Dark Reign Chronicles Gamer Code of Conduct:
Reality Doesn’t Bite:
At all times, keep in mind that Dark Reign Chronicles is only a form of entertainment; things that exist or happen within the game are not real. If you are having trouble distinguishing between the game and reality, you need to take a break. If you are having trouble controlling your temper because of a game, you need to take a break. If you can’t do this on your own, the DRC staff will be glad to help you.
Vampires, werewolves, and other creatures of the night are not real. If this is somehow a question for you, please seek medical attention.
Be Excellent to One Another:
Keep things polite and kind. It is just that simple. Be polite even if you don’t like the other guy. It makes everyone else more comfortable and smoothes out most situations. Rude behavior just makes things more stressful for everyone else. We’re not expecting perfect robots. Everyone cracks eventually. Just apologize and move on. It makes the game better for all of us.
Keep the Crazy At Home:
In a large group, the odds of everyone getting along are slim to none. That’s actually ok. We’re all adults. Keep it at home. We don’t care if you and Bubba have a long standing feud over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles killing off Splinter. We just don’t care and we don’t want to care. Keep your personal conflicts away from game.
Don’t Be That Guy:
Dark Reign Chronicles is run by a staff of volunteers. We put in a lot of hours to deliver an awesome game. We do this because we love seeing the stories. It is the players that make this task either a labor of love or a major pain in the ass.
To keep the storyteller’s sane, we have the following rules.
- Keep current copies of your character sheet on hand for any scenes. If you have access to something wacky on your character sheet, keep a photocopy of the rules for that discipline with your character sheet. If the subject comes up during a scene, the storyteller will appreciate you have a copy of that discipline, ritual, or thaumaturgy path. There are several thousand pages of rules about Vampire: the Masquerade and we have lives and don’t want to memorize everything.
- Do not rules-lawyer the storytellers during scenes. Storytellers have the power and authority to circumvent the rules during for the purpose of story. If the storyteller at the scene doesn’t feel that the encumbrance rules matter for this scene, then they will make an on the spot rules call to ignore those rules for this scene. Rules-lawyering turns a simple combat scene into an all-night mess that leaves everyone angry, tired, and VERY annoyed.
- Do not argue with the storyteller during a scene. Combats can be stressful. Arguing with your fellow players and storytellers makes such scenes annoying and then turns combats into who can argue their point the most. It is permissible to raise your hand and bring up a point when the storyteller calls on you. If the storyteller rejects your point or makes ruling, you may NOT argue your case until AFTER the scene. Players will be given two warnings for excessive arguing. On the third instance, the player will be ejected from the scene and his player will be handled by a storyteller. Pick your battles wisely.
- Don’t be an excessive drain on the storytellers. Every character is a star in their unique World of Darkness story. Please remember that other players want their scenes as well and that the storytellers are a common resource. Storytellers are not on call 24 hours a day. If you want to discuss something with a storyteller outside of game, ask them first.
- If you have something with an ooc mechanical effect, it needs to be on a card. If need be, make the card and bring it to the storytellers. If you are spending blood before a scene, it needs to be written down on a card and signed by the storyteller.
Don’t Cross the Streams: Or One Story Ends and Another Begins
Remember that scene in Ghostbusters when they couldn’t cross the streams of their proton packs or the universe will end? The same danger exists when creating a replacement character in an LARP.
You might have played Nick the Ninja for a year and you loved that character. Nick had all sorts of wonderful stories and you had excellent plans.
If Nick gets taken out by Pete the Pirate, it is time for another story to begin. Your new character should have nothing to do with Pirates. Your new character should avoid any sort of Pirate and Ninja feud.
Why is this important? If you don’t create this sort of boundary, it kills LARPs. Yes, I am serious. This actually kills the fun in games. This is the Death Star blowing up your LARP.
Does it really matter if your new brujah rapper has a hatred of Pirates? Yes.
IC conflicts can turn into OOC conflicts, especially after the conflict becomes generational. If your new character Ned the Ninja takes up the fight against Pete the Pirate, it becomes more of a player versus player than a character versus character conflict.
Make new in-character allies with your new character. You should consider making alliances with your former IC enemies. Spread the RP love around.
Frienemies make the Game Fun
The best IC enemy is an OOC friend. We like to play HALO against our friends. We play against them in Monopoly. Why not a LARP?
Avoid teaming up with your best friends every time. It is ok to plot against your friends. They will thank you for it.
