I attended SoCal’s Dystopia Rising (DR) event this past weekend (March 13th – 14th, 2015) and here’s what I thought of it.

TL:DR
Rating it a 7 out of 10. Will play in a chapter that opens locally to me. Has its ups and downs like most games.

BULLET POINTS
Pros:
– A game with real fear of death
– A lack of any obvious power gap
– Community building built into the game setting
– A pleasant mixture of combat and non-combative encounters
– A good number of players working on making their own entertainment

Cons:
– Incredibly long time to check in
– Unimportant encounters
– Encounters that could only be completed if someone had a specific skill
– Unable to leave early without permission
– A way to engage new players into the world/setting
– A few other things that most US boffer LARPs suffer from

DETAILED REPORT

I want to put in the following caveats:

1) I attended this game as a new player with the mindset of not knowing a lot about LARPing. I only read areas of the rulebook relevant to my character. I didn’t pre register nor did I have a character sheet in hand. I wanted to see how things went in this way as I’d say half of people attending a game for the first time arrive at the game this way. Many things I recount could be lessened or avoided entirely with pre-registration, reading the rulebook multiple times and researching all data online.

2) These are my opinions and observations made at one chapter of one game in one 24 hour period. There may be things I did not know about, things that I missed and so on and I’ll stipulate to all of them. However, this is what a person playing a game for the first time walked away with – for good or bad so no matter the reasons for what I gleaned, I gleaned it.

3) I tend to be more critical about LARPs than others. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years from building my own game to attending dozens of different systems and hundreds of different events. As such, I try to look for things that I don’t see at other games as the only real positives while pointing out continued errors that all other games seem to make. Call me an elitist or hard ass, but at 47 years of age, my time and funds are limited and I don’t have either to waste on things I don’t enjoy.

Timeline Of My Game Experience and a Few Thoughts With Them

After a 7.5 hour drive down from San Francisco, I arrive at the address at night for the game (15 minutes before the game is scheduled to start). As the area seemed like a vacant alleyway, I wasn’t sure I was in the right spot. But I find a sign saying “Event Center” and an open gate so I’m assuming this is the place and begin driving in. After half a minute driving, I see a singular tent lit up and find out it is the OOG/medical area where people set up when they have to (for medical reasons) be away from the action. The person there instructs me to continue down the road further and there I find over three dozen cars parked. It turns out that the location is actually a site for a Renaissance Faire. But a few DR signs at the gate and along the way would have helped out a great deal.

I get into costume and head into the place but as most people know about fairs, it is big and there isn’t any light. So once again I’m hoping I’m heading in the right direction. I finally home in on some talking and light and find my way to the main meetup area. Once found, I head out to find a portajohn (I did just finish driving 8 hours) and on my way out, a person in what I felt was somewhat of a gruff tone yelled at me “Hey, you. Human. Listen up. Move it.” So I head into the listen up. This is a 20 or so minute talk about the game. Some of the important parts covered were:

It is an adult game
It is a game that will push you to some limits – emotionally, physically, mentally
It is a game that will kill your character
It is a game where running away is not only an option but often the first option
It is a game that will not tolerate any sort of harassment or discrimination
If anyone has any issue at any time to contact the staff immediately

I felt that the talk took a lot of time to say “Act like an adult and don’t be a dick” but these days it is something that apparently has to be told to people… repeatedly. Then with a wrap up of where the various important stations were (medical, logistics, NPC areas, etc.) and sending off all the old players to their beginning areas, all the new players were taken away to go through new player orientation.

The orientation covered basic combat and basic rules, some history of the world around us, how to get explanations of effects while in game and that the game was a very lethal game. That when dropped to zero, you are still conscious, can still talk, scream, yell and that you should do so all the time. We then went off to participate in a new player module. A little less than an hour of 35 new players walking into town with a little bit of combat happening so we could get used to the way things flowed and so on.

Then, just as we entered the town, we got hit with a big bad guy. This thing was swinging enough damage to drop any new player outright. Old LARPing programming kicked in to the players and people began to try and take down the creature. It took three people being dropped and my screaming from the ground, “Run, you fools!” (yup, turned into Gandalf for a moment there) to get the rest of the new players to turn tail and run.

