Ambrosia Software Web Board: A new kind of TS (idea proposal only) - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Ive been in and out around here for a couple years and ive noticed to population roller coaster a bit. I believe our TS topics are some of the best around, but the main problem is that they go on for a long time and those involved dont generally want to get involved with more than 1 TS at a time, as to not get them confused.

What this does is create a rift between those who want to be in a story and those already in a story. Might not be a large rift, but wouldnt you enjoy having your characters all be in one story, or not have a character of yours be in a story for so long that you lose some interest?

My idea is to create a new genre of TS. I call it the Speed Team Story, or STS for short. In an STS, all the party members should join up within the first 4-5 days of role call of the STS. The topic maker is the main advancer of the story but the others can expand upon certain aspects and move the story along as well, but most the twists are told by the topic starter.

Where this differs from the regular TS is in the speed of it, obviously. In an STS, every party member would be required to post at least once every other day. If unable to do as such, a person should not join. If something comes up, then exceptions can be made, but a note should be left in the story about the absence, ooc of course, so that the next rule doesnt come into effect. If by the third day a person should not post their addition, their character will be killed off in battle. This might seem a bit harsh, but it is a better option than having one or more people completely forgotten about for half the story only to reappear as members 6 and 7 of a group in a 5 person battle.

This is for those dedicated to posting in a TS. The basic thoughts apply, dont kill off active team members, unless it is your own or you have discussed it with the owner and described how you intend to bring them back, as they are willing members of the story they should be given some power of the mortality of their own chars. If you do fully kill off an active member (active as in they are posting at least once every other day) and do so without discussing beforehand, your post will be deleted and the day will be counted as a did not post for the day, even if you post a different addition. Also a karma dock would be in order, as that would quite literally be in bad karma.

As far as length of time, a STS shouldnt last more than two weeks, barring a very involving story which makes those in it want to continue with it on furthur.

And as a final note, those who want to help the topic creater in moving the story along should discuss with the creator of the story in another medium, such as AIM, to be able to melt together what the story creator wants to what the poster wants to put in. Another great place to chat on this manner, in which would be highly recommended, would be our own little chat community of #cythera on IRC on ASW's own server.

To recap:


Speed Team Story : STS
Basic layout: Team story where team members are required to post to at least every other day. Exceptions are made if the team member lets the party know about it ahead of time (others exceptions will be accepted on a case by case basis)

If not posting as requested, your char will be killed. Most likely by the story creator, but some other member might have an interesting battle theyd like to play out to include a party member death.

If you kill off an active team member without permission, your post is deleted and your day is forfeited (so doing so two days in a row gets you killed off instead)

Story creator moves story along, team members embellish upon that, and those members in contact with creator can spin it forward a bit as well.

Generally lasts only a couple weeks, as that would be almost as long as a story would need to go at that point.

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Again, you might think it a bit hardnosed to just kill off somebody because they havent posted to the story for a couple days, but its a needed step to avoid complications in the story fabric.

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So, what do you all think? Im not really planning on starting one right away, more of an idea at the moment than anything else, but it would be an interesting idea to see a team story roll right along and get 5-10 posts per day for a couple weeks to end it out rather than see it slowly being taken along over a period of several months.

(no offense to those longer topics, this is just trying to offer up another option)

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I like it. Though instead of killing a character, just kick it out of the story permanently.

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On April Fool's Day, we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. - Mark Twain

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That is a decent idea.

The reason I came to the idea of killing off the character is because if you are intensely into a team story, just one person dropping out mid-battle seems to be a bit silly. The killing off could make for an exciting point of interest where, midbattle, a character was slain, only to boost the resolve of his/her allies.

There can be a compromise though, such as if the story isnt in a point of battle around where the time the character is banned, then the person departing the group due to one reason or another could be fully acceptable.

