Kyle has asked for help compiling a list of all the things aside from mechanics that changed from 2.0 to 3.0.
From Kyle: “It would be a good point for returning folks, and a solid thing for me to look into. (Things from books that changed, story that got retconned…)”
Location-specific setting
Fall of Vegasia - The fall of Vegasia and the groups in power there was described in content released by the National team leading up to Uprise 2019; this renders setting material from Pillars of Dead Light out of date. Setting material in the tabletop book disagrees with the state of Vegasia as described by in-character communications/media put out by the National team in and leading up to that same event (re: Final Knights ousted or still in power).
Fall of the Ironworks - As of Uprise 2019, the Ironworks and the empire it lay at the heart of have fallen, and just about everything in Axis of Iron and Blood is now out of date.
The Lilac Empire - the landlocked Lilac Empire of Eastern Washington, former ally to the Ironworks, by all accounts erupted in a bloody civil war during the events of Uprise 2019 after the anti-slavery coalition provided funding/bribes to the landed gentry of the Empire who were willing to free their slaves and rise up against the Pureblood families who refused to do so. This has likely rendered some of the setting content in Scraps of the Rust Empire out of date, though we’ve been given no indication of the current status of the Lilac Empire or any state that may have succeeded it.
LINEAGES/STRAINS
Elitariat
Genjians - became Digitarians; it is unclear whether or not they still originated from First Hope and other late-Fall installations where the last humans took refuge and sought an answer to the Zed and the Infection, though it’s suggested with the line “It’s said that Digitarians were the last Strain of humanity to fall to the Infection.” The Scraps of the Rust Empire content relating to the history of the Genjians and First Hope therefore may or may not be out of date; clarification on this would be appreciated especially seeing as this Strain is still known for passing down detailed records within their families.
Purebloods - Now have trouble seeing colors rather than wearing bright colors in a display of conspicuous consumption.
Solestros - No longer tied to Lost Angels, the Broken Coast, or San Califia; required to try to “one-up” Purebloods rather than focusing on helping others in their previous “middle management” role.
Townies
Baywalker - Now the only Strain that can retain tattoos and scars through the process of dying and re-emerging from the Gravemind, which affects every other Strain as they now can’t keep tattoos or scars past a death.
Yorker - No real change other than the reveal that they’re closely related to Baywalkers, which honestly isn’t much of a surprise.
Vegasians - are no longer slavers; that’s it, and that’s great.
Nomads
Diesel Jocks - they can’t smell well, and so they don’t smell good.
Rovers - Can’t outright lie when giving their word- a re-work of the old Rover Handshake, but one that significantly changes how they interact with society in general. Previously they could lie, but had to fear lethal retribution from other Rovers if they broke a deal they shook on.
Saltwise - Still have gills, but can’t breathe underwater? Not sure if that’s just been overlooked in mechanics, or is actually a setting change as it’s not explicitly stated. No longer connected to the Guild, which isn’t as much a retcon as it is keeping with changes that happened during Uprise 2019 and the lead-up to it.
Gorgers
Full Dead - still animated corpses, but now they have to eat people, where before they couldn’t eat or drink? And now they can get diseases?? Partly mechanics, but has an effect on setting. How do Full Dead digestive systems work? Do they breathe?
Semper Mort - No real setting/background change.
Lascarian - Everything went out the window. They originally were survivors who adapted to living underground, and resorted to cannibalism out of necessity and created a culture around that; now they’re evolved Sempers??? Probably the change the most people are confused and upset by in regards to Strains. Please explain why this was necessary.
Mutants
Remnants - Now must have addictions instead of needing to belong to a group; that old Remnant weakness got passed to Yorkers. Also, Remnants aren’t usually sterile anymore, which is honestly probably one of the better changes.
Retrogrades - Not much has changed.
