How to Run a Major Plot
We are so thrilled with the creativity of this group! Since our appeal for your plotting input, many of you guys have stepped right up to the plate with brilliant ideas!
The first part of this announcement is a general 'how to', and the second is guidelines and suggestions for organising the timing issue.
How to Run an Organised Plot
1. Pre-planning is essential.
For a game this size, where we function in real-time, yet many of our threads take weeks to complete, it is absolutely crucial to have 'world-affecting-events' pre-written and posted on the 'day' they happen, in-game, so the 'world' can react appropriately in real-time fashion.
If you want/need Admin involvement in the form of Ministry goons or NPC's of some sort, this is all the more important just due to our own real-life and game-busy-ness time constraints. Three to six weeks is not too much advance planning!
This also helps when you have very different time-zones among your fellow plotters. You can compose your posts in advance, emailing them back and forth, using AIM threading, or even playing in a custom-friends-group in someone's journal until time to post to the main group, so when the time comes for the plot to start, much of the initial writing is merely a copy/paste or a posting of the link.
2. Is it a 'bad-guy-plot'? Know your Perp.
If you need help with a 'motivation' for your bad-guy, please contact the admin team - we have several bad-guy-plots lined up, ourselves, for use if/when things get a bit too dull/quiet, and we're more than willing to share. ;) Also, if you have a motivation already decided for your baddie, please let us know what it is! This way, if he/she is not 'caught' at the end of your sequence, we can pull him out again later for more badness. :)
If you want him/her to be 'caught in the act' or soon after, that is fine, too. It is however you would like it to be played out.
3. NPC's -
Please try to keep track of any NPC's you invent and add them to our Game NPC List.
This group of your fellow players have made themselves available to assist with running NPC's if extra hands are needed.
The Admin Team needs to keep some level of control over certain characters for game-consistency. Fenrir, Rudiger, the 'top officials' heading Magical Law Enforcement, Werewolf Capture Unit and the Aurors need some level of Admin approval/involvement to run. However, there is an infinite number of NPC's 'beneath' these doofuses who are at your disposal! ;) The Ministry, in general, cares most about its own 'image' more than anything else, WCU is a bunch of anti-werewolf bigots, and the Aurors are broadly varied, some sympathetic to the injustice of the Registry, some not, etc. Use them to your heart's content.
A Note on Auror NPC's - For the ease of future Auror characters joining the game (we hope!), please tag any thread in which you use an NPC Auror with the tag, "group:Aurors". This will allow our Auror players to know what has gone on with that particular sub-set of characters. Like a Police Department, we assume that 'files' will be on-hand for the Aurors to use, and by tagging the threads appropriately, information will be easy to find.
4. Newspapers -
The Daily Prophet - If this is a big, flamboyant occurrence, the Daily Prophet is going to write about it, with their own spin. The Prophet, basically, doesn't like anyone, but the Ministry leans on them heavily enough that if they are going to have a slant, it will be pro-Ministry, and also pro-anyone rich enough to pay them off. (Malfoys, Lestranges, Parkinsons, etc.)
The Quibbler - this is Nilah/Luna's domain, but she has offered it for anyone who wants to use it. If you want to write a 'counter-article', maybe a nice, off-the-wall conspiracy theory, whatever, send it to Nilah for 'publication' in the Quibbler.
Witch Weekly - this is primarily the domain of Sam/Narcissa and Cate/Lavender (using Calliope), but they also are willing to let others contribute. It is only 'published' on Saturdays, and is far more of a 'social' bent than a 'news' bent. Send 'submissions' to one or the other of these ladies for proper formatting/posting, but give them several days advance notice so they know to expect it and have time to format it.
Prophet Sports - this is Fuji's baby, same thing as above, primarily involved in 'sports news', and send submissions directly to Fuji.
In all cases, as much of the formatting, cutting, html, image-insertion links, etc., as you can do yourself, the easier the copy/paste/publish is for the 'publishers'. *grin*
We, ye olde Admin Team, are willing to write articles for you, in relation to your 'event', of course. However, if you have time and desire, it is actually better if YOU write it, since you will know more of the details of the plot and can write it in advance so it gets posted in quick succession after your plot begins.
If you want us to write it, let us know, and give us as many details as possible before-hand. If you write it, please send it to the admin email a day or two early so we can format it and such, and then we'll post it using the Daily Prophet icon - this is if it is a Prophet article, of course.
Find a list of your fellow-players who are also willing to help write newspaper articles for plot-purposes, here.
5. Character Involvement -
As you are plotting/creating your broad-spectrum events, please consider your fellow players. If someone is going to be 'hurt', please contact Woody/Ginny Weasley's Mun, who is now our primary St. Mungo's person. Consider existing Aurors at the Ministry. Deirdre Burke is the official Minsitry Psychologist, and would be ideal to call in for a 'debriefing' to try and over-come a traumatic experience. Be creative and include your fellow players whenever possible, as many as possible! :)
6. Admin Involvement -
Honestly, truly, the less we meddle in your plot, the more fun you will have, and the more time we will have! *grin* We want to be here for you to help you out and catch loose-ends and things, but we don't want to take-over or run your plots. If all we have to do is sit-back and watch, more the better! *wink*
The existence of the 'collars' for Remus and Snape now makes it almost impossible for any 'real' suspicion to fall on them, or any other present high-profile Registry Individuals (Lucius, Bellatrix, the other werewolves), which means you don't have to worry about what, if anything, they will be doing or the Ministry doing to/about them in relation to your own bad-guy-plotness.
