventually turn on each other.
CONTENT WARNINGS
The themes of Dystopia Rising often touch close to our real world in ways we cannot always avoid. The DR:TX team believes that we can still tell these stories about challenging topics, but we also believe we need to be transparent about our intentions and set proper expectations for our content. In our tradition of radical trust, we want to also trust in each player that attends our game to know their own limits and be able to choose to avoid topics and situations that make them uncomfortable.
It’s important to watch for descriptions, situations, or events that you might want to avoid. You may find new limits that are unknown to you because the matter never came up. We encourage you to take the necessary steps for your own emotional safety. We want you to be comfortable with the types of horror in our events so you can enjoy the thrill of the zombie apocalypse and the nightmare creatures we introduce into the game space.
It’s one reason we take our OK Check-In system so seriously! We understand that these may not be stories you want to participate in, and that’s okay! Remember, you can always use the OK Check-In System to choose to leave a scene, even CVC!
You can always find a list of our Content Warnings on our website, but let’s talk about some of the specific things you might want to be prepared for during this May event.
Overall, this next event focuses heavily on the themes of BODY HORROR, SUDDEN VIOLENCE, and CHOICE POINTS. These can be some serious themes and decisions, so let’s talk about some content warnings of note for THE FUTILITY OF EVIL:
Body Horror, grotesque or disturbing mutations, visceral costumes and props
Certain creatures this weekend will have disgusting and visceral costumes and props that might require you to interact with unnerving, or terrible looking things. These props will change the features and silhouettes of certain threats and should be repulsive and terrifying. You might have to stick your hands into things best not described, or interact with some… interesting… kinetic props.
If a module requires you to interact with chemicals or substances that might stain your clothing or costumes, we will announce these aspects as a “SPLATTER MOD”. We will try to give you a fair warning before engaging with these challenges, but we cannot guarantee clothing or items may not be affected by the disgusting goo in our mods.
SUDDEN VIOLENCE, JUMP SCARES, DEADLY SURPRISES
The cannibal horde is comprised of skilled killers. They will use ambushes, traps, and more to capture their prey for the feast. The dumb cannibals were eaten long ago, and the Cannibal Crown has collected a menagerie of cruel, twisted, and twisted followers. The ones that face Bravado are the survivors, the ones willing to do anything to survive.
These will be intelligent enemies, capable of opening doors, picking locks, and finding other ways to surprise our residents of Bravado. They might plan nighttime attacks, even on sleeping characters, and sudden bursts of violence should be expected as the attack continues.
While you’ll be able to mitigate some features of the cannibal horde through the choice point mods, these enemies might have dangerous equipment and blueprints they will use against you, as fellow survivors. This also means they will usually have scrap or other items if you can manage to take a few down in combat.
choice points & Consequences
There will be several key modules during the event that will require you to make a choice. What decision you reach in these moments will depend on the folks that choose to attend the mod, and these decisions may have lasting consequences for the cannibal hordes attacking
Bravado. Will you be able to end their threat for good, or will you chose to save your own skin instead?These choices will be telegraphed in advance, usually with an OOC sign that reads “CHOICE POINT” and will generally consist of an EASY choice, and a HARD choice. While violence is Bravado’s usual answer to their problems, it’s not always the best solution. Facing the cannibals with violence probably won’t end their threat, but if you can undermine the things keeping the horde united, you may be able to answer the larger looming threat. Much like completing a challenge or achievement in the game, the harder decision will require some coordination from your group and incur a much higher risk if you fail.
The big choice is simple — If the horde is defeated at Bravado, they will simply emerge from the Morgue ready to hunt and eat other easier targets in towns close by. Will you be willing to risk others safety for your own ease? Or will you try to stop the Cannibal Crown for good?
The real content warning
Real talk.
When we ran the first ever DR Live game last month, we started a timer. While the new edition is still a few months away and we will officially start with our February 2025 event, that means our next two games are going to dive back into the 3.0 rules for one last time. But, that means that some folks may be more interested in the new system than the one we are using for these next games. There’s going to be a pressure and momentum building to move to the new edition, and we need to complete these next two events under the current 3.0 system.
It’s gonna be weird.
We just helped you learn the ropes with a new system, and now we are asking you to forget all that and go back to 3.0 rules. I know, it’s a lot to take in.
