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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.
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Regarding the right hands, they would feel a bit betrayed by Jason's disappearance, especially since he obviously would have not said something before he vanished. Since they don't know this is a common occurrence among the Displaced, and Jason had been around for a while, they'll be agitated by the fact that Jason's gone. He's disappeared for Displaced-related activity before, of course, but not to this scale. The fact that he's not back yet means they'll be frustrated. These right hands come from both gangs, and they were working together because they had a strong leader in Jason/the Red Hood. Now that he's missing, they're aimless, and they're well aware that they were meeting his own ambitions. There will be some internal conflict within the gangs, since they are, in fact, still two groups that were once rivals.
As for Durcell, Durcell won't have gotten word about Jason's disappearance yet. The right hands will know that Jason was stealing some of their underlings and undermining them, so they'll know that Durcell was an enemy to their group. But by bringing them up, Loki and Roy will essentially be arming these gangs with their new patron. Reminded of Durcell's ambitions with the criminal underground, one of these right hands will be reaching out to them shortly, so keep an eye on the calendar for follow up with that.
For the dreams, this is what we've decided for the time being:
• Characters will need to figure out a way to naturally activate the dreams. The best way to do this is via the empathy bond, and perhaps from there then choose to control what someone else sees within the space of their mind. Another way to do this from a distance would be via sharing their chest objects.
• In time, characters will be able to activate the dreams without the empathy bond/chest objects. We think this would be through sustained practice, as well as the characters accepting their connections to the other Displaced. It would be a matter of two characters agreeing to meet in dreams, and doing so later that evening. There would still be a degree of agreement here, and someone could change their mind and not take up the offer and thus not enter the other dream.
• As it comes to world-wide alterations, we've decided that these would always be a mod-run event. However, we very much would like the next one to be the end result of the characters coming together to enter the dreamworld that some of them were in before. This would start as a player plot of training everyone up, getting to step two, and then the majority of the Displaced hitting the point where they would enter this mutual state all at once. From there, it would be another dream event, but with a lot less chaos of emerging in someone's dreamspace unexpectedly (since the characters would have trained past that point). The mods would then provide the dreamside content like before.
What we would recommend is having characters lockdown the first step, share it in the arrival guide, and then we can work toward steps two and three. Again, this would be a player plot that would eventually become a gamewide event.
In terms of quantifying this, it's a bit difficult without guaranteeing a lack of turnover in the character base (which we've since realized since the last time we wrote this up). Our best suggestion would be to establish how to access the dreamspace, spread that information, and then go from there.