I hope our readers enjoy it! :)
ETA: AE: Yeah that is what I am thinking. If she can mind control, then the stories with her would occasionally go very differently. Just like if she could become mist or something why would it take so long to get out of New Newgate? Human plus, with a couple minuses. And yes, she has to work at it. =)
edited by Lady Karnstein on 12/28/2017
It sounds so reassuring when you say it like that!
It sounds so reassuring when you say it like that![/quote]
If it’s not ever so slightly sinister, is it really Fallen London?
All jokes aside, I’m very impressed with what I’ve read so far, although I’m not completely up to date. It’s nice to see the big RPs flourishing outside our insular #argo circle! New blood is always welcome. (It will be fine feedstock for my Machine.)
edited by JimmyTMalice on 12/28/2017
I love RP/collaborative fiction, just unused to the format. Some good people about.
Whew. There we go. My laptop is about to die, and my head is killing me, but I didn’t want to delay things any longer. Sorry about that.
As someone who’s RPing on the FL forums for the first time… what other big RPs are out there? I honestly haven’t had much time to look around, other than reading some of To Catch a Shade. (And I suddenly feel like an upstart in a world of far more experienced senior players…)
Do take care, Sly! And I love the nickname you’ve given Jen, by the way – it’s so sweet. That was a really strong introduction, and I definitely enjoyed it! Totally worth the wait.
There was a VERY large flowerden arc, which somewhat imploded, leaving just the argo/shade hunters.
The passionario journey is also worthy of a mention, even if it was only one person.
edited by suinicide on 12/29/2017
Oh my goodness. My little project has now attracted SUINCIDE’s attention??? I am utterly in shock. Thank you all so much, all of you who are following along. I hope you enjoy the ride.
Just to keep yall in the loop – I’ve had interest from another player, but I told them I’d keep them in view for now. At the moment, things are still starting off, and I just want to get to know you guys better and see how things work out before adding more people to the mix. Hope that’s okay!
I’m still working on the scene where Jen presents her proposition. Hopefully, it’ll be ready to go in a few hours – my schedule is pretty packed today, but I’ll definitely get it up before the weekend!
I wanted to ask, about the presentation scene. It seems like our first impressions of each other might be a big deal. If the next step is Jen’s presentation, should we each write a reaction to it? If so, we can include first impressions of (and, with behind-the-scenes PMs, even first interactions with) each other. I already have some ideas for such a post.
But overall, is the plan for each of us to write a post at each stage? Like, you present the situation, and everyone involved has, e.g., 3 days to respond? If someone were too busy to respond in that timeframe, they’d just be NPCs for the scene. It wouldn’t matter (and might even be salutary) if we split up in such a case (except that you’d have to write multiple scenes at each stage.) Of course, as people interact more, we might collaborate and issue joint posts. IIRC, that’s what happened on Catch a Shade. I think that could work. I’ve already done a lot of co-writing with Shylarah and Slyblue, even though Lee doesn’t know Nikki or Mike. (But Sly’s Maxwell Bradford is Lee’s drunken, murderous BFF.)
So actually, I guess that this is more a question about the overall structure! Just wondering.
I figure that Lee won’t bring her servant and her dog to the meeting, but she might leave them just outside to watch for snoopers.
And congratulations on attracting the attention of such august forum veterans!
Honestly, all I had considered was Jen presenting her proposition and yall each writing a reaction scene. I hadn’t really considered how their first impressions might go. Sorry – I’m really new to this.
Erem, I love your ideas, I think they’re great! Tell you what – I’ll hold off on Jen presenting her proposition. Over here on the OOC side, we can all work out our characters’ first impression of each other. Assume that Jen told them to call at her townhouse that night. So they might meet on the way there, or while mingling, I don’t know.
Can you guys please give your suggestions? I have honestly never done something on this scale and I’m kicking myself over here for not thinking of how the characters would meet for the first time. It’s a huge oversight and I honestly don’t know how I didn’t think of it. So… help? Ideas? Suggestions? Please?