This was a deliberate attempt on our parts to give us an in-game reason to keep Snape and Lupin OUT of the mix, because otherwise they were going to be 'hauled in' for questioning forever, which was simply too much. The other 'tagged' characters, may, of course, work their way out of the 'decorations' as you desire with your character, but Snape and Lupin will remain, for the indefinite future, 'tagged'.
7. Moderation -
The only other thing we ask is that you keep in mind the flavour of our game, and what has been going on in the world around you as you are plotting. It is very easy for the excitement of 'bad-guys' and attacks to 'take over' a game, until the plots start to get a little far-fetched and silly. That is another reason why we ask things to be spread out a bit in time-frame, so things don't get really wild. Also, it is nice to 'share' the drama a bit as things move along, so we would not want to see the same person being dramatically attacked over and over. (Though, Fenrir does have a bit of a vendetta against a certain Weasley!) If your character has experienced one attack/kidnapping/victim status of some sort, please consider yourself out of the 'potential victim pool' until others on the 'list' have had a turn! ;)
The occasional NPC death is fine, just please let us know so we can keep a sense of balance - the Wizarding world isn't that large, and a death every two-to-three weeks would probably be too much.
Character injuries and property damage are also fine, as long as the player involved has agreed to it and everyone is happy. ;) Watch out for accidental power-plays if you are getting into wand-fights. MOst of the DE stragglers who are out there, but not on the Registry, are those poor saps who weren't talented enough to be expected to be at the battle. They'll know some Dark Spells, yes, but their power/aim/skill won't be that great, so feel-free to 'best' them and give them a nick or two to remember you by, in the process!
8. Involve our Newbies!!
This is the one area where we, as admins, lose quite a bit of 'control' when we hand over plot-development to you guys. The pay-off is totally worth it, because the creativity of our players is what makes this game so rich and wonderful - but it also means that JL, Adrianne and I aren't the ones to control who 'fits in' to any given plot, or how.
One of the biggest complaints against ANY rpg, but especially ones of this size and life-span, is that of being 'clique-y'. I am very, very proud to say that it is a complaint very seldom heard about this game - you guys are fabulous at welcoming our new players!
Still, it is somewhat intimidating, as a new person, to step into a game and know where his/her character might 'fit'. As many of these plots are planned weeks in advance, it is not very easy to suddenly alter things to include another tangent or another player, but please keep our newbies in mind as you plan! If you CAN include them, please do so.
Game-Timing - how to run your plot in a 'good' time for maximum player/character Involvement:
Whenever there is a broad-world-affecting plot, for 'fun' or 'evil', we have to consider timing in a fashion that is very artificial compared to the real-world. I know there is a strong argument for just letting everyone run their plots as they think of them, and just let the 'world' respond as it will. That is the 'natural' way for these things to happen.
However, from a game-standpoint, to keep our game relatively organised and fun for everyone, we have chosen to make some efforts at 'spreading things out' a bit, so that people aren't completely overwhelmed. This is a sort of 'administrative decision' that does not appeal to everyone's role-play style, but it seems to work well, over-all, for this game. If plots just ran one on top of the other, our players would have to choose where to 'spend' their limited play-availability time, and some plots might get neglected.
It seems, from experience, that about three-to-six weeks between 'big events' is a minimum distance to give everyone a chance to catch up, things to settle down, and allow people to have time for private/personal character-plot development that is not related to world-events and things.
Ideally, in a perfect world, we would alternate 'bad-guy' stuff with 'socialite' stuff, having some new 'big-event' start every three to four weeks or so, but again, this is flexible based on what is going on in the world at the moment.
For this reason, please plan on some level of coordination with the admin team for your big plots, since sometimes we know of people planning things which have not yet been made public to the game at-large. A big plot is defined as anything which might need Admin intervention in the form of Ministry or Law Enforcement folks, or anything that would, by its nature, involve a broad-spectrum of the game characters in a time or activity-intense fashion, such as huge charity events or social galas.
This is merely for time-management planning. It is also why it helps to have the newsletter, and for you guys to sort of plan in advance for stuff going on, and check out what events are 'around' you so things don't over-lap too much.
The plotting community is now available at fi_plotting. Please use this community exclusively for 'plotting', and leave the friendly chatter in OoC. Since many people like things to be secret and a 'surprise' in the realm of role-playing, joining/using the plotting community is optional, and we ask that our plotters use lj-cuts and clearly label their topics so people can choose to read/be involved or not.
"I'm wanting to do a plot where my character gets to be the (fill in the blank - victim, bad-guy, guest of honour). I'd like to do this around the end of February. Anyone want to help me plan?"
"My character's birthday is on the (fill in the blank) and I want to do a big party. Planning help appreciated..."
"I want some random arsonists to burn down my character's house/shop/tool shed for various reasons... I'm looking at the middle of March because I'm out of school for spring break. Ping me if you want to help..."
"I'm bored and want to be a victim/hero/bystander/cop for a plot, but I don't have any ideas what... anyone looking to brainstorm and plot together?"
Any of these sorts of things are sure to garner plenty of helpers and me-too-ers.
This is your game and we want it to be fun and engaging for you! As always, we value your input and suggestions, as well as your creativity in making our game world such a rich and vibrant place to play!
Cheers!
Lisa, JL, and Adrianne