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Bascinet is an online megagame played across Discord and the website, found here. You will spend most of your time in Discord, where you interact with the game world and other players. The website holds various game tools such as your character details, the world map, and documents about the world.
Each part of the game is explained in detail later in this Handbook. At a high level, the day-to-day gameplay is fairly simple:
Review The Move Results
Each turn you will receive the results of your Move and other Moves that affected you. Some Moves may also have results posted publicly. Read these to find out what events your character is involved in or witnesses.
Read What People Are Doing Around You
Each Zone has a Summary channel, where players can post descriptions of what their character can be seen doing, and a Public channel, where players interact at the various locations within the Zone. See what's happening around you and consider how your character might respond.
Talk To People
Introduce yourself, barge into conversations, make plans, offer services, beg for food, ask questions, etc. The bulk of the game is roleplaying as your character in Public or Private threads. OOC discussions should take place in #general, keeping in mind that you should not intentionally reveal which character you play.
Decide What You're Doing
Travel to another Zone, submit a description of what your character is trying to accomplish during the turn, or do neither and allow your Default Move to occur.
General questions can be asked in the #general channel or by creating a thread in #questions. If you ever need to contact the GMs directly, you can DM the bot to send them a message.
🔍 Inspect Character
⭐ Save message to Notes
✏️ Edit Message
❌ Delete Message
🌬️ Ghost Haunt
| Command | Effect |
|---|---|
/move | Open the Move submission form. |
/location | Open the Travel picker. |
/message | Speak as your character directly into a channel. |
/roll | Roll a 1d6 into the channel, for everyone to see. |
/add | Invite a character to the thread. |
/remove | Remove a character from the thread. |
/persistent | Toggle whether a thread survives the Dawn wipe. |
/conceal | (Message prefix, not a command) Conceal your identity when messaging. |
| Channel | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Summary (text channel) | Describing, in broad terms, what other players would see your character doing. This channel has a 5-minute slowmode, not meant for conversations. |
| Public (forum channel) | Public interactions. Create a topic by clicking the button on the pinned post, or check who's around. |
| Private (forum channel) | Starting private conversation threads with specific people. |
| Page | Content |
|---|---|
| Character | Your character sheet. Current Zone, Resources, Gambit modifier, Tag Points, tags and equipment, Desire, Default Move, your bio and portrait, all requests functions. |
| Map | A map of Ravenheart. Click a Zone to travel to it. |
| Faction | Faction roster, Silo balance, ledger, and leadership. |
| Documents | Game rules and briefs. Assigned has specific documents provided by your role or tags. |
| Notes | Your private Journal, plus messages saved with ⭐. Both are visible only to you. |
| Archive | A full transcript of all roleplay channels. Hidden until after the game ends. |
| Handbook | A full page version of this document. |
Bascinet takes place over 30 days, with time passing in-game at the same rate. Every day there are two 12-hour turns.
At the end of each turn the game resolves what happened during those 12 hours. Move results are posted, Resources are adjusted, and travel takes effect. You can enable turn pings on your Character page if you want the bot to tell you whenever a new turn begins.
You can find information on the current turn in the #turns channel, in addition to the three main controls:
At Dawn all roleplay channels are cleared and their contents are sent to the Archive, which is unlocked for players to read after the game ends. This helps to keep scenes and threads focused on the current day, rather than long-running conversations.
What survives:
/persistent in it. It keeps everyone you've added, but its messages still clear.If you want to remember something, use the ⭐ reaction on the message before Dawn to save it to your Notes page.
The first thing you will do is create your character on the website by clicking the Character button at the top of the sidebar. Character creation takes place in 5 steps:
Choose Your Role
Your role determines your character's starting location and faction. Roles may come with responsibilities, authority, or benefits. The difficulty shown on the role (easy/normal/hard) is a rough indication of how much effort the role requires to play properly. Most roles have a maximum number allowed in the game, and Leader roles can only be selected if you have been explicitly whitelisted.
Tags
Tags represent your character's skills, assets, injuries, and other attributes. You may have some initial tags provided by your role, and you can purchase new tags using Tag Points. In general, beneficial tags will cost points while harmful/negative tags (drawbacks) will grant points. Any unused points are saved to use later.
Identity
Your identity is your character's name, gender, age, and title. Names must be a single word, and titles must be earned or granted by your role.
Antagonists
Antagonists are secret villain roles that may be granted by a GM. You can select one or more of these options to indicate you're open to receiving one.
Confirm
Once you've made your selections and reviewed your character details, clicking Confirm will create the character and assign it to your Discord account. It will also take you to the Character page, which is your full character sheet.
At this point there are a few recommended next steps:
A turn is not simply submitting a Move action and waiting 12 hours. It's a period during which conversations and scenes unfold across all the Zones.
