Hookay, time to open the door and air out the cabin a bit.

I'm starting to think that this huge focus on pre-planning every detail of the missions and doing absolutely everything in collabs is A) making the pacing really uneven, B) Having some players end up hitting a brick wall because they're waiting on another group or player, C) players who aren't as active as others being left out, and D) giving me the impression everyone feels like they're walking on eggshells or feels like just having fun with the scenes is going to screw everything up and have major consequences.

Usually, as these games go, there isn't really much in the way of planning. It's just "here's the scenario, go have fun" and players would collaboratively build the scene and play it out, going in a loose rotation. It almost always flowed organically and people branched off on their own accord. Feel free to ask my alumni players Echo and Legion how the old Nova games went for these action scenes, usually things worked out pretty smoothly. Here I'm starting to see some of the growing pains of having so many players, and there's definitely a divide between the people who are frequently active and the ones who are meeting the standards but aren't necessarily on every day, who I feel are probably getting confused and maybe even a little frustrated, or feeling left out because of the god knows how many back door collabs we have going on.

So, going forward, let's try to reduce the collabs and not be rigid with planning out every little detail. You guys are free to improvise what you encounter, and don't feel like starting a gun fight is going to suddenly screw over everyone and scrub the mission. Let's put it this way, when you play Mass Effect, you don't know anything about the missions going into it, you just kind of roll with the punches and enjoy the experience as it happens. Right now, I kind of feel like the game's suddenly veered off into Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and shit is starting to look like this in people's minds:

[img]http://www.mrdictionary.net/users/mecha-neko/saigimages/RainbowSix/RainbowSix_PC_20.png[/img]

If that's the case, relaaaax! Gold team isn't going to get gunned down in a blaze of hellfire because Red team breached a room with unsuppressed weapons and then the hostage was killed because green team's flashbang didn't get the guy facing away from it. Remember, we're going for a feeling of a bunch of ragtag mercs trying to make ends meet, a la Firefly. Don't be afraid to be a little spontaneous and if you have an idea, don't feel like you can't do it because it would ruin somebody's plan, have your character do what they'd do and have the world react to it. It's spontaneous, it's fun! This is how you end up with great roleplay moments like normally even headed businessman krogan going into an uncharacteristic bloodrage while chasing a hapless merc through an office building, trying to do everything to put obstacles between her and the krogan, or an infiltration mission on a sea vessel on Kahje going horribly wrong with the ship sinking and falling apart as the team struggles to complete their mission and get out alive, or stealing an arms shipment from a Blue Suns outpost while driving the truck filled with what they find out to be nerve gas through the busy Omega streets while fighting off pursuit vehicles.

Those three scenarios were things that happened in previous games off the top of my head, and part of what made it special and fun was that everyone got to throw something into the mix and we let whatever was going to happen, happen. Part of the charm of these games is the unintentional chaos that brews from one of the characters fucking up, intentionally or unintentionally, and setting this game apart from the super serious military-themed Mass Effect roleplays. 

So, yeah. This isn't a rant so much as a manifesto and just a reminder of what we're here for, and to hopefully open a bridge to keep this game inclusive to those who aren't really into doing collabs every two days and don't want to spend every day working on posts for this game. I sure as hell don't, and I'm the one running it. I love the enthusiasm, I love all you guys, I just want to make sure we're not leaving people behind or treating each potential in-character action like we're defusing a bomb at a puppy orphanage. Let your hair down, relax, start improvising some shit. 

I'll put my heroic soap box away until time it is needed again, likely to announce lunch specials.