Immersive RP is getting lazier and lazier by the day. At least try and make the story sound like the games. This fic reads like someone flipped through the wiki for about ten minutes, hot high, and tried to write something called Fracture: Rust Belt Edition.
VeneratedWitchHunter
Put this shit in the fanfic section bro. You’re clogging up General Discussion.
Binary_Arcana
At least he’s somewhat following Gravemind’s advice by giving us more detail.
Still reads like bad RP though.
Hambone
HAAA. Dude asked where he was as he passed by a sign that said Glen Harbor Public Library.
Open your eyes dood!
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I told you that none of y’all would believe me. I’m not doing some kind of roleplay. This isn’t a fanfic. I don’t know what the hell is happening, but it’s 100% real and I’m freaking the fuck out.
I really did wake up in a tank filled with water. I really did rush through a lab filled with a bunch of dead bodies and people shooting at each other. I really did end up on a train that was packed with dwarves and orcs and Ren Faire enthusiasts and a fake Lance Reddick. And I really did get exiled to some dead rust belt town that has a computer from the 1980s.
This isn’t a fanfic. This isn’t a nervous breakdown. This isn’t a psychotic break. This is really happening to me.
GrognarTheGreen
Welcome to THE FRACTURE, Chosen One.
Did the magic talking sword let you start a forum account?
VeneratedWitchHunter
This entire post is some bosheet. I read your entire story which was long and windy, and there were only about four slightly useful details in it.
Portals. Train. Class. Empty Town.
That’s it. That’s what you gave us. What are we supposed to do with that? What are we supposed to help you with? You haven’t told us what build you’re aiming for. You haven’t told us anything about your character sheet or what skills you got. You’re not giving us anything to work with, and you’re not giving us any reason to keep following this story.
MushroomCleric
Man. I had high hopes for this thread. This dude is either RPing bad or is just lost in the sauce.
You want us to read your fanfic and yet you haven’t tagged it correctly and you aren’t giving us any actionable intel.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
What information do you all want? I told you that I never played this game before and I don’t know what’s important. I tried finding something out about this place online but none of the websites I went to worked.
I tried everything. I tried Google, Bing, Altavista, Babelfish, fuckin’ Ask Jeeves. Everything bounced back an error for me. The only website that worked for me is this forum, and that is only because there was that weird icon on the computer.
Nobody is in this town so I can’t reach out to them for help. At least, I haven’t seen anyone. The library has its lights on and the water fountain in the front is working, so at least I know I’m not gonna die from dehydration or exposure to the elements. But I haven’t eaten anything since late last night. I don’t know how long I’m gonna last and I have no clue where to go from here.
This is real and I’m looking for some help.
MapHackJunkie
So you’re telling us the only website the magic apocalypse lets you use is this forum?
That’s so convenient dude. Have you tried blowing into the disk?
Unmaker_76
Dood is like “I’m stranded in Fracture and didn’t bring any snacks.”
GravemindLegacy (MOD)
Thread has been moved from General Discussion to Fanworks / Narrative RP
If you’re writing episodic fiction, please continue it there. For lore and theorycrafting, include game logs, mechanical data, or map screenshots. Otherwise, this post is off-topic.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Please. Somebody. I’m serious. I’m not trying to write a fanfic.
Maybe you guys don’t like that I’m on this forum because I said I’m not a superfan. You can all be pissed about that. You can be angry that I’ve never played this game and my lack of knowledge about this setting probably brings a shit ton of baggage with it. Maybe none of you want me posting here because it’s supposed to be a place for fans and I don’t know anything about this world. But I’m seriously desperate here.
I don’t know where I am. Sure, I know it’s somewhere called Glen Harbor, but that doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know how I got that weird class unlock screen, and ever since I swiped it away it hasn’t come back. I don’t know if I’m actually in a videogame world or if I slipped into a coma or what. I just need some help.
Tell me what to look out for. What is this place that I’ve been exiled to? What am I supposed to do? What would any of you do in my place?
Take into account that I don’t have magical powers or guns or knives or meta knowledge about this game and was, until just this morning, a normal dude who lived out in Brooklyn and tended bar.
