Jig

Wolf Manor

Awh, poor Jonas. Is anybody having a good time?

Wolf Manor

I'm a Mawile fan, myself. Pure steel type, kids.

@AuntFlavia

Bad news, Gen VI made it steel/fairy.

Wolf Manor

I ran Omega Ruby with the loveliest team: Altaria, Wigglytuff, Gorebyss, Milotic, Chimecho, and Ziggy himself. It wasn't quite as pleasing as my unintentionally villainous Nuzlocke run through Y, which became Haxorus, Krookodile, Tyrantrum, Malamar, Tentacruel, and Furfrou. I was basically Gen VI Giovanni.

I kinda never liked Absol, but then there were lots of emo kids in my hometown, so I guess the similarity was unappreciated.

Wolf Manor

Jigzagoon, you're probably Rabbit...c:

@MyCatGinger

Zigzagoon is my favourite Pokemon, tied only with Hoppip. Kinda want to change my username now.

Would Sol not be Tigger?

Wolf Manor

So, Cat and I have reasoned that our cast of characters have equivalent Winnie the Pooh characters.

@AuntFlavia

Tell me more.

Finite Incantatem [AU Harry Potter RP]

'Painful' might be the word. :P

It occurred to me last night that Larry Dale basically thinks he is the magical Russell Brand, with a bonus side order of snide, petulant humour and general sleaze. Take the sleaze from the radio announcer from this, plus wannabe armchair 'Blitz Spirit'-evokery, Fred and George's irreverent humour, super-fast talking with fake grandeur and polish, all interspersed with some really bad muggle music.

I haven't decided what the muggle music is, but rest assured I'll find some truly glorious gems for his first post, and I also haven't decided whether he genuinely likes it, or only likes it ironically as a protest against snakeface. I'm not sure which is sleazier.

Oh, and lots of quotes from Orwell. He loves him some Orwell.

I'm basically only running Bertha as well so I can play one character that isn't a dreadful person or somebody I want to be dead by the end. In anything.

Wolf Manor

Culinary Drama Natter

Thanks for the well-wishes.

I'm glad things are a bit better for you Jig, please eat, food is important.

@Kirah

Yes, mom. :P
Jfc if I told my actual mum.

You have a favourite food?

@MyCatGinger

I did. It was risotto, and we had such a wonderful journey through life together.

Even now, the thought of food is still pretty rancid, like when you gorge really excessively on junky, fatty food and just thinking about eating makes you want to vomit. I basically feel how this looks, as opposed to earlier, where the thought of eating just wasn't really feasible, if that makes sense. Basically, I think every time I fall off the happy wagon, I become a little bit pregnant.

As for how done Lynn is, I dunno. Her post feels a little half hearted, so maybe I'll just have her interact with the guests? Jonas, Marci and Kirah have so I might as well follow suit. I realise Cops and Luke are busy, and I don't want to rush either. ^^

Cops has already put up a placeholder, so anything can go there at any point, really. The master spent an hour playing an aeroplane simulation game yesterday, from what I gather, so I wouldn't be too concerned about his schedule! The others have interacted with the guests, yes, which has established the guests' interest in the cast, which is kinda what I wanted to get across, and now that it's established, you shouldn't feel like you have to establish it in any great detail as well. :)

Your suggestions, boss? Shall we collab sometime? You're going to have to help me make up an eager German person...

DON'T WORRY, I FOR THE LOVE OF ME WILL NOT TRY TACKLING GERMAN ON MY OWN.

Pretty done too then, I guess? :)

It's really up to you. Whatever you do, don't put up a post for the sake of not being 'done'. If you or Lynn feel done with this section, then I'd say you're probably done. The Wolfs are vaguely in play, but we would have to pay due attention to time-stamps (and to Cops' post) if you are so inclined - obviously the guests are entirely malleable. Currently Michael, Félix, Klara and Gertrud are the most accessible, though I could probably find wiggle-room for the others.

Well unless someone knocks on Kim's door I'm done.

@Kirah

Reasonable. The question is, are you done because you want to be, or done because Kim is? Direct answer pls. That way, I can either guide this toward writing Kim in or out for the rest of this section. It's very believable that the Wolfs would check up on her, but they wouldn't if another cast member got there first.

