Version 2 Changes

Following feedback from players, we have made significant changes to the game rules. We hope that these changes will remain in effect until the game ends; and we hope not to make many further changes in future.

We suggest players familiarise themselves with the rules as they now stand.

04/18/11 - You may search an unresisting character (for example, one who is incapacitated) with a few moments of obvious roleplay. You are not required to touch the other person during this search unless both of you are comfortable to do so. After this time, they should hand over any in-character items that they are carrying. Any phys-reps stolen in-character should be returned to the Admin hut as soon as possible, unless explicitly stated otherwise by the item's owner.

This change means it is possible to successfully loot goods from Paralysed characters.

04/18/11 - Please note that for game balance reasons we have made a change to Advantage - Meat - Meat larder. This advantage will now work as follows:

Advantage: Meat - Larder (1) Available to Badgers, Stoats, Water Rats, Hedgehogs, Moles. You own a well-stocked Larder. At your first game, you will be given 4 meat cards for each time you have taken this advantage. In addition, your character will receive 4 meat at the start of every game thereafter. This yield cannot be increased (for example by using skills, totems or Rabbit slaves). You will receive details of where this advantage is located. This advantage does not count as a building and you may still choose one building during character creation. In addition, you should expect to protect this highly valuable resource from outside influences who may wish to seize it from you.

These changes will come into affect starting from next game: if you already have a meat larder, you will receive 4 meat at the next event. This will be added to your inventory at the end of downtime, as usual. Returning players who wish to generate new characters with advantage: meat larder will do so under the new rules and receive 4 meat at character generation.

Rabbits can now no longer take Meat Larder as an advantage. Neither can Urban characters - Ferrets, Weasels and Toads. Characters already in possession of a meat larder should note that they will need to protect this valuable asset from now on.

26/10/10 - In consultation with our weapons checkers, we have increased the poundage requirement for Bows and Crossbows to 30lbs.

The Weapons Check Rules and new ranged weapon guidelines can be found on the Weapons Check Rules link in the left margin of this page.

04/10/10 - We have introduced a new call to the game:

You must fall to the floor, with your shoulders touching the ground, and remain there for 30 seconds.

• If you do not wish to fall over, then you must drop everything and crouch down for 30 seconds.
• You may take up to two steps away from the opponent who has struck you, to avoid having to fall over in unsafe or particularly wet areas.

While affected by a PARALYSE call, your character may neither move nor speak and you count as Incapacitated.

(Yes. We know it's a last minute addition. We're sorry.)

We will be emailing out a copy of your character's cultural brief to all players who book for the next event. New copies of the Cultural briefs will also be availiable on-site at Event 2.

(09-08-10) Claims: Most Cultural Introductions have had changes regarding “Claims” - see the section on “Claims” below.

Rabbits: The Rabbit Cultural Introduction and Extended Cultural brief has changed and new content has been added.

Badgers: We are aware that Badger characters are still severely overpowered. We have re-examined their flaws and added some new ones.

Stoats: We have changed the way that the Shaman's Staff special item works. This is explained further in the Extended Cultural Brief.

Stoats now have access to Craft Armour, for 2 points, as they always should have done.

Hedgehogs: We have made an addition to the Hedgehog Elder Lore Cultural Bonus: “In addition, with this elder lore, you can copy blueprints. It takes one month for a hedgehog with this Elder Lore to copy a blueprint.”

Hedgehogs can now also donate XP between two characters - the skill that was previously availiable to Badgers.

To balance the new merits Hedgehogs have aquired, we have also added the new Hedgehog flaw “Bulky” - it is now not possible for Hedgehogs to wear crafted Leather or Metal armour - Hedgehogs will begin each game with two points of natural armour, but they may not wear any crafted armour on top of this. They may wear partial and full fur as normal.

Moles: Information on Mole Tunnels added. We have added system rules concerning Mole Tunnels to the Cultural Introduction - Moles can dig tunnels in to the underground realm of the moles. These tunnels provide bonuses for many downtime actions. It takes 12 downtime weeks to dig a tunnel, this time can be reduced with the addition of Rabbit slaves.

Also, information added on Home-Under-Thames.

Weasels: New content regarding London and London Politics.

Toads: New content regarding London and Toad Society.

The way that Wild Wood Skills work has been changed a little, to balance their considerable power. Stoats and Badgers will now need to Meditate for 1 Downtime week for each Wild Wood Skill they wish to use at the next event, as well as meditating to gain the power to use them. We hope this will go some way to making Badgers skills and powers more balanced. Stoats, who have access to a lot of these powers, can overcome these hurdles by working closely within their tribe to decide how they are using their Power of ther Forest.

