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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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no subject
Unfortunately, we can't handwave there being another location (there were lengthy IC discussions revolving around the coffee shop) - but we're happy to assume the location they chose got suggested and scouted out around when people started to come back from New Tokyo. That would mean that it would be ready by around mid-November ICly.
Our primary focus is on getting the PCs' plots moving - setting up networks, training and getting missions (like Kylo Ren's) ready so that they can be underway. Our thought is that a lot of the foundation of things would be happening concurrently to missions getting started - making it so that characters not on missions would be focused on networking and helping scout out infrastructure for Morningstar. The main idea is to focus on the personnel they have - both among the PCs and in the network of information they might need to follow up on - before they get started with adding personnel. The idea is to make is so that they're efficiently helping people in need before they're recruiting from those numbers.
Overall, it's less that we have a solid vision in mind, and more that not a lot of IC time has passed. It's only been around two IC weeks since they've been able to act as the new Morningstar, especially thanks to being stuck in New Tokyo for a while.
no subject
Thank you for the clarification on these points and the NPC safehouse. We’re happy to handwave this for a small abandoned restaurant/bar in the underground with enough space for training or a nearby warehouse or natural cave in which to train agents. Does that suit?
As a note, we've been following Tifa's recent plot engagement thread on recruitment and what specifically you meant by rebuilding the network, and it seems there was a misunderstanding of where the starting line was with New Morningstar and what resources were/weren't available, what was/wasn't happening, what needed reinforcement, etc. We didn't realise reaching out to the contacts provided by El was necessary as a first step as it wasn't stated as such in our initial plot engagement, otherwise we would have highlighted this information in our OOC post. But now that that's been established, we will make this clear in a new post to the OOC comm so players with characters involved in Morningstar are aware and can move forward with personal plot ideas on that front (and create NPCs as you had encouraged).
To clear things up on our end, we wanted to outline what has been going on with the PCs so we're all on the same page wrt Morningstar efforts since it began transitioning from an NPC-led effort to PC-led:
If you have any questions about this or how they intend to move forward, please hit us with them now! We can also give you a more detailed overview based on the new information provided across recent plot engagement replies.
We don’t expect this to result in anything as of yet (because, again, we’re not trying to skip steps and we understand not enough IC time has passed yet), but now feel the communication between us hasn’t been clear enough and want to work towards fixing that!
To that end, we also have questions:
We know you've stated you don't have a solid vision in mind, but coming up against hard no’s here and answers for what the PC Morningstar should have been doing from the start when we didn’t know that was what was needed or expected has given us a different impression. We are so, so keen for this plot and all the great prompts you’ve given us to play with, but we do feel we weren’t explicitly told what was necessary to move forward as listed in this engagement and Tifa’s, so we’re asking now to mitigate any similar misunderstandings forward — especially since both our characters are spearheading these efforts and would have presumably known all of this from the beginning as well.
We know this is a lot but given that we were all working with different ideas of what New Morningstar is, we want to make sure everything is hashed out now before any plots acting on previous assumptions get moving. We’re eager for everyone to party on and to make your job as mods as easy as possible with getting this info out in the open so any and all insight and elaboration is great. Thank you!
no subject
We want to emphasize that is not so much about a specific set of steps we'd like to see so much as an issue of time. As you noted, IC recruitment kicked into gear October 6th. In game, it is now very early in November – and the PCs spent a great deal of time in New Tokyo. As things stand right now, it's still very early into New Morningstar's development, and we want to see the infrastructure more developed before moving forward. It is up to the players to decide what to focus on playing with; we don't want to give the impression that you have to play out things that might be tedious. However, stabilizing the New Amsterdam branch of Morningstar is not going to happen overnight.
In addition, both with your plot regarding the headquarters and Tifa's recruitment plot with Rey, we never gave hard nos. Morningstar themselves would have been reluctant to purchase a theater and Gaby is reluctant to support Rey in recruiting at this early stage. We were trying to emphasize that it was more a matter of "not right now."
Otherwise – many of our remarks to Tifa referred to Tifa's plots for Rey, and were not meant to be generalized to the entire PC Morningstar endeavor.
