This sounds interesting. I'm guessing this something that can be worked on together in like...a Google doc I guess? So we can talk out what to cut and what to keep and how to make things flow a little better since rp is way different than writing a book.
It would be different, but I'll quickly summarize my process for writing books so there's at least a glimpse into what the process could look like.
My general steps are: - Drafting - Scene editing - Rewrite - Quality editing
Drafting Just putting pen to paper and letting ideas flow. Basically exactly what the RP is in it's current form.
Scene cataloguing/editing Taking every chapter/scene, summarizing what plots the scene adds or continues and figuring out where they'd best fit in what order, adding and/or removing scenes as necessary. In this case every post is a scene, I'd try to summarize each post in an excel sheet and we could review the timeline and organize things from there.
Rewrite Editing/Adding/Removing parts as necessary to ensure flow and consistency.
Quality editing Reducing word and syllable count for reading quality. (I only do this for professional/paid work, generally not worth the effort for hobby projects).
Important note regarding potential book project
Only people who explicitly state they want their work to be included in a book would have their pieces added. Otherwise it's your work, that will be respected and your parts left alone. I'm not even going to entertain the idea of it becoming a commercial/profitable project, Nocturnia is @Estylwen's intellectual property and only she has the right to determine if she'd want such a project to take that route. I say these two points now to make my intention and direction for a potential book absolutely clear.
In summary, the main part would be scene editing, especially if there are people who do not want their work included and scenes might need to be created to bridge those gaps. Estylwen seemed interested in the idea (I discussed it briefly a couple days prior), her main concern being that of players interest/consent. So if enough players are interested, I'll start that excel sheet so we can start reviewing things quickly as they are and exploring how we'd like to write a book.
The last key note would be that this RP would remain established cannon. A book would just be a 'what if'.
It would be different, but I'll quickly summarize my process for writing books so there's at least a glimpse into what the process could look like.
My general steps are: - Drafting - Scene editing - Rewrite - Quality editing
Drafting Just putting pen to paper and letting ideas flow. Basically exactly what the RP is in it's current form.
Scene cataloguing/editing Taking every chapter/scene, summarizing what plots the scene adds or continues and figuring out where they'd best fit in what order, adding and/or removing scenes as necessary. In this case every post is a scene, I'd try to summarize each post in an excel sheet and we could review the timeline and organize things from there.
Rewrite Editing/Adding/Removing parts as necessary to ensure flow and consistency.
Quality editing Reducing word and syllable count for reading quality. (I only do this for professional/paid work, generally not worth the effort for hobby projects).
Important note regarding potential book project
Only people who explicitly state they want their work to be included in a book would have their pieces added. Otherwise it's your work, that will be respected and your parts left alone. I'm not even going to entertain the idea of it becoming a commercial/profitable project, Nocturnia is @Estylwen's intellectual property and only she has the right to determine if she'd want such a project to take that route. I say these two points now to make my intention and direction for a potential book absolutely clear.
In summary, the main part would be scene editing, especially if there are people who do not want their work included and scenes might need to be created to bridge those gaps. Estylwen seemed interested in the idea (I discussed it briefly a couple days prior), her main concern being that of players interest/consent. So if enough players are interested, I'll start that excel sheet so we can start reviewing things quickly as they are and exploring how we'd like to write a book.
The last key note would be that this RP would remain established cannon. A book would just be a 'what if'.
I appreciate the in depth thoughts, co-captain @flux. I agree that the story has come a long way in just three months, it's been a great time and I'm invested in every single person's characters, and I think the options you laid out will be good for keeping it going hopefully until captain Esty's safe return.
I'll put all my thoughts in a hider:
General Continuation: As far as wealth generation during aid crisis, perhaps that could go to a player vote/opinion. Especially if we pause war/wars during that time, it might be better to pause all mechanics just during that time and focus just on story and dealing with the lack of aid. This would make things a little easier for you, too. The wealth and personnel are generated from drugs or taxes (or other ways), but I think it makes sense if that wealth/personnel that would normally be generated and going to whatever faction rules said districts, to instead go towards the citizens/etc in that district. Like say in a district that makes money with drugs, the "people buying the drugs" (the mechanic itself) has to conserve their money for the now increased cost of food and other necessities that a pause in aid would mean.
Does that make sense? Honestly, I don't mind if the wealth generation continues during the aid crisis, its just something I thought of.
