Octavia says in Nox'alfar, "I'll just ask all of my questions in Nox mwahahaaha"

Micana have been dismissed.

1 Saik Guard have been dismissed.

Caspian has joined the line.

Artur has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Hi guys! Welcome. This is a bit spontaneous, and I thought people might have questions that have built up over the last couple months, so would be a good time to catch up. Anything is fine to ask, though I generally prefer stuff that would be game specific and relevant to other people. Not that big a deal though. Join a line if you haven't and would like to ask questions."

Kit, the grey fox, Primus, First of Monique's Assistants, 1 Greenmarch Guard, Tertius, Third of Monique's Assistants arrive, following Monique.

Keski, a nervous disciple of Petrichor, Aletta, an even more nervous disciple of Petrichor, 1 Templar Knight guards, Oswald, the war pig, a lively Ostrian gelding arrive, following Brigida.

Turn in line: Caspian

2 Novice Keaton Huntsmen, Marigold, a cheeky pygmy goat, River, a juvenile Oakhaven bloodhound, Barf, the Bog Dog, Bandit, a dapple gray Duskshire feral arrive, following Amari.

Apostate says, "Ask away, Caspian."

Sparte has joined the line.

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Avary has joined the line.

Caspian says, "God, which question do I even want to ask? So many. I guess the one I want to know most is, how far are you along in the explorer/shardhaven thinger? A rough % estimate or even a 'Who the fuck knows?' is fine"

Peri has joined the line.

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Apostate says, "So shardhavens, as a discrete feature, are more or less done and could be pushed live. The tricky part is how closely tied they are to the -magic- system, which also is probably like half done (most of it structurally is complete, but details need to be defined). So it's more about other elements that are more tangentially related to shardhavens that we've wanted to iron out, like say, 'how much of X that comes from this that work for Y part of the magic system are we comfortable with'. Personally, I think we could probably section some of that stuff off and have shardhavens in by the end of the break, I just need to be careful of massively flooding things that come from shardhavens into the game before there are sinks for them."

Turn in line: Artur

Caspian has joined the line.

Vasile has joined the line.

Bliss has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Okay Artur, you're up"

Artur says, "My question is kind of related, since we're discussing the magic part of it all. As we're planning PRPs and plots to turn in, what type of things would you like to see? I know this sounds like a strange question, but I'm more curious as to what type of things could be good for PRPs besides villain of the week, or hunting or social events. Is there something you'd like to see from us that hasn't been touched on?"

Apostate says, "What I really would like to see is the ability for player storytellers to become extremely invested in the stories of other characters, and run stories specifically to cater to the goals of other players they know. For example, say Artur's siblings have like 10 different goals, and several of those deal with character secrets and storylines. Letting players push those goals and share them to other players, and then run story arcs to fulfill and advance those specifically. Now, aside from that, I'd definitely like more stories about developing domains and playing off of the conflicts with different NPC political opponents, because those can tend to create a lot of RP for other houses that become tangentially related, though some of those have to be tightly controlled due to potentially introducing PVP elements."

Turn in line: Sparte

Octavian, a silken spaniel, Ian arrive, following Zoey.

Apostate says, "Okay Sparte"

Sparte thumbs up. "Thanks Apostate. You've given us a lot of ways to interact here on Arx with staff. @actions, investigations, plots, and goals are the big ones that come to my mind that require staff to read and potentially provide story. I know right now you're in a period of catchup. Arx continues to have people swarming it and using those systems. Can you please help us be a little smarter about it so your time is well spent? Put another way, if you were to give one bit of advice to players old or new on how to use those or related systems better, what would it be?"

Peri has joined the line.

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Apostate says, "The most efficient use of my time is spent rewarding players that feel comfortable GMing and storytelling for other players. It's not necessarily the most -fun- use of my time, since no one really signs up because they love administration, but as games grow past a certain point, it's much smarter for me to be a GM of other GMs than directly for other people. Now, that aside, I'd say from a personal perspective for individuals that aren't comfortable GMing for other people, I think that goal reviews are probably the most underused and most effective way of personal staff attention, because it lets a player roleplay on grid and organically, and then submit for rewards that might make sense in the context of their stories. Whether that's personal growth (xp), or their domains getting bigger, or becoming wealthier, or whatever. I don't normally see a lot of your RP, because I don't have time, so it's the most effective way of someone saying, 'I've been RPing about X, and I think Y might happen as a result, can I have Y', and me just sign off on it."

Turn in line: Vincenzo

Vincenzo says, "Just wanted an update on how the PRP storytelling framework and tools are coming along referenced in @bbread News/92.""

Apostate says, "Unfortunately still waiting for me to finish the backlog of other actions, since I know as I introduce that, it will absolutely dominate my time with questions, tweaks and extensive training, so I don't want to do that before I finish actions/jobs backlog or else that stuff will be waiting so long many of the things referenced will become moot or nonsensical."

Turn in line: Avary

Apostate says, "But I intend to finish it before actions are reopened."

Avary says, "I think my question is probably a little bit too specific for what was intended now I have seen the others! Now I am playing a Godsworn character, I am concerned about the knowledge gap between what my character should know and what I know. Is there some way that if I want to make a white journal (for example) commenting on some matterwhich I ultimately intend to be fairly uncontroversial to have someone sense check it for themeliness before I post it? I say this because obviously my character is super knowledgeable and I am less so (but trying) and so I would not like to accidentally make some grand faux pas because I am not as knowledgeable as my character. I know those things can spin off and grow arms and legs very quickly."

Preston has joined the line.

Apostate says, "For anything public, it'd be fine to ask on godsworn channel, faith, or info, or if it's something that wouldn't make sense to be public knowledge, I'm a-okay with request. And if something appears to be uncovered at all in lore files with the 'lore' command, I do want people making lore/requests. I remade the Theme Questions board in order to cross post those, so they aren't as easily missed."

Turn in line: Cassandra

Cassandra says, "Ooookay since Avary more or less asked my initial question, good thing I thought up a back up."

Cassandra says, "Has there been any thought to a revamping of the skill system? At this point, we have so many people with maxed sheets, and probably a boatload of XP that isn't getting use. Has there been any conversations about increasing the skill cap? Instead of a max of 5(or 6, I suppose) to 10 as an example? If for nothing else, maybe to give a greater sense of parity among the more combat types. Or, barring that, will there be future systems in the works that'll let people find a way to use the XP they have but have no use for?"

Apostate says, "Short answer, yes, skills will eventually be revamped. More in the sense of being probably much widened, with teaching/training changed. However, I do want to point out 'knacks' here, since they are essentially infinite advancement, and I even give these as goal rewards when appropriate. Now that said, I want there to be significantly other XP sinks, and long term probably a lot of minor, very low cost xp sinks for significant temp rewards, and see how that goes. I personally am really not thrilled with dominion mods costing resources rather than xp, as an example"

Turn in line: Caspian

Rysen has joined the line.

Martino has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Up again, Caspian"

Caspian says, "Has staff considered revamping the various prestige gain methods? If you look at notable, nearly everyone gets most of their xp from work/invest, which I'd argue is the least intensive (if not resource heavy) method, compared to things like running events or modeling outfits."

Apostate says, "Short answer, yes. That is on my very short term to do list. (As in like, probably this weekend). Probably moreso buffs to other methods, but frankly the only reason I haven't done the tweaks already is I didn't have py environment on my machine to do pull requests so yeah."

Apostate says, "Environment set up is not fun guys!"

Turn in line: Vasile

Vasile says, "There's a long backlog of actions requiring responses and results. Given that PrPs could bring that number significantly down in the next 'batch', so to speak, is an Arx Guide to PrPs in the works so that prospective storytellers know what and how to ask for the use of systems like shardhavens, monster generators and prospective rewards for their plots? Also, since helping other characters with their goals came up, could the +goal system be linked to +plot so that players pursuing a specific goal only need to use a single command to document and track their progress?"

