Combat explained
There are two types of combat in Haven; fast combat and emote combat.
Fast combat is what is normally used when NPCs are involved in the fight,
such as typically when leveling up in the forest. During fast combat you
can attack and/or move every 12 seconds, each one being on a separate timer.
Attacks are normally made with either a default message, or with a custom
pre-written message.
Emote combat is normally used when PCs are fighting each other. During
emote combat characters take it in turns to pick where they want to move and
how they want to attack, they then write an emote, when the emote is
finished and sent the relevant attacks and moves are performed. Emote
combat is started by a player typing ‘attack’ by itself.
Both combat types use the exact same values and calculations. Disciplines
are used primarily for combat and are improved with experience gained by
using them. There are three types of discipline, ranged, melee and
defensive. Ranged disciplines all have different ranges, and will do
maximum damage at half that range, dropping off to 0 at above max range and
0 at melee range. Melee disciplines always do max damage if at melee range,
but otherwise can’t hit.
Each Discipline does its value in damage ordinarily, unless affected by
range or other affects. Defensive disciplines provide 5 times their value
in defense.
Once all your defense is gone, attacks will cause you to suffer wounds,
wounds can take a long time to heal and if severe enough might cause you to
die without hospital care.
Characters can move a base of 10 per turn in any direction, they can also
charge directly at someone, doubling how far they can move.
The most basic way to attack is simply attack (target), picking a default
discipline, or attack (target) (discipline) to choose your own discipline,
lastly attack (target) (customname) to use a custom attack.
To move you simply type move (person) away/charge/(distance as a number to
move towards them). You can also use move (xcoord) (ycoord), move flee or
the cardinal direction commands.
Custom attacks can be set up with the ‘make attack‘ command, and have a
name, discipline, a string for how they look like as well as an optional
special flag. Special flags allow you to attach effects to attacks.
You can also type map to see a visual representation of the battlefield.
Fast combat is what is normally used when NPCs are involved in the fight,
such as typically when leveling up in the forest. During fast combat you
can attack and/or move every 12 seconds, each one being on a separate timer.
Attacks are normally made with either a default message, or with a custom
pre-written message.
Emote combat is normally used when PCs are fighting each other. During
emote combat characters take it in turns to pick where they want to move and
how they want to attack, they then write an emote, when the emote is
finished and sent the relevant attacks and moves are performed. Emote
combat is started by a player typing ‘attack’ by itself.
Both combat types use the exact same values and calculations. Disciplines
are used primarily for combat and are improved with experience gained by
using them. There are three types of discipline, ranged, melee and
defensive. Ranged disciplines all have different ranges, and will do
maximum damage at half that range, dropping off to 0 at above max range and
0 at melee range. Melee disciplines always do max damage if at melee range,
but otherwise can’t hit.
Each Discipline does its value in damage ordinarily, unless affected by
range or other affects. Defensive disciplines provide 5 times their value
in defense.
Once all your defense is gone, attacks will cause you to suffer wounds,
wounds can take a long time to heal and if severe enough might cause you to
die without hospital care.
Characters can move a base of 10 per turn in any direction, they can also
charge directly at someone, doubling how far they can move.
The most basic way to attack is simply attack (target), picking a default
discipline, or attack (target) (discipline) to choose your own discipline,
lastly attack (target) (customname) to use a custom attack.
To move you simply type move (person) away/charge/(distance as a number to
move towards them). You can also use move (xcoord) (ycoord), move flee or
the cardinal direction commands.
Custom attacks can be set up with the ‘make attack‘ command, and have a
name, discipline, a string for how they look like as well as an optional
special flag. Special flags allow you to attach effects to attacks.
You can also type map to see a visual representation of the battlefield.
See Also
Combat Mechanics
For Ranged damage 150% at 10 +- optimum. 175% at exactly optimum
35% at max to 90% of max, 35% at 2 to 10% of max. 125% at
optimum to 90%, 100% at optimum to 10%.
Ranged attacks do 40% less damage in a round after being hit by melee.
+ or – affects from specials.
Damage in excess of 85 before specials are taken into account will be reduced to closer to 85. This cap is 25 points higher if hitting or being hit by an NPC or shifter in animal shape.
PCs can’t do more than 40 percent of the total defense of other PCs if they have at least 100DF. Or 60 percent of total defense of minions and allies.
35% at max to 90% of max, 35% at 2 to 10% of max. 125% at
optimum to 90%, 100% at optimum to 10%.
Ranged attacks do 40% less damage in a round after being hit by melee.
+ or – affects from specials.
Damage in excess of 85 before specials are taken into account will be reduced to closer to 85. This cap is 25 points higher if hitting or being hit by an NPC or shifter in animal shape.
PCs can’t do more than 40 percent of the total defense of other PCs if they have at least 100DF. Or 60 percent of total defense of minions and allies.
Dream Identity
While inside the dreamscape characters do not realise that they are
dreaming, or that the world they’re in is not real. Drives, desires and
situations from the real world frequently do manifest into their dreams, but
not as something external.
For instance if you go into the dreamscape wishing to be a bird, you will
probably dream about being a bird and flying around, but you won’t be aware
that you’re not a real bird and this isn’t a real world, at least not until
you wake up. Or if you fall asleep in the bathtub, may well end up in a
swamp or other damp locale in your dream.
Similarly if you go into the dreamscape with the intention of delivering a
message about yourself or someone else being held captive you might dream
about being a soldier sent to deliver their commanding office intelligence
about someone being held captive by the Nazis, or yourself be a recently
released POW.
People can sometimes use this to piece together events in real life, if
someone has a single theme of captivity running through all their dreams
when others encounter them frequently they might guess in the waking world
that that person is a captive, they might also be able to guess who they are
by other recurring themes in their dream identities. They wouldn’t of
course realise this in the dream however, since they also wouldn’t know it
was a dream until they awoke.
Characters do have much sharper memories of the dreams they have in the
dreamscape after they awake compared to normal dreams.
The creation of dreamworlds is a conscious, psychic exercise generally done
while awake or in a semi-sleeping state. Characters are aware they’ve built
a psychic realm and have consciously chosen each of its features. Characters
can while awake plan who they will be in a certain world when they fall
asleep, and focus on that desire in order to make it manifest. But it
doesn’t always work, sometimes their subconscious works against their wishes
to choose a different identity for them.
The details around how someone came to be in that place in the dream world
or whatever other parts of their backstory that are difficult to explain
will be fuzzy and hard for the dreamer to recall. If a dreamer does somehow
realise they are dreaming, they will immediately wake back up.
dreaming, or that the world they’re in is not real. Drives, desires and
situations from the real world frequently do manifest into their dreams, but
not as something external.
For instance if you go into the dreamscape wishing to be a bird, you will
probably dream about being a bird and flying around, but you won’t be aware
that you’re not a real bird and this isn’t a real world, at least not until
you wake up. Or if you fall asleep in the bathtub, may well end up in a
swamp or other damp locale in your dream.
Similarly if you go into the dreamscape with the intention of delivering a
message about yourself or someone else being held captive you might dream
about being a soldier sent to deliver their commanding office intelligence
about someone being held captive by the Nazis, or yourself be a recently
released POW.
People can sometimes use this to piece together events in real life, if
someone has a single theme of captivity running through all their dreams
when others encounter them frequently they might guess in the waking world
that that person is a captive, they might also be able to guess who they are
by other recurring themes in their dream identities. They wouldn’t of
course realise this in the dream however, since they also wouldn’t know it
was a dream until they awoke.
Characters do have much sharper memories of the dreams they have in the
dreamscape after they awake compared to normal dreams.
The creation of dreamworlds is a conscious, psychic exercise generally done
while awake or in a semi-sleeping state. Characters are aware they’ve built
a psychic realm and have consciously chosen each of its features. Characters
can while awake plan who they will be in a certain world when they fall
asleep, and focus on that desire in order to make it manifest. But it
doesn’t always work, sometimes their subconscious works against their wishes
to choose a different identity for them.
The details around how someone came to be in that place in the dream world
or whatever other parts of their backstory that are difficult to explain
will be fuzzy and hard for the dreamer to recall. If a dreamer does somehow
realise they are dreaming, they will immediately wake back up.
Lore Primer
The most important thing to understand about Haven lore is that it is a
pseudo scientific, logical take on the supernatural. That means that the
supernatural doesn’t overtly contradict known science such as evolution or
the laws of physics. Issues like creation of energy are dealt with through
drawing it from another dimension etc.
It’s a world that’s largely built upon our own, the fae, gods and most big
demons all used to be humans, before fleshforming themselves into other
things, and retain their human core. The monsters and creatures were all
made by these beings, for some purpose.
