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November Midmonth
| Midmonth Mod Post: November Hello, Aefenglom! Here's your monthly midmonth mod post. First, as always, some reminders. They're pretty brief this month:
• We have a combo Intro Log & Item Regain Event just recently gone live! • Acceptances have been sent out to as many applications as we have space for currently! • Our activity check also begins on November 24th! While we'll have the requirements on the activity check itself as a reminder, here they are right now so you can start figuring things out: PROOF 1:In addition, players are allowed to take a strike if they have at least half of the necessary activity, ie. one proof with a minimum of 5 comments or two proofs that add up to less than 10 comments. • Players accepted in November only need to provide half AC. • The calendar has all these dates as always, so check it out! The Aefenglom Journal With all the nastiness of Octeuril behind us, things in Aefenglom seem to have settled down, or so we all hope. Our Parliamentary correspondent has brought news that the Mirrorbound Council have passed a motion to allocate funding for orphan education and care, proving once again that these mysterious people from other worlds are certainly philanthropists wherever they go! Truly we here at the Aefenglom Journal find it touching how they fight to look out for the most helpless in our fair city. Mirrorbound have also proven to be trend-setters. We have an exclusive that one long-time Mirrorbound has put on a grand Masquerade Ball for the second year in a row! The glitz and glamor of it all has enraptured Aefenglom, and no doubt many in the Aristocratic District are disappointed not to have received invitations. Maybe there's always next year! Lastly, our associate at the Coven tells us a few more Mirrorbound have stumbled through mirrors at the Looking Glass House, in the middle of the month again. Could there be something to this strange timing, or is it all just an odd change of pace for the misunderstood magic deep at the heart of the ancient building? In unrelated news, many strange brass saucers have been spotted flying all over the city, often knocking into folks minding their own business! Some are seen carrying the most random of objects - what in the world could these be? The Aefenglom Journal intends to find out! OOC Updates
• This has happened fairly often in the last month or two, so we would like to remind players what the appropriate methods of mod communication are: either a PM to the mod journal, or a comment on the Mod Contact post. Please don't contact us individually on our personal accounts about mod business - we prefer to keep records of communication where the entire mod team can access them. We're always happy to help with whatever players bring to us, but we will not act in an official manner from our personal accounts. • We'd like to ask again for event and plot feedback! November and December are generally easy-going months due to folks being busy or needing to recharge, but we'd like to hear what kinds of events and plots you would like to see in the future. Feedback We're here again to offer everyone the chance to give some feedback, if there's anything that you've noticed or would like to possibly seem implemented! Talking Points:
• Quests. In general, what kind of quests would you like to see more of? How can we improve with these? What's working, and what isn't? • Plot investigation feedback. We've gotten quite a few good investigations, and honestly it's been fantastic seeing what everyone does with their information. • Events. What type of ones would you like to see, what ones are working, what aren't? • General feelings on: the game, the timing of posts, how events and such are set up, etc. • And more! Tell us what's on your mind. |
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I was always acting on the assumption it's exactly the opposite. Given how many Mirrorbounds initiatives are operating there to help people. I specifically had Iskandar personally take interest in people he was treating there (and feel a bit guilty they dragged the hell beasties on their heads completely unintentionally).
The preacher guy (who was actually my idea) was supposed to be an anomaly.
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Anyway, that's a good angle too. I mean I don't think there's a need to gauge precisely what all people in the Outer City would think. Generally the slums are a big place so it makes sense there would people who had positive experiences and they would be (quite logically) more pro-Mirrorbounds and a lot of others that had no experience at all, so they would have default 'trust no one because no one cares' attitude.
I do concentrate a lot on the pro part mainly because that's where Iskandar operates but I won't say there can't be other parts where people are not that trusting. But those are just my assumptions so well.
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Taking a look at the log right now: given that the majority of the player focus in the event seems to skew towards help in the slums (8 top-levels slums-only, 6 outpost only, and one present in both) my estimation would be that it's rather positive relating to the direct outcome. That would be taken into account in writing the quest, and rather than real threat for the opinion about the Mirrorbounds, the preacher would be seen as more of an inconvenience rather than a big threat (obv there's still a risk of people listening to him, that's why it's a quest). Of course, the eventual shape of how they are perceived would be run by the mods, and then we would have the full answer.
