April Update

Good afternoon, Vados! 

I’m comin’atcha live with a fistful of updates that are pertinent to our first-ever virtual event this weekend (April 11th). We’ve been working diligently to make an experience for our pals locally and across the network that jives with lots of different playstyles. What we do right this time we’ll do right next month. What we do wrong - we’ll work even harder and do it better in May. 

Alright, let’s shotgun these line items like they’re tin cans on the hood of your grandpa's old Lincoln Town Car and we’ve got an anger problem we’re not ready to talk about yet. 

Event Time Table April 2020

Below is our expected cadence of play. We’re going to do our best to be forgiving with one another while we nail down the flow of a virtual event.

Crafting in the Virtual Space and Cali*Co Caravan Points 

Our goal this month is bringing our pals a streamlined and authentic DR experience in a virtual space. To that end we’re introducing an Out-Of-Character tool referable in the In-Character space as “Cali*Co Caravan Points”. These are points you get for engaging content and your fellow players throughout the day that can be spent to generate things like items, prints, and story opportunities 

When we return to live game, Cali*Co Caravan Points may be spent at Check-in. If you are not a local DR:TX player, our logistics coordinator can work with you to have those items assigned to your character in the National Database before your next Live Event. 

The math breaks down that the maximum number of CCP an individual can earn per event is capped at 30. We’re making the choice to standardize this because we think it is the most elegant and honest way to evoke the generation of resources in a setting/environment where we don’t have the same privilege and resources as when we are running live events. Storytellers are not individually empowered to give you extra CCP - but they are definitely empowered and expected to give you story rewards and consequences that affect the live playspace. <3 

*This does not guarantee your LC Society Membership as a rule. This guarantees you an honest conversation with a Face NPC and the start of a larger story about your LC’s investment in that faction.

Criminal Influence 

Some LCs will have additional permissions granting them access to shadier domains on the Discord server. If you have at least Basic Criminal Influence on your LC’s sheet - you should be able to see “#cutthroat_alley” as a text/voice channel on the Lonestar Skies Discord. If you can’t - get with Aesa and we’ll swap your permissions to reflect that. 

Alternative and Augmentative Content 

Lonestar Skies 

An immersive text-adventure that bookends (on both ends) the story we’re telling this month in Essex. 

At 8am on Friday we’ll be posting up a reminder that www.idratherbeinbravo.com/lonestarskies is live. We encourage you to explore the town of Essex before the events of the weekend fuck it up real good. 

After the event (10pm SAT) Lonestar Skies will be updated to reflect choices made during the event and the passage of time. Following Game-Off at 10pm - you can find resolution (or absolution) by playing through the concluding chapters of this adventure. 

Encoded Data 

During this virtual event, LCs will be encouraged to locate various instances of ENCODED DATA on behalf of The Scientist. These bits of information will be the pieces of an actual puzzle. The answer to which will grant you (the player and the LC) the opportunity to delve further still into the mysteries of The Fountainhead and...maybe...something even cooler once we head back to Live Game.

BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES

The other resource you’ll be interacting with this weekend is BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES. These can also be retrieved on behalf of The Scientist. This resource means something to each of the CC Factions as well and can be spent towards those Factions to help determine the outcome of the weekend. We want you to know about these but wait until we’re in the playspace to really sink your teeth into their implications. 

And Finally…

This is our first virtual event, friends. We candidly ask for your grace. The storytelling team has worked tremendously hard these past few weeks to put together something that, in a very difficult time, will be a light and a happy memory for those of us who need it and, ideally, a platform for connecting with our pals when connection is really the thing we all need.

Thank your STs, be awesome to each other and your Game Masters (who include a number of heroic Guides who have volunteered to run games for you). Give yourself grace when you fumble with an unfamiliar ruleset and buy-in to the things your friends and peers want to do. 

We’re here to tell cool stories. Let’s never stop doing that together. 

#staybrave

-Shan and Aesa

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See also:

How do I use my character sheet for virtual mods?

How do I sign up for virtual mods online?

Lonestar Skies and Bravado Bones

Hey, Vados! 

We’re so glad so many of you are going to be taking a break from the unfun and boring apocalypse to play in the fake-pretend apocalypse with us! Over the next one-and-a-half weeks we’ll be dropping information about our virtual event to prime you both mechanically and narratively for how we’re executing the game this month and virtual games going forward while we ride out the Plague. We’re classifying our virtual events under the title “Lonestar Skies”. These stories aren’t about Bravado -we feel  we can’t tell meaningful stories about our town without being immersed in it. So we’re moving our scope to the Outlying Territories and in the case of this month - we’re focusing on the City of Light and Sound just up the Bravado line; Essex. 

