Sharing Plot information to create adventure
-
ULK… Actually, from what i tend to hear, it isnt that you cannot "join the quest to optain The sword of Unholiness", but rather that you only know its a sword, and that unless Character A, B, C and D of Faction F are online, they themselves cannot push the plot forward, because all the plot hooks are held by very few hands.
In other words, you can come to witness Faction F or G retrieve the sword of Malice, and if you behave nicely, and stay quiet you can get some loot and exp too.
Involving others in a plot involves giving said indidivuals actual hooks, and running the chance of them moving ahead of you in the plot mover line...
If you want an examples of what I speak, just imagine every single promotion quest usually taking place on CoA. A few "allies" come along to assist, yet its one or two that are in the very focus of said quest, everyone else are just there...
Some people are fine with such types of involvement. They get some loot on occasion, and they get dm quests. But they are never involved in the actual plot.
-
There's enough times that things will happen one way or another for me to say: it's unfair to make such a big deal of this. 90% of the time whatever is revealled or not is done so for IC reasons and in those cases, ULK is right and you need to put in time and effort to get to the head of the plot.
It's just up to the player or character how far they will pursue something or how much they will demand to know before they help with something.
-
I'm curious. How often do non-application and non-faction characters pursue DM plots? And, out of those non-application and non-faction characters who pursue DM plots, how often do they succeed in pushing the plot forward when a non-application and non-faction character isn't around?
-
@Eddie:
I'm curious. How often do non-application and non-faction characters pursue DM plots? And, out of those non-application and non-faction characters who pursue DM plots, how often do they succeed in pushing the plot forward when a non-application and non-faction character isn't around?
I'm playing a non-application, non-faction character and I will admit to having some trouble breaking into any of the plots or stories that are happening right now. Even with ooc knowlege of these plots I can't seem to get more than a peripheral role in anything, if even that. All that really leaves for me to do is scripted quests and the occasional support role for the faction characters when they need some fodder to further a plot. That kind of gets boring after a while to be honest. I enjoy the story telling that goes on in CoA and in years past have enjoyed being a part of it. With my newest char I kind of feel like it's hard to even be a spectator though as everything is played privately with only a chosen few. I have to admit that I'm attempting to play a humble monk character. Being humble on CoA is hobbling to a degree. If your not tooting your own horn here it's pretty easy to go unnoticed. Anyways, I don't want to make it sound like I'm not having any fun at all playing with you guys, because I am. It would be nice to be able to do some of the more fun stuff without having to take a back seat to faction characters.
-
What bothers me is that people tend to think that unless you have an application-character or a faction character; you can't have goals and plots.
Its like saying goals and plots are exlusive to special race/faction characters and everyone else are supposed to be support characters in the awesome plots of the factions/subrace characters.
This is SILLY.
Make your own goals/plots when creating the character or involve yourself in meta-plots if you like. Sure it might be challenging to push some major plots without the backing of a faction or peoples wish to stay around awesome special-characters, but thats all the more work and challenge for you then!
Man up! Make some goals! Push them forward! Don't sit around and wait for people to come to you and beg for your assistance. It doesn't matter if you're lv 12 fighter uberbuild that eat great bulettes for breakfast and wrestle cormyrean mountian bears in the nude for sports if you don't have initiative and involve yourself with others.First of all:
(As ULK said): Faction and special concept characters make tons of sendings and put up tons of posts and notices all the time about plots. At CoG we have tons of shit running but we find ABSOLUTELY ZERO interest in helping us with anything. We've had one person actually responding to a poster, but that was only because he wanted to join the faction. This, this and this are all BLATANT plot openings that pretty much nobody have responded to.Let me put it this way: if you have a non-app non-faction character that have made no goals of your own and want in on plots, its easy. Make yourself useful. Respond to posters about things people ask for, be it materials, help, henchmen or whatever. Factions and players (unless they suck) will involve you if you help them! Its that simple!
