Downtime and Turnsheets

Between each session of Labyrinth, three months of in-game time will pass. If exceptions to this period of time occur, GMs will inform players at the end of the session prior to the affected downtime. Between sessions, players can communicate via email and take actions as conveyed to the GM team through turnsheets.

This is the part of Labyrinth remote players will be participating in.

If you are completely new to these games and the wiki system, you may wish to read our guide on how the wiki works.

When you get an account on this wiki, you will automatically have an email address created associated with that account. This will be linked to the email address you gave the GMs when you submitted your character creation form. You will be able to send emails to any Labyrinth email address, and the receiver will get an email from “[your character]@labyrinth.oxfordlarp.com”.

Emails allows players to communicate with each other's characters and with GM NPCs after a session ends, and lets characters interact with the wider world outside of the Labyrinth base camp. This may take the form of IC letters or of IC in-person interactions. Emails cannot be used to take any major steps or actions, but can be used for planning turnsheet actions or for more emotional interactions between characters. It is also the main way to interact with remote players.

GMs are copied into all IC emails so as to keep track of plans and developing themes within the game, though these are no substitute for turnsheets and GMs are liable to miss things only contained in emails. Importantly, if your turnsheet does not contain enough information about your downtime plans, the GMs will not have time to search through their inboxes for additional information, which may lead to a rather disappointing turnsheet response.

The email period will begin at the end the session, and continue until 21:00 on the Monday after the session. Please note that this is 3 hours before the turnsheet deadline. This is to give people time to finish their turnsheets before the deadline if emails are impacting their plans, and for those who are not night owls to sleep at a reasonable time.

Please note that emails are entirely optional. Some players and GMs will send many emails; others will send very few or none at all. It is worth checking with other players in session what their expectations are, and if they prefer not to email, to ensure that all plans with them are set before the end of uptime. Remote players may want to message people on Discord to ask if they want to participate in emails.

If you're having trouble receiving emails from GMs or players before or during the game, try checking your Junk inbox. If game emails tend to be filtered out, you may want to whitelist the 'labyrinth.oxfordlarp.com' domain.

Finally, please note that your OC email will not be displayed to other players when you email them, as any emails sent by you will appear to come from your in-character email address. However, other metadata contained in the email may be visible, such as whatever name you've set for your email. Further information can be found in the Privacy Policy.

• A turnsheet period represents 3 months of IC time
• You have two major actions and a section for housekeeping
• Occasionally you will also have a character focus question in downtimes before character advancement
• Character advancement will happen 4 times over the course of the game
• Actions with a plan are more likely to go according to said plan; actions where you have relevant Skills, Quirks, and any other advantages are more likely to be successful.
• The deadline for turnsheeting each week is 23:59 on the Monday after the session.
• A list of turnsheets for each week can be found on your user page. Follow the link on your page, and then click “Create this page” in order to get started.

After each session, you have the opportunity to submit a turnsheet. The turnsheet represents what your character would like to do in the period of time between sessions (this is sometimes referred to as downtime). In character, this period is 3 months unless the GMs inform you otherwise.

Turnsheets can be found on your user page towards the bottom. There will be a list of hyperlinks to pages called 'Turnsheet 1', 'Turnsheet 2', etc. If you click on these, you will be directed to a blank wiki page with the option to create the page by clicking on the pencil icon to the right hand side of the screen.

You will then be able to edit the page! The edit window will come with a template that you just have to fill in with what your character wants to do. Please don't delete the headings and tags – they help us work out what you're trying to do! (you can delete the bullet points and descriptions explaining how to use each section, though).

In each turnsheet, you have two major actions, in which you tell us what your character does in the time between uptimes. Each major action will receive a write-up from the GMs of around 300 words per action.

Major actions can be anything you can think of that your character might reasonably do, and usually is something that would take your character significant time and effort to accomplish. We will try to interpret your plan, along with any external factors involved, when adjudicating what happened in your turnsheet response. Telling us what outcome you want (both IC and OC, especially when they're different) is often a good way to be clear about what you're trying to achieve.

