[Rushing Toward a New Age] Scheduling: Designing the Weft

[gatherer818]

So, since I don't know anything about my own schedule, it's not really fair to ask you guys to let me know about yours, but here it is anyway. I'll get my own in here as soon as I know it. So here's a place to say what times you'd prefer to play, what times you'd be willing to settle for, and what times you simply can't play.


I'm personally slightly opposed to playing Thursday evenings, as that's when I play live in The Dark Wizard's game, but I don't think that game is going to survive my new work schedule anyway (it starts at 6 pm, which is when night shift starts...). While I don't know my days yet, my work time will probably be 6 pm to 4:30 am, which means I'll likely only be able to play on my off days (I'll need to leave my house by 4:30 pm and probably won't be home until 6 am). If there's a particular day that works for everyone, I will attempt to get a schedule with that day off if at all possible.


Two quick notes: 1) all my listed times are in EST. If you post times in a different time zone, please make sure to note which time zone it is, so we can translate 2) if you'd prefer for whatever reason not to have your schedule listed in a public thread, feel free to PM it to me OR to simply wait until we start getting times narrowed down and then throw in your opinion on which time to use.

 

[Esbilon]

Preferred times: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday 19:00-01:00 CET (1 pm - 7 pm EST)


Impossible times: Weekdays 09:00-19:00 CET (3 am - 1 pm EST), Thursday until 23:00 CET (5 pm EST)


Possible times: All other. Exalted is more important than sleep, but the mortal nature of my body may end in me collapsing if we go on too long. I have another live game Saturdays 16:00-whenever CET (10 am - whenever-6 hours EST), but it gets moved to Sundays quite often and when it doesn't we often have a few extra sessions on Sundays in any case. I haven't tried playing two live games at once, but if nothing else is possible, I'll give it a try since I am confident in the awesomeness of both.

 

[Wuming]

I think it would be accommodating and fair to you to state ya available time. Otherwise, I think you will lose a lot of weight over the game. ST is a tough job with no pay. Players, if possible, should try to suit ya most appropriate time. Well, I am willing to fit yours. : )

 

[Incendius]

I agree with Wuming; we should be trying to fit your schedule as best we can.


That said, it sounds like the weekends are the best time to do this. Maybe sometime late Saturday night, like starting at 7:00 PM EST or such?

 

[gatherer818]

Thanks to everyone for your support here I'm really happy to have a job at long last, but I hate the timing. Apparently, the warehouse is a 24/7 thing - I can't count on having weekends off either. Since the staffing agency is supposed to contact me with a list of the available shifts I can sign up for, though, there's a pretty good chance I'll be able to pick a certain day off - so if I already know which one works for my players, I'll try to get that one. Of course, I'll plan for life first - I won't take a shift that means I'll never see sunlight again (those of you who've worked nights before know what it's like to just have one day off and try to get out during the day - you need at least two, usually three in a row) - but if I have the option to get a shift I can possibly live with AND one of them lines up with you guys, I'll pick that one. Since my RL group no longer meets, I honestly have no preferred days off, so this game is my only real commitment I want to have to time for.

 

[Wuming]

Hehe. It seems ya working hours match my time zone. Ya working hours is my night. Ya off-duty is my day.


Though like I said anytime is fine for me as long as its make known for earlier for me to schedule my meetings or am ready to lose some sleep for the game.

 

[snake obsidian]

I have night working hours from 6 pm to 10 pm CDT, and study too, 8 am to 2 pm CDT


I guess the only free time I would have would be Sunday in the morning

 

[QuicksilverFox85]

I work 8-5 on weekdays, but with the marvels of AndroIRC I can get on assuming it's not too busy. Only evenings I can't do at the moment are Thursdays and Saturdays due to local games.

 

[Arion Wind]

Like I said in the OOC, weekdays are awful for me right now, but on the 18th I will have both graduated and finished my internship, so after that I will be free almost any day. Saturdays are both my RL group during the day and a Shadowrun game Jondera runs over GTalk every other week, so unless we play every other week and sync up with that, I would be out.


Until graduation, Sundays or Monday/Wednesday/Friday nights would be workable for me. Tuesday/Thursday I have class until 10 and need to be at work around 7 or 8 to get everything ready for court.

 

[Jondera]

I'm in the "Unemployed with nothing to do" boat that you just left, so I'm available pretty much whenever.


I have scheduled gaming sessions on Monday and Wednesday afternoons (1-5ish, US Central time), and I run a chat Shadowrun game every other week on saturday night (usually 7:30ish-midnight, again central time). Other than that, name a time.

 

[gatherer818]

So, I've been kicking an idea around with a few players who've added me on messengers, and they like it enough I thought I'd officially present it to you guys. I got it from the way we were just throwing together the preludes... between the forum and the teamspeak, etc, it wouldn't be hard to just throw a game together. Much easier to handle split or multiple parties that way, too, if different players are playing at different times, and use the forum to coordinate times to get certain groups together and to handle downtime.