1. Training PCs and and making contact with the NPCs from the file EL provided is a good place to start, but as noted above, please feel free to focus on playing out what is more fun! Again, we do not want to give the impression you need to play out everything, and we feel that you've been doing a great job so far. Otherwise - we want to re-emphasize time, and we don't want anyone to feel as if they need to hold back. We believe that missions – like Kylo Ren's – would be happening concurrently. Our main concern is expanding to anything too big at this point. For instance, with the recruiting efforts, we said that increased warmth toward Morningstar would "open up the opportunity for native/NPC recruitment within New Amsterdam once the new chapter is up and running." The emphasis is ours!
2. We've covered most of this information in this reply under the Information subheader, but to reiterate and expand:
These are the few remaining agents who stayed on after the UNA attacks, as noted here. We're sorry if we confused things with "contacts" and "agents" being used interchangeably there.
3. As we saw with the previous raid event, some members of Morningstar are more militant than others. Morningstar does have a great deal of weaponry and trained personnel, but that's present in other megacities with the other chapters. Peggy and Fitz would not be aware of any hard restrictions – there are none, officially – but they will be aware of the fact that they will need to earn the trust of the other Morningstar chapters before NA Morningstar can work more closely with them. As we noted in Tifa's response, Morningstar is not centralized and as such their vetting process with the PC Morningstar is "wait and see".
In terms of resources, they have the masks and guns available to them, but not the cache. The reason for the cache not being available at this time is because no one has approached us OOCly to explore what these weapons can do. We have a plot in mind for these, so we've been hoping someone would come to us about them! They are highly experimental and dangerous weapons, and wouldn't be handed over without a period of exploration.
Otherwise, they're only in a "probationary period" as Gaby has expressed to Fitz and Peggy: the Displaced have to show their dedication to the cause, as well as their willingness to set things up. They know things were left in poor shape after New Amsterdam's agents had to be evacuated and the city went dark, separated from the rest of the world.
3b. For "going big" we meant more along the lines of the PCs throwing caution to the wind and going far more aggressive and bolder. This remark was meant more as an OOC sentiment on our parts, rather than some implicit direction or order given from the Morningstar higher ups. It is good to keep in mind that anything the PCs do will have IC consequences, but we always want these to be fun to play with OOCly. Depending on execution, they may get support from Morningstar for whatever they attempt – or they may not! A lot of it depends, and we try to keep things more fluid.
Overall, there are no restrictions on what the PCs can do. If they want to start recruiting, they can! Rey went through Gaby, who's been established as being more conservative in her actions, methods and beliefs. Gaby will always preach slow burn – that is in no way indicative of what Morningstar as a whole believes. There's a reason why Gaby has been left in the dark on not one but two aggressive Morningstar missions – and there is a lot of room to believe that she's been left out of even more than just those two.
A key part of Meadowlark is that we leave all options open. There may be some barriers that come into play – IE Morningstar not purchasing a theater because it's too early in the process and much too large of a venture – for natural IC reasons, but we never want to shut the door on anything. We'll let players know if their venture is feasible or successful, but we never want to stop anything in its tracks. We want to encourage characters to make decisions that may be "incorrect" – especially as it might help their IC arc moving forward!
4. To reiterate what we said in our initial Morningstar plan follow up: Thus, Morningstar isn't centralized to begin with, so there's not really the expectation that the other Morningstar chapters will work closely with PC Morningstar outside of emergencies. That is something that PC Morningstar will have to build up to. Right now, other Morningstar chapters are simply monitoring the situation and going about their own business as normal.
In conclusion, we really do want to stress that we are merely trying to monitor things timewise, and ensure that they happen at a more realistic pace. It was never our intention to blindside you with our expectations. And even though a lot of OOC time has passed since we originally proposed that Fitz and Peggy take over Morningstar operations to jumpstart them again, actual movement ICly was stalled because of the dream plot and the holdover in New Tokyo. We understand that these circumstances may be frustrating to you as players, but please understand we are monitoring things while keeping the whole world of the game in mind, and we believe there are plenty of things currently available to play with!
