The purpose of the Rules in Ascendancy are;

• To provide a balanced standardised set of calls and abilities.
• To keep the flow of battles and encounters moving without direct Ref interaction.
• To allow as much flexibility so you can play the character you wish to play.
• To provide easy understand what you can and cannot do.
• To help make the overall story of the game more interesting.
• To ensure a consistent ‘feel’ to the world.

These rules are not exhaustive or perfect for every situation, in all cases any calls made by the Ref & Crew will supersede the main rules. They will often have been briefed with information that is different to the normal player rules for the purpose of an encounter, or because they are playing an NPC that does not follow the same rules as the players for numerous reasons.

Where unusual calls are used, they will be explained. Likewise, the Refs will occasionally allow a Player to do something that is not in the rules, this is normally only done when it suits the story of the game and will always be evaluated for the sake of balance. Often these are temporary; just because you may be able to do something outside the rules once while being directed by a Ref, do not take this as a precedence that you then have that ability going forwards unless specifically informed so.

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Roleplaying

While we often do not dictate the exact actions a character must make to complete a task, those actions must be suitable for what you are doing. If a Ref or Crew member feels that an action is not being represented suitably, they may inform you that the action does not work or even has a detrimental effect.
We are very ‘story/cinematic’ orientated, the more you put into roleplaying taking an injury, casting a spell, striking a blow or using a skill etc. the more impactful it will be.
A few examples;

If you are performing surgery on someone, you need to focus on the patient, look where you are sewing etc. If you are looking around and chatting/joking with people across a room – all you are doing it stabbing your patient with a needle while they bleed out.

If you are meditating to regain energy, you need to be doing something that looks like meditating. Sitting quietly in front of a small shrine, performing something akin to Tai Chi, chanting etc. You cannot be doing things like sitting chatting and interacting with people, walking around a room, writing up notes.

A warrior with a two handed sword needs to act as if it has the weight of a ‘real’ sword. If you swing slowly in big arcs to represent this, the Crew will react far better to a strike than if you fence with it and quickly tap them repeatedly, hardly swinging it at all. Even to the point of them ignoring the latter.

We would also ask that people refrain from using Out of Character (OOC) terms In Character (IC), it can cause the immersion of an encounter to be lost. While you may need to know how much HAP someone requires for a spell, or how many Hit Points someone has lost, or how much of someone’s Death Count remains, please do not shout these OOC numbers/stats across a room.
If you need HAP to cast a healing spell, say that you need ‘Energy to cast a spell’, do not shout ‘Can someone give me 3 HAP to cast a Healing Spell?’
If someone asks how wounded you are, say that you’ve ‘taken some scratches to my legs but I can still walk, my arms are worse for wear’, do not say ‘I’ve taken 1 hit to each leg and 2 hits on my arm’.
You can talk about specific stats quietly to a person who is treating you or providing you with energy etc. but try and keep them out of general conversation where possible.

Real World vs Game World

Please be aware that the game world you are in is set at a tech level around the 1800’s; yes, it is a fantasy world so magic and steam tech and other such things can change how things can be done, but try and avoid using or implementing modern day knowledge or terms In Character.
You may know of modern day techniques to build, design, calculate or do a number of things that could make you look like a god to someone from the middle ages – however some things are not suitable for the game, or a too much of a leap of logic from current In Game knowledge. For example trying to design a geostationary satellite system, the internet or a radar mapping system.