The four main scenarios are:

• Kirah is done: Kim stays in her room and probably mentions a brief conversation with a Wolf/Cast member in which it is clear she's not coming out in the 'log post' (or a reason why she didn't hear them!)
• Kirah is done: Kirah does not write a 'log post' and we just assume that the tiny detail kinda happened, but wasn't exactly of crucial importance and so we let it slide
• Kirah is not done: cast member/s hear/s she's missing and go/es to check on her. I'm not gonna rule anybody in or out for this but I do know who I think would be best-suited to the job, both in and out of character
• Kirah is not done: cast members are disinclined/players are not in a position to check on her - I send a Wolf of my choosing. >:D

I frequently mentioned the possibility of cast members just doing a no-show to the ball altogether, but, obviously, they have to be there because the Wolfs don't just drag people across the world to have them not come to their big party, so they would have sent somebody to try to talk them round had any of you followed that path. It's therefore reasonable that they would send somebody to try to talk her round or notice that a cast member had checked on her (and therefore not bothered doing it themselves).

Wolf Manor

Prepare for a bumper OoC post, ladies and gentlemen: please stick with it till the end, because it's mostly important stuff. Skip the tragic hider if you only have time (or patience) for the headline news.

---

"My God, what have I done?"



"Fortunately, Doc, the process is reversible."

---

Good news, at last

Jig has eaten.

Click for First-World Problems

Your beloved GM had a minor and spectacularly irrational existential crisis at the start of the weekend.

Sequence of events:

• Thursday night: Jig stays up to watch UK Election and do some last-minute revision before Friday's exam
• Very early Friday morning: Jig is engrossed by election and is still revising, forgoes going to sleep
• Friday morning: Jig eats a sandwich and goes to the exam
• Friday afternoon: Jig has not done very well in the exam [/understatement]. The election is a car-crash for Jig's politics and national identity. Jig's body enters its 'siege mentality', which refuses food, as usual when Jig gets stressed. Jig hits the bottle (hard).
• Friday evening: Jig has not eaten and is very drunk. Jig has been awake nearly 48 hours (Jonas has nothing on me). Jig passes out, safely, at home. Flatmates are concerned that Jig has the door wide open while asleep; something that is extremely out of character.
• Saturday morning: Jig wakes up quite confused: somewhat blacked-out from the night before.
• Saturday afternoon: Jig wakes up again, and bravely decides to give the day another chance. Things have moved, evidently by drunken Friday Jig, to sober Saturday Jig's surprise and confusion.
• Saturday evening: Jig gets the shakes quite badly (tiredness and hunger, not alcohol) and realises that working in a busy London pub while trembling and in the kind of mood that gets innocent people a punch in the chops is sub-optimal. Jig gets cover for the shift. Jig retreats from kitchen to bedroom because the sight of flatmates eating is not helpful.
• Saturday night: Jig's flatmate's mental girlfriend proves her worth when Jig apologises for particularly frank responses to questions she hadn't asked and explains, "I kind of know the feeling. Everybody's different, but sometimes I can't eat either. The only thing I can stomach sometimes is fish fingers*," - boom. Eureka. The shops are shut, but Jig has had somebody mention a foodstuff that didn't incur a reaction of violent disgust, and, on Sunday, food seems feasible.
• 4AM Sunday: Jig is still awake, and has realised that Jig's other flatmate has a huge bag of pollock (cheap fish, like a shit version of cod) for frying when high. Jig eats a small fillet of fish.
• Almost immediately after: Jig is torn between pain in his confused stomach and the creeping feeling of resembling a human slightly more than the shambling corpse the poor flatmates have had shivering, sweating, and swearing about the place all weekend.

I'm not quite there, but I'm getting there. It's a bit first-world problems-y, but I deal with stress, anger and sadness like an absolute champion most of the time, so when I fall off the happy-wagon, there's always a bit of a thump.

In light of these culinary developments, the Defcom 'Jig will kill you' has been reduced from 'A' for Angry to 'I' for Irritated. This by no means I won't be getting the kitchen knives on innocent bystanders that look at me funny, but it does mean that, if I do, I might use fewer knives.

* just in case fish fingers is like a British-only thing and you're confused, it's basically the chicken nugget of the fish world: breaded, processed meat - fingers because they're long, not an anatomical anomaly we've bred for our consumption.

So, apart from the UK having fucked itself right up the scoop, I'm back on this with a bit more energy now.

With a place-holder from Cops up, the general chronology can continue, which is great news for those of you that have stuff lined up. This might not be such excellent news for those of you with no plot-points to play with or who have already played with your plot-points and are kind of flying blind. I got a bit distracted by cementing a plot-point whose name I won't speak for the sake of not giving it away for anybody that doesn't feel as though I've been clobbering you over the head with it with all the subtlety of a freight train on heat and can't totally see where this particular bit is going. By the time the night is through and all the tired little drunks have gone to bed, it should be pretty obvious what has happened (to the players, at least). Though I won't confirm or deny anything, I invite rampant speculation in the OoC (as a general principle), not least because it gets youse to meta-game and try to predict where this is going: either you'll make the resolution much easier, or much more of a twist - and either one is a good result. :P

To those of you that haven't had too much to do in this section: that's a straight-up mistake on my part, because I was focussing only on the plot and not on the game more widely. I promise that those of you who haven't had too much to do so far will definitely get stuff soon.