Tainted - Originally a created Strain, born out of the research at Second Twelve Knots using materials from Raider Island and the Haze Raiders that came out of it, knowledge which was spread throughout the Merican continent along with instructions for how to perform the Bad Brain vaccination procedure that created them, now they “are thought to have evolved from Remnants, but it is uncertain when this occurred. What is certain, however, is that the Tainted are the product of genetic diversity and the evolution of the Raider disease Bad Brain.” This fundamentally changes how we understand Tainted existence; the fact that they were a created strain was a core aspect of their identity, and a reason to play them to explore that, and now it’s possibly retconned? That undercuts the accomplishments of players or their characters, it undermines existing plot, and it interferes with the themes that Tainted characters are often based around- of the Strain being legitimately new; collectively exploring who they are now in light of how they came about and collectively developing a common culture. I’m personally still holding out hope that the setting book, whenever it comes out, will update this.
Landsmen
Mericans - Now have unusually large foreheads, and experience “extremes of emotion” but aren’t described as rude per se.
Natural Ones - Can use guns now.
Quiet Folk - Didn’t exist before 3.0, so everything is new.
Devoted
Accensorites - now view other Strains as “lesser” beings.
Red Stars - now believe in the power of Humanity, rather than being communists. Can use money now.
Unborn - lost the “of Teixaptla,” and are no longer animated corpses and Grave Mind biomatter; now they’re just… Strains with more concentrated Infection, who believe in the Infection and the Gravemind? They’re not undead anymore. This is an entirely different Strain, honestly, in all ways but how the makeup is done.
Evolved
Irons - Can use Stealth now. There is some concern that with eradicating all mention of slavery from the game, Irons with slavery backstories- i.e., all pre-existing Iron characters- will have their backgrounds invalidated. Slavery being abolished is good, but not mentioning it as a thing of the past even is not as agreed-upon as a good thing.
Reclaimers - No mention of the old “stacking Merican bodies” story for why their limbs are the way they are.
Unstable - No longer the Zed-and-Psion-controlling monsters they used to be, and “crafted to be the ultimate Strain.” They’re pale (“usually have a strange pallor to their skin”), have glowing blue blood, have a superiority complex “believing themselves to be the pinnacle of all Strains and Lineages,” “their forefathers were able to do amazing things” and the art depicts them as blonde and blue-eyed. This is a recipe for “Aryan”/white supremacist fantasies and plays into “Ubermensch” tropes. I’d love to know why the creators thought this was a good idea.
GENERAL SETTING
Faiths
Every Faith has been reduced to ‘core’ subsects, losing most if not all subsects described in previously published supplements, some of which have become favorites among the player base. This does not necessarily mean people can’t form Societies within their characters’ faiths to belong to those Subsects, or that the Subsects are retconned; I’ve been trying to tell people that they were likely only left out for brevity’s sake and that they’ll be included in the setting book whenever it comes out, but the topic has come up enough that it would probably be a good idea for something to be said one way or the other on whether or not these are still canon.
I will not be discussing faiths I’ve not played a character with ties to, and will let people more familiar with them point out any changes.
Fallow Hopes - previously according to written material, Minister Generals oversaw a region which could include multiple Dioceses, and each Diocese would have a Chaplain and Colonel under a single Minister General. This isn’t quite how it played out in most games, and the write up has changed to reflect that- now, each geographical location, not region, has a Minister-General, and a Colonel and Chaplain under each Minister-General. In addition, the word “God” is removed from the third tenet and replaced with “a higher power,” which is an… interesting choice, as the Cult of the Fallow Hopes was already an obvious mix of three to four monotheistic religions which could all call their deity “God.” The name of the Martyrum has changed in spelling to Marterum, and there’s no mention of the Templarus Immortum which in my opinion is a welcome change.
Final Knights - I’m pretty sure “trust not those who claim to know the letter of these laws” is new? Architects of the Fallen have gone from infiltrators of other faiths to book burners. I like the inclusion of the Undying Monks.
Telling Visions - Nemesis have been called out as being seen as heretics by other members of the faith; I was under the impression that this was the lie TVs told in order to not get pulled into “impeding the Great Signal.” That may be an in-character or regional interpretation, though.
Virtues of the Kings’ and Queens’ Court - “People don’t choose who their Kings and Queens are. Instead, the first song that truly speaks to a follower is what they follow.” There’s been a lot of disagreement on how to interpret this, and how much of a change it is- but it’s definitely a change.
