ACTIVITY CHECK (REAL ONE)
This activity check is for JANUARY - MARCH 2023. The deadline to reply is
APRIL 7.
We hope you weren't too excited about the new "A.P.R.I.L. / F.O.O.L.S." system because actually we hate numbers.
To pass AC you should provide a
brief recap of what your character has been up to with at least
three links to RP for the relevant time period. These links can be to posts you created, log threads, rookery/crystal threads, inbox threads, or open top-levels within plot posts.
You can use multiple threads from within the same post, such as three different logs branching from the same open prompt. You can use threads that started prior to the beginning of AC period as long as a substantial portion of tags occurred during this AC period and you haven't previously used that thread as proof. There is no minimum tag count per thread. (But if you're consistently providing primarily threads you dropped after a couple of tags, last-minute open posts you don't tag after checking the AC box, etc., we may contact you about that.)
RECAPS
Along with your links, you're providing a quick recap of what your character has been up to. The goal for this is to help everyone keep track of what's been happening, both with their own characters and with everyone else's–Riftwatch is a small enough organization that people are probably going to be aware of what everyone else is working on and any major/obvious interpersonal drama, so this is our OOC cheat sheet!
Recaps can be very brief. E.g., "Over the last three months, Paul
went to Tevinter to assassinate a magister,
had a fight with his best friend Joe, and
learned how to use a crossbow." But you're also welcome to include more detail if you want, as long as you keep it to a couple of paragraphs max.
As far as handwaving goes, you can–as always–handwave interpersonal interactions with other characters and note those in your recap if you want a record of them. "Paul has continued to avoid Joe since their fight" with no thread showcasing the avoidance, for example. You could also handwave the whole fight! We don't care.
For work- and plot-related recap claims, however, you can only handwave your character's daily performance of their routine work. In between the more significant things you thread, we assume all characters are doing the Typical Work listed on their
division wiki page. So you could say "Paul has been diligent about his work for the diplomacy division and met with a few minor nobles visiting Kirkwall to talk up Riftwatch," or "Paul has been distracted and struggling with his work for the forces division and stumbled through his routine patrols," etc., without proving that in a thread. No one has to RP paperwork or its equivalent. But we do encourage making up some Typical Work that your character has been working on during the AC period, to help ground your character in what's going on in the game world and clearly establish that they aren't
only fighting with their friends or eating scones in Hightown, even if those are the only things you RP about.
What you
can't purely handwave is anything significant or cool enough that other people would need to remember that it actually happened for future plot purposes–we'd define this as anything for which we normally require a plot request or a report, which we've previously provided some guidance on where those lines are
here–or anything that's a significant achievement for your character rather than just daily grind stuff. Basically: if you want your character to do anything cooler than competently attending to their routine work, you've gotta RP about it somehow. That can mean RPing the actual event, or it can mean RPing discussion or planning or fallout around the event–but you have to RP something about it!
SPECIFIC CHARACTER SITUATIONS
NEW CHARACTERS: Characters who were apped during this AC period need to provide one link for each full month they were in the game. For example, for the AC period of January through March, a character apped in January would need two proofs because they were in the game for the full months of February and March (but it doesn't matter which month the two links were started in), a character apped in February would need one, and a character apped in March wouldn't need any links. Obviously you're welcome to include as many links as you have/want.
DIVISION HEADS & PROJECT LEADERS: This is where you now provide proof of your required war table assignment from the last three months. You can link to the OOC sign-up/info post. This link is
in addition to your required three links for your character, not in place of it. As long as you've provided the OOC info people need to begin playing the mission within the AC period, it's fine if it's still ongoing.
OTHER LEADERS: You're required to provide proof of your character using their job in some way. This can be a war table assignment or player plot, if you chose to run one. But it can also just mean making sure that one of your AC proof links includes your character performing their job duties. E.g., the Head Archivist could link to a crystal announcement asking people to please stop dog-earing the books, a log in which they're reorganizing the library, or an inbox thread where they hound a specific person to stop hoarding library books in their bedroom.
BACKGROUND CHARACTERS: Everyone has to provide the required three links for at least one character every AC period. If you play multiple characters, then each period you can choose up to two to mark as background characters. Unlike the way side characters used to work, you can now rotate which characters you designate as background each AC period if you want, though
characters with leadership roles of any kind cannot be backgrounded. You still need to provide a brief, vague-as-you'd-like recap of what they're doing in the background, so everyone else knows whether they're in the Gallows doing their work in the background or on an assignment abroad or whatever else, but you don't have to provide any links.
STRIKES
Failing to respond to AC at all will result in the character being swept.
If you fail to post any links at all for a character who isn't backgrounded, you'll have to drop them. If you post more than zero but fewer than three, you'll get a strike but can try again next quarter. If you fail to meet the three-link requirement for two quarters in a row you'll be required to drop a character. (As before, which character you drop will be up to you; it doesn't necessarily have to be the one you failed with.) This does technically mean that you could drag your feet for up to six months before dropping a character you've only written a single tag for in that time. We ask that you be kind to your CR and not do that. Again, if you seem to be abusing the system, we'll contact you to talk about it.
DON'T PANIC
Since this is a change to something we've been doing differently for SIX AND A HALF YEARS, we are obviously going to be forgiving (like, more than usual) if there's confusion or errors while we all iron out the kinks together.
SIDE CHARACTER REMINDER
Any character who's currently a side character needs to have a full app provided in order to remain in the game. They can be your background characters for AC purposes going forward, so you aren't being required to get more AC with them than you were before! We just need a full application. (If you have side characters who were previously full characters before being moved to the side, you don't need to repost their apps. We'll remember.) We'll wait until the end of activity check to remove characters without full apps from the comms.
FORMS
Please post AC for all of your characters in a single comment! You only need to include the Player field once if you have multiple characters.
MOST CHARACTERS
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NEW CHARACTERS
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LEADER CHARACTERS
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