faderiftooc | UPDATES: January

UPDATES: JANUARY

OOC & ADMIN UPDATES

Notable Dates

Applications: Open indefinitely
Leadership Applications: Due January 31
Test Drive Meme: Here! Tracking the post for new top-level comments strongly encouraged.

Resource Reminders

AC rewards now happen in conjunction with mod plots. But for city housing outside the Gallows, dragon or rift quartz armor and weapons, or new anchor acquisitions, you can request those at any time as long as you meet the requirements for them.

We're working on the 9:50 (!) calendar. In the meantime, now is a great time to go over your own player plots/missions and make sure you've put up reports for anything you want to count in the future, and to post them to count toward Gallows upgrades!

War Table Changes

We're making some changes to the way War Table Assignments work!

For the last few years, Division Heads have created large missions for their divisions every three months (give or take). We don't think that this fits the size of the game anymore, especially as it requires the Division Head players to do a lot of up-front writing and planning for things that may not be fully played out in practice. It also means progress occurs slowly, typically in big pieces a few times a year, and is easily derailed if something goes wrong or doesn't get done.

So we're in the process of replacing that system with a new War Table. This will be similar to the Jobs Board that's been around for a while. The new War Table will be organized primarily by a set of larger goals, with assignments listed underneath that will contribute to accomplishing those goals. The lists may not be exhaustive to start out, and the path to accomplishing the larger goals may not be strictly linear. I.e., there might be just one assignment listed under a goal at first, but it may take several to accomplish it, with the next steps to be added once the first is claimed and the outcome is determined. If a mission objective isn't achieved, that may influence next steps, too–IC failure doesn't have to mean a lack of OOC progress. Some goals may culminate in a larger capstone mission, while others may be accomplished through player assignments alone. Some goals may also be more straightforward, while others may take several missions to fully reveal their scope. In summation: it's going to be really flexible.

Players will claim assignments for their characters, one at a time. When an assignment is claimed, the Division Heads will provide some basic information about the objective and possible outcome(s) that could be achieved. This will be more like a paragraph or so rather than the entire plot write-up that comes with current War Table assignments. From there the player can expand on the premise, add details, invent complications, and otherwise turn it into whatever they're interested in playing.

Everyone will have a lot more flexibility in how to approach these! Many assignments will be achievable using various approaches–if the assignment is "make an ally out of George," you might be able to choose to do that by sweetalking George or by blackmailing George or by taking a band of fighters to take care of his enemies so George is grateful. Instead of all the plots already being deliberately written to suit the work of a particular division, it'll be up to you to decide the angle you want to take to accomplish it. Like with current Jobs Board tasks, you'll be able to invent the circumstances and details surrounding the objective to fit what you're interested in RPing about.

You'll also be able to decide how OOC intensive you want RPing the assignment to be. You can still turn it into a large player plot with your own invented mechanics and a ten-person team if you want to. You can add in a sidequest or misadventure like getting trapped in a haunted cave on the way and focus on RPing that rather than the meeting with an NPC. You can take a single other character along to focus on CR development while they work together. Or you can have your character complete a mission solo–like assassinating someone alone, or conducting a one-person letter-writing campaign–and focus on RPing the build up or the aftermath and detailing how things on the actual mission happened in the report.

Division Heads may sometimes offer fully-formed plots for sign-ups as in the past, but these will be reserved for things like capstone missions, such as actually attacking a major enemy research facility after several other assignments to locate and infiltrate it, or missions their own characters are actively participating in.

Our hope is that this will make it easier for everyone to make clearer and steadier progress toward achieving things in-game, allow players to fit missions into their RP better by adjusting them to fit their styles and paces and interests, make Div Heading a little less stressful, and make everything feel more flexible and faster and more collaborative. The Division Heads are working on compiling assignment lists now, and the new War Table should be up in February.

Along with this major change, we're making some smaller ones.