You might miss Impact Skills, or feel the age of the 3.0 system as we wrap up these next two games. Healing might not be as easy as it is in DR Live. You won’t have certain new blueprints. You will still get to use the 12s for a few more events, and refresh your Mind points in different ways.
This is a time of transitions.
And that’s okay.
We want to ask for your patience.
While we have two games left in the 3.0 system, that means you’ll still have time to earn XP that will carry over to the new edition. You’ll still have time to farm some herb, make some blueprint copies, build some gizmos and armor, and get ready for the transition. Remember, when we get ready for the edition change, many of your non-expired items will get converted to new DR Live items. If you have something that’s about to expire, it might be worth it to build a new one in advance of the February event.
These next events also have some unprecedented freedom to try new things as you’ll get to completely rewrite your character for the new edition. Let’s talk about some key things to remember as we finish out this year’s games:
People will make mistakes, and confuse the editions
Remember our DR:TX tradition of “it’s everyone’s first game”. We will all be unlearning a new system at the same time. We will make mistakes, we will get the rules wrong, and so will you. We must treat every moment of this event as everyone’s first game ever, and treat our fellow players as if they were tender-horns experiencing the world for the first time. For some of our players, it literally will be and DR Live will be here soon enough.
Please show your fellow players and our staff grace and forgiveness. For this event, we will especially ask for your grace, patience, and forgiveness as we experience the ups and downs of our last events under DR 3.0 rules. Please be kind to your fellow players and especially our volunteer staff, as we all have the same goal — telling an amazing story in the zombie apocalypse. We will learn and say goodbye to this system together.
Correct and Move On. If we make a mistake in the field, as either a guide or player, we will practice a strategy of fixing it for future encounters. We won’t try to reset or roll back any major rules calls, but trust our Guides to make the call in the moment. If we find an error later, we will correct and move on with the right ruling for any future instances. We will try to avoid any major scene or continuity breaks, and try to keep everything in game as much as possible.
We will be transitioning a few DR Live Rules into our 3.0 games
During these next two events, you can expect to see a few familiar rules from the DR Live books. You’ll see a few threat skills you might recognize, maybe some item mechanics, or abilities from certain blueprints. Our goal during this time of transition is to familiarize you with a few key rules from the upcoming edition, and what better time to start than right now?
You will see some DR Live Threat Skills in play. As such, you might start to find familiar loot from monsters similar to DR Live, hear calls like ABERRANT SUFFERING, or even see strange Benedictions in play. More of our zombies may suddenly start to RISE AGAIN, and you might encounter some strange FAITH abilities that feel familiar. We want to incorporate some of the most common new items from DR Live, and pave the way for the new year.
We started this last season, actually. We introduced LINGERING DAMAGE last season with some local blueprints, so remember you still have a few months to use those fancy Local Plot Cards and custom items before the changeover to DR Live.
Take some risks, try something new
At the start of the new edition, everyone will be allowed to completely remake their characters. This also means you’ll start with at least three Infection, no matter what you ended with in 3.0. This means that as long as you don’t use your last Infection, you’ll get a new lease on life in the next edition as you suddenly regain some Infection for the new world. It’s not so bad to die over the next few games!
Try something new, take some risks, and step outside of your comfort zones. For the next few games, very little changes to your character will continue past the December event, so take advantage to try some new things or explore some fun new experiences like a grave mind scene, or CVC.
Some PFAs or items may not exist in the new edition, so enjoy them while they last! These are the last few games to do some cool Techno Savant stories, to use some Local Items, and to build certain blueprint items. Not everything will make the change to DR Live, so take advantage of this last hurrah to have some cool moments and stories with your friends.
Goodbye, O Faithful RPG!
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, one of our last two events using the 3.0 rules for Dystopia Rising. We have some fun surprises in store for you during this game, and we hope that you are ready to try and survive the cannibal hordes of THE FUTILITY OF EVIL. Will you help the Cannibal Crown escape from the choices he’s made for power? Will you help the Malefactors recognize the folly of their philosophy, or will you answer their threat with violence? Will you survive being eaten alive by vicious cannibals?
Next week we will recap some of the important events from our last game and catch up to speed on all the story continuity you’ll need as the Cannibal Crown nears Bravado! See you soon, Vados!
