larkers | PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

> PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

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!

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.

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).
◉ 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

◉ 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.
.

> NAVIGATION

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey again!

1. His ID would absolutely pass muster on anything, so no need to worry about that! New Amsterdam does have traffic laws, so he'd need to go through a class to get his license. We covered a bit of that here.

3. We can say that Giles Bell has a subsidiary that specifically manages their shipments of goods. Perhaps they started as an independent company before being bought out by Giles Bell a couple decades ago (yay monopolies). Giles Bell is a neural implant and pharmaceutical company, so we think that would be a neat way to go. You can also name the subsidiary itself if you'd like!

Hi again!

Riverstone is actually the biggest corporation in Meadowlark's world, whereas Giles Bell centers most of its business practices out of New Amsterdam. Giles Bell is more of a local corporation that helps New Amsterdam's economy with a global reach, whereas Riverstone is what will happen in our terrifying future when Amazon, Disney, and Tesla all become one major conglomerate and run the government's capital (New Beijing).

What you have in mind makes sense! We do think this would be more in line with Giles Bell's neural implant work, likely in partnership with Vyonation!

ooh! yeah, that's bloody excellent, name tbd. thanks very much, gang!! o/

Oop, my ctrl F of the setting didn't get me riverstone so I assumed, solid my b. Giles Bell is perfect, he'd take it and move on over there as soon as they let him.

No worries! Our setting was designed around New Amsterdam, so it hasn't been added up. We should actually get that added up now that the game has become more globalized.

But sounds good!

ayyy dope thank you

Hi Tifa! There's no need for the added Echo parts, the Porg will be fine! They're cute enough to sell just about anywhere.

Great, thanks!

Oh I totally am gonna make up some NPCs lol. Where would you want me to put their info once I come up with it?

1. Can I roll with 'damaged enough to get it for a steal' but not so damaged that it'll consume all his time rebuilding it?

2. I will reach out to Gee and Alison re: the bikeshop, but I'll def go with the original warehouse for now.

3. He'd mostly be after kevlar, carbon fibre, etc. Damian's built & modified his own suits in canon so I think he could handle a build that isn't technology heavy, but he's been in game long enough that I've been wondering if he would have started to understand the tech / some of the programming to create gear and gagetry for himself?>

4. He'll be wearing the Nightwing armor that he got a while back, though I'm thinking he'll modify the colors back to blue. The glow will be covered up, but he'll definitely be making use of his powers when needed or when appropriate to show them off. I imagine he set out as soon as the bulk of the chaos was over, in order to start rescuing anyone trapped under rubble and threatening the shit out of anyone causing issues.

Hi Dee! While you can respond here with the information once you have it, it's more for your reference than ours! Feel free to have the info up in an entry on your journal, but that's certainly not a requirement or anything. If you want it for flavor, though, go for it!

Another question I wanted to tack on while y'all are getting back on the internship/work stuff - are there anything like trackers that could be found in the black market tech, or could roy put something like that together if he wants to hid a tracker in jason's hood so he can ~~stalk him~~ find him if shit hits the fan again?

he also bugs some peoples' phones in canon (again, jason's :'|) but I imagine that'd be much harder/impossible with implants. I guess what i'm really wanting to ask is, how much stalking could roy accomplish with the technology he has access to right now?

Edited 2020-08-17 15:40 (UTC)

Hi, Jay, and sorry for overlooking your question! We skimmed past it while working on responses yesterday because we had sent your weapons-making question over to the event FAQ and missed the second part, so that's our bad.

To answer all your questions now:

1) As far as we're aware, Jason has access to two warehouses spaces -- one is currently being used by Stephen. If you're asking about the other one (and Jessi is okay with it), then Roy could make use of that one! However, there is a good chance that it's taken some damage after the event and therefore isn't all that secure at the moment. It may need some fixing up before it's in good enough shape to function as a workspace. In the meantime, he might need to work out of his living space -- hopefully his roommates don't mind too much!
1a) As a side note, we do ask that you pace out the time it would take for Roy to make these weapons, as we do want the game to maintain its feel of having limited resources!

