November Midmonth

[moustre]

Midmonth Mod Post: November Hello, Aefenglom! Here's your monthly midmonth mod post. First, as always, some reminders. They're pretty brief this month: • The Masquerade log is still going strong! This is the second year KJ has run this event and we always love to see it, so a huge thanks to them. • 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: * A tag-out to someone else's post, top level, or inbox. PROOF 2: * Your own post, top level, or a thread in your own inbox, OR * A tag-out to someone else's post, top level, or inbox. - Comments from you on both proofs should add up to at least 10. - Comments must be from the current month to count. - One proof may be from a thread begun in the month previous, but only comments from the current month on it count toward your AC. - Both proofs cannot be with the same character. - Two proofs with cast/franchise-mates is allowed but if it becomes a pattern (2+ months in a row), you will be asked to provide a thread with a non-castmate. 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! Now then - onwards! 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 • First of all this month, we'd like to announce that, with real life situations and holiday business going on, December's AC will be check-in only. However, if you have to take a strike in November, you will need to provide half AC in December to clear your strike. We will not offer strikes in December for missing AC, and anyone who doesn't check in or make prior arrangements with the mods will be swept. • 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: • Info posts that you'd like clarification for. • 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. We honestly appreciate all kinds of comments, and we want to make Aefenglom a wonderful, fun, and comfortable game for everyone who joins. This post will remain unscreened, so if you'd like to take something to a more private venue, you can either PM us or comment here.

Comments

[stopfen]

Small question and I'm not sure how much others would agree with it. Also I'm bad at feedback things so I hope this makes sense.

But would it be possible on plot investigations to say if they're on the right track or a dead end? So that people know what to focus on a bit? With the state of this year I feel bad pressing when responses take a while so it'd help to know which things are time-sensitive.

Because I've got 2 open investigations relating to ley line and the cywd infection with them/the origin of the Cywd. And I'm not sure if I'm onto something with them or if it's unimportant and I could just have a thread where characters find nothing. (That said one is probably canceled because the player I was doing this investigation with dropped in September)

[fulgency]

Hi mods!

I wanted to provide you with some feedback. I am extremely invested in my CR in this game, and I have a blast with what I'm doing with it, but my investment in the game itself does not feel comparable. I find myself not as excited as I want to be with the going-ons of the game and it feels more like a sandbox than a proper game. I took some time to think about why that might be, and I think I identified a few contributing factors.

Information

This feels like one of the biggest issues that has plagued the game from the beginning, but I feel like the dissemination of information about the game has been a significant element of some of the challenges I've experienced with regards to engagement in the game. I know that the modteam has put in some significant work to update information pages (and I do greatly appreciate that!), but in a lot of ways they still feel disjointed. Anytime I have a question about the game, I have to look at 2-3 different pages where the information might be (and that is not including looking at where people have asked questions) before I either locate the information, ask a friend, or need to post the question myself.

Sometimes the information also feels a bit too vague for things that I feel are more core mechanics. While I understand the want/desire to allow people to define things for themselves and take them in their own direction, I also think there are times when it is a bit too loose. For example, the magic of this world has definitely received more concrete definition as time has gone on. However, it still feels exceptionally limitless. I'm not sure if others have that experience of it as well, but I always feel the impulse to want to ask "hey, is this actually within the boundaries?" and I hesitate to ask not because I'm scared of being told "actually, that would not be possible" but I do not want to pester the modteam with a simple question like that.

Other times, I am a little surprised to find an information page on something because I cannot recall anyone ever saying "hey, a page was made for this!" (Which could totally be on me as depending on the timing, I may have been more checked out due to the dumpster fire that has been 2020.) Or the opposite can happen where I'm surprised there is no easy-to-find place for certain information. The latter usually happens when a (group of) player(s) interact and get a nugget of information, and then it is unfortunately not passed along anywhere else.

But basically this all really boils down to I think information is sometimes challenging to track down or have clear delineation. I think newer players are sometimes missing information that older players have, and then older players have a challenging time tracking down information/references as needed.

Also for lack of a better place to put this: I've also seen a lot of confusion about whether or not you guys filled the plot mod position. If you could clarify that, that would be helpful to know as I think a lot of people would like to be more helpful directly with stuff.

Pacing of Events

This one is a little challenging for me to describe succinctly, so if anything is unclear definitely please feel free to ask me to clarify anything. I am speaking from my own perspective and no one else's on this because I recognize there is a possibility that I missed something due to where my character(s) placed their attention.

