DISCUSSION: To Plot and Beyond

[thusiamods]

Hey guys, your resident mods here with a... not quite a full-out discussion post, but we'd like to get some ideas and points of note out there and your feedback on the matter. Particularly involving the latest plot and currently running plotlines. There have been a few discussions on plurk, but we'd like to have something more formal to make sure everyone has the opportunity to read and get their input on things that'll affect them.

There's a few things we'd like to touch upon with this post, the main points revolving around current/past/future plots and how we as mods can make things more fun for you in the way we handle them. Also on our agenda are things like State of the Game, God Functions, Player Accessibility, and probably more. To keep things organized, we'll be using header comments to cover specific topics and linking them in the post for easy navigation, so once you see a topic linked here, feel free to jump right to it.

CURRENT PLOTS: Moving HQ | Bitey Dogs | Weres

Week of my Life Posts | State of the Game | Affecting the Gods | Nature

Comments

[best_ended]

The thing with this is that I honestly don't think people are against a move! What they are against is the idea that NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, THERE WILL BE A MOVE. This isn't something that is directly stated by mods, but it's something that players are concerned about. Knowing the end-result of an event can sometimes kill the joy of playing out the result for some people. This is why when the mods dropped the ball with how the dragons were presented and then suddenly, we have Eizon talking about moving and NO YOU CAN'T FIGHT THEM, THERE IS NO CHANCE, MOVING IS THE ONLY OPTION, people OOCly kneejerk and have a "Whaaaaat?" moment that can kill any drive to play with the plot.

This is what people are meaning when they're protesting the move. It's not the idea of the move--frankly, a new setting NOT in a tree would be A++! But more the REASONS for the move, what the player-characters can do to effect things, etc, etc. Since this event was mod-run and primarily focusing on the endpoint rather than working with the players at the start (see also: lack of dragon interaction/making them a visible threat), a lot of players were having doubts as to whether they could really do ANYTHING to effect the outcome--i.e. determining where they will end up, how they will get there, or even IF they will move at all.

Your plotting along with Tempest's has opened up different routes for people to play with, AND THAT'S GOOD! I was actually really relieved to see that these sort of things were being permitted, but again, other people feel a lack of urgency or a lack of followthrough when they feel like they know what the end result will be. So as long as there is a CHANCE that a move might not happen, it will motivate people since there are bullheaded stubborn character types that will throw themselves at dragons until they are forcibly taken away--THIS CAN BE FUN FOR PEOPLE.

So tl;dr: it's less about people not wanting the move and more people perceiving how the idea of a move was brought into play in the first place. A lot of things are going on now OOCly that are helping this issue, including the mods acknowledging and trying now to correct interact with the playerbase.

Finally, even if the characters do defeat the matriarch or find a way to subdue her, let's all remember that this is also a redflag for a Nature God to make an appearance, possibly :) Those are still an issue and, think, what if we won the battle with the dragons but lost the battle with a Nature God again?

See, things like that twist is what players would love. Because then it would be fun. It would still force a move, but there would be awesomeness for the characters taking power into their own hands--because like Izaya will argue with gods, people will try to tame or conquer! that's how humanity is!--only to get shown that they're still faaaar from being safe or conquering the world. Mada mada dane or something.

Even if the mods want a certain end result, it should always be allowed to have a chance for failure/success, depending, otherwise people have trouble knowing what to do. See also: how you want to know if people are okay with one thing over another so you know what to play. Leaving an open but directed end can help both of these troubles.

[murderofcrow]

Something we do feel that was misunderstood by players was that moving was imminent and that things being said/played out ICly were being interpreted as the OOC outcome. Because two god npcs played by mods decided to do a thing, that there was no changing it! And frankly, we have no idea how to discourage that kind of thought other than flat out telling people 'oh btw you don't have to listen to them when they do this thing' at the very start of every plot line we run. Which runs into the problem of how much can we tell the players about a plot point without them feeling that a) we've spoiled all the fun of it by telling you what will happen as the 'default line' and b) discouraging players from trying something that we as mods didn't think of because they're under the belief that the default line is all that CAN happen.

We do acknowledge that we mishandled the introduction of this plot point poorly, but one thing we really want to avoid is people feeling trapped into certain solutions. For example, using this particular plot point, we as mods came up with a few ways that it could be stopped, discouraged, etc before starting it! And we prepared general concepts of what would happen if x happened or y happened. But we also felt that telling/sharing these with the community straight out in the ooc post felt way too much like... telling the players 'these are the only ways this event can be handled' and players wouldn't try other things because of it, which is why we decided to go with a more open-ended route and see instead what the players would come up with. Which we admit backfired because then players felt there was now only ONE way to go about this plot and that was the complete opposite of what we wanted.

I think a real problem for us when it comes to running plots is just how much we should be letting the players know at the plot beginning. Like you said, knowing how something ends just discourages people from trying anything new, but also leaving it too open and free form leaves that feeling of 'what do'.

Would players have preferred we'd given them OOC options of different things they could do at the start of a plot, or would that feel like way too much hand-holding when it comes to working out how to work with a plot? I think if we could get a solid idea on how players feel about that, we could work something out because so far we've just been trying out things and being told 'no that was a bad way to do it' and it's... pretty discouraging to be honest.

