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Dante Abigor · **01-20-2015, 03:19 AM**

TL;DR: I need help planning multiple Rp events with overlapping and related plot points and converging together, but I need help figuring out the whole thing. Want vague addled details written on the fly? Read below. Want some concrete details or just something specific in general? Message me.

ADDLED MADNESS posted from a phone

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SpoilerI love rp events. I could go on about that but skipping that to bite into the meat of what I'm trying to get around to, I love crafting a story. For the better part of a year now I have been trying to craft a grand storyline that spanned as widely across the servers rpers as much as possible. Of course I know not all forms of rper are compatible & stories/characters are closed off, so I decided to shoot for gathering as many as possible for the story. This project began in the form of a banquet with all kinds of craziness going on before during and after like an actual arc, changing direction and outcomes based on character interactions.Â

This probably sounds all well and good at first, but there are fundamental and fatal problems keeping it from happening. For one, the massive amount of planning that needs to go into starting and making these events happen. One thing I have always noticed with massive events is that when that many people swarm together, the text rolls FAST. It's like trying to read the subtitles on a gurren Lagan episode with the speed set to like 2.5 if not worse. So to help ease that issue, I wanted to have multiple events happen around the same time in multiple locations.Â

Sounds confusing? To give an example of what I envisioned let's say around 15 or so people are attending a ball in estate A. In estate B, another 10 or so are engrossed in some battle scene related to said ball at A, while something else is happening at location C with x amount of people that possibly carries the plot forward in a slightly more significant way than A or B.Â

I've tried many different approaches & even ran experiments in game with this style, although only in small scale. The minute I thought about expanding the scale things went BOOM! How do you choose which characters go where? Who is going to gather everyone together? Is there a time limit? If so, how long? Will they all have the same time limit, or will it vary? Can it be concluded earlier? How flexible is the story? If it works off of a maleable template, then which events are indeed set in stone if any?Â

Endless questions that can indeed be answered with careful planning & consideration, but then I get to the unbeatable juggernaut of the entire problem. Gods blighted time zones.Â

No matter how well this thing is planned, people still have lives & live in different places. No matter how much I try, everything gets obliterated as I consider that no matter how awesome the plot, the moment we schedule something, SOMEONE won't be able to make it. I'm not crazy enough to believe that just hoping and believing can kill this issue ever, but just thinking this awesome person or that epic idea was lost forever in an abyss of loltimezones or work somehow bothers me to no end. Numerous other issues aside, this is the largest enemy I could think of to the entirety of the idea proposed above.Â

So finally I realize that I cannot hope to tackle this issue on my own, so I turn to all the smarty pants' of RPC for aid. It might have come out a bit hair brained but I really want to make this idea work somehow.Â

If you have ideas please let me know. If you need more details/want to message me feel free, I prostrate myself before your mercy!Â

Thank you in advance for any assistance. Also I apologize for any craziness in this post. I'll edit it later but I did all of this on
my phone so auto correct might have ninja'd me.

EDIT:
What am I trying to do? I am trying to make a series of connected events to get a large amount of Rpers connected to a storyline of sorts connecting them in various ways. While I DO have a default template to follow if no one has any ideas, I am keeping the story in question vague for now to allow for flexibility and changes. The key to keep in mind is that I want events and stories RELATED to each other in one way or another, they don't exactly need to follow a sequence to a set ending, I am trying to keep things as open as possible until I find out who is on board and interested, then adjust everything as we go along. As my character(s) would not/could not be present for all of these events, I would not have direct influence over how everything develops, so I am also looking for people to help guide things along as well so everything doesn't implode.

Are these all happening at the same time or in a time bubble? While they COULD happen at the same time in theory, issues with time zones/schedules could easily wreck that. It also causes the problem of people having to choose between events, effectively losing some information they may want/need(For example, if you are ic at another event, and another event you wanted to watch oocly is happening, it can create a conflict, to demonstrate one point). I don't think a time bubble is necessary until delays and such happen, but I am not opposed to them should they be in favor.

WHY YU NO POST PLOT? I haven't posted the plot because as I said already I intend for it to be flexible. Once I find anyone interested/get something more organized together, then I will post a full description of the plot itself in the events section of these forums. Right now I seek assistance still, so there is no real point in posting about a story that could still change.

B-but....if all these events happen in different places/times, how are people going to be able to keep up/know wtf is going on? Forums would be the most simple answer, but not everyone is going to come to the forums, or even use them. I have an idea to more or less summarize what happened at each event at the end and have it posted on the forums so that people can read them/post a recap for those that need/want it. Im kind of shaky on this one though, so I would really like more ideas concerning this, since this is rather difficult to manage & Im honestly not very experienced with this aspect of events.

So....what are the rules going to be for these events? For now the only constant rule for the events is the typical no meta gaming/God mode/being a jerk OOCly. Other than that, the rules would change for each specific event. For example, lets say there is a plot point that involves weavers competing with each other to please a rich person for whatever reason. A rule in place is that no one can have the same color/material outfits presented or something of that nature.

Can I come into the plot after it begins? Yes. Not much to say here, but I intend to have everything open enough so that people can come and go from the plot freely. Obviously there would be exceptions to this but for the most part the answer is a definite yes.

Quick questions that could be answered here?

Yes you can suggest events into the storyline, the details of how can be changed/varied according to where the story is currently headed.
Yes, spontaneous things will most likely happen in these events.
The reason why I want to split the plotline up into smaller groups is because larger groups see that a massive flood of text litters the chat, making Rping harder and harder to keep in order as everyone begins posting. I don't like giving people "turns" to post, so I thought that spreading them out further would be a better solution.
I DO need villains for this plotline of course, so by all means speak up if you want to be a villainous dastardly dandy dandler.

