Network Advisory Board meeting 2025 q1
Full recording will be posted if/when it can be recovered.
We had technical issues with the chat roughly 15 minutes into the meeting which caused the vocals to become very robotic. After about 20 minutes unaware to the participants the meeting recording deactivated for a time, and then reactivated and had garbled sound. So we will be providing greater detail in writing now and then returning to vocals based on what can be salvaged.
Key Notes.
Update from Licensing company:
2024 Business Summary
2024 Publications
Players Guide, Guides Guide, Virtual Play, Strained Ancestry, Devotion and Faith, Social Creatures, A Grave Place, Corpse Catalogue, Banners of Blood, Animal Almanac, New Database, New Blueprints, New SoPs, New Less Expensive Direct Ordering (cards), New Contracts and Business Model
Direct order supplies set up to make orders cheaper and faster for all branches. Additional optional items are being added to the account. Network makes zero from orders.
2024 Business End of Year
$28,128 in unpaid prior branch debts (we did not collect most outstanding branch debts)
$28,450 payments to date for buyout of IP.
$28,897 payments to writers, developers, art licenses, editors, designers
$8,951 payments to operational professionals (legal, accounting)
$9,135 in “prior promises” to make good (Lit cash outs, debts, etc)
$4,120 in hard operational expenses (web, hosting, emails, copyright registrations, trademarks)
$6,310 in misc one-off expenses
Pending Expense - 2024 tax (SaaS business) (Estimated $15,199)
Total expenses - $99,062
Total Gross Income - $97,135 - Net Income (minus processing and transfer fees) - $93,640
This is an anticipated loss on the first year. There were a lot of one time expenses, “inherited” promises of payment or waiving of income, and unpaid expenses that were technically not our legal requirement but were honored to support local branches and creatives. The old ownership had a different company, with different business structure, and did not transfer any income. However, there were a lot of the same people involved and it was the right thing to do. The registrations, developer/writer/creative payments are part of a investment forward. We have already dug ourselves out of the inherited debt and should be able to develop and invest forward.
2025 Road Map
DeathCon - New York
Downfall - Seattle - In negotiation
Director and Owner Only Events - Remember the Playground
Publication focus
Illicit Business
Zones of Mechanic book
Choose Your Own Apocalypse - Guide For Planning Agency and Continuity Module Writing
Short Stories To Survive To - Short Story Fiction Release Project
Create a Zed retool planning (end of year for following year)
Create a Raider retool planning (end of year for following year)
Q4 Development / Licensor Time (3.5 months)
Book revisions and updates - 18.5 hours
Blueprint revisions and updates - 26.5 hours
Taxes, filing, accounting, legalese - 47 hours
Social Creatures Development - 107 hours
Lineages Full Rewrite - 32 hours
Corrective audits - 16 hours
Player Support (tickets, questions, requests) - 49 hours
There needs to be more transparency and communication between branch owners and their branches regarding what has happened in the past year, the ownership changes, and why changes are being made. We still have players and staffers who don’t understand why scope of what a game can run has changed, that the network actually closed and DR ended for a few days, and that the labor and decisions being made now are not arbitrary. If you would like continued transparency from the license company to the branch owners, you must start having better transparency with your games.
Players and directors should know the reason why its now one town, and the limitations of license vs franchise.
Players and directors should know the negative impact that “do whatever” has had over the past 4 years.
There needs to be clear communication that the game is shifting to focus on experience and narrative with a supporting mechanical system and not a game that is focused on a system that happens to have some role-play on top. If your branch does not want to focus on narrative, amazing experiences, and having a fun/horror filled time you should consider not applying for a license for next year.
Players should know that games 100% need to have more than 50 local players for prolonged life of the game. Bringing in new players is not just a “it would be nice”. Its a requirement of keeping branches open due to increasing costs of operations.
Issue or Opportunity List (30 Minutes)
The perfection fallacy.
As we move into Q2, we’re drawing a hard line against the myth of the “perfect system.” Unlike IP giants like Dungeons & Dragons—who employ dozens of full-time, salaried professionals across development, research, production, and community management—we are two unpaid designers managing this project part-time. Expecting the same breadth, depth, or speed of updates is simply unrealistic. Even with the scope that the larger systems have, these systems are immediately filled with exploits and “O.P. builds”. Watching these sorts of videos are a guilty pleasure of ours.
What we’re seeing from some corners of the community is a fixation on hyper-specific, low-impact tweaks—feedback that, while perhaps intellectually interesting as mechanic hobbyists, does not move the needle in terms of gameplay quality or world cohesion. We need to start focusing more on narrative, world cohesion, genre, and HAVING FUN instead of feeding just the most mechanically minded individuals. This kind of armchair design, especially when disconnected from actual in-game roleplay, no longer will drive the development agenda.
Going forward, each branch will submit five primary focus areas for development per quarter. These will be discussed between branch owners and central developers to determine what earns time, labor, and logistical support. We’re committing our limited resources to what genuinely matters for player experience and game sustainability. Everything else, including perfectionist wishlists and ungrounded theorycraft, is being shelved.
Summary - We don’t have Hasbro bucks (see above), so chill.
Question was asked “what do we do if this fails”?
The answer is we close. I will move on to make a new larp, run it locally instead of opening it up to a network, and we all continue to live happy lives.
If DR Live does fail, it will not be due to a lack of support. The volume and quality of content released in year 1 and the tools provided are more resources and support materials released in 1 years than we believe has been produced for any other larp. The licensor company and production group can’t market for your games, we can’t serve your community as local reps, we can’t force your game to be fun. All we can do is produce materials, resources, and then eventually run our own games again so that our income can go to continued development of the network.
When will player feedback be considered for core DRL books, and how will this feedback be used for quarterly updates?
Over the past year, we committed to a consistent cycle of feedback and revision to strengthen the game and support community input. For the first few months, the process was productive and diverse. However, by the seven-month mark, it became clear that participation had narrowed significantly—feedback was consistently coming from the same 15 individuals, many of whom were offering highly specific or recurring critiques. This pattern made it increasingly difficult to assess broad community needs or maintain momentum in meaningful development.
As a result, we announced a shift to quarterly feedback cycles. This format allows us to strike a sustainable balance between gathering player insight and maintaining the capacity to actually implement improvements. It also respects the time and effort of our volunteer developers, who are working part-time and unpaid.
It’s worth noting that not all games have even launched into Live play yet, meaning there is still a great deal of learning and adjustment to come from actual gameplay, not just theoretical feedback. While we understand that some community members have strong and passionate opinions, it’s important to remember that passion does not automatically equate to priority. Development decisions will be guided by what’s best for the health, accessibility, and long-term viability of the network—not by the volume or frequency of individual feedback.
Quarterly cycles where feedback is communicated via owners as a first step is what we can realistically support given our resources. They are not a sign of disengagement—they are a structured, intentional process designed to ensure we can act on what we learn, rather than getting caught in a loop of constant revision without execution.
The game network needs to focus on its limited time on items that actually move the needle of the network in the direction of immersive, engaging, and attendance building events. This entire past year has been a focus on nearly nothing but framework, mechanics, and development cycles which are needed as a foundation but do not create a better game for a wide audience base. Releasing content such as the black market book, world narrative updates, plot kits, and new and engaging content is of a higher priority than some items that are being requested (in particular when we are getting conflicting feedback from different branches).
We have had our first quarterly gross attendance increase in over 5 years. Branches need to focus on experience instead of mechanics and telling engaging stories.