I want to take the Dorchacht plot as an example. I loved what you guys did with having part of the gameplot be the TDM. I thought that was fairly inventive, and let potential new players interact in a really neat way. I also liked that there was the opportunity to vote on the outcome of the climax because both outcomes sounded as though they had some really interesting and potentially heavy consequences wherein a threat could still be alive and always potential or not, and the relationships between the Mirrorbound and the native would be altered based on the decision. I was really jazzed about it, and I saw a lot of excitement from others, too!

There were a few problems with it though and I wanted to wait until its conclusion and a little thereafter before I said anything because I wanted to have the whole of it before as to do otherwise would feel potentially unfair or assumptive.

First, things still felt really disjointed. It's possible that others feel differently about this, but I felt like the build-up to this was very sudden. In the intervening year, there hasn’t really been much indication from my perspective that things were beginning to go in this direction. Although it was pretty well-telegraphed from the jump that Morgana would be back someday since there was no body and I've seen/read movies/TV shows/books/etc., I also distinctly remember feeling fairly discouraged from trying to follow up with it as there were IC reassurances that everything was fine, and everything that was conveyed seemed to be overall fine. (Note: I believe there were some quests that would contradict this to a certain degree, but I do not really view quests as the best place to breadcrumb plot as I have never interpreted those as being particularly central to the game's plot.) Therefore, there was never really any incentive to follow up on it any further, or be particularly invested in it when it happened.

Basically, it felt like we went a year with nothing, and then suddenly something was happening.

And I phrase it that way because although there was a chance to vote on the outcome, I opted not to participate in the finale log because there did not seem to be much point to it. An NPC who has only interacted with one of my characters one time and that I, as a player, have no emotional investment in, more or less single-handedly defeating her with very little difficulty did not feel as though my character(s) had a hand in that outcome despite my voting. Instead, it felt like I was being invited to sit and watch something happen and that was it.

This is in stark contrast to the first log that went up, wherein there was a sense of urgency and danger with the attack on Dorchacht. And although there is not necessarily this greater impact in terms of like y'all are keeping track of how many citizens lived or died (because that would be insane to do), it felt more meaningful and as though my character I had involved had agency because what he was doing ultimately does result in something even if it's just for him and no one/nothing else beyond that.

The other piece to this is something that I have seen happen quite a few times with a few exceptions, but after big events and plot points like this, things… Just seem to return to normal. Although I definitely hold zero expectations (and no real desire) for event after event and continuing to directly deal with fall-out, it often feels like an event happens and there is a lag before there's any felt difference as a result of the outcomes. Dorchacht went silent and then suddenly everything was fine until it wasn't. The Underground also felt like a dropped plot point to me because although I did not participate directly in it due to time constraints when the plot was occurring, I feel like I know nothing about it and have zero concept of how the relationships there impact the game or the circumstances.

And this is where I am personally feeling the fatigue with festivals and parties. It's not that these logs are terribly written or anything like that, or that they do not have a place in the game. I think they do and I do love a good log legit meant to be there for socializing purposes! It serves a lot of functions in that it allows people to net a new CR, helps newbies get settled in with something light, and around the winter holidays, it lets people breathe a little easier. But the problem I think I am having with them is that they feel less like breathers and more filler or padding, which has led to some of the gameplot feeling oddly paced at best or thin at worst. Additionally, I think the tone of those events have also changed a lot over the past year. I remember when I joined that they were attempts at trying to be cheerful (that were largely successful, freaky blood moons not withstanding) in a world that was dying, but at this point, they feel like large indulgences that conflict with what should likely be available (i.e. looking over the information pages, it feels like resources should be more scarce than they are). So, not only do they seem to conflict with what's happening within the context of recent events, but they also feel as though they conflict with the very world itself. It is not so much that I would expect everything to be bleak always, but I would anticipate that events would reflect what is occurring in the world to least a small extent. Even if it's just "this year, there is less spiced wine to go around for Litha" or the party-goers seem a little more celebratory over the recent victory and the festival is just an excuse for that.

