COUGAR RIDGE GAZETTE // SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2008
Good morning, Cougar Ridge!
Everyone give a nice Cougar Ridge Welcome to Rose Gilman and Charles Bettman!
We're still missing a few characters whose players are being kept away by real life issues: Lea, Aspen, Josh, Vernon, and Noah. Hopefully they'll all be back with us fairly soon.
Jackson Nero hasn't posted in a couple of weeks again, so if you would please post soon or let me know whether you're staying in the game.
I'm still looking for feedback on the "Additional Available Characters" and starting a "Cougar Ridge v3" journal or a community. I'm going to change the comment settings for this week to accept anonymous comments (which I should have done last week), and ask players to please comment below, anonymously, with your thoughts.
I am still really busy outside of Cougar Ridge, so I still haven't gotten those banners done, nor done much advertising. You are all welcome to direct people here on your own, however.
Now for a few things I think need saying.
First off, some friendly advice for everyone involved in the big all-encompassing story arcs (Quintessence, Felton Rast's mind-control, and the "Spirit of the Ridge"). Please remember that if everything always works in your favor, you should probably just be writing a story instead of playing in an interactive game. We all have things we'd like to see our characters get to do, but part of the game is finding out how plans have to change because of interactions with other characters. This holds true for the smaller stories, also; it's just more obvious with the bigger ones.
Secondly, please be careful about non-character-specific NPC proliferation. I live in a town three or four times larger than Cougar Ridge (based on map size, at least). We have a police chief and two part time officers. After five o'clock, you have to call the sheriff's office in the county seat, and they'll contact the officer on duty on his radio, because there's no one in the office. Our schools used to be all in one building, K-12. Then we combined with the next town over, and now, between two towns (combined population about 2,500), we have a graduating class each year of about fifty students. Cougar Ridge High, realistically, probably has a graduating class of about 20. Maybe 30. I'm going to try to collate a list of NPCs that have already been named, and I'll add them to the "Additional Available Characters" post. I'll tell you right now that we don't need any more custodial staff at the high school. There's Ronald Felps, Sr., Stellan Christiansen, and now James Momohiki (who may not be with us much longer, and then someone can come up with a replacement). That's plenty. In fact, they probably all work at the elementary and junior high also. I don't want to say you can't create anyone else, but just try to make it so there are still positions available for actual player characters!
Another big thing I've noticed - which for now I'm going to attribute to my living in an agricultural town and Cougar Ridge being a resort town of sorts - is that our mayor, village clerk, village council, and school board all have day jobs. Even the librarian had a second job. Dale Thwaidey's driver is probably not being paid with Cougar Ridge funds. His typist/secretary is probably part-time. I know, it's a game and we're obviously not striving for perfect realism if there's a . . . thing trapped in the basement of What the Moon Brings, and a superspy and an undercover priest are teaching at the high school, and . . . and . . . all sorts of things, but Cougar Ridge is still supposed to be a small town. If you aren't sure whether something is reasonable - a character or business or plotline, whatever - reach me the usual ways, listed below, and I'll give you my opinion.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that some characters are feeling left out of things. My best advice for how to combat this is to get yourselves involved. Go to the Market and overhear a conversation and offer your help, or head to the Ranch and spread the gossip. Stop by to see someone you haven't talked to in a while. If you're afraid of stepping on someone's story, send them a private message and ask if they'd mind. If you're really not comfortable doing that, ask me for help. I'll try to find someone for you to interact with, or give you a start on a storyline. One thing to remember, however, is that once you've started interacting with someone, it's nice to keep interacting with them, at least long enough for whatever you were talking about to have closure. Otherwise that person may be sitting around waiting for a response from you, while other people are waiting on them for other plotlines, and so on.
I think this is probably far too long as it is, so I'll stop here.
Remember: questions, suggestions, death threats, and complaints may be left as a comment on this entry (anonymously for this week), sent to cougar(dot)ridge(dot)gm(at)gmail(dot)com, or delivered via LiveJournal's private message system.
