Idea: Regional Storytellers

[Commissar]

I've read a few threads lately on the lack of roleplay in certain areas. Now, that's neither here nor there, but the fact remains that there's less active attention given to creating dynamic roleplay scenarios in-game by the staff, generally speaking, then the administrative tasks involved in keeping the server running smoothly - and fair enough. It's practically a full time job already.

What roleplay is available generally operates within fixed constraints, to an extent. Namely, it's generally accepted that an encounter will have little effect beyond the immediate situation, and that no player character will be permanently harmed. Again, fair enough. No-one wants to go out for a patrol and have it end with their five hundred million credit + main character being peeled off the tradelanes by mildly nauseated LPI officers.

But Commissar, you say, isn't that how the game works? I don't want to lose my characters. Fear not, there is a middle ground!

Plenty of the more text-based roleplaying sites I've visited appoint regional storytellers (or dungeon masters, or evil overlords, or whatever term takes your fancy) to create and drive small-scale stories beyond the normal encounters, or, between them, to create encounters spanning a number of areas. From a Discovery perspective, I'd imagine this taking the form of a handful of players granted admin-like powers (devoid of bans or any similar such tomfoolery, of course - though the ability to spawn NPCs would be neat. I'm not sure of the exact mechanics driving the server, so forgive any impossibilities!) to alter the game world for the purpose of deepening player interaction and drawing activity to under-inhabited areas.

The actual stories they generated could take any number of forms, limited only by the storyteller's imagination (and, of course, common sense and existing lore. You wouldn't appoint someone who knew nothing about Kusari to act as a RS there, for instance). They would be the derelict freighter at the edge of your scanner range, broadcasting a frantic SOS on all frequencies until someone arrived to risk stepping aboard, they could be a rogue self-replicating machine, dispatched eons ago and forgotten in the void of space. Political prisoners, members of parliament, the wingmen who don't make it home. Misaligned jump-holes dragging over-eager transports to the distant corners of space. - All of these roles are generally neglected by players due to the possibility of character death, and rightly so. But if someone can play those roles without the specter of days of trading to repair the damage, and with the tools to create some unique scenarios, I think it would open the door for a more immersive environment.

The role wouldn't be limited to in-game, with the storytellers also taking an active role in promoting and participating in player RP on the forums, in doing so assisting new players in wrapping their heads around the (rather daunting by this point) lore. They'd play the dodgy Junker offering you repairs, the stern LSF officers ordering your artifact smuggler in for inspection (and subsequently dying like animals), the poor, swamped docking staff trying to deal with yet another heavy transport requesting a mooring point.

If you managed to read through all that, thank you for your patience. I tip my proverbial hat to you, and invite you to Manhattan for a complimentary Starflier ride.

If you didn't manage to read all of it, here's the short and sweet. Create regional storytellers with admin-like powers to create unique roleplay scenarios and draw player activity away from the usual clusters.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |

[Ironwatsas]

I've RPed Mercenaries, Naval Pilots for Three out of Five houses, Merchant Captains on the run from the Mob, Spies, Recruiters for Unlawful Paramilitaries, a Mad Goddess, Corporate CEOs, Wild and Nomads of various stripe, AIs, Cyborgs, Vampires working for Planetform of all things, a News Agent, Torturers, Political Exiles, Politicians (who ran in an election), Political Party Leaders, Communists, Fascists, Arms Dealers, Pompous British Twits, a Kitsune, a Hyper-Intelligent Gaian Squirrel, Several Different Miners, Warship Captains, Bounty Hunters, a Pyromaniac who Doesn't Talk, an Eldritch Abomination, and Udo Ackermann.

I've variously RPed with Psychopaths, Telepaths, Criminals, Lunatics, a Dog, Pirates and Lawfuls of every stripe, Political Idealists, Radio Station broadcasters, Freighter Captains, Robots, Samurais, The Emperor of Kusari, Dab, The Phantoms, and there was that time Wesen flew Udo into the Sun.

The point I'm trying to make is that limiting RP based on one's definition of 'wierd' is really just restricting RP. People should be able to RP whatever they want short of sex things (we have skype for that). If they do something stupid, nobody will play along.

Aside from that caveat, most of your ideas here are solid. The main problem is "who" and "how many". All faction leaders? All experienced Roleplayers? All people who have been here for such and such? Will there be an application Process? Those are the obvious problems. What happens if one of the people you give powers too decides to railroad things to their own liking?

I know what you're saying about large scale RPs and GMing them. I'm actually doing so right now. These tend to be some of the best RPs on Discovery. Something like this might be worth trying out. It might be worth giving Admins, Moderator Staff, or The Angels some kind of power to do some of the things you suggested. Or just give me those powers immediately, no questions asked. I have a plan.

That said, the ability to spawn NPCs would be incredibly badass and should be implemented right away. Make Kaz do it now! Gogogogo

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All that begins must end.