A typical turn might look something like this:
Keep in mind that submitting a Move doesn't end your ability to speak and interact with others.
Sometimes turns will have consequences that impact your character. If you were bested in a duel, that becomes canon the moment the turn changes over. You can describe exactly how it played out in a roleplay channel, filling in flavor and giving the result its own scene, or you can continue on and simply take it into account during future roleplay and interactions, but you cannot ignore that the result occurred.
As a roleplay game, conversation is at the heart of Bascinet, and the bot is designed to maintain separation between a player's identity and their character. When you send a message to a roleplay channel, the bot will automatically delete your message and post it again under your character name. No special commands or formatting is needed to speak in character.
Sometimes Discord may take a few seconds to update your message with the bot's version, and your username is also visible at the bottom of the channel when typing directly. If you want to ensure neither of these can be used to connect you to your character, you have two options:
#turns channel./message slash command in any channel, including the bot's DMs.There are six Zones in Bascinet:
Every Zone contains specific locations, such as the Gatehouse in the Fortress, which are all covered under the Zone's channel group. You can roleplay freely across all of a Zone's locations within the same turn, as locations are nearby enough that your character could walk between them in only a short time.
Each Zone's channel group has three roleplay channels which you can use to interact with other players in the area.
| Channel | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Summary (text channel) | Describing, in broad terms, what other players would see your character doing. This channel has a 5-minute slowmode, not meant for conversations. |
| Public (forum channel) | Public interactions. Create a topic by clicking the button on the pinned post, or check who's around. |
| Private (forum channel) | Starting private conversation threads with specific people. |
You may also gain access to unique roleplay channels by other means, such as acquiring a specific tag.
Use the Public channel when you want to play out a scene or conversation visible to everyone in the area. It could be a meeting, a conversation or argument, starting a confrontation, or anything else your character might do that involves others.
If you see someone post a description of their Character in the Summary channel and want to interact with them, do so in a Public or Private thread.
To hold a private conversation with one or more other characters at your location:
/add in the thread and choose who you want to invite./remove if someone should leave the conversation./persistent if the thread should survive the next Dawn wipe.Every character has a unique Discord role that you can mention by typing @ followed by their character name. The bot will then DM the player telling them where they were mentioned.
Mentions only work within the same Zone — you can't mention characters located elsewhere in the game world to bring them into a conversation.
To hide your identity while interacting, start your message with /conceal. This isn't a slash command — it will be part of your actual message, and the bot detects it.
Concealing yourself results in your message posting with a vague descriptor such as "Old Man" or "Young Woman", as well as a blank portrait. If you're using the Speak button rather than typing directly, you will see a checkbox to conceal your message.
Other players can still 🔎 you and see any visible wounds or gear, but your name, face, and faction remain hidden.
OOC discussion should be kept out of roleplay channels as much as possible. If you need to add a brief OOC comment, you can bracket the message like this: "[OOC: Have to step away, be back soon]".
Non-roleplay conversation should take place in #general, keeping in mind that you should not reveal who you're playing.
Do not reveal game information in #general. Discussing the game overall is fine, discussing what just happened inside the Inn or who you saw at the Gatehouse is not.
You can interact with messages posted in roleplay channels by adding a Reaction. The bot will process the reaction, remove it from the message, and provide you the result.
| React | Used By | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| 🔍 / 🔎 | Anyone | DMs you their appearance and visible gear or wounds. A doctor will also see afflictions they can treat. |
| ⭐ | Anyone | Saves the message to your personal Notes page. |
| ✏️ / 📝 | The author | Edit your message (the bot DMs you). |
| ❌ | The author | Delete your message. |
| 🌬️ | Ghosts | Haunt a public roleplay channel once every 12 hours. |
Resources in Bascinet are shown with the ⬢ symbol. They represent your access to food, coin, and bulk goods.
Resources are kept either on your character or in your faction's Silo.
You can transfer Resources to or from other characters from your Character page. This requires both characters to be in the same Zone.
The source can be anyone within your Zone. Yes, this means you can take ⬢ from another character. You'll be prompted to provide a reason, which the GMs will see. This is a mugging and should be played out accordingly in the roleplay channels.
Each turn your character spends 1 ⬢ on upkeep to feed yourself. You never need to account for this in your Move — it happens automatically. If you don't have at least 1 ⬢ to spend, your character becomes {tag:hunger}.
If your character has the {tag:ate-meal} tag or the {tag:hungerless} tag, you stay fed without paying the upkeep.
Hunger gives a penalty to Gambit rolls. The first turn you spend hungry causes a −1 penalty, worsening by 1 every turn you remain hungry.
Eating removes one turn's worth of Hunger, not all of it. If you've gone several turns without eating, one meal only brings the penalty down by 1 — you need to eat every turn to fully recover, the same number of turns it took you to build the penalty up.