Bravado Bones, the document you see here (also displayed below) is the system we’re working with this month as the mechanical scaffolding for all Lonestar Skies content. If you’re familiar with the open-source Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying systems you’ll recognize much of the language in this affix. 

(Make sure you thank your local Sam Mars for creating this PtbA skin for all of us. Without him our virtual event would look very different and, frankly, not nearly as clever and cleanly executed)

Read over this document, create your character! Run games if you want! They’re not canon - in the same way all soft RP can only be supported so long as your ST team knows about it. But have fun! In a time when we’re stuck at home and missing our favorite hobby - the whole team at DR:TX really want this to be a fun tool for our pals. 

Anyways! Check it out! 

How do I get stuff?

How do I sign up for mods?

Virtual Events (slightly more info!)

Howdy Survivors!

Some of you have been absolutely overwhelmed by current events (super reasonable), while others have been patiently but enthusiastically asking about our plans for virtual events. Frankly, we've been rewriting the playbook behind the scenes, with our wonderful storytellers putting in a lot of time figuring out what our DR:TX online events will look like and how we can make it fun for y'all.

There have been some things that take more time to iron out, such as a fair cost for these events, how to accommodate the one-on-one interactions and staff attention required, what to do about items/resources, and more.

Kyle's post here goes into a bit of the details we have ironed out, and as soon as we have cleared the new legal paperwork, you will see more information about our event(s) specifically.

Our goal is the following:

• to hold a virtual event online through discord on April 11th.

• to put up sales for tickets by the end of this week.

• to not cap attendance or restrict traveler participation.

Additionally, we will have back-buy/XP-buy for all our 3.0 events in our online store starting April 1st, so for those of you who wanted to do that, you will be able to do so!

We do regret to inform you, although it was pretty easy to predict at this point, that the Girl Scouts of Texas have chosen to keep their sites closed through May 19th which means we will not be holding in-person events through the end of our usual season. Trust us when we say that this makes us sad, not at GSCTX, but because we miss you all and we know the hope of a May game was still alive for some of you. We're not sure yet what this means for our usual summer break, but we will make those decisions in the next few weeks.

Thank you, as always, for being an amazingly supportive, creative, and kind community. It’s hard in stressful times not to feel overwhelmed, impatient, or frustrated. We appreciate that this is a place where we can recharge ourselves, and find joy in creating and sharing stories with each other. We will find new and improved ways to do so as we surge forward together.

#staybrave

March Event XP + Future Tickets

Howdy Survivors!!

After talking to DR: National we are pleased to say that for those of you who have paid for March tickets and still want that build to be applied to your character, we will be able to keep that build on your account. This applies to travelers as well.

• Even though we were not able to hold or reschedule this event we will still be able to keep this event on the books for the purpose of back-buy/XP purchases. This will be the default option.

• If instead, you would rather roll your ticket purchase to our next held event, please email us at info@dystopiarisingtx.com and we can do that as well. It is our intention to hold virtual online events in April and May (and possibly in the summer) to make up for the current restrictions placed by the CDC on gatherings above 50+ people. This would apply your ticket to one of those events should you participate.

• Finally, if you would rather get a cash refund, we will be happy to accommodate you. Again, if that’s your preference, please email us so we can get that process started. Because we will need to balance our books for tax/franchise purposes, please let us know what you want to do no later than April 1st if you are not taking the default option (March build applied).

We did have some non-refundable expenses in the lead up to this event but we promise to do our best to make sure each of our players feels they received good value for their ticket according to what you each prefer.

Keep an eye on this blog and our Facebook Group and Page for further updates as we adjust to the needs of our community and what future events will look like with current restrictions.

March Event Cancelled

Good morning everyone. Unfortunately we must cancel our March event.

As we are sure you know, the risks associated with COVID-19 are changing pretty fast. This morning GSCTX cancelled all events at Kachina. Given the rapidly changing situation, with new developments even this morning, we understand.

We are going to talk about what our next steps will be with respect to tickets and future events as soon as possible. Right now we want to spare anyone the trouble of making the drive. If you know someone who heads to Kachina early please let them know. Thank you!