Action Cycle
Various types of Game Effects and abilities involve the use of “Off-Screen” effort, such as lengthy or tedious tasks, or those that are troublesome to represent in the game space, but are still an important part of a character’s capabilities and efforts. These are represented by taking Actions. Actions are efforts taken by a character that happen through interaction with the Event’s Logistics Staff. These actions may include efforts such as crafting items, doing research, making brief contact with off-screen characters, and other such events.
Even though your character may be actively engaged with various activities in the play space, Actions represent a pseudo-time spent otherwise elsewhere, and while it isn’t intended to bear up to close scrutiny In-Character, allowing for logistical time to be spent by characters doing things that may not be fun to play “On-Screen” allows play to focus on more dramatic events.
A weekend Event has three Action Cycles:
- From Game-on to 7am Saturday Morning
- From 7am Saturday Morning to 5pm Saturday Evening
- From 5pm Saturday Evening to 9am Saturday Morning
The specific start and end times of each Action Cycle will be posted at Logistics, including any applicable submission cut-off times.
One Cycle is a window during which Actions can be received and processed. Unless otherwise noted, submissions are processed during that window and then made available in bulk at the very end of the Cycle. The outputs of Action Cycles are not available beforehand.
Each character may only submit one Action per Cycle, and players may not expend Actions related to past or future Action Cycles, even if they didn’t submit anything for those. Actions are only accepted and processed during the current Action Cycle of the moment.
Actions are granted by specific Skills or other abilities, and the specifics are noted in each applicable ability. Only specific Actions that are available to a character may be used. For example, a character with no Crafting Skills may not submit a Crafting Action – the ability to do so is unlocked in those Skills.
Some Actions have additional restrictions, such as only being allowed once per Event. Once an Action has been submitted they cannot be revoked or reversed, though some actions – such as Crafting Actions – can accept more orders to be processed in addition to what has already been submitted. For example, a Blacksmith submits an order to create a sword, and then later in the same Cycle submits an order to create a shield. So long as the Blacksmith can still submit the resources required, the addition can be accepted.
Tasks
Most notifications and non-time-sensitive requests for Staff can be submitted as Tasks.
- Refining gathered materials
- Stewardship increasing Bounty.
- Submitting a Feast tag to be recorded for your character.
- Notifying of a change in a character’s Depravity
Detailed Logistics
The rules describe the structure of the action cycle. To help get an idea of how this will work in practice, here are the expected physical details. Note that these are implementation details, not rules, and are subject to revision as we find the best way to handle logistics.
Logistics will have available forms for standard activities and envelopes that can be labeled. Players will fill out forms and place them (along with relevant tags/tokens) into envelopes, label with their PC name, and drop them into an “inbox”. They will pick up results from similar envelopes in an “outbox”. Note that both inbox and outbox are out-of-game and are not valid targets for theft or any other ability.
Depending on staff time and availability, some results may be available earlier than the end of the cycle, but this is never guaranteed. Exact times for each cycle will depend on event hours, and should be posted outside Logistics each event.
Each Task and Action can only benefit from a single Tool.