We took this approach for two reasons, the first is simple credibility, the
second is to make it easier to access for a player. When encountering a
monster you can use your reason to think about who made this, and why and
from what to make intelligent guesses about it’s characteristics, when
dealing with gods etc you can apply some of your understanding of human
psychology similarly. This allows players and characters to think about
challenges and discuss them intelligently, without needing huge amounts of
lore.
This system and the lore of fleshforming can allow for a huge variety of
stories, and give a lot of creative freedom to SRs, however it also can make
it challenging to copy stories directly from mythology or fantasy settings.
Since things need to make some sort of sense, and often issues of folklore
etc, do not.
Regarding death and religion, the game deliberately doesn’t prove or
disprove the existence of higher gods, if humans have a soul there’s no
proof of it, and it goes off to wherever it goes when someone dies. There
is however proof of psychic transference, which is to say minds or parts of
minds being copied or replicated into other things. Ghosts are one such
phenomena, where a part of someone’s mind transfers into a psychic
non-physical medium when they die. It is never a perfect copy however,
memories will be missing, their behaviour may be odd or particularly
fixated, much like someone who has sustained some brain damage. Vampires
are another instance, a near perfect transference of their mind from their
brain to a psychic medium inside their blood.
Strictly speaking, resurrection is impossible, but beings capable of
fleshforming can remake individuals. Much like ghosts the mind of the new
individual is imperfect, often missing memories or having flaws or oddities
in their behaviour, they’re remade more accurately the more information the
being has on them, such as their recent body, or memories of people who knew
them, or a ghost of them, but it’s never ever a perfect remake.
People brought back may be brought back different from how they
originally were on purpose as well.
pseudo scientific, logical take on the supernatural. That means that the
supernatural doesn’t overtly contradict known science such as evolution or
the laws of physics. Issues like creation of energy are dealt with through
drawing it from another dimension etc.
It’s a world that’s largely built upon our own, the fae, gods and most big
demons all used to be humans, before fleshforming themselves into other
things, and retain their human core. The monsters and creatures were all
made by these beings, for some purpose.
We took this approach for two reasons, the first is simple credibility, the
second is to make it easier to access for a player. When encountering a
monster you can use your reason to think about who made this, and why and
from what to make intelligent guesses about it’s characteristics, when
dealing with gods etc you can apply some of your understanding of human
psychology similarly. This allows players and characters to think about
challenges and discuss them intelligently, without needing huge amounts of
lore.
This system and the lore of fleshforming can allow for a huge variety of
stories, and give a lot of creative freedom to SRs, however it also can make
it challenging to copy stories directly from mythology or fantasy settings.
Since things need to make some sort of sense, and often issues of folklore
etc, do not.
Regarding death and religion, the game deliberately doesn’t prove or
disprove the existence of higher gods, if humans have a soul there’s no
proof of it, and it goes off to wherever it goes when someone dies. There
is however proof of psychic transference, which is to say minds or parts of
minds being copied or replicated into other things. Ghosts are one such
phenomena, where a part of someone’s mind transfers into a psychic
non-physical medium when they die. It is never a perfect copy however,
memories will be missing, their behaviour may be odd or particularly
fixated, much like someone who has sustained some brain damage. Vampires
are another instance, a near perfect transference of their mind from their
brain to a psychic medium inside their blood.
Strictly speaking, resurrection is impossible, but beings capable of
fleshforming can remake individuals. Much like ghosts the mind of the new
individual is imperfect, often missing memories or having flaws or oddities
in their behaviour, they’re remade more accurately the more information the
being has on them, such as their recent body, or memories of people who knew
them, or a ghost of them, but it’s never ever a perfect remake.
People brought back may be brought back different from how they
originally were on purpose as well.
Newbie Roleplaying tips
Firstly make sure you’ve read the setting file that you were
sent after you finished creation. This will give you the basic
information you need to start RPing. Other lore files can be
read as you go and pick up more knowledge as you play.
While people know of the supernatural it remains hidden, avoid
doing anything obviously supernatural in public, or walking
around with visible weapons etc.
Make sure you’re dressed, it’s a good idea when you get the
chance to set up a few different outfits so your character isn’t
always wearing the same thing.
Remain In Character at all times.
When you have a new character it’s often a good idea to RP them
being new to the city.
sent after you finished creation. This will give you the basic
information you need to start RPing. Other lore files can be
read as you go and pick up more knowledge as you play.
While people know of the supernatural it remains hidden, avoid
doing anything obviously supernatural in public, or walking
around with visible weapons etc.
Make sure you’re dressed, it’s a good idea when you get the
chance to set up a few different outfits so your character isn’t
always wearing the same thing.
Remain In Character at all times.
When you have a new character it’s often a good idea to RP them
being new to the city.
Progression Explained
There are many ways your character can develop in Haven. The three main
ones are combat experience, roleplay experience and karma.
Regular combat experience is earned every time you engage in combat, this
experience is used to increase your disciplines, which govern your
characters attack damages and defenses.
Roleplay experience is gained by roleplaying with other players. It’s used
to buy stats and powers which cover almost everything else about your
character.
Karma is gained by doing things that add to the game’s story such as running
adventures, it’s used to unlock access to higher tier characters as well as
to increase the caps on your roleplay and combat experience pools.
ones are combat experience, roleplay experience and karma.
Regular combat experience is earned every time you engage in combat, this
experience is used to increase your disciplines, which govern your
characters attack damages and defenses.
Roleplay experience is gained by roleplaying with other players. It’s used
to buy stats and powers which cover almost everything else about your
character.
Karma is gained by doing things that add to the game’s story such as running
adventures, it’s used to unlock access to higher tier characters as well as
to increase the caps on your roleplay and combat experience pools.
Roleplaying Angelborn
There’s a few things it’s important to keep in mind when playing
Angelborn. Angelborn are to some extent natural victims, the fact that they
can be more powerfully hypnotized and in general more easy to coerced often
leads to them being an ideal choice if someone’s looking for a victim or
sidekick etc. You shouldn’t play a character like this if you’re too
worried about bad things happening to them. Also though, and probably more
importantly, angelborn are particularly resistant to angst. Even if one is
captured and tortured while the torture is going on they want it a little
bit, not enough to be ok with it, but it is not as bad as for others, and
afterwards they’re surrounded by people who want them to get over it.
Either because they’re their friends and want them to feel better, or
because they find it irritating. Which through their empathy causes them to
rebound fairly quickly. This is important because it means Angelborn are an
extremely poor choice of character if you’re seeking to RP the aftermath or
seek sympathy.
Angelborn. Angelborn are to some extent natural victims, the fact that they
can be more powerfully hypnotized and in general more easy to coerced often
leads to them being an ideal choice if someone’s looking for a victim or
sidekick etc. You shouldn’t play a character like this if you’re too
worried about bad things happening to them. Also though, and probably more
importantly, angelborn are particularly resistant to angst. Even if one is
captured and tortured while the torture is going on they want it a little
bit, not enough to be ok with it, but it is not as bad as for others, and
afterwards they’re surrounded by people who want them to get over it.
Either because they’re their friends and want them to feel better, or
because they find it irritating. Which through their empathy causes them to
rebound fairly quickly. This is important because it means Angelborn are an
extremely poor choice of character if you’re seeking to RP the aftermath or
seek sympathy.
Roleplaying Explained
Roleplaying is the art of being someone else, of creating and embodying
a fictional character. Roleplaying is mandatory on Haven, your character
must act like they are a real person at all times and not someone’s game
avatar. The exception to this is a few OOC channels.
Emote allows your character to do describe what your character is doing
at any given time. Used like emote does a dance. Would show up as (your
character name) does a dance. To everyone else in the room. Additional
functionality for the emote command can be found under help emoting.
Say is used for when your character just wants to talk, although you can
mix your conversation into an emote, this saves a lot of time and allows
conversations to flow quicker and easier.
Whisper can be used to convey a private message to someone, used like
whisper to <person> <message>
Socials are pre-written emotes for doing very common things, they cover
things such as nodding or smiling and are a little quicker and easier to
use than emotes.
a fictional character. Roleplaying is mandatory on Haven, your character
must act like they are a real person at all times and not someone’s game
avatar. The exception to this is a few OOC channels.
Emote allows your character to do describe what your character is doing
at any given time. Used like emote does a dance. Would show up as (your
character name) does a dance. To everyone else in the room. Additional
functionality for the emote command can be found under help emoting.
Say is used for when your character just wants to talk, although you can
mix your conversation into an emote, this saves a lot of time and allows
conversations to flow quicker and easier.
Whisper can be used to convey a private message to someone, used like
whisper to <person> <message>
Socials are pre-written emotes for doing very common things, they cover
things such as nodding or smiling and are a little quicker and easier to
use than emotes.
Roleplaying Guide
Good roleplaying is an art, it can take years to master and some people
never seem to be able to get a good grip on it. Mostly it’s similar to
writing fiction, the big differences are that you’re writing in real time
with no chance to edit, and that you’re writing for the other authors.