After some discussion, we have come to some decisions about Trade Tokens in the game:

- You are more than welcome to bring your own trade tokens. These personal trade tokens represent your own promise of trade and have no traditional value or political backing outside of what you can create in game.

- There are four types of trade tokens in the game that DO have some traditional value: Wild Wood Tokens, Coins, Mine Tokens and Postage stamps. You should not bring your own copies of these trade tokens to the game, despite what we may have said in the past. Bringing copies of these trade tokens would be considered cheating.

- It is possible to play a counterfeiter. If your character is attempting to counterfeit currency, you must speak with us before the event.

- We have changed the physreps for one of the currencies. Whereas previously, The Union traded in glass beads, it now uses a seperate metal currency.

This change-over will be dealt with in-character.

Biology: It is assumed that all characters age at a rate that is analogous to modern humans

Economy: More detail on trade tokens added, including political “backing” of the four main currencies: Wild Wood Tokens, Coins, Mine Tokens and Postage stamps. We have also included a table of suggested prices. Hopefully, making their worth clear should go some way to promoting the use of trade tokens between players.

Firearms - Clarification with regards to Rabbits and Firearms.

Steam Weapons: Clear rules added regarding Steam devices - if an item card has a red sticker on it, then it is Pressurised.

Armour Repair: Clarification regarding the repair times and roleplay requirements for the repair of armour.

Armour and Debilitated: New rules regarding Armour. Now, if your character has been debilitated, you may only gain 1 point of armour for the remainder of the event - your character has been too weakened to use armour effectively.

Totems: Wording changed to make it clearer who may use totems in uptime - only those who participated in planting the totem may use it.

Tech: Repair Tech - We have clarified how you will recognise a Broken Item and a Destroyed Item. Clarifications made on Broken and Destroyed tech and how one repairs Tech.

'Fear' - We are aware that the way the “Fear” call was worded left it open to a great deal of abuse. We have attempted to make it very clear how this call can and cannot be used. In addition, this call now only lasts 10 seconds duration.

'Resist Tech' - We are aware that the 'Resist Tech' call was poorly worded. Under the new wording of the rule, the effect now only lasts 10 seconds duration and must be made as a response to an initial Tech attack.

'Break Tech' and 'Destroy Tech' - We have clarified how these calls are used and what players must do in response to them.

Groups - Clarification on the permitted cultural make up of Group - a group may be formed of at least 3 characters from any culture, except Toads and Badgers, who are Solitary. With a few exceptions, only characters from the same culture as you can understand and make use of Claim markers.

23-08-10 : Scavenge - Now any character can perform this action and the “Scavenge” skill adds bonuses - which is how it was always meant to be, to be frank. The skill description now reads “During Downtime, you gain a bonus to the 'Scavenge' action in Urban areas. Scavenging takes a week and returns anything from spices to machine parts to luxuries and technology.”

Starting Items - We are aware that some starting items are not balanced - for example, a single musket versus a single sack of carrots. We have changed some of the numbers involved and some starting items will grant multiple items.

1. If you choose the starting item “Musket”, it will now take up both of your item slots: the second slot is a single charge of powder.
2. Increased “1 sack of coal” to “4 sacks”
3. Increased “1 sack of carrots” to “4 sacks”. This makes them equivalent to 1 month of food, and for that reason “Meat” will stay as “1 meat” (enough for one month) and not increase.
4. Increased “1 luxury item” to “2 luxury items”
5. Changed the physrep requirement for a “Simple crafted knife” from 'under 12” ' to 'under 18” ', to reflect the size of larp knives and their handles.
6. Increased Steam, Clockwork and Powder parts from “1 part” to “2 parts”. These are still very valuable items in-game.

Advantages: We are aware that Advantages are woefully underpowered, point for point.

Many advantages now cause the player to receive items at the start of each game as well as the initial amount at character creation. See the text of the Advantage for details.

“Rich”: In addition to the other benefits of this advantage, you may now choose a new free item at the beginning of each game. The list of items you can choose from is more limited than at character generation. This list is detailed in the text of the Advantage.

“Advantage: Carrots” has become “Advantage: Carrots - Allotment” and increased from 10 sacks to 16 sacks with a further 16 sacks at the start of each subsequent event. This is not a building and does not count towards your maximum of 1 building choice at character creation, but you will receive details of the area that the Allotment is located in. The yield cannot be increased by skills, totems or using slaves.