After 6 turns spent hungry, you receive the {tag:dying} tag and a GM will review your situation to determine what happens next.
Resources can be stockpiled by your faction in the Silo, saving them for later use or distribution. Faction leaders and treasurers can transfer Resources to or from the Silo by using the Transfer Resources button on the Character page.
Silo transfers can only take place from within the faction's Home Zone.
A Move is your abstracted intent of what your character plans to do during the 12 hours of the turn. It tells the GMs the most important thing your character is attempting to accomplish and how they're going about it.
Moves should be used for lengthy, time-consuming, or difficult activities. If your character could reasonably accomplish something within an hour (bandaging someone, trading, talking), it's likely unsuitable for a Move.
You submit a Move by pressing the Move button in #turns or using the /move slash command in any channel or the bot's DMs. This presents you with the form to enter your Move, which asks for three things:
Your Move
A paragraph describing your character's objective, where it's happening, who else is involved, etc.
Kind
Either Routine or Gambit.
Labor
A checkbox available for Routine Moves that produce Resources.
If you don't have anything specific you're interested in doing, or you aren't able to check in on the game during the turn, your Default Move (set via your Character page) will be used.
Moves are collectively adjudicated by the GMs at the end of every turn. If the Baron's intent was to stay in his castle then the Bandit's intent to rob him won't succeed. If the Baron was wandering in the forest, the Bandit may very well get him. Adjudication results are messaged to players at the end of every turn.
Choose Routine when your Move is assumed to be successful and without any risk or uncertainty as to the outcome. Spending the turn farming, hunting, or going on a daily patrol would all be considered Routine.
Choose Gambit when the results may affect the overall narrative and are uncertain or up to chance. Fighting a duel, stealing something, spying on someone, and similar actions would all be Gambits.
When you submit a Gambit, the bot rolls a d6 immediately — but doesn't tell you the result yet. The GMs adjudicating your action can see it and take it into account when determining the results, with the number rolled helping determine your Move results. The die result is not an outright indicator of success/failure, but rather a measure of how fortunate your character was while attempting it.
Roll a 1: Things went worse than you feared.
Roll a 6: Things went better than you hoped.
You'll find out how your die fell once Moves lock for the turn (three hours before it ends) — the bot DMs you the result then. Playing the rest of the turn without knowing is the point: your character doesn't know how it went either.
The choice between Routine or Gambit is left to you because you know what your character is attempting with your Move. It's not a mechanism to choose whether you succeed, and Moves submitted using the wrong option may be adjusted by the GMs.
Anyone can produce ⬢ with Labor unless they're located in the Caves. Describe the Move however fits best for your character: hunting, fishing, foraging, herding, or similar work. The yield you receive depends on your tags.
Laboring is hard work: it leaves you with the {tag:exhausted} tag, and you can't Labor again until it wears off the following turn — one Labor per day.
| Tag | ⬢ Yield | Where |
|---|---|---|
| None | {resource:labor:base} | Anywhere but the Caves |
| {tag:laborer-basic} | {resource:labor:basic} | Anywhere but the Caves |
| {tag:laborer-skilled} | {resource:labor:skilled} | Anywhere but the Caves |
| {tag:laborer-farming} | {resource:labor:farming} | Town only |
Farming is how Ravenheart is fed, and as such it's taxed by the Headman. More information can be found in {document:ravenhearteconomy}, on the Documents page.
You cannot edit or cancel a Move after submitting it. Double check each part of your submission before confirming it.
Moves must also be sent three hours before the turn ends — 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM US Central — so the Gamemasters have time to read and resolve them. After that the Move button will refuse you until the next turn opens. Traveling, Speaking, and requests are not affected.
Tags represent your character's skills, assets, injuries, and all other attributes. You can hover over any tag on the website to see its description, cost, effects, and any requirements.
Tags are shown on the website as embedded chips, color-coded by their category.
| Color | Category | Includes Tags Like |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | General | Traits, Drawbacks, Beliefs |
| Green | Skill | Cooking, Tracking, Brewing |
| Amber | Status | Hungry, Ate Meal |
| Red | Health | Wounds, Illnesses |
| Teal | Items | Weapons, Armor, Ingredients |
| Grey | Assets | Property, Animals |
Tag Points are used to assign tags during character creation, and any unused points are saved to use later. You can earn more points during the game by fulfilling Desires.
You can spend Tag Points, using the option on your character sheet, to acquire new tags at any time.
Tags are gained, used, and removed via options on your Character page. Each is a request. It applies immediately, but prompts for a reason which a GM will review.
Stacks: Some tags can stack, such as meals or ammunition. A stacked chip will show the count, such as ×4.