Apostate says, "Yeah Vasile, a guide is most definitely in the works, it will be done before actions open back up, there's a post about that on news. Goals and plots being linked is definitely on my to do list (and more ease of use stuff and linking in general), because I think it will be necessary for people to be able to let others GM for them and also for people to be able to nudge others about their stories and find the RP they really want to find, which is arguably the single biggest issues on MUs period."

Turn in line: Bliss

Willow has joined the line.

Bliss says, "SUP. So with the work system - and I know this is something you're aware of - we have a few outlier organizations that are really pushing the boundaries of what the system can do. I know you've said before that you don't really see this as a problem, and I know that domain will serve as a useful sink for at least some of this. My question is, are there sinks coming for those of us with primary orgs that don't use the domain system? I can see the project system you've talked about before fulfilling some of that, but I worry again about that being too closely tied to domains."

Fiora has joined the line.

Aleksei has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Absolutely, 100 percent yes. So for orgs without domains, almost all of them were designed because they serve extremely important roles in the social or political fabric of the game. Whispers, Inquisition, Faith, Iron Guard, etc, etc. These aren't small things. They absolutely have to be mechanically represented, and I see giving them strong sinks and meaningful mechanical returns that highlights what they are good at is a requirement of dominion. I won't be happy if the Whispers cannot dramatically effect the diplomatic tenor of the game, or if the Inquisition cannot codedly arrest people on trumped up charges, or the Faith sway the NPC populace. These are very important to me, because without the feeling of being able to do coded, meaningful change, it is easy for players to become dismissive of their thematic importance."

Turn in line: Peri

Caspian has joined the line.

Peri says, "Is there anything techies can do to help with the postgres turnover or infrastructure improvements in general? e.g. review procedures/scripts/whatever for the postgres turnover, help with deployment automation, QA, etc."

Puff, a dainty yellow-green canary, Sir Jesmond the Giant leave, following Arcadia.

Aila, a bubbly girl from the Lowers arrives, following Maja.

Sparte has joined the line.

Apostate says, "That one is a Tehom question, but maybe. Okay so to give you an idea, the reason the postgres migration failed is apparently how evennia handles attributes is a lovecraftian nightmare. We're talking millions upon millions of rows just from crafted objets alone. He's having to basically remove -all- attributes and change everything into having their own models, and like there could probably be things like converting say, rooms from taking attributes to having models for owners, keys, etc, etc, etc, because aaaaaaaall of that has to be done for every kind of object in the game. Tags and all attributes probably just need to go."

Turn in line: Ian

Ian says, "So I know we're big enough at this point to move up to duchy in terms of stats, and Eleanor said that people should talk to her about that kind of thing for the upcoming Assembly of Peers, but a couple of us Kennexes were talking and we realized we had no idea the right way to go about that, and it's the kind of thing where we agreed we don't want to risk going about it the wrong way. What process should we follow that would end with (hopefully!) being officially acknowledged as a duchy at the Assembly of Peers?"

Seryna, a charming Lycene handmaiden, 6 Grimhall House Guards arrive, following Vanora.

Aleksei says, "Not Apos but in case you haven't seen it, there's stuff about this in 'lore social rank promotion' too"

Apostate says, "ICly, just being sure that neither old liege (grimhall), new liege (thrax), crown (eleanor), or faith (any legate) will say 'lol no' at the Assembly of Peers, and it stays the formality it is. Think of the Assembly of Peers as normally being a formality of the wedding, 'if anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace'. And you really don't want the jilted liege jumping up right then."

Turn in line: Preston

Preston says, "So, this is based on my experience as Preston and the fact that we have some super awesome templars on the roster (Shout out to Jeffeth and Aureth for their amazing char designs) but they only seem to pop off the roster briefly before returning. I mean, it often makes me feel 'Argh, I am a sucky org leader and I don't do enough with the Templars'. I was wondering whether you had an opinion on what the right approach was with new players? I've been pondering trying to create more structure, promote knight marshals to liase with specific fealties (though a problem when people aren't around long enough to promote!)? It's is something we've had with other Godsworn (Cass was a repeated ping pong). Do you have views on whether we put too much pressure on new players in the Faith, do we not give enough opportunities for promotion? Do we need guides for new players in the faith orgs or such? Or am I over thinking what isn't a problem, and people will find their fit somewhere? </Neurotic Anxiety>"

Apostate says, "So, that's not your fault. But there's a problem with MUSHes in general. Take pirates. Yarr, pirates. Everyone loves pirates. People love to take them off the roster. They almost always idle out because we don't have any good way of people running around grid and keelhauling other people, and that is not fun. People take characters because they generally want to play their core concept, and for templars, that usually is about DEUS VULT and kicking the bejesus out of unbelievers, and that isn't day to day RP normally, so they really, realy need fun, captivating PRPs that give them a chance to shine. I'd generally argue that any character concept that doesn't let a new player RP out their concept when they first come off the roster is probably a challenging experience. This is also why ultimately we'll lean a little bit more coded eventually and might have some automated mudlike features (shardhavens as an example), because it does let us entertain more action-focused concepts that just are challenging to do otherwise. Crime as another example, but there's a lot. A -lot-."

Turn in line: Rysen

Bhandn has joined the line.

Rysen says, "Thanks for doing so much for the game and the community, Apos. You mentioned earlier that you like the idea of domain-based PRPs and GMing for other players' goals. Are you ok with us creating relatively large scale antagonistic groups, along the lines of Mecs like the Undrowned Sons or Abandoned tribes? Maybe even using them for longterm storylines with clues incorporated into our PRPs to slowly reveal the true nature of the threat? And would you prefer we avoid incorporating the supernatural and/or known foreign powers as much as possible? Or would you be comfortable with us GMing stories that involve some of these agents as movers and shakers of NPC antagonists if not outright enemies?"

Ian has joined the line.

Vanora has joined the line.

Evaristo has joined the line.

Apostate says, "The short answer is I'm overjoyed when people do it. I love to see additions, and people creating new elements. The long answer is a little more complicated, because we need much better tools to help keep track of elements like that which can very easily overlap with other parts of the game. It becomes increasingly easy as players take more intiative in storytelling to create continuity flaws or things that are contradictory by introducing elements that can't really exist, and that would definitely happen as we try to get into more detail, and the really big danger in that is the game becoming a sandbox where people give up on keeping continuity, and then players -have- to RP with their own small groups, because there's no way of applying RP from one group to another. That I can't let happen because the strength of the game is letting anyone influence the world, so elements introduced to the world have to be able to be effected by anyone, and not just a specific group that's having a PRP run for them. tl;dr- I don't really care about showboating, I just need to make sure things stay consistent and have continuity across the board, and that means me making a lot of tools to track everything and make sure everything lines up, and anyone can get involved in anything."

Turn in line: Martino

Martino ask, "HEYA! This probably gets asked every time we have one of these but what is the biggest drain of staff time (I mean in sense that it doesn't help the game, uses up too much energy/spoons with little reward) which we players could help with via starting or stopping - that would release so much more staff time/energy for all the awesome stuff?"

Apostate says, "Player ooc conflict and people unhappy with IC consequences. It's definitely the biggest drain on energy, is almost never rewarding, and very rarely creates any kind of interesting RP. Pretty much anytime there is a blow up over a relatively minor IC matter that results in people being OOCly upset at one another, it'll eat up my time until it's resolved, meaning I'm not doing anything else. We're relatively fortunate in the hardline we've taken with bannings has dramatically reduced it, but it's the #1 reason why we lean away from PVP until we have automated tools of resolution that would not need staff input at all."

Apostate has joined the line.