It’s impossible to learn how to RP very well from just one guide, it is an
endless pursuit, and you can be sure that the best RPers get to be that way
because they are constantly working on and refining their art. Those that
feel their RP is already ‘good enough’ are doomed to never improve beyond
the mediocre.
Good roleplaying breaks down to two areas, good characterization and good RP
writing.
RP writing is the art of using says, emotes, descriptions etc to convey what
your character is doing. This is almost exactly the same as the qualities
of what makes a good fiction writer with one exception. In a story it’s
perfectly ok even considered normal to describe your characters emotions and
thoughts, in RP it often isn’t. Although there’s some debate on the issue
the difference comes about because when writing a novel you want people to
identify with your character, when RPing you want to identify with your
character, other people identify with theirs.
The other reason for this is that few people are perfect at keeping IC and
OOC knowledge separate, it’s very common for someone to react differently if
you emote that you fancy them, even though their character shouldn’t know
that and therefore shouldn’t act any differently.
Generally it’s better to follow the same rule that teachers of fiction
writing beat their students over the head with ‘show don’t tell. ‘ Don’t
tell people what your character is thinking or feeling, show them. Use your
emotes and the way they speak to convey that they fancy that person or
dislike this person.
The other keys to good RP writing are:
Write something that’s easy to read and flows nicely, paying attention to
spelling and grammar etc as much as possible. Include all relevant details,
the devil is in the details as they say and a few words to describe the way
in which someone does something can add a lot to the RP.
Brevity, good writing isn’t longer than it has to be, the shorter your
emotes and says the less work you’re requiring your reader to do. Any
reader would prefer a 200 page book, to a 500 page book with all the same
stuff in it but 300 more pages of furniture descriptions.
Speed, people don’t like waiting around longer than they have to, the
quicker you can RP the more RP they’re getting for their time. Language,
just like in fiction writing the use of certain words or phrases are much
more likely to strike a chord in people and get your meaning across than
others. Try to use words and phrases that create vivid imagery and convey
things strongly without being overly flowery or convoluted.
Some of these do work a little at cross purposes, trying to include detail
and spell check your RP while also trying to be quick and brief is a
challenge, each person needs to strike their own balance of what works for
them.
The only way to really improve your RP writing is with practice, get out
there and RP and learn from others as well as seek out positive and negative
criticisms. If most people think your emotes are too long and needlessly
wordy maybe think about working on making them shorter. Ultimately it is up
to you, but the other players are your readers, if they don’t want to read
your work, what is the point?
Good characterization is the other half to good RP. It refers to being able
to create a character who’s interesting and realistic.
Creating an interesting character is really about creating a character
that’s good for the story, you might be able to make an extremely realistic
tax clerk character but nobody is going to care about him. An interesting
character is measured by their ability to create RP and their ability to
join to and add to the RP of others.
It’s important to note that RP is a collaborative effort, your character can
never be the star they are one member of an ensemble cast. Sometimes the
storyline might thrust you center stage but other times it might thrust
someone else. People get very sick very quickly of playing with someone who
tries to make all RP be about them.
A good and very common example of this is characters with traumatic
pasts/lives. When a character goes through something traumatic in game,
this naturally pushes them more center stage, with a lot of the RP revolving
around the sympathy they get, possibly plans for revenge or ways to help
them deal with it. Every other character around who has a more traumatic
past steals from this attention, nobody else can ever get sympathy because
what they went through is so much worse.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have traumatic incidents in your character’s
past, but it’s very important for you to think about other people when you
make your character, how your character can add to RP that isn’t about them,
and if they’re likely to detract from that RP maybe you need to re-evaluate
them.
Being a good side character is about both adding constructive and
destructively to RP. A character who’s always nice all the time is boring,
a character who’s always a jerk similarly. Interesting character conflicts
and situations arise from those characters who sometimes are supportive and
sometimes cause conflict. If your character can do both of these, and avoid
any spotlight stealing, then you probably have a really good side character.
Being a good main character is mostly about not being selfish. If the
bounty hunters are after you, yes that might be your problem but if your
character is really set on dealing with it all on their own it gives nobody
else anything to do. When you find yourself in the spotlight is when it’s
more important to be gracious, involve other people in the story in
important ways. In return they’re more likely to do the same to you when
it’s their turn.
Sometimes RP isn’t really about you or someone else mostly, but communal.
This often happens in social RP for instance. What makes a good communal
character is mostly the same things that make a good side or main character.
Don’t spotlight steal, get other people involved, add to the RP in
interesting and not always predictable ways. Adding to the RP is important,
you might think it’s cool to be gruff and silent, but nobody is going to
want to play with you much.
The other thing that makes a really great interesting character is the
ability to make RP happen in the first place! A character with reasons to
RP with a lot of people, get them involved in things, make various other
types of RP happen is crucial to a fun game. Examples might be characters
who throw parties, a journalist who seeks out lots of other PCs to interview
etc.
If you have a character who has the qualities of both a good main character,
a good side character, a good communal character, and creates RP then you
have a really good interesting character!
The other half of the battle is realism.
Realism is very important and often overlooked, it doesn’t matter if your
character is a vampire or sorcerer. Stories must have internal validity,
they must be believable within that world, even if they’re fantasy stories,
some would say especially if they are. The second your character starts
feeling fake and not like a real person people will stop caring about them,
and it’s very hard to get them to again. Very good realistic characters can
make people in real life cry when they’re hurt, cheer when they’re
triumphant and swoon when they kiss, and that’s what you should be aiming
for.
Making a realistic character can be very hard, there’s a lot of different
opinions on the ways to go about it. A lot of people like to model
characters on themselves or people they know very well, and this is
generally a solid and reliable way to make your character quite realistic.
The old writer’s adage of ‘write what you know’. Unfortunately it’s often
the case that you want to play something quite different from yourself or
anybody you know. In these situations information is your friend, spend a
little time on the internet researching the areas you want to look at and
the people you’re trying to emulate.
The more you learn the better your character is likely to be, but for most
characters a few pages of Wikipedia is probably sufficient. This does refer
to all areas of your character, lots of people are good at doing a bit of
research if they want their character to be say a doctor. But it’s a lot
rarer to see people do research before involving a character in a same sex
relationship or making a model or musician.
So that’s characterization, it’s also largely about practice, taking criticism
and learning from others, but it’s also very much about putting the work in
before you make the character and about really being able to take a step
back and thinking about the other players, who are your audience, and how
you can deliver a realistic and interesting character for them.
Once you have mastered both RP writing and characterization, the RP world
will be your proverbial oyster.
never seem to be able to get a good grip on it. Mostly it’s similar to
writing fiction, the big differences are that you’re writing in real time
with no chance to edit, and that you’re writing for the other authors.
It’s impossible to learn how to RP very well from just one guide, it is an
endless pursuit, and you can be sure that the best RPers get to be that way
because they are constantly working on and refining their art. Those that
feel their RP is already ‘good enough’ are doomed to never improve beyond
the mediocre.
Good roleplaying breaks down to two areas, good characterization and good RP
writing.
RP writing is the art of using says, emotes, descriptions etc to convey what
your character is doing. This is almost exactly the same as the qualities
of what makes a good fiction writer with one exception. In a story it’s
perfectly ok even considered normal to describe your characters emotions and
thoughts, in RP it often isn’t. Although there’s some debate on the issue
the difference comes about because when writing a novel you want people to
identify with your character, when RPing you want to identify with your
character, other people identify with theirs.
The other reason for this is that few people are perfect at keeping IC and
OOC knowledge separate, it’s very common for someone to react differently if
you emote that you fancy them, even though their character shouldn’t know
that and therefore shouldn’t act any differently.
Generally it’s better to follow the same rule that teachers of fiction
writing beat their students over the head with ‘show don’t tell. ‘ Don’t
tell people what your character is thinking or feeling, show them. Use your
emotes and the way they speak to convey that they fancy that person or
dislike this person.
The other keys to good RP writing are:
Write something that’s easy to read and flows nicely, paying attention to
spelling and grammar etc as much as possible. Include all relevant details,
the devil is in the details as they say and a few words to describe the way
in which someone does something can add a lot to the RP.
Brevity, good writing isn’t longer than it has to be, the shorter your
emotes and says the less work you’re requiring your reader to do. Any
reader would prefer a 200 page book, to a 500 page book with all the same
stuff in it but 300 more pages of furniture descriptions.
Speed, people don’t like waiting around longer than they have to, the
quicker you can RP the more RP they’re getting for their time. Language,
just like in fiction writing the use of certain words or phrases are much
more likely to strike a chord in people and get your meaning across than
others. Try to use words and phrases that create vivid imagery and convey
things strongly without being overly flowery or convoluted.