Plus, I’ll remind you all that you said you’d help if I told my story. I typed it all up and now you all owe me.
MapHackJunkie
First rule of surviving the Fracture: don’t ask questions you can answer yourself.
Start by reading the wiki. Or better yet, start by playing the games.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I can’t access the wiki. This computer isn’t letting me get on any website other than this forum. Whenever I try and type in a website address it just bounces back an ‘unknown command.’ I’ve tried a bunch of the other computers in the library but they’re all the same. They aren’t letting me access anything except for this weird icon thing.
EchoCrawl
Computers are limiting your browsing, but for some reason they still let you connect to this forum?
Saltmines
This is either some really shit performance art…or it’s the start of the longest low-quality fanfic since Dead Signals.
Either way: popcorn.gif
Continue with the ARG my good man.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I don’t even know what an ARG is. All I know is what I’ve told you has happened to me: lady with a pistol, lab with dead bodies, train with fake Lance Reddick, rust belt town with nobody around.
Saltmines:
ARG = Alternative Reality Game. Think I Love Bees
MushroomCleric
Oh shit Salt. Oh SHIT!!
Sound the alarm boys. Do y’all remember what I Love Bees was created for? I’m not gonna say anything more in case I’m wrong. But I’m bookmarking this thread.
Someone give him some info so he can continue the story! I just got goosebumps.
StoryLeech
Alright, alright. I’ll throw the guy a bone.
I don’t know what’s up with you Z3ke, but at least you gave us a bit more details and you’re really leaning into the whole bit of “I got isekai’d” pretty convincingly.
So let’s add a bit of lore to your fanfic. You got stuck in the Fracture-verse. You were in some lab (maybe as an experiment or something) and you ran away and stumbled through a portal. That’s what those glowing slabs were. The portal then sent you to a train that dropped you off in Harbor Glen where there is nothing around. You somehow stumbled into an NPC class and a computer that let you access this forum.
From what I can tell, you’ve got two options.
MushroomCleric
He’s not a bartender. He flicked away the screen, remember? He didn’t take the class so he doesn’t have an interface or anything.
StoryLeech
Okay. Fair. He turned down the bartender class and now he’s a squishy default-mode human who got stuck in the worst part of the Fracture-verse. So let’s give the guy some options.
Option 1: I write out a quick primer of the Fracture-verse for you. This will include information on some of the factions you might run into, a little bit of a geography lesson, and a brief history of the world. You say you don’t have access to the wiki, so the primer will give you a quick rundown of everything.
Option 2: I answer any three questions you’ve got.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I wrote a massive story for you all, giving you as much detail as I could, and all I get out of it is two options?
Can’t you help me without turning this into a game?
EchoCrawl
No.
Dance monkey. Dance for your dinner.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Jeezus. Fine. I’ll take what I can get.
Give me option 2. The questions. But only if you actually answer the questions fully. I don’t want any of that kung-fu master / hippie mystic thing that poorly written TV characters do where if I ask you a question you respond with some mystical bullshit.
If I ask where I am, I don’t want you answering with “in the Fracture-verse.” If you’re gonna do that, then I think I’d rather have the primer and save myself the aggravation.
PixelBaron
Haaa.
I totally would have done that. That little response just earned you a follow for this story. I’m here for it.
StoryLeech
Fair. No riddles or vague answers. Ask me three questions and I’ll answer them.
MushroomCleric
^Pixel
I’m throwing in too. You should already know this, but you’re in the Glens. That massive sign outside the library that read: Harbor Glen Public Library should have been your first clue.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Now…when you are is what really matters. The Glens, as a location, shows up in both Frontiers and Syndicate and you’re gonna face different challenges depending on which game you got “isekai’d” into.
There’s payment for your post.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Okay. Thanks.
Then I guess my first question should be: what are the Glens and is there anything dangerous around me that I gotta worry about? If that counts as two questions, then just answer the first.
StoryLeech
Solid first question so I’ll roll them both into one ask.
First thing’s first, Mushroom isn’t wrong. The Glens show up in two different games. They are semi-buried, half-forgotten neighborhoods that are at the far edge of what is known as the Deadlands. The Glens are a bunch of abandoned cul-de-sacs, rusted out malls, broken down steel mill towns that never caught up with the rest of the world.