As for Esty's characters, Vincent and Ezra have "unknown" districts (and Vincent was just detained) so I think they would be fine no matter what happens in the end. I would motion for Antonia's Jeweled Bank to be "locked down" though (maybe not with monsters but just super guarded since the jail, police HQ, and mayor's seat of power is there). Doesn't have to only be one or the other, could be mix and match of options 1 and 2.
And for myself, well, yes I will PM you ^^
Game Battles: Unless everyone agrees to it, I would say we stick with free-form action rather than a dice mechanic. I like the dice rolling when its relevant, but as far as I can tell Esty meant for the battles to be more true to "arena" style writing. Basically, going into the battle without an outcome in mind, writing the fight as it goes with no outline, and determining the winner based on how the writing goes. This is is my first RP together with Esty so I can't speak for her, but while I don't think she would be upset at more dice mechanics in fights or anything, I think her vision was definitely more free form for taking territories.
Going Forward: I concur that "non-canon"/beach day is a good idea. Will keep people's characters in action so to speak and keep interest while being low stakes, and an option to show a different side to everyone's characters. Will be a lot of fun. I also agree with ERode that maybe it shouldn't go into the main IC section of the RP, so I would be fine with a giant google doc to decide what to do with afterward lol. Or even separate thread...? Making as a present sounds sweet, and commissioned art is above and beyond, so thank you if you do go through with that.
Aid crisis sounds perfect for a mini-event, so all good there. It would really hammer in that Nocturnia is isolated and has unique issues to deal with besides super powered trouble makers. I know that I would love to see people/characters handling that and trying to juggle logistics, hopefully its of interest to everyone else too.
It would also be a good time just to see some nice character writing from everyone as people regroup and talk after the days events and how they plan to handle things moving forward.
You (and me!) Its clear that you are having fun with and love the setting flux, and you already stepping up with ideas is a good thing. It is understandable though if it turns out you don't think you can, or don't want to, keep a GM-like role indefinitely. In which case, I would be fine with the RP going into a hiatus until Esty is back. You are right in that a lot of the time games like this don't survive a hiatus, but I have confidence we can keep up for a little longer at least. I would really hate to see the hard work everyone put in stop, so we'll see what we can do!
We together have all those pre-written posts to go a little longer at least too, in the interim, and can put those out any time before, during, or after the aid crisis depending on how far that goes.
As for Adel in the long term, I will say that he is in a very unique position in regards to the RP's goals ahaha, but I will leave the details to PM.
Book? That could be something to work on if people decide we'd rather hiatus/wait, but I'm not sure about the other traditional things that come to mind when you think of "book" like publishing whether just to a different online site. That would be a whole other can of worms (especially when you factor in the players that are no longer with us). Certainly rewriting sections and working together to format chapters and flow might be fun though, as a project in general.
Ultimately I think the direction for Esty's absence is a fine one and hopefully we can keep interest alive until their return. Like I said, personally I got very invested into this RP very fast and I really love reading every post. Though if we do end up needing/preferring a break/hiatus I'll be back for when it kicks off again ^^
General continuation reply It makes sense. If we can maintain that kind of play that'd be the golden solution. Keeps things in stasis overall for Esty but also keeps Noctunia alive. If things freeze up from the lack of development resource/conflict wise I'll start updating incomes again. Ultimately though if players disagree with my decisions please write it in the OOC and mention me. I'll try co-develop as much as I can to keep this in line with everyone and the more likes I see associated with a players criticism the more priority I'll put towards solving that.
And yeah Etsy's characters should be fine. Vincent and Ezra should fall into the background easily and the Jeweled Bank could be occupied as a temporary military field HQ, putting aside Antonia and the mayor plus shaking up the power structure for players to react to. I could direct the game as a PvE stance against the military's occupation to contain the war, it's one of the ideas I have post Aid Crisis round.
Game battles reply Absolutely agree for battles to remain free form/arena style. The only reason I added those rules is as a backup if mediation/refereeing is required and no one can get a hold of me, a tool players have to resolve issues with battles themselves if all else fails.
Going foward reply At the very least 'Beach Day' will just be a PDF we all have for ourselves and to give to Esty. If we go ahead with Book idea it could be a fun little extra at the end for readers to see the characters in a different light.
The goal of Aid Crisis is two fold, to buy time for Esty and allow players to deepen the world of Nocturnia as they wish. Might also provide a moment to make their opinions of the military clear should players choose to. (Pretty much agreeing with everything mentioned here).
