HOW'S THE GAME?

[paradisamods]

It's time for another round of Game Discussion, also known as

HOW'S THE GAME?

Here we come together to discuss the game, its plots, the settings, and just about anything we can think of that we'd like to talk about, expand upon, improve, change, etc.

This is not an HMD for players and their characters; this should be about the game's function as a whole and not the people in it. If there is something you feel is absolutely necessary to address that involves a specific person, please IM a mod first to discuss it. We can be reached at valawie (Valerie), fan of todd (TF), or never die ftw (Ashley).

Anonymous will be left off for this round. Sock journals are allowed, but you will have to request comm access to post with them.

Here are the sections that we've come up with. Add your own, and we'll edit it into the list. :)

➜ HOW'S THE STAFF
➜ POST-DREAMWIDTH MOVE FEEDBACK
➜ ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS
➜ PLOT TIMING
➜ WHAT KINDS OF PLOTS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?
➜ PEACE PATROL/JUSTICE SYSTEM/LAW ENFORCEMENT

Comments

WHAT KIND OF PLOTS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?

[paradisamods]

As always, we'd like your feedback on any plots you'd like to see in the future. Perhaps you have an idea but don't know where to begin writing it up yourself, or maybe you have a question about something you'd like to try but aren't sure how it would work. If it's related to plots you'd like to see happen, it goes here.

Yeah sorry for the tl;dr

[unnaturalpause]

I have an idea here for everyone, and it’s one that I know a couple others were supportive of so I thought I would suggest it up on here for you all to see. I’m hoping this will at least get people thinking if nothing else!

Basically I think we should flesh out the city around the castle. With a lot of residents living/working in the city, as well as people looking for things to do, it would help bring about plots/things to do that daily life in the castle can not give because of the way, people are. This would not mean a total shift of plots over to the city (or anyone needing to get involved if they didn’t want to, these are city focused and sitting in the castle not going into it will get you out of most of these ideas), but it would add some flavor to something that is right there near the castle. It’s as much a part of the setting as the World Beyond but it is also the most easily accessible.

There’s a lot of advantages to fleshing out the city, namely the government, some sort of police force (or what have you there), and just the people in general, as well as perhaps organizing some sort of list of PC run stores. Having a list of PC run stores (that people would just fill out a form for and the mods could just update a list via a text box once in a while?) would help see who works where and what all is available to those looking for work (and want to be employed by a PC) or even those who want to support it (or just go there for dinner it’s nice to have a name to go to).

The police force (and any consequent legal system) could lead to cases that the detectives we have in the castle having something to do (as a few are in fact consulting detectives, others are dedicated police detectives who could come in and perhaps get work like that), and the lawyers we have (I know we have at least two), could have a practice in town. Having police means there is probably some sort of crime, which could also lead to cases for the independent detectives, murders, that sort of thing. The legal system could ALSO be used by residents of the castle if another resident caused harm/broke the law inside the city itself, which could also solve problems later on down the road of trials. Also giving crime gives the vigilante’s something to do too, or if there’s organized crime even better that!

Fleshing out the government could lead to say a castle representative (or two or three or more or some rotating group of them or SOMETHING but the idea is the same some sort of say here) being allowed on it to give residents a say in city laws or, even to be allowed to use the law system. It gives the leader/political types something to do besides sit on their hands, and also starts to put things in gear for all the related things that you guys could exploit (bribery etc.). This does not mean the castle at large has to have a government as well, perhaps it’s some sort of open office or people are selected by the castle at large, it could lead to campaigning maybe, or even just a casual once in a while “HEY WHOSE GOING TO THE CITY THING THIS TIME? SIGN UP HERE!” Journal post and people get chosen to be spokespersons from that. There’s no right or wrong way to do this the idea being to just get people in that position to set things in motion. Or heck if we go with a smaller groups thing in Para whose to say one group isn’t out to try and represent the castle to the city? More groups could lead to campaigning etc.

