here be musebox planning
MUSEBOX PLANNING
What?
Since we've gathered so many tennis buddies and plunked them down on our timelines, it seems like a bit of a shame not to throw everyone into a giant musebox and watch epic happen. :'D Therefore, this is a potential plan for a group musebox where chill rp happenings can happen. It'll be a bit more structured than a dressing room, but far more relaxed than a typical game setting.
So what?
We're basically here to discuss the details of the musebox and how it's going to be structured/worked etc. Nothing's been set entirely in stone yet, so we're really looking for input. ;; We need all your ideas, guys. All of them. Let's make this musebox happen.
Things that have already been decided on:
→ the game will be post-canon, or at the very least, everyone will have been aged up to a more appropriate age. Namely, they'll actually be eighteen-year-olds in name, rather than just in spirit. :|a
→ The main time-line will sort of be a free-for-all, with opportunity to develop an over-arching yet unobtrusive plotline later on. Otherwise, random, self-contained AU things can happen whenever. It's basically a musebox, so. /o/
Let's discuss!
→ Character claiming: I think this is the biggest issue on our plate right now. The current proposal is that each player can claim one character of their choice so that they'll have a definitive one for the main timeline -- and then claiming the rest of their wanted characters on a first-come first-serve basis. It's highly encouraged that people try out a new muse, or pick up a muse that they currently don't have in a game -- this is just an encouragement, though, and not set in stone.
The main reasoning for behind the exclusion of duplicates is that it'd be nice for the main timeline to have some continuity behind it. However, it's perfectly awesome for anyone to play whatever they want for anything AU, private or meme, on a case-by-case basis -- the only organization needed is for the main timeline. However, input would be awesome. Do people want duplicates? Anyone have a better idea for character claiming procedures? We have a diverse cast of very talented people, and it would be awesome if we didn't roll over anyone's toes with a bulldozer. ;;
Update: Kana proposed a really good idea about how each mun should just make a list of all the characters they can/will potentially play. And then, we can compare lists/work out in a civil manner who'll play what. *A* If everyone agrees -- if you do, just either leave a message here/in that plurk -- then we can go ahead with this at the earliest date possible.
→ For the main timeline, a good way to structure it might be to base it off Japanese school holidays, courtesy of Cassie. That way, the timeline will maintain some coherency. Two resources. This will probably be linked in the main profile/extrapolated on in some info section or another. Any other interesting ways to structure this game?
And just for reference, other things that will need to be linked to/written out: Weather forcasts, national events for Japan, etc.
One day in the musebox should equal to one RL day. The premise is probably a bunch of teenage tennis players on their shiny computers chatting away. But we love video functions, so it's probably something like skype? ........... and A2A can totally be canon in timeline, now that I think about it. :|a
→ The character limit will be something like twelve per person? >>;; Literally, we should only pick up about one character per school, probably not more than that.
→ For the AU things/anything that's not on the main timeline, everyone's free to pick up whatever character they want, since they'll be self-contained. Whether or not duplicates can happen will probably depend on the AU? I'd encourage for meme post things or self-contained AUs that people put up an accompanying OOC planning post in the OOC com, so that everyone can plot and work out characters and stuff like that. Depends on how popular these are. Question: will people actually be interested in AUs/out of timeline things? How many people would actually participate? I'm defining AUs very loosely as anything that's not a part of the 'canon' timeline for the musebox -- such as a character posting a post that doesn't fit in with the timeline, or someone wanting to voicetest a character that's already taken in the main timeline. Things like that -- thoughts?
→ The musebox is also totally up for just people playing out one-on-one situations or private situations, or something like that in their own self-contained universes. That's what a musebox is for! /o/ In those, anyone can play anyone they want, and things are totally cool. We'll probably just use a tagging system for this. Actually, we'll probably just use a tagging system for everything.
→ The rating of the musebox is pretty much over the roof. :|a Just f-lock anything that isn't entirely worksafe.
→ People can post large group rp memes and we can cart our entire tennis cast over to spam the hell out of it. Nothing like a good hostile take-over to make a night awesome. :|a
→ Our characters are not orphans, contrary to popular belief, and a good point was raised about their famiries and all that fun stuff. So we'll probably have a post set up where people can at least fill out basic family information for these boys so that their character's close friends won't flip out unnecessarily when their headcanon sister appears out of nowhere. The post will just require the basic information: siblings, the names of the mother and father, pet dog/cat etc. and lots of room to fill in delicious headcanon. It's also highly encouraged for those headcanon posts to be in your character's journals, so the curious can easily see them.
Other!
→ This musebox will be an invite-only thing. However, like someone said, this fandom is small enough that we're pretty sure whoever we vouch for will be pretty cool. :|a
→ This musebox will be entirely community-based, obviously, and will also sport an OOC community. The tentative names for those two communities are 'serviceace' and 'returnace' and we can totally call the game ACE, courtesy of Cassie. Or Ace to Ace. Or some other really cracky variation. Anyone have any other suggestions for community names or game names?
→ ... is Shinpuri canon, or should we just pretend it doesn't exist?
This post will be updated if/when discussions gets going. If anyone has other things to bring up, suggestions, etc, please post! :D We want all of your opinions. All of it.