Turn in line: Willow

Willow says, "I was wondering if linking the lore entries somewhere on the website has been considered? It can be somewhat difficult to navigate them, and with a lot of stuff that is listed on the world tab, being able to access it in the browser is very helpful, and with the way they are laid out with the lore command, things are missed and buried so easily, and for weeks after I started playing, I didn't even know the command was a thing."

Apostate says, "Yeah I'd like for lore to be reorganized to be collapsible. If anyone is a front end dev and wants to take a crack at it, they could be my guest. Right now they are on the world page at the top of the list, but it's difficult to search through them."

Turn in line: Fiora

Fiora says, "So I really want to be running more PRPs. I have one that I should be taking off with early, but even there I have uncertainties about what I am allowed to do with what. In my past I have made +reqs where I'm trying to get to a sort of 'let's brainstorm together' on a specific thing I am trying to get at. Like I need X for a certain plot. My last PRP request as an example if you remember. But I'm realizing I am asking you to help me with the creative angle when that is not something you really have time for, on my PRP request. However, I don't feel I have enough knowledge of villains/magic/etc to confidently make decisions without fearing I am creating some sort of continuity error because my biggest passion for PRPs is that I very much want it to feel like it's very much a part of the world and not it's own seperate thing.

With all that said. And I know this will probably be a thing later on, but perhaps a PRP channel where potential GMs can help each other brainstorm on specifics with staff supervision? Staff just being on the channel I mean.

I think that would help mitigate my neediness of apos how magic tho and get people to come together on details to help each other run PRPS. If not a channel some kind of forum something."

Fiora says, "sorry bout the words"

Nycelani has joined the line.

Preston has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Yeah I plan on creating a storyteller channel and giving out storytelling bits also as I finalize that. Though I do have some concerns, in that I need to walk a line of giving people the information they need, and encouraging it to be shared, and also not stomping all over people's sense of discovery by giving massive spoilers to everything. I'm not super protective of it, or like horrified if people find things out, but I can't also make everything transparent without ruining tons and tons of coming stories, so probably there would be a more general channel and then tiered ones."

Turn in line: Aleksei

Aleksei says, "So with the upcoming Storyteller/PRP systems -- I love that there's going to be structure baked in to let player GMs run plots for other PC's goals and whatnot. My question is: how close/far away from a goal are players going to need to be to be able to GM for it? I guess I'm wondering about the potential for people to run a bunch of stuff for others that might also be furthering themselves, and if you guys find that to be an iffy line that's being considered in how stuff is built. I know some games are really strict about people not GMing stuff that can have any impact on their own characters, some games are less so, etc."

Vanora says in Eurusi, "Man that was basically my question."

Vanora says, "Also in Arvani That was basically my question."

Aleksei says, "To be clearer: I know that I personally feel iffy about people running PRPs to benefit their own characters or orgs, and I guess I am just concerned about how that'll shake out."

Apostate says, "So I'd been fairly lenient so far, a lot of orgs ARE essentially storytelling, 'we're expanding our lands!' type stories, and since I control the outcomes for that and judge largely what's reasonable as rewards, I haven't really taken too much of an issue. For rewards in general, I think we need some standards of risk, and potential loss, and that'll be codified. Like say, potentially higher tier rewards can only be possible if there are rolls involved that could create situations that result in character loss. Most GMs, GMing with their friends, are generally not comfortable inflicting significant loss on them. I think dice rolls (however weighted), are very helpful here, since the chance of random loss does mitigate potential favoritism as long as it's required. tl;dr- I'll outline it, and it'll be okay generally only inside strict mechanically decided outcomes"

Turn in line: Caspian

Caspian says, "What feature coming down the pipeline are you most excited for, and what feature that hasn't been mentioned yet do you think will excite us?"

Fiora has joined the line.

Astrid has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Me personally? Dominion even more so than magic. I can't be the only one here that stayed up all night because I kept doing one more turn of Civilization. But what I think would excite people the most? How magic is designed, and creating cabals with their friends."

Turn in line: Sparte

Bhandn says, "Oh no, the C word. D:"

Willow has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Whenev, Sparte"

Sparte says, "Thank you again for doing this Apostate.

My second question has a more personal basis than my first. I'll try to keep it from only applying to me.

I really enjoy the stories I've been able to tell here on Arx. I have one in particular I went into knowing that it had a high risk of failure. I've enjoyed the scenes that came from it, and I continue to push it forward, but it is hard for me to know how to direct something of that nature such that staff are satisfied.

Where this gets to the broader scope is that players pursue stories with the knowledge they may fail. Failure being possible adds excitement, but when it isn't overt what failure means it can just be confusing. Sometimes failure means nothing happens, something success means... Nothing you can SEE happens.

My question to you, is how should we as players manage it when failure and success - from the non-staff side of the table - arn't easily distinguishable?"

Maja has joined the line.

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Apostate says, "The easiest thing from my perspective is when characters have very clear cut goals of what they want to do, but also are comfortable with it not working and seeing where it leads. Someone with the goal of 'Replace the Undying Emperor' probably won't succeed, but as long as they either have an idea of what they'd enjoy in the attempt, or are fine with us storytelling where it goes, it's fine. The only time there are problems is when someone has their heart on a single outcome, and wouldn't be satisfied with anything but that, and that can be a real issue if there's a lot of people that feel the same way about mutually exclusive goals. So just flexibility is enormously helpful, and someone being prepared that it could result in much different things."

Turn in line: Bhandn

Bhandn says, "Hi! So my question is more a curiosity and/or advice request, in that I personally struggle with the idea of short-term, modest-or-lower scoped goals. So I was wondering just how often it is that people RFR minor goals for minor things, and if a (vague) example of one such was possible.

For me, almost all of my goals are for over a period of time rather than "I bought a new wardrobe today" type of goal, if that makes sense. (The closest I've come to it #1334. >.>) I feel rather self-conscious coming up with minor stuff to RFR because it feels like I'm putting more on the staff queue for something I personally see as needing little oversight, if that makes sense? In other words, it feels like I'd basically be saying "Can I have XP for spending money?" so I was wondering if this is all just in my head from overthinking it, and wanting thoughts on goals in particular."

Apostate says, "I am absolutely fine with someone putting in their one goal for the month as 'senpai noticed me' from a higher born character patting their head, or someone completing a goal under the Heartbreakingly Modest category. I do not feel that is presumptuous at all, and sometimes those can even be the BEST goals, when some character has something that's hilariously banal, but is very important to them, and let's someone play up an angle on their character that wouldn't matter to anyone else (like go 13 conversations without telling a single lie) or something like that. Since they are limited to once a month, if someone is putting up something that is minor character development for xp, great"

Turn in line: Ian

Ian says, "I talked about this briefly in a +request, but wasn't sure about the answer. I was thinking about ways of effecting the metaplot that didn't involve @actions, and hit on PRPs as a possibility that involves a lot more RP, which is why I created that pirate killing plot to (hopefully!) help deal with some of the piracy uptick in the Mourning Sea. What's the staff position about the possibility of responding to trends set out in greentext (increased pirate activity, reduced diplomatic relations with Abandoned, wild animal attacks, pockets of heresy, cats and dogs living together, whatever) with +plots and PRPs? I know we can't solve all the problems that way, but will it be possible for these activities to make an impact? Maybe lower the difficulty of future @actions to handle the situation (I know high difficulty has been tripping people up in the recent past), or something like that?"

Octavia has joined the line.

Apostate says, "I only am reluctant to do things that feel like an overreach, or solving issues that close off avenues of RP without anything there to replace it. Ending world hunger or solving poverity are things players (and a lot should) have as their goals, but unless there's RP around preserving an existing utopian society against threats, it's just not interesting or good for the overall game's story. That said, I actually love player initiatives that result in big stories (hi great road), and if I had more time, I'd be going a step further, and responding as the world to -proclamations- and white journals and so on. That would be my ideal, that I am able to clear enough of my plate free where I can be very proactive in responding to things players do, because that's also important in making sure things don't become stagnant, and thematic elements are lost as players take actions that would disrupt the status quo and nothing happens. So tl;dr, yes I love a dynamic world and want more of it."