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(.Y.)
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Actually, knocking out characters in battle is easy. "Desert Fox, failing to react in time, took a hard blow to the leg as the sound of bone cracking filled the air. He slammed forward into the rock and cried out in pain, feeling some of his ribs pop. A blow to the back of his head proceeded his decent into unconsciousness." And then later, have them dropped off at the nearest safe place to recover. It makes sense, most characters can't keep going with a fractured skull, a compounded fracture on the thigh, and four broken ribs.

Its when the party is walking through a forest and someone has to trip over a branch lying on the ground to get out, is when it becomes harder to explain.

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Its all fun and games...until an ugly lock picture ruins everything! Vote to ban lock pictures!

I've always liked: "Avatara hit Trah with a bone-crunching sound, but to no effect!"

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[url="http://"http://zoxler.net"]Zoxler.net[/url]
We in the U.S. require a new shrubbery.

"Instead, Trah's head, all but bursting with hot air, just made a sick squishy noise. Trah staggered around dizzily and dropped out of the story anyway."

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Its all fun and games...until an ugly lock picture ruins everything! Vote to ban lock pictures!

It matters not, that was my first and last post on this board.
Wait a second... oops.

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[url="http://"http://zoxler.net"]Zoxler.net[/url]
We in the U.S. require a new shrubbery.

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Hrm...well...yes, that does make sense...

I hadnt though of disabling injuries to knock a char out of a story. I think thats a good alternative to my though of killing off someone who doesnt continue along with the story.

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(.Y.)
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I like the idea of a Speed Team Story. Perhaps, ordinary Team Stories could have a liberal posting (example: having to post at least once in 2 weeks).

I have 2 questions.
Would we be able to post more often than once a every other day if we wanted to?
And would members not in direct communication be able to add their own little twists to the story?

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Selax

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Or, "[x] ground [y] to dust, but to no effect!"

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Key Part in the making of Xichra's Revenge.
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[url="http://"http://www.nightwish.com/"]Fly to a dream / far across the sea / all the burdens gone / open the chest once more / dark chest of wonders / seen through the eyes / of the one with pure heart / once so long ago.[/url]

I like it, and I might even manage to get up the energy to join in under those rules. The story that was running when I first started posting, 'The Undead War' (some call it a 'Tavern interlude', but it was really a continuation of 'Thieves Cavern', and a good story in its own right) was pretty fast moving, with 3 or 4 people posting per day. That was enough to inspire me to post at least once a day, in my newbie-enthusiasm.

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"The e-mail of the specious is deadlier than their mail" - Tom Holt, 'Snow White and the Seven Samurai'

Here's to Noob enthusiasm! Some of my favorite posts were with Magpie, but never mind that.
I would gladly join one of these team stories, and I think the idea of having a character killed off would be fun... I'd be honoured to have "deceased" in the Character info thread.

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They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian; but no one's laughing now!

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1. YES! You would be encouraged to post as often as you could. The faster the story can be moved, the better. If you keep in contact with the story creator through AIM or IRC or ICQ or YM or whatever other medium, you can also move it along, keeping in mind that the story creator is the one calling the big shots, but you could move it on however fast you would like.

2. Perhaps, but its best that you explain some ideas to others somehow. Even an email correspondance with the game creator would help him to be able to tie in a plot twist or two without much problem. It would be fair to say that the creator is the one who leads you to the end, while the people decide how they get there.

Again, the idea of a STS would be to move the story along quickly, and the more quickly it moves the more exciting it is to be in one.

Now, there is a lot of room to play around with, and the creator would let the people know the rules at the end of the first post, so that others know where their limits and limitations lie, so that they dont cross one too flagrantly and have their post removed for continuity reasons.

And again, I do not intend to start one of my own for at least until the current TS is finished. After which, id be more than happy to enter one of my two characters into the fray.

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(.Y.)
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It would really help if we *could* get in contact with the members of the story for this, even if it is just to ask/answer questions. Right now, about a third of the people in the story have email or AIM, and I don't know of very many people that use IRC.

To really mass-coordinate a STS would require some communication between members, even if its just a "I'm posting now" so we don't have four people posting within 10 minutes that have completely contradictory postings. (of course, a "placeholder" post could reserve a slot, but if someone doesn't use on and is almost done with a post just to have someone else insert a placeholder...that'll cause problems).