FIELD LEADERS: Assignments will be claimed by single players, not groups, and whoever claims them will be both OOC and IC in charge. That means that the report is your character's responsibility IC, and OOC it's up to you to post it by the deadline, or give the assigning Division Head a head's up if you need an extension or to give the assignment back for someone else to try. It also means your character will get IC credit for a job well done (or at least well attempted–failure is cool!). On which note,

EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE: We're not going to get into XP points or merit badges or ranks or anything complicated like that, but starting with the implementation of this new system, we're going to try to OOC reflect the reputation for expertise or responsibility that characters might acquire from leading missions by taking characters' previously completed war table assignments into account when assigning spots in closed/limited missions posted by either the Division Heads or the mods. For example, if a mod plot includes a closed mission to assassinate an important Venatori leader, we may assign slots on that team to characters who have already done several assassinations or undercover missions in Tevinter off the War Table before resorting to pure RNG, and we may choose the person who's done the most to be in charge of the team.

Wholly original player plots you propose yourself will count for this in addition to War Table assignments you claim.

The tracking isn't retroactive–we're starting now, not going back through 8 years of game history, though we will continue to ask people to remind us about your character's past focus on a topic in sign-ups where applicable. We'll always disclose in advance what factors will be considered when assigning plot spots, and we'll keep an eye on things to make sure the system doesn't make it impossible for new or involved-but-slower players to participate.

REPORTS AND AC: Starting with the next activity check (January-March, checked in April), everyone will be required to link to reports for any missions/assignments their characters went on as part of the activity form.

We're also going to start taking report deadlines more seriously and cut down on the time Division Heads have to spend chasing people down to ask for mission updates and reports. If a report isn't posted and you don't communicate OOC to ask for an extension, the report might be treated as late IC rather than vaguely handwaved away–so Yseult might show up in your character's inbox to ask why it's late, for example–or the mission might be marked down as a failed attempt (which can create its own RP!) and put back on the assignment list for someone else to try, or a new assignment may be given out to work around the outcome of yours being unknown, depending on what makes sense under the circumstances. So please either do them by the deadline or reach out yourself if you need an extension or some other assistance.

That said, REPORTS ARE FUN GUYS WE SWEAR. They can and should be part of RP, not OOC homework. You can have as much fun with the format and details as you want, and the vast majority of reports are available to everyone in Riftwatch to read and respond to. But they also serve the extremely important role of summarizing plot efforts so everyone can see what happened without needing to read a whole log or track people down to ask about handwaved portions, so please do them.

IC & PLOT UPDATES

Thanks to Riftwatch's help in the Silent Plains, the nightmares assaulting the Exalted March have ceased and the way forward into Tevinter has been cleared. We've put up a wiki page for the plot here. It's currently a work in progress, but as always, everyone is welcome to contribute to it. (Including only editing it to add a note about something notable your own character did–don't be shy, that's what it's for!)

Crossroads Event

No rest for the wicked! The nightmares might be resolved, but Riftwatch now has a new problem to deal with, and we've put up an event post to address it. This is the continuation/escalation of a long-term problem that has shown up before and will get worse before it gets better. We're happy to facilitate player investigation into this, but with the understanding that it won't be easily fixed anytime soon.

In the meantime, there will be more updates from us about this in the future, and everyone is welcome and encouraged to incorporate the whole "boundaries between dimensions beginning to crumble" thing into their player plots or missions. Drop us an info request if you need more information or assistance with that!

As for the event post itself, aside from one major discovery, it's mostly an opportunity for making your own CR-building adventures. The same spirits and hazards we've previously invented for the Crossroads are back, and we made a generator that can give you prompts for settings and problems for threads.

In addition to learning some new things, the end result of the event will also be that Riftwatch's eluvians are in a centralized location and it will be much faster and easier to reach the locations where Riftwatch has eluvian access, which everyone can reflect in any missions where traveling via eluvian would make the most sense. It will no longer be a trek every time, so popping into one of those places for the day and coming back to the Gallows by dinner will be much more feasible. And remember that missions to recover new eluvians (or to place already-recovered eluvians in strategic locations) are always a good idea if you want your character to get out of Kirkwall to do something useful that will benefit everyone!

IC Leader Updates

No new appointments this month! A list of all available roles is on the wiki. If you're potentially interested and have questions, feel free to toss them at the Mod Contact. Applications should be submitted here.

Additionally, if you want your character to be in charge of something but none of the open roles speak to you, you can take advantage of our new style of projects.