Turn in line: Evaristo

Evaristo says, "Simple question, really. Any news on the crime related code stuff? I ask as an ICly very concerned citizen, crime is VERY bad. Also drugs, drugs are bad. But will they be coded/on the market? Black market in the works sorta thing? I know you talked about it in the past, just wanted to check if it's moving along or halted or scrapped or... well anything :)"

Fiora says, "thank you for being a good citizen and looking out for us"

Octavia judges the shit out of Evaristo from the back of the line

Apostate says, "NV probably going to take a crack at it, but I don't have an ETA, but yeah they'll be coded- on a black market. Technically they already -are- coded, but I haven't put contraband on there since there's not a coded way to distinguish players that could buy contraband and those not, but yeah we added drug crafting materials an age ago. I could probably start moving them to players doing criminal actions just so they have haze to throw at each others' faces"

Turn in line: Apostate

Turn in line: Nycelani

Bhandn says, "But you didn't ask yourself a question!"

Apostate says, "I did, you just didn't see it."

Bhandn implodes.

Nycelani says, "You mentioned earlier that you want players more heavily involved in running PRPs. There are characters out there on grid with secrets and abilities that are not coded that normally require some sort of staff decision on a case by case basis. Will it then be up to the person running the PRP to determine how those secrets/abilities manifest?

If that *is* the case I know I can't be the only one concerned at the idea of potentially having to share my character secrets with whatever player happens to wanna run a PRP, especially if it's not someone I know well enough to trust that the OOC info will stay OOC. It's a part of the reason I don't do more PRPs. (especially ones that involve fighting/healing for my alt, which is kinda her whole shtick, and realistically SHOULD have some risk of people finding out her secret)

I guess the question is - is there a way to maybe.. automate some of those things a little more so that we DON'T have to tell random people our character secrets just because they're running a PRP we think looks fun?"

A messenger arrives, delivering a message to Selene before departing.

Apostate says, "Yeah, I touched on this a little bit earlier but I think my wording wasn't great and was confusing. So my current plan is to have character goals/secrets have several levels of visibility, where someone can set it to themselves/staff only (what it is now), or shareable with a specific whitelist, or shareable with any player GMs, or visible to org members, or visible to all. That kind of thing is extremely important, for all the reasons you stated. Now, one question you didn't ask that's relevant... a lot of the secrets will have to be incorporated automatically into the magic system. If someone is a berserker, I mean, they aren't going to have to tell a player running a PRP that, because combat would be automated, and being a berserker would be automated, so if they run into a situation that would make them berseker- whelp."

Turn in line: Preston

Preston says, "Hi! It's me again! No, don't run away! As I've run around investigations on subjects, made you write clues (naturally I'm sure you love writing clues for me on Faith history and theology) and obviously there are differing amounts in each area. We've asked what system you are most looking forward to, but can we ask, what theme bits of the history are you most excited for people to explore more of?"

Liara has joined the line.

Lucita has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Dance of Skulls era specifically, particularly leading up to it until the Pax Celestis. Some of my favorite writing has been done around that."

Turn in line: Fiora

Fiora says, "How's the action backlog coming at this point?"

Apostate says, "/wrists"

Turn in line: Astrid

Fiora says, "dope"

Astrid says, "I haven't done the math so all numbers made up: Is there a mechanism in place for Knacks, since you brought them up, where I can say, "I have 2000 xp in Knacks, I would like to trade them in for a 6 in this skill instead."?"

Ian has joined the line.

Nycelani has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Not presently, no. I'd be reluctant to let someone swap it for a legendary but I -might-, if it was a healthy margin over the xp cost for it. Though one thing to keep in mind, knacks are a good bit more specific than skills, since there's a lot of them that are like, 'mana + X' for someone hoping to develop a character secret that is magic tangential, and that wouldn't really apply to common uses for the same skill."

Stefano, an inconspicuous Lycene bodyguard have been dismissed.

Carmela, a gleaming dusken-feathered crow have been dismissed.

Ambra, a plain-faced Lycene scribe have been dismissed.

Turn in line: Willow

Willow says, "I am very excited about the domain system coming in, as you say and yes for similar reasons. I am curious if there is room for a duchy to grow in a meaningful way, as there are numbers for where a barony, county, and march "level up" so to speak, but where does a duchy go? Would it create a new fealty, woulf that be something that should theoretically worry the five big houses now? or is it merely in degrees, and in comparison to one another that duchies can grow?"

Bhandn has joined the line.

Apostate says, "So about new fealties or replacing a great house. I don't really want that until I have a lot more coded tools because it would put me in the position of probably spending months focusing on conflict resolution to the exclusion of all else, and slow the game down to a crawl. Long term, or after time skips, would be fine. Right now I'm comfortable with duchies growing powerful enough to -rival- a great house, but IC replacement thematically should wait until 'i want to go to war' isn't me sitting in a room making rolls for people"

Turn in line: Maja

Maja says, "Hello! Hopefully this isn't a 'just check the helpfile, silly' kind of question...

So sometimes when I am setting up an investigation, I will put in a tag and get the return: 'More than one SearchTag found with '<term>'; be specific.' Even though what I am searching for is likely existing, the way I have to set up the investigation usually results in the new clue cost territory since I try to slap together tags that I do know in a way that might get at what I want. If that happens, do you link the investigation to the existing clue and refund the AP cost/reduce the time cost? Is there any work-around for the 'more than one tag' thing that isn't massively spoiler-y?"

Ras has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Generally speaking, I'd people to exhaust a topic for a tag before trying to find something new, unless they are absolutely certain it isn't somewhere in the clues. I'm fine with someone putting in a request and asking, because when we have a bunch of staffers all writing clues, even though we double check with something if it's a new area, it could become easy for something to get missed and have redundant information. And I really don't like refunding clue placeholders because it also has us deleting out placeholders, and cleaning those up, so I'd generally want someone putting in a research thing only if they were relatively certain they already exhausted the relevant areas."

Turn in line: Giulio

Giulio says, "When pursuing large scale projects on the secret side of things, that are composed of large components, what are good ways to help Staff keep them straight, as well as eliciting feedback on general feasibility and helping keep the specific goal of the indivual action in place, while also keeping track (and making it easier for staff to keep track of what is going on, and point out previous actions / events that might be useful) without it being a recordkeeping nightmare."

Greguin, an organized priest, 3 Templar Knight guards, Binky, an asshole crow arrive, following Aureth.

Apostate says, "Plots, plot beat updates whenever anything happens, and then in RFR if you need me to change anything or make sure something is thematically consistent or update players/the world please for the love of jesus give me a tl;dr of each without me needing to open it up and read 20 pages of updates."

Turn in line: Octavia

1 Templar Initiates, 3 Templar Knight guards leave, following Cassandra.

Octavia says, "Everybody else has asked what I wanted to ask, so here's a more niche one. I've heard stuff about metaplot secrets and how some of the earlier ones are not as related as the later ones. I also know you're overworked AF, so... how do we know if we should ask for a review of our secret?"

Maja has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Frankly, only if it is like VERY clearly not possible to be RP'd about. Like, 'Tolamar Brand wants you as his best friend', and he's very, very, very dead. I think in the, 'I don't think my secret is relevant anymore, can I have another', I've had like 10 of those and I think 9 were still active storylines"

Turn in line: Liara

Liara says, "Org incomes are currently pretty miserable compared to what work rolls bring in, or what a haggler can get, etc. Individual character stipends sometimes might as well not exist. Any plan to revisit org incomes, or will that be waiting for dominion to come in? Related, nobles in general are really rather cash poor unless they sell their resources or use the broker, which, while not haggling, jars a bit with the theme (to my mind)."