Organizations
The Guild, or Murder Inc. - No longer mentioned? This was a huge part of the setting in 2.0, and in the efforts to dismantle the Ironworks leading up to huge setting changes. Now it seems like it may be gone? Whether or not it actually is seems to vary chapter by chapter, but by the book it’s not as big a part of the game or the setting as it used to be.
Postal Service Alluded to, but not mentioned. Which is strange as many games shifted to having a Post Office crewed by Postal Workers for turning in scavenge, getting prints and items made, etc specifically for 3.0.
General
Psionics - now everyone is a latent Psion; previously only those born as Psions and those who used a specific injectable (with huge risks involved) could use Psionics, though it was kinda known that faith powers were psionic in nature.
Infection - explained during the lead up to and events of Uprise 2019, but now Strains can not only regain Infection but acquire more Infection past their usual maximum. Not sure how well known the explanation is (Ironworks research that was stolen and repurposed by anti-slavery coalition forces is the short version). Kind of a mechanics thing, but definitely with setting implications and setting explanations. I guess it’s in a weird mechanics/setting gray area.
Items - A lot of changes happened with items; some machines, weapons, brews, etc don’t exist anymore, and that’s largely because of the way the new system is designed being less than compatible with them. On a settings note though, some items invented in character by PCs are seemingly attributed to new NPC companies. The out of game considerations are readily apparent, but some in setting explanation wouldn’t be out of place, whether it’s “they independently invented the same thing” or “they bought the rights to make the thing” or even “they started making the thing and called it theirs.” (Please note I’m posting this independently from the creators of these items and they aren’t seeking recognition as far as I know; I’m just a stickler for setting consistency.)
That’s about all I could think of right now; hopefully it’s a good start, though I’m sure others will have more. Also, this isn’t including changes to Threats.
Some of these questions you would have to ask Onyx Path about, some were not changes but items that were selectively ignored from source content, and some are revisions that needed to happen due to content direct / update to make the source material communicated better. I’m going to answer as best and directly I can so that there isn’t fuzzy answers.
Some of the changes are massive changes to the direction of the original game into the new game world, but have not yet been fleshed out with support documentation for the different Lineages and Strains like existed in the old publications. I do not know if those books will be published, since the support for the line is completely based on tabletop sales. While DR has been very well received by the Onyx Path fans (and strangely sells better overseas than in the US), the decision to continue to produce core books is not ours to make.
Genjians - scrapped all together. There are similar traits and themes that tie into the Digitarians to hit the narrative focus, but while not intended as culturally insensitive back 13 years ago (it was a flubbed attempt at being more inclusive), they were written in such a way that encouraged players to appropriate cultures and act in sometimes racist ways. It wasn’t the intent, but that is how it came across, so we had to own our part of it and change the content to stop encouraging these sorts of behavior.
Purebloods - Part of the changes to mostly remove “culture traits” from strains and stick to genetic traits. This is a trend you will see much more in TTRPGS and it is starting to be a focus for design change across the board.
Baywalkers - See culture vs genetics.
Vegasian - Narrative design forced problematic content without the ability to opt in or out. Genetic vs cultural
Rovers - Genetic vs cultural
Saltwise - The underwater aspect wasn’t written as a mechanic since any underwater play space would require a custom “zone of mechanics card” anyway, since we can’t actively larp underwater.
Gorgers - “Do they breathe” - same as per saltwise. Breathing isn’t a mechanic we have in the larp and would require a “zone of mechanics card” anyway. No need to make people read a rule that won’t come into play unless there are special local rules being use for a zone of mechanic.
Lascarian - This one gets a longer response because I have seen the cherry picked riots on this. The line that is making lore freaks go nuts is “The third branch of this Lineage is the Lascarians. Interestingly enough, Lascarians are simply an evolved branch of the Semper Mort.” In the DR book “Valley of the Misery Machines” the book goes into the nature of Semper and the arc projects for people being frozen. This content needed to be adjusted for a giant logic flaw: do Sempers still climb out of tubes now? If they do, then the technology that kept them going still exists, which conflicts with the overall source of the world. So Sempers were adjusted so that their frozen states happened longer ago, which is (in direct conflict with its own narrative themes) suggested in this section by stating that the earliest people coming out of their freezy tubes adapted and adjusted and mutated in the dark underground regions where the buried arc projects were. So the amnesia flaw was removed, the “hatching” of sempers was moved much earlier on to make more logical sense for overall genre, and the Lascarians and the Semper were given parallel evolution connections much in the same way that Yorkers and Baywalkers are related.