The Imbalance Between Witches & Monsters

Something that I would really like to see is for there to be more challenges for Witches. When comparing Witches to Monsters, Monsters definitely drew the short end of the stick. They run the risk of losing their minds and becoming completely feral. The lunar cycle rules their lives. Their bodies are constantly changing for several months on end until finally, the changes come to an end. They also contend with fantasy racism more or less everywhere except the Underground. Meanwhile, Witches are able to master and gain complete control over certain schools of magic within the same timeframe that Monsters minimally need to complete mandatory changes. Their biggest threat is exploding from magic build-up, and prior to that, they have wonky magic and seem to just be in a very bad mood. Although it's noted that magic use has side effects, these rarely seem to come up or present as a problem, and I really cannot recall anything being really played with when it comes to the impact of the lunar cycle. (Also, Monsters run the risk of becoming addicted to Witch's blood, but Witches have no such similar risk associated with magic.) If they were not Mirrorbound, they also likely would never experience any sort of discrimination in the world.

Again, similar to the things about the events, I am not advocating that everything be terrible and bleak. But at the same time, there's really no inherent challenges for Witches. They're never really the targets of much of anything, and there's not much inherently limiting to them outside of like "sometimes the lunar cycle makes it harder/easier" or an imbalanced Bond situation sometimes maybe. It ends up feeling like characters do not have to really work for anything and that whatever drawbacks/limitations exist are ultimately minor inconveniences.

While I do not have any immediate, concrete ideas off the top of my head for how to address this at this exact moment since most of my cognitive energy is going to writing this up right now, I do think there could be an event of some kind that could begin to bring a little more balance and present Witches with more to overcome. And it could be fun and interesting still for Monsters to participate in this event if they wanted, wherein perhaps the effects are initially much more extreme than what it will eventually even out to be and Monsters are necessary for bringing it down to something more manageable. Or there's just the simple fact that Witches being different may impact how the Bonds have operated for some pairs.

I'm sorry this is so long, and I really appreciate your patience in reading all of this! I know I said it for the plot stuff, but also just in general: please ask for clarification on anything that seems potentially confusing! I do not mind clarifying.

I also want to thank you guys for all of your hard work, and your willingness to ask for feedback each and every month. I also see and appreciate all the ways that you guys as a modteam continue to grow, and I hope that this feedback is helpful in continuing that forward momentum.

Thanks again!

+1

[belligerentwarrior]

To the whole general sentiment.

About Witches' challenges, specifically: It's always been mentioned that regular Aef witches get power from the full moon, like Monsters do, but for some reason Mirrobound Witches are at their strongest on the new moon instead. Maybe that can be used as an avenue to shake things up, even if just for Mirrorbound witches specifically, not just all witches.

How... I'm not exactly sure. I don't know, space Cwyld taints whatever lunar magics that are influencing Mirrorbound witches? Big asteroid hits the dark side of the moons and messes things up? Something that presents emotional or behavior challenges to Witches like the lunar cycles do for Monsters might do good, with exaggerated effects for the first event that triggers this change. Idk, I'm just spitballing.

tl;dr it'd be nice to see witches as impacted or stressed in some way by the lunar cycle as Monsters are, both to give Monster characters more ways to support their Witch and to give Witch characters more challenges and consequences to have fun with

+1

[crowsfeat]

a lot of my on-going issues are reflected here, particularly with regards to events and meta-plot

most importantly, i just want this to game to feel like players drive and impact the game as much as the premise promises we can.

+1

[enkidoh]

I agree with what Crystal has mentioned and specifically the imbalance between witches and monsters. Being a witch seems less of a hardship than being a monster. I think Fangs mun has also given some good ideas about how to flip things around a little and when my brain isn't a chaotic hellscape I would definitely love to spitball a little about things like this c:

+1

[glitzandglamour]

I have so many thoughts for the game and just can't quite seem to articulate them well, ahh... But I've thought about the focus of plot investigations a lot. I would love to jump in and try for plot investigations some more, but there's so much out there that my characters could interact with that I'd much rather have some hooks to grab onto!

I feel that telling players that they're either looking into a dead end or giving them some alternative arena of investigation would be a great idea. (NO SHAME in being like "there's not much to learn here right now!" haha.) Alternatively, offering a list of plot-related hooks for investigation on mid-month or intro posts might be a great idea! That way, the playerbase is focusing on topics already developed and made ready by the mod team for distribution, and many characters are capable of looking into the same subject to corroborate. (Below there's discussion of the dissemination of information as well, which is why I also enjoy the thought of many characters being able to investigate something at once. The power of making important areas of investigation visible to all!) Focusing character investigation opportunities might also help to focus the development of plot leads that mods would have to explore, I imagine. If players are given the hint that our characters have a lot to learn about, say, dreamwalking and the True Fae (just two examples!) but not much in the way of leylines or the Coven's ulterior motives in investing in Mirrorbound, it might be neat to mention the two areas of focus and some ways it can be interacted with.

