Care and feeding of large-scale threads

[Warren Worthington III]

So, I've been noticing that most of our large-thread plot-arcs... that is, those that involve a lot of people... tend to die through lack of postage, and I've been wondering why that is.

At the moment, my theory is that what keeps large threads going is a simple high-action setting, like the relatively successful Institute and Riot threads, and that large threads that depend on more subtle or complex things tend to fall apart.

I'm interested in your theories.

Just to be clear, this isn't an attempt to nag anyone to post more, or to do anything in particular. The point here is to have fun; turning posting into a chore is silly.

[Manslaughter]

Well.. here's my two cents. If anyone on this site is like me, they wanna get stuff right the first time, and RPing underneath a ceiling of unknown information might be a factor. I get freakishly embarrassed if I post something that's not true, and usually I do lots of research, and I can't do that when the information is with-held for the sake of keeping that mystery.

That's just what I think though. High action threads I think get the adrenaline going, and you can just go at that like there's no tomorrow. You know.. wham-bam-thank-you ma'am sort of thing. Maybe intervening a complex plot with some action might help?

[Laurie Collins]

Personally I attributed the success of Invasion and Riot to the fact that it was broken up into smaller subtopics of two or three people. If you get more than four people together it's just never going to be a good time for everybody and then everyone has to wait for one person who is busy with other things whereas in Invasion or Riot if say, I were busy, it would hold up only one component and everyone else could go on. With CTF we have to wait for everyone to be there and pick teams, with the aforementioned two threads people who were busy could jump in later in the plot. With Fate of Magneto aside from Morgan's reason which I definitely understand, maybe a posting order would be helpful? Nothing strict just a "when in doubt it's your turn" sort of thing?

[Warren Worthington III]

Good thoughts.

So, with respect to Capture the Flag, if we got rid of the "teams" idea and made it an every-man-for-himself free-for-all (leaving it up to individuals to choose to work together if they want to, for as long as they want to), would folks be more psyched about it?

With respect to the "mystery" issue with Fate of Magneto, I'm not sure what to suggest... I asked in the first place if people were interested in a "whodunit" kind of thread where what actually happened was kept a mystery from the posters and had to be investigated, and folks seemed interested in theory, but... (shrugs) I guess not in practice, or had something else in mind.

I think I'm just gonna archive the Fate of Magneto threads and declare the mystery unsolved. Threads fizzle; these things happen.

[Manslaughter]

On the teams thing--though I'm not directly involved--it may or may not be more fun with having people together. Person a may not like person b, but person b is still on their team whether they like it or not, so they may have to grapple with the idea of turning against them for the sake of satisfying their own dislike, or just suck it up and get used to their teammate. It's always interesting to have people who really, really hate each other on a team.

But.. that's just what I think.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

A few comments...

- It's a shame about the Fate of Mags thread... are the others involved still interested at all?

- I have to say I'm a little disappointed about the reaction to the CTF thread. People seemed interested in the thread, but only appear to be posting when absolutely necessary. Again, posting shouldn't be a chore... but is there anything we can do? Hopefully once the teams get picked the mayhem can start and the pace will quicken.

- I hesitate to ask for a posting order in non-combat threads because it forces people to think they're supposed to post structurally. Sometimes someone just has a great idea for a post... and maybe it's not their turn. I think we want to avoid that, but at the same time everyone appears to need a kick in the ass to post. Catch-22.

- Finally, for Morgan. Never feel worried about posting something that might be incorrect. I mean... ok. You don't want to do an entire post that's going to need to be completely redone... but for small things, that's what the edit button's for! :) In regards to the 'withheld information' comment... any specific threads you're talking about, or was it more a hypothetical? I mean... FoM was supposed to be a mystery.

- Do people want large arcs like Invasion and Bobnap? Our site is primarily user-driven, in that individuals think up story segments. Neither Py nor I are some kind of GM. Most of the large arcs have been things players (yeah, Py and I included) have come up with for their own character development that have been opened up to everyone. Should we just avoid that situation entirely?

[Tobias Smith]

Okay, sorry, but final exams are a bitch. Alrighty.

-As for Fate of Mags, in the middle, I met with some....family incidents and had to go on an abrupt hiatus. Yes, I'm still interested, but still, like you said, general lack in interest made it fizzle.....damn shame.

-And for the CTF, my first statement said it all: I'll suddenly have my summer tommorrow, and then go on a huge posting spree probably, but still, RL always seems to get in the way.