Some people jumped to “everything is out the window now, its all gone”. No. Its not. While it could change in future Onyx path publications, the intent is that instead of having “humans lived underground and became Lascarians” the start point was instead in their near biological parallel the Sempers. Same underground evolution, adaption, growth, and change. But in the end -this doesn’t change the larp at all since its hearsay knowledge from hundreds of years ago-.
Tainted - The created strain was a narrative on road for the larp to allow the larp to stay in line with the tabletop. The game was going another direction, so we needed to introduce the concept to the larp to allow for better continuity. As for “it undermines existing plot”, all narratives from before 3.0 were ended before the move from 2.0 to 3.0, before the time skip, and all branches were instructed to bring all narratives to a close and start with the new world content since we knew there would be some major changes. Games were given a timetable about a year and a half or so (if I remember right) before the 3.0 change to wrap up existing plots. Pre 3.0 and post 3.0 are two completely different narrative arcs that allows for most of the content of 2.0 and 1.0 to be adjusted back story. People were allowed to reroll characters, make strain changes, and recreate dead characters. While effort was made to give as much transition as possible it was also pretty direct that the first decade of arcs were done and full transparency of that was provided to branches.
Mericans - The foreheads was described in the merican tabletop section. Thicker skulls and extra knuckles. People just sort of missed that?
Natural Ones - Could use them before, just not as well. Culture vs Genetics change again.
Quiet Folk - Did, but in modules and narratives ran by national in a limited sense. It was a lost potential from before that was brought more into the light with the new game edition.
Red Star - Genetic vs Culture. That, and we found that Americans had a really hard time understanding philosophical communism instead of applying 1950s propaganda to it.
Unborn - Cultural need changes as well as adjusting for more appropriate content for the modern age. Again, fell short the same way that Genjian did. So the change was made to remove the appropriation of a culture and instead focus on genetics.
Irons - Yeah, there is conflict if removing the subject of slavery all together instead of just making it not part of the game is good or bad. So, the best decision was to lean towards making sure that everyone was comfortable and not having it involved instead of leaving it to chance in particular given the chance for misuse once it leaves “the intent of the writing source”. So if given the choice between having a scenario that could be presented badly and make problematic or uncomfortable scenarios (in particular given the current state of the world), I am going to lean towards making it less likely to cause unexpected negative bleed.
Unstable - The only picture of any unstable in both of the books happens to be the only white blond not by design. We were so focused on making sure that the artist was making diversity for all of the Strains that the fact that the Unstable is the only white blond wasn’t a consideration before right this second. Strange pallor is a reference to the blue glow. I’ll make sure to ask Onyx Path that if they do more pictures beyond the first that the fact that ethnicity has nothing to do with their design, much like the rest of the strains. From the tabletop description of them (which has no picture sadly) the continuity of their source offers some degree of transfer from the prior LARP design without it being just “play frankenstein’s monster”. To help prevent additional over reading into it, and since without reading the tabletop section the pallor reference doesn’t make sense, it will just get deleted out. Again, lean towards better communication than leave it to risk.
RE Faith: “I’ve been trying to tell people that they were likely only left out for brevity’s sake and that they’ll be included in the setting book whenever it comes out, but the topic has come up enough that it would probably be a good idea for something to be said one way or the other on whether or not these are still canon.”
Yeah. Larp books need to be small and need to be a ruleset that allows the source of the canon of the world to be defined by larger in-depth books that others can opt into reading. The intent is to release more in the settings book, but the most direct answer is that making those books cost a lot of money. At the start I could take a few years to write a book and then just slap a cover on it for better or worse. Now we have a national larp audience and global ttrpg audience, people with incredibly (and sometimes unreasonably) high expectations for the publications, and financially restrictions due to a lack of games being run. In regards to finances, unless we were doing it as a TTRPG supplement that sold to outside the DR larp it probably would never break even on the cost for writers, artists, editors, sensitivity review, layout, and publication costs. It will end up being a loss of money and right now DR Larp is trying to keep as much money in the local branches as possible while operating at minimal as possible at the franchise parent company level to keep things running.