You (and me!) reply I'm definitely invested in this and will be moving other projects around to accommodate (I have map generators prototypes, Game prototypes and game logic AI prototypes in the my personal works currently). So the perfect solution for me is if I can somehow incorporate those projects into this if I'm going to be taking a leading role, but that's a Hail Mary right now. Right now the best I'm hoping for is that I get myself organized and up to speed soon on what it'll take to run this and figure out if it's manageable. I'll keep people informed.
Book? reply When I say book I mean online fiction that is free for anyone to read, nothing at all involving traditional publishing. Royal Road for example has some pretty solid terms of service/legal that ensures that creators work remains solely in the hands of creators. Players here could use the book version to highlight their writing/project skills in a portfolio should they wish to showcase those skills in a professional setting or extend their audiences/outreach for what services or profile they already offer/have.
Leon(cowardly lion voice): B-b-b-b-break th-the ru-r-r-rules? I could never do that!
Oh but dear Lion, Freedom beach only has one lawful rule, to have fun.
This lifeguard Martin is a usurper. His rules hang loosely from his lifeguard tower from twine and cardboard, hastily written in sharpie. He has defied, overridden and discarded the law as it should be for his own. We need a hero, to restore Freedom beach's established legal constitution.
Will you ruin Martin's day to uphold what was just and right before his illegitimate ruler-ship of the beach?
EDIT: I'm so including this snippet I just wrote in the primer I make for Beach Day now hahaha
I feel like Asterion might break two of those rules... probably four. Maybe five. What if he wants to surf?
Please.
Ruin him
Looking forward to Asterion's shenanigans haha
And again, if anyone just wants to have their own events/interactions within please do! The Melt Martin's Mind Minigame is only there to give players something to spark ideas ^_^. Absolutely welcome to deviate from or have your own moments as you wish~.
However, I think it wouldn't make sense to keep giving wealth and personnel (Erode brought that up to) so I don't know if expanding the fruit gardens/patches of plants would make sense for Asterion and his men to do.
Absolutely fair, and I apologize if I insinuated anything with my example. It looks like players so far are leaning toward a Wealth/Personnel freeze, in that case I might formulate the Aid Crisis to lean towards more of a PvE focused arc where resources aren't necessary.
And again, if anyone just wants to have their own events/interactions within please do! The Melt Martin's Mind Minigame is only there to give players something to spark ideas ^_^. Absolutely welcome to deviate from or have your own moments as you wish~.
<Snipped quote by The Savant>
Absolutely fair, and I apologize if I insinuated anything with my example. It looks like players so far are leaning toward a Wealth/Personnel freeze, in that case I might formulate the Aid Crisis to lean towards more of a PvE focused arc where resources aren't necessary.
We could honestly make a separate thread called Nocturnal Memoirs: Universe and possibly have the beach day there and other weird plots so we don't fill up this one with randomness and what-nots and what-ifs. Then that keeps everything separate and could still be fun for Est return and leaves it not as messy for her either.
We could honestly make a separate thread called Nocturnal Memoirs: Universe and possibly have the beach day there and other weird plots so we don't fill up this one with randomness and what-nots and what-ifs. Then that keeps everything separate and could still be fun for Est return and leaves it not as messy for her either.
That honestly might be the best decision. It could also allow for further non-cannon explorations of players characters as well, that space for them to sit down and muse about life and what not as players wish haha~. It could also allow for 'deleted scenes', pieces that don't quite work out and aren't posted to the Canon line, but can live somewhere for people to read for fun (An example would be that piece of Khor talking to the chainsaw as if it was a stray dog following her I put awhile back in the OOC lol).
In this case, I'd say that it'd make sense to temporarily put a pause to Wealth/Personnel gain during this 'Est is gone' period as well for at least, I guess, 4-6 months RL or so. Otherwise all of Nocturnia would be Aristocrat districts and we'd be well on our way to having hundreds of Wealth and thousands of Personnel.
Beach filler should also be separate from the main thread; just makes sense for making things slightly easier to find.
In either cause, what should the current round be about? Both Yankee and I had plans of jumping Pennystakes, and Matthias personally just wants to beat the shit outta Ezra and Antonio before their sticky fingers become a problem down the line. If not though, I'd just upgrade a district or something.