Also just some sort of general culture/idea as to what the people are like. I’ve been told they don’t like the residents or just tolerate them, but that does not make a city (or it could but still people have something). While we wouldn’t need a huge amount of things, a general idea of them would be nice. But if you flesh out the city the people of it (the NPC’s) should be as well. Especially ones that would be important (not a lot just a general personality idea), but just so we know what’s up. It would also give people NPC’s to interact with and get to know and maybe even plot around as well. Culture etc. like I said does not need to be indepth (in fact it shouldn’t be really) but a little flavor here if possible would be good.

And on that note, perhaps some more not really reason for dislike of the castle residents (or whatever they call them) but maybe more note of it would help too. After all they’re strangers in a strange land in a land of strange people who side eye them, the city people should be acting out more or, something. If the city people are droned (/not responsive a lot) perhaps we could look at not having them that way?, (because otherwise it renders this whole thing moot) to better provide a chance for plots around the castle. That aren’t centered on losses, or player conflict or something.

What I really am getting at here is that fleshing out the city takes the pressure off of relying on the World Beyond plot to provide something interesting, requires less organizing in general (bigger plots would need it but that’s usual) and could lead to some interesting ideas. And there is nothing saying the First Gens or other outside influences couldn’t have a hand in this! It could also lead to prompts in other ways perhaps a rumor starts about someone asking about the castle residents or drops a rumor about an item of place of interest or something, and it could lead to an expedition without the “We should go LOOK because we haven’t before” or something idea.

“But what if everyone moves to town?” Well then what happens if the castle or something else at play, forces the city people’s hands at forcing the castle people out? We know it can snap them up into the castle if it wants (or can or should be able too) so why not, also sow tension among the city people if they are there a lot? Have them slowly start drawing attention to the people from the castle, mostly not good and if the tension grew, have them maybe even cause a riot and chase a group of people out of the city back to the castle. OR even attempt to evict all castle residents at some point for a possible plot idea.

An idea of how this could be used in a plot;

Bob goes and stays into town for a while, and gets the attention of the city people. Bob doesn’t care and goes about his business until one day he is mugged by a city resident. Bob being the violent type chases him down and beats the resident until he gets his things back. Officer Jones arrives on scene and arrests Bob while Jimmy the Wonder Detective from the castle investigates to see what happened. Jimmy finds the Mugger Person (MP) to be a mugger and brings that to court where Spiky Haired Lawyers A and B (SHLA and SHLB) are doing their thing for the city and castle respectively. Where Bob may have gotten off lightly considering MP was a mugger, because he had the growing tension of being in the city so long the case goes wrong for him via shenanigans much to the annoyance of SHLB. Bob’s buddy George goes to the government lady from the castle Mary to try and get things sort of sorted out for Bob, and Mary tries but she too has been in the city too long and it doesn’t work. So then George goes to a Vigilante Dude (VD) to break Bob out of jail as he wants his buddy out of jail and VD attempts it but gets caught. Instead of being chased by the police alone he sets off a riot in the city chasing not only George, Bob and VD out of the city but also Mary and SHLA and SHLB as well as Jimmy. MP gets off free because the assaulter got away and the city residents gnf about chasing the people back to the castle and then subsequently throw rocks and eggs at people as they leave it for three days to get revenge, leaving the people in the castle to scratch their heads at this entire thing.

OR a variation is the mob has some sort of way to sniff out castle residents, and not wanting such Horrible People (HP) in their city sniff them out and chase them ALL OUT OF THE CITY. Forcing them to return to the castle that, in its revenge has decided to change its interior into a swamp with rickety buildings that people have to live in for a week to learn their lesson.

…okay maybe writing this on too little sleep when cold wasn’t a good idea but you get the point. It’s just an idea of course, I’m not saying do this, or even to use all of it. But I thought I would throw my idea up as I was asked too.

...and this got longer than I thought it would and I apologize for the tl;dr ^^;

[huntersdaughter]

I'm still reading this, but I will say the following things:

I know the mods do have a list of informative posts that they are planning on writing up re: the city and moving into the city. With the amount of people who are moving there - having a list of what sort of buildings are available for residences is important, but with the move to DW I know that it got delayed.