Right now there's no trouble, of course players aren't asked to post at least once in 48 hours and when you have upwards of 15 people...

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So we can use e-mail to cordinate plot twists with the story creator?

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Selax

I think that would depend. Normally yes, but if the plot creator doesn't have email visible then just post a topic asking for it. With a fast TS and a 2-day limit to post, email may not always be the best option for a fast reply - unless you're attempting to arrange a meeting time for AIM/IRC. Though, it may work depending on how complex of a twist it is (how much explanation and effort is needed to integrate it into the story successfully).

I can't say for sure, I haven't done the speed-TS idea yet. I have had issues where something has taken a week and chains of 12-14 replies each way to work out an idea over email - which is fine, if you're planning far enough in advance.

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Its all fun and games...until an evil [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape/journeylogs/"]wormhole[/url] sucks you up and spits you out across the galaxy.
Watch [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape"]Farscape's miniseries[/url] this October 17th!
Coming to a Sci-Fi channel near you!

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Looks like youve thought it out a bit. I really enjoy the idea of a placeholder, which would probably be a necessity in a game such as this.

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(.Y.)
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I just remember some nasty fights erupting when two people posted very different ideas at the same time in the Sorcery Tower. A lot of yelling and idea-crushing went on, something I'd rather not have repeated if possible.

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Its all fun and games...until an evil [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape/journeylogs/"]wormhole[/url] sucks you up and spits you out across the galaxy.
Watch [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape"]Farscape's miniseries[/url] this October 17th!
Coming to a Sci-Fi channel near you!

Is AIM or IRC going to be better? I'm not familair with either, so I don't know how well either perform with group conversations.
Also you might want to make allowances for people who aren't in the American time zone? It'd be hard to post as much if you're posting on your own for 4 hours at midnight your time.

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They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian; but no one's laughing now!

AIM is a handy tool for one-on-one communications. While you can have multi-party AIM communications, not all AIM clients support that, so IRC is better for bigger conversations (and even leaving messages in the chatroom via the topic).

If you're the only person that posts in your time zone, ever, than for that timeframe its highly unlikely your posting will conflict with someone else, so it may not be necessary to coordinate postings. Anyway, like DF said, we could simply use "placeholder" posts to indicate someone is writing up something and the rest should wait. Depending on the story, the group might be split into two or more smaller groups (like in the current one), in which case, two people posting about two different groups could probably get by posting around the same time without any major conflict.

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Its all fun and games...until an evil [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape/journeylogs/"]wormhole[/url] sucks you up and spits you out across the galaxy.
Watch [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape"]Farscape's miniseries[/url] this October 17th!
Coming to a Sci-Fi channel near you!

IRC can be found in any search for IRC on the web. You should be able to find a free client easily.

If you decide to get something like that, just ask around, we can tell you where to go from there.

Also, im on at random times, so you will find that more often than not, I may be around when you are. Hell, its 5am where I am right now, so being up late doesnt disturb me.

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(.Y.)
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Three years ago, back in the "second golden age", Talos wrote up a guide on how to use [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum5/HTML/000929.html"]IRC[/url], if it comes in handy. Most of that should still apply.

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Its all fun and games...until an evil [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape/journeylogs/"]wormhole[/url] sucks you up and spits you out across the galaxy.
Watch [url="http://"http://www.scifi.com/farscape"]Farscape's miniseries[/url] this October 17th!
Coming to a Sci-Fi channel near you!

Maybe the first STS could be part 2 of the Once Again TS. That is unless it was finished (if it was somebody please provide me with a link to it) or unless there are too few of the members from it still around.

There was a part two a long time ago, it just kind of sucked...

This is a very good idea. I would happily join in one of these stories whenever I have the time. Unfortunately, I haven't had much posting time lately, but I bet I could easily get a post ready at least every other day provided they were short.