Lets talk about our fantasy war... [Archive]

Malcor Sylverwood

July 1st, 2003, 14:56

OK, this is a temporary thread, but all of you already here have an idea of what I'm going for. I'm thinking of starting a brand new war. So, what I'd like is thoughts on rules and settings and whatever else. I'd like to hear what was done right, what was done wrong, what can be improved, what needs to be scrapped, etc, etc, etc. I'm going to bring in the rules and such basically as I've written them before as a point of reference. Please, please talk to me ~begs~ :)

-Malcor "Warrior" Sylverwood

sir archely

July 1st, 2003, 16:03

hmm...let's see....

first, technical stuff. i think it would be neat if all the characters were in a single thread. First post would have a listing with links to each character. It would cut down on the clutter a lot, and keep everything in one place. Another reason too, but that seems far off.

same thing goes for land claim....if there is a land claim. one thread, with links. same reasons.

again, for declaring, one thread, everyone post in that.

a minor thing...right now you have something like, if you have a question, use this forum...i think you should just have people ask questions about rules/guidelines/faq in the actual threads. it's not like they're going anywhere, and then it's right in the context.

try to keep up with the summary every so often, i think it's a good hook for people.

as far as setting goes...i originally said i thought you should specify a setting because it could get messy. however, i've changed my mind on that score. it'll be neat to see what people come up with. you just have to watch out for consistency then. ie - some fantasy settings have elves as short and slender, some have them as extremely tall and slender. you can't have both (without subraces of course, but that's further explanation)

hmm..it goes without saying that it'll be a fantasy setting. however, you still must set a technology level. there might be some difference between regions/races/whatever, but i think you need to specify something. how to go about doing that, i don't know, but it needs to be done. i'm not saying that technological advances couldn't be made....~sigh~ i actually don't know what i'm saying, does this make sense? maybe along with this specify high magic or low magic. i think it'll probably end up being high magic, but hey, i could be wrong.

that's all for me at this point....i'm sure i'll think of other things later.

LaughingTurtle

July 1st, 2003, 16:59

Hmmm...my thoughts...well I'll prolly have much more to say as time goes by but this is what comes to mind right now:

I'd have to differ with arch here, a set setting (heh) is the way to go. Sure it might be nice to see what people can come up with but then after a while I can forsee it getting quite ugly. I began to notice it in the last war, while fun to see one person on a different plane/universe/etc with mystical powers and whatnot, by the time the fifth person comes around with a fire breathing dragon or different magic source it tends to bog the storyline down. People become confused with who has/can wield the one power and who has psychic powers. Yes there should be room for experimentation but there needs to be some guidelines, leaving it just open ended would lead to too many loose threads.

One of those said guidelines could be as arch mentioned about tech level. Personally since we are on the fantasy spectrum I would rather it be more low tech than not.

I'll get back to you more on the setting later.

Hmmm, I don't know about others (well except for Malcor ;) ) but I've grown attached to my characters from the previous war so I do think I might try to keep them in some form or another. If viewed from the Wheel of Time standpoint I guess you could say this would be the next age for em, reborn heh.

Another point. While I love new people getting into the war I didn't like the way in which it was done last time. Whenever someone new wanted to join they were given the ok and they posted right in. This in effect caused the current storyline to either 1) ignore them and continue on *cough*bucky*cough* or 2) try to assimulate them into the story which isn't always easy. While there were success - arch for example, to have a brand new characters thrust in near the end usually does nothing for them but add confusion to the story.

I think it would be best if those who wished to be in the war stated so and then it was closed at a certain point (number of weeks after the beginning?) until the next war. I don't like leaving people out but to have to weave in new people when you're deep in the plot is hard and also causes the story to drag on when it was previously going to end. This could have other positive effects in that the wars would not last so long and be less winded like RJ ;)

dunno, just some thoughts...more later

sir archely

July 1st, 2003, 19:42

well, any setting you pick, is going to exclude people from it. i'm sure not everyone knows what the wheel of time is, or could tell you what makes up Faerun. even if they know, as malcor said, it could be the case that they don't like it, so they stay away. i don't think a pre-generated setting is the way to go. imo, a few general guidelines would be the best way to go. sort of a rough outline of the world, and let people populate it.

also, i agree that something needs to be done with the way people get in the war, but i'm not sure there is anything that can be done. in your way, LT, how do you determine what's the end of a war? and how does the end of a war make it any easier? the way it was so far was that the second war pretty much just picked up after the first one ended.

sir archely

July 2nd, 2003, 12:03

hmm...this got me messing around with fantasy map making software...whatever you do, don't try to use something called "Fractal Terrains" from a company called profantasy. ugh. that's a big uninstall on that one.

