Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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faderiftooc2018-10-02 12:07 am
faderifting) wrote in faderiftooc2018-10-02 12:07 am
Entry tags:
MOD POST ↠ OCTOBER UPDATES
MOD ANNOUNCEMENTS: OCTOBER
OOC & ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATES
Upcoming OOC dates:
- Native Applications: Open until 11/24 at 11:59pm US Eastern (when our Mod Holiday Hiatus** begins)
- Rifter Applications: Closed until further notice
- CR Meme: October 5, with bonus space for assignment team gathering and plotting
- Next TDM: November 20
- Next Deadline for IC Leadership Applications: October 31
Our Calendar is now once again mostly accurate. Please make sure you add any player plots with plot impact/wide relevance to it, as well, so everyone knows when stuff happened, especially all these new assignments! The Game Updates post has also been updated! You might notice that it's missing IC news updates. This is because we are now forcing a PC to read IC news via crystal, to allow people to react or ask questions. That will be up in a few days!
** For those of you new to the game this year, the mods take a break from Thanksgiving through New Years each year because we both travel a lot during that period. During this time we don't process apps, run plots, or do any other kind of mod work. We'll explain in more detail next month.
IC & PLOT UPDATES
November Mod Plot Build-Up
As you may remember from past updates, we're trying out a new three-month plot schedule to provide more time to play the awesome player plots and project/division assignments everyone has been developing, as well as to provide more opportunities for characters to have an impact on each major mod plot rather than just being along for the ride. October is Month 2 of this first cycle, meaning it's time for player plots and assignments that will lead into November's mod plot.
November's mod plot will be focused on the front lines in Orlais, and we can now tell you that it will focus on a major battle in the Fields of Ghislain, including its run-up and aftermath. This is not a battle that is going to go well—the general theme will be "war is hell and Corypheus and his army are a real serious threat"—but efforts over the next month might make it more or less of a bad time for the Inquisition. When we put together the final log, we'll take into account everyone's work and preparation.
IC, the Inquisition will right about now be managing to put together some odds and ends of information gathered by various PCs in Tevinter, along with new incoming intelligence, to discover that the enemy is planning a major offensive and that this will come in the form of a surprise sudden rush south to Ghislain rather than the more predictable assault on Churneau. The Division Heads, with the approval of Skyhold, have decided not to give away the Inquisition's awareness of this plan, and to make preparations in secret in hopes of stopping the strike short of the city.
To that end, the Inquisition's work over the next month will be focused on two primary objectives: acquiring new allies to bolster the Orlesian and Inquisition armies at the front, and subtly rigging the expected battleground to their advantage.
Battle Prep: Division Assignments
OOCly, the DH players were informed about this a couple weeks ago, and have spent that time devising a number of assignments targeted at preparing for the battle to come. These—along with other assignments focused on the regular business of the divisions—will be posted and available for sign-ups shortly. Modplot-influencing assignments will be marked and must be completed (i.e. have a report turned in describing the outcome, even if backtags continue) by November 10 so that the results can be taken into account in determining the outcome of November's battle.
Battle Prep: Player Plots
The intel about this coming assault will quietly filter out to PC members of the Inquisition, with the understanding that it absolutely must remain secret at all costs and that the information should be carefully protected. But, since your characters know it's coming, you are also welcome and strongly, enthusiastically encouraged to propose player plots designed to influence the outcome of the battle in some way.
If you want to influence the plot, please keep your ideas appropriately scaled: your player plot can't make the mod plot (so, the battle in the Field of Ghislain) impossible, your characters can't singlehandedly wipe out the enemy forces in advance, etc. The Inquisition's strategy will be to (1) acquire new allies where possible to swell troop numbers and (2) dig in ahead of Ghislain to protect it and its unevacuated citizenry, including things like preparing traps and stripping the enemy's side of that line of usable resources, all without signaling to the enemy that they're aware of what's coming. Your player plots can fit into either prong of that strategy, or you can propose other efforts. Characters can also go rogue and attempt things that are not Inquisition-sanctioned, but keep in mind that there may be IC consequences for this.
If you have an idea but aren't sure it's workable and want some feedback before putting time and effort into the details, you're welcome to drop that vague idea onto the Plot Requests page rather than a full proposal, and we'll give you a thumbs up, some help, or both. Please clearly indicate that it's an idea designed to influence the mod plot.