I also understand that the openness of plot investigations has been held as an important aspect of the game, but I don't think it could hurt the development of plot to push some hot subjects that could be looked into, if they exist. Even just short prompts about a few things could help. (loose, probably shitty example, DREAMWALKING: "nessie's been at the library a lot and seems convinced there's something about dreamwalking lost with the downfall of morgana, but maybe the mirrorbound could consider offering themselves as subjects of study..." which would ensue with a few players offering up their characters to investigate different aspects of dreamwalking, why the mirrorbound are so good at it, etc!)

+1

[glitzandglamour]

I agree with this, and thank you Crystal for writing it out. I think you did a great job!

RE: Information, specifically magic-related things. I remember reading somewhere that they were loosely based on D&D spells, but I think that may be buried in the FAQ somewhere. (I could be totally making that up in my head, though.) Being a bit more concrete about what magic's capable of would be great. (can Transmutation spells really just grant Witches access to the Ethereal Plane and ability to reincarnate freshly dead people?? wow!) Basically, I agree with Crystal in that I could spend all day asking "is this okay? is this okay?" but I'm not sure if it's because magic's really that comprehensive, or if we should be treating it as fairly limited. (If it's truly comprehensive and flexible, perhaps seeing a limit in the form of riskiness or something would be cool! A character trying to take on a massive spell might be able to do it with Witch and Monster help alike... Something like that.)

RE: Imbalance of Witches & Monsters. I think I understand why Monsters have more prejudice against them for sure, but I'd love to see ways Witches suffer in the setting as well. I like GS' thoughts about trying to give Witches a bit more incentive to go nutters in a different-similar way to Monsters, even if it's only Mirrorbound Witches or something like that. More prone to recklessness, something that exacerbates their personality traits... Something like that, maybe.

Tangentially related, but I'm really hoping to see how recent happenings in the game (the Mirrorbound being so quick to sentence Morgana to death, whatever else has been going down in these past wild months) impact the relationship Mirrorbound have with the setting. Perhaps this recent decision with Morgana could lead to harsher punishment against even the Mirrorbound, rather than letting them get away with as much as they seem to get away with! I always like to see how player efforts either stress or ease the relationship with NPCs in the game. I know there was a lot of unease when the game first started, and I'll admit that I'm not sure what the attitudes of the average Aefenglom citizen are toward Mirrorbound right now in Aefenglom anymore.

I also wanna say that the involvement of the TDM with the current Dorchacht plot was a great move; I liked that a lot, and I'm still curious about whatever it was that could've been following our characters in that Flitting Shadows prompt...

It's been a rough, rough year, and I appreciate the work you guys have done in spite of that. I'm looking forward to any new plots in the future, or ones that draw from previous events!

+1

[usurpers]

this would be a good idea as mentioned above, but not only that— this hasn’t been the first time where many players have been waiting on plot investigation answers to put their plans into motion, especially things that can lead to player run plots. i understand that the year 2020 has been more than a handful for all of us and consequently, our ooc lives have been chaotic at some point or still continue to be for many, and the mod team has asked for help so it’s all at an understandable point, but how the investigations are run since a while into the start of the game (more than a year ago) have been slightly problematic. players take a really long time to get responses back, sometimes more than a month a two and this really dampens the desire to want to do anything with the mechanic at all. i’m not sure if i’m making sense here and maybe i’ll come back to try and word things better, but the feeling i always get from these is excitement that gradually builds into player disappointment because questions feel like they’ve been forgotten, and it takes so long to get an answer back that we lose steam to do more like help the game forward to some degree. i think this has also been mentioned in past feedback posts, but with so many others that i’m hearing that feel the same way, it seems like it has failed to be addressed successfully since then.

if it’s too difficult to get back, perhaps consider cutting out the mechanic as a whole or closing investigations more often if mods aren’t able to get to them? at this point it feels like the better thing to do than say they’re open but wait three or even more months for a response. for something you were doing way back in august/september or even further back is a little discouraging, so i would review this again! i’d be a little sad to see plot investigations go if it comes to that, but in the long run it’d be better for both players (who won’t have to get their hopes up for something that won’t come) and for the mods (who won’t overload themselves with something they can’t handle on top of everything else; you aren’t getting paid to stretch so thin).

+1

[usurpers]

thanks a bunch for writing this as well, crystal! i very much agree and have been feeling the following:

• building the event into the tdm, that was great and something i’ve seen in other successful games. i’d love to see this again!

• the monster-witch imbalance. witches also get the perk of being able to latch onto a familiar worse comes to worst to prolong their explosions, and i remember that they’re able to have more than one so some witches can just full out avoid magic overload by cycling between familiars while monsters don’t have a choice— the only other alternative is witch blood to prolong their own bondless situation and this could lead to negative side effects fairly quickly while witches get a free pass. not saying this is unfair, but as a player who also plays a witch, i’d love to see more challenges and problems for them to spruce up the experience in playing a witch (which feels like playing it safe) vs playing a monster (hard mode always).

• event pacing. i think everything i would’ve wanted to say has already been mentioned! pacing is a very tricky thing to land, but i do agree that events have felt disjointed and not entirely connected as they could be? it’s like watching a tv show that has a constant continuation vs a show that doesn’t and just has random episodes with random events that don’t entirely get a conclusion. does that make sense? this is the stupidest example but i’ll say it anyway: watching prison break (where everything is connected, the “plot driven” game vibe) vs watching lucky star (every episode is it’s own episode and very rarely needs a continuation, the “sandbox” game vibe).

on another note of events that i’d like to comment on— things are beginning to feel slightly repetitive? for example: this year’s november event is exactly the same as last year with a slightly different outfit. parties and mingles are the same. item regains can be cool but i play characters who don’t have things to regain as is, for example, so not only does it make events feel rinsed and repeated, but some of us don’t have much to do with it anyway so it ends up feeling even more rinsed. i’ll try and think up some things to help later, but in the mean time crystal brought up a good point re: small things changing making a big and interesting difference. not having so much spices for litha, for example! little changes can end up giving us a lot of things to work with.

[fulgency]

I wanted to echo the sentiment that it is often difficult to know how Mirrorbound are being received by the general population.

Similar to the Dorch plot, the kidnapping plot earlier in the year also felt like a very quick escalation because I never really had a sense that things between the Mirrorbound and the citizenry (even among the aristocracy) were that strained. (Note: I know the plot was initially intended to be a smaller player plot, but I think more build-up could have been dedicated to supporting it even if it had remained smaller in scale.) I do remember seeing that things have chilled out considerably in the immediate aftermath of that, but nothing jumps out at me about the temperature of the figurative room afterward.

I feel like if I were not participating in the Mirrorbound Council (and some players were not asking questions), I would have zero idea how things are going relationship-wise rather than at least a vague sense. Like, I had a feeling the Outer City was less jazzed about the Mirrorbound because of the loon preaching against them in the log, and how they bore the brunt of the Nuckelavee nonsense (because the city just abandons the heck out of them). But it was merely a suspicion on my part because 1) it was ultimately one guy preaching during a stressful period of time, 2) the quest for donations remained exactly the same in the subsequent months, and 3) the Outer City hasn't interacted with players that beyond situations like the Nuckelavee. Ultimately, my suspicion was only confirmed when someone else asked about it unbeknownst to me and shared it during a discussion on the monthly discussion post rather than piecing it together solidly via things happening in the game. But I do not know how the rest of the citizenry may have felt about the fact the beasts were even there in the first place.

I feel like that is really good, important/relevant information for everyone. But if you are not participating in the Mirrorbound Council or looking at that post, you are a little SOL. And I am somewhat hesitant to speak on how much people tend to look at the Mirrorbound Council if they do not have a character present on the Council. I do not see mention of it anywhere in information pages, so I think people who were not there for its inception are missing 1) some important IC context about its creation and the significance of it from that IC standpoint, and 2) the OOC utility that characters can still suggest ideas and do not have to be sitting on the Council as those who are on it will act as representatives. It could very well just seem like this thing that a group of characters engages in, and that's about it.

I feel like more noteworthy flavor text either OOC on updates/plotting posts and/or in the logs would go a long way to remediating this and allowing people to feel that the world is reacting to them and their actions rather than Mirrorbound do something or exist and it's unknown what will happen. Named NPCs also having feelings about it would be helpful, too. I feel like NPCs have been at times inconsistent or flattened out to to be narrative devices.

For example, during the first round with Dorchacht, it never really made much sense to me why Nessie would want to bring the Mirrorbound along to Dorchacht when there was this implied threat to Aefenglom over this. It seemed really risky to try diplomacy with an untested group of outsiders like that. It made even less sense to me, too, why they would trust her to tag along since she really only seems to pop up to welcome newbies. She's never really developed much of a relationship with the Mirrorbound from what I've observed beyond that. And then in the reverse, Morgana demanded reparations, but those amounted to "say you're sorry." I feel like that was written that way so players could have time to explore Dorchacht and get a sense of what was happening there, but they already had that with the shared dream. Particularly given how Morgana ended up being, it would have ultimately made more sense for her to make more extreme demands and made it more difficult for that exploration piece and/or created a narrative reason why diplomacy was impossible.

Little things like this could go a really long way to making the world feel more like we are defining it as we interact with it, and feel our IC actions have IC consequences with the world.

[electrod]

Hello Crystal. It's shuu here, one of the players behind the Nuckelavee plot, and I really appreciate bringing up the criticism about it. I'm really jazzed to receive feedback on it. I just want to clarify that it has always been a player-led plot, I received green light for bringing them back a few months later. It's a good point that you bring up the preacher because there was a plan for this guy to return later in a quest, still trying to instigate the crowd (level of success depending on how many people helped during the nuckelavee incident/did any approached him, etc). However, with things RL escalating for the worse after the plot went live (evident just by the fact I barely got to play with it, despite being excited for it), I totally dropped my ball on this and admittedly forgotten about the follow-up quest.

So yeah, if the preacher feels like a dropped plotline, it's because it is, and I assume full responsibility for that.

[fulgency]

Hi there. I know that it was a player-led plot. My point was more that there were consequences that weren't communicated because after a certain point, I do think it becomes a mod responsibility to relay that kind of info. Although the event wasn't followed up with more, there was still an impact.

I hope that event can be revisited though because that does sound interesting! Especially since a lot of Council members seem to want to work on that relationship at this point.

[stopfen]

I feel you on articulate-ing... There's just so much that I never know where to start investigating. It doesn't help that I'm kinda dumb at working out these things(Reasons I don't play smart characters)

Anyway my main reason for posting was someone on plurk mentioning the game plot and me checking my investigations, going 'oh, I'm waiting for a response' and being unsure if I should chase it up. Because I just figure if it's been slow to get a response then it's probably not important.

[electrod]

Just so we're on the same page. What consequences do you mean? The preacher follow-up quest? It couldn't be mod responsibility to relay that, because mods didn't know about it at all. It was something discussed and planned by me and Ran while writing prompts, but it wasn't relayed to the mods.

[fulgency]

I am referring to the fact that the Outer City has a less favorable view of the Mirrorbound. To me, that's something that has more than enough to stand on its own in absence of the preacher given everything else that happened during the plot. That was something that was communicated to a player by mods when asked as far as I know.

[stopfen]

Not +1ing but not -1ing, I'm just kinda adding a thing with the infomation bit. Even if I'm bad at wording.

There's a few things where there's just not enough detail like Temp-bonds. I learnt most of how they work ICly, so I'm stuck wondering how accurate that information was because it's not on the information pages.
But icly Mikasa was told
-That the Coven prefers full bonds, but will give characters the bonding potions because it's better than letting them run around completely unbonded.
-BUUUT this isn't advertised by the Coven because they don't want people relying on temp potions

There's also some things were it's unclear if it's IC info or OOC only info? And that leads to some awkwardness. For example, the whole pregnancy thing. Me and a few others thought this was known ICly that 'a want to have a child' was needed, but then it came up in a network post and it turned out quite a lot of people didn't think it was known ICly.
Which lead to the people who thought it was known thinking they were ooc because their characters wouldn't casually bang without some development if there was a risk.

... I hope that makes sense?

[towards_okeanos]

I don't want to hijack the discussion but that Outer City has negative (or even less favourable) view of the Mirrorbounds is total news to me.
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.

[fulgency]

That was honestly also my impression. Here is where I received that info though if you would like to peruse the thread.

[electrod]

Ah, I just got confused because I never said anything about it having a less favorable view on the Mirrorbound as a result of that event.

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.

[crowsfeat]

chiming in here, i wasn't able to participate in the event due to a number of factors, but i feel like this discrepancy also highlights something that hasn't necessarily been brought up yet.

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

[towards_okeanos]

Huh, that's interesting. I wonder where that info is coming from.