I know a few people who believed everyone was latently psionic before 3.0 hit. So, your mileage may vary on that change.
Nuclear Family:
-Dropped the enmity with Red Stars. (Seeing as how they’re basically just less weird NoAs now this makes perfect sense, and it was part of the general move away from CvC tension.)
-Dropped the path of the Nelson Family and returned the older path of the Caretakers.
-Coach’s role as community leader is downplayed to just being inter-family mediator. (We usually played it that they would lead the Neighborhood Watch and interact with wider politics and deal with the shadier side as needed, but I don’t remember how much of that was in the lore vs. player decision.)
I absolutely agree there should be other art pieces of Unstable in the future to make sure that hits home.
non-mechanical changes: This is the one that gets me every time. The old guard says that the entire world is a mushroom. That Monsanto put out genetically modified corn syrup that led us down this path. That along with the mutant fungus turned the entire world into a world made of mushrooms. Everything is made of the mushroom and that we are not even alive anymore but echos and memories of lives from before the fall. The mushroom has to eat so it creates people and zed to find food for it. Which then turns into an endless cycle of cannibalism as mushroom people are eaten by the grave mind which is also a mushroom. That everything we interact with is a lie and an illusion brought about by this relationship with the mushroom and ourselves.
This is why when ever someone asks how long ago was the fall? Or when do Twinkies expire you are met with laughter and disdain by the old guard. Where older players push this narrative and how newer players have no way to confirm or deny it. A place where new players are often teased or called out for being adorable that they do not know the hidden or secret knowledge.
How the group with the “in knowledge” continues to promote this cannon on both an in game and out of game cannon is extremely frustrating. Examples include but are not limited to when a new player is all hyped for their first game and starts asking questions on discord or face book and are met with the old guard being all cryptic about this. When someone ass you for a clarification out of game you should either get it or be told FOIP not be strung along on an out of game level. As that does not encourage new players. Furthermore when you ask staff if this is even true and you ask for a clarification you get shrugs. Or worse; well it might be true but I don’t know… It is extremely frustrating. And a topic I really wish we would get a clarification about.
Mon corporation, not Monsantos.
The items you are complaining about are outlined in the old TTRPG books, and was applied as learned knowledge by players. Mon corporation has its interaction with the fall outlined in Valley of the Misery Machine as a full page spread as well in the timeline of the fall of humanity in the Repository of Humanities Folly where an estimation of when the fall of humanity started and when it ended is outlined.
There is an entire section in the same book about the Considerations and Summaries which outlines how it is believed humans died, the uptick of the Infection, and how it the Infection binds with everything, what molecules it binds with, and why it is found everywhere.
The part about the cycle of consumption and absorption is outlined in Overgrowth of the Undying where it also goes into the binding of the infection to matter, the Mortis Amaranthine, and how mutations developed.
Both of these books are available in PDF format for $4.99 on drivethrurpg and have been available to the public for years. While I can’t make you read the game’s source materials that are being quoted in game to you, I can tell you that blaming this as an “Old Guard” issue is based out of a degree of assumption. All of the things you have identified are all from the world and genre books.
@michael As a lascarian player, wanting to get some clarity. If I’m reading this right, the tl;dr is:
In that case I basically retract most of my concerns. My impression was that the semper memory issues were still intact, which 1. was a confusing thing to mutate and then have become recessive, and 2. decanonized backstories related to families handing down information in a long game of telephone.
That and the caves/tunnels thing, which is somewhat iconic laskie flavor.
My only other thoughts on them are the shift in lascarians from 2.0 being boogeymen (Chase, Takedown, Force Barricade) to 3.0 being described as quiet. I was curious the reasoning there—was it to make space for tainted?
As a separate and short aside, I just want to echo some of David’s concerns tbh. I am a relatively young player compared to the old guard, and while people were welcoming, there were also some instances where plot was directed at the older players and there were no viable means for younger players to access the plot. Guild, especially, had a shrouding effect that discouraged questions and created a “we’ll come to you when we think you’re ready,” situation that left a lot of us in the dark.