2) Roy could definitely get an internship in the arena you're talking about, and we could suggest another subsidiary of Pulsar named Tactus. We just came up with this so you don't need to go hunting for info on it -- basically it's another weapons development subsidiary! Or if you're more into the air/spacecraft idea, we could come up with something else. It will be an entry level R&D position so he won't be given much in the way of responsibility yet, but it's a starting point. Also, internships are definitely all paid in this world, so he will be making money!

3) If Roy has been interacting with the black market, he would definitely be able to get his hands on a minuscule tracking device that he could sneakily place into Jason's hood. You're correct that tracking via implant is much more difficult because of security measures that are in place, so we think the physical tracking device is the way to go! To be clear, this tracking device would feed the information re: Jason's whereabouts into Roy's implant. Roy just wouldn't be able to hack directly into Jason's. Hopefully that makes sense!

oh, no worries at all, it happens! i conveniently had another thing to bug y'all about, so it works out, and again, my apologies for tossing that initial question in the wrong spot.

okay awesome! i'll run this by jessi and she what she's having jason do with the non-stephen warehouse to be sure. re: 1a) yes, absolutely, i don't want to mess up that limited resources element of the game, so i'll be sure to space out what he makes

Tactus sounds like it'd work great, and thank you for the tracker information, that does make sense and that all sounds perfect!

Hiya, mods!

So in the aftermath of the event I think that Jack would be interested in trying to track down members of some merc groups. He was often out in the streets fighting during the event, so I think it's fair to assume that he may have seen some of them in action.

Given that he works at Giles Bell and it's been established that some of the merc groups are linked to the corporations, I was wondering if it would be possible for him to spot some of them coming and going from Giles Bell HQ? I doubt that they would just stroll through the front doors and imagine there would be some amount of discretion involved, but since he's security, it seems like he might be able to interact with them as a result of letting them into the building or having access to less traversed areas, etc.

While he wouldn't try to have a real conversation in the midst of Giles Bell HQ, he would be willing to reveal that he was a Displaced and ask if it was possible to arrange a meeting with one of them somewhere a little more private. Would this work, or would they just tell him to get lost?

His goal here is to hopefully unearth which merc outfit is in charge of the Displaced new arrival dropoffs and to learn about the group that was hired during the Gates event and dig into that some more.

Thanks for the help!

Hi Court!

It's unlikely that the mercenaries would be meeting on the grounds of Giles Bell because these corporations keep their ties to these groups under wraps. After all, the Displaced had to come across this information through external means. The corporations don't want to seem as if they're employing their own private military group when they already hold most of the power in the world. Thus, their mercenary circle of choice doesn't tend to meet on Giles Bell's grounds, and they likely receive their orders digitally.

That said, the orders have to come from somewhere—and those orders would typically be associated with protecting scientists and sensitive materials (such as samples, specialized goods, and more). When needed, Jack's boss would likely be the one in charge of delivering the orders. He would need to persuade his boss to provide him with information about the group. Would he utilize his power to get this information and find out what he wants to know?

Hi Shikki!

1. This is definitely fine! It'll be workable for now, though some of his setups there may have been destroyed. Feel free to play with this how you want!

3. This is also fine. For specific things like kevlar and carbon fibre, he may have wanted to use stretches of chaos in the city (like the most recent monster attack, or less recently, the EMP) to break into corporate warehouses to try to get his hands on this stuff and begin to store it. We're happy to let you handwave this. He would need to do the legwork to figure it out, but we know Damian's a trained detective.

In terms of gadgetry, we do think he can start to do that himself—especially since he's long-since familiarized himself with a lot of the tech. One hurdle he'll have to overcome is syncing anything up with his neutral implant. He'll want to both figure out how to keep his applications from being traceable (likely by acquiring a heavily encrypted cloud server of his own), and prevent them from being read on nearby local networks. We figure Batman does similar stuff in Gotham so he's untraceable, but Damian will need to level up his knowledge here. Again, in his preparations, it's possible he's already gotten some of this in order—we know you've been working toward this plot for a while!

