Avishraa Reloaded

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====== A Player's Guide to Avishraa: Tone and Mechanics ======
===== Mechanics =====
The native format of the roleplaying in Avishraa is freeform and dominated by the narrative. There are no dice, no cards, no stats, no XP or levels; a few general rules but no developed ruleset by which play has to be conducted. Mostly the game is informal, and, importantly, it runs on //trust//. When acting in the DM role, I must trust that a player is genuinely trying to play in the spirit of the setting, to achieve a story alongside other players, and to develop their characters - for good or ill - as people, rather than collections of skills and powers. On the player's part, they should be able to trust that I will gently warn players when doing something unreasonable, that I will treat honest mistakes leniently, and that I will be willing to work with them if they want to do something unusual - especially if the results are interesting, awesome, or amusing.

(I am also considering porting Avishraa to a more structured RPG system, so long as it's one that tends toward [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Fluff|fluff/lore]] over [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Crunch|crunch/mechanics]] - possibly something like [[https://fate-srd.com/|Fate]] or a variant of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_by_the_Apocalypse|Powered by]] [[https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2016/12/14/level-one-wonk-a-novices-guide-to-powered-by-the-apocalypse/|the Apocalypse]] or even [[https://www.perilplanet.com/freeform-universal/|Freeform Universal]]. But it's definitely a project for the longer term.)

The order of posting will generally not be rigidly set; as DM I typically start a session and whoever goes next will be determined by the nature of events. Once an order emerges, participants will typically repeat that order unless there is a reason to change it.

Note that the characters I play tend to straddle the line between [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_character|PCs]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-player_character|NPCs]], though some will be more like one than the other. Partly this is an artifact of being a freeform game - with no actual game mechanics, the DM has less of a separate role to play in the group dynamic - but also because I'm in this to roleplay too.

===== Tone =====
Be advised that the //overall// tone of the Avishraa setting might be described as verging [[https://www.worldanvil.com/w/brad-icastbolt/a/tone-26-setting-alignment-article|graycore verging on the adjacent grimmer and darker tones]], though it can vary somewhat depending on where you are and what you're doing. In other words, the world is not an entirely crapsack place, but it has many flaws and many dangers, and many of those are not only //not// able to be vanquished by some band of noble heroes killing the [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Big_Bad_Evil_Guy|BBEG]], but would require the mass action of an entire society to address - or in extreme cases, are built into the nature of reality itself.

In Avishraa, the biggest enemies of all are the //circumstances//, and what your characters will be doing most often is dealing with them - by desperate struggle, or escape, or just trying to find a safe space. The threats you can vanquish will usually only be expressions of much bigger problems. And, while it's not out of the question that you'll have an opportunity to change the world, whether you'll have any say in //how// it changes is another matter entirely.

===== Content =====
You can think of this setting as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system#R-rated|R-rated]]. Generally speaking, sexual themes and violence may certainly occur, but detailed descriptions of sex or gore should not (I'm likely to be a bit softer about violence than sex - an American bias, perhaps). Forms of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_horror|body horror]] may occur, but again, generally the idea is to be unnerving or disturbing in the idea rather than squicky in the details.

The use of swearing by characters in their speech or thoughts is permitted, though not to the point that it takes up a significant percentage of the words; you shouldn't make a habit of using swearing in the narration, but I won't object to an occasional usage so long as it's impactful and/or inventive.

===== Player expectations =====
Because none of Avishraa's inhabitants are members of our species, much less of our cultural background, the ways they would realistically behave do not come naturally to us as human players, and trying to memorize them all and use them in roleplay would likely prove unacceptably tedious. Likewise, there's all kinds of background detail to Avishraa that, while enriching to the setting, might get in the way of easily joining the RP if I required people to learn it right away. So while I certainly encourage you to look into the species and culture of your chosen character and incorporate a certain amount of the background detail, I will be trying to err on the side of leniency in this respect; the point is not to require someone to be an Avishraa scholar to get into things.

(This is especially true in regards to things like body language. A takma smile looks nothing like a human smile, but since they //mean// the same thing, there's no point in having you describe what it looks like unless you want to; otherwise, just say that the character smiles.)