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.

[gynvael]

I personally don't mind the power imbalance, but I wanted to add that it might be helpful to see its impact on the world. I know Dorchacht occurred, but it seems even though Aefenglom witches weren't literally enslaving their monsters, monsters are still a little bit of a second class citizen in Aefenglom. But since there isn't a lot of info on how this affects the general world, I've been unsure of how much discord within the world is there or if people are just kind of totally okay with the way things are.

For example, the Aristocratic district is said to generally be unoccupied by monsters unless they're with a Witch and the Western Residential area -- where monsters are noted to outnumber humans -- is in worse condition than Eastern, which has fewer monsters there. The witches have the Coven, but the monsters don't seem to have a place in there beyond being bonded to one of the witches. And Parliament seems to imply that it's mostly made up of wealthy people with a witch leaning (since the description notes they "rarely have magical training" which suggests they would be witches otherwise, if they had decided to learn magic. Which has a lot of implications if this is the case, given that Parliament and the Coven both decide how to deal with feral monsters.) So the sense from the info is that the monsters have less political and socioeconomic power (other than within the Council I think? Which was set up by Mirrorbound). On top of that, the Coven is giving nice free homes to the Mirrorbound, monster and witch alike -- but the local monsters living in poorer districts are still stuck there. It feels like there should be some discontent or reaction to all of these things, but as it's often left ambiguous, it's hard to know how much can be played with or incorporated into threads.

Either way, I'd love to see it expanded on. Not even in a big plot way, but just maybe just a short section with some info about how the various groups of people feel about each other to start with? (Local monsters w/ the local witches, humans, if the Mirrorbound are felt differently about than the locals). It might just be because I play someone who's hyper aware of any political/racial tension, but it would definitely help with deciding how a character might trust, react, and respond to the various NPCs in the city, including the Coven, and how they behave depending on which area of the world they're in.

[fulgency]

It is my understanding that Parliament is not made of Witches. I could be wrong about that, but there are humans that never receive formal training or pursue that in order to become fully fledged Witches. Which has actually placed Parliament in opposition at times with the Coven. The Mirrorbound also did not set up the Council actually! Parliament gave the seats that the family who was responsible for kidnapping and torturing Mirrorbound and refugees to the Mirrorbound as compensation for that situation, and give them more rights/representation. But you are absolutely right in that Monsters do not appear to have much by way of political power.

[turmoiling]

Just as a comment on

The other piece to this is something that I have seen happen quite a few times with a few exceptions, but after big events and plot points like this, things… Just seem to return to normal. Although I definitely hold zero expectations (and no real desire) for event after event and continuing to directly deal with fall-out, it often feels like an event happens and there is a lag before there's any felt difference as a result of the outcomes. Dorchacht went silent and then suddenly everything was fine until it wasn't. The Underground also felt like a dropped plot point to me because although I did not participate directly in it due to time constraints when the plot was occurring, I feel like I know nothing about it and have zero concept of how the relationships there impact the game or the circumstances.

I feel like this is a side-effect of missing info pages. It's not that Dorchacht went silent, really -- there were plenty of small quests, and your character was free to mention it or go there. It's just without anything to reference beyond the event itself it really falls off the radar for a lot of people. I think the same is going on for the Underground too.

On that note, I also wonder if it might be worth having some spot where players can comment on their activities in various places outside of plots? Or maybe a monthly 'has your character done anything significant' post from the mods that could be built on for things a month or two down the line? Just spitballing some ideas here.

But also with that said...

I really worry that the desire to get us all back into deep plotty things is too much of a strain on the mod team. The number of players isn't small, and plots take a lot of work, and with the stress of the world these days, to be totally honest, I feel like it might be too much to ask. I'm pretty happy with sandbox time overall, and all it would take to keep that rolling are some minor world updates in reaction to player things, current level of plots, and improved reference pages to give people things to work with.

[gynvael]

I think what I mean is they have the option of becoming witches (were born with magic ability) but chose not to pursue the training and went into Parliament instead. Which isn't really a choice monsters can make, suggesting that it's people don't understand what it's like not having that ability to choose currently holding power and deciding city regulations.

That's actually really interesting tho about the Council! It sounds like there are steps being taken to sort of even things out...a little. Though to reiterate, I don't mind the imbalance at all, it's really more just having a better outline of how the imbalance over the years impacts the city and its people. If that makes sense!