Oh, and generally, the structure I had in mind was for me to present the situation and you each to have about 2-3 days to respond, more if it’s the weekend. And anyone who doesn’t respond can either be an NPC, or later stated to have been off doing something else. For example, say Erem’s unavailable and doesn’t contribute during the first half of robbing February. One of the obstacles at the heist turns out to be a guard dog. Erem could then retroactively state that Lee wasn’t around during the first half of the heist because she was drugging the guard dog’s meat. Sound good?
edited by Lady Jen Black on 12/29/2017
[quote=Lady Jen Black]Honestly, all I had considered was Jen presenting her proposition and yall each writing a reaction scene. I hadn’t really considered how their first impressions might go. Sorry – I’m really new to this.
Erem, I love your ideas, I think they’re great! Tell you what – I’ll hold off on Jen presenting her proposition. Over here on the OOC side, we can all work out our characters’ first impression of each other. Assume that Jen told them to call at her townhouse that night. So they might meet on the way there, or while mingling, I don’t know.
Can you guys please give your suggestions? I have honestly never done something on this scale and I’m kicking myself over here for not thinking of how the characters would meet for the first time. It’s a huge oversight and I honestly don’t know how I didn’t think of it. So… help? Ideas? Suggestions? Please?
Oh, and generally, the structure I had in mind was for me to present the situation and you each to have about 2-3 days to respond, more if it’s the weekend. And anyone who doesn’t respond can either be an NPC, or later stated to have been off doing something else. For example, say Erem’s unavailable and doesn’t contribute during the first half of robbing February. One of the obstacles at the heist turns out to be a guard dog. Erem could then retroactively state that Lee wasn’t around during the first half of the heist because she was drugging the guard dog’s meat. Sound good?
edited by Lady Jen Black on 12/29/2017[/quote]
Sounds great! It’s good to have humility and be open to suggestions, but don’t doubt yourself too much. And keep the action moving! Maybe you could go ahead and write the presentation, but at the same time solicit brief (like, a sentence or two) descriptions of each character’s appearance and demeanor on the night of the meeting? You could fold those into Jen’s presentation pretty smoothly. And then we could each write a reaction which includes first impressions, maybe even a bit of social interaction, as well as whatever our characters have to say about the plan.
I asked because when I was thinking about Lee’s perspective, I was wondering certain things. Has Lee met any of these people, or heard of them? Is Hubris acting like a butler? Like the butler? Should Lee greet Caroline as she normally does? (That would be a conspicuous break in Lee’s street-tough demeanor.) Are Mike and Nikki standing together as a sort of Longshanks contingent? (Got to remember to call him Michael - only Tanith calls him Mike.) (Wait, are we standing or sitting, or is it a mix?) Did anyone else bring henchmen or pets? (Jen might want to make a rule about that, although she’d probably have to strip-search Mike for weasels.) Just how adorable is Anactoria looking, and is there any chance of speaking with her privately? How do we learn each other’s names? (Actually, having Jen name everyone could be a way of folding in the brief descriptions.)
How does this work out in-character? Normally, with such a big meeting, people would arrive one at a time, and a few would encounter each other on the way in. But that’s complicated to write. We’d have to establish the order in which people arrive, for one thing. Maybe for opsec purposes, Jen has each character (except maybe Hubris, if he’s the butler) waiting in a different room until a certain signal, like the ring of a bell?
edited by Aberrant Eremite on 12/29/2017
What I recommend is you describe the room, and Jen giving a generic greeting. We all describe our characters entering. People can react to each other, but in general we may react but no conversation yet. In general, people just describe coming in. Then once those are posted, you give the speech and we start discussion?
If they enter at once due to other rooms, we just describe walking in and no reaction shots till post speech. But I would forestall conversation till speech given, or we could be at it awhile.
edited by Lady Karnstein on 12/29/2017
[quote=Lady Karnstein]What I recommend is you describe the room, and Jen giving a generic greeting. We all describe our characters entering. People can react to each other, but in general we may react but no conversation yet. In general, people just describe coming in. Then once those are posted, you give the speech and we start discussion?