OTHER: My brain is all full of cheese and stuff, so Im sure I forgot to list something else. Have a question or are interested? Please post here or send me a message, I would love to get back to you. Think something in my approach is flawed or wont work at all? Please let me know. I realize this is a difficult thing to put together but without getting more input I could miss something, so please by all means assist and criticize.

Mae · **01-20-2015, 04:18 PM**

Unless I'm reading this wrong, you're looking to run three separate (but connected) events at three different locations, all at the same time? If this is true, then I think you're biting off waaaaaaaaaay more than you can chew. Regadless of the timezone issue (which I'll address in a few moments), various forms of plot can (or sometimes won't) happen at an event and at different speeds. Even if you're just running a single event of a plot, you run the risk of stuff happening too fast, never happening, or going completely off-track unless you actively DM it. I can't even imagine how things would go with three events in three different areas at the same time.

Timezones and real-life obligations are always going to be an issue. In other places and games, I always just polled everyone and selected the time where the most amount of people could attend. Yes, some people got left out but if a few people's schedules are completely incomparable, there's nothing I could do short of catering to their schedule and blowing off everyone else's. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", and all that.

Now... with you having three related events that are supposed to have happen at all around the same time, I'd suggest running the three events on different days and just time-bubble it all. For example:

Banquet event happens on Monday, Fight happens on Tuesday, other event happens on Thursday. People who attend the Banquet and Fight events are informed that their events are not IC-canon until after the other event on Thursday concludes.

When it comes to choosing the dates, you survey your participants. Ask them to put in order which event they are more interested in attending, then which days/times are best for them. This might not fix the problem so that everyone can attend the event they really wanted to, but it DOES sort of spread things out to give everyone a better chance of at least attending something. It does hard-lock people into attending only one event. And if the time-bubble thing doesn't sit well with people, you can just split everything up so that it's a chain of three events on three different days. Same idea, greater chance for more people to participate in some aspect.

Those are my only suggestions... hope they at least give you something to consider.

8bitbadguy · **01-21-2015, 07:56 PM**

I think there's a couple ways to approach a multi-level event, personally. I should preface my comment with the fact that I think something like this can be overwhelming, for both the organizer and those involved, so it's best to allow a degree of flexibility to the players involved I think. Anyway, This would be my approach:

1. Find other players who are interested andÂ committedÂ to the idea of a large event.
I figure this is kind of a no-brainer, but obviously you're going to need to find enough interested people to fill the spots. It may be a good idea to decide on the time before you go recruiting interested parties.

2. Of these players, choose 3 to be task leaders.
In this scenario, you're kind of like dungeon master. A DM can't keep an eye on three groups at one, especially if they're not at the same table. You're going to have to assign a person to moderate each event. Task leaders should know everything and anything about the event so that it runs smoothly. You may have plot points you want to keep a surprise, but your task leaders at least, shouldn't be kept in the dark. Personally, I would also choose people who can communicate clearly to you about the progress of the events, and who can either log or summarize each RP.

3. Decide how the events tie in to one another.
Why are these events running simultaneously? Will players be meeting up after each event concludes? Will the victors from the battlefield go and crash the ball? Will the outcome of the battle affect a political address to the people gathered at spot C? You're going to have to let your players know too, in some way, how their own groups are going to be interacting.

4. Order events by importance and assign players respectively
You can't count on all your players to have no real life interruptions in their personal life forecast. If you have events that have more wiggle-room than others, place players that are more unsure about attendance or commitment in low priority spots. That way, there's less stress on them or you if they need to drop.Â

...As for tips to get around obligations or time zones, I can't really offer that much help. I have a lot of problems come up because of being in a weird time zone myself. I would say Sunday is a good day for events like these, though. Sunday is the eastern half of the world's Saturday, so it's the weekend for everyone. And a good number of people in the west have Sunday off.

Dante Abigor · **01-22-2015, 01:20 AM**

(01-20-2015, 04:18 PM)Mae Wrote:

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SpoilerUnless I'm reading this wrong, you're looking to run three separate (but connected) events at three different locations, all at the same time? If this is true, then I think you're biting off waaaaaaaaaay more than you can chew. Regadless of the timezone issue (which I'll address in a few moments), various forms of plot can (or sometimes won't) happen at an event and at different speeds. Even if you're just running a single event of a plot, you run the risk of stuff happening too fast, never happening, or going completely off-track unless you actively DM it. I can't even imagine how things would go with three events in three different areas at the same time.

Timezones and real-life obligations are always going to be an issue. In other places and games, I always just polled everyone and selected the time where the most amount of people could attend. Yes, some people got left out but if a few people's schedules are completely incomparable, there's nothing I could do short of catering to their schedule and blowing off everyone else's. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", and all that.

Now... with you having three related events that are supposed to have happen at all around the same time, I'd suggest running the three events on different days and just time-bubble it all. For example:

Banquet event happens on Monday, Fight happens on Tuesday, other event happens on Thursday. People who attend the Banquet and Fight events are informed that their events are not IC-canon until after the other event on Thursday concludes.

When it comes to choosing the dates, you survey your participants. Ask them to put in order which event they are more interested in attending, then which days/times are best for them. This might not fix the problem so that everyone can attend the event they really wanted to, but it DOES sort of spread things out to give everyone a better chance of at least attending something. It does hard-lock people into attending only one event. And if the time-bubble thing doesn't sit well with people, you can just split everything up so that it's a chain of three events on three different days. Same idea, greater chance for more people to participate in some aspect.

Those are my only suggestions... hope they at least give you something to consider.

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The Hell of scale(seeking assistance)

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes