Workin' the Mojo OR Storytelling in AEgir

[effinfitz]

So the group's hitting a pretty stable, large population, and that's awesome.  A lot of you guys, being RPers, have stories you wanna tell.  Also awesome!  We wanna hear'em.

One caveat though, is when stories are bigger than the "strictly personal" level or when they might affect anyone else's toons, ideas, or plans.  Conflicts arise from the most unexpected directions, sometimes, and we'd like to avoid it. So the hard and fast rule would be: if you've got an idea and want to run with it, and it involves anything that you yourself didn't make?  Just send me the pitch.  It's a fairly standard practice in larger guilds and all it does it keep officers apprised of what's going on.  There's no audition process, no grading, no hoop-jumping.  There's only three things I'm looking at:

• Does this respect the lore, both canon and our own player-generated precedents?  This is the most important, just because we're all playing in the same world here and it gets dicey if everyone starts making special exceptions to it.  If there's any problem, I'm much happier working things out ahead of time than logging in one day and finding out that the Soviet Union has an active moon base.
  
  
• Are there other things we can do with this, too?  This is of special interest to Fitz.  Group stories shouldn't have to exist in vacuum.  Having someone available to suggest other players who might be interested, tangents that can be spun, or similar ways to get involved can make a story much more immersive, even to those not directly involved in it.
  
  
• Is there already a whole buncha other stuff going on?  Funny thing to complain about, yes, but sometimes there are so many pressing narratives going off that they get in each other's way.  In that situation, barring time-sensitive material, it's best just to wait and let things cool off a bit.

And that's all.  The idea here is not to filter out stories that "aren't good enough," but to encourage as many as possible while keeping things running smoothly.  Any concerns/questions, by all means send me a tell or post 'em here and I'll get back to them ASAP.

- Fitz

[Ammie]

Good points here, and well said.

Also? If I'm ever guilty of any of this, don't hesitate to confront me about it directly through a quick PM or /tell. Sometimes I get carried away with an idea, but I'm really flexible. ;D

[effinfitz]

merci! And have no fear. Something woulda been said if anyone was bothered, so all's well!

And Ammie brings up THREE nifty points, perhaps coincidentally:

• No, you certainly don't need to be an AEgirite to throw plots at us. I'd just ask you to follow the same rules I threw at our hardworking and attractive-but-not-as-attractive-as-Fitz cabbies.
  
• What DOES happen if Fitz raises an eyebrow? He'll usually get a second opinion before outright declaring a problem. In Ammie's case, the Sister-of-Wicker thing DID raise an eyebrow. Sersi vouched. All was cool, and everything's worked out beautifully since.
  
• Getting carried away. Oh, man, I do this in SPADES. Part of the reason I strongly advocate sounding boards and wingmen is because, just from personal experience, I know how hard it is to turn off the spotlight sometimes. It's never fun to hear "Hey, you're pushing this too hard," but it's rarely bad advice to listen to it.

_{(edit: THREE points now. Thank you, coffeh.)}