Dystopia Rising New York (DRNY) says that we’re a survival horror larp - but what does that mean? A lot of other larps also say that and some of them are pretty different from us. Rather than offer an academic definition, we want to tell you what you can expect from our survival horror game.
You may be a badass, but they are legion
Heroes in survival horror range from the person in the “wrong place, wrong time” to grizzled zombie killers. As you gain build in Dystopia Rising you will transition inevitably from the former to the latter. However, while all protagonists have the ability to overcome the first zed they encounter, the challenge is never the big, bad enemies who can beat you up… it’s that there are so many of them. Your goal is to survive (hence the name, “survival horror”), not vanquish.
The choice you make now will bite you later
The most important element of our brand of survival horror is that if you use resources right now, you won’t have them later. We want you to have cool stuff to help you survive. We want you to use it and rely on it… and then we want you to run out.
Expect constant attrition
We don’t want the first zombie to get you. Or the second. Or the tank. Or the big scary enemy in the woods. This is a game of attrition - we wear your character down throughout the weekend with our legion enemies and your dwindling resources. We don’t want to challenge you with an enemy with huge stats - we want you to win, and win, and win… until you just can’t anymore.
It’s the one you’re not expecting that gets you
DRNY is not a game about big, bad monsters. We have those, but that’s to offer memorable challenges and spectacles. Really, the threat lies in the “normal” monsters we send out late at night, or after large battles, or that you encounter randomly. We want to make the choice to use the last of your resources, a desperate one. You never know when you'll run into unexpected danger.
It’s about what you don’t see, until you see it
We like to send out challenges that hide in the dark, or make noises, or stalk you from afar. Part of survival horror is looking over your shoulder, because you know you’re going to get tired, and something is going to come after you at just the wrong moment.
How might this work for you, the player? Let’s say you have the Mercenary ability that lets you drop a tank in one hit. In other games, you might expect to use it to kill a powerful undead threat, and end the fight. In DRNY, we want to create situations where you need to use it right now… where you’re surrounded by shamblers and fighting a tank and you need to get rid of one threat to deal with the others. Individually, neither the tank or the shamblers are a threat, but together, something has to give. Of course, now your character is tired, and needs to figure out how to prevent that situation from happening again… and here comes another tank.