We understand that you may have felt thrown for a loop here, we do recommend reviewing previous correspondences with us if you're feeling unsure. We are always happy to answer questions but we feel that the combined conversations – our thread with Tifa, as well as our communication with you – may have led you to believe that we were being far harsher with our expectations than we ever intended. Occasionally, our players will meet with friction on plot, and we need to be able to address those situations when needed. Friction doesn't mean that we're shutting down an avenue, only that it may take more time for that path to be pursued.
no subject
Thank you again for more clarity and for attempting to understand our position, as players who only see a smidge of what you have before you. We appreciate the further detail on Gaby’s role in this, the state of missions, and for taking the time to try to and unpick some of the steps to take for the New Morningstar org.
Apologies if it seemed like we hadn't read or reviewed your replies: We can assure you we had our threads with you open for this conversation, and have been referring back repeatedly for each topic. Any repetition in questions was because it seemed like the answers had changed, so we're glad to hear the initial reply is still the core document, so to speak. We're grateful for clarificationall fronts, and, again, we recognise not enough IC time has passed. We mentioned the work in progress on the IC end to ensure we're on the same page, not to ask for a fast pass (and we're sorry if that wasn't clear). We feel we have solid grasp of how plotting works in this game (and enjoy it!), and we completely understand that not all roads lead to immediate wins — or any win at all. We're alright with what you call "friction" as for us, asking questions about how or why something is unfeasible now or later and following up on anything you've given us is just a means of seeking a new way of phrasing or further details. To that end, your words explaining that neither us nor Tifa's efforts are impossible is useful, but we still have questions. SO THANKS WE PROMISE WE'RE STILL KEEN & SORRY WE KEEP GOING LONG MODS
Quickly, just because I believe you missed this out of your reply: We’re happy to handwave the NPC safehouse for a small abandoned restaurant/bar in the underground with enough space for training or a nearby warehouse or natural cave in which to train agents. Does that suit? We really want this to be up and running for everyone as soon as possible, so please do let us know if the mid-November timeline is feasible for any basic location.
Now, this ties into all of our previous correspondence as useful jumping off point, what do you mean by they can "open up the opportunity for native/NPC recruitment within New Amsterdam once the new chapter is up and running"?
With up and running, Ellie and I thought you meant once the efforts were well underway, but this does seem to suggest we're skipping steps in the process, and you want the new Morningstar to be at a certain stage or have a specific window of IC time in mind for things to stablise before recruitment (or something like a potential HQ — not the theatre, we understand you don't think the space suits at any size, and we have discarded it accordingly — but a future tbd space). “Up and running” could just be functioning as we thought, or it could mean “fully organised” so we're checking in again to be sure we're on the right track:
Do you mean the safehouse? Do you mean the re-ignited contacts and agents?
Do you mean the handwaved efforts and, therefore, the IC time you've emphasised throughout this reply?
In the event of the latter, do you mean we need to wait an IC month or 2? 3 months? 6? We realise that over here in reality, it would take this long or much, much longer to accomplish, but with the calendar as you’ve set it, that can push us to six months or more on this (putting us at up to a year on this plot), and that is something we will admit to finding frustrating. As someone who has been in game for a year and makes every effort to keep track of the calendar and realistic developments alongside it, it's near impossible to do on the truncated timescale you've created. Fortunately, our pretend fun times and super-special genius secret agent sci-fi and fantasy etc PC knowledge base means there's some fluidity on what's realistic, so any clarity you can provide on the timescale here would be of great use as a measuring stick for us moving forward.
Even though we perceive the IC timeline as unwieldy, we're still bloody game for anything and keen on this plot in all its forms — so please don't take that consideration/criticism of an aspect of plotting I find problematic for this endeavor as a lack of enthusiasm for the whole of it, regardless of your answer.
Again, to be clear, we do not want to skip the rebuild stage or push for unrealistic IC developments, but we do want to know where we stand currently (which you've helped clarify already; thank you) and now how to get from point A to point B (as well as how long that trip takes in IC and real-time).
