Miscellaneous

Story event timeline

As Im trying, between work, classrs, and finding a few minutes to eat or even sleep, Im still working over the event timeline of the game. Im curious what ratio of action/combat to roleplay/problem and puzzle solving people prefer. The decisions will eliminate some events, enable others and generally determine the overall environment of the game. With a small player base, I can write events that focus entirely upon us. Thats the beauty of a smaller player base. Its more like the series with everyone having a major role.

Or, I can instead have a NPC command element, for example, an Earth based HQ that calls the shots, we all are more like the team assigned to perform tasks we may not understand, till later as the story unfolds.

If we decide to play a more combat oriented game I would encourage the use of alternate characters as a means to have meaningful deaths. That would be permanent death. But to tell a good action storyline, characters we come to love must die in order to draw the emotional immersion that keeps us coming back. It also means that anyone is a candidate for death. Up to you.

Finally, if all goes as planned, in a month or so ( end of April’ish) I can participate more after classes let out for the summer.  I have given myself two weeks to really begin to harden up the many many ideas gloating around in my head, but I want the final schedule of events to be what everyone is excited about.

 

What I can guarantee, right now, is that this storyline will take several turns nobody is expecting, and Im not overstating that. If this game goes to its conclusion, I think it may just be the greatest work Ive ever written and I cant wait to share it.

 

Lindsay

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2 comments

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Xavier Pomegranate

I think that when it comes this type of project in Second Life we need to consider all of the things we have going in our favor, and all of the things that we have working against us. What we want, and what we are able to actually have may be two different things. We all know what the usual obstacles are: time differences, Admin availability, low Player turnout for events. The list goes on and on. We should really try to play to our strengths.

I know that as a Player of games like D&D I prefer a good bit of story that justifies, and gives reason for, the occasional combat. I also prefer to be one of the heroes, as opposed to playing the role of a temporary NPC. NPCs that were a creation of the DM seriously annoyed me when they were allowed to steal the spotlight and save the day. Honestly, it seemed a little self serving on the part of the DM to have us Players listen to how the DM’s “awesome” NPCs got all of the glory, even if they died in the end. So, in my opinion, I would rather give the Players all of the chances to be the heroes and leave the NPCs in the roles of mentors, senior officers, or enemies, that will eventually die for story enhancement.

Now, as Sim Admins, I think we must accept certain roles and understand that sometimes those roles are slightly limited. It becomes our job to tell Players what they should try to do, as opposed to doing things ourselves. For example, if deck two has filled up with smoke, the role of an Admin’s character would be to tell a Player or Player(s) to get fire fighting equipment, go down to deck two, locate the air handler controls in the overhead compartments and get them working to clear the smoke. Doing it ourselves would be “self serving”. This is not to say that our characters can’t do anything important, because there will be times when we are required to act. What I am saying is that we need to always be trying to delegate tasks to our players and then praise them when they complete them. Positive reinforcement.

The real trick will be finding a good balance of story and combat, and also giving the Players a reason to just come and hang out when they feel like it. Maybe we need an OOC club or something.(Just thinking out loud.)We do want everybody to feel at home in the sim so that they do not constantly feel the desire to split after an event. I think this is an area we can work on…..
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Elena

I like it. Im honestly excited to start RPing this

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