Some of these do work a little at cross purposes, trying to include detail
and spell check your RP while also trying to be quick and brief is a
challenge, each person needs to strike their own balance of what works for
them.
The only way to really improve your RP writing is with practice, get out
there and RP and learn from others as well as seek out positive and negative
criticisms. If most people think your emotes are too long and needlessly
wordy maybe think about working on making them shorter. Ultimately it is up
to you, but the other players are your readers, if they don’t want to read
your work, what is the point?
Good characterization is the other half to good RP. It refers to being able
to create a character who’s interesting and realistic.
Creating an interesting character is really about creating a character
that’s good for the story, you might be able to make an extremely realistic
tax clerk character but nobody is going to care about him. An interesting
character is measured by their ability to create RP and their ability to
join to and add to the RP of others.
It’s important to note that RP is a collaborative effort, your character can
never be the star they are one member of an ensemble cast. Sometimes the
storyline might thrust you center stage but other times it might thrust
someone else. People get very sick very quickly of playing with someone who
tries to make all RP be about them.
A good and very common example of this is characters with traumatic
pasts/lives. When a character goes through something traumatic in game,
this naturally pushes them more center stage, with a lot of the RP revolving
around the sympathy they get, possibly plans for revenge or ways to help
them deal with it. Every other character around who has a more traumatic
past steals from this attention, nobody else can ever get sympathy because
what they went through is so much worse.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have traumatic incidents in your character’s
past, but it’s very important for you to think about other people when you
make your character, how your character can add to RP that isn’t about them,
and if they’re likely to detract from that RP maybe you need to re-evaluate
them.
Being a good side character is about both adding constructive and
destructively to RP. A character who’s always nice all the time is boring,
a character who’s always a jerk similarly. Interesting character conflicts
and situations arise from those characters who sometimes are supportive and
sometimes cause conflict. If your character can do both of these, and avoid
any spotlight stealing, then you probably have a really good side character.
Being a good main character is mostly about not being selfish. If the
bounty hunters are after you, yes that might be your problem but if your
character is really set on dealing with it all on their own it gives nobody
else anything to do. When you find yourself in the spotlight is when it’s
more important to be gracious, involve other people in the story in
important ways. In return they’re more likely to do the same to you when
it’s their turn.
Sometimes RP isn’t really about you or someone else mostly, but communal.
This often happens in social RP for instance. What makes a good communal
character is mostly the same things that make a good side or main character.
Don’t spotlight steal, get other people involved, add to the RP in
interesting and not always predictable ways. Adding to the RP is important,
you might think it’s cool to be gruff and silent, but nobody is going to
want to play with you much.
The other thing that makes a really great interesting character is the
ability to make RP happen in the first place! A character with reasons to
RP with a lot of people, get them involved in things, make various other
types of RP happen is crucial to a fun game. Examples might be characters
who throw parties, a journalist who seeks out lots of other PCs to interview
etc.
If you have a character who has the qualities of both a good main character,
a good side character, a good communal character, and creates RP then you
have a really good interesting character!
The other half of the battle is realism.
Realism is very important and often overlooked, it doesn’t matter if your
character is a vampire or sorcerer. Stories must have internal validity,
they must be believable within that world, even if they’re fantasy stories,
some would say especially if they are. The second your character starts
feeling fake and not like a real person people will stop caring about them,
and it’s very hard to get them to again. Very good realistic characters can
make people in real life cry when they’re hurt, cheer when they’re
triumphant and swoon when they kiss, and that’s what you should be aiming
for.
Making a realistic character can be very hard, there’s a lot of different
opinions on the ways to go about it. A lot of people like to model
characters on themselves or people they know very well, and this is
generally a solid and reliable way to make your character quite realistic.
The old writer’s adage of ‘write what you know’. Unfortunately it’s often
the case that you want to play something quite different from yourself or
anybody you know. In these situations information is your friend, spend a
little time on the internet researching the areas you want to look at and
the people you’re trying to emulate.
The more you learn the better your character is likely to be, but for most
characters a few pages of Wikipedia is probably sufficient. This does refer
to all areas of your character, lots of people are good at doing a bit of
research if they want their character to be say a doctor. But it’s a lot
rarer to see people do research before involving a character in a same sex
relationship or making a model or musician.
So that’s characterization, it’s also largely about practice, taking criticism
and learning from others, but it’s also very much about putting the work in
before you make the character and about really being able to take a step
back and thinking about the other players, who are your audience, and how
you can deliver a realistic and interesting character for them.
Once you have mastered both RP writing and characterization, the RP world
will be your proverbial oyster.
Roleplaying Society Positions
Society positions define the political and philosophical positions of
societies. Societies are groups who join together in order to change the
world in different ways, the noparticipate option for societies allows you
to create societies which have no such ambitions for the world, but
generally people would not even form a society if they were not interested
in such and simply continue on as individuals, or join a society they don’t
believe in just for the support and protection and pay. Similar to how
normal people frequently work in jobs they don’t believe in for the pay.
Societies without any real goals, or with goals that would be pursued by
people even if the group did not exist, have a hard time attracting backing
from the wider supernatural community, similar to how a political party
might not get many donations if they had no manifesto or their manifesto was
for people to people to shower regularly.
Pro-Supernatural:
These societies want to make things better for supernatural people compared
to mundanes. It might be that they believe supernaturals currently have
things worse and their efforts are to try and balance things out, but
especially at higher levels of belief, is more often about wanting to make
mundanes more of a second class citizen. They may encourage shadow
supernatural governments that manipulate the mundane government, or endorse
supernatural laws that make using powers against mundanes legal.
Anti-Supernatural:
The inverse of the pro-supernatural groups these want to make things better
for mundanes compared to supernaturals. Sometimes because they think
they’re worse off, other times because they just want humans to be better
off. They typically try to endorse supernatural laws that strictly prohibit
the use of supernatural abilities on normal people, and may even want to
keep watch lists of supernaturals and treat them as criminals.
Spiritual:
These groups typically want to see technology play a smaller role in
people’s lives compared to more traditional or spiritual activities. They
are generally opposed to dense urban centers and want significant
restrictions or oversight on new technological development. They are also
often opposed to free market capitalism, and industrial development.
Material:
These groups usually want more technological and industrial development.
They are usually for free market capitalism and want less hurdles in the way
of scientific and financial progress. While they are not necessarily
anti-environment they usually promote more planned, scientific approaches to
environmental problems.
Combative:
These groups want to see combat or direct conflict resolve differences.
This usually means less complicated laws with people having more
responsibility to protect themselves as well as not prohibiting violence as
a means of conflict resolution in the supernatural world. Combatively
powerful individuals are usually given more important positions within the
shadow governments they form. Their shadow governments are also usually
very martial in design.
Manipulative:
These groups want to see combat used less for conflict resolution and
instead have legal procedures, diplomacy or social manipulation used. They
tend to have harsher rules against open violence, but more evolved
procedures for dealing with problems or attacking enemies with legal, social
or diplomatic measures. Clever and cunning individuals are usually given
more important positions within the shadow governments they form.
Corrupt:
These groups believe in and support inequality, with more privileges and
power going to a select few, either certain types of people or members of
that society and their allies. They believe it is the right of the strong
to rule over and do with the weak as they wish and that it is the role of
the weak to help support the strong. Their shadow governments typically run
on the back of what is effectively slavery and what laws the do have will
only exist to protect their chosen few from the masses and never the
reverse.
Virtuous:
These groups support equality, they tend to fight for efforts to ensure all
people have the same basic rights and protections and that laws and systems
are put in place to ensure that the weak and vulnerable are protected from
being preyed upon. They often influence their territories to be more
socially progressive.
Autocratic:
These groups support inequality in government, generally supporting
dictatorships, oligarchies, aristocracies and similar systems of
determination in which a few decide for the many.
Democratic:
These groups support equality in decision making, generally supporting
various types of democracy both in their own organizations and in the
territories they control.
Anarchistic:
These groups tend to support very little law, both in the supernatural world
and the territories they control. Usually very anti-regulation and
supporting of smaller governments with more individual freedom and
determination.
Lawful:
These groups tend to support very robust legal systems and regulations both
in the supernatural world and in territories they control. This might still
mean that in a corrupt society mundanes and weaker individuals have no
rights or legal protections, but it will mean those that do have legal
protections will have very stringent and robust forms.
Neutral:
When a society is neutral on a particular position that means they wish
things to stay as they are. They will generally fight against efforts to
change things by either other side and will work to establish infrastructure
that makes that change more difficult.
societies. Societies are groups who join together in order to change the
world in different ways, the noparticipate option for societies allows you
to create societies which have no such ambitions for the world, but
generally people would not even form a society if they were not interested
in such and simply continue on as individuals, or join a society they don’t
believe in just for the support and protection and pay. Similar to how
normal people frequently work in jobs they don’t believe in for the pay.
