City Events

[Kinaed]

As per our OOC Chat today, we discussed the possibility of introducing cevents (City Events) to the game during the OOC Chat.

Loosely, this is the idea so far - IT IS ENTIRELY UP FOR CHANGE:

Once a month or so, a city event would be rolled. I think players should be able to add a city event to the system because it's RP they want to see, in much the same way we take pvent or ti-fact submissions.

Anyway, staff members will write up an IC_Event on the IC_Events board with any relevant city events, and some city goals to modify the outcome of the city event.

Players will get a plot command that they can write a brief 'I've RPed about X to try to achieve the city goal', which will earn rewards from staff and advance the plot - the only rules being 1) that RP must be involved and 2) what they RPed wasn't crazy as balls (ie, it contextually fits with who they are and the theme, etc - so pulling out your lazer canon and blowing up Elliueh to cripple the mage population probably isn't reasonable).

Mid-month, staff will post another IC_Event board to summarize what people did and what happened.

Right now, Lithmore is divided up into the following regions:
- North Lithmore (gentry and nobility live here, it's posh neighborhood)
- Merchants Quarter (shops, commerce)
- Civic Center (Town Hall, Town Council, Cathedral, city functions)
- Foreign Quarters (immigrants live here in their own cultural enclaves)
- Southside (poorest of the poor, this is the home of the gangs and black market)
- Surrounding environs (the wilderness)

We'd love some ideas on how to incorporate those areas to this. The point of this exercise is to bring TI's CITY and RP environs to life. I'd love to see political events as well as major disasters, etc, in the system to roll.

So, this post is about soliciting ideas. Any suggestions on where we can go with this, folks? Thanks!

[Dice]

I like the idea, particularly if the events are intriguing and dramatic enough to provoke some really good RP.

Some thoughts re: events -

* Southside: Boundary disputes (people on the edges of Southside fighting against being considered part of it, or the Brotherhood trying to expand their influence.) Plagues but endemic distrust of authority to handle them. Infrastructure challenges (the Wall being threatened by the Warren, for example).

* Wilderness: Corpserot problems, but virtual this time! Discovery of interesting historical ruins that are threatened by some natural feature. Weather issues like flooding in the swamp village or heavy snows in the mountain pass. Strange dangerous animals roaming about.

* Foreign Quarters: I do think we could use this as interesting cultural fodder, if the issues are chosen carefully. Perhaps there's been a rash of public beatings or even lynchings in the Vandagan/Farin quarters over some behavior they strongly loathe, like homosexuality. Perhaps rampant drug use in the Vavardi quarter is creating health issues or complaints from their neighbors in North Lithmore. The Hillman settlement is under attack by some unknown person who is killing their animals and painting slurs over their buildings, etc.

My biggest concern right now is: how do players get to know what other players are doing re: the issue? If several people are working simultaneously but not together, the RP could be oddly disjointed. Is there some way to visibly 'sign up' for these events so people know you're interested/involved?

[Kinaed]

Maybe the request plot advancement command might have a rumor attached to it? I don't know, I don't want it to be too public either. Love the suggestions for possible dramatic events.

[Kinaed]

Can I bump this for more player responses?

[Leech]

So here's my list of concerns, initially!

-Disjointed RP: As Dice mentioned, how will our actions relate to form a cohesive, fun story with our peers? Solution: Instead of mid-month, make updates as they happen. Example: If Ariel kills Casimir as part of 'Heretic Purge Week' update an IC event post to relay the message 'The body of a dashingly handsome man with amazing blue eyes was found in the River Bren yesterday'. That way, people can act on the information immediately, and build upon it. Lot of work, but it's the only way I can see to make this system not be just a bunch of disjointed RP around one event.

-Why? Or, more specifically, why roll out a whole new system for this? You said the end goal was to make our environs 'pop', but it seems to me that this can already be done through STPs and player contribution. The only thing missing is sufficient incentive for players to do it.

-I'm not sure this system would accomplish the goal in the first place: let's use one of Dice's examples. People in the Vavardi quarter are doing too much rock sugar and having waaaaay too much sex, leading to all sorts of diseases being spread. Inquisitors and Knights have stepped in. This is the information that's given to players, more or less...

But what do we do with it? Few players are willing to RP vNPCs or NPCs (which events like these would require if the environs are to 'pop'). To get a staff to puppet an NPC, you need to pay. To have any sort of immersion in the plot, the player would need to do an STP to interact in a meaningful way - and few enough people do those!

Edit: Alternatively, why not just have a note filled with plots that staff would like a player to run, via STPs? Then, if the player takes control of it, does it nicely, and everyone involved is happy (and theme is upheld) they get some shiny bonus QP. Or, y'know, instant GM'd skills. I need those. >.>

[Kinaed]

I think there is some commitment from staff to assist in this plot area, similar to running quests, without RPA involved - that said, this is sort of like our dangling our toes in the water and seeing if anything bites us...

I can say for certain that I, at least, don't have the creativity to come up with Vavardi rock sugar sex parties being a plot point, which is why a city event system is a great way to let players indicate what they want.

Reporting on events as they happen certainly is a possibility we can entertain.

Why are we saying player incentives to ST aren't high enough? What would be better, appropriate incentives? My general opinion is that a lot of players enjoy being players, but aren't necessarily mastermind coordinator sorts. All of the incentives in the world aren't going to make non-GM people be GMs. That said, I do think we need to work a bit on the ST system tools, which we are doing in the background at the moment. Nedyra's sorting through our mob and object templates to set up a zone that STs can just load from at whim, etc.

