Request For Review

Requests for Review, or 'RFR's, are a means for players to ask Staff GMs to review the progress of their characters on their individualized goals or stories recorded in plots, and then ask for rewards, character adjustments, or changes to the game world to reflect their accomplishments or setbacks.

Goals are an open-ended, freeform way for characters to chart their character goals on matters from the extremely trivial to the all but certainly impossible. The purpose of goals is to show character motivations and character development, and success is not important to the rewards, and in fact failures may have larger rewards due to the greater impact on character development. Goal RFRs are about showing the changes to an individual character.

Plots are a way to record any ongoing story, whether large or small, and keep records about the development of the story through beats. Plots could have great impact on the game world, or no impact at all, and Plot RFRs are about showing changes in the game world, and how the game world NPCs often perceives player characters. This can have some overlap with goal RFRs, and most goals will often have associated plots to track communal progress, while the goals track individual progress.

Goal Requests for Review can be submitted once a month, and there is normally a reward associated with it, depending upon the type of character development that's happened. Goal rewards can be XP, skill improvements in a skill that was relevant to the goal, stat gains in a stat that was very significant to the goal, increase to an existing character knack that was used, and once per game episode, the development of an ongoing personal story. For example:

Tom is a commoner merchant with dreams of becoming a merchant prince. So he creates the following goal.

- goal/create Merchant Prince/Tom's big dream of becoming the greatest merchant prince in the Lyceum, and dominating the wine trade from Arx to Lenosia.

He sees under his @sheet/goals that this creates goal #4952. He then has an GM'd scene, where he has the opportunity to try to convince an NPC house in the Lyceum to buy his wines, and during the scene, he has an empathy check vs the NPC barons composure, which he fails and Tom winds up escorted out. Rough break for Tom. For his monthly goal RFR, he puts in the following RFR.

- goal/rfr 4952=Tom's meeting with Baron Gregory to buy his wines did not go well. He hoped to find out why the Baron was so hostile, so he tried to check empathy, which he failed and thus offended him, being escorted out. It seems that avenue to expanding his markets is dead in the water./For this RFR, I'd like to increase his empathy skill, which he used and he feels he needs to get better at in order to accomplish his goals.

A player is in control as to what they consider a goal's difficulty, and it's Tom considers his goal considerably harder than he first thought, so he changes the scope with the following command:

- goal/scope 4952=venomously ambitious

If he creates a sub-goal, all around wooing a particular patron as goal 4953, and manages to succeed, he can update the goal as being considered a success (or failure), with the status command.

- goal/status 4953=Succeeded

For all non-combat stats and skills, as long as they are relevant to the goal, they are acceptable possible rewards. For combat skills, any request to raise them as part of the goal must be applicable to the goal, and also combat that involved risk to the character. Increase to an existing knack, and xp are always acceptable rewards to request in Goal/RFRs.

Goals around unraveling mysteries, whether a character secret or something they've discovered organically and become a part of, are handled differently. Any goal involving discovery, experimentation, trying to strengthen a supernatural ability, or anything dealing with a personal connection to the metaplot must have an associated +plot with at least one other player involved in order to receive an RFR response, as well as keeping to a particular format. An RFR around a supernatural/metaplot personal story can only be requested once per game episode. The game's ongoing story is divided into Seasons, which are broken up into chapters, which are broken up then further into episodes, which are displayed in the 'Story' section of the website, and also on the 'Story Updates' bulletin board. A Player Character requesting development on a goal related to the metaplot must have the follows:

- An associated plot with at least one other active PC.
- Plot beats on the plot that detail all the discoveries they've mad thus far.
- The goal RFR must have ICly what they've tried, what they have learned by talking to other PCs, and what they think is currently going on. Their theories, right or wrong, about what they believe is happening. And OOCly what the player thinks might happen as a result of RFR experimentation.
- Can only submit one goal/rfr for a freeform GM response once per episode, regardless of how long that is and regardless of how many goals he has. Just has to pick one.