Similarly, “Advantage: Meat” has become “Advantage: Meat - Larder” (10 meat initially and 10 meat each event) and “Advantage Coal” is now “Advantage Coal - Coal Shed” (10 sacks of coal initially and 10 sacks each event).

- Increased “Advantage: Machine parts” from 2 parts to 3 - There is no per-game benefit to machine parts.

“Superior Weaponry” - The item “Arbalest” has changed to “Ballista”. The damage call you are able to do with a Ballista is “Quad Strikedown”. The phys-rep requires a stand or tripod.

Elder Lore: Burrow Council This Elder Lore now has an attached Lore Sheet. This should mean the players of Burrow Councillors have a clearer idea of how the Burrow Council is organised.

Elder Lore: Rites of Law The previous wording of this Elder Lore was open to abuse. We have changed the wording of this Elder Lore - Characters with this Elder Lore should bear in mind that they do not have carte blanche to act as sole judge, jury and executioner and there are severe in-character repercussions from the Burrow Council for characters who misuse their powers.

Blueprints: It is now possible to copy blueprints and reverse engineer blueprints from tech.

(09-08-10) Staking Claims The system of Claims is awkward for all concerned, and unnecessarily arbitrary. We've changed it to run a little more smoothly - now, almost any character can attempt to claim any Territory, regardless of Nature - there are many clear IC reasons why a claim application will be unsuccessul, however. We've attempted to clarify that “Claims” represents a legal process as well as a physical act of putting up signs.

- See the Downtime Rules for more details.

Hunting, Farming and Mining:

Approximate bonuses availiable to Farming, Mining and Hunting have been added to the Downtime Guide, in order to make it easier for players to predict the results of a downtime. Hopefully this will go some way to making Downtimes for these actions more transparent and to reassure players of the viability of these actions.

Trading, Raiding and Vehicles:

We're aware that the V1 downtime system for Trading, Raiding and Vehicles was poorly thought-out and overly complex, both for players and the crew who would have to process downtimes. Hopefully the system should work more smoothly.

Trading, Raiding and Guarding are now weekly actions. Vehicles give a variety of bonuses that will be detailed on the item card. It is impossible to acquire Coal, Carrots or Meat from a Trade or Raid action unless you use a vehicle or slaves, to carry the goods.

Factory: A Factory now produces 12 machine parts (of one type) per DT, increased from 6. It still requires 10 rabbit slaves, 60 sacks of coal and a full 4 months of Downtime to run.

Badgers characters are no longer able to donate XP to other characters, in order to teach skills. We decided that this was innapropriate, given the Badger flaws, so we have changed this as part of our downgrade of Badger characters.

The bonus they had (whereby they can donate XP to two characters rather than only one) has been given to Hedgehogs instead, for whom it is much more appropriate.

DT Guide - From Event 2, the meat of NPC Slaves will only feed a character for 2 DT weeks. Meat obtained from player characters will feed another character for significantly more. This is explained further in the rules, but can be summarised thus:

This has been changed in order to promote PvP conflict.

The In-Character justification for this is the varying types of proteins in the flesh. This justification has wider in-character implications for the game that have been adopted by the Plot writers.

Q: 'Your system is broken! One Rabbit cannot feed itself!'

Answer a)

The system isn’t broken so much as savage. It’s supposed to be.

Life post-Knifewinter is cruel, particularly following the recent harsh months of Winter. The People are scratching a living from the earth, not living in a bounteous paradise.

That said, most farms will be built on Claimed land, operating with one or two buffs and the Downtime following the Harvest Festival is usually more productive than the one following the Spring Fayre.

Answer b)

There’s no such thing as one Rabbit. Without claims, buffs or skills, one Rabbit cannot feed itself, but ten rabbits can feed eight and there are always more Rabbits to replace those that starve – in this abstraction, new rabbit slaves will arrive after food has been distributed. Indeed, it’s entirely possible for a particularly mercenary farm-owner to work their Rabbit slaves to death, sell the carrots and buy More Rabbits to replace those that have starved.

(There will be clear IC consequences for taking such unpleasant action, however.)

Life is cheap, particularly if you’re a Rabbit.

Q: 'How does Winter work?'

A: Well. We originally had it working one way, but we changed our minds. It's explained more clearly in the Downtime Guide.

Winter is a period of time in which all the normal food requirements apply, but during which players are unable to take any action – for example, no farming is possible, or trading. Characters and Slaves still require 4 months worth of food (4 Meat or 16 Sacks of Carrots) to survive Winter without suffering damage. Groups should be stockpiling food ready for the Winter.

In addition, characters require furs or coal to keep themselves and their slaves warm over winter.

These requirements are explained further in the Downtime Guide.