[Dice]

There are no incentives currently to run a ST.

Oh, you MIGHT get recommendation - but you might not. There's actually zero established incentive for trying; you're at the mercy of your players. My last ST took me like 6 or 7 hours of intense GMing and I got one recommendation. (I can hardly count the second one; Cambrea's player gave it to me out of guilt when I mentioned I'd only gotten one recommendation...)

While I agree many players aren't masterminds, it doesn't take masterminding to run a story - the plot can be simple, and almost everybody's capable of running SOME form of story. I think it's less ability and more will/motivation, which is the kind of thing you maybe could tip with incentives.

1) Give people QP (a small amount, since many stories are approved and never run) just for submitting a story
2) Give people a flat QP bonus for running a story. It does great things for the game and is tons of work, it's worth rewarding.
3) Consider other incentives. (Straight up XP? That's the only incentive that really tends to motivate me.) People who run STs are literally keeping the game going - eventage is a game's lifeblood and we haven't had a big staff plot in a long time. STs are the closest we have to that kind of wide-spread plot that involves everyone and should be incentivized with just about whatever it takes to make people do them.
4) Spruce up the command spread. I find the process frustrating now I'm not a staffer, because your hands are so tied for lack of commands. If I hadn't been allowed access to the Builder I could have never actually run my last ST, and as it is it was a mind-bendingly annoying problem, figuring out how to do what I wanted with limited commands. (It didn't help that I felt remarkably 'suspected' when I asked for the builder - I had to ask repeatedly and there was a lot of talk about misuse. We can trust our players, can't we? Especially those with clean policy records?)
5) I know a few people have indicated interest in STs to me but don't seem to feel comfortable with the system. Perhaps an ST training event? Approve some nonsense stories and let people feel out the commands?

[Leech]

I didn't mean to derail the topic with that one statement - which on it's own might deserve a different thread altogether. The original point I wanted to strike at was really the whies, or city events versus STPs.

Referring back to my last post: it seems like everything city events should do could be done by staff putting up a list of plots they'd like to see run, and then having trusted players run them. (I say trusted because it wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to put a newbie, or somebody with policy breaches, to work writing out a plot that will affect theme heavy sections of the world.)

Also, we could start a referendum (and have before) of STPs and plots people would like to see, so we have the player factor in there.

Edit: Dice, one of the reasons you might have had few recs is because your characters weren't necessarily involved in the plot. Which isn't an excuse, but I know many people - towards the end - might have heavily disassociated you from the actual plot (which was awesome!), at least as far as recs go. Speaking of... did I give you a rec? >.>

[Dice]

I don't know that stories are the best format for handling city events - I see these as being more fluid, less 'we are all in a room together solving the problem in a single scene'. So all you need is some person to incorporate all the actions everybody wants to do, and yeah, that could be staff OR players if staff were open to that. But staff can do IC_events, coordinate people's actions if people want to do 'secret' ones, etc, so I think staff handling these has an edge. Also, I think there are only so many players who would do choose to take on city events (without significant incentive), going back to the general ST problems.

(You did not recommend me, Leech, but I love you anyway. My point wasn't to shame people, though it does sound kinda whiny; it's more to point out how much STs having ANY reward at all is extremely variable and it's possible to get fewer QP for a ST than the hours you spend on it.)

[Leech]

See, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the glorious freedom that STPs bring - it doesn't have to be a big group of people at all. It could be a bunch of little STPs, spread out over a month. It could be different people doing a bunch of little STPs. However, if you just have staff announce a city event and say 'Everyone RP about it!' I don't think there will be rhyme or reason. Nobody will be collaborating.

Let's go through an example of how this system might work without anymore added code:

----------------------------------

With multiple people running STPs associated around one overarching plot:

1. Staff announce a city event via an IC event post, drawing from a list of city events they came up with, supplemented by ones they received from players. This could be a publicly kept list, even, updated on a note post the same way that open guild positions are updated.

2. Players then run STPs centered around the city event. Staff know what is happening in all the STPs, because STPs are explained and documented via STP code.

3. Staff (or a single staffer) then look over the STPs, send notes to players who are coming up with the same STPs/similar ones asking them to get together and see if they can't cooperate. If there are STPs which run contrary to one another, same thing. If there are STPs which would affect each other if one were done before the other, same thing. Cooperation among players is a lovely thing!

3. Players run the STPs (which could be as small as 3 players or as large as 10) . Appropriate rumors and IC event posts are given so that others have a chance to enjoy/participate in the fallout. Players are free to make more STPs within the month, in reaction to STPs already ran.

4. The month ends and those who contributed STPs towards the overarching story are rewarded appropriately.

This, to me, gives players a taste of what RP should be - collaborating to tell a grand story. It's the very essence of why I play here. I actually feel pretty strongly about it!

Leaning on the STP code, staff have an easy way to document happenings, and players have an easy way to know what's going on in relation to the city event. They'll never feel out of the loop, or have that insurmountable barrier of 'Well, how do I pierce the veil and actually start RPing about it?'

---------------------------------------------

My original suggestion involved giving over control of the overarching plot to one player. Nothing really changes, except that staff choose that one player, and that player is responsible for holding the STPs that will shape the plot - whether they be a bunch of small ones with a grand finale, or a few big ones spread over the month.

To me, this gives a lot more fluidity, control, and allows people in positions like Tenebrae, diplomat, city council, etc to really shine when their particular section of the city comes into play. Unfortunately this might come across as favoritism (oh no!), or people might just flat out hate the person chosen and not participate.