In your post you likened Harbor Glen to a rust-belt town that you drove through a few years back. That’s a pretty good analogy. Except…people still live in those rust-belt towns. The Glens are mostly abandoned. Mostly.
In the fandom, the Glens are known as liminal zones. They’re places where the world came close to falling apart, but for some reason didn’t. You know something bad happened out there, but nobody ever explains what it was and we haven’t been able to piece together all the information about it. One thing we do know is that it never reached the level of a full-blown apocalypse like the rest of the Deadlands.
In Syndicate’s, (the MMO) nobody ever went into the Glens on purpose. If you found yourself in the Glens, it was because something glitched and randomly sent you there. Maybe you took the wrong portal or you hit a hidden quest trigger or you picked up an item that was corrupted and it yeeted your character half-way across the map.
Now, there is an interesting theory about the Glens being some sort of punishment zone where characters get dropped if they break something in the game or take an action that some random powerful creature doesn’t like. You can have your fanfic tie into that somehow. Could be an interesting thread to pull on.
The problem for you is that the Glens is pretty barren. There isn’t much of anything interesting around. I will say that there was one slightly interesting quest chain tied to the Glens: a creepy little arc called “Whispers at Sundown.”
Not many people did that quest because it could only be triggered if your character idled in the Glens for an entire in-game day without logging off or leaving. If you made it to dusk, some NPCs would show up and they’d be all sorts of messed up. Something was off about them, but nobody ever figured out if it was caused by a bug or something else.
Also, the quest itself is bugged. You start idling in the Glens, but maybe the quest doesn’t even trigger for you. Something was limiting which players could activate the quest, so most people didn’t even try and complete it.
One guy on the forums did manage to finish the quest chain. He loved the Glens and thought it was suitably creepy. Kinda like a horror game. He threw together a whole bunch of lore theories about the region. Unfortunately we don’t really know what the devs wanted to do with the Glens. That area wasn’t too fleshed out. All we know is that the NPCs don’t appear during the day. The current theory is that they are all hiding from some group called “the Eaters.”
There’s a shit ton of arguments about whether or not the Eaters are actual lore. Against the concept is the fact that “Eaters” never show up once in the game. There isn’t a single legit reference to a hidden group out in the Glens. The theory about them comes from a line of dialogue that this guy (and his fans) claim references them.
“You can’t kill a hunger. You can only feed it something slower than yourself.”
We haven’t seen anything that resembles an Eater, but the guy did type up a bunch of reports that convinced a good section of the forum that they’re out there.
So, to answer the second part of your question of “is there something dangerous nearby?” It’s a definite maybe.
Hambone
| The Glens are mostly abandoned. Mostly. |
They mostly come out at night. Mostly.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Well shit. I mean, thanks for the information but that spawned so many new fears for me and a whole boatload of questions…but I should probably focus on survival right now.
For my second question, can you please answer my original one: if you got dropped into the Fracture-verse, what would you do? And use the info that I provided in my story. Someone earlier in the thread complained that I only gave a few useful data points. Unfortunately I don’t know what else you all want. I never played the games so I don’t know what information is important.
GravemindLegacy (MOD)
VeneratedWitchHunter claimed that you provided four useful data points.
- Portals
- The Veilstrider
- Harbor Glen
- Bartender Class
Since no one has jumped in to provide information on the Veilstrider yet, I will explain. This isn’t an answer to your original question, it is just to give you background information for your fanfic.
The Veilstrider is the name of the train that you found yourself on. It is an interstitial transit relic that has shown up twice in the franchise: once in Null Protocol as a fast-travel method only usable in certain sections of the map. A second time in Shards where it was used in a late-game quest line called “Between the Stations.”
In both appearances, the Veilstrider only appeared to characters who were “no longer bound to time-indexed space.”
In Shards it was described as a means of conveyance for “fragmented souls between realities.” Characters who boarded the Veilstrider were flagged with a hidden status effect called “unanchored.”
