felldenooc | November Wrap-Up

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! monthly wrap up

November Wrap-Up

It's that time again!

Things have slowly started to quiet again after the maze and we thank you all for your participation and IC efforts! Your monthly wrap-up is here!

WHAT ARE WRAP-UPS?
They're a monthly summary posted on the last day of each month. These wrap-ups will go over everything on the IC and OOC level of the game, from plot points that have been explored via quests or assignments, to smaller things like process changes or alteration of mod availability. You’re also free to ask wrap-up specific questions in the comments!

IN-GAME NOTES:
• November kicked off with an audience with the Priestess and Emperor, newly brought back to life. Death's Attendants visited to issue a warning about Temperance and the theft of her soul, that she might be brought back.
• Kassandra was sent on a mission to gather information regarding the Tower and Tower Climbers, and they are certainly absolutely not going to be a problem. :)
• With the help of Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, Bigby made a post providing information on what he'd learned from Death about the Priestess and Emperor.
• The Gods Wood changed into a maze as the Branded and the Hierophant worked together to bring Temperance back to life.
• Temperance was revived despite the handy efforts of Team Yeet and a group interrupting the Hierophant. This cut down on the ritual and Temperance is temporarily weakened and in recovery.
• Strength was also revived through the efforts of two Otherworlders. She provided some disturbing information...and isn't doing too well.
• Once the Emperor and Priestess finally cracked through the encryption (the latter having been aided by Tony Stark), Bruce, Tony, and Bigby were thrown in prison.
• ~~Despite being dated to December 5th,~~ Temperance addressed the network on an external, neutral line. She claimed the world has very little time left and a discussion ensued regarding War.

OOC NOTES:
• Activity Check results have been posted! Please be sure to check that you've been processed and check in if you haven't yet commented.
• After taking a poll, it was decided that casts will be capped at 7 characters and the game will have a character cap at 100. We will be implementing franchise caps going forward. Stay tuned!
• We will be shifting the way we do events! One month we will do a Plot Heavy month and the following month will be a Plot Light month. We will beginning this in January (with December being a cool down month for the holidays as it is) and will test its effectiveness to better control the pacing of the game and to allow people to pursue CR, player plots, quests, and other ventures.
• We will be posting the OOC event post early this month before December gets too crazy for people! That being said, there will be no log posted until the IC intro log, which will contain additional event prompts. We encourage you to reach out to new players and characters and make them feel welcome!
• Tagging around on the TDM and tagging new characters will count extra towards blessings this month!
• We have a Story So Far post that players have been contributing to in order to help get new players up to speed! We have a Plot Keep-Up post with more recent information. Please check these out and add to them!
• There is also a IC newbie guide that we encourage people to check out! This will help us prevent already answered questions at the bi-monthly Audiences.
• We also have the Fellden Religious Pantheon page up and running! This includes accepted offerings, what deities are known for, as well as an offering tracker in the comments. :)

LOOKING AHEAD:
The December calendar is also now available! Please take note of discussion post date as we have a lot of ideas we would like to throw out to you all. We want to share what we've been thinking and retooling to get feedback. We also want to hear what ideas you might have for us! We are open to any and all possibilities. The discussion post for game pacing will come after the holidays.

Also please take note: if applications fill up quickly, we will be moving the dates of the OOC/IC intros.

As a reminder, DECEMBER will not have any quests, will only have check-in AC, and mod availability will change due to the holidays and hectic life stuff going on. Quests, regular activity, and usual mod availability will resume in January. Please bear in mind that December will seem very slow because of this and it will likely be slower than what we have planned for "plot-light" event months as discussed in our last discussion post.

Finally, we would like to reiterate our zero tolerance policy for harassment and bullying of our playerbase and will take action accordingly. We encourage everyone to reach out to the mod team if you are concerned about behavior. We want to do right by our players. That being said, we cannot mediate a response or investigate anything if no one comes to us directly.

