Fantasy Mediums || Lounge

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OverconfidentMagi
When will the next time-skip take place?

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

First of all, I apologize for being unavailable this past week. I moved from Florida to New Hampshire for work, and will soon be relocating again, so please be patient with my hectic availability.


That said, I did try to leave this time open for you all to explore the space and have your characters interact with one another, and...

Four out of nine participants even got a post up. Over a period of two weeks. And only one interaction actually happened between characters in that time. That's not good, not good at all.

So, Aeshae QuirkyAngel NyxDarling PastelBeauty hosaki
I have to ask, do you want to continue participating in this story?

And if so, how would you like me to change something about the story or my running of it to promote activity from those participating in it? This might be a world and setting I made up, but the story isn't just mine. I want others to enjoy creating it as well. So what can we do to make it better?

As always, OverconfidentMagi is at your service!​

 

[hosaki]

OverconfidentMagi Sorry, I had to take a break from RPN for two weeks. I'm definitely still interested in participating, but I'll have to catch up on the posts before I can get my thoughts into order.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

First of all, I apologize for being unavailable this past week. I moved from Florida to New Hampshire for work, and will soon be relocating again, so please be patient with my hectic availability.


That said, I did try to leave this time open for you all to explore the space and have your characters interact with one another, and...

Four out of nine participants even got a post up. Over a period of two weeks. And only one interaction actually happened between characters in that time. That's not good, not good at all.

So, Aeshae QuirkyAngel NyxDarling PastelBeauty hosaki
I have to ask, do you want to continue participating in this story?

And if so, how would you like me to change something about the story or my running of it to promote activity from those participating in it? This might be a world and setting I made up, but the story isn't just mine. I want others to enjoy creating it as well. So what can we do to make it better?

As always, OverconfidentMagi is at your service!​

Still here. The motivation to write has been low of late, but I'll force myself out of the slump soon enough.

 

[hosaki]

OverconfidentMagi
Okay, so I've caught myself up to speed and posted. Not really the best since I still haven't gotten Belladonna to interact with anyone yet, but her circumstances do make her more solitary and independent so that part is at least consistent with character.

I've been thinking about factors that made it difficult to post: I think the biggest difficulty was the sheer amount of information being revealed all at once.

For the picnic scene, I found it difficult to keep track of all of the characters present especially with the NPCs being thrown into the mix and I personally felt that their presence subtracted a little from the potential for player-player interaction. So in the future, it may be better to only throw in an NPC interaction if you want to herd a player somewhere or if the NPC becomes plot relevant. However, that's just my own perception of the situation (having more regular NPC interactions does seem more realistic for a class of 30). You could try to formally group together the player characters with an IC justification (i.e. problematic students, honor roll, some sort of extracurricular club? Just spitballing ideas here).

For the big tour, I felt a more organic integration of the setting into the plot could have done it more favors, like revealing parts of the house as they became relevant to the characters, i.e. waiting until official classes and training began to introduce the lecture halls and the training areas, waiting until the first homework assignment to introduce the library, etc. Maybe just the Nexus and the living areas would have been enough for first introduction. (I did like the Nexus a lot, you can probably tell from my post.)

The sheer amount of new locations to explore might have impacted how the characters could interact with one another. It may be more difficult to get people together for character interactions if you give them so many options and it may have also led to some choice overload (I noted that most of the players who did post gravitated towards the safety of the dorm rooms. That may not be a bad thing since it does group people together, but I was just personally more interested in the magical setting.)

I thought about what this might mean for the future lecture posts to come. Not many people posted questions in the OOC for their characters to ask, which might be concerning since it is one of the only ways players can interact with content. For me, posting questions was difficult because I didn't have enough information yet to dig deeper, nor was I able to anticipate what the info dump would contain. Maybe others also had similar issues. (Or it might also be because the post window was not long enough).

