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VR Game Rules


These rules apply to both the Avatars and the Gloaming virtual worlds unless otherwise stipulated.

IC and OOC


NPCs will try not to interrupt PCs who are conducting OOC conversation with one another, unless it is dragging on. They will pretend they are not seeing OOC behavior and conduct, and wait politely until the PCs address them once again. This relieves NPCs of the need to comment on or learn about sports, pop culture figures, and the like.

PVP


The world of Avatars is strongly inclined towards PVE (player versus environment) rather than PVP (player versus player). While players can duel for fun, it will not be to the death, and NPCs will emphasize that the real struggle is pushing back the forces of the Endless Night.

The Gloaming is primarily PVP. Players join one of various Factions and fight for either the Sun or the Moon. There are safehouses where they can be assured other factions cannot come in without invitation; while in a different faction's safehouse, guests are forbidden from taking hostile actions. A variety of treaties also provide protection from PVP in neutral meeting grounds, and "newbies" are safe from PVP until they officially take up arms for a chosen Faction.

Note that one is not necessarily "flagged" for PVP at all times. A player who wishes to just look around can opt to turn their PVP flag off while in a safehouse. This manifests as a blue aura that only they and other players can see. However, being near a Place of Power while a battle for control is taking place, or attacking a player who is PVP-flagged will cause them to become flagged for PVP as well, losing the blue aura.

Logging In and Out


To maintain plausible reality, your PC will temporarily be animated by an AI routine if you disconnect, who will go through the motions of whatever you were doing. If you're gone for an extended period, the AI routine will "put you away", taking you somewhere safe and out of sight of other PCs, such as your cabin on a ship or an anonymous alley in the city.

Logging in is the same way - if your disconnect was short, you'll be back where you left off, but if you're coming back after a good night's sleep, you'll find your PC emerging from some shadowy alley into daylight.

Time and Travel


Time is flexible in VR game worlds - in Avatars, necessarily so because of the great distance that needs to be traveled to get from one shard to another. When you need to get somewhere far away, time will speed up when you are in the boring part of the trip. You can always pause to investigate something you've just seen, but otherwise it's possible to travel for "days" while your friend elsewhere is just having lunch.

As a corollary, VR NPCs will rarely if ever refer to calendar dates or specific times. If you're expected to deliver something to someone, it needs to be there "soon" and you'll rarely fail the mission unless you deliberately dawdle. If time is actually of the essence, it will be based on subjective time passing for you, and the clock will stop if you have to log out for some reason.

Powergaming


If you have Knowledge: Powergaming (Smarts) then some extra options will open up for you:

Recharging Power Points


For all VR characters, you (or your Avatar, for Avatar Links) may attempt to draw on your inner strength to gain extra power. You don't have to run out of power in order to do so.

To do so, roll Spirit against a target of 4. If successful, you gain 5 power points, but your target number increases by 1 for the next time you want to recharge, and resets only when you are in Recovery Time. Each Raise grants an additional 5 power points. If you fail however, you take one Fatigue level and your power pool is reset to 0 points. (cue Pac-Man death noise) If you Botch, you are also Shaken and cannot try again for 2d4 rounds.

This action takes a round. You can attempt to perform an action immediately upon getting energy if you specify you are doing so, and pay the -2 multi-action penalty.

Death


All VR PCs are treated as if they have the Harder to Kill Edge at 100% chance to avoid death.

In Avatars, such characters will most often be mistaken as dead. They will be found later by wandering NPCs who may, depending on the surroundings, be helpful and bring the player back someplace safe, or be mischievous or even evil and hold the player for ransom or impending torture and interrogation by hostile forces. At some point an escape will always be offered from such a "deathtrap" situation. Half the fun, for "frequent deathers", is figuring out what the escape will be.

The Gloaming allows players to perform emergency escapes. Just as their character is about to perish, they invoke some last bit of energy and slip away through a self-only portal into the void between worlds. There, they drift for what seems like an eternity (but is actually only a few minutes) and reappear in a random location, gravely wounded but at least alive and safe from their enemies... For the moment.

If PCs really want to commit suicide, at some point they will succeed and be ejected from the game; they would then have to create a new character to re-enter. However, it has to be pretty clear to the game that the player will accept no alternative.
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