It looks as though we've largely decided as a group how we're going to tackle Day Two, though @TheMaster99 and @Kirah haven't weighed in on the topic: if youse have any particularly strong feelings on the topic, I recommend you voice them fairly soon. Assuming you don't come back with any earth-shatteringly good alternative arrangements, the plan will be for each of you that wants to (though you don't have to), to write a sort of 'log' of the day's events. For this log, I have a couple of suggestions that aren't compulsory in any way:

• Talk to me about what you're doing. Many rooms are as-of-yet unestablished, and, therefore, presumably, unexplored. I have further room deets to impart to you from my generous and bounteous soul - in return for insight that will give me the chance to be dropping further tiny plot-gobbets if I feel they're applicable to you.
• Think about similar 'day of rest' sections from novels. They're rarely only description: they frequently have very brief conversations in them. Just because you're writing a sort of 'contained' piece doesn't mean you have to do it solo. If your character wants to stay in their room all day and not talk to anybody, that's cool, but I doubt all of them will. Talk to each other, as players, and, if they will, as characters. Collusion is encouraged. The Wolfs will, as in the ball, be unavailable as a default, but with exceptions made without question.
• Perhaps get to know one another. We all know the nightmare that is getting convincing relationships in RPs, but, even if it hasn't been established directly IC, these are people that have been shipped across the world together to a house of German-speaking Germans, including moments entirely alone in waiting rooms and limousines: if you want to assume that at least some of your characters have bonded with or taken offence from others, even if it hasn't been explicitly noted in the IC, please do. See above about talking to each other as players.
• Take your time over it. It doesn't have to be a novel in length and you don't have to do it if you don't want, but there's lots of things to think about with all of the above, including talking to each other as players, so don't just rush into it in order to get on with the next section. If any of you are struggling for time as the others' posts are coming in, as usual, just let me know and I can take the spotlight off you for a bit. Never have posts been so suited for placeholders as these. ;)

Right. So. It's been an exciting post for an OoC section. Human tragedy, human triumph, plot developments, plot mistakes, and the dream of a brighter, murdery-er tomorrow. I hope you're still with me on this.

Given that I've not been hugely excellent in this section on the 'giving people stuff to do' side of things, could you all please give me an indication on how 'done' you are with this section? This includes those of you that I know perfectly well aren't done. :P

Being a GM (for mystery/challenge based RPs) - How does one do it?

If anyone has ever seen or played 999 (9 hours, 9 doors, 9 persons), there will be a fairly relatable scenario there, in which the game masters operate.
It's a DS game, by the way.

@MyCatGinger

I've heard good things, but haven't played it.

I also realise it needs to be thought out from start to finish which is the hardest part.

Lots and lots of yes. Except, also lots of no. You can't control everything, and so you need to plan what you originally had in mind, and also every other possible thing that could feasibly happen in the universe of the game.

You have a straight choice, from the outset, of deciding what level of freedom you're giving your players. In Wolf, I've basically gone for maximum freedom: players are free to do almost anything they want in the context of the story. This isn't just something I happen to prefer (although I do); it means that you don't overtly 'ban' things that give away secrets. For example, if I said 'the cast of Wolf Manor aren't allowed to go in the lounge', you're immediately going to wonder what's in the lounge, as a player, and have to justify it in the plot (especially if your character would probably actually really like to go to the lounge).

You do have to cheat and control the universe around your characters, though. In Wolf, the only locked doors are the ones that are locked for obvious reasons: the NPC's bedrooms and their study - would you invite strangers over and not want to lock away where you sleep or keep important documents? Obviously not, and so those doors are locked. There may be secrets behind them, but, equally, there may not.

The real cheating comes from having a complete monopoly on the environment. This might change as Wolf progresses, but I kept (and for many rooms, am still keeping) all information about the environment secret from the players until it was time for them to use it. This guarantees the most natural behaviour from the characters (in that they had a straight choice between a list of unknowns), and I can control what is in those rooms to suit. By forcing the players to give me a bit of a clue what they're going to do, I can intervene and adjust the environment around them.