Overall, I would recommend revealing the information in segments so characters have more opportunities to respond and trying to make the information within the lectures more interactive. Like having characters discover some core principles of magic on their own/creating experiences that would make the lecture more relatable to their life out of the classroom. Having player characters attempt demonstrations might also make for a more integrated character-setting/lore experience.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

OverconfidentMagi
Okay, so I've caught myself up to speed and posted. Not really the best since I still haven't gotten Belladonna to interact with anyone yet, but her circumstances do make her more solitary and independent so that part is at least consistent with character.

I've been thinking about factors that made it difficult to post: I think the biggest difficulty was the sheer amount of information being revealed all at once.

That is fair, and also kind of the reason I tried out the lecture formatting for the tour. It's just a massive info dump with very little room for interaction, so instead of having it take up pages and pages of posts and possibly weeks of time as each character is given a chance to react to each piece when the main content being delivered won't change, I decided to just get all of the exposition out in one big chunk and let the story continue in its aftermath. That's the idea behind the lecture posts at least.

For the picnic scene, I found it difficult to keep track of all of the characters present especially with the NPCs being thrown into the mix and I personally felt that their presence subtracted a little from the potential for player-player interaction. So in the future, it may be better to only throw in an NPC interaction if you want to herd a player somewhere or if the NPC becomes plot relevant. However, that's just my own perception of the situation (having more regular NPC interactions does seem more realistic for a class of 30). You could try to formally group together the player characters with an IC justification (i.e. problematic students, honor roll, some sort of extracurricular club? Just spitballing ideas here).

I can see that. I have full character lists and diagrams to keep track of everything, but I should keep in mind that the players don't have that available to them. I was trying to introduce every character in the class (of 21 students) all at once, since they will be more or less the entire cast of this story. The NPCs are characters just the same as the player characters, and I was trying to show that by making each as fleshed out as I reasonably could early on. I do not plan on splitting up the class in any way to divide PCs from NPCs (there isn't really any IC justification for it - the entire year of students amounts to barely over 20 people) but I will keep in mind the difficulty of keeping things straight where too many characters are involved.

For the big tour, I felt a more organic integration of the setting into the plot could have done it more favors, like revealing parts of the house as they became relevant to the characters, i.e. waiting until official classes and training began to introduce the lecture halls and the training areas, waiting until the first homework assignment to introduce the library, etc. Maybe just the Nexus and the living areas would have been enough for first introduction. (I did like the Nexus a lot, you can probably tell from my post.)

The Nexus is fun. You can get anywhere on the campus to anywhere else in a matter of seconds just by traveling through it. And it comes with a shark. It only gets more confusing when you learn how mediums use magic and try and connect that to how the Nexus works.

The sheer amount of new locations to explore might have impacted how the characters could interact with one another. It may be more difficult to get people together for character interactions if you give them so many options and it may have also led to some choice overload (I noted that most of the players who did post gravitated towards the safety of the dorm rooms. That may not be a bad thing since it does group people together, but I was just personally more interested in the magical setting.)

The IC reason for revealing everything about the Halfway House to the students right away is to show the sheer amount of freedom, almost to a negligent degree, given to the students. They are allowed to go anywhere, do anything, with basically no rules, just show up for the incredibly reasonable class times.

I thought about what this might mean for the future lecture posts to come. Not many people posted questions in the OOC for their characters to ask, which might be concerning since it is one of the only ways players can interact with content. For me, posting questions was difficult because I didn't have enough information yet to dig deeper, nor was I able to anticipate what the info dump would contain. Maybe others also had similar issues. (Or it might also be because the post window was not long enough).

Overall, I would recommend revealing the information in segments so characters have more opportunities to respond and trying to make the information within the lectures more interactive. Like having characters discover some core principles of magic on their own/creating experiences that would make the lecture more relatable to their life out of the classroom. Having player characters attempt demonstrations might also make for a more integrated character-setting/lore experience.

