OOC - Starting Point

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Graybeard
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Graybeard »

Hours wrote:Confirmed.

Although I wish to ask if this is a project run by a specific person, or else if we are simply allowed to run our own plots? Everything that is happening or has happened seems to have been started and run by Graybeard.

Myself and a few others are joining, and it seems akward to have to maybe jump through hoops to justify the presence of several new characters in the middle of a plotline.
VERY good question.

The intent is for the whole thing to be as collaborative as possible. The initial thread (Kiyoka, now in the "Rear View Mirror" forum) started with one basic venue and a whole bunch of player characters coming in from their own perspectives, and coalesced into one "story line" into which the individual character lines fit more or less well. Early on, there was interest in generating a BBEG to lurk in the background and drive some events. It fell to Viking-Sensei and me to create that BBEG. When he became a new daddy, that left me with the responsibility of pushing the BBEG stuff, and for two of the three active threads (those two being closely connected and swapping NPCs, plot devices, etc.), that's the way it remains today. Nearly all of the game's threads are tied together by that. Many of the characters in those threads have been in them essentially from the beginning, and yes, they can be daunting to add new characters to -- although it has been done highly successfully.

"Airship Pirates," by contrast, was never part of the same "story line" as everything else, and was created exactly to let new characters come in without ties to ongoing plotlines, just as you suggest. The fact that I created the actual thread is coincidence; most of the scenario development has been done by Sareth, and there is absolutely no reason why anybody couldn't join the thing and start warping the scenario in brand new directions. I don't "own" this thing any more than you do.

All of this is a long way of saying if you want a new thread, by all means create one! That's what was done with Airship Pirates, for exactly the reason that you cite. More than one model of play can work here, and the only reason why the "serial story" model has been so dominant to date is just that the participants to date have liked it and helped make it so. Vignettes set in other, completely unrelated settings could surely be generated and work as well. Just gather enough interested parties and make it so! The only "requirement" is to follow the rules that Impy has established as regards conduct, consistency with the Poe-verse, etc.

This whole thing has now reached a level of maturity such that it's probably just the right time to do what you imply you'd like to see done, with a new start or two. Go for it! And please use this forum to bat ideas around as to the starting point(s).
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ComradeHavok
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by ComradeHavok »

Confirmed

Though I must admit that I don't know much about the setting of Errant Story. I was asked to join by a friend who's a long time reader though, so I hope to figure it all out before long.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

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And welcome to you too! It really is worth taking some time to get familiar with Errant Story, partly because Errant Road is strongly rooted in it, but mainly because it's a durn good read. Reading the Errant Road threads would also be a good idea, and you can get some sense of what's gone before from the summaries at the Heretic Knowledge Vault, the Errant Story wiki.

What do you have in mind for starting a character? The "Character Workshop" thread is the place for answering that question.
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Rainman
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Rainman »

Confirmed.

Stumbled across Errant Story a while ago when the archive wasn't that extensive, then a few days ago a buddy reminded me of it, told me there was an FFRPG, and invited me along. Thought I'd give things a look.
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Craic
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Craic »

Confirmed.

Read both EN and ES archives, save the comments. Thinking about reading the entire forum archive and/or the wiki. Both are pretty daunting. Compulsive reading can really while away the hours. Errant Road seems pretty neat, but the closest I've been to really using a forum is reading archives of dead ones. Has a very "ghost-town" feel. Spooky. Errant Road, while it sees action (from what I've seen) no less than 2-3 days apart, seems almost in the state of a death rattle. I'd love to invest in the story, however! Could I get a contrary statement to the aforementioned last breaths? One love.
Der Vater hält das Kind jetzt fest / Hat es sehr an sich gepresst / Bemerkt nicht dessen Atemnot / Doch die Angst kennt kein Erbarmen / So der Vater mit den Armen / Drückt die Seele aus dem Kind
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Graybeard »

Craic wrote:Could I get a contrary statement to the aforementioned last breaths? One love.
Glad to. (First of all, welcome, and by all means post your character concept in the "Character Workshop" thread.)

Basically, there are three active threads in Errant Road at the moment, two of which are closely connected while the third one is a stand-alone. The most active is Gervasiel, which is the latest "chapter" in a thread set in Veracia that has been running for several years now. It has a stable and similarly long-running cadre of about half a dozen player characters plus their henchmen, as well as a number of enduring, well-developed (if I do say so myself, having developed most of them...) NPCs. There is an actual "plot" to this one that is known to some, but not all, of the players, leading to a BBEG who has been glimpsed distantly but never encountered. (However, there also are several sub-plots having little or nothing to do with the BBEG.) As with all such things, activity waxes and wanes, but to give a sense for the general level, the Gervasiel thread was created on May 22, and 3 weeks later, there are 80 posts in it -- so the average is about four a day, which has been fairly typical of the Veracia threads. This one is really quite vigorous, and in no way should be considered to be on its "last breaths." For exactly that reason, however, it's also comparatively difficult to add new characters to, precisely because it is so active and there's an enormous amount of background material to become familiar with. The "Thread Summaries" article at the Heretic Knowledge Vault, the Errant Story wiki, may help with that, but there's really a lot to keep track of.