-As for large arcs, hell, I love those. But for a lack of better idea, I can't think of one right now. But I'd definately like to help start one. Just get me a good 'thinking music' track and some soda and the ideas will pour out........actually, I can see one forming in my head as I type. More on that later....

[Laurie Collins]

-CTF I am verymuch still into CTF as Toni could tell you, I babbled at her one day about refreshing the page againandagainandagain because I was excited and wanted to get to it nownownow haha. I definitely want to keep teams- that's the whole fun of it!- and think it will definitely pick up once the lovely Pyro and Rogue are done with their (very understandable not prodding you I lurve uuu hah 0.o) life/ leg pain stuff.

-FOH *shakes fist at wabonda* oi, I'm still very curious and I posted last all timely and prompt, now you're just going to drive me crazy wonderin' forever? You're a cruel one

-Maybe this is just me being ignorant of RP "etiquette" as always but I sorta thought y'all considered it rude or somehow undesirable to post in group threads when not strictly necessary (i.e. if I were to post now on CTF with reactions to teams being picked and start a side conversation about wombats or something with Alice to keep having my own fun until people were ready to move on). In other words I'm always rather reserved about my enthusiasm for things and try not to barge in anywhere I'm not expressly invited and fear being thought 'pushy' the way Morgan fears making posting mistakes. Is that the wrong attitude?

-ETA: One thing that makes me hesitant about having a character-centric arc for Laurie or Primer is that I know the big kahuna team is planning stuff and has certain dates sketched out months in advance and I'd feel a bit of an ass if I suddenly ponced in with an arc one day all "surprise!" at an inconvenient time. What's the etiquette for this?

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

I'm totally not trying to call you out on this at all, but I feel like it's useful for others to hear....

POST! Post whenever you want to. If you wanted to have a conversation in the CTF thread with Alice while waiting for people to catch up, more power to you!!!!! Not only is it not rude, it's great, even! The more posts the better. The only time I'd say posting is not a good idea is when someone really needs to respond to an action (ex. Josh throws Laurie into the wall with his powers. I wait a day for a response, then I throw you into the other wall, then I throw you into the pool and hold you under... me being a bitch. hah) or when someone has a post clearly meant for another player. For example, a thread I made entitled 'Quiet Date (Warren)' would probably not be welcome to intrude on, unless you cleared it ahead of time.

Other than that... POST POST POST! I don't know, maybe some other sites don't like it, but we don't have a fixed posting order and there's nothing wrong with tangents... life is full of tangents!

Speaking for Pyro and I, at least, you're free to come up with your own character arcs, for whoever you're interested in including. We encourage people to come up with stuff on their own. Warr and I certainly do it. And Py and I don't sketch out elaborate plot arcs with specific dates in mind. For example, there's something that's been cooking in the wings for a bit... but most of the time stuff is pretty darn modular. We were gonna start it at the end of May, but the posting slowdown has postponed it somewhat. No big.

If anything, let everyone know you're planning a bit of a character sketch, as a courtesy. I doubt anyone's gonna object. If we had a surprise lined up, we'll either ask you to hold off for a couple weeks or alter our own dates.

So... in conclusion... I think we've tried to keep 100m fairly drama free (excluding the random people applying for Crack and Sues, like Sinjin Sis... oh boy, I might have started her off again) and wanting to post/posting isn't gonna cause an upheaval. Everyone here's pretty decent about that sort of thing.

Sorry that was so long...

[Pyro]

First off, count this as an official announcement that the mix of starting work and doped-up blargness has slowed down and I'm back around and posting (with perfect timing, heh, given the CTF shake-up) and apologies yet again for pulling a disappearing act at an inopportune moment.

Seconding a lot of what people have already said:
- RL is indeed a bitch

- FoM - people still up for that? And like Laurie said, I for one got a bit confused with that as to who was posting when... felt like maybe it needed a stricter posting order than the random action (which, I agree with Josh, works better if people can leap in and react)

- CTF - probably my fault for vanishing (and heh, brilliant timing, as I'm ready to make my very late entrance - can I still come play?).

- Like Josh said, side tangents are good. Posting is good. Coming up with random character-based stuff and all is also good.

... sorry that was short and mostly incoherent >.<

[Manslaughter]

Oh, yeah. I know It was meant to be a mystery, I just got nervous that I would post something wrong. xD That might be just me. And as for the continuation FoM, I'm still so up for it, because it's a big shift in leadership and I really, really would love to RP Roger through that.