Secondly:
You don't need to be in anything to make up goals and plots. You can make up your own plots from your own imagination without having to ask a DM for permission! You can ask them for help on how to push it or what might be realistic, but you don't need to have everything decided by them!Example of how hard it is to involve yourself in plots:
"Hey that CoG initiative to cleanse the sewers might be a good idea. My little brother died to the plague after all! Let's help them!" goes off to look for x material that the company needs and shows up for their sendings -
With regard to the posts that you quoted, and so many of the others like them, people don't see that the little things get them into the big things. However some of this discussion is related to the little things not actually leading them to the bigger things because they are merely a +1pc to the party and not an integral part of the outfit.
The age old problem of too many leaders and not enough followers also rears its head. "not doing that i have more important things to do than collect butterflies for them, i need to collect flowers for myself!"
-
@cadiz_stoker:
The age old problem of too many leaders and not enough followers also rears its head. "not doing that i have more important things to do than collect butterflies for them, i need to get XP and gold!"
fixed for u bro
-
First of all:
(As ULK said): Faction and special concept characters make tons of sendings and put up tons of posts and notices all the time about plots. At CoG we have tons of shit running but we find ABSOLUTELY ZERO interest in helping us with anything. We've had one person actually responding to a poster, but that was only because he wanted to join the faction. This, this and this are all BLATANT plot openings that pretty much nobody have responded to.I'm sorry, I have to refute this. I've been a part of the "absolute zero" on more cog excursions than I can put a number too. Sometimes so many people show up for the gnome's antic filled quests that they have to break us in to two parties just to make it managable. It's all good fun and I've enjoyed it. This kind of speaks to what I'm talking about though doesn't it? Hunting for those proto armors and star iron and green steel and whatever else we were looking for with the gnomes on all those excursions, and I never really knew what they were going to use them for. I was still happy to be involved in the story, but it pains me that the peripheral involvement, which is likely all I will ever see in those plots, goes largely unnoticed and becomes "absulutely zero" interest to the faction players. Maybe people are showing more interest than you give them credit for.
You don't need to be in anything to make up goals and plots. You can make up your own plots from your own imagination without having to ask a DM for permission! You can ask them for help on how to push it or what might be realistic, but you don't need to have everything decided by them!
This is good advice and I've actually entered into my current character with his own personal plot. The story is fun for me if no one else and has been the primary source of my entertainment with this character. The trouble I'm having is involving others with my character. I'm not really sure how to go about doing that while maintaining an (in character) feel to it. The best I've been able to come up with is showing interest in other peoples plots and hoping at some point they will be curious enough to ask about mine. Unfortunely with the plot frenzy focusing on faction stuff it's hard to get anything in edgewise. That's not to say I'm not going to keep trying. I stand by what I said earlier about having fun here. There's a lot of creative folks here on the server and it's been my pleasure on more than one occasion to simply watch their storys unfold. In the years I've played here most of the time I've found myself in the role of supporting other peoples stories and that's fine with me.
It did make me a little bit peeved yesterday when I was bumped from a party simply to make room for more faction characters that showed up right as we were leaving. I'd spent over an hour of my saturday waiting after recieving an invitation to the event, and it was kind of shity getting bumped right as we were setting out. I'll admit that part of my inspiration for my previous post was in regards to this. I've cooled off a bit now and looking back on it, it's not that big of a deal. I'm actually kind of embarised that I even posted some of that.
-
What bothers me is that people tend to think that unless you have an application-character or a faction character; you can't have goals and plots.
Make your own goals/plots when creating the character or involve yourself in meta-plots if you like. Sure it might be challenging to push some major plots without the backing of a faction or peoples wish to stay around awesome special-characters, but thats all the more work and challenge for you then!
Man up! Make some goals! Push them forward! Don't sit around and wait for people to come to you and beg for your assistance. It doesn't matter if you're lv 12 fighter uberbuild that eat great bulettes for breakfast and wrestle cormyrean mountian bears in the nude for sports if you don't have initiative and involve yourself with others.You don't need to be in anything to make up goals and plots. You can make up your own plots from your own imagination without having to ask a DM for permission! You can ask them for help on how to push it or what might be realistic, but you don't need to have everything decided by them!
Say's it all to me, make your char want to find some lost hierloom or the hammer of ebol bashing or the sword of ultimate ebol make some sendings of your own make it fun for others create adventure and maybe just maybe the dm's will see all the fun yor making for others and decide to give your own dm plot/quest