[best_ended]

Ah, yeah. It's true, there's a lot of misunderstanding on the players' part. I won't object to that.

Mostly, when it comes to plots, it doesn't hurt to drop hints, is what I've found. There have been plots that mods have run simply by dropping a nudge or a hint somehow or another that would lead a character to one choice over another. These can be as subtle or as overt as however you mods deem necessary, of course. One thing I will say for the post with Eizon is that it was VERY effective in getting people to talk out what to do about things. This was a correct way to get the plot more into the players' hands, even if there were some elements that could have gone better with the post/character-NPC interaction itself. Like I've said elsewhere, even though the start of the plot could have been more visible and other things could have happened to grab the players' attentions and have them come up with options, that post helped a lot with these issues.

For me, I know that two of my characters react more than act--one because he's too busy with his life being kind of utter crap and the other because he's a Well How Does It Effect Me? kind of thing. So without a bait, they might not jump for plot. This is why "leave it to the players" completely can be a bad thing. Because you have proactive characters and you have reactive characters. The Eizon post was very good for the reactive characters so they can have a "Wait, what--YOU CAN'T DO THAT! WE'LL FIND A WAY!" reaction and for the proactive characters, they start their plotting HOW to find a way--see also: Yukari and Tempest.

With the whole This Is The Only Option feels that some players got out of the current plot until it was explained that this wasn't the only option it was just Eizon being Eizon, I feel as though... if there had been more input from gods other than Eizon, explaining what is going on, maybe that feeling would be less? Of course, this post was Eizon acting toward what he thought was best. Shouldn't there be other gods doing the same? Again, working on getting Selyir to get the Shades moving is a good step toward this! But really, other gods getting involved for the good of the people since they consistently claim to want to help the population survive and thrive would be a good thing!

Now that's not to say that you know, gods should be all up in characters' businesses, but to me, they haven't been much of a presence lately? (Which I think can be fixed with that AC check thing you guys are implementing.) Not only that but I know a number of the characters don't go looking to someone like Eizon for information or assistance--he's curt and to the point and often not forgiving of ignorance or people being aggressive or argumentative. Not slighting the character--I enjoy playing off of those types in certain settings! Just not. Where the situation is called Critical and my characters are trying to get more information, argue their case against an idea, offer suggestions, etc...

Maybe having another god there or having a different god explain things would be best next time? Again, with the flooding plot, there were MANY gods out and about during that time, and were very open for discussion and getting answers. I feel that this is one of the reasons players liked that plot more than the current one. Again, THIS IS NOTHING AGAINST EIZON, I WOULD ACTUALLY LIKE TO PLAY OFF HIM MORE, but for a situation like this, when a character comes asking questions/being argumentative because they are concerned/passionate about their situation, the last thing they need to hear is a blunt "You're an idiot, listen to what I say." It doesn't make for a very cooperative character and a number of characters have previous Very Negative experience with this type of god.

I know it's difficult for plottings, so playerbase should be forgiving with things when something doesn't quite work out.

[murderofcrow]

Yeah I will admit originally it was going to be Selyir fielding questions but it... somehow ended up being Eizon who is never a good God Representative when it comes to interacting with people.

I do think having more gods get involved with the plotline currently would be great! I'm pretty glad Veseiy got tapped to help in a way and I'd love for more gods to jump in on this and not feel like it's an 'only Veseiy, Selyir, and Eizon can attend this party, no other gods allowed' thing, which I think might currently be the case.

Mmm... to fix that, I think we as mods need to work on communicating things to our god players more actively and letting them know any background information they'd need to know to jump in on a plot. Getting on top of our god newsletters again could help with that, or even just tapping the god chan to let people know when something's happening right at that moment.

... Sorry I am kind of thinking outloud here but I guess what we're both kind of aiming for was rather than having the mods present something with their characters as 'hey this is a thing now go', to spread out the information more to our god players and even certain characters who'd be involved in a particular plot point, which would help in making things feel less... enclosed/unavoidable. And I do think that is something we can definitely do, and would help take a lot of the pressure that we feel in having to run everything ourselves for a plot.

[best_ended]

Yes, all of this exactly.

Sometimes with plotty things, dropping hints/giving information to certain gods/characters can make things erupt very quickly. Sometimes a god/character will sit on the information until they feel it's a better time and thus it moves slower. No way is entirely wrong, either. It would help better the flow Nishi mentioned elsewhere, even.

Mostly, communication all around would be A++ and if there's ever any slow-down, instead of throwing more things at the wall to see what sticks, getting some input from others can help! So... yes. Basically, I think that's what we're all trying to say here. There are players who genuinely love this game for its possibilities and for the CR that can take place here, so of course they WILL want to help mods/gods/characters out when needed!

[murderofcrow]

Communication has definitely been highlighted in everything as one of our recurring problems and it is something we're going to try hard to focus on and fix. We've seen a lot of players coming forward with offers to give input on just about everything and we really appreciate it! We'd also like to put these glorious resources to use, so we'll be working on doing just that once we've settled down on the changes we'll be making internally and, at least in regards to this specific plot, once more things get going.