A lot of things have changed in that regard for the better, but tbh saying the splat books are there when young players have no clue they exist, and older players don’t even tell em, in or out of game—I think it’s much more player actions that need to be looked at, there. DR has done a lot to encourage the 10 foot rule and inclusion in 3.0, and as much as people complain about 3.0, I’d never want to go back to 2.0 purely because of the positive culture shift we had.
Whoops, one more concern related to the removal of slavery as a concept:
During Uprise, a blog post outlined the ways that PCs could interact with the subject of slavery. In it, the tl;dr was that PCs were required to be on the right side of history, but otherwise could continue to freely discuss their backstories, which would fade with time as characters permed, players left, etc.
Is this still the case or has this changed?
Removal of culture vs genetics. Everything is focused more on the genetic trait instead of saying “all lascarians have to be the boogie-man”
That is a Kyle question.
By the time the last Uprise happened I was already no longer engaging the branches for almost a year and a half other than specifics in regards to the book itself and during that event the DR beta was already written and I was no longer part of the DR Larp team (or at least made a silent part of it). So I don’t really know the specifics of that post, and it wouldn’t be my call going forward.
My focus in regards to the subject is removing it as a part of the forced canon of the world for the TTRPG and the Larp so that people didn’t have to “change the game” to not be involved in that specific content.
Woof here we go.
Sooooo I feel as though Red Star are being slept on because they have not only been nerfed with the no faith powers outside of your society(which is a huge disadvantage compared to any other strain. Only being able to use abilities in your home chapter is very thumbs down imho but thats for a mechanics thread)
AND they have lost essentially a psychic link to other Red Star asside from the dopamine thing.
Red Star dopamine linked to proximity? Sounds good.
Losing a guiding principle mutation that I believe helped them survive The Fall through essentially an ant/bee colony hive mind? Pretty bad.
I’m okay with the loss of Communism and I can understand why the use of rectangles is allowed to expand the directions of play.
I just also loved that any time a Bonehead came around people would rush to the Reds.
Catching up…
All good things… keep them coming, encourage others to post here.
As for Red Stars… this hits close to home for me. There are ways I still maintain the old sensation and connections through RP… but I do feel like ALOT of the red star strain was written as… a game of solitaire at a table of poker?
I think there are ways you can make your crew work, and mechanically I love that Red Stars can work with their own groups.
Our cell made their own society for the cell so we could use it on others… I know other groups, have done this, so their red stars could use faith on them.
I know my red star has his own society that he invites people into on his sheet… “Big Deacon’s League of not-so-mean-mostly-ok-but-still-kinda-“Villans””.
I know this is months late, and I apologize for coming back to this conversation after so long- I’ve simply been too busy with work and school, and took a hiatus on all things DR-related, especially as my local branch was not having online games. I do, however, want to address this response a bit.
These changes, and questions regarding them, were partly just to keep track of existing changes from 2.0 to 3.0, per Kyle, so that returning players who may have been on hiatus during the changeover could see all the changes listed here, which is why it’s an exhaustive list.
The rest of the reason, again going back to the conversation on Facebook with Kyle that prompted him to ask us to post this thread and list changes on it, was to specifically address changes to the setting that we need in setting explanations for, the exceptions being Strains that did not exist in 2.0, the end of slavery and the association thereof with Vegasians, and the depiction in the book of Unstable.
Most if not all of your replies here are purely regarding mechanics and/or out of game reasons for the changes. The few times I mentioned things that could be mechanics-related, such as Saltwise no longer having the ability to breathe underwater listed and it not being clear if Full Dead still didn’t need to eat, were only included due to their implications on the setting/lore; i.e., did the absence of a mention of Saltwise breathing water mean that in the setting they lost that ability, or was it simply not included because it’s not relevant to mechanics as they currently stand? In this sense, these questions are still unaddressed. However, that doesn’t mean they need to be addressed now or on this forum- Kyle asked us to list them here in part so that he could refer to them when communicating with writers for future materials, such as the lore/setting book that we should be getting eventually, so that he could be sure that these questions were addressed in the future in those materials. I understand that due to hardships arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, it could be quite some time before any work on those move forward, but that is a good part of the reason for this thread.