In particular, one of the players knows that their character is going to witness something shifty. I know they are, because I've been able to know where they're going to be, and, needing to present this bit of plot, have put the something shifty where they can witness it. When asked what their character would find if they went to the location of the something shifty, I haven't prevented them from going, but, by being able to control the environment, have guaranteed that nothing will be discovered until its time.

While this might seem very passive, it doesn't have to be. There is at least one instance in Wolf where I've needed something to happen, and, without infringing on any cast member's autonomy, have been able to, in a quite natural and coherent (if unsubtle, through other mistakes), control the outcome.

You can't control everything (as much as it would make my life easier if I could) without spoiling the plot: but you definitely can and should stack the odds in your favour. Sometimes you get what you were expecting when the players make their move - and, sometimes, you don't.

Do you advise time markers? "Finish xyz before Thursday evening, for example, and let me know if there's an issue. I'll make extensions if necessary."

Not so much. I'd recommend such an RP being in the Advanced Section; that way, you can basically be more selective with your players. As a result, you won't be getting posts very quickly anyway. This doesn't mean that you can't be all 'dude, could you please get a move on or leave a placeholder and get back to it', but setting a 'schedule' doesn't give you time to adapt to what you need to do, and clamps down on your players, from whom you're already expecting a lot by having them flying blind.

Or something like "For this section, everyone is allowed two posts minimum, and post 'done with this section' in the OOC when done for real"

'Two post minimum' is a bit arbitrary: sometimes a billion things happen in one short post, while nothing but character development can happen in five long ones. The 'done in this section' thing is good, though. Since you aren't going to be forthcoming with information, players might not feel that there's anything for them to do, which is fine if you can bump the plot along, but you obviously need to know when they're ready for it.

And what are your tips to be a good GM in general?

Honestly? Know your players.
Wolf is going very slowly, but I know all you guys, and so there's trust and investment there. That's why when Bliss and Call can't get on to post, they do get on to say where they are, what they're doing, and to apologise for RL existing.

Also, does one approve of elements of dice rolling in freeform settings? EG, if there is an actual battle between two players at a point, allowing dice rolls and predefined or mentioned stats to win it?

I tend never to use dice because I don't like chance: if I'm in control of what's going on, I like to make an informed decision. What would be better for character development (usually losing!)? What will help the plot progress?

Things that have worked well in Wolf (so far):

• Timestamps on posts. Oh god yes. This means that in free time, lots of things can happen at once, without fear of contradicting each other's chronology.
• Coincidence. Sometimes it goes against you, sometimes it doesn't. Lots of things about Wolf Manor have been coincidences based on one completely arbitrary decision I made right at its conception. At the same time, the plot immediately evolved into something very slightly different the moment I started writing for Sol. Things will surprise you. Roll with them as far as you can.
• The manor itself. In order to control the universe around the characters, you need to know the universe and have a monopoly on information about it. Therefore, setting the plot in a restrictive environment (Wolf has gone for the cliché of phones don't work, remote location) means that you limit the players' scope without infringing on their characters' autonomy.
• Leaving clues. You guys have been good little bunnies and have gently been tugging the threads I've left for you. I've had to spell very little out (except one thing, which was my fault and will be seen as very clumsy as the plot reaches its end), and, as a group, you've written the clues naturally and well.
• Talking. I think I know what you guys are expecting from the RP and what you want. By having a good OoC relationship, I'm able to directly ask youse what you'd like to see/how you'd like me to run things, and youse tell me, and I do my best to accommodate.
• More secrets than clues. The plot in Wolf is either simple or complex (I'm not giving anything away!), but there are more secrets in that house than those clues that will resolve the main story. Writing in little secrets gives the players red herrings, but also gives you a little wiggle room if there's something you realise you need to justify. For example, Wolf Manor's study is locked, and what's in it is therefore 'secret', but you don't know what, if anything, is in there. That could be anything as innocuous as an embarrassing teenage photo of Lena, or Gertrud, standing before a smoking pile of corpses with a flamethrower tucked to her breast and a grenade pin between her teeth. The best part is that if I realise I need something to be in there (or have been in there), I have, until it is factually established to decide.

When Wolf comes to an end, I think I'm going to publish it with a preface of my notes for future reference for idiots like us, that take on GMing such a monstrous task. ;)

Finite Incantatem [AU Harry Potter RP]

Just wondering, because Larry was on the bad side of the Ministry at that point, too, so it's possible they knew each other. Larry was more of a hack journalist rather than any kind of field-agent, though, so, on that thought, they'd probably only ever have met each other a few times, by chance, so perhaps it's kind of a non-starter. xD