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while you could draw some in-game logic to assume that the people of the slums are not particularly against the mirrorbound, based purely on how many characters ICly tried to help them, i'm not sure that's actually the more interesting direction to take the meta-plot of the game.
part of the reason the street preacher plot thread was interesting because it presented conflict, conflict that could not simply be threaded away with character goodwill and actions. it presents and idea that there is disparity within the city itself, and provides a source schism that players can use to create interesting situations for their characters.
the leaning into peaceful resolution is something people IRL would strive for, but i feel like driving that for an RP game is antithetical for giving characters something to do beyond mundane slice-of-life shenanigans, which this game isn't really for, or at least is not part of its premise.
i mean, part of the reason i say this is because i play a character living within the slums who actively tries to fight the cwyld there, but any lean on the assumption that things are hunky-dory there kind of kills anything else interesting happening in that part of the city, or how it could bleed into the rest of the meta-plot.
this kind of applies to a lot of events in the game, not just the one in question. the rush towards resolution, towards returning to a peaceful status-quo, just kind of... chokes out the drama that could be providing a more long-term interest in playing here.
tl;dr, by resolving conflicts too neatly, we're limiting the play and story options for players
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I don't think I am alone in wanting a dynamic, evolving setting that players and events have the power to change, for better and for worse. Dorchacht had been so gripping at first, but then it went dormant, popped back into existence, and fizzled out. It felt like we were being railroaded through a final battle sequence that our characters were just set pieces to, with little salient buildup over the year beforehand, and even though there were elements within that event that I thought would be fun to play with (needing Bonds in order to progress, for example), it was tough to be engaged and get a sense for my character's place in all of this. Voting ICly on an outcome was about as much rping I felt like I could do to alter anything in any significant way, and that honestly wasn't that much fun for me. I'm curious if we will ever get to see what the negative outcome of Morgana's quick death will be. I did like that there were repercussions for either outcome, but I would also like to see and feel them.
Take my criticism with a grain of salt, of course. I say all of this with keen awareness that is has been a difficult year for everyone, mods included, and working on pretendy funtimes often has to take a backseat. In spite of the things this game could use work on, I am still thoroughly enjoying my time here. The premise is a lot of fun, and all you need is a creative and willing mind to be able to pick something up from the setting and play with it how you'd like.
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In all honesty, I feel a little blindsided and overwhelmed by the amount of disappointment that was brought by a one-sentence dude (effectively a prompt and obstacle to facilitate CR between players) NOT being some red herring, with meta-plot significance
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Regarding the "leaning into peaceful resolution", in this particular example— yeeee...ah, I didn't realize it initially, but you're right. I made up the reasoning for the quest in the comment above quickly during the course of the discussion. First attempting to take player activity within the log, but also mostly because given the political circumstances in my country from recent months— I just don't find musing on old geezer inciting semi-religious hatred on local minorities particularly fun or compelling. Thus I wasn't able to come up with something interesting on the spot. It's a personal thing mind you, and I absolutely get it is a really interesting long-term conflict, and angle to take that whole preacher plot in. So if anyone wants to handle it, and continue/expand in whatever way they find it interesting, I'm officially giving up the reins
As for the metaplot, I wasn't originally addressing it, as I just came here to chime-in that the Nuckelavee event was just a player plot. But in general, I agree it would be fun to see longer-spanning plots and conflict in the future. Just given the current state of the world, I also am content to have if that sits on the back burner until things settle. If the Nuckelavee event taught me anything it's that it's really intense and time-consuming to just run a small, almost one-off plot like that`
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i think what i'm after is just kind of more conflict in general, and not conflict structured in such a way where it feels like the player characters end up just playing audience to something else, which i think we both agree is something the game needs more of to keep up long-term interest.
i also think that even if not all of us have the time or energy for it, i think there is room for those that DO to lead the way, we just need to facilitate that, i think.
(and btw, i am happy to take the reins on the xenophobia in the slums thing for stuff to do with eileen, and propose my own plots to connect with that!)
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Agreed that there is general agreement, and hey— I don't know exactly how, but facilitating a way for easier player plots creation (separate workshop post for player plotting their plots that isn't monthly cr meme, but a fixed post? maybe with a sticky on the ooc comm? or maybe a whole separate comm altogether— IDK I'm just spitballing here) sounds like a really damn good idea. I know that I do have "a cool vague plot idea that I'd want to run someday" but also my energy level is at negative, so I'd gladly just ramble, and if someone wants to join in/take it/incorporate it in their own idea. I get the feeling that there's a lot of people with vague ideas too so gathering and talking shop somewhere could lead to some really interesting developments.
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