Equipment: Weapons and armor must be equipped to use them in a fight. You have 6 slots for equippable tags. Click a tag to equip or unequip it instantly.
Equipping is also a public act. Some gear — a dagger, a pistol, a badge — is small enough to keep out of sight, and other people only see it while you have it equipped. A tag's tooltip says which: Seen by others · Only while worn. Big things (a sword, a shield, plate, a banner) are seen whether you have them equipped or not, because you can't hide them.
Durations: Some tags run out (· 2t on the chip). Some get worse instead of running out.
Teaching: Most skills can be taught by those who hold them, without the teacher needing to use a Move. The learner submits a Gambit Move to try and pick up the skill. If they roll a 6, they successfully gain the tag.
When you 🔍 a character you will see tags marked as visible, such as clearly worn gear or wounds. Skills, beliefs, hidden weapons, and other non-visible tags will not be shown. Some tags allow you to see more information when examining a character, such as doctors being shown ailments they can treat.
Health tags are your wounds, illnesses, and other ailments. Removing them typically requires someone medically skilled, based on how severe the tag is. Removing health tags costs Resources, and anything worse than a Minor tag also requires a turn spent by the person doing the removing.
You can see the costs and skills required in the Medical Document: {document:medical}.
Untreated wounds often get worse.
When a health tag worsens, the bot will DM you. Find a doctor before the tag shows · last if you want to stay alive.
Even if you don't possess the skills needed to heal an injury or ailment, you may always attempt something above your tier. That requires a Gambit, and you stand a very real chance of making it worse.
Your Character page contains your character sheet and all mechanical options for modifying your character. The page is dense with features and information, all of which are listed below.
Header: Your name, title (if present), role, faction, and portrait.
Status (top-left):
| Row | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Zone | The Zone you're standing in. |
| Resources | Your personally held ⬢. |
| Gambit | The modifier for your Gambit die. |
| Tag Points | Points available to spend on new tags. |
| This turn | Displays whether you've submitted a Move for this turn. If not, your Default Move will be used. |
Actions: This is the grid of buttons next to your Status. Each button opens a dialogue that asks for your reason and applies immediately. These operate on a system of trust and verification. Your changes take effect when you submit, but are reviewed by GMs to ensure proper use.
| Button | Effect | When You Can Use |
|---|---|---|
| Add Tag | Add a tag by crafting or similar means. Required Resources will be subtracted automatically. | Always, but ensure you use your Move accordingly. |
| Remove Tag | Removes a tag. | When holding something you could reasonably drop or remove. |
| Transfer Tag | Hands something you're carrying to someone else in your Zone. Giving only, no taking. Not everything can change hands — a house isn't portable, and some things are part of you. | When holding something you can transfer. |
| Transfer Resources | Transfer ⬢ between people or Silos within reach (same Zone for people, faction Home Zone for Silos). | Always. |
| Consume | Consumes an item tag (drinking alcohol, eating food). Clicking the tag performs the same action. | When holding a consumable item. |
| Heal | Treat an affliction on yourself or another person within reach, based on your medical skill. | {tag:medical-basic} or better. |
| Loot | Search a dead or incapacitated person in your Zone and take their ⬢ and whatever they were carrying that can be carried off. Their property, and anything grafted or bound to them, stays with them. | Always, the game will reject invalid targets. |
| Move Player | Carry a dead or bound person, or a member of your faction if you're the Leader, to an adjacent Zone. This doesn't spend their Move or yours. | Always. |
| Bind | Tie up someone within reach. | Always. |
| Free | Cut loose someone within reach. | Always. |
| Harm | Injure a helpless person within reach, or finish off a Dying or bound person. This will never instantly kill, a GM will verify first. | Always. |
| Bury Person | Lift a body's Curse by burying it — type the character's first name to confirm. | Always. |
| Fast Travel | Ride your horse to an adjacent Zone. Everyone in the current Zone sees you leave. | Once per day, if you own a horse. |
The menus will always list all characters, to avoid making it obvious when someone is dead, tied up, or otherwise nearby. Act on information your character actually has, don't guess.
Tags: Every tag your character currently has, grouped by category. Hover over them for details, and click on an item tag to consume it.
In the header:
Desires: Your character's current goal. You can only hold one at a time, and ending it puts you on a cooldown before you can set another. Set what your character wants and how many points it's worth. The ⓘ explains the point scale.
Fulfill one when you have achieved it, or Cancel it.
Default Move: What your character does on any turn you don't submit a custom Move. Can be optionally published in the public Summary.
Bio: Your character details.
Your character may die. Several of your characters may die. Luckily, that doesn't mean it's the end of your time in Bascinet.
When your character dies:
#summary or public topic and the bot will post a haunting line there. That's your only voice, and it's a reminder to others that your body remains unburied.