If they enter at once due to other rooms, we just describe walking in and no reaction shots till post speech. But I would forestall conversation till speech given, or we could be at it awhile.
edited by Lady Karnstein on 12/29/2017[/quote]
That’s perhaps a bit more elegant than the way I suggested it. Instead of a static description, you describe your character doing something - even if it’s something as simple as walking into a room. That still gives you a lot of little things that you can use to express you character’s, ah, character. The question then is whether to include brief reactions to other characters in the entrance description. I think that would be better artistically, but the continuity would probably be impossible.
Henchmen and pets are not allowed, but if Mike can sneak his weasel in without Jen noticing, I don’t think she’ll care.
What if the structure goes something like this?
Sounds good? I feel like that would be the best way to make it work, but what do you guys think?
edited by Lady Jen Black on 12/29/2017
[quote=Lady Jen Black]Can you guys please give your suggestions? I have honestly never done something on this scale and I’m kicking myself over here for not thinking of how the characters would meet for the first time. It’s a huge oversight and I honestly don’t know how I didn’t think of it. So… help? Ideas? Suggestions? Please?[/quote]Something we’ve done a lot in the past for scenes that involve multiple characters talking is collab-posts (what Erem already mentioned somewhere above): draw up a Google doc, share the link, and basically let everyone involved write the scene together. For this introduction scene it would probably work if you wrote a general description of the meeting place, then have Jen ask everyone present to introduce themselves. The Shade-Hunt featured a lot of collab posts written this way (from about here), sometimes just by two players, sometimes by all of us together! 
[quote=Lady Jen Black]As someone who’s RPing on the FL forums for the first time… what other big RPs are out there?[/quote]A Tale of Two Suns has only just started, but is already certain to become an unforgettable epic of legendary status ahem coughs ;)
I’m not aware of any other big RPs currently going on. Beside the past ones already mentioned, there was the Neathean Argo - I think that one was the first huge, sprawling collaborative RP effort on these forums that made it to the finish line.
[quote=Lady Jen Black]I don’t entirely understand the whole Locke or Lord Byron thing – not much for philosophy or poetry myself – but that was a cool intro! I now need to go reread Othello so I can figure out what the references meant :P[/quote]Same for me - all that high-cultured stuff usually just goes right over my head without leaving a trace :P
edited by phryne on 12/29/2017
I do like Erem’s suggestion regarding Hubris functioning as a butler upon the arrival of the other participants. If we assume Jen has filled him in beforehand he can be a useful setpiece in swiftly escorting each arrival through to the room in which she plans to unveil her plan and also provide tea or coffee to occupy them prior to Jen’s entrance and pitch. I do have an idea in that direction that I will PM to Lia now in case she’d like to use it.
[quote]
Do take care, Sly! And I love the nickname you’ve given Jen, by the way – it’s so sweet. That was a really strong introduction, and I definitely enjoyed it! Totally worth the wait.[/quote]
Thank you :D It really wasn’t my best piece, but I’m glad you liked it nevertheless.
Speaking of nicknames, someone else got one prior to this RP’s events. But it wasn’t a particularly nice one…
There’s always one or two inside his coat, and they don’t usually come out unless someone like Nikki is nearby (They like her!). Usually, he’d keep a few lurking in the shadows, but if Hubris’ going to be the butler, it’s probably best if they wait outside.
[quote]What if the structure goes something like this?
(…)[/quote]
Sounds good to me. Mind if the resident longshanks come through the window? Michael, at least, seems to be allergic to doors.
Windows are allowed, but if either of you break the glass, Jen is going to reconsider inviting you, so please try not to shatter it on your way in. And don’t think you’re going to surprise her – she has a flock of bats guarding her house and providing aerial reconnaissance, so expect her to be in the room when you open the window!
I do favor a Google doc like phryne suggests, I think it would be easier to keep chronology in order that way. For example, slower posters could slide in some of their initial thoughts/reactions near the start of the document, even if events have progressed along a bit. Also, as each scene wraps up it could be posted on the Forums as a single coherent narrative, possibly making it easier for our audience to follow. If we do go G-docs, I suggest that everyone select a different color to write it, that makes it a tad easier to track the characters.
Haha, they’re not that rude! It’s just easier to climb down once you’re inside the building, hands and weasels where you can see 'em. No shattered windows.
Probably. Nikki’s velocipede is too big for it, you see.