Hey, let's be careful out there.
G3
Everyone give a nice Cougar Ridge Welcome to Rose Gilman and Charles Bettman!
We're still missing a few characters whose players are being kept away by real life issues: Lea, Aspen, Josh, Vernon, and Noah. Hopefully they'll all be back with us fairly soon.
Jackson Nero hasn't posted in a couple of weeks again, so if you would please post soon or let me know whether you're staying in the game.
I'm still looking for feedback on the "Additional Available Characters" and starting a "Cougar Ridge v3" journal or a community. I'm going to change the comment settings for this week to accept anonymous comments (which I should have done last week), and ask players to please comment below, anonymously, with your thoughts.
I am still really busy outside of Cougar Ridge, so I still haven't gotten those banners done, nor done much advertising. You are all welcome to direct people here on your own, however.
Now for a few things I think need saying.
First off, some friendly advice for everyone involved in the big all-encompassing story arcs (Quintessence, Felton Rast's mind-control, and the "Spirit of the Ridge"). Please remember that if everything always works in your favor, you should probably just be writing a story instead of playing in an interactive game. We all have things we'd like to see our characters get to do, but part of the game is finding out how plans have to change because of interactions with other characters. This holds true for the smaller stories, also; it's just more obvious with the bigger ones.
Secondly, please be careful about non-character-specific NPC proliferation. I live in a town three or four times larger than Cougar Ridge (based on map size, at least). We have a police chief and two part time officers. After five o'clock, you have to call the sheriff's office in the county seat, and they'll contact the officer on duty on his radio, because there's no one in the office. Our schools used to be all in one building, K-12. Then we combined with the next town over, and now, between two towns (combined population about 2,500), we have a graduating class each year of about fifty students. Cougar Ridge High, realistically, probably has a graduating class of about 20. Maybe 30. I'm going to try to collate a list of NPCs that have already been named, and I'll add them to the "Additional Available Characters" post. I'll tell you right now that we don't need any more custodial staff at the high school. There's Ronald Felps, Sr., Stellan Christiansen, and now James Momohiki (who may not be with us much longer, and then someone can come up with a replacement). That's plenty. In fact, they probably all work at the elementary and junior high also. I don't want to say you can't create anyone else, but just try to make it so there are still positions available for actual player characters!
Another big thing I've noticed - which for now I'm going to attribute to my living in an agricultural town and Cougar Ridge being a resort town of sorts - is that our mayor, village clerk, village council, and school board all have day jobs. Even the librarian had a second job. Dale Thwaidey's driver is probably not being paid with Cougar Ridge funds. His typist/secretary is probably part-time. I know, it's a game and we're obviously not striving for perfect realism if there's a . . . thing trapped in the basement of What the Moon Brings, and a superspy and an undercover priest are teaching at the high school, and . . . and . . . all sorts of things, but Cougar Ridge is still supposed to be a small town. If you aren't sure whether something is reasonable - a character or business or plotline, whatever - reach me the usual ways, listed below, and I'll give you my opinion.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that some characters are feeling left out of things. My best advice for how to combat this is to get yourselves involved. Go to the Market and overhear a conversation and offer your help, or head to the Ranch and spread the gossip. Stop by to see someone you haven't talked to in a while. If you're afraid of stepping on someone's story, send them a private message and ask if they'd mind. If you're really not comfortable doing that, ask me for help. I'll try to find someone for you to interact with, or give you a start on a storyline. One thing to remember, however, is that once you've started interacting with someone, it's nice to keep interacting with them, at least long enough for whatever you were talking about to have closure. Otherwise that person may be sitting around waiting for a response from you, while other people are waiting on them for other plotlines, and so on.
I think this is probably far too long as it is, so I'll stop here.
Remember: questions, suggestions, death threats, and complaints may be left as a comment on this entry (anonymously for this week), sent to cougar(dot)ridge(dot)gm(at)gmail(dot)com, or delivered via LiveJournal's private message system.
Hey, let's be careful out there.
G3