LaughingTurtle

July 2nd, 2003, 14:18

Yeah that's basically all I meant arch was that we need general guidelines for the setting rather than it being too open or two closed. Guess I wasn't too clear on that point. The problem now is if we decided on just having these guidelines is what to make them.

As for war admissions...while a 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, etc) war may generally pick up where the last one left off that's merely a starting point. When a war ends I see it as like the end of the first book in a series. Thus when a war ends most plot lines should either be resolved or be big enough to be a "to be continued" type thing. Then in the next war new people can get in with their characters and can be introduced in the new exposition and old characters can continue on where they left off. Still need to further explain this to work the bugs out but in general it would eliminate a lot of the confusion I believe.

The first war was cut off kinda prematurely in my opinion cause I think people saw it as just dragging on. So it didn't really end in the way a war should. At least in my opinion that is. I know Malcor's reasons for doing what he did and they were perfectly alright.

Malcor Sylverwood

July 2nd, 2003, 16:47

Eh, with seperate writers and completely different plotlines, I don't think you can count on being able to wrap enough things up at once.

Perhaps setting a time frame might help. Saying the war will run from August until the end of October? ~shrugs~

Well...a new point, perhaps...character individuality ;)

-Malcor "Unique, just like everyone else" Sylverwood

Anita Blake

July 2nd, 2003, 17:47

hmmm. i never participated in any of the wars and i think i wouldn't mind doing it. all this talk of rules and guidelines makes it sound so interesting and strangely complez. :eek: as a total newb i would say that the "august to october' style timeline sounds good. set dates, i mean. or something like that...

*flees out of the war room*

Malcor Sylverwood

July 2nd, 2003, 18:25

Don't run...your opinions are just important...if not more so as we need fresh blood. ;)

-Malcor "Vamp" Sylverwood

sir archely

July 2nd, 2003, 18:27

hey! nobody's opinion is more important than mine!

:D

LaughingTurtle

July 2nd, 2003, 18:32

See what you did Anita...let a hot female loose in the war room and you get chaos....

~shakes head~

so anyway back to this thing we were talking about...you know the war.... ;) :D

Anita Blake

July 2nd, 2003, 18:44

See what you did Anita...let a hot female loose in the war room and you get chaos....

~shakes head~

so anyway back to this thing we were talking about...you know the war.... ;) :D

heh, but, aren't war and chaos almost synonomous? ;)

oh, and :dozey:

LaughingTurtle

July 2nd, 2003, 18:52

how dare you throw your logic at me missy! This is not the place for that sort of thing.

humpf

and :p @ your :dozey:

~Locks warroom door so Anita can't leave~

hah! Now post your thoughts on what should be done.

dark fuschia

July 2nd, 2003, 19:33

I think that a good change would be to reduce the need for links (not everyone has super fast conections either, so links can still be pretty annoying, at least they are for me) so how about everyone just starts a thread for their character and they put all the information there, they can add anythign they like, quotes, claims, character descriptions. I think that would make checking out a character alot more easy than having to go to different subforums and different threads when the frenzy of inspirition is on you :D Ultimately there'd be only three sub forums, one for the war, one for character information and one for general OOC discussion. I also think that you should be allowed to smatter your IC posts with OOC bits because a commentary is always fun.

And yes Anita you can't leave, Malcor was right, we need fresh blood... err... *tries to speak above the din of her characters' smacking their lips hungrily*

Nachtnoir

July 2nd, 2003, 20:53

Just thought I'd pop in and throw my opinions in. I like the idea of pulling the characters from the previous War. I'm attached to Vesper, and Lord Dusk is nice too. But I think we should maybe think about a different setting, or at least set one in concrete.

I never made it a secret that I'm a purist when it comes to certain things. The introduction of Races not of the WoT world sort of stuck in my crawl. And no comments on the "stuck in my crawl" thing. :P

With this many gamers, we should be able to generate a world, one of our own creation. And writing past histories for this world could be done as a collective.

OK, my two cents.

sir archely

July 2nd, 2003, 21:06

well, i've been involved in more than one homebrew project, and while i think it's fun, if you try to do that, it's going to take up quite a lot of time. i think if you just get going with not a lot, but a few general things, people will generate the world and its history as you go along.

to wendy: how is starting a thread for each character less links? seems to me it's more. if you kept all characters in one thread, and just had links at the beginning of the thread, all nice and neat and organized, you would only have to go one place to get any given character. no linking out of a thread and then back into a different one. link to the character you want, if you want to see another, simply push back, and link to the next one. in addition, if you see the little numbers in the upper right of a post, use that for the link at the beginning, and a new window would be opened for each individual character. anything about that char can be edited into a single post. Plus, if there's a thread for each poster (much less character) it leads to tons and tons of threads, like it is currently. One thread is a good deal less clutter, and linking.