Luckily I was picked up by someone and pulled into the town proper. There someone else ripped open my button down shirt and began using a real staple gun (sans staples) on me to close up my wounds. That alone was an amazing experience and adding to the triage that was happening around me, it really got my blood pumping. For clarification purposes, I had an undershirt on and sheasked if I accepted physical roleplay – which is something else people take seriously – and in my opinion, sometimes to extremes. One person asked if I accepted physical roleplay just to shake my hand and, while doing so, heal me of my wounds. But I feel it is better to err on the side of caution then to violate someone’s personal space.

Shortly after this initial encounter, I had to go and register for the game. It took nearly an hour for me to be processed with three other people due to some issue with loading the database, speed of the computer, etc. Once it was up though, I was processed quickly and the people were very helpful. So now with my weapons approved and a character sheet in my pocket I was ready to get back into the game.

I quickly learned that night that this is a game of community. If you were out on your own and came across a bad guy, your chances of surviving were slim. This is not a game of being the lone hero mowing down several baddies – it is a game where if you manage to find someone to drag you back to a healer before you bleed out, you had a good day.

In addition, there will be creatures that require a specific skill to defeat. During the first night, a group of creatures could only be defeated by someone with the “Refuse” skill. Others required an “Awareness” skill to see them coming and yet another required the “Double Tap” to keep them down permanently. In addition, I came across a skill that made no sense where a ‘feign death’ made it impossible to kill the NPC. In my mind, I was thinking, “Feel free to fake that you’re dead, I should still be able to slice you up into little pieces.”

I went to bed around 2am and got back into it around 8 (I slept in my car so I missed out on any terrors of the night). The day was fun. I’m not going to list all of the encounters I had during it as there were many. However, it seemed that there were three basic types of combat encounters. One was the crunchies; where there were just a lot of things that everyone could kill. The second was the toughers – took a lot to take down or had the singular skill to kill them and I tended to run from those. And the third were those that everyone simply ran away from because unless you were able to defend against multiple special attacks, knew the rules really well and had the right people with the right skills with you, you were all doomed. Unfortunately my character’s strain (a strain is like a race in other LARP games) was one that was always happy to jump to the front and that’s what I did a lot.

But it wasn’t just combat. There were a lot of interesting diplomatic situations and situational puzzles to figure out. In addition, there were a couple of parties held, presents given out to players by NPC’s at them and, in one instance, enough cookies to even make Cookie Monster say, “I’m full.” Most of the ones that dealt with long term plots/plans for the chapter I opted out of since I wasn’t going to be a recurring player in the chapter so I didn’t want to become too engrained into it.

There were also plots that happened between players. And that’s a second part of the community aspect. The various strains have built in likes and dislikes of other strains and communities of the strains begin to pop up. The Vegasians have their own gambling house and area, the ‘Mericans have their campsite and so on. So when a Red Star walks into the bar with his Russian accent, all the ‘Mericans begin to tell “How many Red Stars does it take…” jokes, somewhat loudly. ((BTW, the answer is always Zero because Red Stars can’t do jack!))

There were also a few encounters that didn’t make much sense to me. Two I recall were first an NPC worshipping bombs and blowing themselves up and the second was duel between two NPC’s that, to my knowledge, had no significance to the group or game.

At noon came my mandatory 4 hour NPC shift. I am of two minds about this. I am normally strongly against it. I am paying a price to be entertained and I hope my normal PC interactions help increase other player’s entertainment. My travel is 15+ hours of driving round trip, paying $45, I’ll be lucky if I can get a total of 30 hours of game time and 4 of that has to be as an NPC. However, when your game has over 100 players in it, it’s hard to have an NPC staff large enough to handle those numbers effectively. I went out as a zombie twice and was one of the dueling NPC’s I mentioned before. Then I headed back into game.