With all that said, I do want to respond to a couple of points here.
Genjians - scrapped all together. There are characters that were previously Genjian and were rewritten to other Strains, and there are many characters who have histories from 2.0 that involved Genjians. Is the very existence of Genjians retconned, such that as of the release of 3.0 they no longer ever existed? It’s unclear with many changes which are changes that arose during the 3 year time-skip between 2.0 and 3.0, and which are retcons, and this is the biggest of them. This is why I asked about the old First Hope lore and such, as it’s not clear if that lore is still canon but no longer tied to Genjians, or if it’s still canon with Genjians but Genjians no longer exist as they were, or if the First Hope lore is gone from the setting’s history completely.
Tainted - The created strain being a way for the LARP to stay in line with overall setting changes makes sense, but as you point out it was needed for better continuity; my query was in keeping with that. Is that narrative still canon? If not, it breaks that continuity. When I said changing it undermines existing plot, I do not mean that plot continued from 2.0 to 3.0; I’m on the WA writing staff and received that message to end plots because there would be new plot material in 3.0. But since then, in the months before the pandemic but after the 3.0 transition, plot lines were started that followed and explored that narrative continuity- not continuing plot lines from 2.0, but starting new plot lines based on the concept of that origin of the Strain and it’s spread, in part because aside from the core rulebook and the threat guide that game staff received access to, there was no new plot material that I was aware of, and this seemed like a fascinating area to explore that players seemed interested in.
With both of these in mind, and the general gist of these queries- what the “in setting” explanation or reason is for the changes to the setting- when you say “Pre 3.0 and post 3.0 are two completely different narrative arcs,” does that mean any canon from 2.0 is no longer canon? You are saying that “Some people jumped to “everything is out the window now, its all gone”. No. Its not.” but then you say that the narrative from 2.0 in regards to the creation of a Strain is ended, and I’m not sure if that means it’s gone or that this arc is just over (but still historically canon). Given that this is how the Strain was introduced to the setting, is that narrative still canon? Are narratives from 2.0, having run their course and being ended, still canon in terms of character and game/chapter history? Can new plots still reference them or build upon them, as they inform the setting for each chapter that new plots are set in? Can character backstories still reference them or build upon them, as any character allowed for play should be old enough to have lived through the period of time during which they took place?
When writing new plot, should we stick to the scant details in the core rulebook for now, which limits some region-specific setting building, or can new plot be informed by what we have understood the setting to be as long as we keep the changes in mind? The last national event of 2.0 changed the setting in a number of ways (fall of Vegasia, defeat of the Ironworks, the Lilac Empire civil war starting), presumably to prepare for the changes in 3.0, and while the 3.0 rulebook doesn’t necessarily contradict any of those changes we’ve received no guidance as to whether those are all still canon or what the total end result was in each region, and I’ve been repeatedly told that we can’t touch any of that until we get further guidance from national- which means fully half of Washington state, a big chunk of the northern Midwest, and the entirety of Vegasia are a big question mark for the foreseeable future.
Again, these don’t necessarily need immediate answers, and I understand if you aren’t in a position to give these answers. I mostly wanted to ensure it was clear, if Kyle references this thread later when talking with whoever ends up writing additional lore/setting material, that these do still need to be addressed when it’s feasible to do so. I also want to make it clear, as tone is difficult to convey or interpret through written media, that I’m not upset, just still unclear as to the state of the setting canon, and I do appreciate that you took the time (months ago) to address these. I’m rather invested in exploring the questions surrounding the Tainted Strain in particular, so I do apologize if I come off as curt or unappreciative.
Direct answer.
Yes there is more lore books coming out. No, we can’t talk about what parts we know because the core IP is licensed to another company. I can say that all content releases are delayed due to coronavirus making nearly zero income coming in to pay writers, artists, editors, etc and due to the fact that other items have taken priority before writing lore books (which would have to be sold to make up the cost).
Given that there are no larps running live right now, pushing to release more content and spending money when companies need to buckle down and not spend, is the wrong decision for the health of the game and the network. New releases are more likely as we get closer to having some version of “normal” again.