Thank you so much to everyone for continuing to stick with us! If you have any questions, thoughts, or just want to chat, feel free to comment on this post, reach out via PM, or leave a message for us on the mod contact post!

Wand & Pentacle

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The mods said I could bring up an issue I had for discussion here in the comments, so here I go.

I've found that while the network has been really useful for handing out big plot information, there tends to be a lack of follow up on things that makes it hard for my character to get all the information she's looking for. For example, there were two big info sharing posts that I tried to have Ashe participate in. In both, I had her ask questions to the character who posted, and in both instances, I either got one response before the thread was dropped, or no response at all. Now, I know both these posts were meant to inspire discussion and I did go tag around in one of them, but if the poster of the info holds the most information, all we as commenters can do is have our characters speculate on more.

It was honestly disappointing to have follow up questions and not have them answered, and looking back at the posts in question, I wasn't the only one ignored. Maybe if I had brought nothing of substance to the table that would be fine, but Ashe was asking for more information and didn't get it from the characters who made those posts. This isn't me trying to force people to tag, but to keep in mind that people are obviously going to have questions when there are big chunks of info dropped, and it feels discouraging when I can't get more info when I'm actively attempting to have Ashe learn more. In a way, it feels like I'm being dissuaded from getting involved, especially when other characters can bend the ear of the character who posted but I haven't. Again, I did tag around in one of these posts, but the characters knew no more than mine did based on what the original poster gave us, so we had to speculate or move on to other topics.

I don't have a magic fix it to this issue, but this is just meant as a heads up, and to see if anyone else feels the same?

I know I dropped the ball on an info sharing post I helped make because of going on hiatus, so I've contributed to the lack of responses. I'm sorry for that, Megan. And to anyone else that felt left out when I've done information sharing. ♥

While I can't speak for everyone, or know how to offer a larger scale suggestion without doing so, I'm always up for being pinged if I've forgotten or missed responding to someone, no matter how long it's been.

I know I said this on Plurk, but I just want to repeat it here: I need to get over the mindset that by pinging people for a thread that I must be bothering them or they must have a reason why they didn't tag me. We're all here to have fun and things slip our notice, so in future I'll be sure to reach out. <3

I definitely think this is a good point to bring up and I think it highlights that it's hard when a player character has a kernel of info because when it gets shared, it turns into a guessing game and round-robin where there can be discussion but if there isn't, it just becomes a lot of people asking the same questions and scratching their heads. I also want to jump in and apologize that that's become the norm and I know I contributed to this in October.

I'm trying to think of good ideas to fix this and I'm wondering if it would be better if it was like the Temperance post where there's an NPC that's actually just doling out the info as they see it so that every player character has access and part to comment? I don't know. And again, I want to apologize for my contribution towards the problem since I know I've made a couple of posts like this. I don't want to do that again for a myriad of reasons but mostly because I want to help get more people involved and because I got really overwhelmed with tags and couldn't sustain it on top of everything else. But I'm glad you said something!

Yeah, I feel leaving it to NPCs might work better, or even a thing where the mods put up an OOC post where we say "Our character would ask Temperance A, B, and C. What's the response?" And the mods could go, "She answers this, this, and this." That way maybe it's not as hard on the mods to keep NPC threads going? Like it could be a choice. A player could choose to have an IC conversation with an NPC which could lead to fun extras, or they could choose to just get some additional info without worrying about where to drop it into the conversation?

I definitely don't want this to come across as me demanding people set a whole day aside to tag back or anything, but I feel we need to make sure that everyone who wants to be involved in stuff has the IC info they'll need to make plans and plots of their own. :D

tbh I don't think you sound demanding at all and I think it's a really good point that should be brought up. And I really like that idea, that if people don't have time or can't get a whole thread from an NPC, there can be an option for the mods to OOCly answer questions so characters can still get the info they need.