[Commissar]

Vampires working for Planetform of all things

Now, that, I would love to have seen. I'm sure there's some lovely analogies for terraforming in there somewhere. You're quite right in that people should be able to RP whatever they want to, and it was never my intention to restrict that. There's certainly more freedom then my initial post implied, and that was more a slip of the tongue (fingers?) on my part, letting dramatic effect get away with me. I've seen some similarly imaginative RPs, and generally, they've been great fun to interact with. The goal of something like this would be to make those memorable encounters more common, rather then restrict the ability of people to play the characters they want to play.

In terms of numbers, I'd make a play for one per house as a rough number, with the Omicrons getting another. Essentially, the goal for each storyteller would be to create events and activity in those areas that encouraged people to play there, rather then getting bored and wandering off looking for interaction miles from home. The application process would be similar to applying for a position as an administrator, which would (hopefully!) reduce instances of evil overlord syndrome and the subsequent railroading that would result. I imagine anyone abusing their powers would quickly find them revoked, and in this particular case, I think the benefits of generating roleplay outweigh the possibility of abuse. Certainly, it could happen, but I would hope that the application process would filter most of that out. Junior storytellers (a role quite similar to an RP-orientated Angel, really) could make an appearance to assist in forum-RPs and the like, but that would be something for down the track depending on how the Regional ST's were dealing with the load.

The ability could certainly go the Admins, Moderators, or Angels, if they felt they had the time to run scenarios on top of their current workload. Or we could take over the server. Either works for me.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |

[Kazinsal]

That said, the ability to spawn NPCs would be incredibly badass and should be implemented right away. Make Kaz do it now! Gogogogo

It's on the list.

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Retired, permanently.

[Pel]

I would love to do some of this for the Gaian lore, but I don't think the logistics for this idea will work out.

Spawning NPCs involves creating missions, so you'd need a plugin for creating custom missions (or "stories"). Massdriver has coded something like this, but for a different purpose. The way he has designed it is for more challenging cargo runs. I'm sure it was still a lot of work, but he did NOT use it to spawn NPCs (I don't think), nor did he create sound files for his missions.

The "frantic SOS" and other stuff that you describe would involve creating sound files, uploading them to the server, adding them to the appropriate ini files, and then writing a mission that calls this sound file and creates the sequence of events you need to tell the story.

This is a lot of work, involves learning how to create single-player missions, a plugin to make them work in multiplayer and every new mission would amount to an update that the server would have to distribute to all the players (whether or not they want to take that mission or "be part of that story").

In the end, people may care about your RP or not, but you just gotta do it the old-fashioned way. Anything else really amounts to trying to code your own mod, or you'd need to be in charge of the mod to code it.

EDIT: Ninja'd -- but even if its on Kazinsal's list, how would the sound files work?

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New Gaian Front Links: Faction Info | Recruitment Channel | Reading Room | Feedback Thread | The Green Hell | NGFJM

[Durandal]

Regional = bias

If you want things to work then you need people who understand things as a whole, not individual pieces.

[Commissar]

I think we've got a bit of a misunderstanding, Pel. While mission plugins and all the technological wizardry would be neat, it's not really the core of the idea, and was more an afterthought on my part. The ships involved wouldn't be NPCs, by and large, but players, with little difference in the mechanics of the interaction compared to meeting anyone else on the server. The sole difference would be that the RS' would have the ability to use other admin tools such as jumping, beaming, a deeper (read: Atlantic-ocean sized) money pool, and some of the other associated gadgets to generate RP wherever it needed to be.

Certainly, I'll admit anyone can do a similar thing now, but it involves a simply huge amount of time trading and setting up ships in all the various corners of the colonies to be able to do in any timely manner, and even then is somewhat limited in the scenarios you can create on the fly without walls of OORP text to explain what's going on and where exactly you're meant to be right now.

Regional = bias

If you want things to work then you need people who understand things as a whole, not individual pieces.

Could you elaborate a little on this? I understand not wanting people to run around screaming LIBERTYRSISGREATEST or something similarly ludicrous, but the intention in splitting into regions would be to limit the workload of each individual, and ensure that the various neglected spots around Sirius got some degree of attention instead of RS' flocking to areas of high activity along with the majority of the playerbase. That, and (in direct contradiction to what I said in that first sentence) I think that some degree of competition between RS' to create better interactions wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, assuming it's all done in the spirit of the game.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |

[Pel]

So it would be more like an "event"? Contact players to bring their ships and play out a story?

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New Gaian Front Links: Faction Info | Recruitment Channel | Reading Room | Feedback Thread | The Green Hell | NGFJM

[Commissar]

Dead on. Although the goal would be more to draw players into the event then contacting them directly. For instance, with the derelict scenario I mentioned earlier, there might be a message dropped in the system chat of the three adjoining systems to the effect of: "Unknown freighter-class contact detected. 2C/B, Heading 024, Cambridge System.", and players would respond from there, with the RS taking on the role of playing for (what was left of) the crew of the freighter. The end result would be very similar to tabletop roleplaying games in that regard, with players interacting with one central storyteller who would shape the development of the scenario based on the player's actions.

And thanks for the feedback thus far, folks, it's appreciated.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |

[Sabru]

i like this idea. thats one of the things that attracts me to tabletop games.

you have a basic, vagueish outline and everything that happens is up to the players who take part (with GM moves where appropriate)

am i close in my own words description?

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