If you’re using this in your fanfiction, it means you are facing two possible outcomes. Either you will destabilize and drift through the Fracture-verse. Or you will root yourself in the world by finding an anchor.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Uh. Great. Thanks for all that. I don't mean to be a dick or anything, but I don’t exactly have a dictionary or thesaurus handy right now. Can you translate all that for me?
Again…not trying to be a dick.
Fogbarrel
The Veilstrider = creepy ass ghost train.
It slides across broken timelines and scoops up lost people. It doesn’t have a schedule or anything, and there isn’t a whole bunch of logic behind where and when it stops. Some folks believe that it lets your character out at the point where they’re supposed to be. Others suggest that the train has a sense of humor and just drops you wherever it would be funniest.
You showing up in the Glens, one of the most boring areas in all the Fracture-verse, with no knowledge of the world and no class is pretty funny.
Grave is saying that the train knows that you don’t belong in the world. If you’re “unanchored” then you’re gonna just disappear in about two or three weeks. My guess is that the train was trying to anchor you by giving you that bartender class. If you’d accepted it, you’d have been perfectly fine. But you swiped it away and now you gotta go get yourself a class or else you’ll get deleted.
No rush tho.
StoryLeech
If Grave is right, then being unanchored is pretty bad. Maybe. Again, the lore surrounding it is pretty vague. Nobody really agrees on everything that it means, and it’s kinda meh in terms of something that you’d want to put into a fanfic. Barely anyone ever talks about the whole “unanchored” bug.
What’s most important to you now is your immediate survival. Your first priorities should be food, water, and shelter.
You’ve got water covered since you mentioned a fountain in the library. That place also provides shelter. But food is gonna be your big problem. There are vendors out in the Glen. They appear after dark when the town populates. But - and this is incredibly important - DO NOT trade with the vendors.
I’m going to repeat that because it bears repeating: DO NOT ENTER INTO ANY FORM OF TRADE WITH THE NPCs OF THE GLENS.
Weird shit happens whenever a player goes into the Glens and tries to trade with the vendors. In Syndicate’s there were tons of reports about players losing levels and passive perks and unique cosmetics and all sorts of random shit.
Everyone thought that it was just a bug at first, but the devs never addressed it in any of the patches, and whenever asked about it they never acknowledged the issue. Players just learned not to head into the Glens. And if they did wind up there, they learned to never trade with the vendors.
The entire thing is called “the Barter Drain.”
Maybe it’s a bug and maybe it’s lore that nobody ever fully explored. Either way, your best bet right now is to refuse to trade with anyone. You can scavenge or steal or work for the NPCs, but you shouldn’t buy anything. And if any of the NPCs try to enter a bargain with you, politely decline and then run your ass out of there.
MushroomCleric
Both Fog and Grave bring up some good points. You’ve gotta define yourself or else that “unanchored” flag is gonna start pulling you apart.
You’ve got about 21 days before the world starts deleting you. Like Story said, the unanchored tag isn’t confirmed canon, but if you completely ignore it know that a bunch of people are gonna rag on your fanfic. 21 day is about how long unanchored builds lasted in testing in Shards before the entire save corrupted and you had to reinstall everything. Of course, Shards was a buggy mess so you can just blame everything on that.
To get anchored, you will need either a class or a unique weapon that is tied to you. You turned down the bartender class, which is okay. You shut one door and so now you gotta open another.
That should be the first arc in your fic: getting a class.
StoryLeech
Your best chance at survival is getting out of the Glens. The best way to do that is to find a train station. There’s a few spots around the Glens you can head to where a train (not the Veilstrider) will stop and pick up passengers. You’re gonna need to find one of those spots and take the train elsewhere. Unfortunately for you, that’s not something that any of us can help you with.
Train stations in that region shift about. They appear in different locations for different players. Sometimes they’re obvious like a boarded-up depot or a subway station. Other times the train platforms aren’t marked and you’re gonna have to hunt for them.
Maybe try asking some of the NPCs in town for the closest train station. But again, DO NOT TRADE FOR ANYTHING.
Binary_Arcana
Hey Story, since you’re being so helpful and answering questions, how about answering one of mine?
Why are you entertaining this bullshit of a fanfic?
Dude admits to not being a fan of the games. He refuses to read the wiki. He’s not part of this community. Never posted on the forums before. And yet here you all are giving him lore dumps and talking about side quests and sharing info with some dick who probably only ever heard of this forum through a podcast mention or something.
