New Player Guide
Welcome to Restless in Portland, the independent LARP Troupe located in Portland, Oregon! This new player guide will hopefully help you figure out everything you need to know to get involved in our local LARP scene.
Step 1: Join Our Discord!
It’s plastered all over our website, and for good reason. We have a very active Discord with a number of people excited to get you involved!
Make sure to change your Nickname to your OOC name as soon as you join!
Setting Up Your Discord
Upon joining for the first time, you’ll be asked some questions.
- General Acknowledgment
- Pronoun Selection (this will change the color of your name in the server)
- Games of Interest (get tagged in posts about this game)
Once you’ve gone through these, glance over our rules and proceed to the rest of the server.
There is further customization available by going to 
in the top left of the channel list. The Browse Channels tab will show you every available channel, so you can choose what to see and what’s hidden. You can change this at any time. If you have questions about any of the channels, you can always ask in #ooc and someone will be happy to assist!
If you’re still not seeing all the channels you expected to, click from the Discord drop down and make sure you have “Show All Channels” checked.
There’s always an option, in times the posts are overwhelming, that you can right click on a channel name and choose to “Mute” it for any period of time.
From the Discord drop down, you can also check the box for “Hide Muted Channels” to thin down the number of channels you see.
Understanding Roles
We have a number of different Discord Roles worth noting:
- A Red name indicates our Lead Admin and Lead Storyteller.
- A Green name indicates Troupe Leadership: helpers of the Lead Admin/ST, or lead storytellers of individual games.
- A Pink name indicates members of our Player Advocate team.
- This color indicates a bot/app being used on the server.
- You’ll usually only see a Stark White in soft RP scenes, followed by ‘APP‘, indicating someone is using the server’s proxy bot to have their character name show instead of theirs.
We also have colors that indicate a player’s preferred pronouns:
- Teal for They/Them
- Purple for She/Her
- Blue for He/Him
- Dark Gray indicates you should ask the person their pronouns.
Lastly, we have Roles with Symbols indicating particular responsibilities:
indicates a Mentor, an established player that the Troupe Leadership has vetted and approved as a resource for new players.- Each game has symbols and colors for its staff, but these are prioritized under pronoun colors, so the colors may not show. You can also generally tag (@) the role to gain their attention:
- Vampire (Camarilla)
staff is @Vamp Staff - Mage
staff is @Mage Staff - Werewolf
staff is @WtPA Staff (they have their own channel!)
- Vampire (Camarilla)
To see all the roles a player has, click on their name, and the pop-up should include a list of all the roles mentioned above (and more!)
Step 2: Review Materials!
The website should be a helpful place to get started! Using the menu at the top right of this page, you can find plenty of information on what games we have available and what OOC Information can help!
Particularly important things to review include:
- The Troupe Charter
- Rules & Safety
- The Setting & Rules Doc for whichever game(s) interest you!
Step 3: Find a Mentor!
While completely optional, this is a great way to make sure you have someone you can talk to in order to answer any questions you might have!
Learn about our Mentor Program here!
The short version: For your first 6 months in the troupe, you can set up a dynamic with an established player to help learn the ropes of the troupe, the game, and LARPing in general. To find one, you can browse our list of Current Mentors to see if there’s anyone you’d like to contact to be your mentor, or use our Mentor Program Form so we can match you up and have someone contact you!
Once you land on a mentor, we’d appreciate having you fill out the Mentor Program Form or New Member VP Sign-Up (detailed below) to let us know you’re all set up, and so we can thank your mentor!
Step 4: Apply for VP!
VP, or Volunteer Points, are the troupe’s way of thanking people for volunteering their time and effort to help improve the troupe, it’s games, and it’s community. In thanks, the VP earned can be cashed in for small in game benefits (which vary with each game and are expanded on in their Rules & Setting Docs.
Info on the VP system can be found in our Charter.As a new player, you may still be eligible for starting VP! Fill our our New Member VP Sign-Up to see if you qualify. Even if you don’t qualify, this will help get you in our system!
Step 5: Find a Game!
By now, you hopefully know how to find the information for a game on the website and the channels for the game on the Discord. You should also have a mentor to help you navigate things, and a general sense of the troupe’s rules, policies, and safety procedures (or at least knowledge of where to find them).
If you’re nervous about attending your first game session without seeing how the games work, you’re always welcome to attend as either an Observer or an NPC.
- An Observer is someone who attends game without portraying a character. They wander around Out of Character (OOC) with an Observer tag for as long as they’d like and can observe what the game is like.
- An NPC (Non-Player Character) is a character assigned by the storytelling staff, who is given some basic story information, a character sheet, and an objective for the night before being allowed to interact with other players when game starts. This lets lets a player ‘test run’ a game.
During gameplay, whether as PC, NPC, or Observer, you’re always welcome to make an Out of Character symbol (holding crossed fingers up near your face or holding a closed fist next to your forehead to make a triangle with your arm) to ask clarifying questions.
If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask in the Discord!
Welcome to the troupe!