I don't think I ended up replying to this and may have answered elsewhere sorry, but doing so now to make sure there is a reply at least:
It looks like players are leaning toward a resource freeze, I'll figure arc's and event's that can play off that. The Aid Crisis could be a good intro into that (times get tough, money and people dry up). Maybe we take PvE approach to further the 'stasis of game state'.
Agree with separate thread, I'll look at starting a non-canon Nocturnia section for people to post to.
I've PM'd both you and Yankee now to discuss the Pennystakes situation and Matthias ambition to deal with Antonio/Ezra. I've got some ideas of how we can work with that (At least Antonio, he's something of an environmental threat now so we could continue warring against him. Maybe Matthias tries to rally players to burn the Jolly Jalopy down?)
That honestly might be the best decision. It could also allow for further non-cannon explorations of players characters as well, that space for them to sit down and muse about life and what not as players wish haha~. It could also allow for 'deleted scenes', pieces that don't quite work out and aren't posted to the Canon line, but can live somewhere for people to read for fun (An example would be that piece of Khor talking to the chainsaw as if it was a stray dog following her I put awhile back in the OOC lol).
That could definitely be fun. I do not know how others would think about the idea or not. I am someone who enjoys what-ifs and twists, and not official stories and such.
[wiggling Webb gently] My 8 pages will have to wait for a bit then hehe
If you'd like, I can go over the written work so far with you and we could possibility repurpose it in terms of using different characters if you'd like to complete and post it sooner. You'd be welcome of course though to wait for Esty's return an pick up from there ^_^.
Also again if anyone else has written pieces stuck in limbo they'd like to try finish, PM me with the link and we can see if we can use still available characters to finish it. If you're happy to wait then no drama's ^_^ we'll save them for Esty's return~.
That could definitely be fun. I do not know how others would think about the idea or not. I am someone who enjoys what-ifs and twists, and not official stories and such.
I think its definitely a fun idea, especially for a setting like this that while we've all definitely had a lot of fun in it OOC, leans kind of dark for the characters haha. The non-canon, AUs, what-ifs, "bonus content" and etc. is something I used to see done a lot years ago in RP circles but not a ton anymore, though it would be nice and maybe cathartic too, to see some other sides of the characters that we might not normally get to see.
That could definitely be fun. I do not know how others would think about the idea or not. I am someone who enjoys what-ifs and twists, and not official stories and such.
I'll wait for peoples opinions for 2-3 days and if there aren't any serious issues raised I'll put it up. Trick will be to clearly title that it's a dumping ground for non-canon Nocturnia related writing, but I should cover that no issue. Other solution is finding another site to post them on and linking it somewhere in the 0'th post that it's the non-canon works and cut content place. Special features and deleted scenes if you will.
I think its definitely a fun idea, especially for a setting like this that while we've all definitely had a lot of fun in it OOC, leans kind of dark for the characters haha. The non-canon, AUs, what-ifs, "bonus content" and etc. is something I used to see done a lot years ago in RP circles but not a ton anymore, though it would be nice and maybe cathartic too, to see some other sides of the characters that we might not normally get to see.
I know, I haven't see the twists/spin-offs for a long time in RP, so it could definitely be cathartic and relaxing to a point. It could be very fun. Plus, it could definitely show some of the characters in different lights and more relaxed and so on.
If the intro is way too derpy let me know lol. If you speak or interact with Martin or the Beach Bastards (Martin's minions) I'll reply to those sections as I see them, they won't interfere unless you state your directly getting their attention somehow~. Your welcome to have your characters arrive however you want alone or with other characters. Feel free to use any NPC's you have as well ^_^.
Hope you all enjoy~! If there's any issues let me know and I'll fix them~.
If the intro is way too derpy let me know lol. If you speak or interact with Martin or the Beach Bastards (Martin's minions) I'll reply to those sections as I see them, they won't interfere unless you state your directly getting their attention somehow~. Your welcome to have your characters arrive however you want alone or with other characters. Feel free to use any NPC's you have as well ^_^.
Hope you all enjoy~! If there's any issues let me know and I'll fix them~.
If you'd like, I can go over the written work so far with you and we could possibility repurpose it in terms of using different characters if you'd like to complete and post it sooner. You'd be welcome of course though to wait for Esty's return an pick up from there ^_^.
Also again if anyone else has written pieces stuck in limbo they'd like to try finish, PM me with the link and we can see if we can use still available characters to finish it. If you're happy to wait then no drama's ^_^ we'll save them for Esty's return~.
All my next posts had heavy Esty interaction so those will probably have to be discarded for now.