Tom is a roster character that has a character @sheet/secret that he sometimes sees coins covered in blood while making merchant dealings, and sometimes has visions of underhanded deals his competitor makes. He makes a goal 4954 around trying to unravel the mystery of why this happens and unravel it for his own ends. In an RP scene, he gets to know Sarah, who confides in him that there's a demon masquerading as a merchant prince in the Lyceum, and he creates plot #7050 to track his progress on this mystery, and finding out more about demon merchants, and whether that relates to him. He invites Sarah on the plot, and she joins. He then has an RP scene with Phil, who reveals that some individuals have strange abilities based on what they did in a past life, and he updates that meeting as a beat on his plot, and invites Phil also to the plot. At Phil's suggestion, Tom, Phil and Sarah go to the Hall of Heroes to review all the memorial inscriptions, and at the end of the scene they agree to all meditate there and see if that triggers anything.

Tom wishes to see if the result of this RP will trigger a reaction and discovery, so for his one personal story goal RFR this episode, he puts in the following:

- goal/rfr 4954=As part of Plot #7050 to uncover the cause of Tom's strange ability to see underhanded deals and bloody coins, Tom spent time hearing theories from Phil and Sarah about what might be the cause. He thinks he might be related to the demon prince in the Lyceum, possibly his son, but it could have been something he did in a past life that left a mark on his soul. So he went to the Hall of Heroes with Phil and Sarah (plot beat #7452) and is now meditating, seeing if it will jolt a vision of his past life./I think he'll likely get a glimpse of a past life and maybe something to do with underhanded deals that scarred his soul, or possibly he'll get a letter from the demon merchant if that doesn't pan out.

Since the goal is goal #4954, and the plot is #7050, to link the two together, the syntax is:
- goal/plot 4954=7050

The syntax to create the plot into looking into his secret would be:

- plots/pitch Tom's Coins/Looking into the mystery/Tom sees bloody coins sometimes in merchant deals and no one else seems to notice, which is more than a little unnerving, but he also gets visions of underhanded deals from his competitors. That's potentially useful and something he wishes to exploit, but he mostly wants to find out why this is happening./This is the personal plot for Tom's secret to track progress on it.

And then to invite Sarah and Phil it'd be

- plots/invite 7050=Sarah, supporting
- plots/invite 7050=Phil, supporting
- plots/cast 7050=Tom, required

Cast 'rank' are just guidelines, but noting someone is required means that the story cannot move or develop in any way without them, and since it's Tom's story, he is considered required cast.

To add the beats about the ongoing story:

- plots/createbeat 7050=Tom met Sarah about what Phil told him regarding reincarnation, and she then talked a bit about a story regarding the 'godtouched', that seemed related, and shared her own personal experiences./Sarah shared clue 9532, which is a godtouched story related to her family.

Plot RFRs are used to show the impact of a plot on the world, external to the character. This can have significant overlap. For example, Tom is trying to become a merchant prince, and also get to the bottom of his secret. So as part of his personal plot, he is trying to attract the attention of the demon merchant prince by cutting deals that might harm the demon's business. He meets with several Heads of House for different noble houses, and gets to them to agree to buy his wine, and then puts in a plot RFR about that- it could just result in his business improving, getting a silver income accordingly, or his real hidden motivation, attracting the attention of a demon to learn more. In this case, the business changes would be most appropriate for a plot RFR, as it effects the world, and staff could then at their discretion decide or not to decide it merits a reaction from a hidden NPC like the demon. And in this case there is overlap, as intentionally trying to get the attention of the demon could be the one-per-episode personal goal RFRs, focused entirely around demon-provoking.

Player Storytellers can also run stories around developing these plots, and players can approach player storytellers (listed under the 'stlist' command) to see if they'd be willing to GM advances in these plots, with staff giving the player storytellers necessary details to further it. This is not required, but is an option if someone wishes to advance the stories past the once-per-episode goal RFRs.