Societies without any real goals, or with goals that would be pursued by
people even if the group did not exist, have a hard time attracting backing
from the wider supernatural community, similar to how a political party
might not get many donations if they had no manifesto or their manifesto was
for people to people to shower regularly.
Pro-Supernatural:
These societies want to make things better for supernatural people compared
to mundanes. It might be that they believe supernaturals currently have
things worse and their efforts are to try and balance things out, but
especially at higher levels of belief, is more often about wanting to make
mundanes more of a second class citizen. They may encourage shadow
supernatural governments that manipulate the mundane government, or endorse
supernatural laws that make using powers against mundanes legal.
Anti-Supernatural:
The inverse of the pro-supernatural groups these want to make things better
for mundanes compared to supernaturals. Sometimes because they think
they’re worse off, other times because they just want humans to be better
off. They typically try to endorse supernatural laws that strictly prohibit
the use of supernatural abilities on normal people, and may even want to
keep watch lists of supernaturals and treat them as criminals.
Spiritual:
These groups typically want to see technology play a smaller role in
people’s lives compared to more traditional or spiritual activities. They
are generally opposed to dense urban centers and want significant
restrictions or oversight on new technological development. They are also
often opposed to free market capitalism, and industrial development.
Material:
These groups usually want more technological and industrial development.
They are usually for free market capitalism and want less hurdles in the way
of scientific and financial progress. While they are not necessarily
anti-environment they usually promote more planned, scientific approaches to
environmental problems.
Combative:
These groups want to see combat or direct conflict resolve differences.
This usually means less complicated laws with people having more
responsibility to protect themselves as well as not prohibiting violence as
a means of conflict resolution in the supernatural world. Combatively
powerful individuals are usually given more important positions within the
shadow governments they form. Their shadow governments are also usually
very martial in design.
Manipulative:
These groups want to see combat used less for conflict resolution and
instead have legal procedures, diplomacy or social manipulation used. They
tend to have harsher rules against open violence, but more evolved
procedures for dealing with problems or attacking enemies with legal, social
or diplomatic measures. Clever and cunning individuals are usually given
more important positions within the shadow governments they form.
Corrupt:
These groups believe in and support inequality, with more privileges and
power going to a select few, either certain types of people or members of
that society and their allies. They believe it is the right of the strong
to rule over and do with the weak as they wish and that it is the role of
the weak to help support the strong. Their shadow governments typically run
on the back of what is effectively slavery and what laws the do have will
only exist to protect their chosen few from the masses and never the
reverse.
Virtuous:
These groups support equality, they tend to fight for efforts to ensure all
people have the same basic rights and protections and that laws and systems
are put in place to ensure that the weak and vulnerable are protected from
being preyed upon. They often influence their territories to be more
socially progressive.
Autocratic:
These groups support inequality in government, generally supporting
dictatorships, oligarchies, aristocracies and similar systems of
determination in which a few decide for the many.
Democratic:
These groups support equality in decision making, generally supporting
various types of democracy both in their own organizations and in the
territories they control.
Anarchistic:
These groups tend to support very little law, both in the supernatural world
and the territories they control. Usually very anti-regulation and
supporting of smaller governments with more individual freedom and
determination.
Lawful:
These groups tend to support very robust legal systems and regulations both
in the supernatural world and in territories they control. This might still
mean that in a corrupt society mundanes and weaker individuals have no
rights or legal protections, but it will mean those that do have legal
protections will have very stringent and robust forms.
Neutral:
When a society is neutral on a particular position that means they wish
things to stay as they are. They will generally fight against efforts to
change things by either other side and will work to establish infrastructure
that makes that change more difficult.
Setting
Haven is a small town on the coast of Massachusetts, not far from Boston
and an easy commuting distance from Brown University. To most of the world
that is all it is, and even to most of the residents its not so different.
They have a few extra rules they live by, like dont venture out into the
forest alone and never go outside when its misty no matter what you hear.
But apart from these they live much as anybody else does.
For others though, for the members of the supernatural world Haven is
something entirely different. It is a place where one can cross between the
worlds, a waystation and the last one of its kind on earth. This makes it a
place of great import, where supernatural groups can use these connections
to gather valuable and powerful materials and goods from those other planes.
It is also where any threats from outside earth would first arrive, making
it an important fortress and beachhead should earth ever be attacked.
For these reasons it drew the interest of the three most powerful
supernatural organizations in the world, The Hand, The Order and The Temple.
These organizations all shared a common goal in holding Haven as a defensive
bastion, but also are all in competition over the resources that can be
obtained from it. Many attempts to strike an accord between them failed,
until finally they settled on a less diplomatic solution. The three
factions came together to work a great magic over the town, called Sanctuary
this magic protects anybody inside the town from serious harm by others.
And this protection is where the towns name derives, although not all are
equally protected and several ways to bypass the protection have since been
discovered. The spell allowed the factions to compete and conflict with
each other, without ever being at risk of weakening the forces they have set
to guard the earth from intrusion. After WWII when the three factions faded
into history, the town continued to be fought over by secretive supernatural
societies, making use of it in a similar way.
Others also found the town of interest, supernatural scholars and magical
practitioners came to experiment with the supernatural power to be found
there. Others came to make use of sanctuary to hold conferences or shady
meetings with those they couldnt otherwise trust. And the town drew the
attention of a criminal supernatural element as well. In Haven, with
sanctuary, enforcing supernatural law was almost impossible freeing up
certain types of criminals to do as they wished as long as they didn’t need
to kill anyone.
When supernaturals fight, they usually do so in a shadow world, a darker
mimicry of our own called the nightmare. There they can conflict freely,
without ever being seen or noticed by the normal members of humanity.
A manipulation of the spaces between worlds called pathing, allows some
supernaturals and those they take with them to travel vast distances very
quickly. Due to the latent power of Haven pathing to and from it tends to
be a fair bit faster than elsewhere, and societies often deploy operatives
there for just that reason, wanting to take advantage of their ability to
quickly deploy to missions or conflicts around the globe.
and an easy commuting distance from Brown University. To most of the world
that is all it is, and even to most of the residents its not so different.
They have a few extra rules they live by, like dont venture out into the
forest alone and never go outside when its misty no matter what you hear.
But apart from these they live much as anybody else does.
For others though, for the members of the supernatural world Haven is
something entirely different. It is a place where one can cross between the
worlds, a waystation and the last one of its kind on earth. This makes it a
place of great import, where supernatural groups can use these connections
to gather valuable and powerful materials and goods from those other planes.
It is also where any threats from outside earth would first arrive, making
it an important fortress and beachhead should earth ever be attacked.
For these reasons it drew the interest of the three most powerful
supernatural organizations in the world, The Hand, The Order and The Temple.
These organizations all shared a common goal in holding Haven as a defensive
bastion, but also are all in competition over the resources that can be
obtained from it. Many attempts to strike an accord between them failed,
until finally they settled on a less diplomatic solution. The three
factions came together to work a great magic over the town, called Sanctuary
this magic protects anybody inside the town from serious harm by others.
And this protection is where the towns name derives, although not all are
equally protected and several ways to bypass the protection have since been
discovered. The spell allowed the factions to compete and conflict with
each other, without ever being at risk of weakening the forces they have set
to guard the earth from intrusion. After WWII when the three factions faded
into history, the town continued to be fought over by secretive supernatural
societies, making use of it in a similar way.
Others also found the town of interest, supernatural scholars and magical
practitioners came to experiment with the supernatural power to be found
there. Others came to make use of sanctuary to hold conferences or shady
meetings with those they couldnt otherwise trust. And the town drew the
attention of a criminal supernatural element as well. In Haven, with
sanctuary, enforcing supernatural law was almost impossible freeing up
certain types of criminals to do as they wished as long as they didn’t need
to kill anyone.
When supernaturals fight, they usually do so in a shadow world, a darker
mimicry of our own called the nightmare. There they can conflict freely,
without ever being seen or noticed by the normal members of humanity.
A manipulation of the spaces between worlds called pathing, allows some
supernaturals and those they take with them to travel vast distances very
quickly. Due to the latent power of Haven pathing to and from it tends to
be a fair bit faster than elsewhere, and societies often deploy operatives
there for just that reason, wanting to take advantage of their ability to
quickly deploy to missions or conflicts around the globe.
Story Runner Guide
As a Story Runner there are three basic types of RP you might get involved
in. The first is personalized RP, this is when either because you were
asked or on your own initiative you decide to get involved in someone’s
personal story, to play NPCs from their history or related to their current
position. It’s a pretty cool way to make character’s histories matter and
make their actions feel like they have consequences.
The second is general room scenes, where you just pop into a room, get your
votes and start doing your thing. There are several uses for this sort of
RP, namely ambience, realism, introductions and excitement.
