Howdy Wastelanders!
And welcome to the next segment of Pro-Tip Thursday. As you may have already noticed, I’m on a little vacation for the entire month of June. But I’ve left you in more than capable hands. Be nice. :) Alrighty, our topic today is an easy one - Local Rulings & Policies!
Even though we have a core rule book that outlines all the rules on a national level, they (being nationals) have given us the luxury of adjusting current rules or adding rules on a local level. What does that mean? While I’m at a game in Arkansas, if someone throws a combat based skill at my Iron character, I can respond with “Immune; Evolved, upsurge 10 armor!” However, when I go visit my friends up in Indiana, that call does not exist. Make sense?
At DR: Arkansas, we have a litany of local rulings. Let’s go through some of them. When you go to dystopiarisingar.com, you’ll see the beautiful banner at the top of the page. One of the titles is “Local Mechanics”. When you click on it, the drop down menu shows a wide variety of topics like, financial institution buy lists, lineage advantages, local blueprints, and so much more. When you have a little bit of free time, I highly recommend clicking through and getting familiar with the various local mechanics we have available.
I’d like to draw attention to the topic “Local Policies”. This is where our Experience Design team makes calls that are influenced by the national rules of the game and more common to encounter. For example, armor coverage. Per nationals, in order to represent master armor your armor physical rep needs to cover 80% of your body. Here in Arkansas, we have hot and humid weather that makes games a little rough. Instead of adhering to those rules, we have a different set that we follow to ensure player safety. Our local armor coverage requirements are 1.5% coverage per point of armor.
So if you have a basic set of armor, you have 10 points of armor. Therefore, you should have 15% coverage to represent basic armor. Proficient armor is 15 points so 23%, and so on. It’s incredibly handy to have! But when you go visit other games, ensure you know what their rules are for armor coverage. Despite the fact that you have carded master armor, come from the south and have 30% coverage for Arkansas standards, does not mean you have the same at another game.
We have that and more! I highly recommend checking out the “Local Policies” aspect on our website. There’s a lot of very clarifying points made on rules, how certain calls are made, even on our augments.
Alrighty, I’ve given you enough homework while I’m not even present. Let us know - what’s your favorite local mechanic you use?
Stay safe in the wastes, friends!