I'm also pretty sure you weren't here for the Christmas plot where everyone did move to the city, but we have in the past tried to flesh out the city and how it works in respect to the castle itself.

Also, when I was a mod I did try to flesh out specific NPC characters that were in the city, but it wasn't met with very even enthusiasm, so most of it was just tossed aside and NPC characters are placed into the city when it's needed for plots or events or other character driven choices.

[unnaturalpause]

I'll let you read this I know it's a lot, and I know I'm probably missing things being new (as I am). I think I heard about that plot though, somewhat, but this is, really rather news to me, I just thought a little more fleshing out of the city would add to ideas people could do.

And I know the information posts got delayed (I remember that being mentioned my first HTG I think? So it's been a while), but I what I was looking for, am looking for, I don't think was ever mentioned? I will admit I'm not the only with this, I had help (somehow I got stuck writing this up), so what little I know is from them helping me figure things out and throwing ideas around (mostly with Kiku). We were mostly looking at certain things in the city itself that could lead to possible plot ideas, as opposed to just, knowing things around the city if you get what I mean? It's one thing to have landmarks another thing to have a group to go to.

And the idea of NPC's was an idea, it doesn't need to happen. It was a thought, as it made sense when asking about things. But there is an interest at least in a small party of people around. And the specific NPC's don't need to be there, it was just a thought, where as perhaps the general feel of the NPC's in the city at large would be more helpful and less work over all.

But over all it's just an idea, using what I know of the castle and game from what I have talked with others and what I've seen.

[frisky]

I know the mods do have a list of informative posts that they are planning on writing up re: the city and moving into the city. With the amount of people who are moving there - having a list of what sort of buildings are available for residences is important, but with the move to DW I know that it got delayed.

This is the first time I've heard about this?

[pacificate]

I skimmed that but I'll read it again in detail because YES THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA.

I'm going to try and do it with my own characters, engage with the town and townspeople more etc. but it would also be great to have some sort of plot building up the tension between castle residents and townsfolk.

[unnaturalpause]

It's 1600 words so I don't expect you guys to read it all in one shot /sob

But yes! This is, mostly directed towards not only the muns (which is great!) but also towards the mods if possible. Having us all somehow build it up, can lead to a lot of fun. /also has a character who will be starting this soon

[frisky]

While I see where you're going with this, and I admire/approve of the idea? It's as Christina said in the sense that we've tried this before in the past, but aside from giving the miniature golf course and bowling alley owners a name and a vague face, giving the townsfolk various personalities as a whole has been otherwise neglected and handwaved idea.

The discussion even went so far as to people thinking that giving the townsfolk "too much of a personality" erred on the side of essentially making original characters, if only in a light version of the idea.

[unnaturalpause]

Really all I'm asking for is what you guys have given the owners (that I didn't realize had personalities and faces). Just a vague idea of who they are, so people can use things. Because as it stands now I know there's at least one other person besides myself that doesn't want to use the town because we lack guidelines of what's going on and are too nervous to otherwise use it because we're afraid of overstepping some unknown/suddenly changed thing.

[superheroine]

Honestly, this topic has come up numerous times over the years and I've always suggested/pushed for a community-built wikia. Something where people can submit/add in restaurants, stores, locations, etc, but it never really gets done, and it can't really fall to one person to do it. I never did it because I'm not about to sit down and invent dozens of restaurants and shit, haha. While some things in Paradisa need mod approval, like things going on in the actual castle, I don't see why an entire city couldn't be built up and fleshed out by players without constantly needing mod approval.

If the town gets fleshed out, it needs a team of people who are willing to sit down and basically build it from the ground up, run plots, and keep people involved... yet somehow doing it WITHOUT building a cast of NPCs to run the story. In fact, I don't think it's possible; it's hard to tell a story about the town without including anyone who actually grew up there.

And things. /vague hand gesture.

[workaphilic]

I agree with this concern! I remember when we did this before, and I remember it getting a little unwieldy and complicated. I don't think we should swing back in that direction.