Khanne has joined the line.

Merril, an Assistant Page, 3 Bisland pride guards arrive, following Lailah.

Octavian, a silken spaniel, Ian leave, following Zoey.

Apostate says, "So I hate to say it but resources alarm me a lot right now because it is definitely skewing theme. It's a credit to the player base that this has been exploited so little, but it definitely has to be completely overhauled. My general plan was to tweak work (it has to still be rewarding obviously or people won't do it), create taxes on most things that filter upwards, and automatically divide up all bank incomes for orgs among active membership based on rank, because my 'oh people will RP about silver with family members if they need to take from the bank' is a catastrophic failure. The good players all feel like assholes even asking or imposing so it accumulates endlessly while resources eclipse it by a couple orders of magnitude, while the bad ones have the most stupid fights over withdrawls ever. So that just will go away. Strongly considered resource decay too, tbh."

Turn in line: Lucita

Ian has joined the line.

Lucita says, "Thank you for taking time to answer our questions. I think I understood you to say earlier that prp with reviews could result in domain changes. Can you clarify that a bit? My strength is rp and weakness in systems and do not want to waste staff time using the wrong means to do something. Is that intended to help lessen the number of actions for something like adding land area? Is there a means for adding resources for housing or finding more mines or is it just to link to an action once done? I'm one of the several houses who only have one active player so it's a challenge sometimes to figure out how to get things done."

Apostate says, "Sure, okay, say someone is in a PRP dealing with a tribe of Abandoned. Lucita is involved, and convincing them in the PRP to bend the knee. It would be okay to then do a plot or goal/rfr asking for her domain's population to be increased because she now gained a tribe of Abandoned. No action necessary if it happens because of a plot or other story, or I mean, if some other lord said, 'I'll give you X land for money', I'd also be okay with just doing the transfer by request until we have coded tools to do that."

12 Thrax Elite Guards, Crow - Thraxian Steward, Lilybelle - The Claw of Arx arrive, following Victus.

Turn in line: Nycelani

Nycelani says, "You were talking earlier about goals and how they can be for small goals. Would it be appropriate to put in a goal/rfr for a goal that your character has decided to shelve because of realizations they've had and character development? Like 'Hey, I was trying to do this massive goal thing, but because of this, this, and this, my character has decided it's a TERRIBLE idea and is gonna shelve the plan.'"

Selene has joined the line.

Lucita says, "Thank you."

Apostate says, "Yes, absolutely. A goal failure or abandonment is totally fine for an update. All I really care about here is character development and the impact on the character, and just updating their progress or lack thereof. Someone's goal of 'Single and Ready To Mingle' being marked as a failure because they got engaged is delightful. I should also note I don't do rewards on whether a goal is -successful-, just how meaningful it seems to be to the character, what could have changed as a result, how much time/effort it took, if they had fun, etc, etc."

Turn in line: Ras

Ras says, "I read that you're planning to implement more guidelines and systems for running PrPs. Will that include a system to make up mobs that GMs can actually control, or a detailed documentation of the proper way to run combat? Is there currently a well-established convention for making combat checks and inventing enemy skills/stats/hp? Also can I explore this area or would that be invasive? Workroom desc is awesome."

Harlen arrives, following Duarte.

Apostate says, "Yes, players will be getting GM commands, like spawning mobs and automated combat and the like, and yeah the guides for that will have to be pretty painstaking. Right now, since I knew I'd have to be making a longer guide anyways, there's only very very rough guidelines (15 easy, 30 moderate, 45 difficulty, 60 very hard, 90 nearly impossible, etc). And probably shouldn't explore, there's some areas that are preeeeeeetty spoiler-y now that I think about it, I haven't sanitized it."

Turn in line: Maja

Maja says, "So, getting back to the action backlog.. once it is cleared, from both staff sanity and player satisfaction standpoints, will there be a stop-gap system/strategy in place to prevent it from getting HUGE again until such a time when more staff can be brought on (don't hate me but maybe just have actions open for the first two weeks of every month or something)? I know that the increased AP cost for actions and assist were put in place to do this -- did you find that it slowed the influx down? Or did people still just pay the cost and plow ahead?"

2 House Mazetti Aspirants have been dismissed.

Sina has joined the line.

Flopsy, an innocuous white rabbit, Jared, an overworked-looking, nervous Apprentice Whisper, Tamorin, a bubbly Whisper apprentice leave, following Bliss.

Maja says, "(Also: thank you, y'all are champs, big fans of your work)"

Apostate says, "So yeah, there's a bunch of different approaches that we've talked about, and some are obvious (like players obviously storytelling will help), but the tricky thing is avoiding extremely draconian approaches that would also strangle out the game. There's a lot of types of actions that can be automated (like projects), where they really shouldn't need to take GM work right now but they do, and that can be fixed. And there's a fair number that could be moved down the line to player-GMs that would do them as PRP type resolutions, and that will help. The hardline approaches would be scaling back numbers even more, or moving actions more to org-centric (I do like the idea of an org action per crisis), and then there's the idea of a karma/community point/kudos type point system that is used as currency for GM interaction that just replaces AP because it'd be fairer. The implementation for something like -that- would have to be absolutely rock solid though or everyone would hate it"

Turn in line: Khanne

Khanne says, "So, in reference to goals (more goals!)... I have yet to do any for myself because (HhahhhHAAAhaaa*stress*) life. I was told I most definitely should/could do goals that I have already achieved, since I have been around for almost three years now, but, well, since I am here... Is that a thing that I could/should do, or should I stick to only future goals?"

Apostate says, "Oh and obv adding more staff"

Victus has joined the line.

Apostate says, "It's honestly fine to also do goals and goal reviews for things your character has essentially already accomplished. In fact, for roster characters, I'd -like- people to, so if a character is ever given up, it can clearly show what major milestones they did and why it was important to the character and so on. It's very, very helpful both for staff, future players, and even the current player to map out what the character is about, what they've done, what they are trying to do, and what it all means to them."

Turn in line: Ian

Ian says, "I apparently have more questions than I thought I would. Are knacks included in code? For example, if I take a dex+medium wpn knack, would it be applied to attack rolls? Or are they used when investigations or actions are rolled? Or for haggling or modeling? The upcoming magic system? Etc, etc. As a related question: Would a stamina+survival or willpower+survival knack effect rolls to not pass out/die in coded combat? I'm pretty big on Ian not dying, and he gets himself beat up a lot, so that might be worth it to me."

Apostate says, "Yes there's no time where there's an automated check and the knack will not apply. Crafting, death checks, combat, @check, work, it's an override and counted any place it could come up. Yeah, a 'Too stubborn to die' knack is a-okay. I don't remember which is which for passing out/death check but yeah"

Apostate says, "I should clarify though that it does need to be that specific stat + skill. Like if it's just a stamina check with no skill, stamina + survival knacks wouldn't come up. It does have to be the full knack."

Turn in line: Selene

Fiora says, "I believe the pass out one is stamina + wp + survival. So I'm not sure if you could make a knack for that one?"

Selene says, "think What sort of information would you like us to put in goal/rfr as it pertains to the "request to staff portion?" I'm not sure of what staff's expectations are in this space, and I would welcome examples of meaningful language."

Apostate says, "Wouldn't if it doesn't fit exactly afaik."

Martino has joined the line.

Apostate says, "What's most helpful for me is also specifically what someone might hope for. Like just in goal reviews today, I had someone that did investment in their domain ask for economic resources to mirror the economic growth, another goal review asked for XP, another was an increase to a knack, etc. Things that I don't like generally are ones requesting anything that would be more like an action or investigation- ie, someone asking if they uncovered information, or found out something, or developed something that could trigger a vision. Those are extremely intensive, and need me to brainstorm, while, 'I hope this is recognized and I gain prestige' is very very straight forward. So mostly the writeup of the character development, and then if it could produce some kind of change they are hoping for, or xp or the like."