Anita Blake

July 2nd, 2003, 21:25

erm. all this talk of linking to characters has confused me. (note: this is an easily accomplished task, don't start getting proud of yourselves) now, would someone kindly explin this to me in terms that a 5 year old woudl understand or am i going to have to research and read the other wars? (please don't make me research! i loathe research)

:D

*rattles the locks to no avail*

Malcor Sylverwood

July 2nd, 2003, 21:49

Before, we had a forum specifically for character information, Every writer had a thread for all of their characters. So, it got a little complicated.

The idea to simplify that is to have a single thread for all the characters...which could get ugly too.

-Malcor "Dumbass" Sylverwood

sir archely

July 3rd, 2003, 12:02

i just must state this explicitly here.

no munchkins! i don't know how you would define it, but there is clearly a line that can be crossed when designing a character for this type of thing. gah! a lot of times, these are the type of people who want to win all the time, and have a hard time distinguishing between what they know and what their character knows. this is probably more a RPing comment than a story-telling comment, but as i think the war lies somewhere in between those things, i'd say it's warranted.

LaughingTurtle

July 3rd, 2003, 13:14

~agrees with arch~

I really hate it when someone joins with the intent to "win" rather than be apart of the story. Really boring...2-D characters *yawn* Real characters need flaws and have to lose before they can really win heh

Anita Blake

July 4th, 2003, 12:00

how do you 'win' the war? how deos a story arc win? i guess is one of those things that confuses me.

anita "likes to lose gracefully" blake
:D

LaughingTurtle

July 4th, 2003, 12:40

I used the term "win" in the context that they (the munchkins) create over powered/invincible characters to basically take over everything and "win" by never being defeated. I guess they see the story as a quasi video game rather than as a book. They don't realize that in a story/project like this there is no real "winning" or "losing" per say cause if there were then the story would end when someone won and well...there would be no more writing.

As long as the story continues, anyone has the chance to reclaim what they previously may have lost or lose what they have gained. But people with super characters only see being the strongest/most powerful/etc, never as losing anything.

Meh I don't know, now I'm confusing myself, thx Anita :p

Anita Blake

July 4th, 2003, 12:44

hmm, i think juts being part of the story makes you a winner. i guess i'm not a munchkin. :D

*celebrates lack of munchkin-ness*

:D

Nachtnoir

July 4th, 2003, 21:17

~Appears in a brilliant flash of ultra-powerful light~ Um, Hey.

~Pushes Munchkins behind him~ But munchkins are short and cute. They sing too.

~munchkin pokes head out, in a high pitched voice starts singing~ "Weeee represent the lollipop guild, the lollipop guild, the lollipop guil.........."

~munchkin flys through he air as Nacht kicks it~ yup, munchkins are annoying :D :p

sir archely

July 7th, 2003, 23:55

~pokes~

somebody do something already. :p

~points at others~

Cloric the Cleric

July 8th, 2003, 08:11

bah! I had done something with a small puzzle in the shape of a cube, but my browser lost it

*kicks IE*

Seriously tho, I am well aware that my contribution to other wars hasn't exactly been stellar, but I kinda lost the thread of what I wanted to do in the midst of all the other things that I was doing. I'm looking forward to this one, tho. I truly am.

I have to agree with Nacht, tho. The addition of high magic characters and foreign races to the WoT setting never really rang true to me. I suppose if there were a decent explanation as to how they got there, like being from the Isle of the Madmen or something...I don't know, it's like playing a kender in the FR to me. The world is rich enough in setting and tone without adding things that "don't belong". nsh, whatever.

sir archely

July 14th, 2003, 19:44

~pokes malcor~

where's the map?

:D

QuirkyTemplate

July 23rd, 2003, 20:01

>appears in plume of quirky-colored smoke with two cents in hand<

~coughstumbletrip~

ah ...

... yes, well, as I was saying. I agree with the whole "anti-wot" setting vibe I'm getting. I never really liked it much. I'll probably keep Tak, but Benedict may have to go. Never really understood where I was going with that ... :D

Anyway, I think a good start to these boards is to officially appoint an ... Emperor of sorts.

>awkward pause<

... well, I suppose that leaves only me. How sad ... to have this responsibility THRUST uppon me as it were!

dark fuschia

August 25th, 2003, 10:33

... well, I suppose that leaves only me. How sad ... to have this responsibility THRUST uppon me as it were!

lol *bows*

wow sorry I got distracted by thesis writing, tooth pulling and new york going. now I seem to be mostly back... my opinion is that we should all be relaxed and not have too many rules.. we should just have guidelines and respect eachothers writing styles... so if my character likes to be silly... and say beat people with trout... I will interact with other poeples whos characters like to be silly *pointedly tries not to look at Tatum and giggle* but I won't go and beat say Malcors character with a trout... and it will all flow together nicely... we don't need all these specific planet types and such... cos the last war was too confined I think by all the rules. To be quite frank I don't care about character descriptions and histories and such, all that seems rather arbitrary and superfluous... lets just get writing! Can I start a war today oh please oh please?

