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PRODUCTIONS
The Game
Brave New World
This game is a historical focused game with some elements of horror. It will be part resource management, part life simulator, exploring aspects of the early colonisation of America and the horrors of that era, whether it be fear of the unknown, the terror of isolation, or the uncertainty of your faith.
Players are ordinary people who are just trying to live, and will be split into family groups, each with their own attitudes and quirks. There are no gunslingers, no great swordsmen, weapons are what you work the land with - shovels, sticks, rocks. There is safety in numbers, but numbers make noise and noise draws the unknown. There will be elements of trade and diplomacy with other groups and colonies, each of whom have their own attitudes and goals of survival.
The game is an opportunity to explore a small taste of survival in a harsh new environment with limited tools and supplies. Religion, superstition, and desperation will be a big focus of the game in terms of understanding the world around you, and players should expect uncomfortable situations regarding these topics.
This is not a game where you will hunt monsters in the woods, but your eyes may play tricks on you and you may see something unnatural that seems all too real.
This is a PvP game.
Themes: The game focuses on themes of ‘the other’, isolation, tribalism, starvation, resource management, suspicion, horror, superstition, mass hysteria and religious obsession.
Influences include; The VVitch (2015), Black Death (2010), Jamestown (2017-2019), The Crucible (1996), Don’t Starve (video game), Banished (video game), Uncovered: Salem (podcast), Puritans in New England, Early Colonisation of North America and the Salem Witch Trials.
For full information on the Game of Brave New World we recommend reading the Brave New World Gamebook.
For quick information access please check out the sections below.
Resource Management
A significant part of the gameplay of Brave New World is resource management. Players must decide where and how resources should be divided up so that the colony may survive the Winter. The choices made will determine the state that Providence Hill will be in at the start of the next game as well as the bonuses given to family units.
Resources are physical items that can be collected in game whether through searching the site, trade, theft as well as many other means. They include:
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Food
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Wood
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Coin
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Powder
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Cloth
Other items of course can be traded as much as players wish, and indeed merchants may come in looking for items that are not classed as resources. However, only the resources noted above can be put within the Colony Storehouse and Private Family Stores.
There are two ‘pots’ in the game where resources will be able to be supplied, the Colony Storehouse and Private Family Stores.
The Colony Storehouse
The Colony Storehouse will be expected to be full of all required resources by the end of the game. If the stored resources are not full the colony may not survive the Winter, or, if they do survive, there will be consequences. Information will be provided prior to the next game via Downtime write-ups. For example:
Not enough food was put into the Colony Storehouse by the end of the game, as such, the people of the colony will need to have their food rationed and the communal firearms will need to be used for hunting throughout the Winter. At the start of the next game a number of players will begin with various illnesses due to limited food, and the communal firearms will have less supply of ammunition at the start of the game. However, there is an over abundance of coin in the Colony Storehouse, this will provide new opportunities for people to invest in at the following game.
Players can of course pool their resources into the communal ‘pot’ to ensure the survival of the colony. However, players also have the choice to fill the stockpile of the Private Family Stores.
Private Family Stores
Only the family members and the NPC secretaries will be aware of what is in their respective private stores. The resources in the private stores will belong to the family only and is the family’s personal supply - these are used to help provide a comfortable living and potentially give bonus opportunities or additional supplies to start with at the following game. For example:
The Barrow family have filled their personal quota of wood and overstocked the amount of food needed for the Winter, but they are lacking cloth. By filling their personal quota of wood they will not suffer from illnesses at the beginning of the next game. The surplus food has also helped them in avoiding the issues of rationing, and so all the family members start the game well-fed. They also used some of the additional food to trade with a local Dutch colony, letting them start the game with additional coin. They have also been invited to a meeting at the next game to discuss future trade opportunities with the Dutch colony. However, due to the lack of cloth to sustain their bandage supply, they start the game with a number of traumatic wounds due a fight with hostile forces.