That said, I still think it would be a good idea (and maybe this is more what Knight was getting at in her original comment) to sort of... flesh things out a bit more? Not super in-depth personality profiles -- not even names! Just general guidelines. I know that I haven't been utilizing the town or the townspeople because I'm just not sure what is in line with their "characterization," for lack of a better term. Like, I know that the townspeople are sort of blase towards the residents and that's... it. What are the crime levels like in the town? What is the murder rate, if any? Is the police force effective? Would it work with residents from the castle?

Those questions are a big deal for me; Sherlock hasn't been taking cases in town the entire time he's been here because I, as a mun, haven't been sure what's okay/logical to do. It's been having a significant effect on how I play him, and it'd be nice to have that resolved.

[exoskeleton]

Echoing a lot of what Pi has said here. This doesn't seem to be a call for specifics, like NPCs or hundreds of shop names or anything like that.

What I would really like to know about is a very general idea of what the town and its people are like. Right now, what do we know about them? We know they're normal people who lead normal lives. But what is normal? What's the culture like? Are these people fast and intense like New Yorkers, are they like cheery and friendly like hobbits? Are the townspeople generally helpful and kind, or do they tend to keep to themselves?

What's the police force like? Are they competent, or are they like the dumb police forces you can find in Saturday morning cartoons? What's crime like? Are there serious serial killers in the city, or does everything seem pretty quaint and picture-perfect? The problem with being told "we can do whatever we want" is that... one person will assume they are cheery and helpful, and another person may assume that all the townspeople will just shrug them off and ignore them.

I would like some kind of guidelines so that we at least have a general idea of what these people and the town are like. If the answer is, "Everyone in the city acts differently, so players have the potential to find any sort of person/situation/group in town imaginable", then I'd like to hear that and know that that is the solid, agreed-upon canon.

This could be as big or as small a project as wanted. And I don't think it should all fall on one person to determine what the town is like. I know that myself (and a bunch of other players) would be happy to write up parts of the city and give details and name shopkeepers and maybe slip in a secret society into the mix for shits and giggles. But we need mod approval to say "yes, this thing that you are doing/the way you are thinking about the town is A-OK and does not contradict what has already been set up".

SUMMED UP, I think the big problem is that we just have... no set framework within which we can start working. We don't need NPCs, we don't need people to play shopkeepers that characters interact with. We have no idea what the townspeople, in general, are like, and what kind of a society they live in. I would love, love, love to find some sort of compromise where mods can provide a basic skeleton within which the players can work, and then let the players (perhaps in a somewhat organized fashion) go to town.

+1

[workaphilic]

YES THESE ARE MY BRAIN THOUGHTS, SAID IN A MUCH MORE COHERENT AND ELOQUENT WAY

[linguistical]

+ 1!!!!

+1

[heroldman]

THIS SO MUCH THANK YOU STICK!

WHAT THE CITY IS LIKE

[valerie]

I think my comment is getting missed/buried, but I just wanted to let everyone know that we actually have had a page describing what the city is like for over a year now! It's been on the wiki, which I realize is gathering some dust and getting overlooked, especially during this whole Dreamwidth transition, but it's still linked to in the handbook. c:

So anyone looking for a skeleton of what the city is like, it's right here!

http://paradisa.wikia.com/wiki/The_City_Royale

APRIL FOOLS - READ PLZ.

[save_the_souls]

Okay so I'm throwing this up first and I'll get to my other plot ideas later. But I figured this one should take priority.

For those who forgot or are new this year, every year for April Fools I've been running a plot that is spread by pure word of mouth. For the past three years, it's been spontaneous musical.

However this year, I am NOT running anything on April Fools. I'm simply too busy this year and my health does not need the stress from it this year. Plus it's always good to get fresh blood and ideas in there. Even if I had the time, I don't think I could come up with something to top the 4 Chord Song.

This leaves it open to anyone else who would love to run something on April Fools. You can do another musical or something entirely new! Of course, whatever is thought up will have to be Mod Approved. If no one wants to do anything, well I guess we just stick to the rain shower only on the calendar.

