larkers: (Default)
MEADOWLARK MODS ([personal profile] larkers) wrote2021-01-15 12:14 pm

PLOT ENGAGEMENT

> PLOT ENGAGEMENT

What is Plot Engagement and how does it work within Meadowlark? This is the page where players can come discuss with us how to facilitate plots within the setting. However, there will be occasions where a plot doesn't work within Meadowlark's world, and we'll suggest alternative routes. For small worldbuilding or gameplay details, please direct your question to the FAQ. If you're ever not sure if you're at the right page, don't worry—we'll help you get it sorted out. We know we have a load of info!

In addition, you do not need to have a complete plot in mind when you come to us. We aim for plot engagement to be more of a conversation between us and our players. If we propose a plot angle and it's not to your liking, we're more than happy to work with you to come up with something more to your tastes.

WHEN WILL YOU HEAR BACK?

◉ All Plot Engagement answers go out on Sunday, except during events.
◉ The deadline to submit a question and ensure you'll hear back from us on Sunday is 11:59 PM UTC on Saturday.

PLOT ENGAGEMENT INCLUDES

◉ Player plots! If you'd like your character to become a mafia boss, this is your place to start. Typically, this involves anything that could impact the setting or other player characters.
◉ Character career advancement that gives the character additional power or status within the setting.
◉ Metaplot exploration and information! We plan all events to give characters something to explore after the event ends. This is the place to do it!

SUBMISSION TIPS

◉ Specify what your character is looking for when they're investigating. What questions are they asking and what angle are they trying to explore?
◉ If you have a specific goal in mind but don't know how to reach it, please let us know.
◉ If you link a thread to us, please summarize it! That helps us process the plot in question.
◉ Don't worry about not knowing the setting like the back of your hand before you submit the plot—that's up to us! We're here to help you with any adjustments to get you on the right track.
◉ Plot engagement is meant to help with IC play so that characters can continue to interact. If you're not sure how to loop in others, let us know so that we can work with you on it! While this page is meant to be a conversation between players and mods, we know that the fun part of a plot is how it can change character arcs, spice up CR, and more.

NOTES & THINGS THAT YOU CAN HANDWAVE

◉ Characters always start out in entry level positions. Characters can update their skill sets to the 2512 standard through paid apprenticeships or internships.

◈ If a character is advancing within a major corporation (as noted on the Setting or Locations page) or one of its subsidiaries, we will need to approve this advancement.
◈ If a character becomes a supervisor at a local bar or other small business, we do not need to approve this advancement.

◉ Joining the police force within a city requires three months of IC training (six months OOC). There will be instances where this changes, and we'll keep you looped in on that.
◉ We'll approve whether someone has social media fame, but we will not be providing social media follower counts. Once you have a plot for how to use those followers, that's where we step in!
◉ All Morningstar business goes on our Morningstar page. Please feel free to discuss specific plots here (including joining), and go there for signups and anything else.
◉ Characters getting jobs, finding apartments, participating in the fighting rings, getting married, making workplace friends, the creation of minor NPCs, etc. do not need to be run by us. Please let us know if these expand into player plots or other plot bits!

QUICK LINKS

Archived Plot Engagement: Previous Plot Engagement.
FAQ: For small worldbuilding or gameplay details.
Setting: Our setting page! We'll update as needed.
Jobs: A reference for who's working where!
Locations: Both major and minor locations within New Amsterdam, as well as outlines for other megacities.
Mod Contact: For wider game concerns.
The Story So Far: Gamewide plot events up to current (your CTRL+F best friend!).
NPC page: Includes NPC blurbs and inboxes.
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ofmyth: (Default)

[personal profile] ofmyth 2021-02-18 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
3 ok! my plan at the minute is to make a thor network post about getting to north america and oocly link people to this thread (and the other discussion) to see if anyone else has strong feelings about how things get done!

