Game 4.6, the season finale, is only one week away as of today! Please register and pay so we have a good idea of who will be there. If you have a new character get them into the CGs so they have have a chance time to work with you on them in time for game, at this time complicated characters may not get approved.

Camp will be providing most of the food this game but we need all your help keeping dishes clean and have the kitchen ready for the camp's cooking staff. You can earn XP doing this so please sign up for a shift cleaning the kitchen and dishes mid game. viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3370

Along the lines of the camp cooking food the XO's need an alergy and food restriction list from you if there is something the camp should be careful of. Please PM the XO group ASAP. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3369

Register and pay here https://darkprospects.us/Register and remember if you pay an XO in person with cash or check you will receive a $1.00 discount. Also today is the last to pay at the discounted rate of $36 on April 28th the rate will be $41.

Pre-check in at https://darkprospects.us/Characters/check-in/ Pre-check in will allow you to get into game faster by quickly picking up you packet, tags, and in game money already set aside for you. It will also make things MUCH easier on the Check-in Staff.

If you have any characters that still need to be processed, you can talk to your character guides at [email protected] and fill out your character sheet at https://darkprospects.us/Characters/builder/ . Not sure what to send them? See this forum post: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=402 .

Important Links:

Registration: https://darkprospects.us/Register

Pre-Check in: https://darkprospects.us/Characters/check-in/

Online Character Sheet: https://darkprospects.us/Characters/builder/

New Character Questionnaire: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=402

Prospectors! We have received word from the Camp that on the Sunday of our game, we are likely to have some folks who are running in a marathon who may end up using part of the site. Specifically they may use the parking, bathrooms up by the pool, and the lodge (and bathrooms near there.)

We may also need to do some unusual things with parking - but I won't really know more until we get onsite.

However, in appreciation for our flexibility, the Camp has decided to give us a gift!

The camp will be providing meals to our group, starting with lunch on Saturday. That means lunch and dinner on Saturday, as well as breakfast and lunch on Sunday.

As part of that, I need a list of any food alergies anyone may have that I can present to the camp. Please PM the XO group if you have any alergies we need to be aware of.

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me or post here.

Hey folks,

Here are the vote awards for last game.

17 players cast their vote.

Top Choice:

• Lindsay
• Alex Kurtz
• Ralph

Off-the-rails:

• Alex Kurtz
• Max B
• Candice

Most heart felt:

• Aidan
• Max B
• David Knoppel

Best costume element:

• Alex Kurtz
• Lindsay
• Lauren Skinner

Best supporting character:

• Patricia
• Peter McMahon
• Tina

Non-Staff Game Support:

• Peter S
• Lauren Skinner

Our next awards list will be:

Top Choice

Most Death-Defying!

Most Touching Moment

Best Improvised Conversation

Best Schemer

Non-Staff Game Support

Prospects Players,

As usual, we have some npc slots we would like to fill in advance.

Saturday after the moot (report to st camp at 3pm) - we need 2-4 combat npcs.

Saturday night (report to St camp at 8pm.) 5+ npcs, we will have both combat and roleplay needs.

If you played an NPC is the food plot last game, please contact us so we can schedule your return.

Please note: The town hall will be massively veil unsafe from ~9pm until about midnight. Players will be welcome inside any time to eat, but the space will be co-locating with an umbral realm and probably full of combat. Then again, most of town will probably be full of combat during that time anyway.

Should you have a Patron listed on your sheet?

Are you a kinfolk or shifter of any sort? If so, you SHOULD have a patron listed.... but I wonder... do you?

When going through the sheets recently, I noticed MANY shifter and kinfolk characters with no listed patrons. Please check your sheets and send me a pm if you need me to add a patron for you (yes, I realize you can do it yourself - but as I'm trying to do an audit of such things please let me know too!)

Are you in a pack?

Here in Dark Prospects, it's possible to do a ritual with pc pack members and a pc spirit to form a pack - which is awesome! It should also be reflected on your sheet. If you are in a pack - one that was created through a ritual, your patron on your sheet should be changed to list your pack spirit as your current patron. As CGs don't always know when a pack has been formed, or who they are bound to - we need players to let us know that a patron change needs to happen on your sheet.

ALSO - if a pack has formed, and you have the totem background - please include in your pm what benefits you are gaining from your new patron. And Spirits, please include what gifts your pack's power is giving you - these are not floating benefits and need to be recorded on your sheet.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR HELPING OUT WITH GETTING US UP TO DATE AND CURRENT WITH PATRONS!

Players of Dark Prospects,

I want to make it clear how much we need additional Storytellers. A good number of storytellers is 5. A reasonable number of storytellers is 4. A barely acceptable number of storytellers is 3. A desperately low and burnout inducing number of storytellers is 2.

We have been running at burnout levels of storytellers for years, and it taking a toll. Even if everyone expressing interest in storytelling ends up on the team we will have 2 full time and 2 part time STs (and part time st is still a position that hasn't been tested.)

If we get three full time storytellers and additional help (either a 4th full time at, or at least one part time ST or consistent guest plot submissions) then we will be at sustainable levels of staff.

