by Evshell » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:06 am
I find value in verbally discussing things if we can actually find a time to do so. Text is inconvenient in the time that it takes to go back and forth. A discussion that verbally takes an hour could take days or even weeks through forum posts. I don't see the harm in at least trying to find a time that will work for a good number of the participants, and then we could go from there.
Regardless, I will post some of the ideas discussed here for review, so if we do find a meeting time we can discuss them further at that point.
Idea #1:
An idea Kheren posed to me that I like a lot is to possibly have him, as the RP Administrator, GM the story while having another person maintaining the role of Captain. This would allow the Captain to fall somewhat between the roles of GM and player, and allow him to be able to react to the unknown and work with his crew to come up with a solution to the problem without necessarily knowing the solution ahead of time.
The Captain would still work closely with the GM to come up with an overall story plan, and be involved in the general aspects of GMing (the macro), but would not necessarily know all of the specifics throughout the story ahead of time (the micro).
The GM could manage the environment, enemies, and external NPCs similar to a traditional D&D GM. The Captain would manage everything that involves the ship, including all the NPCs not managed by other players and makes decisions about where the ship goes and does just as a real Starship Captain would.
Idea #2:
Something I thought up of was a potential solution to the problem of having new RPers come in for only a small amount of time and then vanish, leaving a department open and forcing the Captain to take over the role with an NPC.
We currently have a number of very active and dedicated RPers. It is my view that going forward, if we were to place all of those active RPers into the Chief position roles on one ship, this ship would be able to do multiple stories with a reliable and established crew.
Now, what about new RPers? Where would they fit in? Previously we've maintained the position that unless a player is placed in one of the 5 primary Chief roles, they would not have enough to do. I do not believe that necessarily to be the case. I think it would be good to follow the pattern that would be followed in a real life situation and place a new RPer in the assistant role underneath an established player. This would allow them to interact directly with that player and character on a regular basis and allow the veteran player to "mentor" the new RPer in a way we haven't seen thus far. Additionally, if the veteran RPer assigns meaningful tasks and problems to solve to this new person, they will have plenty to do and say.
This format would allow new RPers to adjust to the RP and learn the way we do our RP, and if they decide it is not for them, it doesn't affect the story, stalling it while waiting for responses that would never come, and forcing the Captain to do more work by using an NPC.
Combining these two ideas:
I believe that the RP would benefit by starting off with one ship to start, we would need to decide on a GM and Captain, although I won't mention any names right now, as it is not my decision to make, nor is it beneficial to do such a thing in such a public forum. However, this would require certain people to give up positions that they might really want, without bringing in emotions, for the good of the RP.
For example, the Engineering spot would be hotly contested based on how many people we currently have that like to play that role. Additionally, we'd only have 1 Captain and 1 XO (to start). This does not mean we couldn't go back to 2 ships when the roster truly does grow enough to warrant it, but right now I can only count 6-7 truly active RPers. This means that some people would have to take on Medical, Operations, Science, and Tactical, the less sought after roles.
With the Horizon, however, we do have the opportunity to have a sort of 2nd ship, the Polaris, which some people may want to put an NPC on, in the department that they truly have an interest in. There are also Marine and Diplomatic detachments that could provide more opportunities for new RPers.
While I was hit with RL recently and don't have the time nor motivation to participate right now or in the near future, I hope these ideas might allow the RP to grow and thrive until such time as I find the time to regularly set aside time every day to participate. However, with the RP now fully in the hands of Kheren, it is his decision what ideas to implement.
Former Fleet Admiral of Lotus Fleet | Former Director of Lotus Fleet Roleplay
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). There we did it in a very open, straightforward manner: every participant came in freely with his own idea and everyone else sort of tried to integrate it with theirs and/or simply react to what the other proposed and everyone built the whole story in a kind of continuous improvising interplay until a conclusion could be drawn up from it all. It was a bit chaotic at times to be sure but it did work in the end, even coming out with amazing scenes like one roguish PC escaping custody of another to go sacrificing himself in a ramming attack to save the others and another (mine in fact) beaming himself out directly in space to retrieve him before he was killed in the attempt... then to be both saved by the PC doctor while another took over command in their absence to save the rest of the ship from the resulting explosion... and it all came out on the spur of the moment, made up as we went along, out of the improvising contributions of everyone as the events were being unfold without any previous warning to one another!