The hope of this game is to allow players to decide whether they wish to work for the communal goal or for their respective family. While choosing to focus on their family may be ideal, it might earn suspicion or even condemnation from other families who put more resources in the communal ‘pot’. If one family is well-fed and wealthy at the start of the following game, it could earn ire from the rest of the colony, but it may be the thing between a family’s survival and death.
Entering Resources into the Storehouse
A Colony Secretary will make their presence known as to where and when they will be setting up their ‘office space’. This will be open at sign-posted times throughout the weekend. All resources intending to be put in the Storehouse must be done before Time Out on Sunday if they wish to be counted towards the following game. Players must approach the Storehouse secretary with their respective resources and inform the secretary of any information the Secretary requires.
Combat
While fighting is not intended to be a significant aspect of this game, the frontier is wild and full of dangers. Roads and trade might exist and you might be carving out some semblance of civilisation, but danger still lurks where you might least expect it. One might need to fight for their food or protect their new colony from outside forces, there may be times when combat is required.
Fighting
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Heroic Fighting:
As a VP Events Game, we encourage dramatic and thematic fighting, otherwise known as “heroic fighting”. This is to encourage and enrich the story, rather than the aim to ‘win’. Dramatic swings, drawn out executions, no tippy-tap of weapons and remember to pull your blows to avoid real injury (accidents happen, but just be aware and careful!). Make your movements big, deliberate and fun for all players and crew. -
Take your hits:
You are not a superhero but an ordinary person of the 17th Century. As such, we encourage you to roleplay any hits or injuries you may gain during the course of combat. This is to encourage a level of danger when combat arises but also provide game for your fellow players who are playing surgeons. -
No Head Hits:
Absolutely no head-hits. While we understand accidents can happen, we still urge players to be careful and avoid these as much as possible. If a player or crew member is seen repeatedly hitting attendees in the head you will be removed from the game and the site. This is regardless of armour or costume. -
Physical Contact/Grappling:
All physical contact, touching, grabbing, guiding, restraining must be explicitly negotiated and agreed upon between the parties beforehand. If consent is not clear, assume it is not given. -
“PAUSE” and “PLAY”:
If in the middle of combat a person declares “PAUSE” by holding a fist up in the air, the person/s they are in combat with must immediately cease fighting and drop OC - this does not affect the combat around them though others should be aware to not engage with those who are “PAUSED”. This command should be used to deal with an issue or dispute only between those you are in direct combat with - whether it simply be an opportunity to stop and move from uneven ground, or to point out dangerous fighting. When the issue has been dealt with, the person who instigated the pause may raise their hand in the air and declare “PLAY” to resume combat once again. -
“SAFETY”:
If in the middle of combat a person declares “SAFETY” this is an OC call in which all people in the immediate area must stop what they are doing and kneel to the ground. This is primarily to handle a safety issue, or in the instance that someone has become genuinely injured for them to be seen to. Safety can be called by anyone at any time for any reason. Once the situation has been seen to and dealt with, “TIME IN” will be declared and you may continue from where you left off. -
“TIME FREEZE”:
In some instances a Secretary or crew member may declare “TIME FREEZE”. This indicates for players to immediately pause in their RP and close their eyes. Players may open their eyes when “TIME IN” is declared. We encourage Time Freezes to be used in minimal circumstances, though at times it may be called upon for certain scenes or interactions.
Non-Combatants
Brave New World takes place in a setting where safety was minimal and the expectation of death was all-too-real. It is dangerous to leave the safety of the village boundaries, and even there, there are plenty of hostile parties keen to burn the colony to the ground.
As such, if you find yourself in a combat situation where you would likely be attacked and you are a non-com or choose not to participate in the fighting, we ask you to place your hand in the air. While your hand is in the air you cannot be attacked. Please withdraw from said situation at the earliest available opportunity, at which point you must roleplay being injured.
If you wish to observe or be a part of a combat situation in the woods and do not wish to be a combatant, bring a simple musical instrument such as a drum, flute, tambourine etc. and if there is combat, stay back and make noise. We ask that this is done with a degree of self-awareness and not in a way that is confusing or immersion breaking to the other participants. If you leave the camp as a non-com you must stay that way until you return - flagging yourself as a non-com and then pulling a weapon halfway through is not in the spirit of these rules and will make it more difficult for crew to identify safe targets.