Generally, anything that hangs together coherently as a single subject can be counted as one major action. Concise plans that are easier for the GMs to understand and keep in mind when resolving turnsheets are preferable to multi-paragraph epics. If possible, keep plans brief, and remember that longer plans are not the same as better plans. Bullet point steps for explaining plans are especially helpful.

If you want to ask any questions about actions, please contact the GM team and we'll do our best to help.

Some example major actions include:

• Exploring a room in the Labyrinth
• Convincing your state's leaders to take a particular action
• Secretly following another character
• Searching for a rare ingredient to perfect your special stew recipe
• Attending a dinner party

Other people are going to be crucial to your actions. They may help you or hinder you. If you are relying on another character to help you, make sure to note their assistance on your turnsheet. If an NPC has agreed in session to do something for you, note that down as well – we play a lot of different people and may forget, and the person writing the results of your action might not be the person who played that NPC. It can also help if you tell us how you think the other characters are likely to respond – this helps us judge your actions and responses in kind – and to distinguish between genuine miscommunications and deliberate betrayals.

Quirks should also be listed when you think they are relevant to your plans, but they may come up unexpectedly as GMs see fit since many Quirks have both positive and negative aspects to them.

Skills and Magic which you are relying on for an action should be listed below that action, explaining succinctly how it is relevant to your plan. You can also list negative Skills which you think are likely to come up in that action – this won't change how often these affect you, but it can make the GMs' lives easier.

Resources are things that you may have started with or picked up in play that aren't represented by your Skills. This might include, for example, a password to a locked door, compromising material on a diplomat, a powerful relic, or a tool that another character has lent you.

Your character focus is what your character is focusing on in order to advance their capabilities. This could be by working to learn or improve a Skill, a magic Path, or working to find a special item. This question will only be on turnsheets for downtimes when the GMs will be advancing characters.

Character advancements will not be given out after every downtime, but periodically as set by the GMs. We will let you know when this is and will only have this question during the downtime before advancement. You will receive advancements 4 times over the course of the game.

Your character focus for the downtime will be taken into consideration and incorporated into the write-ups of your major actions, but you do not need to spend either action explicitly focusing on training. There will be no advancement of Skills or magic Paths outside of the specific turnsheets where character focus is a question.

Please note if you have played any games recently, this is replacing minor actions and will not receive a write-up unless the GMs decide it is absolutely necessary (or decide to do a bit).

Your character may need to pass on an item in their possession to someone else or receive an item from someone. Or you may get invited to parties. To register that your character is doing this, but without putting in the effort that a major action would imply, please write it in housekeeping.

If your housekeeping item is to accompany other players on their major actions (e.g. “I help Alma build her stall for the fair”), you will not be very useful to the action and will likely not gain any information from this. If the action would require significant time or effort just to tag along, the GMs reserve the right to say your character is too busy to attend.

If you are giving an item to another player character please note this in your housekeeping, even if the actual passing over of the items happens in session, in emails, or in another major action. This makes it much easier for us to keep track of who has what. It can be helpful to list any items you are expecting to receive, but if you put it in your turnsheet and the sender does not turnsheet to give the item to you, the response will likely be along the lines of “you wait patiently, but Mario never arrives with your princess”.

This section will not receive a write-up most of the time, but functions as a way to pass important information along to the GMs. You can assume your character has completed something written in this section unless the GMs tell you otherwise.

The deadline for turnsheets is 23:59 the Monday after each session.

Please contact the GM team if you believe you have extenuating circumstances (we understand if real life gets in the way sometimes), but please don't expect to be able to hand in your turnsheet late on a regular basis.

We will aim to get a response to your turnsheet to you before session begins, usually the day before or the day of. These responses will be added to the end of your submitted turnsheet on the wiki. Your GM will email you when they have completed your turnsheet response.

If you have any questions about your turnsheet response, contact your GM before the start of the session and we'll try to clear everything up.

For example turnsheets, see Sample Turnsheets.