I had a great time meeting the other players/characters, interacting with them and learning about their town and how things worked. Then Saturday night came around and once again there were some very tough NPC’s pulling players off into the dark and killing them. Meanwhile, the PC’s reaction to it was to sit in the well lit tavern area and not help out. Fair enough but unfortunately not my strain’s way of doing things. Went in to help and when I was dropped, I decided to go ahead and keep quiet and die – unless the PC’s decided to actually help out which they didn’t. I don’t hold it against them as it is a survival game and one way to survive isn’t to go towards the thing eating people but at the same time if you don’t offer help, help won’t come to you either.

Death was done rather quick and simple – met something called the Gravemind and had a little chat about her feelings about the people in the town and what it was trying to accomplish. Lasted maybe 10 minutes and then I was sent back into game at the graveyard. My character’s background felt that if no one was willing to back him up, he wasn’t going to risk his life any longer backing them up and I left. I also decided that the strain I chose wasn’t fitting with my play style so it was a good time for me to quit until I could read the rules better and get a character concept I could use better.

I went to turn in my sheet and leave but I was informed that I couldn’t leave early without authorization from a director. So after 15 minutes, they assigned me a cleaning task to clean up the NPC area and then could check out.

Some Further Thoughts

Power Gap – Although there are different levels of power in the game, it doesn’t seem too obvious as it does in other long term games.  Some people inflict more damage, some people can take more damage.  However, this isn’t always character level based.  Weapons can be modified, armor can be reinforced, etc.  To me, it wasn’t as noticeable as it tends to be in other games.  Sure, there’s a difference between something swinging 20 instead of 2, but because running away is acceptable in this game, it isn’t as huge of a hurdle as long as you stay ahead of them.

Resources/Building – This is one thing that should make this game fly.  I didn’t get a chance to experience it since I wasn’t going to be playing in the chapter anytime soon, there was no reason for me to begin gathering resources, making deals, increasing the abilities of items and powers and so on.  This is where real community will begin to build and where I feel the crafters are really necessary for the game to be at its best.

For me though, two of the major issues in a post apoc game are food and ammo.  In DR, you don’t have to worry about going hungry (although some food stuffs can be turned into special healing items) and for every combat, you have 20 bullets.  When you pick them up after the fight, you’re considered to be repacking your rounds.  To my knowledge, there is no end to the supply of bullets.

This can be a good thing though since no one would play with a major skill that could possibly be useless for the entire game.  Just wish I had known this beforehand as I spent all of Friday night without any bullets.  But still having something simple like a ’20 bullet’ tag that needs to be built by the builders would, IMO, go a long way for things.

Encounters without meaning – One thing about writing a good story is that you don’t put anything into it that has no relevance to that story. Even without having any impact upon a story directly, some things are put forth to help create the atmosphere or clarify a character’s personality or disposition. So whenever something happens at a LARP, I wonder “What bearing will this have on telling the story?”

This is something that has plagued me from day one of LARPing. Back in my original days, it was tiny bugs that bit you to make you relive your worst nightmare to everyone shifting suddenly two feet to the left. These things never happened again nor were they ever explained as a byproduct of something else happening. So when I attend games, I am on the lookout for these things. Putting forth effort for something that doesn’t impact the story in even a minor way is wasted effort.

So when it was announced there would be a wet t-shirt contest, I did a double take – not only for what I was assuming was a useless encounter but a step towards some inappropriateness. But as things progressed, I found out that the NPC’s hosting it were asking for “Men, Women and anyone else! We don’t care, we just want you to strut your stuff!” I thought, “Well at least it was being universally sexist.” But then it hit me. This was happening in the middle of the day, during 90+ degree heat and the staff was finding an IG way to cool people down. OK, kudos to them for completely snookering me on this.

Then someone came in worshipping a bomb. Telling us all about how we must work for the bomb and once we complete the work, we will be rewarded with a transformation to greater power through explosion. And then boom when the dynamite. I asked a couple of people if these types of worshippers were around often but they said it was the first they saw it. So I shrugged and assumed that there is a demo cult out there but in my mind, it will be a short lived one since, well, they’re blowing up their own followers.