And here is the ultimatum:

If we have not reached sustainable staff levels by the middle of season 5, I will take a break for (at minimum) the second half of season 5.

If we do reach sustainable levels I think I will be good to go for a nice long time taking just the breaks built into a team that size (aka 1 or 2 games off a season. Ps, that would means that if we get enough staff you can st AND play)

So please, please, if you have ever considered joining the storyteller team, put in an application. Even of you only storytell for a year, we need you.

Desperately,

Chris

Prospects players,

It looks like there will be a big meeting at the caern that may occupy a big part of the pc population as well as both storytellers. We would like to avoid leaving the rest of the game abandoned without content to engage with while so many people and both storytellers are occupied.

This is why we are actively soliciting guest plot to be run during that time. Do you have an idea that could help fill this gap? If so, please let us know.

Hey you, yeah, you!

The Dark Prospects team is looking for a group of storytellers to move into an active role guiding the players and story of Dark Prospects. Justin, our head Storyteller, mentioned that he needs to take a break from the role in order to refresh and reset his capabilities, and that means we need people to join our team.

We know that a lot of players, especially those who haven't tried Storytelling before, lack confidence in their ability to storytell. We encourage you to apply regardless. Our team will be glad to help train you and in all likelihood, you're already better than you think you are!

Well, what do you get for being storyteller currently?

• 9XP per game
• No cost to attend
• The ability to change lives (mostly fictitious ones, but there is often significant player impact by the stories told)
• Creative flexibility
• The adoration of players
• A chance to tell YOUR stories.

If it sounds like a lot of fun to expand stories throughout the Dark Prospects world, create villains and allies, work to maintain the living world that is Dark Prospects, build people to interact with, be part of a pretty awesome team of intense gamers, and maybe even torment a few PCs from time to time, you should send a message our way.

What we'd like to see

• A creative mind
• Stories to tell
• At least some familiarity with White Wolf's World of Darkness
• A feel for our game's setting (1850s-1860s), as well as the general feel of the Western genre
• The ability to work in a team with other creative individuals to create a cohesive story.

Send a PM (Private Message) to the Storytellers group with the following:

• Who are you?
• Do you have Storytelling experience? If so, what kind? (It's totally okay not to have any ST experience!)
• Why are you interested in joining the team?
• What kind of plots are you most interested in running?
• Provide an example of a plot (small or large) that you'd like to see run - you do not need to flesh this plot out in whole, but provide an idea of a situation, any NPCs involved, and what you'd like to see players take from that story.
• Is there anything else the team should know?

The Storyteller and Executive Officer teams are working together to create additional policies to help improve your experience as a Storyteller as well. Our most recent discussion revolved around providing STs the chance to act as players a few times per season to allow them to refresh and experience the game from a player perspective more often. This type of plan requires at least 3 (preferably 4 or more) storytellers in order to be viable. We're excited to hear ideas from current and prospective Storytellers as to how we can continue to improve their experience and make it easier to maintain their positions on staff.

The rules team continues to try to make the game a better place to play. A member of our team is intending to step down in the near future, and we're looking to bring another member to the team to continue to make the system cleaner, help find solutions and identify issues, as well as be involved in shaping the direction of the tools and mechanics that we use to interact with the world.

What We're Looking For

• Mechanically minded.
• Looking to have an impact on the game's systemic direction (not the same as the story)
• Able to leave your own character at the door in rules discussions and see the game from a much wider perspective.
• Some understanding of the current balancing mechanisms in place between each of the supernatural/mortal games.
• A desire to help make the game both accessible and at the same time retain the characteristics that make the source material unique.
• The desire to make Dark Prospects better for everyone.
• Lots of ideas!

If you're interested, please send a PM to the Rules Team (Staff). Include:

• Who are you?
• What experience do you have with rules work (if any. I built the current system without much foreknowledge of LARP rules)?
• Why are you interested in working on the rules?
• Do you have experience with any of our primary tools? (php, phpbb, mediawiki, excel/libreoffice calc/google sheets, google docs, etc. I don't expect anyone to know all of the tools inside and out!)
• Provide an example of a systemic or mechanical improvement you would like to see implemented.
• Is there anything else we should know?

If you have already submitted a rules team application in the past, please let us know if you would still like to join the team. Feel free to include an updated version of the list above if you would like, but you can also just let us know you'd like to use the original.

We've got some great news for new and prospective players at Dark Prospects (as well as people who haven't been around since early games). As a new and ongoing feature, there will be a minimum amount of XP applied to accounts. This XP dynamically increases with each game at a rate of 1 per game and 1 per season. As of game 4.4, that will be 23 XP. If the total amount of earned XP on your account is less than that value, you will be brought up to that value. The registration system will automatically apply this amount going forward. If you've already registered, I'll be manually settally setting the value for the coming session - sorry for the inconvenience. This will apply to all new players as well - if you're just now joining our game, you'll come in with this bonus for your first session and can spend it as you'd like (including on character creation).

We're also applying this benefit back to season 3, episode 1. If you started at or after 3.1 you will receive an XP boost equal to that you would have gotten on the game you started at. (if you started at 3.1, you'll see a sudden boost of 13XP on your account) I will be applying this XP boost manually and updating this post when completed.