The "Tsuiraku-town, part 2" thread is currently set in a city in northern Farrel, although it has wandered over much of the country of Farrel getting here. It too has been going for several years, and the longest-running player characters in all of Errant Road are still active in it. The players in this group of threads have been much more volatile, with people coming and going all the time, including some that are "hibernating," i.e., not currently posting anything but still around to be active when the play leads back to their characters. Activity is correspondingly more sporadic, with an average of maybe 2 or 3 contributions per day over the life of the whole set of threads. However, that varies considerably depending on the number of active players, and is currently rebounding somewhat. As originally conceived, this one also was connected to the BBEG, and there has been significant sharing of NPCs with the Veracian threads. However, the players in this one have been developing other plot lines that have kept the characters busy.

"Airship Pirates" is the stand-alone. It was set up specifically to make it easy for new players to join and warp the plot in their own creative ways, and has nothing to do with the BBEG uniting the other two threads. It is also considerably more tongue-in-cheek and humorous than the other two, which have more of a serious, whodunit kind of feel. Unfortunately, it is also nearly inactive, and went through a long period this winter when nothing was happening at all. That one could really use an infusion of new blood.

The others in the "On The Road" forum ("Background Noise," "Gray Ventures" and "Kugelheim") really weren't created with the intention of necessarily having them in play. Rather, they're more like "footnotes" to the main threads that are there to set context, elaborate on things going on behind the scenes, give characters a chance for one-on-one NPC encounters not involving most players, etc. Just as footnotes don't dominate the text in a book, these are much less extensive than the active threads, being there for people to say things that may not fit in the main threads. They will simply have occasional contributions as needed, although I have it on good authority that one of them is about to become considerably more active as a particular character does certain things.

Does that help?
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Craic
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

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Graybeard wrote:Glad to. (First of all, welcome, and by all means post your character concept in the "Character Workshop" thread.)
Thank you! I'll definately continue to turn over my work-in-progress. Still some things to chew on first.

Quick aside, this made me smile:
Graybeard wrote:...as well as a number of enduring, well-developed (if I do say so myself, having developed most of them...) NPCs.

Hah!
Graybeard wrote:Does that help?
It does very much help! I was hoping you'd be the one to reply, Graybeard. "Airship Pirates" seems like a helluva lot of fun, being regularly facetious myself. I also love steampunk airship themes! Though I'm not sure if it's steampunk.

"Tsuiraku-town, part 2" also seems interesting, for some reason. Perhaps the allure is due to it being the alternative to "Gervasiel" which is far more intimidating. And as per your mention, it's at a good point for entry. My concept as it is now deals with a Gewehr 'absentee' so maybe attracting attention on a pirate vessel wouldn't be the wisest of moves. Thoughts?
Der Vater hält das Kind jetzt fest / Hat es sehr an sich gepresst / Bemerkt nicht dessen Atemnot / Doch die Angst kennt kein Erbarmen / So der Vater mit den Armen / Drückt die Seele aus dem Kind
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Sareth
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Sareth »

I'd love to see some new blood in the Airship Pirates thread. I like tongue in cheek, but pretty much no one has stuck that one out. *sigh*
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deathpigeon
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by deathpigeon »

Confirmed.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC - Starting Point

Post by Graybeard »

Craic wrote: It does very much help! I was hoping you'd be the one to reply, Graybeard. "Airship Pirates" seems like a helluva lot of fun, being regularly facetious myself. I also love steampunk airship themes! Though I'm not sure if it's steampunk.

"Tsuiraku-town, part 2" also seems interesting, for some reason. Perhaps the allure is due to it being the alternative to "Gervasiel" which is far more intimidating. And as per your mention, it's at a good point for entry. My concept as it is now deals with a Gewehr 'absentee' so maybe attracting attention on a pirate vessel wouldn't be the wisest of moves. Thoughts?
The concept seems OK, and there should be no difficulty at all introducing such a character to Airship Pirates. (I'm not sure whether I'd characterize that thread as steampunk or not. The Errant Road-verse is more magical than mechanical -- but remember what Agatha Heterodyne said. Wrong comic, but there have been some shoutouts to Girl Genius in Errant Road...) Another character or two should be enough to get that one jump-started again ... as long as you'll stay around.

Introducing him/her to the Rinkaiel threads may be a bit touchier, because of the significant role the Gewehr plays there. We don't know how accepting current Gewehr members would be of "absentees" who re-establish contact with them. Nothing in either Errant Story or Errant Road suggests they have to be as implacably hostile toward former members as, say, the Ensigerum is toward its escapees, but they'd probably not just forgive and forget, either. The role playing could get rather touchy as a result.

Anyway, suggest you post the proposed character in the "Character Workshop" thread, and let's see what can be done. You're generally on a concept here that should be workable.
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