My intention was for a lecture post to provide a large amount of exposition with minimum interaction in order to save time and keep the RP from stalling while important information is delivered. You can interact in small ways by asking questions OOC that I then splice into the post, but for the most part the lecture stands on its own, mostly separate from the story. Hell, your characters don't need to react during the contents of the lecture, they can pick up immediately after it and nothing would be lost. The point was to avoid the problem many RPs run into where interest dies before the exposition period is gotten through, but if doing it this way runs into the same stalling for different reasons I might have missed the mark here. I did say this was me trying something different, so I will be reevaluating what I want to do from here.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Oh, and the tour post was edited with the (few) questions that were asked. The red content is in red for easy reading. Feel free to continue posting questions that your character would have asked at the time.

Other questions can just be to me ooc or saved to have the character ask Sadako later.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

It looks like NyxDarling is no longer active on the site, so I'll have to do something about their character. Despite what Sadako said, students do not die, so I can't really kill him off in this setting. I'll most likely end up replacing him with an NPC (yay I could even out the gender ratio to 11 males 10 females), or I could let a player fill his spot with a second character. For now I'll just toss 'deal with Atalis' onto the pile of things to figure out.

 

[hosaki]

I decided to just get all of the exposition out in one big chunk and let the story continue in its aftermath.

From the interest check, I had the impression that there would be more active discovery and exploration involved with the world, especially since many lore/setting intensive RPs opt to write out their lore pages instead of actively inserting it into the flow of RP itself. Essentially, I expected the parts that you call the exposition to be the story itself (since the first arc is about learning to become a summoner). Maybe I entered with the wrong expectations... Would you say that this RP is more adventure + action or slice of life? Are character interactions the main focus at this point? I'm kind of confused now because this was marketed as Harry Potter-esque so I thought there would be a greater overarching plot (even if it is school related).

The NPCs are characters just the same as the player characters, and I was trying to show that by making each as fleshed out as I reasonably could early on.

My problem with this partly ties back to my confusion regarding the focus of the RP. If character interactions are the focus, then I suppose this makes some sense. My main question is if the student NPCs hold equal weight to the player characters, where should I be focusing my attention? We follow Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Hogwarts even though they are part of larger class of first years. Those first years occasionally appear in the story, but only when it is plot relevant. Though there aren't "main characters" per-say in RPs, I think I would consider there to be usually a main cast of 3-9 characters played by the players (+GM if they are also participating). It works because those 3-9 characters are usually gathered together in one place, contributing to the overall direction of the RP. (Larger RPs tend to fail, with Hosted Projects being the exception because they are large enough to subdivide into subplots that each maintain a manageable amount of focus characters). The situation for Mediums is strange because there is a small player cast, but the cast size is being inflated by NPCs and I don't really understand the logic behind this choice from a story-wise perspective. Moreover, if NPCs have just as much agency as PCs, I question the need for PCs in the first place. GMs typically control the flow of their stories while players contribute characters and character actions to alter/interact with their plots. If we add other characters controlled by the GM who can also alter/interact with the plot, aren't the player characters redundant? Unless I'm missing the point of this RP severely and it is supposed to be sandbox rather than plot-intensive?

----

Sorry if my criticism comes off as harsh/ungrateful; I don't mean it that way. GMing is a difficult business and heaven knows I don't have the patience, courage, foresight, and people skills to pull off what you're doing. I really like the setting and its
potential, so I guess I'm just trying to figure out if there's some miscommunication/misinterpretation happening on my end.

Oh, and the tour post was edited with the (few) questions that were asked. The red content is in red for easy reading. Feel free to continue posting questions that your character would have asked at the time.

Also, I didn't realize that the info dump posts could be edited to include questions and answers afterwards. That does make things a lot easier ^^

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

From the interest check, I had the impression that there would be more active discovery and exploration involved with the world, especially since many lore/setting intensive RPs opt to write out their lore pages instead of actively inserting it into the flow of RP itself. Essentially, I expected the parts that you call the exposition to be the story itself (since the first arc is about learning to become a summoner). Maybe I entered with the wrong expectations... Would you say that this RP is more adventure + action or slice of life? Are character interactions the main focus at this point? I'm kind of confused now because this was marketed as Harry Potter-esque so I thought there would be a greater overarching plot (even if it is school related).

