Parties, Activities, Quests, and Ren Scenes
These four concepts apply to every Plantangenet scenario. They are not game mechanics so much as the scaffolding the simulation uses to coordinate participants, track progression, and surface narrative. Understanding them before you dive into a specific scenario will save you a lot of guesswork.
If you have not connected to a server yet, start with Getting Started.
Parties
A party is a group. Every participant in a scenario belongs to one.
You cannot start or join an activity until you are in a party, so the first thing you do after connecting is either join an existing party or create your own. The Party panel (it opens automatically after connection) lists every party currently on the server. Each entry shows the party name, the scenario it belongs to, and a count of its human and AI members.
Creating a party is a single action: give it a name, and the server registers it under your account. The party becomes visible to everyone else on the server immediately.
Joining a party adds you as a member. The party panel updates live as people join and leave; this is driven by server-sent events, so you see changes as they happen without polling.
AI members are scenario-specific characters who are always in the party. In Kurzz, for example, Velda (bassist) and Kepler (keys player) are permanent members alongside you. They are not bots waiting for instructions -- they are active participants in the simulation who respond to what the ensemble is doing. You are joining their world, not the other way around.
When your party has an activity running, the Party panel shows an activity badge. One party can only run one activity at a time.
Activities
An activity is something your party does together inside the scenario.
You start one from the Party panel once you have joined a party. What "starting an activity" means in practice depends entirely on the scenario:
| Scenario | Activity kind | What it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Kurzz | jazz |
A live jazz session: the simulation generates music, AI musicians play their parts, and you contribute. |
| Solace | exploration |
Movement through the world's regions, filing claims, resolving disputes. |
An activity has a status: Active or Ended.
While an activity is Active, the panels associated with it are live. In a Kurzz jazz session this means the music panels, the role panel, and the cue display are all receiving events and updating. The simulation is running for your party.
When the activity status changes to Ended, the session is over. Those panels become inactive and stop updating. You can start a new activity from the Party panel.
Note that the activity system is designed to grow. Ren scenes (described below) can also run as standalone activity kinds, and additional activity types are expected as the scenarios expand.
Quests
Quests are the simulation's way of tracking your progression through a scenario's tutorial content. They are not a game layer bolted on top; they are wired into what the simulation is already measuring.
Each quest has:
- A name and description that tell you what the scenario wants you to notice or do.
- One or more objectives that must be satisfied.
- A completion event that fires when all objectives are met. Completing a quest earns points and often triggers a ren scene (see below).
Quests are per-scenario. In Kurzz they are musical milestones:
| Quest | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| First Note | Playing your first note into the ensemble |
| First Form | Surviving a complete jazz form cycle |
| First Lead | Taking the Lead role for the first time |
| Phrase Burst | Hitting a rapid sequence of notes (repeatable) |
Quest state arrives as server-sent events: assigned (the quest is now active for you), progress (an objective moved), and completed (all objectives met). When you complete a quest, a notification appears in the UI.
Most quests are one-time milestones. A few are repeatable -- Phrase Burst is a good example -- and will re-trigger as the conditions recur.
You do not need to seek quests out. They are assigned and updated by the simulation as you participate. The scenario is watching what your party is doing, not waiting for you to click an accept button.
Ren Scenes
A ren scene (also called a VN scene, or visual novel scene) is a narrative moment where one of the scenario's characters speaks to you directly.
The word "ren" comes from the VN authoring heritage that the scene format draws on: it is a structured sequence of dialogue, speaker portraits, and optional background images. In Plantangenet, ren scenes are the simulation's way of giving a voice to something that just happened in the world.
How they differ from a cutscene: A cutscene interrupts. It plays a pre-authored sequence regardless of what you were doing or why. A ren scene is a response. The simulation knows what your party just did -- completed a quest, reached a threshold, triggered a condition -- and the character speaks to that specific event. The content is authored, but the trigger is live.
In Kurzz, Velda and Kepler are the main voices. Some examples of what that looks like in practice:
After your first note:
Velda: "You played something. Good. The ensemble noticed." Velda: "Don't wait for permission. This band answers forward motion."
After taking the Lead role:
Kepler: "You took the Lead. Watch the cam. When it climbs, your cost goes up." Kepler: "The ensemble follows pressure. You just became the source."
These are not tutorials explaining mechanics. They are characters reacting to what you actually did, inside a simulation that is genuinely tracking those things.
Current state: The full VN panel -- the one that renders portraits, dialogue boxes, and transitions -- is in development in Waldo. The scene content is defined in the scenario data and the server emits the correct events. As the panel is built out, ren scenes will appear as first-class moments in the interface rather than as notifications.
How they connect
The four concepts form a chain:
- You join or create a party.
- Your party starts an activity. The simulation begins running for your group.
- As you participate, the simulation evaluates quest objectives in the background. You do not need to track this yourself.
- When a quest completes, the server may trigger a ren scene. A character speaks to what just happened.
- Completing quests and scenes can unlock further quests, which unlock further scenes, and so on through the scenario's tutorial arc.
The chain does not require you to complete it in order, and not every scenario uses every piece of it in the same way. But this is the basic flow: party into activity, activity into quest progression, quest completion into narrative response, and back around.
For a concrete walkthrough of this in action, see the Kurzz guide.