Crime & Criminality in Season 8
Howdy Vados!
It’s Noah with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble about Criminal Influence and Criminal Content in Season 8! We’re doing things a little different for our Live Events and trying out something entirely new for our Virtual events. Please be aware this will contain information that is considered secret in-game, particularly in regards to the identities and cover stories of various criminal organizations. If you don’t play a character with Criminal Influence and don’t plan to, you can probably skip this blog post.
Notes & Updates:
TICKETS FOR OUR September event ARE ON SALE NOW!
Read about our recent changes for Season 8. TL;DR, our access to Bluebonnet has changed dramatically. It’s a challenging update, but we appreciate your support of our game and our community. Take a look!
Our EARLY BIRD promotion continues! If you purchase your ticket BEFORE September 4th you’ll receive a bonus XP for FREE! If you’ve already bought a ticket with additional XP, send us an email to info@dystopiarisingtx.com!
Like Trinkets? We’ve got Trinkets! Learn all about Raider Hunting and the potential to go home with a cool Raider Trophy!
Read all about our September Event. We’re kicking off the season with a bang. Learn what you’ll encounter and what you might prefer to avoid at our Season 8 Debut game From The Ashes.
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Lily-Jay Jones, Miranda Farmer, Heather Halstead, Noah Goodman, and Max Pohlmeier.
Crime In Dystopia Rising - A Brief Outline
In case you’re unfamiliar with “Crime” as a meta-concept in Dystopia Rising, it’s a bit more complicated than just breaking the law. Dystopia Rising features a skill called “Criminal Influence” which acts as the point of entry for organized criminal enterprises that exist across the wasteland. These criminal organizations come in two primary forms, The Black Market and Murder Incorporated. These are mutually-exclusive groups. While you can maintain membership in both, every step you take into one is a step you can’t take in the other.
The Black Market focuses on profit and personal gain. They are a rough conglomeration and loose alliances and groups with similar interests working in tandem. The Black Market features 3 sub categories referred to as “Pillars” which help delineate the play style of those involved. Vice and Violence focuses on partying, illicit substances, gambling, and violent acts namely Pit Fights. Social and Mental Control focuses on driving cultural change and rigging the system in their favor at a social and governmental level. The Dead Market looks to profit off selling the flesh and necrological materials harvested by the dead bodies of strains. You can find more details about The Black Market in the Dystopia Rising Book; Illicit Business.
Murder Incorporated is a guild of trained assassins that look to keep the world from falling into a second apocalypse. Their motto places them as working for “The Greater Good.” They are highly secretive, incredibly efficient, and utterly lethal. For anyone who has played The Elder Scrolls series you might notice similarities with the Dark Brotherhood Faction. Similar to The Black Market, Murder Incorporated is separated into 3 sub categories called “Families” to delineate the play style of those involved. The Adherents of Betrayal engage with the economy and look to take down large scale industries, preventing disaster through market manipulation. The Silenced Knell look to remove highly influential cults of personality without giving them the benefit of martyrdom, often staging assassinations to appear as accidents. The Watch of the Bone Chapel oversees the health of The Mortis, killing anyone who has learned too much or seeks to potentially create necrological disaster through experimentation or Mortis Tampering. You can find more details on Murder Incorporated in the Dystopia Rising Book; A Killer’s Mind.
“Crime” as a gameplay style is a specialized way of interacting with a game. Often criminals will host private meetings, go on curated modules, and have secondary objectives in relation to primary engagements. By purchasing the Criminal Influence skill, you are buying into a sub-group of your game’s in-character community and changing your relationship with effectively everyone.
Dystopia Rising Texas recommends against New Players taking Criminal Influence during character creation. Instead, talk with the New Player Storyteller about your interest in the “Crime Game” and we will set you on a path that will let your character naturally come into contact with your chosen side of Criminal Influence.
Criminal Factions of The San Saba
Criminal Organizations in Dystopia Rising intersect with the Local Society mechanics. You can find out more about the Local Societies of Dystopia Rising Texas here. You can find out information about Network Factions and the mechanics of societies in the book Social Creatures. Each Criminal Organization Sub-Faction has various potential societies you can join to gain official membership into that specific sub-faction. For example, if you want to be a member of "Vice and Violence” you must join a local society defined as part of Vice and Violence. This can be one of the societies listed in the book Illicit Business like Bedlam or the Executive Suite Club or a local society created by your own local chapter. For the sake of ensuring everybody at our game has access to the canon content of each major pillar of Black Market and Family of Murder Inc, we have at least one society from each present in our town.
If you already have a society membership for your chosen pillar/family, you do NOT need to join one of the listed societies below. If you are an engrained member of one of the pillars/families but do not have a society membership to reflect that, feel free to reach out and we will rectify this discrepancy. Ultimately, society membership is meant as a reflection of your character’s dedication to a given group that comes with a small handful of mechanical implications - such as access to related criminal items/procedures.
If you’re worried about getting locked out of content from a discrepancy between our local society and yours, that is not an issue. Any loyalty testing or content gates will be based on the over-arcing Pillar/Family and not the specific society. For example, you will still have access to all of the Vice and Violence content if you are a member of Bedlam, even though our dominant Vice and Violence society is The Executive Suite Club.
Black Market (Vice and Violence) - The Executive Suite Club (The High Rollers)
The group most known for hosting the Dead Man’s Hand Poker Tournament and including such notable members as Lady D’lux and Tabitha Saint Mercy. The High Rollers are famous for their sheer wealth and willingness to flaunt it. High stakes gambling of all kinds from cards to pit fights are not uncommon under the purview of these illustrious elites.
The High Rollers is effectively a fancy name for The Executive Suite Club featured in Illicit Business. Locals and participants likely know them by this moniker as they use it to obfuscate their criminal nature. Those in the know are aware of their true identity and partnership within the larger society.