There is no plot at all to speak of so far, as your character has literally just stepped into the world of magic. It isn't even their first day of school. I tend to dislike exposition being given outside of what characters would be able to learn IC, which is why I want to supply it within the story as the lessons. Since nothing about magic has been touched upon yet, it isn't fair to say how that is handled until it is.

For at least this first arc (semester or year of school), the story will be much more leaning towards slice of life. I stated this before, how summons need not be viable for combat or strong, since it won't matter until much later, and by then other factors will have become more important anyway. There will be action portions of the story, but not now. Character interaction is what matters now, as it sets up the foundation of characters and relationships to be molded and changed by what happens in the future.

The Harry Potter parallel is in the story being set in a magic school, in a world where magic exists just outside of the public view. There are larger plots planned, none of which matter this early in the story.

My problem with this partly ties back to my confusion regarding the focus of the RP. If character interactions are the focus, then I suppose this makes some sense. My main question is if the student NPCs hold equal weight to the player characters, where should I be focusing my attention? We follow Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Hogwarts even though they are part of larger class of first years. Those first years occasionally appear in the story, but only when it is plot relevant. Though there aren't "main characters" per-say in RPs, I think I would consider there to be usually a main cast of 3-9 characters played by the players (+GM if they are also participating). It works because those 3-9 characters are usually gathered together in one place, contributing to the overall direction of the RP. (Larger RPs tend to fail, with Hosted Projects being the exception because they are large enough to subdivide into subplots that each maintain a manageable amount of focus characters). The situation for Mediums is strange because there is a small player cast, but the cast size is being inflated by NPCs and I don't really understand the logic behind this choice from a story-wise perspective. Moreover, if NPCs have just as much agency as PCs, I question the need for PCs in the first place. GMs typically control the flow of their stories while players contribute characters and character actions to alter/interact with their plots. If we add other characters controlled by the GM who can also alter/interact with the plot, aren't the player characters redundant? Unless I'm missing the point of this RP severely and it is supposed to be sandbox rather than plot-intensive?

I did always hate how Harry Potter focused so narrowly on the main trio, like no other witch or wizard in this whole magical world could do a damn thing to affect events at all. Very few books even attempt a more holistic focus on every available character in the setting, so I apologize for having to reference anime here. I'm aiming for something closer to Assassination Classroom or My Hero Academia in terms of character focus, where the entire cast is available to play the main role as required. The NPCs are still NPCs, tools for the players to use to flesh out the setting, I've simply given them more weight. What an NPC does in this small setting does actually matter, since they aren't throw-way faceless window dressing. Your characters will continue to interact with these same NPCs throughout the entire semester at least. And until your characters grow into their own stories, the early plotlines in this RP will likely revolve around NPCs doing things and how your characters react to that.

Of course I could toss out every player character and write the story however I want to. That is called writing. I do also enjoy doing that in my free time. What I want to do here is called collaborative writing. I supply the story's starting point, your characters act as the causality butterflies flitting about deciding where we end up.

----

Sorry if my criticism comes off as harsh/ungrateful; I don't mean it that way. GMing is a difficult business and heaven knows I don't have the patience, courage, foresight, and people skills to pull off what you're doing. I really like the setting and its
potential, so I guess I'm just trying to figure out if there's some miscommunication/misinterpretation happening on my end.

No need to apologize. I'd rather face down a hundred rants than no response at all. It shows that someone actually cares enough to think about and have passion about the topic, in this case that's something about the world and story I've supplied. Rather than disapprove, I enjoy nothing more.

Oh, and GMing is actually quite easy. All you need is a little extra time to plan and type everything out, and be good at wrangling the attention of up to a dozen hyper-literate ADHD children long enough to get them to hammer out a few lines of text, and then repeat that every few days. Really not hard at all. send help

Also, I didn't realize that the info dump posts could be edited to include questions and answers afterwards. That does make things a lot easier ^^

I did try to remind people repeatedly to ask questions when I posted the tour, but I guess not everyone saw. The goal of the whole lecture post format was to minimize unnecessary interactions, but valuable interaction like clarifying information IC still needs to exist, hence the whole editing in questions.

