CLOK BBS

One player came to me about ways for characters to get more involved in the storylines. We don't want the storylines to be the GMs railroading a plot along without any chance of alteration or major participation by players aside from observing and killing a few hostile creatures. On the other hand, this isn't a pen-and-paper system - any non-standard changes or procedures have to be coded, and that takes a lot of time, particularly when so many other projects are in progress and higher-priority.

Therefore, I encourage players to post their ideas or tell them to GMs, not only for game development, but for what they want their characters to be doing regarding the storyline and current affairs. The GMs will take these things into consideration, and while they won't always be guaranteed to be succesful, we definitely want players to be involved in the events and be able to alter and change the outcomes.

A good example of this is Jaren. I think some people assume he's a GM, but he's not - he's a regular player character who went off the beaten path, made his character's wishes and desired actions known, and he dramatically changed the current state of affairs. The scarecrow alliance is broken, and the acolytes in the Burial Grounds are getting more involved in things when we originally had no plans for them to be involved at all.

Father Lucien is another good example. Another player that I think some people thought was a GM, he simply roleplays his character as he sees him, and as a result, we're now working on building an orphanage to add to the town, along with a donation box. And, of course, everyoen calls him "Father," which I think is both awesome and hilarious.

A third example is Nootau recently coming to me, asking if he could use his geomancy abilities to assist with reinforcing town defenses. There's no in-game mechanic for that, but assuming he plays his part well and talks to the right people in town to arrange it (even if it's just by posting on the BBS about requesting an audience with the Mayor, since town NPCs aren't always available to talk to in-game), he could help improve the town defenses that are going up and make things much more difficult for invaders to break in.

So let your character's ideas and thoughts be known so that we can help you get involved in events, even if they're not supported via normal mechanics. We'll be as accomodating as possible to help player characters get involved with and be able to influence the game world. That's what we want this game to be about.

For everyone's information, GMs can be reached via email by gm_name@contrarium.net. So for instance, get ahold of me by emailing rias@contrarium.net. Feel free to send us all your ideas! As said before, not all may be accepted (who knows what crazy ideas people might come up with?), but we will do our best to be accomodating! Generally, we'd prefer people to post ideas on the BBS, but if it's personal or private, email is fine.

And how could we forget Lacie and her bowtruckles? She got them involved in the town's defenses (if only briefly), and when the bowtruckle broodmother died, they pretty much adopted Lacie as their new broodmother. Awwwww.

Another follow-up thought: In the case of Nootau wanting to assist with the town defenses, to request an audience with the Mayor (or Acting Mayor, as we currently have), a good way to do that would be to post in the "IC Discussion" board, and describe Nootau going to the Town Hall and requesting an audience with a clerk. He could (and it would be neat if he did) do this in-game, but there might not be any GMs watching at the moment, and we wouldn't want him to end up being ignored just because of that. So, since he didn't know of any GMs watching, he could then post a summary of what he did on the IC Discussion board in order to ensure a GM sees it and can react accordingly on behalf of whatever town NPCs are required.