Thanks for the help!
no subject
Let's go with an abandoned bar/VR arcade in the underground part of the city. It's not necessarily one that gives access to the system of caves, but they wouldn't have to go quite as far to get to them. This location shut down in September 2510 after the earthquake and subsequent power outage damaged its systems beyond repair.
As for your other questions, we can hopefully provide some clarification:
Our goal for Morningstar is for it to be an organization for churning out CR opportunities. We want players to be able to facilitate plots for their characters by using Morningstar as a stepping stone. No matter what, we want people to be able to use Morningstar as an outlet to dig into things that they find interesting. Our primary concern at this time is giving characters the opportunity to rebuild things from the ground up, knowing that they have a difficult task ahead – especially when the world itself is in shambles and (as our premise promises) will continue to be that way.
Part of why we launched the UNA attacks is because we realized that Morningstar was an aspect of the game that needed retooling. It wasn't providing the CR opportunities that we hoped for, and we wanted to remove the barrier between characters joining and going on larger missions. Ergo, our primary focus is on getting the PCs doing things with other PCs. Before thinking of expanding, we want to allow plenty of time for PCs to focus on hitting the ground to do things among themselves. That's where we're afraid that some of the Morningstar expectations and our expectations got conflated – we're primarily concerned with PCs doing things with Morningstar and people bringing plots to us that we can facilitate, and very few Morningstar-related plots have come our way since the new iteration has gotten off the ground. We want to re-emphasize that no one has to do things that aren't fun to RP, because what's the point? Not a lot of IC time has passed for characters to do anything, and that's also reflected in the fact that many plots are just taking shape on this front. As for the contacts, we want them to be a means of facilitating plots and information between the PCs – not unlike how Bobbi and Marcos manipulated people to get information about the nurse's corpse. The network of NPCs is meant to be a medium of opportunity. Again, we know you and Ellie are excited to get things underway, but several other characters have expressed interest in Morningstar (not to mention we are getting a large batch of PCs this round) and we want to allow time for everyone to get a feel for using Morningstar as a tool for CR opportunities.
We don't have a hard length of time in mind, but we do think there is a happy medium between less than one IC month and half an IC year. This is because we also need to be flexible. Sometimes we notice things aren't working out, so we try to find and tailor a way to change that. We're definitely not going to force anyone into a rebuilding period of a year OOC, but we do want the rebuilding process to be a challenge for the characters that will be fun to RP out.
We want that challenge to remain for a while, purely because we think that's interesting and it will allow more opportunities for characters to engage with the setting and establish themselves in the world. Think of it like taking out the wise old man at the beginning of a show's arc because he has too much information – only the PC Morningstar effort is fortunate in that they're both well-trained and have an expert hacker in El. The neat thing is that the characters could go above and beyond in their efforts! They could overcome the challenge in an efficient way, or even decide that rebuilding the same framework isn't as important as the actions they need to take.
Overall, we're not monitoring everything you're doing, merely keeping in mind certain factors of time when we approach certain plots. We want people to feel free to bring plots to us – that's what Morningstar is for! The two plots brought into these discussions didn't work with the "early stages" framework, especially given Gaby's personal involvement. That is in no way a declaration about all plots with Morningstar at the helm! They were very specific examples. Please feel free to have anyone come to us with missions, and we'll be happy to work with them! Nothing needs to slow down in the least – on the contrary, we want to help these get moving, because we want people to RP these fun things, and we believe there are plenty of things available for play right now for everyone.
As an additional note, we will be stepping away from this thread for a week while we process apps and finalize the new arrival log and we ask that you do the same. If you still have questions after that time, feel free to reply again. And definitely feel free to submit plots in the meantime!
no subject
Just popping in to acknowledge this reply, confirm we’re happy with the final choice for the NPC safehouse to be effective mid-November, and thank you for the further detail on your plans for both the game and New Morningstar at present “early stages” and in future.
As per your request, we’ll swing back to this thread some time next weekend with any follow-up considerations — though I’m sure we’ll be in this post for other business in the meantime! If you have questions or additions for us as well, feel free to drop them here.