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User:TealWizard

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Role

TealWizard's primary purpose is to promote story-driven roleplay on Tapestries MUCK through the implementation of a new RP-focused area.

Chehon Region In 140 Characters Or Less

The Chehon region will be a theme-based RP area with IC/OOC separation, where ICA=ICC, and where RP contibutes to a central plotline.

Chehon Region Status

Complete

Draft map of Chehon core building.
  • October 3 Update
    • Review of existing policies.
    • New "Policy Roleplay" draft is in closed review.
    • Secured partnership with Chitter for inclusion of the Lutrai Isle in the new region.
    • Acquired permission from Ollie Canal to include the Lutrai in the core theme documentation of the region.
  • October 7 Update
    • Chehon region theme info has a completed first draft.
      • I've started editing the document based on the input of my closed reviewers.
    • "Policy Roleplay" document seems to be pretty well-received by my test audience.
  • December 2 Update
    • Slacked off. Herp derp. Also devoured delicious turkey.
    • Responded to feedback on policy and theme doc WIPs by making some changes. Pretty happy with both right now.
    • Started setting up the building framework/template and centralized MPI:
      • Right now the plan is to have each room's desc change by IC season and time of day.
      • Also working on somewhat nicer-looking exit list/display.
      • Actual working MPI is going to be stored on the Chehon parent: I can make a change in one place and it'll automatically propagate over the entire area.
    • PROS
      • Nicer looking.
      • More immersive.
      • Easy to update look and feel.
      • Creating a new room will be as easy as copy->paste->find->replace.
    • CONS
      • If I break it in one place, it breaks everywhere.
      • Maintainability by others is a concern; executing MPI bounces between objects so following the chain of execution can be tricky.
      • Every time someone looks at a room, a dozen MPI statements are interpreted and two calls are made to the @time MUF program. Could bog down, and if something breaks it'll break hard.
        • Like my MPI crashed the MUCK once, though White says it wasn't really my fault. Still, the more MPI that executes, the more opportunity for disaster. YAY!
    • I've had discussions with a few zone admins and heads of off-grid RP groups. Interest and excitement seems to be pretty high, so it seems like the place might actually see some use. *gasp* So clearly I need to haul a little more ass than I have been. Bad squirrel. No biscuit.

Design Decisions/Thoughts (please give feedback if you disagree)

Mechanics

  • IC time progression will probably be 1:1 with OOC time progression. The current 4x speedup doesn't seem to be used by anyone.
  • IC calendar and day length will probably mirror RL simply to help with scheduling and wrapping one's mind around things.
    • TealNote: I'd honestly prefer to have a different orbital period and rotational speed for Curuoskar, but realistically it's probably too much trouble for players and will provide too little benefit in terms of immersion and RP benefit to be worth it. So I guess when it comes to the length of the day and year: a wizard did it.
  • For a spaceport to be worth it, teleportation needs some sort of limitations. Spaceports are cool, and I want the 'port city/Tortuga-in-space-with-magic' feel that it could provide. So teleportation will probably get really expensive once you start talking about large masses/volumes.
    • This could cause issues for giants/dragons/macros. Maybe it's just nonliving matter? But then what about slave cargos/slave ships? Man, I could Redshirt this to death.

Roleplay

  • Story comes from the disconnect between what a character wants reality to be, and what it really is. IE: storytelling is really about character motivation. Typically this takes the form of some form of conflict, whether that be internal, environmental, or interpersonal.
    • Layleaux is mostly about the desire to sate sex drive. I don't want to eliminate that, but I want Chehonian motivations to be more diverse: materialism, social pressure, social status, physical well-being, basic needs...all of these should be sources of potential motivation. All of these examples involve, at their core, either getting something you don't have, or avoiding having something taken away. So...avoid utopia! Flaws are good, scarcity is good.
  • What makes roleplay fun and worth doing?
    • Consequence. Your character's choices and actions should matter. This means we need continuity and causality: a connected series of events that's consistent.
    • Creativity. You should be able to explore new concepts and ideas to see how they work in the sandbox. We want to be open to the widest variety of characters and plotlines that we can.
    • Growth. Characters that evolve and grow and change over time are some of the most engaging, both for the player of that character and those that play with them. A character that has a story that's been forged through ongoing play feels genuine, and grants depth to the RP environment. We want to promote character growth.
  • What makes roleplay frustrating and a waste of time?
    • Lack of choice. Being forced into a particular chain of events which takes your character to places you're not interested in exploring is frustrating at best, and enraging at worst. Players should really have final say over what happens to their character; nobody should be able to take their character away from them and make the player a bystander in a story that's as much theirs as anyone else's.
    • Monotony. People, in general, bore easily and yet are creatures of habit. This can lead to playing the same thing over and over, slowly getting burned out and growing increasingly disillusioned with the roleplay environment and community, which can lead to losing that experienced player from the community. We need to avoid this monotony and have a dynamic, changing RP environment. This needs to be sustainable and thus player-driven, which means we need to encourage people to be leaders in event planning and execution.
    • Lack of involvement/lack of consequence. In creating a dynamic environment, we need to make sure that RP events are inclusive and flexible. Players need to feel like they're able to participate in a meaningful way. Being excluded or being railroaded can turn an event from a positive immersion-building, plot-hook creating opportunity to further roleplay into a petty annoyance and source of OOC conflict which winds up being a net loss for the RP community as a whole.
    • Competitiveness. In-character competition can be good. However, the act of roleplaying is a cooperative one. Individuals who feel the need to try to "win" a scene by forcing a particular outcome are immersion-breaking and frustrating. When two folks who both have the competitive RP mentality interact with one another, it's even worse, and can result in extremely nasty OOC fights. There's a lot of places where competition is appropriate, but roleplay is collaborative and needs to be treated as such.

To do

  • Write formal mission statement.
  • Dot the I's and cross the T's on the remaining policy documents.
    • Should be pretty easy; I'm stealing most of the existing ones and stripping out a lot of the IC restrictions, basically.
  • Begin courting zones for possible transfer (ones that are very RP-centric; see, temple and school).
  • Get a building queue set up for Chehon region. Fast-track the first twenty good applications or so.
  • Coding
    • WA-indexer
      • Get info from zone owners about desired functionality
      • Implement anything that's reasonable.
      • Avoid crashing the MUCK.
  • Building
    • Get a solid handle on the zone-lock, zone-admin, etc stuff.
      • Like, apparently you need cross-zone exits to have the Zombie flag set. Good to know.

Good ideas that people have had (add to this if you want though I'll delete it if it's not good. :3)

  • Balus -> put a retcon board in a central location so people know what stuff has been affected by retconny stuff.
  • Demik -> don't make a fuss about particular character types; instead, address the problem behaviors at the source.
  • Multiple Responses -> don't overemphasize particular communities/areas simply because they signed on first. (Oops. Sorry folks. I really like otters, what can I say?)
  • Dreya -> Needs a "seeking plots" board in Chehon. Also: set several building quasi-temporary lots as inside a Mall and position it as a central location? Lower building requirements, but lower requirements for building being removed (simple things like "not in use for X time" or "owner has abandoned it.") Would let people set up smaller shop/bar/restaurant ideas for flavour and ideally get traffic to them if "hanging out at the mall" has even a fraction of the social inertia of "hanging out at the plaza."
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