Next was the one I NPC’d in – an honor duel between two NPC’s that a PC had to judge. We did it, left and that was it. I was never instructed as to any sort of family I came from, what my character did for a living, etc. so I assumed that there was no purpose for this other than to use up a required slot for the Story Teller.

I found out that the Story Tellers (ST) have to work a six hour shift and in each hour, they have to produce one combat, one skill based/puzzle and one roleplay mod (not every one may be used but they still have to write them up). Although I applaud anyone for trying to keep the players entertained, I also feel that having a quota causes completely irrelevant thing happening within a game. Quality should trump quantity. I had actually thought about volunteering to help with a chapter if/when it opens up in the San Francisco region but I’m not keen on the idea that all of my stories have to take place during one 6 hour period of the day.  I like to have them build over the weekend – a tease Friday night, a couple of encounters Saturday building to a climax that night and then a resolution on Sunday with perhaps some teasers for next event.  I feel that this restriction hampers things unless other ST are willing to use some of their time and work to further other ST’s plots.

And yet it can also be a boon.  Besides having a lot of entertainment put forth, if the ST’s shifts are known, PC’s could schedule their NPC time so that they are NPCing with ST’s they like to work with and also be free for the modules of the ST’s that they like to play in as PC’s.

Community – The community aspect with the game I feel is one of its biggest strengths and weaknesses as well. The strains do begin to flock together and when the crap hits the fan, everyone throws in to get things done. Looking at the casino that the Vegasians had set up and the ‘Merican’s camp and their own society they’ve created makes me realize that this is a great way to get people into the game, have a good support structure already in place and help build the community at large.

But this only works if the groups are open to others of their own strain. New players may not know people, be a bit shy about approaching and so on. And the strains tend to have some rather identifying traits to them. So such groups should invite others into their fold – which is somewhat counter intuitive since in such a setting, resources are low and suspicion is high.

I entered the ‘Merican camp but was never welcomed as a ‘Merican – although I was quite obviously dressed as a ‘Merican.   Only NPCs ever noted I was such and offered the hospitality that ‘Mericans (from what I read) offer to one another.   I was talking to one “Natural One” who was left out of the Spirit Walk that every other Natural One was partaking in.   And the only reason he could come up with was that he was a new player. I didn’t investigate the other side of it but if indeed every Natural One should have partaken in this religious event, simply because they’re a new arrival doesn’t mean they should be shunned from it. And now a new player has missed out on what I assume would have been a major part of his character’s background/belief system.

Adult game and acting like an adult – There’s a difference of course. An adult game means that there will be themes and actions of a nature that may not be suitable for younger people and/or some more sensitive ones. But this doesn’t give people carte blanche to throw away social etiquette. Here’s an example that hit me just as I was leaving that night. I came across three people dealing with a female NPC. I’m not sure what type of monster she was but I’m pretty sure she was some sort of powerful zombie type. I came into the middle of the encounter so I’m not sure what transpired before but what I heard as I approached was one female PC saying to the NPC, “Let’s try another tactic. Hello you ugly, little whore. Well we tried saying how pretty you are but you attack us, so if we say the opposite, maybe you won’t attack us.” (this may not be the precise words used so will apologize in verbage but not in intent/energy of the conversation). While I was stunned by this, something happened and she ran away (I’m assuming IC and not due to the verbal exchange) and had another player running after her screaming, “Come back here you bitch!”

Now I’m all for the rough, gritty life of a survivalist world but that world doesn’t exist. Our present does. And that other world will disappear in a few hours. Other words could have been used, or not said at all. “Come back here you corpse!” could have worked just as well.

Conclusion

Despite what may seem like a mostly criticizing review, I did enjoy this game – much more so than what is currently available to me out there. But I found it still has many of the same trappings other LARPs have that I feel is holding back the possibility for some really incredible experiences and events. I want to say it has potential to get there but all games out there have that potential.   I feel that this is due in part to what the majority of the LARPing community wants and expects from games and that’s understandable. You have to tailor your product towards your consumer.

In the end, I’d give it a 7 out of 10. It is a game that I will play in if/when a chapter opens up in the area – assuming of course that I’m not banned from that game due to this review.