4. Good to know! Right now, Damian will notice that the mob groups are trying to shore up the weapons market while playing good samaritans to the public. They want to arm New Amsterdam to care for themselves following the periods of strife, and they want to appear more trustworthy. While there won't be anyone dropping Durcell's name during this, Damian can easily put two and two together and figure out that someone gave them the means to begin to fortify their bases.

Petty crime in 2512 is pretty nonexistent otherwise. Theft is pointless because money isn't tangible. Most of what he'll be seeking out are drug dealers, people trying to gather monster corpses for experimentation (some of which are more creative than the previous berserking drug, like taking the toxins off some of them), and black market deals for weapons, goods, and dangerous and completely untraceable cybernetic weapons. Thanks to all of the recent trouble in New Amsterdam, criminals have only been emboldened.

Once he starts getting in the swing of saving people, he may notice some of the shrines in the area popping up that depict the Nightwing symbol woven into the sacred geometry. There are some that even begin to tell little stories in imagery and symbols, weaving Nightwing's signature blue color into the blue that the Displaced are known for. If he camps out, he might even catch a few people placing candles or offerings there, especially if their loved ones were helped by him.

hello mods! i've been percolating on an idea for awhile that i finally want to ask about so i can move in that direction.

with marcos' work with morningstar and with his unofficial helping of people during various events and crises, he's been thinking of setting up one location for those that need help. i was thinking of something like a soup kitchen/safe place/crisis center kind of place. he'd be looking to employ volunteers at first but if this got off the ground, he'd look to expand. this would be the new amsterdam (and any visitors, of course) citizens since the displaced have red wings.

so, what i'm looking for here is just some quick information on:

1) would this be feasible? as in would this be a service that would be needed/allowed in new amsterdam? i'm fine with fleshing it out more, i'm just looking to see if it would be something even viable.

2) i know the money situation would be a thing. marcos has been living pretty much rent free in caroline's old penthouse place that she was given and he's been working at pulsar + doing construction jobs since the end of the last event. how much money would it take to get there?

3) what kind of location would he be able to afford most likely? he's fine with it being in a rougher part of the city.

i think those are the biggest questions i have just in brainstorming for the moment. thank you!

How wonderfully on-brand!!!

The easiest lie to tell is the one closest to the truth, so he'll be frank with them in that he used to do "complicated acquisitions" for powerful people, which is a contribution he can make to their enterprise if they want to utilize it. What he wants is information on mercenaries, which he knows will raise both eyebrows and suspicions. They're capable of doing a background check on him to determine if he's a cop (or the New Amsterdam equivalent thereof) if that's a concern.

He'll claim he's looking to hire. He has private interests and it's easier to go after big scores with a small army backing him up [gestures to recent monster attack], but he's relatively new in town [gestures to every other recent disaster] and doesn't have the connections yet, so he's looking to build them and make interpersonal investments.

He'll conduct himself professionally (will either button up if they have a uniform or keep his collar breathing if they want him to potentially use Whatever He Can Do to intimidate or be a Present Reminder, that's up to y'all). No idea what kind of assignment or detail they'd put him on so if y'all have some ideas let me know and I can give a more concrete explanation of how he'd handle himself!

Hello again! I figure the answer is still generally be the same, but since the whole monster attack thing happened before we got to doing this plot, I wanted to check in again on this since the Displaced were a bit more visible than usual lately with everything going on. I just thought it'd be best to double check!

That makes sense, thank you!

So if possible, Jack would at first try to learn information about what mercenary groups were being hired on what jobs through eavesdropping while on his shifts -- that is, placing himself in spots where he might be able to overhear his boss' conversations and learn some details. If that didn't really work as intended, he might go so far as to ask his boss about it directly ("hey, I heard you mention [x name], what's that about?" with a certain amount of playing dumb), or volunteer to go on one of these jobs as security detail (transporting samples or specialized supplies, etc so that he could interface with the mercenaries directly).

