The Director’s Program
It is assumed in this document that you understand the difference between Alpha, Beta and Theta encounters.
A Director’s Responsibilities:
The Director lives in Beta. The people that run the plot lines in The Osiris Sanction are called Directors. They, working with a writer, or perhaps writing it themselves, run the encounters and actually are the “voices” behind the characters the players meet in Theta in their adventures. The directors are the backbone of the game: they present all the content the players will discover as they play. He puts out the messages, responds to inquiries by the players, and general sets the tone for the run, inventing personalities for the individuals they meet along the way. They are the cast and driving force in the run: there is no run without them.
A Director may be running a story line for his local game, but it is entirely possible for him to run that story line for a game in another state, or even on the other side of the world. His interactions are entirely on line, after all. While the Director is responsible for all on-line content, the local cell is responsible for the Alpha and Theta parts of the game.
In other words, a Director from Connecticut could be running a story line for a cell in Texas. The Director would put out the clues, handle the player interactions, make the calls on the progress of the run, and generally be in charge of the progress of the game. He would give notice to the cell owner when an Alpha or Theta encounter was approaching, and the cell owner would set those encounters up according to the instructions of the Director. The Alpha encounter would give out the information the director wanted to go out, and a full report of the encounter would be due back to the Director to help him judge the progress of the game.
Additionally, a Director can run the game for more than one cell at a time, if he chooses. To this end, the Director will indicate to the local cell owner where local information will be needed, This might be “
The Director’s Value
A Director who is good, therefore, can make or break a cell. Consequently, a Director may expect a share in the profits of a run he has Directed. Such payments will be negotiated between the Director and the owner. It is likely that a new chapter will pay a well known and respected Director very well to participate in one of his runs. How many cells are participating in a run is entirely up to the Director, and depends on how many people he thinks he can manage.
A Director determines how many groups he can handle. He might not take on a large cell that has a lot of groups for this reason….he will not be able to handle that many people. He will put his plot description out there , and local games will bid on it. They may offer whatever terms the wish, and the Director can make whatever demands he wishes: the contract between the Director and the Cell is up to them, and, barring illegalities or some wrinkle that hurts the game, National will have veto power over any plotline, and may do so with no explanation (generally due to a plotline getting into an area that is going a different direction at the national level and that information needing to be secret until the appropriate time), but National will generally not get involved.
So a Director puts his run out there for bids. He will likely have a deal with some people he always works with, and so only puts out a portion of the total he is willing to support. The cells interested in getting him will offer terms of a deal, and the Director may choose from them. When they have a deal, they will sign a contract that is called a subscription to that plot line.
Payment to a Director
The Director may demand all of the profit for a run if he is dealing with a new cell, and he might be justified in doing so. If the Director has a reputation, he will attract players to the run, and the new cell can have a chance to show off their new production values and gain a reputation of their own, and attract more players. The deal is always on a share of profit for the run. A simple worksheet will be provided to determine the profit, backed up by the National Organization’s records of number of attendees for that event, and so on. A well known cell dealing with a well known Director may offer a much more modest share of the profits, and the profits will be a lot larger, since they will have a lot more players.
A good Director will become a celebrity. We expect to have yearly conventions, and these well-known Directors will be in demand as speakers and on panels about how to Direct a run. Writers will be in similar demand, and players who have excelled will be as well. There will be a lot of room for fame in this game. The Directors and Cell owners will share in the financial gain as well.
In a World…….
Let us postulate a world of reasonable success for the Osiris Sanction game. There are 60 active cells around the country, and more on the way. The concentration is the east Coast, with a secondary population of games in California.
Now, let us take three different Directors. One (We will call him Rob) is a legendary Director, famous for the intricate plots he weaves and the way he picks up those lines in later runs and carries them on, as well as vivid characters and excellent timing of the various clues.
Our second guy is Jesse, a Director of some local fame, a possible up-and-comer, working primarily for a small group of cells local to him, but other cells further afield are taking notice.
Our last guy is Frank. He’s just getting started, having run a couple of runs for his friends game, and he is looking to expand his reputation and fame and see if he can develop demand for his stuff.