 

[hosaki]

OverconfidentMagi
It is fair enough to say that it's too early into the RP for me to make any judgements, so I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride. (I'm curious now about the bigger events that will happen later, but it's probably no use asking 'cuz GMs are all so damn secretive). Only gotten past Season 2 of BNHA, so I can't say anything about that but it's interesting that you reference Assassination Classroom. For me, Koro-sensei was the linchpin of the series: he drove the plot and catalyzed the characters' developments, so his existence helped focus their arcs. I also think that Nagisa almost serves as a side protagonist/narrator (kind of like a Nick Carraway and Gatsby dynamic with Sensei?) and his growth from his time learning from Koro-sensei is given more narrative focus and weight versus the other students (via the 'all grown up' segment of the series -- other characters might have appeared, but Nagisa is the one who becomes a teacher to another class of "hopeless" students and follows in Koro-sensei's footsteps). In the case of 'Mediums', does the magic institution itself stand in as the 'Koro-sensei' figure, so to speak? Or are you planning something entirely different? I'm intrigued to see how you'll pull it off.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

OverconfidentMagi
It is fair enough to say that it's too early into the RP for me to make any judgements, so I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride. (I'm curious now about the bigger events that will happen later, but it's probably no use asking 'cuz GMs are all so damn secretive). Only gotten past Season 2 of BNHA, so I can't say anything about that but it's interesting that you reference Assassination Classroom. For me, Koro-sensei was the linchpin of the series: he drove the plot and catalyzed the characters' developments, so his existence helped focus their arcs. I also think that Nagisa almost serves as a side protagonist/narrator (kind of like a Nick Carraway and Gatsby dynamic with Sensei?) and his growth from his time learning from Koro-sensei is given more narrative focus and weight versus the other students (via the 'all grown up' segment of the series -- other characters might have appeared, but Nagisa is the one who becomes a teacher to another class of "hopeless" students and follows in Koro-sensei's footsteps). In the case of 'Mediums', does the magic institution itself stand in as the 'Koro-sensei' figure, so to speak? Or are you planning something entirely different? I'm intrigued to see how you'll pull it off.

The driving force here isn't anything external, it's simply the students' desire to learn and grow their magic. If I had to pick any one thing to play a Koro-sensei-esque role... it hasn't really come up yet IC. I reference those shows because they succeed in showing off a larger cast where each character is able to shine at various points.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

I'll be tossing up a post covering a couple of NPCs running around, and after that things will move on to the first big day. Lectures on magic and getting to try doing it, let's get on getting there!

Whomever hasn't posted will be noted, and failure to meet the next (what I consider extremely reasonable) deadline will simply result in removal from the RP. If you have a reason for being unable to post, do contact me in PMs and I'll work with you.

QuirkyAngel
This does mean I will not be waiting on your post to move things forward. I simply cannot hold everyone else up while waiting for your to break through the motivation slump / writer's block. If you need help working on a post or anything, I can be available to offer whatever assistance I can, and Psyche's character has offered you a good starting point if you decide to run with that.

 

[Psyche]

If it becomes an issue or not interested, I can easily change it and just make my character do something completely different.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

I'll be tossing up a post covering a couple of NPCs running around, and after that things will move on to the first big day. Lectures on magic and getting to try doing it, let's get on getting there!

Whomever hasn't posted will be noted, and failure to meet the next (what I consider extremely reasonable) deadline will simply result in removal from the RP. If you have a reason for being unable to post, do contact me in PMs and I'll work with you.

QuirkyAngel
This does mean I will not be waiting on your post to move things forward. I simply cannot hold everyone else up while waiting for your to break through the motivation slump / writer's block. If you need help working on a post or anything, I can be available to offer whatever assistance I can, and Psyche's character has offered you a good starting point if you decide to run with that.

Gotcha. No need to wait for me. I'd feel bad if you did, especially since I'm the type that has a hard time writing unless I feel particularly inspired.

If it becomes an issue or not interested, I can easily change it and just make my character do something completely different.

Posted. Sorry for the wait.