Just...yeah. Apologies to anyone who was looking forward to another musical year or something, but it's time for a change. If someone does take it up, whether they do something new or the musical - I look forward to seeing it. ♥

[wilder]

Okay now time for different plot ideas that I've been brainstorming up. All these either need help with fleshing them out or running them:

► Paraquest: Mists of Paradisa (working title)
Theme: Think of a generic canon-blind friendly mesh up of D&D, Everquest, WoW, etc etc.
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy/potential horror
Type: World-Change
Summary: Paradisa residents awaken to find themselves in a faraway land full of wonders and mysteries! They have been stripped of their original abilities, and have been instead assigned into various skill classes. Now they must spend the week performing various quests as redundant as delivering mail to as dangerous as fighting a horde of zombies to retrieve an special item. OR you can be the jerkface townsperson that keeps handing out these silly quests. There will be a lot of autonomy in this plot and choices- people can choose to do their own goof off things for a week or maybe participate in an overarching plot.
What still needs to be done: Making locations and the mechanics so it's both autonomous and plot filled.

► The Birds
Theme: Angry Birds meets...the Birds?
Genre: Action/Adventure/Survival/Comedy
Type: Invasion.
Summary: It's very common for people on expeditions to bring back samples! It helps give them further understanding of the world! However this turns sour when one overeager resident brings back a nest full of bird eggs to study and raise. When the parent birds learn of this kidnapping, they decide to make their way to Paradisa and do what they can to fight for their young-- by lobbing themselves at people and various buildings.
What still needs to be done: Mechanics, an expedition and someone willing to take bird eggs.

► Neverland!
Theme: Hook-style Neverland
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy
Type: World Change
Summary: We've all heard stories of Neverland in some form of another growing up. A magical island that's second star to the right and straight on until morning. Well one morning our castle residents wake up and find themselves there. Maybe they are a Lost Kid (de-aged to even look the part!) or a Pixie or an evil Pirate or a Mermaid! Have fun in the land of make believe and where the impossible is possible!
What still needs to be done: Plotting in every sense of the word. This plot is seriously at it's barebones in terms of planning.

[waterproofed]

I like the birds and Neverland idea. Would you be drawing on a specific representation of Neverland (like from Hook, or Disney!Peter Pan, or the SyFy version) or a little something from all of the above?

Read as: I'd be willing to help flesh out this idea if more people show an interest :)

[chartharsis]

I pretty much love all of these and nothing about them is NOT beautiful.

SPAAAAACE

[exoskeleton]

I mentioned in a plurk a while ago that I wanted to try working up some sort of ADVENTURES IN SPAAAAACE plot! There are some things I need to know.

1. Is anyone else already secretly on this plot? Because if you are totally writing it or have submitted it or have plans, don't let me continue. Please, good gravy, I don't actually need another project.
2. In a plot set in spaaaace, what would you want to see or have happen? Anything from zero-gravity to fighting evil aliens to visiting neat planets to getting shoved into an escape pod with four other people who you can build CR with. It's all legit. Almost too legit to quit.

Re: SPAAAAACE

[gottaknockhard]

Yes!!!

I would love anything with spaceships, fighting with spaceships, fighting in general...aliens are cool too. Space! /very helpful comment, but Spike would be in heaven so I'm biased. (Especially if he someone ended up with his ship...) If you'd like leas vague thoughts I'd be happy to go on. :)

[wizard_redfive]

1. Not that I know of.

2. Definitely visiting some planets. I'd really like it if people could submit possible worlds from their canon, that way we'd have a nice mix of places to see.

But I'm also open to spaceships and battling aliens. Dairine would be having a field day no matter what. :D

[alaspooryork]

...I really want flyable ships with AI support, okay. So that Delta can fly one. That said, I really really want a space plot. So bad.

Re: WHAT KIND OF PLOTS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?

[youhavebeenflynned]

Well I got a plot idea. With all these SGC people arriving lately maybe a Stargate themed plot could be of interest?