Case 1: Frank
Frank lives in St Louis (Missouri), and is a Director new to the business of Directing. He has had three runs, all for a good friend of his, and has, this far, not shared in any profits. He feels he has learned enough and enjoys doing it enough to explore the possibilities of running games for money. His first objective it to develop a name for himself, which will give him leverage in making deals down the road.
With this in mind, Frank writes a run, finishes it out, works up a props and encounter requirements sheet and puts the summary out there on the boards. In the meantime, he runs the plot for his buddy whom he has run plots for before. It goes well…it gets good reviews from the players. A week later, he gets three inquiries, one from a Game in Columbia, Missouri, one from Norman, Oklahoma, and one from San Antonio, Texas. The first two were the result of players who had played his runs locally, and the other one was a sort of secondary result of the same sort, being that someone had talked to someone who had talked to a player, and the San Antonio game was intrigued by the premise of the game. They all sent him questions about the number of encounters, and the requirements for the Theta run (all of which they would have to manage locally) and San Antonio dropped out, being a relatively new cell and not having some of the equipment that his Theta would require. The other two agree to do his run. They both will do it with them keeping all the profit, since he is not a “draw” as a Director. This is fine with Frank, and what he expected. If he does well, he will enhance his reputation, and in a run or two (or three), he will be able to make demands on the cell owner, and in the meantime, he gets to run a game that is challenging and fun.
Frank has determined that he can support up to 12 teams, since he is running this in his spare time. The cells he is contracting with are both small enough that he is not likely to exceed that number.
Case 2: Jesse
Jesse (in Miami) has run a dozen games, each getting better reviews than the one before, except for one disaster, when the local cell messed up an Alpha encounter and gave the clues to the wrong group, which led to much confusion. While it was generally recognized that it wasn’t his fault, it slowed his demand a bit. He is on a roll lately, though. He has a new run ready to go and puts it out there for bid.
A bid is submitted immediately by a fairly well known cell in Springfield, Massachusetts. They offer him an even split of the profits, which is not a bad deal, since they will put a dozen teams into the run all by themselves. Jesse has determined that he can handle 16. He takes their deal, since it’s with a name cell and, if he does will, he will gain some reputation. He modifies his bid notice to reflect the deal he has made, and gets another bid for the last 4 teams a couple of days later from a new small game just starting in Baton Rouge. He is doubtful about them, and demands the full profit from the run for his efforts, and they take the deal. Jesse has some misgivings about their ability to support him, but it’s a good deal for him if it does well, so he takes it.
Case 3: Rob
Rob finishes a run and contacts the games he likes to work with. They are all fairly large games that helped him make his reputation, and he knows they will do his plot justice, so he always gives them the right of first refusal. They all accept the run with the usual terms: they will split the profits with him.
Rob does this full time now, so he still has 8 slots left to put out for bid. He puts the proposal out on the boards, and immediately gets 5 responses. Three of them, he doesn’t even consider, one being from a game he has heard some bad things about, and the other two because they are small and won’t take all 8 slots. Running a game for several cells is harder than just a few, of course, since the cells have some real time issues about scheduling their runs, and Rob has to coordinate his efforts with all of the games. a lot of cells running his game can slow the whole thing down for everyone, making it a lot less fun, many times.
The other two, however, are willing to take all 8 slots. One game is in Chicago, and one in Baltimore. He does a bit of research on them and finds the Chicago game has some issues in the past with paying their Directors, so he goes with the Baltimore game. He demands and gets the full profit from the run, and they are quite happy to give him that deal, as his name attached to a run will get a lot of attention locally. A bunch of teams will try to get on the run, but, of course, only 8 will make it, but the fact that the cell got him raised their profile and gets attention.
Conclusion
If all goes according to our plan, we will create a new profession. It might pay pretty well, if you do it well. It may also be the beginning of a whole new way to present entertainment to the American Public, which is always a money maker. Ways can be developed to expand the teams that may participate in a given plot line: run by a team, lead by the Director, for instance. This is just the beginning of a new industry, we believe, and we look forward to watching this become a reality. We invite you to become a part of it.
Ford
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