And I didn't konw that they could build a gate on arrival so that will definitely make things easier!
myfavoritemurder: (Default)

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-02-21 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Re: this; I'M SORRY THIS IS SO LATE

So Callisto may or may not notice the tailing, depending on how discreetly it's done! On the one hand, she has experience being both predator and prey and is very practiced at being aware of her surroundings; on the other hand, the world she's most used to is literal millennia behind this one (she wouldn't think to try to avoid things like recording devices and electronic surveillance, for example), and she also... doesn't... care a ton about her own personal safety, so even though she's capable of being careful and and keeping an eye out for danger, it's not something she always does. Generally caution and subtlety are things she'll do in short bursts if they're necessary to accomplish an immediate, short-term goal, but aren't anything she'll stick with in the long run.

Additionally, I did recently mention in a thread that she's noticed people following her, but even though she's ICly assuming it's related to the soldier murders, I OOCly meant it to be more of a callback to the Special Investigation Task Force prompt in that log.

Things her surveilleurs might notice:

- She's on the move a lot, spending much more time outside than in; she even sleeps outside, and not always in the same place.
- She sometimes hunts/fishes food (complete with straight-up building small outdoor campfires to cook over), and sometimes gets it from stores/Red Wings/the newbie safehouse.
- Red Wings, the safehouse, and most recently, the underground fighting rings are frequent haunts (though the arm she broke during her fight with the soldiers is still healing, and so she's not jumping into the rings herself yet).
- Literally the only things she's purchased besides food are a sleeping bag, a titanium bat (which she absolutely used as a weapon against the soldiers during their fight), and a few extra clothing items; she uses the duffle that the sleeping bag came in as a general hold-all and she carries it with her everywhere.
- She crafted a rudimentary fishing spear at one point (likely ruining the blade of an eating knife in the process, lmao oops), which she later discarded in favor of a better option, because...
- ... Hook gave her a sword that he'd scavenged while the city was still largely deserted. She'll fight tooth and nail to keep it (and the bat, to a lesser extent), but OOCly I'm 100% fine with it (and/or the bat) being confiscated.
Edited 2021-02-21 19:38 (UTC)
wittingly: (Default)

[personal profile] wittingly 2021-02-21 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Ay fellas, from what I know Lance has already talked to El and gotten the approval. I've been under the impression lately that the ic & ooc message is that while Clarke owns the safehouse on paper she isn't actually involved in managing it, that's primarily El's deal? Re: the broader playerbase, the partitions happened after this larger discussion about safehouse improvement, so it would be the next level improvement on that foundation.

There should actually more more sleeping space after this! Picking a random number, let's say there are 10 cots on the left wall and 10 cots on the right wall. Sleep boxes on the right wall may consume 2 beds worth of space leaving 8, but sleep pods on the left wall would actually double the amount since we're using vertical space. You could say, after using up 2 total cots worth of space there as well for walls, that there are 8 bottom pods and 8 top pods, netting 4 more spaces than you started with.
wittingly: (Default)

[personal profile] wittingly 2021-02-23 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
Hey guys, I linked pictures in the original request
wittingly: (Default)

[personal profile] wittingly 2021-02-23 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
hey guys cool, no worries!
ofmyth: (Default)

[personal profile] ofmyth 2021-02-28 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
Hi mods! Not much to update on decisions, but someone did raise the question of asking Henries for a plane of some kind. Is this viable?

Also just a heads up that I'm struggling to be the person who steps in and makes the choice about what we do in the end. There are a lot of ideas and a lot of characters with various powers in the mix who could help get some displaced to north America unnoticed, and I'm pretty ambivalent about which method gets chosen. Rather than stall the process indefinitely, is there someone else who's also been interested in this whole plot idea who you think would be keen to make that choice or is there another way to settle on what ultimately happens? thanks!
wrend: (Default)

[personal profile] wrend 2021-02-28 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
-- Aidan would definitely hit up Johann if he found a way to get in with him! Given what he's read on the network, he seems more his speed than Jimmy. But you know, hard to call a guy like that on the phone, so.