Turn in line: Sina

Selene says, "Thank you!"

Sina says, "Hi! I was wondering if there will be any plans to update the Timeline lore file? The latest entry is early 1007 to present, and we've had a whole lot of stuff happen since then. I think it'd be helpful for new players so they can get a general sense of what's happened recently. Also, willing to volunteer to help if needed!"

Caspian has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Oh sure, good idea, I'll add that to my to do list."

Sina says, "To clarify, last mention was the Gyre War."

A messenger arrives, delivering a message to Willow before departing.

Turn in line: Victus

Aleksei has joined the line.

Victus says, "Hi! I'm just wondering about character secrets today, namely for secrets that tend to have an effect on metaplot by just existing. Like a character gets visions because in a past life they were X or Y and that is related to what's happening presently in the story. Is it detrimental to the character's +secret if they would rather choose a different approach or avenue of plot to explore their secrets? Like a secret being related to things that don't necessarily fall into the character's current goals, or isn't something they would be able to feasibly explore until a much later date OOCly. I'm also wondering, is it okay for a character to develop a new metaplot secret alongside their already existing secret?"

Apostate says, "Yeah. We've altered a number specifically because of how RP has gone, based on player actions, it's fine. Some have gone in dramatically different directions than we planned, and we really don't want someone locked into any route. It's fine for someone to go in a way that's -contrary- to their past life, and some are even intended to. If someone was like, the right hand of the Archfiend of Tyranny in a past life (NOT TO NAME NAMES) I'm not hoping they burn the Compact down, or for that matter, get PK'd by other PCs. It's giving them something to develop, not trying to point them in that direction and saying go and do"

Turn in line: Martino

Martino waves, "Me again! Thanks for answering all these questions and taking the time to do so. Really appreciate it - former game played had 2 of these in 20 years. You've had 3 (I think) this year already! So thank you. Now question and hopefully this isn't something obvious in a help file, perhaps it is something missing, or due to be added...

When doing a work roll - when there's a 5/5 in 2 of the stat/skill on a 'type' being checked. Is there a way I can select 1 stat/skill over the other? Reason being is, got a knack in 1 of the stat/skills and not the other. So would obvs prefer to run the check vs. that one! Thanks again <3"

Apostate says, "Sadly no, right now it specifically randomizes it if there's a skill tie. That was originally so people could see more of the lore messages but I can tweak that to use best case rolls eventually. Will probably be one of those things when I tweak the current prestige/work/invest stuff"

Turn in line: Caspian

Sigurd has joined the line.

Levastire, a devoted clerk leaves, following Zacharie.

Apostate says, "You're up, Caspian"

Caspian says, "Sorry, someone was at the door"

Caspian says, "I was talking in events channel and some people were pointing out goals like 'Reach 5 in a knack' Are those kinds of goals okay? Or should they be strictly RP oriented?"

Apostate says, "Oh I wanted to mention since goals have been asked- goals aren't on hold, it's fine to submit rfrs during the break"

Apostate says, "I don't mind mechanical goals at all, I mean as long as they have some kind of vaguely IC basis. Like 'getting really good at my thing' is still a goal, even if knacks or skills are the way to demonstrate that"

Turn in line: Aleksei

Aleksei says, "HOW IS BRAUM"

Bhandn has joined the line.

Astrid has joined the line.

Apostate says, "He's asleep, I took him for a walk right before this and he's slept through it. I probably will mimic him when this is over, since I did the AMA since I skipped work due to being sick. He's a good boy"

Turn in line: Sigurd

Selene has left the an elegant piano with ivory keys.

Renault, the fluffiest Velenosan cat, Athenais, a dreamy apprentice Whisper leave, following Selene.

Apostate says, "And yeah you can update a goal however many times you want, it's just limited to one goal review per month"

Sigurd says, "Hi, long time listener, first time caller. So I am back after a goodly long break. The roster is awesome but sometimes people just want something that isn't cluttered by years of hidden history (There is /tons/ of stuff that Sigurd should know, that I don't for example because it isn't documented anywhere, but that's a separate point). I think it's because actions are turned off, but when actions come back online are OC's going to be available again?"

Apostate says, "So probably but OCs are a problem. Basically, I don't have time to make secrets for them. I just don't. It's unsustainable. There's like 40 'I need a secret' requests in my backlog. And that goes for creating roster charaters, it's significantly more time consuming to figure out how a character should fit into the metaplot than it is to -create- a character. So OC's and roster submissions will probably come in last, and ultimately I plan for OC generation to include secret generation, with a automatic plot hooks, rather than something handmade."

Turn in line: Bhandn

Sigurd says, "Thanks!"

Gaspar has joined the line.

Bhandn says, "Kind of piggybacking on goal talk, but more on the plots side of the spectrum. Namely, the PLot Guide uses the specific example of pursuing your metaplot secret, but ideally what would staff want that used for, aside from running things for other PCs?"

Bhandn says, "To put it differently: pitching personal plots"

Apostate says, "Any kind of changes to domains, orgs, prestige gains or losses due to things being noticable, and any kind of emits/vox story updates- ie, people did a thing, what were the results on the world? That's really what I need to know for plot/rfrs"

Turn in line: Gaspar

Bhandn says, "Good to know, thank you. :)"

Preston has joined the line.

Gaspar says, "Jumping back to the discuss on OCs. I believe, as far as myself and a few others that I know that are relatively new to the game, we're slowly becoming exposed to the meta-plot and not having a secret that ties into that is a-ok with us. We have something in the works that was mentioned in a mail not long ago and am wondering if it's fine/encouraged/discouraged for us not to 'bother' with meta-plot secrets until we have a nice, firm grasp on who our characters are."

Gaspar says, "And, if that would make the creation of OCs more of a consideration for you all, as it would hopefully take less time to approve."

Bhandn has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Very fine with that, I'm perfectly happy to have people say, 'nope don't need a secret'. What's taxing is for an OC to be made and get a request of 'secret me!' without any indication of what they'd like and be extremely broad, and spend like a couple days brainstorming over an OC, write it, and they never log in again."

Turn in line: Preston

Alena Sparks, unamused first mate, Silk, the Seafaring Spider leave, following Evaristo.

Gaspar says, "Excellent, thank you!"

Bhandn says, "I'm hoping my request wasn't broad when I put mine in. >.>"

Apostate says, "It's okay, I'm not like angry at anyone, or even annoyed, just recognizing that it's veeeeery time consuming and disproportionate"

Preston says, "OK, simple question really, or maybe not. Or maybe, I don't know. But the two 'faiths' - Pantheon and Shamanism - how do you see that playing out? How should it be reflected in PCs? Or shouldn't it?"

Sigurd has joined the line.

Ailith has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Ultimately? Probably PCs trying to hold back extremist elements of NPCs rather than joining in, and having way more to lose by letting stability slip than to ever gain by embracing fervor."

Turn in line: Sigurd

Sigurd says, "Back on the OC's thing, is it possible you could open up OC's (As you said creating them is easy) and just put a moratorium on secret generation as that is the big thing that is the problem?"

Bhandn has joined the line.

Nallah, a buff-looking tortie cat with green eyes have been dismissed.

2 House Mazetti Aspirants have been dismissed.

Sirra, a very quiet maid have been dismissed.