So, to put it into more ST-like language: How would you players feel about, rather than taking only as many as I can handle at once and scheduling a single time per week to play, if we played "whenever we're available" and kept most of the concepts submitted? You can request a game with certain people (say if your character needs to get together with a certain other character) and request a time, and we can also play when we happen to be online on the same time and have some time to kill. We'll use this thread to notify each other of games that are planned in advance, and I'll try to remember to post even when we have a game just suddenly come together.


What does everyone think? This way, those who don't want to use the forum won't need to (they can just play live as often as they can manage), those who have limited live availability can remain important to the story (by updating us on what they're doing via the threads or private conversations with me, depending on what you're doing), and more people can be active in Creation at once.

 

[Jondera]

If you're up to running it, then that could be quite fun.


I imagine it could become a bit of a headache to manage, though.

 

[Incendius]

I think that is a really good idea. I'd be happy things that way. It also means that our characters get more time to shine, individually. It is rather hard running with 7-10 people in the same session.

 

[Silverwolf]

I complete agree and are for this notion.

 

[gatherer818]

I can definitely see it being a headache, but there are a ton of good concepts here that I couldn't include any other way, and I know my luck - as soon as I tell a bunch of people they didn't make the cut because of scheduling concerns, I'll get a call that makes my schedule obsolete anyway. I may look for an assistant ST, especially if two groups of players become active in different parts of Creation, just to help me keep things straight and run things when I'm not online, so we can have more available time for the players.

 

[Wuming]

Anything goes for me as long as I get to play.

 

[Dragonmystic]

I have a sinking suspicion this is going to to morph into a few small groups of people (based on whose schedule matches up with whom's) doing their own things, and just happening to cross over into each other every once in a while.


Which could be interesting in its own rights...it's almost like playing an Exalted MMORPG, but...y'know, with actual role-playing instead of level-grinding.


But still, it's going to be a beast to take care of, from the GM's point of view. :/

 

[gatherer818]

it shall be a terrible pain to keep up with... but also extraordinarily fun, I hope. I imagine it will turn into a few groups of people with similar times... and as long as one person from each doesn't mind steering the group's actions on the forums, the others in each group won't ever need to post. It may be a little difficult to line up long downtimes this way, but I'm sure we'll manage.

 

[QuicksilverFox85]

Sounds like it'd be a cool idea. I'm for it ^^

 

[Dragonmystic]

Hunh. It also provides a good thing: if a character has to leave the group for some reason, you don't have to finangle to keep everyone moving as a group (well, maybe a bit):


i.e. people can 'travel' across different groups when the plot calls for it, without needing to bring along those who don't, decreasing the amount of railroading.

 

[Silverwolf]

Think of it this way, its and open form forum, minus the forum and make it live.

 

[gatherer818]

I'm thinking we're pretty likely to do the first chapter in multiple groups, each one focusing on a different portion of the camp and surrounding area. Organizing those groups at specific times would be a great way to handle it, sorting the PCs into groups based on what time their players can be available. I know wuming will be on pretty late by EST standards, for example. As soon as we can organize something, we'll be ready to start. The floor is now open.

 

[Wuming]

Gatherer, I will to fit the best time for everybody as long as its made known early enough for me to make arrangement.


Earliest time available: Your 9pm, my 8am.


If you want any earlier let me know, I can arrange. (Sat and sun would be ok, if I do not have business meeting in provinces.)

 

[gatherer818]

Karrilah, Meliah, and Hoisen have claimed and played through the first few hours of Day Zero at the mines itself. I'd like to get at least one more group fit into this chapter, either at the garrison (with the friendly Dragonbloods) or in the city of Bent Creek. If you guys can put together a time at least three of you will be on in advance, I can meet any time - I'm adjustable for now, with some advance warning. If we put it together in a hurry, I'm usually available from around 3 or 4 pm until around 4 am EST (today I was a bit late, sorry).

 

[gatherer818]

Got two scenes I'm looking to complete that events have set in motion and are important enough to schedule in advance.


One will involve, at minimum, Hoisen, Karrilah, Meliah, and myself. This is a late-night discussion about Karrilah's long-term plans, and will likely include two or three NPCs on top of also probably including Myst (based on the end of the scene that led directly to this one). Anyone else with the camp group is welcome to attend, but we're mostly scheduling to try to get those four (or five) players on with me at once.


The other is Jerias, Hanif and myself. The only player who hasn't been in a camp-group scene since they split off is Wuming, so Sun Wu could potentially attend that one (as it's nearly impossible, owing to time zones, to have Sun Wu and Karrilah in a scene together).


Lastly, I just to remind everyone that the spotlight will move around every story. Karrilah and Hoisen will be at least somewhat less important to the next story (although Karrilah will remain somewhat important), and I'm going to try to move the spotlight onto Sun Wu and one or two other Exalts at that time. (Right now I'm thinking Blaze for one of those two.) Of course, fluid stories being what they are, exactly who has the spotlight when isn't something I can perfectly predict, but the second story will likely resolve Sun Wu's current Motivation (and possibly Blaze's), as the first story looks on course to resolve Karrilah's.