Ambience means simply emoting for NPCs and background activity to make the
world feel more alive and real for the players. While often overlooked it
can do a lot to help players feeling of immersion. Ambience can often be
added to from outside the room if you have enough trust to spy on people and
send them messages.
Realism is similar to ambience but refers to making the situation reflect
the reality of the inferno world. For instance this is a world where this
is a lot of paranoid, hostility and fear about supernaturals. Those who’re
open about being supernatural should meet that fear and hostility. They
might be refused service, avoided, asked to leave, subject to harassment.
It might even go so far as to lead to them be attacked by hunters or similar
individuals who happen to be nearby.
Other things might be people walking around carrying weapons only, or doing
drugs in the middle of a public place. Anything that really breaks the
theme and reality of the game you can be there to have the world react as it
should to those events. Again his is a very important task to helping make
the game world feel like a real place.
Introductions are when you create a situation which will push players
together and give them reasons to get to know each other and interact.
Causing some sort of crises or problem in which they work together could be
one instance, or simply causing events to reveal something about one
character. Good players should find reasons to get to know each other
themselves, but it never hurts to give them a cool how we met story.
Excitement refers to livening things up, it can be anything from an argument
to a demonic attack, while the forces of hell are out there and are usually
exciting. More human excitement is also an important part of the setting
and shouldn’t be neglected. A RP scene involving a fire spreading through a
building and tasking players to escape the flames and rescue others can be
incredibly gripping. Exciting RP should involve some sort of challenge for
the players to overcome, a challenge that they have a legitimate chance of
failing.
The third type of RP is of course stories. Stories are usually a bit more
elaborate and have a bit more of a set up to them. All stories should
involve contact stats in some way and preference should always be given to
those with contact stats. This is the purpose of those stats, to know about
things going on and it’s unfair to players who’ve spent points in them if
they don’t get an edge in getting involved. The best way to start a story
event or organize them is generally with the calendar.
Stories are built out of challenges, a simple one might have a single
challenge like beat this monster. A more elaborate one might have a
sequence of challenges or even branches. An example might be a story which
involves a group having to penetrate the defenses of a facility to kill the
evil vampire who runs it. This may branch depending on the group’s
strategy, if they choose stealth it may lead to different challenges and
story arc than if they go in all guns blazing.
All challenges should have a real chance at failure, why does this matter?
It’s important for the drama of a scene that players feel like they *might*
fail, it’s that which makes their successes sweet and gets them involved in
what they’re doing. Without the chance for failure, success is meaningless.
And in order to make players feel like they might fail, sometimes it has to
actually happen. Additionally players should feel like their choices
matter, if any choice I make which isn’t completely stupid will lead to the
same result, those choices don’t have much impact anymore.
That said, there are different types of failure, failure and success don’t
have to be hard, they can also be soft. A soft failure is one that allows
the player to continue and proceed but at increased cost. It might take
more time, hurt their char or their pride, cost them money or other
resources etc.
To return to the example of the players trying to get inside a secure
facility, they choose to attack the main gates. You know this isn’t going
to work, they haven’t scouted well enough to know but the facility has a
small army inside it. Rather than have them be killed or driven off and
unable to get inside however, a hard failure. You opt to have them be
capture, and locked up in the basement. The players then after some time
break out of their cell and are now inside the facility and able to progress
to the next stage, heading for the boss. However they’re injured, it took
longer and they should feel a bit silly about themselves for getting
captured. This is a soft fail.
The culmination of the story probably should use a hard fail option, but
soft fails can be invaluable in the lead up to that climax. Allowing the
player’s choices to matter, but still ensuring they make it more or less
through the whole story.
Soft successes are another option that is very useful, say my players get to
the evil vampire and try to kill him, but I don’t want him to die yet
because I have plans for other stuff he’s going to do down the line.
Instead of them just failing to kill him, which is basically a fail, I can
use a soft success. For instance he gets away but he’s injured and his
facility gets destroyed, saving dozens of people. In this way the player’s
successes are still rewarded, while allowing me to have my villain escape.
Mastering soft failures and successes is often the key to achieving a
balance between narrative and realism that provides the most enjoyable and
gripping experiences.
So now you’ve got through that the question becomes, what are you going to
make your story about, so I will go over a brief, non-exhaustive, list of
haven antagonists.
Firstly, groups interested in the gate. Various groups and
individuals are interested in using Haven’s proximity to other worlds. Some
are doomsday cults looking to bring about the end of days, others sense an
advantage to be had. These groups are after all the reason the societies
watch over Haven.
Secondly, supernatural hunters. Hunters are a very varied group, some are
ex temple or military, some are just random people who decided to hunt
monsters, many are from religious extremist groups of many different
denominations, others have had those close to them killed by the
supernatural or even just hunt them for sport. Hunters are a constant
problem for supernaturals, because the law almost never will protect them
from them, they also can be a big problem for others as many of them are
inexact in their targeting practices, it’s not that uncommon for a human
Goth to be killed by someone thinking they were a vampire.
Thirdly, the supernaturals. All supernaturals have a dark side, vampires
invariably kill the odd victims, werewolves often escape and kill during
lunacy, and that’s aside from those who just go rogue. Werewolves who
embrace their primal savagery, vampires who kill for enjoyment, mages who
experiment on people or use their magic to do crime. Shifters who join
savage packs, demonborn giving in to their urges, faeborn working an
angle… Aside from rogue members many of the societies may come to blows or
be drawn into conflict through the actions of their members.
Fourth, bad humans. There’s no rule saying only supernaturals can go bad,
and no reason why players might not want to get involved using their special
knowledge and abilities to help stop a perfectly mundane serial killer or
bank robber.
Fifth, fae and gods. The gods don’t generally act as antagonists but they
are essentially still human so they may. The fae are often interested in
playing pranks or cruel tricks on people in the world and can make excellent
antagonists.
Sixth, demons. The greatest threat from demons is that of the archdemons.
Archdemons are incredibly powerful beings and while trapped in hell they
have enough power to reach across the gap and influence things in our world.
Archdemons almost always work through vassals. Humans or supernaturals with
whom they’ve struck a bargain, it’s within their power to manipulate the
world enough to make someone rich, to make the head cheerleader fall in love
with them, to cure them of illness, make them immortal or powerful. In
exchange they obtain a link with which they can witness the world and snuff
out the life of their vassal at their whim.
Vassals are usually empowered by the archdemons, usually with sorcerous
abilities as well as other lost talents like fleshforming. They may be
given powerful abilities to influence the minds of others, to use
destructive magic or to fleshform monsters or loyal foot soldiers, usually
using animals as templates.
Every archdemon, like all other demons cares only for causing death,
destruction and misery, and the tasks they set their vassals to are always
to further these ends. They may be straight forward like building a bomb or
unleashing a army of fleshformed monster soldiers, or more subtle like
becoming involved in human trafficking, force prostitution, or just running
a company that forces it’s employees to work 14 hour days.
The ways in which vassals operate is as varied as can be, but their motives
are always evil in service to their archdemon. Finding/stopping, and
eliminating vassals is one of the most important tasks that players might
have to do in order to protect the world.
All six of these antagonists are important and a mixture of all five is
crucial to a good RP environment. It may be tempting to make everything
about the demon threat but by doing that you’re doing your players a
disservice, inferno is a whole world, living and breathing. Enemies are not
always external and clearly distinguishable as good or bad, terrestrial and
morally complex threats also exist, and it’s by dealing with all of those
that players get to live in this world.
in. The first is personalized RP, this is when either because you were
asked or on your own initiative you decide to get involved in someone’s
personal story, to play NPCs from their history or related to their current
position. It’s a pretty cool way to make character’s histories matter and
make their actions feel like they have consequences.
The second is general room scenes, where you just pop into a room, get your
votes and start doing your thing. There are several uses for this sort of
RP, namely ambience, realism, introductions and excitement.
Ambience means simply emoting for NPCs and background activity to make the
world feel more alive and real for the players. While often overlooked it
can do a lot to help players feeling of immersion. Ambience can often be
added to from outside the room if you have enough trust to spy on people and
send them messages.
Realism is similar to ambience but refers to making the situation reflect
the reality of the inferno world. For instance this is a world where this
is a lot of paranoid, hostility and fear about supernaturals. Those who’re
open about being supernatural should meet that fear and hostility. They
might be refused service, avoided, asked to leave, subject to harassment.
It might even go so far as to lead to them be attacked by hunters or similar
individuals who happen to be nearby.
Other things might be people walking around carrying weapons only, or doing
drugs in the middle of a public place. Anything that really breaks the
theme and reality of the game you can be there to have the world react as it
should to those events. Again his is a very important task to helping make
the game world feel like a real place.
Introductions are when you create a situation which will push players
together and give them reasons to get to know each other and interact.
Causing some sort of crises or problem in which they work together could be
one instance, or simply causing events to reveal something about one
character. Good players should find reasons to get to know each other
themselves, but it never hurts to give them a cool how we met story.