-- The Hi-Jacks! Not going to cross my cr-streams too much because then I'd have to beat up my own characters buut Aidan could work on getting their attention! He's currently trying to intermingle with the shady side of the city a little more--visiting fight rings, gambling dens, getting a little more involved down there. While he's not the loud sort who'd make a big scene, he'd definitely go for making a scene at the bot fighting matches and/or street racing. I figure he might: 1) Make a bot out of broken bits fallen off of fallen ones and use it to win a match or 2) fuck with one of the hi-jacks' cars during a street race, giving it a bit of extra oomp. He'd start messing around in their drug trade, too--buying, selling, trading for other shit. He'd get high and intermingle with some of the Hi-Jacks in the trade, see what he can pull from them and if they'd let him in.
wrend: (Default)

[personal profile] wrend 2021-03-01 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
Nice, okay. So for now, Aidan's going to start digging his way into the Hi-Jacks (I'm not worried about him and Jason crossing, was more worried about Aidan reaching out to Roy for an in and then that causing them to cross) as a low level grunt and try working his way up slow. He'd be fine as a low-end dealer! But he'd use that position to make it known that he's definitely worth more than just that. Since they've got the tech, he'd do what he could to show off to them further to press the point he could be of more use, but wouldn't push it too much.

And when Johann becomes more available, he'll definitely stick his neck out trying to get in touch with him.
myfavoritemurder: (Default)

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-03-01 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Holy hell I love this

You are indeed right that she wouldn't bother to apply for any permits or licenses, even if told multiple times that she needs to. As for the fines, she wouldn't go out of her way to pay them, but she does think that digital currency is completely ridiculous and pretty much a big scam, so if credits were automatically deducted out of her bank account she would neither care nor really notice. Barter system/money that is actually valuable or bust, people. (FWIW I'm assuming she'll end up being decently popular in the fighting pits and make good money that way; she'll be completely fearless and go for broke pretty much all the time, which I figure a certain type of crowd would find entertaining to watch. If that all sounds valid, she'll for sure earn a good deal more than she spends.)

She'll pitch a huge fit when the sword is taken away, and probably immediately go back to making crude homemade spears, but other than that, her NAPD "friends" will probably see a wide range of behaviors from her! Sometimes she'll be punchy and violent; sometimes she'll be unfriendly and verbally aggressive, but won't physically attack them; sometimes she'll be not quite cooperative, but still calmer and willing to engage them in conversation and ask them questions about the world, the tech, etc., the way she sometimes does with other Displaced; and sometimes she'll be Too Tired To Deal and they'll just get listless, depressed apathy from her. She's very volatile, and a big old emotional mess.

Also if she ever gets an inkling that they don't like the Investigation Task Force, her reaction would just be "Well, give me my sword back and let me wipe them out for you, then" lmao.
ishotyouuu: (guess you're my 3:30)

now on the correct page OTL

[personal profile] ishotyouuu 2021-03-03 06:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Hello mods!

Wade's getting a little bored of his Red Wings job and wants to look into more "off the books" type work. I saw on one of the aftermath posts that mercenary jobs would be more accessible due to the sudden downturn of public opinion of the Displaced (I can't find the specific log now, so apologies if I've gotten this completely wrong), so I was wondering how Wade would go about finding a lead to his potential new occupation. Would he have to do something special to catch the attention of a specific person? Or could he just contact an NPC directly with his intentions? I'm open to plotting out anything!
selfimage: — ɢᴀʀʙᴇᴛᴛ — (Telling lies paradox remix.)

[personal profile] selfimage 2021-03-06 05:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey other mods!

Yes, he'll be in the midst of the discussion depending on the content, being his usual subtle, but thoughtful troll self. He's going to love pointing out that everyone was different in that world, and that included the Cardinals to some degree. On that, he's also going to bring up redemption as a Cardinal, and what could be done to possibly redeem people now in the eyes of those naysayers? He'll pose these questions on social media, as well as whoever will give him the means of giving him a platform. On top of that, he'll be happy to drag corporate Meadowlark world for their rejection of the Cardinals but steady support of the UN, as well as all the weapons produced from those companies and how they've been exploiting people before this in the UNA!!

I'd like for this to get him a decent following if possible!

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