This entire story sounds like a desperate attempt to monetize the fandom. We’re gonna see blog posts, clickbait videos, and more. Whatever this dude is trying to do, he’s having you all help him write a serial and he’s gonna profit off it.
So my question: why help someone write a fic when he doesn’t give a shit about the world we all love?
MushroomCleric
Nah, I’m fine with it.
Either Z3ke isn’t part of the fandom, which means he’ll be writing a story that gets everything wrong because he didn’t bother doing any research or read the wiki or play the games, in which case we all dogpile him for failing to even google the timeline.
Or he is part of the fandom, pretending like he’s not, and he’s using this forum to write his fanfic as some sort of collaborative storytelling technique. If that’s the case, it could be a new type of medium for fanfics. Dood is writing a fanfic in real-time. He’s gonna be bouncing ideas off everyone. And hopefully we can guide him to lore theories that most of us don’t really talk about.
Think about it, wouldn’t you wanna read a fanfic that tries to do something slightly unique in terms of story telling? And if Z3ke is going through all that trouble to bring in forum users to help with his fic, do you really think he’s gonna rehash all the old fan theories that we argue about constantly? Hells no. He’s probably gonna try and dig up something new. Why do you think his OC is hanging out in the Glens? Nobody ever talks about the Glens.
I see this as a win-win. Either we dogpile and get entertainment. Or we get a new brand of fanfic and get entertainment. I’m just waiting to see which one it is. Is he a hack, or is trying something new?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Binary, how do you want me to prove myself?
I gave all the information that I’ve got about what’s happening to me. I don’t have a phone or camera or anything that can take pictures and post on this forum. So…what am I supposed to do?
Put yourself in my shoes for a moment. You wake up in a vat of liquid. Then you end up on a train. Then you get tossed aside in the ass end of nowhere. Everything is completely new to you and you’ve gotta come to terms with the fact that you know nothing about this world, you’re nowhere near civilization, and the only way you can talk to people is through an ancient ass computer.
I’m not trying to monetize anything. I’m not trying to make a profit. I’m just trying to stay alive. If you can figure out a way I can prove what I’m saying is real, and that I’m not full of shit, then I’m all ears.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Okay. Last question. Or, it’s my attempt at a last question because I don’t really know how to ask it. I only have the single question left and I wanna make it count.
So: what would a smart person ask you right now, and what would the answer to that question be?
I know that’s a janky way to ask that question, and I know that I’m kinda stretching the limits of only asking three questions. But, hey, it’s worth a shot.
MushroomCleric
Haa.
“Hey, can you give me an important question and the answer to it?”
Love it.
PalmSkinner
I mean, it’s not a bad move. Especially if you don’t know what you don’t know.
The best question to ask would be: what’s the lowest-risk route to me surviving long enough to get out of the Glens.
DraftlineJunkie
My vote for smart person question is: what’s the most efficient dungeon or zone within walking distance of the Glens that I can farm for gear?
Fogbarrel
He should be asking about the class system. He’s gonna die in three weeks if he doesn’t pick up a class. Also, good luck surviving in the world without something that can make you stronger.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Uh…was I an idiot for not taking the bartender class more seriously?
StoryLeech
I’ll allow the question.
Yes, Z3ke, you absolutely should have taken the bartender class much more seriously. Some folks here are probably mad at you for turning it down.
It would have been an interesting subject for a fanfic since the bartender class isn’t available to players. Like, at all. It’s an NPC-only support class. We’ve seen it maybe a handful of times across the games, and it’s usually tied to some weird lore hubs or side quests. It’s never been on any class tree and no one has ever glitched into it and no dev has ever acknowledged it to exist as a playable option.
So, your character not only gave up a rare class that might have been interesting to read about, but now you’re also unanchored.
MushroomCleric
Story: If he’s RPing as someone who has never played the games before, he’s not gonna understand about classes and skills and the like. You’re gonna need to explain all of that if you want anything else to make any sense.
Z3ke: the Fracture-verse doesn’t have levels. You can’t kill a bunch of monsters for XP so you can level up. The entirety of the games was centered on skills.