Maja has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Yeah but there's other problems. Like overwhelmingly OCs are a terrible choice for new players. Like the retention rate of OCs vs roster characters is something like 15:1 or something crazy like that. People see the roster cleanups I do on idle sweeps but they don't see how many OCs I set inactive that are all someone's first character. So I also need to retool that so the game is much more accessible for someone, since like without fail every single OC that's like, 'I'm here to check out Arx and explore it as an outsider' idles out, every single time. So there's also the matter of trying to make sure OCs are generated with the connctions they need to actually get RP, or else it just doesn't work"

Aureth says, "What if, in theory, theoretically, you hired a CG wizard"

Apostate says, "Also there's all the time i spend in thematic fixes for people creating OCs as their first characters, and then they get through it, and then idle out"

Apostate says, "Still the problem of metaplot secret generation then, and is punting it down the road. But yeah"

Turn in line: Ailith

Apostate says, "I'd much rather hire a dozen people whose responsibility is RPing with new players and helping get them involved in stories"

Ian coughs. "OCs who want to get involved and have any reason at all to talk to Ian or want to make one up in backstory -- he's pretty big on using all resources at his disposal, including people."

Sina volunteers!

Ian says, "Just putting that out there."

Fortunato says, "My takeaway is, yes, aggressively target new players and see what they're into playing."

Lady Teonia Redreef, Marquessa Pudding, a doughy dog, Aryka Wyrmfang, 3 Thrax Guards, 2 Thrax Elite Guards arrive, following Sorrel.

Apostate says, "Like I'd really want someone to have to select what family they are in, how they are related to them, a list of orgs they are in (and they have to select them), a few Rp hooks, etc. Like these would have to be mandatory parts of OC generation"

Willow says, "I am very glad that whoever approved willow (apostate I assume) put her as part of the spirit walkers before approving, but am glad she was possible as an oc for my first character. Even now I have a roster alt and she is neat amd has a kickass secret but it feels like what it is, renting rather than buying so to speak, and I'm just not much of a renter."

Sigurd says, "I think it would be cool if you could automate OC character generation in such fashion"

Ailith says, "We've seen especially with roster leaders that have existed a long time -- there's a massive gap in knowledge and character info. I'll use Alaric for example. Say he didn't do journals, goals, rels, or left a mail. A new player has to collect all that history (or rather feels compelled) to better understand the character. There's an extra hurdle or pressure when they're a leader. So new Alaric tries to figure out the lore and org status stop of any ooc knowledge. And let's say instead of an Alaric, it's a Shaman leader. And that player isn't up to date on shaman lore. Then let's not even start on people piecing history and getting context on their clues. So all together -- it's hurdles and challenges.

Is there a way for players to help staff with updating characters or having lore guides even being king/leader type guide -- that can make it easier? That way old roster characters aren't seen as too much trouble instead of a new OC?"

Sigurd says, "With the bells and whistles"

Vasile has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Yeah it's definitely doable it's just work, it's on my to do list."

Bhandn has joined the line.

Apostate says, "Yeah, so in general, we need like clearer character timelines that aren't overwhelming, and basically packages of information of, 'you're in this org, here's what you need to know', presented in a very neat, condensed fashion. Since what's overwhelming is just giving everything at once, and it has to be something that's easy to reference, and easy to refer to. Right now there's not a lot of good players for players to do that, and we need tools (like I want relationships distinct from journals and able to be updated in a timeline fashion). This is the kind of stuff that as we get the ability to sort it, we'll outsource it and lean on players, but right now the only big things would be volunteering to do background updates that make sense for obviously out of date characters"

Turn in line: Maja

Maja says, "What are your feelings about player-GM'd scenes done on the fly -- especially when it comes to one-off adventure-y type things? Like, me and my pals are out and about and I decide to just throw some Abandoned at them (mundane end of the spectrum) or we're all out for a walk and I run something where there are eyes on them and whispering in the trees (more supernatural end of things)? How much leeway do we have when slapping something together spur of the moment?"

Johannes, A tall and red cloaked gentleman, A slightly embarrassed courier called Guido leave, following Martino.

Mabelle thanks Apos.

Peri has joined the line.

Apostate says, "I love them, as long as there's a base sanity check to make sure there's nothing that would be contradictory. Like for something like that, usually a veeeeeery quick plot/pitch and request of 'ermahgerd, abandonened attac' so I can make sure that it doesn't contradict anything else, sure, great. Past that, and someone would have to be staff because then it becomes very easy for someone's zany hijinks to wildly contradict what's going on at a macro level. IE, the Abandoned are attacking right after every Abandoned in that region did a huge peace summit. Whoops."

Turn in line: Vasile

Vasile says, "Okay, so, this probably came up before, but you mentioned you prefered for RFRs to have specifically tangible rewards like money for an investment, or XP for doing something cool, or prestige, etc. What level of accomplishment would allow someone to fairly request, say, a knack?"

Aida, the hypochondriac Setarcan maid, 2 Pravosi Knights, Roast, the cloak-eating baby goat arrive, following Belladonna.

Apostate says, "Generally I prefer people to give a range of things they'd enjoy and then I can decide. but for example, someone is doing a goal review on successfully completing a story arc where they sailed all the seas fighting pirates for a half dozen actions, and were praised throughout the Compact as the greatest sailor ever. Sailing knack as a goal review just makes sense. It just would need something to point that defines character and fits what they had done and were doing in a significant way"

Turn in line: Bhandn

Bhandn says, "Is it possible to submit /NPC/ suggestions (add to the staff NPC "roster" as it were)? Appearance, secret, etc. that are staff run to dig into specific plot points. Or is that more a "We make what is needed when it's needed for these GM'd scenes" area, that staff NPCs are a result of an action/message/rfr that leads to an NPC interaction?"

Vasile says, "Sounds good to me. Thanks!"

Sparte has joined the line.

Reigna has joined the line.

Apostate says, "NPC bits are usually only for really major, gamewide arcs that we really need to have a character there for, or to stir up specific stories on PC side by having a character wandering the grid and nudging things. So I wouldn't want suggeestions there since it's a lot like, 'Hey can you run this gigantic arc for us?' That's really what we do them for. Like we have specific ones planned for areas that people haven't seen that some people can probably guess, and others I think will almost certainly be written out soon, but those tend to be pretty tightly controlled. I don't mind someone saying it as, 'I would love to see more Eurusi representatives of the dune emperor' or something, but it's proooooobably unlikely to happen, and less likely for like specific PRP antagonists atm."

Turn in line: Peri

Peri says, "Asking for a friend who is not here: Is there some mechanism to use for a player looking at their secret and going: I have no idea how to interact with that.?"

Aureth says, "I recommend doing an investigation of the secret."

Apostate says, "Yeah just ask in request, honestly if they are completely dumbfounded about it, but people trying to poke at their secrets in actions is one of the most popular actions there is."

Turn in line: Sparte

Dreya, an older woman in Velenosan livery have been dismissed.

2 House Velenosa Guards have been dismissed.

Ailfryd, a tall, thin man with a haugty air have been dismissed.

Sparte says, "I want to respond to the knack reward thing. That sounds like an amazing reward, really awesome and character developing. Flip side: Asking for one would feel super greedy. Asking for a second reward on that scale? Inconceivable. A new knack costs 150xp, whereas if we didn't specify the general XP reward might be waaaay smaller.

My question is how should players look at 'asking' for rewards. Can you give some guidance on where the comfortable space is on your end for player proposed rewards? So we're neither asking too much and being a pain nor too little and shorting ourselves."

Sparte says, "TL;DR I liked Vasile's question and want to know more."

Apostate says, "Things I've said no to: "Can I have a stat at 6?" Nope, nope. If something is insufficient, I'd say so, but despite the xp cost, let me give you an example. Someone saying, 'omg, senpai noticed me, my highlord smiled at me! Can I get a composure + etiquette knack of Not Losing My Shit', then I probably would. because how on earth is a composure + etiquette knack at all overpowered. On the other hand, if someone's goal was, 'Spend more time in the Training Yard' and they asked for a knack for dexterity + medium wpn, I'd say no. The utility of the later is too big for something that general and that effortless to propose. Knacks I'd say yes to are ones that make sense for the -character-, and help define them. This is who they are, and what they are really interested in, and what makes them stand out."

