GAME MECHANICS

[ragamuffins]

GAME MECHANICS Back to Navigation Compliance:

As outlined on the arrival page, characters come to the world of Glymmer voluntarily! All they know upon arrival is that they agreed to work for a wish, and that whatever entity they're working for can make whatever it is they want come true. Be it the revival of a dead loved one, fame, fortune, or whatever, the mysterious voice made a promise and characters can hold it to its word.

Characters are not aware that they agreed to come work for a phantom thieving guild. The nature of the work they agreed to perform will be explained by the intake NPC-- Topaz-- upon arrival.

If a character absolutely, under no circumstances, would agree to the mysterious voice's offer, then they are not a good fit for the game. Compliance is important to make the game mechanics work!

Contracts and Code Names:

The verbal or mental acceptance of the mysterious voice's offer acts as the character signing their contract. Upon arrival, characters are shown their contract with their signature at the bottom, and know without a doubt that said signature is theirs even though they don't specifically remember signing the contract. But signing this contract comes with a catch: putting their name down on that piece of parchment means that all characters forget their real names upon arrival to Glymmer. Gasp!

This does not mean characters lose their memories at all, as this is not an amnesia game. It's just, any instance in which a character's name is mentioned in their memories is muffled out! Characters will not be able to recall their names no matter how hard they try. Canonmates of characters in the game will also not be able to recall their canonmates' names, although they will recognize said canonmate upon sight.

So how do characters function without remember their names? They choose code names, of course! These are chosen ICly, after the acceptance of your app, which is why the mods won't be asking you to pick a code name for your app nor giving you one upon acceptance. You're free to go wild with whatever code name you pick; there are absolutely no restrictions on them at all! If your character would also choose a fake "normal name" along with their code name, that is 100% fine. Go wild!

Pendants:

You may have noticed that upon arrival, all characters were given a silver pendant. Characters will be told that the pendant is the Glymmer Ragamuffins insignia, and that characters should wear the pendant if they wish to be recognized by other guild members. All characters arrive alone, so they won't recognize other player characters as guild members unless they're wearing the pendant! ICly there is nothing forcing characters to wear the pendants, however. So this means that if OOCly you want your character to keep their association with the guild an IC secret, that's totally and 100% fine!

Network:

You may have also noted characters were given a smartphone with network access upon arrival. Each smartphone comes pre-loaded with a chat app that functions similarly to Discord. There is already a server created for player characters to post to so they can communicate with other people. The chat app allows for private messages and private group chats as well.

The phone also functions as a normal phone, so you can call and text and send other people pictures at will. You'll obviously need their contact information to do that first.

There is an Internet in Glymmer, so enjoy your cat memes! However, the Internet cannot be used to break the fourth wall or to infomod. Characters also won't be able to find information about the real world (such as news stories, Wikipedia articles, etc) on said Internet. All news and whatnot found on the network is related to Glymmer and Glymmer only.

Specializations:

Upon arrival, characters are asked to ICly pick out a specialty from the following list:

✬ Thief: the standard thief! Specializes in sneaking around, picking locks, climbing through vents, and other hands-on thief work.

✬ Muscle: the bodyguard! Someone who is good at fighting, someone who can take down guards and security and protect other members of their thief gang.

✬ Hacker: the computer geek! Someone who specializes in hacking databases for information. Can disengage locks electronically and so forth.

✬ Grifter: the charmer! Someone who is good at distracting, talking themselves out of any situation, tricking people into letting them into places, etc etc. . .

So what are specializations for? Think of them as job classes in an MMORPG that allow characters access to the purchase of certain non-canon abilities. Specializations will also be important for missions that require characters from certain classes to complete. Right now, each specialization has access to the purchase of three non-canon abilities. This list will probably be expanded as time goes on, and is as follows:

Thieves:

✬ Invisibility: the ability to turn oneself invisible at will. Thieves may not turn objects or other people invisible, which means normal clothing will not turn invisible with them upon transformation. Oops! There will be the option to purchase specialized clothing that does turn invisible with the thief at a later point in the game.

✬ Intangibility: the ability to turn oneself intangible and phase through objects. Thieves may not turn objects or other people intangible, which means normal clothing will not turn intangible with them upon transformation. Oops! There will be the option to purchase specialized clothing that does turn intangible with the thief at a later point in the game.

✬ Silent Footsteps: the ability to muffle noise of any kind, rendering it completely silent. Thieves can use this on themselves to turn their footsteps silent, or on objects and other people to prevent them from making noise. Yes, this does mean you can render your best friend mute if they keep babbling about a topic about which you don't care for. Nifty!

Muscle:

✬ Super Strength: what it says on the tin. You can now lift cars and break bricks at will! You can bench press like, two tons!!

✬ Advanced Healing: you can speed up the healing of a wound, both for yourself and other people. This ability will not automatically heal injuries painlessly, and the time it takes for an injury to heal is still proportional to the injury. So a broken bone may take, say, two or three days to heal as opposed to several weeks. A papercut, on the other hand, can be healed in a matter of minutes. This ability can also be used to turn fatal wounds into something non-fatal, provided it is used in time.

✬ Shield: you can summon an invisible shield to protect yourself and others from attacks. Shields are impenetrable, but only last as long as the subject's concentration to hold it up does. So a constant barrage of attacks or some other distraction that disrupts the muscle's concentration may tear through the shield.

Hacker:

✬ Minor Electric Magic: congratulations, you can shock things! The electrical magic is no more powerful than a low-powered taser, and can be used to short out electrical objects or stun someone else into immobility for a few seconds.

✬ Pixelize Me: you can shrink yourself to tiiiiiiny tiny sizes, or make yourself grow to the size of a giant. You can't grow any taller than a skyscraper or any smaller than an ant, but anything in between is available to you at will!

✬ Technomancy: you can possess inanimate objects and make them do what you want. Like, literally possess, as in faze into them kind of like how a spirit would?? This means you can only possess one object at a time! You're limited by the object's physical capabilities as well. You can make a stuffed teddy bear dance, but you can't make it breathe fire.

Grifter:

✬ The Power of Words: you can charm someone with a winning smile and a flirtatious wink, and thus get them to do whatever it is you want them to do. This is not mind control, but rather charming someone into mild infatuation and then using the power of suggestion to get them to comply. When using on a player character, get their permission beforehand, please!

✬ Master of Disguise: you can alter your outfit, voice, and even physical features to disguise yourself as anyone you choose.

✬ The Power of Illusion: you can create hyper-realistic illusions to distract people and/or add to your performance. The illusions cannot be interacted with by others, though; as soon as someone tries to touch the illusion, it vanishes.

Specializations are chosen ICly upon arrival, and characters may change their specializations later on if they so choose. You are not locked into one class! Ping a mod if you wish to change your specialization so the process can get started.

Missions:

Every month Topaz posts a mission list to the network for characters to steal something. The objects she wants stolen may be loosely interpreted by characters. For instance, if she asks characters to "steal a heart," then a character may do so by giving someone a kiss, or a valentine, or murdering another NPC/PC and taking out their heart. If she asks characters to "steal a sun," then a character may do so by taking a picture of someone's smile, or targeting a super expensive gem at a local museum called "Tear of the Sun God." This allows characters to personalize their heists and get creative with what they want to steal! The objects don't have to be actual "treasures," as the definition of "treasure" is flexible.

The only hard guideline is that whatever is stolen must be reduced to something tangible. If someone steals a kiss, then they can kiss the person and then get that person to kiss an index card and leave a set of lipstick lip marks on it or something and it'll count.

The reason the stolen objects must be tangible is that the the Ragamuffins require characters to turn in what they stole to the guild by the end of the month. The way this works is that the mods will post a mission turn-in comment every month, and players will be able to turn in their completed missions OOCly for mod reference. You can, of course, ICly handwave the turning in of the stolen objects.

Players may have their characters complete as many missions as many times as they wish each month. If completing the same mission prompt more than once, the objects stolen must be two different things. So one may steal the sun twice, but may only steal someone's smile and an illustrious gemstone once.

Because Topaz wants you to make friends, missions MUST be completed with another character or they don't count. Some missions may require characters to complete missions with someone of a different or similar specialization as them. Feel free to post IC ads for mission partners on the network!

Missions may also NOT be handwaved. The thread doesn't have to complete the mission, or even cover all aspects of it, but some progress must be made in the thread towards the goal for it to count for rewards.

Mission Rewards:

Characters are rewarded for successful (and sometimes failed) missions with currency known as credits. This is a Ragamuffin/criminal underworld exclusive currency and cannot be used in normal shops and businesses around the city. What it can be used for is the purchase of specialization abilities, new thief costumes, new thief gadgets, real estate for hideouts, weapons, and even conversations with NPCs.

For more information on how credits may be spent, please see the credit shop page.

Mission Tiers:

Missions can be completed in one of three tiers with the following rewards:

✬ Tier one: 200 credits. stealing something small and discreetly with no flair at all. Covered under this tier is pickpocketing and shoplifting, as well as, say, taking a picture of someone's smile for "stealing a sun." Low effort thefts!

✬ Tier two: 400 credits. stealing something that requires more planning and skill. This covers breaking and enterings and other big things, although they are still discreet and don't call a lot of attention to themselves. In the "stealing a smile" example, it'd be someone telling a joke or doing something to actively make the person smile before snapping the picture. Mid-effort thefts!

✬ Tier three: 1000 credits. BIG, NO-HOLDS-BARRED, CALLING CARD THEFTS. A theft that is as much of a performance as a heist! Calls attention to itself and gains HUGE notoriety. This includes Kaitou Kid-esque calling card heists. In the "steal a smile" example, it would be an extremely emotionally intimate thread that led to the smile. High-effort thefts!

✬ Failures can happen! Characters still get 100 credits for that. Because. . . you know. . . they're trying.

Mods will not be super strict about which theft belongs in which tier! If a player thinks their thread is worth 400 credits, it probably is. As long as players aren't awarding themselves 1000 credits for a pickpocketing, it's all gravy. You can, of course, shoot the mods a question if you're not completely sure!

Characters receive their credits as soon as they ICly turn in the object they stole. As players, you are OOCly responsible for keeping track of your own credits.

Mod-Run Missions:

Some months, Topaz may post more specific missions along with the general ones. These missions will have less flexibility and will require characters to steal more specific items. These missions will also require some combination of specializations to be completed (i.e. two hackers, one thief; or one muscle, one grifter, one thief; and so on and so forth). These missions will also be mod-run in an exploradora/cyoa manner! Because of how involved they are for the mod team, they will NOT be available every month. They will also have limited slots for sign up so your poor mods won't go crazy.

These missions will be, more likely than not, plot-related. Stay tuned for the first mod-run mission for more information on how these work!

NPCs:

Beyond the plotty mod-run missions, mods will not be planning or running heists for players. Players are free to be extremely creative in planning their own heists! Characters can steal from other PCs, of course (the guild higher ups may think it hilarious). But players will also be allowed to create their own NPCs and have characters steal from them, too! More information on how this works is located on the NPC FAQ.

Events:

In addition to monthly missions, the game will also have monthly events run in the latter portion of each month. These are your typical jamjar events, such as body swaps or cat ears or love potions or whatever. They are meant to be silly and lighthearted in tone (although sometimes they may be darker and more serious cuz we all love our h/c), and can be played with or ignored as much as the player OOCly desires. Mods will post information about events in the latter portion of the month as they pop up.

Because the Glymmer Ragamuffins encourage creativity in heists, however, events will have another purpose ICly! Any character who incorporates the themes of the event into their heist may receive an extra 300 credits added to the base theft. Not every event will allow for this, and characters (and players!) are in no way required to incorporate the event into their thefts. But if you can think of a way to do it, that's an extra 300 points for you!

Currency:

Credits have already been covered, but what about non-thief currency? As stated before, credits are the only acceptable form of currency for the Ragamuffin guild and other ne'er do wells of the city. Normal citizens use pieces of gold and silver to buy their amenities. The Ragamuffin guild unfortunately does not pay characters in gold and silver, so if characters wish to earn money this way, they'll have to get a part-time job in the city.

OOCly, you can make the part-time job pretty much whatever you want it. Want to work in a flower shop? Done! Want to be a bigwig CFO at a huge corporation? Also done! Want to manage a Taco Bell with an iron fist? You got it! All the mods ask for is reasonableness in how characters earn their jobs and reasonableness in their income, and we won't be creating strict guidelines for this.

Examples of things you can buy with gold and silver: Normal clothing, Food, New apartment space or a house, NORMAL PEOPLE THINGS.

Things you CANNOT buy with gold and silver: Thief outfits, Thief gadgets , Weapons of any kind, Anything covered on the credits page.

The Ragamuffins will absolutely encourage characters to get normal part-time jobs, because leading a ~double life~ is part of the fun of being a phantom thief.

Canon Powers:

There is no power nerfing in Glymmer! Characters arrive in the city with their canon powers in tact. However, the mods do ask that you be reasonable about any game-breaking powers that characters may have. Things like time travel and teleportation and deconstructing and reconstructing the matter of the universe should be limited to prevent too much game breakage. The mods are totally okay with characters blowing up buildings (and even encourage it), but Thanos snapping to eliminate half of the universe in one go is a bit. . . too much. If we have questions about how powers may be used in Glymmer, we'll be sure to ask you!

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