Character Development Thread--Discussion

If people are mostly interested in Heist II because they want to do a mandatory overarching plot, then that would change my vote. That I don't want.

Edit: Actually, I should make sure I'm on the same page with people in general: how are all of you understanding the idea of revisiting a past thread? Because my understanding has been that it just means revisiting it at a broad conceptual level, not in the exact same setting (so, for instance, Express II would be on a train, but it wouldn't otherwise have to resemble any of the details about the original Express). I'm not really interested in doing the exact same setting over again.

edited 28th Nov '15 6:18:13 PM by nrjxll

I don't know anything about Heist, and I'm pretty neutral on it, generally speaking...

Not sure what to do with myself in Capital, though. Aside from write an outro post, I guess.

The concept of Heist was the heist itself, though, not the setting details. It stands to reason that if we revisited Heist there would be a heist, regardless of what the setting is.

edited 28th Nov '15 6:30:15 PM by Collen

I've been reading the posts. Is there a way we can rehash Heist? I get how an over-arching plot can be suffocating and integral NP Cs being poorly written.

I had a thought that we can take the criminal edge in a town alike to Vegas, but maybe like a faded glory city like what nrjxll said. Maybe because crime ran the city down, and characters can choose to partake in crime together or try to stop it. Or they can choose to not get involved, but are drawn into the conflict.

With that said, I can post tomorrow.

I agree that participating in the heist shouldn't be mandatory (and it would actually be more interesting if there were characters opposed to it), but there should at least be a heist element present somewhere.

My understanding of how thread reboots were going to work was that we were going to take each thread on a case-by-case basis and examine what about the thread is making people want to revisit it. Looking at Dream and Express, it is the setting that people are interested in, whether because they missed that setting entirely or want to try something they didn't get to do the first time. People don't want to revisit because they want to have the exact same characters do the exact same things in the exact same settings- they want to do something different with one or two of those things.

What sets Heist I apart from all other threads is the presence of a plot that was there from the start and could very well take place in some other city. I do wonder how a plot as simple as 'steal the diadem' could have become restrictive when there's not even a single GM controlling Koboyashi... aside from Q and Psycho FreaX, who I remember controlling him the most.

I feel that a lot of roleplays have plots as their selling point that are far more restrictive than Heist I ever was, but I'm agreeing with Electronic-Tragedy and Collen that having the main heist be optional but still kick the thread off with Koboyashi's chosen agents getting thrown into the same jail cell could very well be the best way to make Heist II feel like a true reboot of Heist I.

What I've started to notice about the CDTs in general is that if you want a thread to have a specific feel, you need to establish it early on with a plot hook- you can't just set the scenery up and leave. Scene-setting is nice, but having a plot hook there from the start, preferably one that can be feasibly joined at any point in the thread, gives people a jumping-off point for adding their own plots. That's how you get a serious thread that doesn't act like a casual thread.

A lot of critique submissions in /r/fantasywriters have a problem of just starting with scene-setting narration or exposition that loses the reader's interest before they ever see the start of the plot. I feel that if we did Heist II with no main heist and just set a scene of a criminal underbelly and/or a city that's seen better days and left it, a similar issue would occur with prospective writers not getting into the setting enough to know what sorts of plots to add, leading to characters just walking around talking to each other. The more I get into solo storytelling, the more I realize that making a CDT is not that different from making a novel.

edited 28th Nov '15 8:50:06 PM by CrystalGlacia

If Mr. Koboyashi or an analogous NPC appears, it's safe to say I won't be doing Heist II. I'm not sure whether to go into details as to why or not, since I have no intention of trying to stop anyone else from doing it if that's what they want. But he's pretty much my gold standard in why I don't want NPCs playing a big role in the threads.