Diane, a bright-eyed peregrine falcon, Sini, a very fluffy Northland shepherd puppy arrive, following Orrin.

Orrin has joined the line.

Jaenelle will no longer be smiling at anyone.

Turn in line: Reigna

Bhandn says, "Composure - 6"

Reigna says in Sylv'alfar, "So, I know this is likely a pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, but is there a chance of developing the ability for GMs or Storytellers to design shardhaven-type dungeon crawls for their Prps? I've been working on ways of doing those types of things, like the Adventure Maize without separate rooms, but having a space to design and build challenges might be super neat!"

Apostate says, "Absolutely intended as part of shardhavens. In fact, that's part of the base reason we were making shardhavens, to let people GM in them"

Turn in line: Orrin

Cambria has joined the line.

Aleksei says, "Reigna your question was in Sylv'alfar fyi"

Reigna says, "Sheesh. Sorry about that! I've been working on ways of doing those types of things, like the Adventure Maize without separate rooms, but having a space to design and build challenges might be super neat! (Now in a language everyone can see"

Harlen have been dismissed.

Orrin has been lurking watching the webpage. "Are there limitations on how staff wants to see retainers used on the game? Like if you have a spy retainer, it seems like the point of them is to go where your character can't - is it ok to have them IC in a scene and not your actual character? Etc. Ditto a guard might stand and fight while actual character flees, and for a non-martial character that makes sense and maybe lets them interact in a way (as a player) they don't routinely get to because they're non-martial. I guess I'm like... congenitally unable to have a name and image and not start tacking on a personality, and suddenly I'm playing an ECOSYSTEM of characters instead of one, and I don't want to be afoul of alt rules, doing an end-run around with NPCs but I dunno where the line is."

Apostate says, "So retainers make me sad. because yeah I mean originally I wanted them to come with a ton of mechanical things you do like spying with them. I still would really like those mechanics. Unfortunately, until we have them, using retainers in a handwaved but not really handwaved way creates unbelievable headaches since there's no way for people to tell whether something should be taken IC or is just an ooc oversight and creates a ton of ooc/ic confusion. So still on the to do list but for right this moment, I'd rather not"

Turn in line: Cambria

Cambria says, "So Arx can be pretty intimidating for new players, due to its sheer scale, and it can even be hard interacting with others at times, due to Reasons. How would you suggest any player, new or old, go about making connections with others when they come to you with a concern of feeling 'stonewalled,' lost, or just generally disconnected? Conversely, are there things established players should be more mindful of to try and avoid inadvertantly coming across as, to put it bluntly, an asshole OOC?"

Apostate says, "One of the most challenging things is we don't really know what kind of RP someone likes. What one person likes, of social scenes where they get to develop their characters, could bore someone else to tears. One person could enjoy being engaged with, another could find it offputting and intimidating. Having a new person list in their finger info what they like I think is a big help, and then proactively engage with as many people as they can, because it greatly increases their odds of finding what they want. For existing players, really I'd just want them making as many offers as they can. Offering someone the opportunity to come to X, particularly if it's happening right then. Of a, 'Going to do X, would you like to come' IC by messenger or just making sure a new player is aware of opportunities, rather than saying they should or must do something, just that they can."

Drysi, a young shaman apprentice, 2 Redrain Guards leave, following Khanne.

Reigna has joined the line.

Turn in line: Reigna

Apostate says, "I think Reigna's question and then we'll stop for there for the day"

Belladonna raises her hand, "Can I add to this thing about new players?"

Apostate says, "Yeah sure please do"

Reigna says, "Is there something we can sign up to be to be like... Newbie points of contact? I love helping new players and I think I'm pretty good at giving people hooks. If we had something like that, where they can see a list of people to go to for help, might that remove some of the difficulty?"

Belladonna says, "Maybe ask about what players expect from the game, or what they usually find fun about online RP games, as part of the application process? This way you can somewhat gauge where to point them, etc? Doesn't even have to be a coded change, since the initial app is a pretty open ended affair."

Ian says, "... I put the offer in my +finger. I don't know how many people see it."

Ian says, "It's hard to know how much to offer to help out of the blue without coming off looking like you're pressuring someone to get involved."

Belladonna says, "That is very true, it is a pretty delicate thing to do."

Ian says, "Putting it in my +finger seemed like a good compromise."

Cambria says, "Would it be posible to put that sort of +finger info on the character webpage?"

Apostate says, "Optional add to RP wants in CG wouldn't be a terrible idea, frankly, would then move it to the finger info after. But I ultimately need a searchable cross reference for Rp that matches people based on scenes they want and rewards them for doing it as Rp bounties"

Bhandn says, "@rs?"

Ailith tends to as a leader offer IC suggestions to what a character says -- like people to meet, project ideas, even maybe research that'll help.

Apostate says, "And yeah, it could be. And yeah Reigna, I'd like to have new player mentors/guides/recruiters/points of the contact"

Apostate says, "More about rp topics and specific scene ideas than people, bhandn, ie someone wanting a sparring scene, and matches up with someone else wanting a sparring scene"

Sina finds she has a lot of opportunities to point people to RP, given her position IC.

Peri says, "I'm willing to take a look for what it would take to put on a character page if there is enough interest"

Fortunato says, "We can be more organized about it. @rs is certainly one place to look."

Apostate says, "Someone wanting a religious emo scene, and matches up with probably no one because jesus christ no"

Orrin would play that >.>

Ailith says, "And OOC point out for new players there's a lot more opportunities with actions than Go Beat Up X creature."

Apostate says, "But yeah I mean there's way more than we can do with Looking For Roleplay than a tag, obviously"

Aureth says, "A lot of newbies are going to have no idea what kind of RP they are actually looking for when they first start."

Reigna nodnods to Ailith, and grins to Apos -- "Hell yeah. I would totally be down for an OOC mentorship situation. Plus I think running PrPs for new kids once a month or so could be awesome. A way for them to dip their toes in."

Aureth says, "I mean on any given day I can't always tell you what kind of RP I want and I've been here for 3 years"

Axelle, a personal valet arrives, following Felicia.

Apostate says, "Yeah and them being able to see what's available and opting into it would be nice"

Apostate says, "While conversely"

Ailith says, "Same Reigna."

Sabella says, "RP with words in it, Aureth."

Apostate says, "I add things to the grid to make organic RP more fun and possible"

Diane, a bright-eyed peregrine falcon, Sini, a very fluffy Northland shepherd puppy leave, following Orrin.

Apostate says, "I want to double down on both angles of trying to foster organic RP that would spontaneously occur, while also making ooc RP matching much easier/better"

Ailith says, "Thanks for that Apostate. I'm into organic RP."

Aureth says, "<3"

Apostate says, "Me too"

Reigna says, "Oh... damn. I knew I had another question."

Reigna says, "Yes! Thank you so much Apos!!"

Cambria says, "Yes, thank you, Apostate."

Sina says, "Thanks for running this Apostate. :)"

Apostate says, "Anything else before I call it?"

Bhandn says, "Extra <3s"

Nycelani says, "Thanks Apostate!"

Astrid provides three cheers.

Caspian says, "Thank you Apos!"

Ian says, "Thanks for doing this :)"

Fortunato says, "thank you!"

Sina leaves a plate of pumpkin scones and leaves.

Liara says, "Thanks!"

Sebastian, an adorable gray and white tabby, Jacinthe, Arindais, a dour-looking Scholar, 3 Templar Knight guards leave, following Sina.

Reigna says, "Thank youuuu!"

2 Grayson House Guards leaves, following Liara.

Willow says, "I am so glad for organic rp on here being more of a thing than on straight mushes. Mushes are very intimidating if you don't have a "group" and want rp but have anxiety."

Rysen says, "Thanks!!"

Gaspar says, "This was fantastic, thank you so much for this."