Thank you, Kal! <3

Maybe we could even think about players who make info posts putting up an OOC questions thread in the post itself? Or on the OOC comm if that's not allowed on the network. That way it can be handwaved that the characters had a full conversation with the "How are you doing?" and such, but can get the info needed, and that would be less taxing on the player too.

ETA: Obviously I don't want to discourage CR building, but with these lighter plot months being tested out, I feel we can further CR in the less busy times anyway.

Edited 2019-11-30 19:09 (UTC)

no no I totally get what you're proposing. And I think that's a good point to bring up, both about lighter months and how to quickly get info. It helps too because it means info gets out faster with quick OOC questions and threads can still happen even if they take time.

I think maybe it would be helpful to have a repository of information that's been made IC knowledge? I know we have the story so far page but I also know some people struggle with knowing what exactly their character should be able to know. Maybe something where if a PC learns something that they would ICly disseminate, you could link the thread where they learned it/info they learned and just be like "yo, assume my character spread this around"? Obviously posts are still totally fine for the fun of RPing but I know not everyone can keep up with every info post either.

Idk!! This is just a random suggestion - maybe it's not the ideal solution. I'm just trying to think out loud basically.

I do like this suggestion, especially since some people may not have the time to make a post, or ICly wouldn't post publicly to the network, but OOCly are open to their character telling others one-on-one.

This would be in addition to what we've been discussing though, which is follow up/more info coming from major info posts. For instance, a character might say "Stay away from God X, they're bad news." And a follow up would be "Who told you that?" or "How did you come to think that?" and based on the response, a player could come up with something like "I'm going to search for the person that told them to stay away from God X so I can see why." The problem is, like MB said, in a game this size, it's hard for PCs to be the ones handing out this info, so hopefully we and the mods can find a solution.

Yeah, definitely, I feel you! In my mind the post would include all the information the characters would be willing to share, like who told them that etc. so if you wanted to use them as a jumping off point you could. But in terms of regular posts, I understand where you're coming from; I think it's difficult with the cap we've instituted to have easy information dissemination because posts get overwhelmed quickly. I don't necessarily think that should mean PCs shouldn't get information, just that there should be a less time consuming way for people to share it, because I assume most of the reasons why things get dropped is time.

That's a valid point. I don't want the feel of the game to change by having PCs unable to get big info from the NPCs, quests, etc. in the first place. Maybe an OOC questions thread on these posts to speed things up is the way to go? I'm open to other ideas too, but this is all I can think up right now.

I'm kind of thinking along these lines--maybe a combination, a toplevel where people can link the information they've already discussed on the network to make it easier to dig through those large posts?

I feel for how big those posts get/how hard it can be to try and run through the exact same thread info and keep it interesting, but it can be daunting if you don't keep up with the post as it goes to catch up on what everyone else discusses so you know what's already out there for your character to have read/heard from the other threads. :|a Like a directory might be good middle ground so other people who are in those threads can also post them up and ease the load on the poster a little?

I like this too!

Is that not what the Plot Keep-Up post is for? Or is that more for general knowledge?

I do like the idea of something more IC where basic questions can be posed and things handwaved so info posts don't get unwieldy and people potentially overlooked.

The story so far page seems to have people wondering what exactly their characters know, which is why I suggested something that explicitly had the information available to all characters. Since stuff on that page doesn't mean your character would know it!

Just jumping in to point out that there are two pages: The Story So Far and the Plot Upkeep page. Both are linked above in the OOC part of the mod post and I think are meant to do different things?

Yeah, sorry - I meant to refer to the plot upkeep one when I said story so far! I don't use them myself so I stupidly didn't remember the proper names.

Huh, I figured the plot so far was IC general knowledge so people coming in knew what was going on/what their character might hear. My bad.

I could be wrong! To me it seemed like all stuff that had happened recently, not just IC knowledge - but I'm not a mod so I can't say.

Would it help for us to add a header on the plot keep up post for "IC knowledge that has been shared" for people to provide links on? Such as for audience threads with pertinent information, NPC interactions on the network, information sharing network posts, etc.