As with the assignments, player plots intended to influence November's mod plot need to be completed, with reports filed, by November 10 so that the results can be taken into account in determining the outcome of November's battle. (We'll fast-track review of these plot requests.)
Lastly
If you undertake a player plot or assignment meant to influence the mod plot but don't file a report by the November 10 deadline, you won't have to retcon it, but you'll have to say that the effort ultimately fell through—that promised allies might not show after all, for example, or a trap your characters were attempting to set up was spotted and destroyed before it could be effective.
How exactly this will all be factored in and what parts of the battle will be RPed out and how will all be explained in November.
The War Table
Hopefully by now you've all seen the new War Table, where assignments created by each division and project leader will be posted from now on. A lot of it is pretty self-explanatory, and many of you have already signed up for things, which is awesome! We wanted to provide a little more guidance about how all this works right now.
First: there are still tons of opportunities to sign up for things! There are several projects whose sign-ups close later this week, and division assignments (as discussed above) are going to be posted and available for sign-ups in the next few days. And then once all these sign-up periods have closed and assignments have been...assigned, we'll arrange a second round, opening up any remaining unclaimed assignments to people who didn't get something the first time around or are feeling ambitious and want to take on another.
Second: we want to emphasize as strongly as possible that ASSIGNMENTS DO NOT NEED TO BE A HUGE PRODUCTION. Some of them are straightforward and some of them are complex, but even the most complicated or important do not need to be turned into gigantic six-part logs playing out every scrap of the mission, unless that's what everyone involved really wants to do. We know this has become a popular style of handling plots to the point that it may appear to be The Right Way To Do Plots in Fade Rift, but we want to make it clear that that's not the case and it is absolutely not required.
The purposes of assignments are to give characters new things to do and new settings to RP in, to promote the IC and OOC sense that your characters are actually out there doing important work rather than sparring and cleaning armor for months at a time, to let characters add work experience to their medieval fantasy resumes, to advance the plot in small ways between major plots, and, ideally, to be fun.
To that end, it is 100% acceptable to:
- pick out one or two particular moments that sound most fun to RP and focus on those
- decide that the actual action of the mission isn't the part that sounds most fun and to instead RP the preceding debate about how to handle a challenging task or moral quandary, or the aftermath of a harrowing close shave
- to use the mission as a vehicle for CR-building or a backdrop for more personal RP—why argue about your relationship problems in the Gallows when you can instead argue about them while hiding bodies in Antiva?
- turn something into a crystal post to discuss outcomes, solicit opinions regarding approaches, or quietly complain about being trapped in a cellar for five hours waiting for an opportunity to eavesdrop on the enemy
The only requirement is that you RP some portion of the mission in a way that engages with its subject matter rather than handwaving or ignoring it entirely, and that you file a report that explains what happened even if you didn't RP all of it.
Third, these assignments do not all need to be crammed into October! Unless specifically marked as time-sensitive and due by November 10, you should feel free to schedule these assignments any time between now and early January, although we would encourage leaving the second half of November and possibly also early December free for mod plot.
Finally, we've been hammering it on plurk but we can't help throwing out one final pitch to newer players: don't be intimidated! Your character is probably plenty qualified given the alarmingly lax standards of the Inquisition in Kirkwall. You probably know how to do this, and if not, it's not as hard as you think. Assignments are a great way to dig your character into the Inquisition's business and build CR from the start, not something you have to wait to earn.
Leadership Apps
A couple of adjustments to IC leadership applications! First, we're going to begin processing leadership applications every month instead of every other month. You can check which positions are presently vacant here.
Second, we want to make clear that while we may tweak the details of the process depending how things work this cycle, creating at least one set of 2-3 assignments every three months—which we'll always be available to help with—will continue to be a requirement for Project Leaders and Assistant Project Leaders going forward. Please take that into account when choosing whether to apply.
Congratulations to the following new appointments:
- Chantry Relations Project Leader: Myr Shivana
- Hostile Powers Asst Project Leader: Yseult
- Naval Presence Asst Project Leader: Charles Vane
- Quartermaster: Thor of House Asgard
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