Hiding and barricading yourself into a place is a perfectly legitimate response to combat if you choose.
Healing
Living on the frontier was an uncertain time with dangers from the environment, animals and hostile parties all giving risk of serious injury or even death. We ask players and crew to react to hits based on roleplay alone, however, certain situations are rather more deadly, and will require you to draw from a bag from a Surgeon.
Medicine and healing during this time was limited, still drawing on the ideas of humorism (based on the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) alongside basic medicinal care with plants gathered from the new world including tobacco, chocolate and coffee. As such, there is no knowing whether or not your injury or illness will have lasting issues or not.
In the bag are a number of paper ‘results’ of the healing, once drawn you must roleplay accordingly to what the paper result says. Perhaps you will die, or maybe make a miraculous recovery, or maybe you will heal, but with some very strange rp effects alongside it…
Death
Death is permanent in the game. If your character dies, please inform a member of the Game Team. Any resources your character had on your person at the time of death must be deposited in the Colony Storehouse - unless your character was executed for a crime [see: the Crime & Punishment section of the Gamebook]. You may make a new character, however you will not start with any new resources until the start of the next game - this is to avoid characters dying merely as a resource farm.
Hand Weapons
Hand weapons must look in keeping with the setting - swords were primarily for the rich or those who could afford them, while for ordinary folk, metal tools, sticks and rocks might be all that they have to hand - as ordinary people of the town, you should have one handed melee weapons (unless you have chosen the Hunter or Forester archetype).Weapons must be larp-safe, made of foam and latex. Only stab-safe weapons may be used when using a ‘stabbing’ action in combat. Real knives or bushcraft items may only be used in appropriate settings and cannot be taken into combat or used in any other manner than its original intent.
Armour
Armour is limited and there is little reason for ‘ordinary’ members of the colony to be in possession of this. However, through circumstances or character backstory you may have some armour to hand. Armour will largely consist of a plain breastplate and/or a helm such as a lobster-tail pot helmet or a pikeman’s pot helmet.
Firearms
This new colony has minimal supplies and as such only has a select number of communal firearms available (these will be provided by the Game Team and made available from the Armoury). These firearms are available for anyone in the colony to use as they wish, however, they will have limited ammo, which is represented by a paper ticket which must be torn after a shot has been fired. This is to represent the limited supply the colony has in terms of ammunition.
Ammunition can be gained in game through various means. Players will not be able to use their own firearms unless they are playing a “Hunter” archetype.Ranged WeaponsIf players would like ranged weapons and not be the “Hunter” Archetype, you are able to make use of bows and arrows. Bows must be 30lb pull or lower.
Costume
The 17th century is not the easiest period to costume for, and so we have decided that there is no need to aim for complete historical accuracy in terms of costuming this game. We do however ask that you aim for the basic ‘silhouette’ to give the overall effect of the costuming of the era.
Basic costuming consists of:
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Hat
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Coif
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Shirt/Shift
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Collar/Ruff
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Doublet/Coat/Jacket/Jerkin
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Breeches/Skirt
We ask that you aim to have at least 3 items listed above to create the basic look. Additional accessories and garments are up to the player’s discretion. We hope that this will generate a pseudo-uniformity, while still allowing players to make their characters feel individual and recognisable
Colours were traditionally muted, using natural dyes, and natural materials such as wool or linen, however, depending on style, wealth and accessibility to trade, additional accessories, fabrics and colours could be used. (Please be aware of your respective family colours when putting together a costume).
Wealthy citizens would likely have more formal and well-fitting clothes, as well as fabrics such as silk or velvet. Collars could have more lace or turn into sizable ruffs, jewellery would be dramatic and refined.
Please avoid the traditional “Hat with a buckle” look as seen with most thanksgiving pilgrim costumes.
Gender:
This game features a distinct binary element in regards to gender - as such, if you are dressed in feminine attire, you will be perceived and treated as a woman and vice versa for men.