What the only thing he ever does is tell the characters he recruited what he wants them to do, that he'll reward each of them handsomely, and then vanishes? Another factor that made the original heist what it was is that it incentivized several characters who would ordinarily stay far away from a heist and/or that particular one into doing a heist. If a Mysterious Employer who physically appears for all but a handful of posts and whose rewards are all that it takes to get a heist plot going, that's a small price to pay. That being said, I do think joint-controlled NPCs who exist just to get a plot going while otherwise staying out of the plot itself and don't rely on the presence of a certain writer have merit.

edited 28th Nov '15 10:18:11 PM by CrystalGlacia

He didn't just do tell them what to do, though. He recruited them from out of a jail cell - i.e., a position where they had no choice - and forced them to stick with the heist, which gets back to what I was saying about a railroad plot. A character who pretty much just hires people for a heist, or other instance where they just show up to get things going, is a different story - but I fail to see why that role couldn't be done by a preexisting troper character (I know I have several who would fit the part). I guess that does make that plot depend on that person sticking around, but on the other hand, it also avoids the Depending on the Writer issues Koboyashi suffered from.

Although I would note that this whole line of discussion is predicated on the assumption that people need external plot hooks, which has always kind of bothered me insofar as it seems like it should easily be possible to send characters into a thread with their own preplanned goals. People don't do that as much as they should, but I've never been convinced that trying to force it is a good solution.

Edit: On an unrelated note, posting today will not be fast, but it should happen before I go to bed.

edited 28th Nov '15 10:44:50 PM by nrjxll

And it now looks like I'll have to put off posting until tomorrow, after all. I feel terrible about this, since I really did mean to do it today, but it's getting awfully late at night. I'll make it top priority when I get up tomorrow.

Finally back and settled after my off-grid weekend up in the Tararua National Park - far later than I expected, so apologies to electronic-tragedy, Blackfire667, TroPartner and Mrship21 but I wont't be posting in Frontier tonight. Even though I can see some good scope for interactions and story telling.

Should be able to do something tomorrow.

As to Heist II with or without a titular heist, how problematic would it be for a group of tropers with suitable characters to have a variety of plots going and interact with/recruit/hire other tropers' characters to further those plots?

No NPC Depending on the Writer issues to be had and still with a number of plots to get involved in if people wish to. Perhaps multiple criminals want to get their hands on it and are recruiting teams that are all trying to beat each other to the loot. Maybe an investigator trying to recruit "Informants" to find out who's doing what and foil the plots.

Actually, you know what? I'm getting really burned out from school and everything is starting to piss me off. At this point, I have no idea what thread we're actually going to be doing next. It's obvious that you guys have your own ideas of what you want to do next and what you want Heist II to be and that those ideas are conflicting with what I thought was going on. If you guys want to continue discussion on what you want Heist II to be or the next thread in general, do so without me because I'm wasting precious study/homework time trying to figure out and reconcile what everyone wants and I don't even participate here that much.

I'll just stick to posting in Frontier. I wasn't really that interested in redoing Heist in the first place compared to Dream, so if Heist II is what you guys end up doing, I'll probably just sit it out entirely, regardless of what it ends up being.

edited 29th Nov '15 2:58:12 AM by CrystalGlacia

Finally posted, and I edited my last post before this one because I forgot to mention that Arthur has the Greek letter psi on the left breast of his bodysuit in case that ever becomes relevant for some reason.

EDIT: If no one else needs to take the survey I'm going to tally up the results and post my thoughts later today. Do not rely on the summary page generated by Google Forms. I think I mentioned once a while back that it doesn't properly account for edited responses.

Google Forms does generate another spreadsheet where I can see all responses and who made them, so if you've changed your mind about anything since you took it the first time, retake it and I will throw out your first set of responses. You can also PM me if you totally forgot what you voted for. I never posted the link to that sheet here in case people wanted to keep their votes private for whatever reason.

edited 29th Nov '15 3:10:19 AM by SnowyFoxes

No input on the new thread debate, except that I'm not all that strongly interested in heist. Had a miniature 'heist' in capital not long ago, and... well, I guess I don't have a lot of characters that add anything terribly interesting to the concept.

I'm gonna be fairly busy for the rest of the weekend, and at least some of the week. Testing season. Last chapter stuff, then finals. Time to boogie boogie groove on this one.

Sorry to be so late in posting my reply everyone. Life decided to get really busy and distractions came from every angle the last few days.