Excitement refers to livening things up, it can be anything from an argument
to a demonic attack, while the forces of hell are out there and are usually
exciting. More human excitement is also an important part of the setting
and shouldn’t be neglected. A RP scene involving a fire spreading through a
building and tasking players to escape the flames and rescue others can be
incredibly gripping. Exciting RP should involve some sort of challenge for
the players to overcome, a challenge that they have a legitimate chance of
failing.
The third type of RP is of course stories. Stories are usually a bit more
elaborate and have a bit more of a set up to them. All stories should
involve contact stats in some way and preference should always be given to
those with contact stats. This is the purpose of those stats, to know about
things going on and it’s unfair to players who’ve spent points in them if
they don’t get an edge in getting involved. The best way to start a story
event or organize them is generally with the calendar.
Stories are built out of challenges, a simple one might have a single
challenge like beat this monster. A more elaborate one might have a
sequence of challenges or even branches. An example might be a story which
involves a group having to penetrate the defenses of a facility to kill the
evil vampire who runs it. This may branch depending on the group’s
strategy, if they choose stealth it may lead to different challenges and
story arc than if they go in all guns blazing.
All challenges should have a real chance at failure, why does this matter?
It’s important for the drama of a scene that players feel like they *might*
fail, it’s that which makes their successes sweet and gets them involved in
what they’re doing. Without the chance for failure, success is meaningless.
And in order to make players feel like they might fail, sometimes it has to
actually happen. Additionally players should feel like their choices
matter, if any choice I make which isn’t completely stupid will lead to the
same result, those choices don’t have much impact anymore.
That said, there are different types of failure, failure and success don’t
have to be hard, they can also be soft. A soft failure is one that allows
the player to continue and proceed but at increased cost. It might take
more time, hurt their char or their pride, cost them money or other
resources etc.
To return to the example of the players trying to get inside a secure
facility, they choose to attack the main gates. You know this isn’t going
to work, they haven’t scouted well enough to know but the facility has a
small army inside it. Rather than have them be killed or driven off and
unable to get inside however, a hard failure. You opt to have them be
capture, and locked up in the basement. The players then after some time
break out of their cell and are now inside the facility and able to progress
to the next stage, heading for the boss. However they’re injured, it took
longer and they should feel a bit silly about themselves for getting
captured. This is a soft fail.
The culmination of the story probably should use a hard fail option, but
soft fails can be invaluable in the lead up to that climax. Allowing the
player’s choices to matter, but still ensuring they make it more or less
through the whole story.
Soft successes are another option that is very useful, say my players get to
the evil vampire and try to kill him, but I don’t want him to die yet
because I have plans for other stuff he’s going to do down the line.
Instead of them just failing to kill him, which is basically a fail, I can
use a soft success. For instance he gets away but he’s injured and his
facility gets destroyed, saving dozens of people. In this way the player’s
successes are still rewarded, while allowing me to have my villain escape.
Mastering soft failures and successes is often the key to achieving a
balance between narrative and realism that provides the most enjoyable and
gripping experiences.
So now you’ve got through that the question becomes, what are you going to
make your story about, so I will go over a brief, non-exhaustive, list of
haven antagonists.
Firstly, groups interested in the gate. Various groups and
individuals are interested in using Haven’s proximity to other worlds. Some
are doomsday cults looking to bring about the end of days, others sense an
advantage to be had. These groups are after all the reason the societies
watch over Haven.
Secondly, supernatural hunters. Hunters are a very varied group, some are
ex temple or military, some are just random people who decided to hunt
monsters, many are from religious extremist groups of many different
denominations, others have had those close to them killed by the
supernatural or even just hunt them for sport. Hunters are a constant
problem for supernaturals, because the law almost never will protect them
from them, they also can be a big problem for others as many of them are
inexact in their targeting practices, it’s not that uncommon for a human
Goth to be killed by someone thinking they were a vampire.
Thirdly, the supernaturals. All supernaturals have a dark side, vampires
invariably kill the odd victims, werewolves often escape and kill during
lunacy, and that’s aside from those who just go rogue. Werewolves who
embrace their primal savagery, vampires who kill for enjoyment, mages who
experiment on people or use their magic to do crime. Shifters who join
savage packs, demonborn giving in to their urges, faeborn working an
angle… Aside from rogue members many of the societies may come to blows or
be drawn into conflict through the actions of their members.
Fourth, bad humans. There’s no rule saying only supernaturals can go bad,
and no reason why players might not want to get involved using their special
knowledge and abilities to help stop a perfectly mundane serial killer or
bank robber.
Fifth, fae and gods. The gods don’t generally act as antagonists but they
are essentially still human so they may. The fae are often interested in
playing pranks or cruel tricks on people in the world and can make excellent
antagonists.
Sixth, demons. The greatest threat from demons is that of the archdemons.
Archdemons are incredibly powerful beings and while trapped in hell they
have enough power to reach across the gap and influence things in our world.
Archdemons almost always work through vassals. Humans or supernaturals with
whom they’ve struck a bargain, it’s within their power to manipulate the
world enough to make someone rich, to make the head cheerleader fall in love
with them, to cure them of illness, make them immortal or powerful. In
exchange they obtain a link with which they can witness the world and snuff
out the life of their vassal at their whim.
Vassals are usually empowered by the archdemons, usually with sorcerous
abilities as well as other lost talents like fleshforming. They may be
given powerful abilities to influence the minds of others, to use
destructive magic or to fleshform monsters or loyal foot soldiers, usually
using animals as templates.
Every archdemon, like all other demons cares only for causing death,
destruction and misery, and the tasks they set their vassals to are always
to further these ends. They may be straight forward like building a bomb or
unleashing a army of fleshformed monster soldiers, or more subtle like
becoming involved in human trafficking, force prostitution, or just running
a company that forces it’s employees to work 14 hour days.
The ways in which vassals operate is as varied as can be, but their motives
are always evil in service to their archdemon. Finding/stopping, and
eliminating vassals is one of the most important tasks that players might
have to do in order to protect the world.
All six of these antagonists are important and a mixture of all five is
crucial to a good RP environment. It may be tempting to make everything
about the demon threat but by doing that you’re doing your players a
disservice, inferno is a whole world, living and breathing. Enemies are not
always external and clearly distinguishable as good or bad, terrestrial and
morally complex threats also exist, and it’s by dealing with all of those
that players get to live in this world.
Story Runners Explained
Story runner are Havens version of what might be Game Masters in other
RPGs. They are special characters who operate to help create and run RP for
the players.
They differ to other games in several ways: Firstly they are not staff, and
do not have unlimited powers, they are given several very handy code tools
for doing their job, anybody can become one once they’ve played the game for
a little while, and their ability to create and run RP is based on a trust
and vote system ensuring no player ever will be in a position where an SR
they don’t trust has power over them.
To become an SR simply type storyrunner (name) and that will begin the
process. You do not lose your existing character when you do this, but they
will be automatically logged off once the storyrunner creation begins.
SRs automatically attempt to run the RP in any room they enter after a short
delay, but they can’t generally been seen moving around, they always appear
as spirits but their name is visible when looking at them.
SRs can travel around by using the SWalk command, which takes the same
arguments as taxi or travel but is instant and silent, and they can bring
players with them. They can also make areas in a location called mists,
which they can use to make rooms for any where they want, they can access
all their own rooms made in those areas even if made private. If they make
rooms status public other SRs will be able to use them also.
All staff are considered SRs and have all the same powers as they do,
players also are set to automatically trust staff, if you wish to turn this
off typing story off will set you as a character that staff doesn’t have
trust over, and will indicate you have no interest in staff run stories.
SRs earn karma from roleplaying and running rooms.
Players can attempt to contact available online SRs with the STalk command.
SRs, either player SRs or immortals are not obligated to SR anything if
they do not wish to, they are free to choose what RP they want to run. If
SRs don’t want to run things for you, it might be worth asking why and
working to fix those problems.
RPGs. They are special characters who operate to help create and run RP for
the players.
They differ to other games in several ways: Firstly they are not staff, and
do not have unlimited powers, they are given several very handy code tools
for doing their job, anybody can become one once they’ve played the game for
a little while, and their ability to create and run RP is based on a trust
and vote system ensuring no player ever will be in a position where an SR
they don’t trust has power over them.
To become an SR simply type storyrunner (name) and that will begin the
process. You do not lose your existing character when you do this, but they
will be automatically logged off once the storyrunner creation begins.
SRs automatically attempt to run the RP in any room they enter after a short
delay, but they can’t generally been seen moving around, they always appear
as spirits but their name is visible when looking at them.
