Krayzikk

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Benjamin Lloyd: Brewing Storm

"You got it." Ben said easily, flipping Lawnslot around to hand the weapon to Lauren butt first. Then he switched Artorius to his left hand, freeing up his throwing arm for what was to come. Amy could use her weapons to climb up, but Sangue and Lauren would need a boost. He could work with that. "Amy, you want to grapple up or get tossed? I'll send Sangue up after, then Lauren, then you can use Unchained Fury to pull me up."

"What's your preference?"

@Kaithas

CLOSED

Rebekah Cross

My Hider

Location: Diner, Academy Campus
Interacting With:

Diner food was, perhaps, not the most healthy option for one's breakfast. Even if that diner was indeed serving traditional breakfast foods, their health value was dubious at best. But having the wisdom to recognize this is not the same as having the desire to do something about it. The liberal use (though she was sure some would say 'abuse') of her rather fleet-footed nature for movement, however, was sufficient exercise to give her at least a modicum of an excuse. After all, the calories consumed by her speed were significant. Not nearly as high as they should be, by her calculations, so she suspected a suspension of certain laws of physics to allow the rate of movement at a lower energy consumption; nevertheless, running in such a manner made her very hungry. And she was only too happy to take advantage of the excuse to fuel herself with less than healthy, albeit delicious, foods.

She slowed down smoothly as she approached the diner entrance, after sidestepping nimbly around some passerby, and coasted through the doors before they swung closed. Her remaining momentum was perfectly sufficient to slide into her favorite booth, already depositing her bag on the bench next to her. A single flick of her head brought her ponytail back around to its proper position, finishing the transition from high-speed mobility to composed sedentary seating. Not that anyone paid her entrance much mind. Such things, on a campus for partially godly individuals, were a curiosity at best. It was hardly the most controversial ability present, or used, within Olympus Academy's bounds. Or outside them, for that matter. But such thoughts were irrelevant to her current morning. She had deposited her order and its parameters, in the hands of a waitress she passed on her way to her seat. Table number, as well. She always took the same seat, in large part due to the presence of an electrical outlet in the wall just underneath the table. Its use was rarely necessary, as her laptop was usually charged when she visited this establishment, but having and not needing was better than needing and not having.

Her laptop was out and woken from its slumber in a matter of moments, just long enough for the Daughter of Athena to stretch her fingers. She knew her coffee would arrive in three to five minutes, per her usual experience, and her food would arrive in nine to sixteen depending on the diner's level of activity that morning. On this particular morning, she only spotted a few other patrons, therefore, her order would likely be on the low end of that time scale.

Excellent.

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Cyare Staunton

@Raijinslayer

"Much appreciated." The Pawn stated simply, scanning the job board to look for something suitable. Her new acquaintance was right, there weren't many jobs that were really worth it. She'd have to talk with Rei, maybe see if they could find something better. Or at least settle on what they wanted to do from this selection. The environment didn't bother her, at least not much, but she also didn't bother paying attention to it.

"Your aid has been quite helpful."

Mecha Carta Institute

"Riiiight. Gonna have plenty of those here..." Evangeline never understood people and their fixation on the past, or status. Probably because she didn't have status, but still. Status didn't matter in here, anyway, Erikal made that perfectly clear. She really hoped that other people were more grounded. Down to Earth. Speaking of down to Earth..."

Sealing up the repair hatch, the mechanic slid down the ladder from her catwalk to reach the floor below. Wasn't much more fine tuning she could do before tomorrow. So best to get to know the other people.

And see their MECHs.

That too.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

jumpercable is still best name

Mecha Carta Institute

"I'll ask my Dad next time I talk to him, he might know if we've got an M. Starr on the family tree. But frankly..." The mechanic paused a second, idly glancing at the Wolf. She noticed United shifting a little more quickly next to her, and heard its faint whispers intensify just a little. "In the real world, Mr. Centuria, family names don't mean shit. Nobles keep track of their fancy titles and holdings. No one else cares. All we keep track of is who takes over the family business when we get old. We've been running the same shop for three or four generations."

Evan shrugged, setting the wrench back down on the floor behind her. "I can take a look at it if you ever need it fixed. You've got the schematics, so I can probably put it right, but that's the extent of it. Even if I understood exactly how the magic works, magic isn't in my wheelhouse. My... Adviser on the matter, isn't always that forthcoming."

"But I'll let you know if I find who built it. First piece of tech I've seen since I got here that wasn't a piece of shit. Still over-engineered, though. Anything that delicate's got no place on a machine til it's sturdier."