I definitely think that could be helpful!

I really love the idea of an OOC post. Doling out information through PCs can be rough in a game this size I think and anything that can help get more plot info out to a wider audience would be helpful.

Totally agree. And it might not be IC for a character to dole out info on a public network, but OOCly, the player is more than willing to have their character give info one-on-one to any player that wants it. I'm hoping we find solutions that can cover all these things.

One issue with leaving posts like that to NPCs is that the network is a really good way to get important information out there, especially for characters who, like mine, aren't the friendliest and would likely only have told a small handful of close CR otherwise.

That's not always a bad thing, because at a game like this where characters are already divided into factions, there are always going to be times where different groups of characters have different information and make decisions based on that. That's part of what keeps it fun and realistic: not everyone knows everything. But for game impacting plot info, network infodumps made by PCs can be really useful to prevent another issue, which is players (especially new ones) feeling left out of the plot because their character doesn't have much CR yet, or doesn't have CR with a particular group. "My character is acting on an incomplete set of information" can be lots of fun to play with, "my character can't act at all because they aren't even aware of the situation" is disheartening.

Having PCs who can share that important info every now and then also takes some pressure off the mods who might want to drop that information but would be too bust to do a full open NPC post with it.

Yeah, after I wrote this idea about NPCs, I realized I'd gotten a little hyperfocused on that aspect and the game wouldn't be the same if we suddenly didn't have PCs able to hand out plot anymore. I definitely still want both, but with solutions that make it as easy as possible on both mods and players.

I think some players would be willing to handwave things and just say their character received all the info they wanted, while some players would prefer to thread things out. And maybe that changes month to month or depending on who is making the post. Like "I don't have time this month to reply to this post, but I see my question is answered here, so I can handwave (with permission from the OP) my character knows it too." But the next month: "Oh, I wanted my character to talk to this character anyway and here's a good opportunity in this info sharing post." It never has to be all or nothing where we're all handwaving, and newbies will be able to get in there if there are less top levels on these posts that might be too much for the OP to answer.

Hey! I was also a player that struggled during the info sharing posts. I largely attributed it to me being a new player who didn't have much to offer and could only speculate with other characters. I get that with all of the information being dished out and plot plot plot happening quickly, it's more interesting to gather information than it is to respond to someone going, "Wow" more or less.

I believe both of those posts were really more like mingle posts where everything was presumably out in the open for everyone to see so you could handwave your character learning things but I get that handwaving information all the time can be a buzzkill because personally, while I found both posts very helpful, it was definitely lame to have to handwave more things in the game. Even when I managed to get some info worth sharing, I didn't get much. I'm not knocking the players who did tag me because I appreciate it but it's like, "dang, even when I try to contribute, I'm still largely ignored."

IDK, as a player who came in during the last round, it was hard getting involved in/with the plot at first. A really large part of that was honestly the lack of tags I could get in general. The intro log was a big bust for me which I wasn't expecting and then it just took me a while to get momentum. Part of it was me getting sick during the October event and that's no one's fault but then my attempts to get involved/try to get CR always went pretty much largely ignored, ended with dropped threads, or I'd have the same people tagging me. I gave the last event a shot and maybe it's because I didn't have my character in the woods but dang, just two responses which is the exact same number I had on my intro. Felt pretty lame. I see that the mods are going to combine the intro log with the first part of the event (kind of?) and are giving some incentive for tagging the TDM/new people and I hope it helps because I struggled a lot as a new player.

Edited 2019-11-30 19:28 (UTC)

I'm sure a lot of us have the same story, where we mean to tag into things, but then we don't because of the backlog of event threads/audience threads/etc. we have going on. Hopefully the lighter plot months in between intense plot months gives us time to wrap up older threads as well as tag intro logs and the TDM. There's a bit of a problem with balancing plot and gaining new CR that could be fixed with this trial run of light plot months.