Each skill in the game goes from 0-10. Mostly.
0: you don’t know what you’re doing.
5: competent
7: you’re good but you’ve reached the limits of what a normal person can do.
10: grandmaster. Beyond logic. Game-breaking.
The benefit of having a class is that most skills cap out at 7. If you’ve got a class, you can go beyond that.
StoryLeech
Right. So, a smart question would be: what are classes, why do they matter, and how do I get one?
And the short answer is: classes remove your soft cap on skills.
Like Mushroom said, Fracture doesn’t focus on levels. There aren’t even the traditional RPG stats like Strength, Constitution, and Charisma.*
*There are some arguments about this. A few people suggest that these stats do exist, but they are hidden deep within the game’s code and we, as players, never see them.
Instead, Fracture is all about skills. Anyone can learn almost any skill in the game. You just gotta do the thing. Scavenging, shooting, blacksmithing, bartering, and bartending. It doesn’t matter which class you choose, you can pick up all those skills as long as you find someone to teach you.
But those skills can only go so far. Without a class helping you along, your skills eventually hit a ceiling at level 7. That represents the natural human limit of the skill.
There are a few ways to get your skills above level 7 without a class, but they usually involve some extremely rare events, obscure quest lines, or full-on divine intervention. You’re not gonna get any of those in three weeks. Nor would it really matter much if you could.
Let’s say that you go out and unlock the shooting skill. You practice your ass off and train it up to get it to 7. Congrats. You’re now Annie Oakley with a gun. You’re fast and accurate and a danger to enemies around you.
Now, imagine that you’ve got a class that lets you train your shooting skill beyond 7. You train some more and push your skill up to 8 or 9. Now you’re curving bullets, ricocheting shots off walls, and killing buildings with a single pull of the trigger. You’ve turned into a maestro with a gun.
It’s the same thing with that bartender class. You can reach skill 5 in bartending and make a really good Old Fashioned. But if you get that skill up to 9 (only possible with the bartender class) you’d probably be able to make a drink that lets people relive their best memory.
Most skills in the Fracture-verse aren’t all that magical. It’s just shooting and athletics and melee skills. But once you move a skill past the level 7 threshold, that shit turns magical. You’re punching holes in people. You’re jumping over buildings. You’re outrunning trains.
One last thing about classes. Not everyone gets one. NPCs are mostly locked out of classes. Players need to earn theirs through achievements or quests or dungeons or specific choices. You were offered the bartender class and turned it down. That closes that option off for you. Now you’re gonna need to figure out how to re-open that door (if it’s even possible) or find a way to trigger a new class unlock by doing something exceptional.
MushroomCleric
I’d read the hell out of a fanfic starring a bartender wandering through the Fracture-verse. He’d be serving magical drinks to people and chatting them up. There was an anime with that concept. It wasn’t bad. The protagonist was a bartender who solved people’s problems through the power of alcohol.
Definitely more interesting than another fanfic about a rogue with shadow powers.
NovaSilva
He’d be a…Traveling Inn.
Probably run into copyright problems because of it though. Still, 10/10 concept.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Thanks everyone, this has been helpful. Seriously. I didn’t know what to expect when I first posted here. I mean, I know how weird this all sounds. “I’ve been isekai’d into a game world, but for real.”
This thread has been helpful. I actually feel like I’ve got something of a plan right now. Let me know what I’m missing.
I’m gonna wander through the library for the next hour or two to see whether I can scrounge up anything before nightfall. Then I’ll wait for the sun to go down and see what happens to the Glen. I’m not gonna trade with anyone. Message received. I’ll scavenge or loot or maybe I’ll find an odd job or something. And then tomorrow I’ll start walking until I find a train station and get out of the Glens.
I’ll post again after I’ve made some progress. Or if something strange happens. Which, you know, kinda feels like a guarantee at this point.
Thanks.
All of you.
Even Binary.
MushroomCleric
Just remember, if you do something stupid and/or lore-breaking, we will mock you. Relentlessly and mercilessly.
But if you type up something interesting and you don’t butcher canon too much, I’ll stick around. Maybe even throw you a few more breadcrumbs.