welcome
Welcome to Dystopia Rising: Arkansas!, but specifically welcome to our community of amazing people who get together once a month to create and experience a weekend long, immersive, post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. We can’t wait to meet you and help you find your type of fun at our events. We’re one of 20+ chapters all across the U.S. and thousands of us gather together at different times to tell stories, laugh, cry and explore all the things that go bump in the night.
we’re all making it up as we go - but together
Sometimes you have to goof off so that those heavy moments are even better due to the contrast. :)
All businesses have buzz-words, and we’re no different. We really like to talk about collaborative storytelling, where our writers, marshals and players all work together to tell stories we can all enjoy. So what does that mean?
It means we don’t have scripts for our events, the event organizers and writers will write out the basic outlines of the story but it only comes to life when the players engage with the story we’re telling.
We subscribe to the idea of 'Play to Lift’, and we hope you’ll join us!
community and people first
All Dystopia Rising chapters focus on the fact that the people, the players, are always more important than the characters, and the communities reflect that value. In Arkansas we have a saying, “We Are Because You Are”. If you think we’re awesome - we firmly believe that’s because your awesomeness is allowing us to show that quality. The community reflects the individuals and so the individuals reflect the community. It’s very circular, but essentially it means that we reflect the qualities we are shown.
Want to make the jump and join our community? Awesome!
We suggest following our Facebook Page, joining our Facebook Group, or our Discord Channel.
Other ways you can engage with us:
what we provide
A private, full weekend of interactive entertainment experience from Friday 9pm until Sunday Noon
A twin-sized bed in an enclosed cabin or tenting space if you prefer
Clean and accessible bathrooms and showers
Access to refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, and a standard home-style kitchen
A LARP safe weapon for you to borrow
A community focused on respect, consent, and compassion
what we ask of you
A costume, which can absolutely be as simple as some old clothes you own
A set of clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty for your 4 hour block of portraying casted characters
Bedding & Toiletries
Food for the weekend
Adherence to our Policies & Guidelines
An open mind and honest communication
ORIENTATION
Starting at 5pm every Friday we have a New Player Marshal (Sarah) who specifically dedicates their 4 hour block of casting activity to making sure New Players feel welcome and educated on how all of this works. You can choose to quit reading right now and when you show up they’ll make sure you know everything you need to have a good time. At 8:30 (after Opening Announcements) they’ll hold a 15-30 minute Question & Answer and refresher session before leading you out to your first experience of Dystopia Rising (also called the New Player mod).
OUr new Player Guides
Meet your new player guides! Curtis is dressed as his character, Mi’Tok. Kyle is portraying his character, Mick. Nyx is kitted up as his character, Grim. These folks will help you at the start of game to get acclimated to the system, rules, and setting.
Blue Armband System
New Player wearing Blue band!
The network also has a Blue Armband system that you can opt into. Wearing a blue bandanna will let other players know that you’re a new player and let them adjust accordingly. They’ll pull you into more fun shenanigans, explain things in more depth and offer you good deals to help your character get on their feet.
Everyone at Dystopia Rising: Arkansas wants you to have fun, wearing the blue bandanna just makes it easier for us to help you find that fun!
AND NOW….THE BASICS!
Economy Building Blocks: Gathering & Crafting
Dystopia Rising has a large in-game economy with currency, raw materials and crafted goods and specialized services. There are numerous ways to gather raw materials and then more ways to turn those raw materials into finished goods like armor, weapons, items, food, and drinks. No matter what you decide to focus on, everyone has the opportunity to learn how to defend themselves, so we encourage you to pick up gathering or crafting skills to flesh out your game-play experience. Dystopia Rising creates a living, breathing world and making sure you can interact with all the pieces will help you immerse yourself in it.
Combat: Whack-a-Friend-Portraying-an-Enemy
We utilize a lightest touch combat system with stylized, safety first, foam weapons and soft cloth, birdseed packet (or approved Nerf ammunition) projectiles. Each weapon will have its own damage value that you’ll say out loud when you swing the weapon or throw the packet. This allows the focus of combat to be simply tapping the individual you’re targeting. After all we don’t want to REALLY beat up our friends, just pretend to.
Mind Points & Skills: The Other Economy
Each character has a starting number of Mind Points and those are spent to fuel skills like healing people, avoiding a hit, gathering materials and crafting items. At Noon and Midnight a character’s mind points fully refresh. There are also brews and meals that can heal mind points back.
Hit Points, Armor & Dying: Die Loudly!
Each character also has a starting number of Health Points (Body) and if you receive damage (get hit) and are reduced to zero your character starts to die, but don’t worry they have five minutes to 'bleed out’ and yell for help. When a character is dying they can’t move or heal themselves, so be sure to yell for that help loudly! There are specific skills and items that can help heal your character and restore those health points. Armor works similarly to health points, but there’s a different skill to repair it back to full.
Death: I Shall Be Reborn!
If after five minutes of yelling for help no one has saved you, your character has died. Due to the Infection rating of characters, death typically isn’t the end of stories in Dystopia Rising. Instead you’ll come to the Logistics Building and check in with our Ops Marshal so they can prepare you for a death-scene, which is an intense and introspective scene with you and a small number of people that explains what happened to your body and character due to their death and rebirth. These scenes are often great sources of motivation for characters and make for great stories at our after-game-hang-outs!