(08-12-2015, 12:05 PM)Ckayah Polaali Wrote: The big problem, for me, with trying to squeeze random RP in the middle of an arc is that the arc usually takes far longer to play than it's supposed to take for C'kayah to live. Something that might be 3 days for C'kayah could take weeks to play. This creates a continuity problem that makes it hard to do other stuff during the arc.
What I've ended up doing is pinning the end of the RP arc to the day we finish it, and then tracing back, instead of pinning the start of the arc to the day we start. There are still continuity problems (i.e.: it's hard to reference the arc to other people in RP before it's done), but it makes it far easier to work other RP into it. Those 3 days don't actually start until 3 days before the day we finish them, so there's no reason for C'kayah to be unavailable during the weeks we're playing the arc.
I just try not to worry about strict timelines if it seems like the RP won't be something super serious.
If Evangeline does an RP of a few hours lecturing someone on the injustices of Eorzea, how the gods aren't real, and her taste in romantic literature, it doesn't matter exactly where it happens on her timeline.
The next time she meets the person I just treat it as having happened an indeterminate point of time in the past. I don't worry about the details unless the person is planning to get involved in her current story.
In order to foster this I generally don't have her bring up the more serious stuff that she's dealing with in plots unless it is needed, so generally the random RP is rather lighthearted, and is more for introducing characters and relaxing rather than plot development.