SRs can travel around by using the SWalk command, which takes the same
arguments as taxi or travel but is instant and silent, and they can bring
players with them. They can also make areas in a location called mists,
which they can use to make rooms for any where they want, they can access
all their own rooms made in those areas even if made private. If they make
rooms status public other SRs will be able to use them also.
All staff are considered SRs and have all the same powers as they do,
players also are set to automatically trust staff, if you wish to turn this
off typing story off will set you as a character that staff doesn’t have
trust over, and will indicate you have no interest in staff run stories.
SRs earn karma from roleplaying and running rooms.
Players can attempt to contact available online SRs with the STalk command.
SRs, either player SRs or immortals are not obligated to SR anything if
they do not wish to, they are free to choose what RP they want to run. If
SRs don’t want to run things for you, it might be worth asking why and
working to fix those problems.
Storyidea Approval guide
In General: Storyideas must at least not directly contradict any of the game’s
lore. Storyideas should have some fairly clear outline of what is going to
happen and what their scope is. They should try to fit within the general theme
of paranormal horror.
Adventures/Quests: Adventures must take place outside of Haven and not impact
the grid or the players on the grid. They must be entirely opt-in, meaning that
players should never feel obligated to go on an adventure even if they
don’t want to. The characters should have a reasonable understanding of
the potential risks of going on any given adventure.
Other/Personal: On grid plots will generally only be approved if they’re
very low key and don’t have a lot of supernatural elements. They’ll also likely
not be approved if they involve a lot of heavy antagonism or there seems a
reasonable chance that other people will be sucked into the story despite their
OOC interests.
Backgrounds: Ideas that involve someone’s background will only be approved if
there’s nothing questionable about that background. Which generally means it
must be a pretty straight forward background, any elements of victimization
in the background or aggrandization or claims to special status or events are
likely to be grounds for having the idea turned down. Such backgrounds need
to support themselves based on the RP of the character and won’t be given
any staff stamp of approval through an associated approved plot.
Victimization: Ideas that involve significant victimization or directed
antagonism are unlikely to be approved.
Aggrandizement: Ideas that involve significant aggrandizement of the participants
are unlikely to be approved. That might mean that when they succeed some great
event occurs or that they’re chosen for the mission because of being super
special.
Tips:
*Very few Fae messing with people ideas get approved. Ideas that involved the
big three antagonists directly are treated carefully to begin with but most Fae
based plots are often either too silly or too heavily about victimization to be
approved.
*Ideas that seem to be sold by their importance, or impact instead of the
actual story usually get turned down. As a general tip you should try to
get people interested in your adventures by the quality of your storytelling
and writing, not by offering bigger rewards or more impactful events or
anything similar to your players than other SRs.
*Gods/Fae/Demons really care nothing about their human descendants. Ideas
based on my godly ancestor comes down to tell me I’m awesome etc are
unlikely to be approved.
*Ideas that would cause the secrecy of the supernatural world to be
compromised are unlikely to be approved.
*Ideas using existing lore, subfactions and territories are more likely
to be approved than those who make up new ones.
*In general the smaller the scale, the more human the antagonists and
the more morally complex, gritty, dirty and real the concept the more
likely it is to be approved.
lore. Storyideas should have some fairly clear outline of what is going to
happen and what their scope is. They should try to fit within the general theme
of paranormal horror.
Adventures/Quests: Adventures must take place outside of Haven and not impact
the grid or the players on the grid. They must be entirely opt-in, meaning that
players should never feel obligated to go on an adventure even if they
don’t want to. The characters should have a reasonable understanding of
the potential risks of going on any given adventure.
Other/Personal: On grid plots will generally only be approved if they’re
very low key and don’t have a lot of supernatural elements. They’ll also likely
not be approved if they involve a lot of heavy antagonism or there seems a
reasonable chance that other people will be sucked into the story despite their
OOC interests.
Backgrounds: Ideas that involve someone’s background will only be approved if
there’s nothing questionable about that background. Which generally means it
must be a pretty straight forward background, any elements of victimization
in the background or aggrandization or claims to special status or events are
likely to be grounds for having the idea turned down. Such backgrounds need
to support themselves based on the RP of the character and won’t be given
any staff stamp of approval through an associated approved plot.
Victimization: Ideas that involve significant victimization or directed
antagonism are unlikely to be approved.
Aggrandizement: Ideas that involve significant aggrandizement of the participants
are unlikely to be approved. That might mean that when they succeed some great
event occurs or that they’re chosen for the mission because of being super
special.
Tips:
*Very few Fae messing with people ideas get approved. Ideas that involved the
big three antagonists directly are treated carefully to begin with but most Fae
based plots are often either too silly or too heavily about victimization to be
approved.
*Ideas that seem to be sold by their importance, or impact instead of the
actual story usually get turned down. As a general tip you should try to
get people interested in your adventures by the quality of your storytelling
and writing, not by offering bigger rewards or more impactful events or
anything similar to your players than other SRs.
*Gods/Fae/Demons really care nothing about their human descendants. Ideas
based on my godly ancestor comes down to tell me I’m awesome etc are
unlikely to be approved.
*Ideas that would cause the secrecy of the supernatural world to be
compromised are unlikely to be approved.
*Ideas using existing lore, subfactions and territories are more likely
to be approved than those who make up new ones.
*In general the smaller the scale, the more human the antagonists and
the more morally complex, gritty, dirty and real the concept the more
likely it is to be approved.
Traveling Explained
Normal getting around is down through cardinal directions, typing north,
east, south, west, up, down, northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest. Or
n, e, s, w, u, d, ne, se, sw, nw.
Some rooms you may not be able to get into, such as air rooms if you can’t
super jump or fly, while others such as underwater rooms you’ll only be able
to stay in for a short time if you can’t breathe underwater.
To get around the town faster you can hail a taxi, drive a car or
motorcycle, or get in the town trolley. The town trolley is free to ride
and regularly stops at locations around town, just type board when it stops
near you, and disembark when it has arrived where you want to go.
To hail a taxi type taxi list to see all the intersections taxis stop at,
then taxi (number) to travel to one, this is fairly quick but you will have
to pay for the ride. Cars and motorcycles are used similarly but with the
commands drive (location) and ride (location) You can put the names of
passengers you wish to bring after the location such as drive 1 Bob Sue Jane
and as long as they are following you, they’ll come also.
If you want to move out of town you will need to use the travel command,
this can be used at the intersection nearest the bus depot in the
northwestern part of town. To see a list of rooms you can go to type
roomlist, and then travel (number) to go there. You can also use travel
car/motorcycle/plane (number) to use alternate methods to the bus, and bring
people with you by including their names afterwards in a list.
To make rooms outside the town for people to travel to you’ll use the
makeroom command.
Traveling by plane is necessary for leaving the continent and much faster
than other methods, but costs a fair bit.
You can type stall when using any sort of travel to pause where you are so
you can RP in your vehicle etc.
You can use follow (person) to follow someone around, follow self will stop
following.
east, south, west, up, down, northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest. Or
n, e, s, w, u, d, ne, se, sw, nw.
Some rooms you may not be able to get into, such as air rooms if you can’t
super jump or fly, while others such as underwater rooms you’ll only be able
to stay in for a short time if you can’t breathe underwater.
To get around the town faster you can hail a taxi, drive a car or
motorcycle, or get in the town trolley. The town trolley is free to ride
and regularly stops at locations around town, just type board when it stops
near you, and disembark when it has arrived where you want to go.
To hail a taxi type taxi list to see all the intersections taxis stop at,
then taxi (number) to travel to one, this is fairly quick but you will have
to pay for the ride. Cars and motorcycles are used similarly but with the
commands drive (location) and ride (location) You can put the names of
passengers you wish to bring after the location such as drive 1 Bob Sue Jane
and as long as they are following you, they’ll come also.
If you want to move out of town you will need to use the travel command,
this can be used at the intersection nearest the bus depot in the
northwestern part of town. To see a list of rooms you can go to type
roomlist, and then travel (number) to go there. You can also use travel
car/motorcycle/plane (number) to use alternate methods to the bus, and bring
people with you by including their names afterwards in a list.
To make rooms outside the town for people to travel to you’ll use the
makeroom command.
Traveling by plane is necessary for leaving the continent and much faster
than other methods, but costs a fair bit.
You can type stall when using any sort of travel to pause where you are so
you can RP in your vehicle etc.
You can use follow (person) to follow someone around, follow self will stop
following.
User Interface
Color
– Is used to turn the display of ANSI color on or off.
Width (number)
– Is used to set the number of characters wide that you would like your display to be.
Length (number)
– Is used to set the number of lines you’d like to display at once.
Default Length is 22 lines, default width is 80 characters.
– Is used to turn the display of ANSI color on or off.
Width (number)
– Is used to set the number of characters wide that you would like your display to be.
Length (number)
– Is used to set the number of lines you’d like to display at once.
Default Length is 22 lines, default width is 80 characters.