There's been no change to the responses in two days so I'm just going to go ahead and post the old summary page again, but please note the following:

• There are only 16 responses even though the top of the page says 17. One was edited and no matter what I do to the response dump spreadsheet, the graphs don't change. I think the reason why the list of results for question 1 doesn't show the handle twice is because it was identical both times, but the extra votes do throw off the other results. Does anyone care if I link to the automatically generated spreadsheet? The only consequence is that your votes won't be private anymore. Some of you have posted them in the thread anyway but I want to be sure.
• With that in mind, subtract one vote from Castle, Heist, Express, Dream, and Dig Site.
• The votes for "other" consist of the "Snowflake of Characters" thread and duplicate comments reaffirming that the responder is cool with whatever as long as we can do a reboot.

So Heist, Express, and Dream site are tied for the lead with 9 votes apiece.

I have to admit, I'm kind of emotionally invested in Dream being the next thread, and even if that's not what ends up happening, I will definitely campaign to do a reboot of it sometime in the future. I let myself get my hopes up when I saw that it was getting a lot of votes so I've already made more plans than I probably should have, haha. The way it facilitates exploring characters who are reluctant to open up under most circumstances is really beneficial to me because so many of my characters are like that, even the ones who seem like friendly extroverts to the casual observer. It's also nice that characters can enter and leave fairly easily, and we can be really imaginative with the setting.

If Frontier is still alive by the time the reboot thread goes up, I'm not interested enough in Heist or Express to increase my commitment to two threads. If I come up with any ideas for my characters or get really bored over winter break, that might change, but right now my feelings are quite solidly in the "nah" range. They just don't excite me for some reason.

Count me among one of the people who doesn't care if my vote is publicized. I was the one who said I was cool with anything, but that's obviously not the case anymore since I don't think I want to do Heist II anymore. Anything except Heist II, I could work with.

I agree with everything you've said about Dream. I, too have a bunch of characters with shitty pasts that wouldn't make sense for them to open up with veritable strangers about. It doesn't feel like it, but most CDTs take place in a timespan of fewer than twelve hours, maybe a couple days at most, and the vast majority of interactions are between total strangers. Think about the last time you opened up about your true feelings to someone you've known for twelve hours, who wasn't a therapist, crisis hotline operator, or other person whose job is to do that. None, right?

Oddly enough, Tsadro isn't one of those. Chances are, Arthur is going to learn that Tsadro used to be an escort exactly because they've known each other for only a few hours and are unlikely to encounter anyone the other knows.

And, Snowy, I don't know when I'm going to post in Frontier next. Maybe Thursday.

edited 30th Nov '15 6:13:23 AM by CrystalGlacia

One of your original votes was for Heist, so if we take that out, it falls to second place.

Anybody feel like we need a runoff vote?

edited 1st Dec '15 2:09:41 AM by SnowyFoxes

If Heist has dropped a point, that'd make Dream and Express the top contenders. Personally, I see no problem of doing one then do the other when Frontier finishes.

Hell, we could do Dream, Express and Heist in turn, since they're all so popular. Or not - it's just a suggestion.

I have no idea what any of those threads are since my first thread was Capital. lol So I probably won't vote. Not sure if I'll join whatever is made either, might just stick to Frontier. But we'll see.

Don't worry, plenty of votes for some of the original threads came from people who weren't around to participate in them. There are links to all of the threads listed on the survey on the CDT wiki page (which is linked to in the OP of this thread) so you can check out the old threads and get a feel for the concepts behind them.

Posting will be delayed.

I got distracted, sorry about that. I'll start writing and post it tomorrow.

I've just been out doing an evening's "research" - to whit I've now got 5 gin-and-lemonades and 5 tequila shots all purchased in various bars around central Wellington, including Cuba Street, to work off before I settle for the night.

The last trip down here was great inspiration for Gwion and the others in Capital City (Wellington being our Capital City) and I can probably put tonight's "research" to good use at some stage.

Nothing to respond to in Frontier at the moment - which is probably just as well, considering the five gin-and-lemonades and 5 tequilas...

Will try again tomorrow after our forum.

...So, I uh, forgot to change the OP time for 8 o 'clock. It's now 9.

Also, there's a big shadow beast heading towards the rail siding people that I'll write for, but I want to ask if it's OK for them.

edited 1st Dec '15 6:50:07 AM by electronic-tragedy