Welcome to The End of the Line!

End of the Line is the Society game running from Michalemas 2011 to Hillary 2012 on Tuesday evenings from 7.30 to 10.30 at St. Catherine’s college (TBC). But what exactly is a society game? If you’re new to role playing, (and even if you aren’t) it’s not something that you’ll have necessarily have come across before.

The basic premise of the game is that you are a mover and shaker in the world of The End of the Line – A dimension that you can enter but never leave. You play a character who lives in The City. In order to create a character please see the Character Creation page. You’ll notice here that this determines what your character is capable of, what their power is but not which groups they associate with, or who they’re friends (or enemies) are – this is entirely up to you and you can get a feel for the kind of people and groups in The City on the other pages of this website – this means your character has a place in the world, a job or position, friends and possibly family, allies, enemies and their own goals or ambitions – and what these are is entirely up to you to decide.

Once you've created a character you can email it to the GM team (That's Games Master team - we run the game and should be your first port of call if you've got any questions!) at gm [AT] endoftheline.chaosdeathfish.com and we'll make sure it's all ok and answer any questions you should have about them. Either that or come along to the first session (Tuesday of 1st week) where we'll be around to talk to and help out with creating a character for you. If you can't make it to the first session - don't worry! Just email us with any ideas you have or come along to a later session and we'll help you get started.

• End of the Line is primarily a High Gothic fantasy setting.
• The game is about the society of the City as much as the City its self. We encourage players to engage and interact with this aspect of the game.
• We strongly encourage players to deal with inter-player conflict by targeting a character's power base rather than attempting to kill them outright. Sometimes no other option is available, and character death can occur, but we would strongly encourage players to explore other avenues of problem resolution first.
• The city is of a roughly Victorian feel with technology of a steampunk level.

We'll be using a few acronyms and terms through the website that you may not have come across before. Here's a handy list of definitions, but if you're confused by anything please email us at gm [at] endoftheline.chaosdeathfish.com

• OOC or OC - Out of Character. Events and circumstances in the real world. For example, End of the Line sessions take place OOC at St. Catherine's College every Tuesday in term.
• IC - In Character. Events and people in the End of the Line gameworld. For example, the first End of the Line session takes place IC at the mansion of Niobe Riette, leader of The Renaissant.
• GM - Game Master or Game Moderator. Us! The team of people who write, run and maintain the game for your playing pleasure. The first place to turn if you have a question.
• PC - Player Character. You! The characters that End of the Line players create and represent in the fictional world. You will usually play the same PC every week through the course of the game, though you may switch or retire a character if you get bored.
• NPC - Non-Player Character. Us again! Other characters, either part of one of the five main factions or a member of a smaller group, who are present at the meeting but played by a GM. NPCs will usually vary week-to-week, and GMs will often play several NPCs during a game session.

We all meet up once a week on a Tuesday and spend a couple of hours as our player characters (or PCs as they’re known) interacting with everyone else who are also pretending to be their PCs (this is in contrast to narrating your actions as you might do in a table-top game) In this time you can talk to one another, plot, scheme, discuss news and recent events, make deals and generally do whatever it is you think your character would do. As well as interacting with all the other players there will be non-player characters (or NPCs) played by the games masters (or GMs – that’s us!) who are running the game. These NPCs will also be people from The City and you can interact with them however you feel is appropriate – perhaps one of them is your boss, and another one works for you. Interacting with NPCs is one way in which the GM’s can introduce storylines into the setting for you to interact with as much or as little as you like.

After the session you have the chance to write a turnsheet – this is a description of three actions you want your character to achieve between one session and the next. In real life obviously this gap is a week however in game time the gap is a month so you can get a fair bit done. Guidelines on what to put in a turnsheet can be found on the Turnsheeting page.

You submit your turnsheet via the Wiki (we’ll give you an account of your own) by Thursday Midnight. Between then and the next session on a Tuesday the GMs will meet up and decide based upon what you’ve written, your skills/resources, and whether anyone is opposing you or helping you, what the results of your actions are. The GMs will then write up a brief response to your turnsheet letting you know what happened and for you to respond to during the next session. The GMs will also write up a brief review of notable things going on in the city that you will have been aware of in your day to day activities – this is called the news and will be published each week on the website.

Beyond that it’s up to you what you want to do – you can get involved as little or as much as you want in the stories the GM team introduces or you can go and find your own plot if something interests you or if you have a strong character goal in mind.