Bedlam is also a close partner of The High Rollers, being key to the operations of the Pro Bravado Rodeo. Several key faces you might have seen working under The High Rollers are actually members of Bedlam.
With that in mind, those seeking to join Vice and Violence can pick either the Executive Suite Club or Bedlam. The former has more presence but Bedlam always has their thumb on the scale for anything you can bet on.
Black Market (Social and Mental Control) - The Merican Financial Institute (Brass Street Syndicate)
The flipside to Vice and Violence’s focus on gambling or rigged chance, Social and Mental Control focus on culture and extortion. The Brass Street Syndicate is a group also hailing from Essex with a handshake agreement alongside The High Rollers. These are your loan sharks and your protection racketeers. A cover name for The Merican Financial Institute as they ingratiate themselves to the people of The San Saba. The Brass Street Syndicate looks to control people not through chance but seemingly legitimate funding opportunities (with exorbitant interest rates of course).
If you are interested in controlling the moneyed interests of the town or waging cultural war through propaganda, this is the group for you. Anyone looking to join Social and Mental Control is invited to join The Merican Financial Institute by way of “your friends on Brass Street.”
Black Market (Dead Market) - Dead World Harvesters
With the Drowned Suns long gone, players were able to bring in their own choice of Dead Market faction. Through the hard work of a determined few, The Dead World Harvesters ultimately reigned supreme as the flesh peddlers and back alley necrologists of the San Saba region.
For those interested in working infection for profit or mangling necrological material for a good high, The Dead World Harvesters invite you to join The Dead Market as one of their own.
Murder Inc (All Familities) - Volstead Gang (Retiring)
For years, The Volstead Gang has been the face of Murder Incorporated in Bravado and the surrounding territory. As times change, so too do the faces worn by the boogeymen and shadow organizations. Specifics have yet to be determined and will be driven by player action this season.
All three (3) of the Murder Inc Families will be receiving changes of face. The Adherents of Betrayal are the actual family of The Volstead Gang but even they have the opportunity to change. Meanwhile, The Silenced Knell and The Watch of the Bone Chapel will be given opportunities to branch out from the Cover Family.
Nobody has to burn their cover story or abandon the Volstead name if they don’t want to. This is instead new opportunities for those interested. Murder Inc players can now choose their own name and face as their continue their shadowy work.
Crime Jobs & Meetings in Bravado (Live Events)
In the past, criminal influence often utilized NPC-led “Criminal Meetings” to disseminate important information and hook modules. This season we’re going with a subtler approach with a lighter touch from our story team. Key information will be provided at check-in before game and the Post Office upon request during game. Access to these folders will be locked behind the Criminal Influence skill and potential membership in a specific Pillar/Family. Players may still choose to meet with others in their given criminal organization but NPCs will not regularly call these meetings with immediate story provocation.
Modules and “Jobs” will also be changing. Historically, criminal content often took the form of bespoke modules done late at night that only allowed access by relevant criminal characters. This is not the case for Season 8. Goals from NPCs will be communicated via documents at check-in or The Post Office. These goals will mainly push characters to interact with pre-existing content in unique ways. Black Market might ask that you find rival merchants and run them out of town and Murder Inc might have you target specific NPCs for assassination while they go about other business in the play space.
In general, “Criminal Content” during Live events this season will focus on criminals operating within the same space as the rest of the game, pushing the game in specific directions, subtly or not so subtly, in line with the goals of their society and leadership NPCs. Each given Pillar/Family can expect a minimum of one (1) task every event, though these will range from big moves to research and development for plans later in the season.
Crime Jobs & Meetings in Essex (Virtual Events)
First of all, huge thank you to the folks over at Dystopia Rising: Connecticut for sharing with us their processes and documents that helped inspire and guide us in creating the content for our Virtual Games. Their unique approach to “Criminal Content” was of particular interest and we’re excited to do something similar.
If you’ve attended DR Virtual events before, you’re likely familiar with the criminal module. We will have various mods for sign up that will require Criminal Influence with either Black Market or Murder Inc reputation to sign up. Like any other module, these will be bottle-stories run by a Virtual Storyteller as you complete a request from one of the local criminal organizations. Moreso than your typical modules, these tend to be high risk with potential for infection loss or lasting consequences. So be careful signing up!
More unique to DR:CT was their secondary objectives. Players with Criminal Influence reputation in Black Market and/or Murder Inc will receive special communications detailing alternate goals within modules otherwise not marked for Criminal Influence. This might be ensuring a particular NPC lives or dies in a mod with either multiple endings or stated choice points. For those with dual membership, be careful, you might end up on a module that’s been marked by both sides for competing goals.
Criminal Meetings won’t happen in the same way they usually do at Live Events. Instead of large gatherings with mandated attendance or absolutely crucial information, we will have designated NPC time, clearly communicated to players ahead of game. One or more NPCs connected with a Criminal Organization will make an appearance in a particular Voice Channel, opening conversation to those that choose to engage. Most of the time these designated times will be in criminal only spaces but these same NPCs have the autonomy to appear wherever they like, including public voice channels.
Also keep your eyes peeled for various forms of passive content. Clues or secrets to be found and followed. These will range from small puzzles to lite ARG elements. The Criminal Underworld is full of code and jargon, so remember “Eyes Open, Mouth Shut.”
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We look forward to telling all kinds of Criminal Stories of intrigue and backstabbing. We hope you will join us either in Bravado (Live) or in Essex (Virtual) to explore the machinations of The Black Market and Murder Incorporated. Do you have what it takes to run a criminal empire? Can you execute a perfect assassination without leaving a trace?
Let’s find out together! See you soon, Survivors!
