Global Dispatch: 6th edition

[wynn]

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

† Attention NEW SQUIRES: ROOMS are posted, so come check out what your character's digs look like. Apologies for the delay.

† PRIVATE LOGS: Reminder once more - if you want to do a log with another player character that involves secret information (either information gained in a log with an NPC on behindcloseddoors or information about your character's background that you want to keep semi-secret), you are free to request a log to be put up in behindcloseddoors ! Just drop a request on the Mod Contact page with a <textarea> of the top post that you would like, and I will create the necessary filter.

† Sunday Stats will hopefully go up next Sunday with info on talents and action points.

† If you would like help setting up stats in order to do optional rolls, feel free to IM me! I will walk you through it step by step. :)

† If you DO NOT want to receive Plurk pings from me when a log gets put up for your character, please let me know and I will refrain from doing so.  

† SENSE MOTIVE: For those of you doing rolls, keep in mind that sometimes NPCs will lie - but I will never indicate this directly in a tag. If your character has reason to doubt them, you must announce that your character is making a sense motive roll in their tag (and indicate what # you rolled!), and then I will roll a bluff check for the NPC if necessary and respond with whether your character finds them believable or not!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE RE: GAME PACING, ETC.

I've been considering doing individual check-ins with game members about this since the game is small enough to, but figured I would put up a public message about it first!

Mostly, I wanted to give people a clear idea of what the thought process is behind my pacing of logs and plot things - hopefully to put your minds at ease if you feel "behind".  I am all about transparency, and know that... some people might be interested.  If you aren't, you don't have to read all this!  

First of all, it's important to note that I do track every single post in the community, so I have an eagle eye view of people's activity and personal pace. Don't panic! I'm not doing this to keep track of who's the 'weakest link' or anything like that. I really want this game to be customized to each player's individual pacing as much as possible, and so everyone's current speed is PERFECT. Breeeeeeathe.

However, what this does allow me to do is try and space things out to avoid overwhelming those who have less time for tagging, or are super bogged down in back tags at any given time. If I know some players are still doing a lot of backtagging, I'll put more buffer space, for example, between when they are briefed and when they actually leave for the mission. Slower groups are more likely to get single tracked posts, where all players are concentrating on one scene, even if it takes weeks to complete. Whenever this kind of thing occurs, I will build in buffer time after these events that will include easily hand-waved 'clean-up' or cool down scenes before the characters return to the castle, that will cover the time in between. You should never find yourself in a situation, therefore, where you don't know if your character is back yet! There will always be a return log posted on the day they come back.

I try giving groups with more fast taggers lots of options for things to tag into, on the other hand. For example, the Chicago group has a number of logs and NPC threads that can be tagged into if a player wants to do more, but do not have to be. I am just as comfortable with a player assuming their character was in the background, or talking out what they've been doing OOC. This does not put your character "behind" at all, and I try to include necessary info in the top post and top comments so that a skim of mission logs will give the player a good flavor of what kinds of things are going on around your character.

This is a huge work in progress, and people's schedules and motivation levels change all the time, so I'm grateful for people keeping me up to date on where they're at. I'm always glad to accommodate - and don't be afraid to ask me to wrap up NPC threads at any time. I prefer RPing for 'scenes', instead of just aimlessly meandering, so I try to steer to the heart of things and then wrap towards a close, but if I get the sense someone wants to keep going, I also will go until you're done. So do not ever feel like you are putting me out by asking for conclusion on a thread - if we still haven't gotten to the actual thing I wanted out of the thread in the first place, I will let you know. Promise. :)  Also I love feedback, so talk to me if something is stressing you out!  If you want NPC tags to come faster or slower, I can try to do that too.

Basically you're all perfect and beautiful and make my dreams come true.  And I want to make this fulfilling and fun for everyone, so I am here for you all.  (~._.)~  One thing I really think differentiates this style of gaming (tabletop) from open forum gaming is that you should never feel totally aimless in terms of having something for your character to do, so if for some reason you don't feel like you have enough options, I will gladly help provide a million of them.  The pressure's on me to find things for your character to react to, and I'm totally okay with that.  It's what a Gamemaster does.

♥ Arden  

COMING UP:

Tomorrow: Russia arrival log!
This weekend: Japan group travel log! Chicago group's EPIC PLOT MISSION yeahhhhhhhhhhh \o/

Questions, comments, concerns? Drop 'em here! If anyone is feelings lost on where to tag / focus, ping me and I'll gladly help you out!