Oh and I hate the first two rules... they are really restricting and quite frankly there is no way I will be convinced to follow the second one so umm can I suggest we ditch it instead of poor malcor having to go through my posts every second day to change I to she? ;) And why the no OOC in the war? its not conducive to creativity at all (you can't offer out story arcs or point good and fun things out), and ok lets not kid ourselves people, we're not writing great literature here, we're sposed to be having fun... (I think the rest of the rules are very good though) and I don't get what purpose that rule number one serves at all.

Tatum

August 26th, 2003, 12:12

Yeah I have to agree with Wendy. We need to keep it fun and simple or there's gonna be too much effort involved and people aren't gonna stick with it.

*smacks Wendy with a trout*

:D

What? It was Arch! I saw him do it!

sir archely

August 26th, 2003, 12:30

:grumbles:

~smacks tatum with a sword~

what? didn't we say some of us could be serious?

hehe :D

Tatum

August 26th, 2003, 12:34

:eek:

*shoves trout up Arch's ~please note this section of the post has been censored due to its extremely graphic nature~ and then walks away*

:D

sir archely

August 26th, 2003, 12:38

~blows nose~

QuirkyTemplate

August 26th, 2003, 22:55

Silence peons!

>restores order<

Er ... loyal subjects, that is. Anyway, I don't exactly have a problem with OOC, but it can get out of hand (such as half a post being OOC, instead of a quick OOC comment or joke etc). So maybe something should be said about that. I doubt anyone will enforce the third person rule, but I think it does help the overall flow of it. I mean ... if I'm reading three posts, all of them third person, and then I read a random first person post, it almost seems like the guy is posting in the wrong place. Then again ... that may be a good thing. So ah ... ignore all that stuff I just said. :)

Peace!

>flys off<

Malcor Sylverwood

August 30th, 2003, 22:06

K, stealing my parts from a conversation with soulstealer, my apologies for gaps and such ;)

Writing in first person...just really doesn't fit here, IMO

~shrugs~ I just don't think I can write serious stuff when everyone else is wandering around smacking each other with trout. And if I can't write serious stuff, I think I won't be very involved. And I'm horribly selfish ;)

And the OOC stuff...I don't see why that can't be done outside the main story thread. Can you imagine trying to read a novel if the author is constantly putting in random things? Its mind boggling to me...and it kills any narrative thread thats going on

-Malcor "Made this stuff up for a reason" Sylverwood

sir archely

September 10th, 2003, 11:16

Hmm...looking at how this is going...

i'm of the opinion that the top priority should just be to get this underway. There's no reason that if something isn't working, we couldn't just change it, right? Just go already, and let's see where it takes us.

Now, what is needed to make that happen? A map and maybe a few general world guidelines? (i'm thinking magic level in particular)

sir archely

September 10th, 2003, 17:17

booooooo...double post here because i saw malcor looking at this thread earlier, and there's no response. so...boooo to malcor. :p

Malcor Sylverwood

September 10th, 2003, 18:16

Well...unless you wanted to dig into this mountain of homework I have... :p

~ends break to go finish~

-Malcor ":grumbles:" Sylverwood

sir archely

September 10th, 2003, 21:31

well...things i think need to be settled before it goes ahead.

1. map: seems to be fairly important. if you think about trying to build it as we go, it'd probably just get too complicated, and no two people would have the same vision. would be a mess. so, we need a map. i don't think it has to be labeled or anything at the outset, but people would then have to be fairly specific about what they were naming. i should say, where they were naming. might be nice to have a general name for the entire world setting as well.

2. magic level: i definitely think the magic level should be set. also, my impression is that most people around here go for the high magic setting. in fact, in such a thing, i think it's almost necessary, where people will have different ideas about what's high or low, you can always go down.

3. magic system: 1 system? multiple systems? anything people want? new magic can be good, but it can also get tiresome or be a crutch for munchkins.

imo, once you have these things, you can go. if something becomes a problem, get rid of it, or add something else to fix it.

QuirkyTemplate

September 10th, 2003, 21:43

Let's see ...

1. I agree. A map is needed, and we don’t really even have to put names on any of the locations. We could use a lat/long system instead to show where we're talking about. Nothing huge, but A4 or some such, ya know? That would keep things simple and allow us to get moving!

2&3. I'm hesitant to agree to putting a system in on the magic. It sort of ruins the mystery of it IMO (but there is something to be said for stopping people from creating ultra-magic masters that are invincible to damage).

Having said that, I echo arch, we can adapt once we realize something is a problem. :)