If none of these strategies work, he would eventually go so far as to use his power to try and order his boss to tell him the information. He would try to do this without actually revealing that he was using a power (covering up so the glow didn't come through his clothes, etc). This would definitely be the last resort, though!

Hey other mods! Here comes a Durcell question for you:

In the sim, Jason made contact with Durcell on Loki's provocation. As the monsters die down and the UN begins to bustle again and Durcell makes their statement, Loki will ask Jason to establish contact again via the gangs (The Outlaws to the Hi-Jacks) with the precedent that he has some damning footage on the UNA and will be very willing to provide a sample to see if it aligns with Durcell's current message. Loki will make it clear that he's not about the UN resurrecting another UNA.

If they're able to meet with a couple of reps, Loki will happily pass over a small sample of what was given to him by El of the UNA sending soldiers to die in New Amsterdam with the Judas frying their neural implants, as well as a bit of footage where the Displaced raided the UNA base back in the day of the Morningstar raids. (Even if the latter makes it obvious that he was there.)

Loki'd propose an alliance with him and Jason, and tentatively with the Outlaws and the Hi-Jacks, as he'd be up front about wanting to keep the UNA dismantled. He'd want a more formal audience before he hands over the larger files, and would ask for a secure and anonymous cloud server to forward it on, as well as his name scrubbed from the footage. The video is still tied to his neural implant, after all.

The goal would be to strategically use the footage to keep the anti-UNA sentiment going when they rear their heads again, and encourage companies to keep weapon contracts out of UNA hands and funnel them back to other sources (including both Durcell and Jason). Legally it can be done through proposing some changes in Pulsar's (and possibly others, with Durcell's help) contracts, but if they need an illegal boost they have the option to run weapons back through the gangs.

That said, Loki's probably not too hard to find if Durcell knows where to look in Tempo. He'd also be happy to move from Tempo and back to Pulsar, if needed. Let me know if this sounds feasible for a first step in the door, and how Durcell would take to it!

HELLO THE TROUBLEMAKER HAS ARRIVED

But no seriously, this is following up on his conversation with Gaby about talking to Morningstar agents; he meant it when he told her he was interested in hearing from them, specifically why they joined Morningstar and what their experiences have been as a part of the organization.

He's also interested in their opinions on the Displaced, but that's going to be a secondary thing he won't be pushing much; basically if the topic might lead into it he'd like to hear their thoughts, but he's not going to push his luck by specifically asking. Generally, Lance going to be approaching all of this very cautiously for obvious reasons, because the last thing he wants to do is cause unnecessary problems; he's got plenty of necessary problems he needs to save his energy for.

Hello I keep forgetting to swing by so here I am with just some real estate questions for now because who knows what else I was meaning to ask about

Stephen and Tony are looking for somewhere to live! I'm thinking either a multi-floor apartment or an empty business building, they need living space and a separate floor for Tony to gradually build a lab and keep his tinkering out of Stephen's face. Stephen's also got a preference for Open Space so somewhere with room and good light would be a plus (give me your overgrown buildings with missing walls)

Fixer-uppers are preferred, rent/lease or buying are both options, but whatever it is they need somewhere that they can take on as a long term place that will allow them free reign to make any renovations that they want to and won't have landlords checking in

New Amsterdam is Stephen's current preference but if they can get considerably more space for their money elsewhere they're potentially willing to consider it - though only really if they're able to set up a gate portal thing near to or on their property and near to the bar (is that doable? I'm not really up to scratch on fast travel mechanic) or find something that's affordable enough that he can both take it and keep his NA apartment for living in on work days.

Where should he be looking/what are his best options? He's happy to get a loan or mortgage if he needs one but they're not married to the idea of buying either so long as they can do whatever they want to whatever property they find.

Akechi will be voting for Joseph Lynch.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 50 of 57

PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(frozen comment) no subject