While I'm good with handwaving things to make sure my character is up to speed, I totally get what you're saying, because as a new player, you can't be handwaving things when you're trying to get your character established in the first place. I'm glad you brought this up, because it's something for all of us to consider when we're trying to find a footing in plots and there are newer characters that aren't up to speed yet.

I definitely get that because I've been there before (I'm there right now... I'll tag the TDM soon, I promise...). I figured that people were really into their own threads/plot-lines and weren't able to tag out more. In the end, I was still able to net some CR and have some good threads. Everyone I've spoken to OOC has been very friendly and helpful too, especially in the beginning when I was still just trying to figure out the game.

But yes, there's definitely a problem in the game when it comes to balancing plot and tagging out. Like you said in your original post, we can't make anyone tag us but it's discouraging when you're trying to learn more info and get involved and you just… can't.

As one of the people who posted an info-sharing post, I'm also really sorry about this. I did intend for it to be more of a public mingle, and while I initially tried to answer everything that hadn't been answered yet, Billy didn't actually have any information beyond what was said in the initial post. Because of that, I found that I was answering a lot of threads with "I don't know" or "Maybe", which I started to worry was a boring response and was potentially taking time and attention away from more productive threads with characters that actually had something to add.

That said, it was my post and I should have made sure everyone got at least one thread out of it even if Billy didn't have much to add, so I am sorry about that. Your comment in particular had a lot of really good questions that I had zero answers to, and it was only checking back on that post now that I see that it didn't get a reply at all, so I apologize for dropping the ball there.

I also agree with some points brought up here and on plurk that the infodump post did get quite overwhelming and a few threads ended up getting lost in the shuffle just because it got way bigger than I expected it to. Maybe there's a better way to write these infodump network posts to encourage the mingle structure with multiple characters (like the post-audience mingle logs) instead of having lots of individual threads directed primarily at the original poster(s)? Just a thought for how to manage these sorts of things in the future.

It's all right. <3 This discussion has really made me appreciate how hard it can be as the person sharing important plot and sympathize with answering a lot of questions (especially similar questions) when your character just doesn't know. I feel us throwing around ideas will definitely help in the long run, though! I think if there's some kind of OOC questions part, that might cut down on the number of repeated questions since as people come into the post, they can check what's already been asked and answered and therefore handwave that they received this answer too.

This, of course, doesn't take into account things like whether characters are at odds with each other and where one character might get a straight answer, others would get a snarky one, etc. but overall, I feel as a game, we can totally come up with solutions to make it easier on the people sharing plot info and the people wanting to learn as much as they can so they can run with it.

Hey. Just gonna chime in with my two cents, here, but as a player who came in last app round, I did also have difficulty just...finding my footing? I felt like there was almost no time to tag the intro and establish base CR before the event hit, and with plot coming from so many directions, I didn't feel lost OOCly so much as I felt like I couldn't find a place to really get my character settled or involved. The info dumps on the network were good just as a "yeah, this happened" sort of thing, but having just arrived, I didn't feel like I had anything to contribute and therefore just handwaved my character reading them.

In fairness to everybody, I think the pacing took all of us by surprise, and November has been a bad month for me (and many others, I know) so I haven't been able to do as much as I'd like or follow-up with some CR that did get started. I do think alternating between Light and Heavy Plot Months will help a lot with this! I also think (in general) posts like the recent one on the network from Temperance are better for dispensing plot and information.

I do like some of the ideas being discussed here and some of the changes already being implemented! I think it is also worth saying that Fellden is still a pretty new game so there's gonna be some growing pains. It's why discussions like these are important so I'm very glad for that!

Yeah I'm really glad we're all discussing stuff here and throwing around ideas. We can't fix our issues if none of us open up about them, or if we worry that it might be "just us" and no one else is experiencing this stuff. I know I've contributed to the newbies not getting a good footing because I stayed bogged down in old event threads, so the new event pacing that's already in place will hopefully relive some of that and I can tag new stuff and new people without it being overwhelming!

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November Wrap-Up

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