Mecha Carta Institute

The small-town mechanic looked over the display critically, eyes narrowing faintly while she mulled over what she was seeing. Every now and again she tilted the device to look at it from a different angle, or look more closely at one detail. Whatever the device she was looking at was, it was a far cry from the farm equipment she was used to. Or the refinement she'd been doing to the Titan. She could identify small pieces, even see how some of them worked together, but she still couldn't seem to see the whole. It clearly was designed to accept something, and then do something with it, but there was something she was missing...

Magic? The 'voice' helpfully offered, the amorphous mist drifting over her shoulder. Evan's eyes narrowed again as she gave it a faint nod, eyes briefly flitting over the name at the bottom of the schematics.

"I'm not familiar with it. From what I can tell, it's a device meant to assist with a magical effect when given a physical item. What it does, I couldn't say. I don't know an M. Starr off the top of my head, either. If we're related, I never met them." A pause. "This would've been beyond my Dad, probably my Granddad, too. But I don't know the rest of my family too well."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Krayzikk>

Well, it's because I'm incompetent, clearly. I thought I was getting at what you all wanted; things that might help set this right. A good example of this might be that I just don't understand what you mean by people not being on the same page. If teams aren't on the same page, I'm thinking, how can they interact with one another?

I'd say something like I'm not one for self-pity at this point, but I really, really am. I feel like the scum of the earth. The realization I probably am makes me feel sick. I've just shown that I can't make competent arguments or decisions or do anything to help people. If someone smarter than me could just take over this mess I've made right now, please please do. I'd love to just sink back into the hedges and not have to think about this anymore. I have to get off the computer and go to sleep. I'm sorry for ruining everything.

@Lugubrious

Lugu, it wasn’t my intent to call you incompetent, or to make you feel incompetent. I didn’t explain my point as clearly as I would like (chalk that up to my headache and late night), so I’ll elaborate now so you can see it when you’ve had a chance to get some rest.

I, with a team of two others, successfully run a game with a playerbase that is, on paper, in the three digits. In practice it’s more like the high tens, but the point is that it is a number much, much higher than what this game has. I wouldn’t advise you to do everything we do, because they’re two different games. But a few of the principles and practices we use would do wonders here, I think. They’re things I and some of my compatriots from that other site have discussed pretty often with regards to games on Guild.

Take a step back, and let things go organic. When you have a game of a certain size, running things on a stringent schedule becomes so time and energy consuming that it becomes practically impossible. Keeping things to a strict schedule clearly doesn’t work, and clearly makes people unhappy. At the same time, cutting characters down to meet that level is going to make just as many people unhappy. People don’t want to give up their senior characters (in fact, some people only have senior characters), and I know of people on the waiting list that would still like to take part. But if you can’t manage the number, and you can’t reduce it, you’ve got to change your management style.

So take a step back. Go a little more hands off. Maintain a loose schedule of what day it is, but don’t worry about where people are during it. Let individual characters, and individual teams, roam about as they want to. Let people move at their own pace. Interact with different people and different teams, be in class if they want, don’t be in class if that isn’t their thing.

Rather than have missions and combat classes be things that happen when people want to “cut to the action”, have them be scheduled. For example, once a month combat trials will happen. People can wrap up their sparring session at their own pace, and then get back to other things when they’re done. Same for missions. When it’s mission time, people do their missions at their pace and rejoin the flow as soon as they’re done. That way people know when they’re coming, and don’t feel pressured to have things done by a certain time.

In short, a lot of what Harine said. Instead of trying to enforce order, let people find their own order. Keep a wide-view scale of when things are, but let everyone march to the beat of their own drum.

In short, relax, take a step back, and let people do their thing.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

I... Don't see why this boils down to two questions, when one of those questions is completely irrelevant to the point we're all getting at, and the other is like a Congressional bill; a clear original intent that's been packaged with unrelated ride-alongs.

Frankly, I think you're trying to impose too much structure on this, @Lugubrious. There's no need to force everyone to be on the same page, or dealing with everything the same way. Ultimately, this stems from something Crimmy was trying to get at; RPGs don't have screen time, or audience attention to have to shift around. Everyone is an audience to what's relevant to their own character's view, and whatever past that they want to read.

There's no reason to boil everything down to strict ultimatums. Speaking as someone who runs a game much, much, much larger than this, you're looking at this all backasswards.

Mecha Carta Institute

"So." The mechanic tightened up the conduits running through where the excised machinery had been, sealing up the power flow's route as far as she could tell. Have to do some voltage testing to make sure, but it should be fine. Which meant taking a break to deal with whoever it was who decided to visit, then finish her inspection.

"What can I do for you?"