TLV - Mod Contact

[bargemods]

MOD CONTACT

If you have a question, comment, or complaint to raise to the mods, you can contact us directly by emailing us at any of our listed emails/Plurk addresses or by sending a PM to any of the listed character accounts. These will be forwarded to everyone else on the core mod team unless requested otherwise. If you have a general question about the game, you can also leave a comment over in the FAQ. The PM inbox of bargemods is not checked regularly.

GAME MODERATORS

Iddy || ZieglerFan719 (at) gmail (dot) com
Plurk: ihdreniel
Journals: citizendetective cactusy

Isabelle || ilseinthemorning (at) gmail (dot) com
Plurk: shipoftheseus
Journals: deuceoftears takestime

Kira || swordwithasmile (at) gmail (dot) com
Plurk: tinwateringcan
Journals: reformedsinner wildguardian divingdeep

directory • rules • ic faq • ooc faq • setting • potential applications • requests • pairings • cabins • jobs • calendar • contact

Comments

[dog_eat_dog]

Hi mods! I just wanted to reach out with some thoughts on the recent events.

I've been in the game a year now and I feel like I came in on a bang with Mirror Barge. I really loved it! Mirror Barge felt incredible because characters had the ability to change what was happening and problem-solve their way out of the situation, and I was very impressed, especially as a new player, to see mods keep the ending open and not end the event until the characters made it happen themselves. Given the event was also started by characters, it felt particularly organic to the game's setting.

But it also feels like we haven't really had an event like that since. The vast majority of breaches and ports have been rooted in slice of life. Give or take an alien attack and some metal-based superpowers, the basic event set-up for most breaches and ports has been setting up characters in a relatively-modern-Earth-AU and then doing slice of life and interpersonal drama. Slice of life is good in moderation the same way extreme action is good in moderation, but the repetition feels like overkill. Most characters have no problem bonding with others and making their own found families and romantic relationships and close ties without frequent events making them think so.

What makes a lot of these slice of life events start to feel frustrating for me is that there's few game-wide plot beats built in for doing much else. The events are "slice of life in a setting", whether it's on a prison train or San Fran or now Admiralton, and then maybe some sort of action where characters don't have any particular agency to prevent it or work around it. They just endure. Snowpiercer had a bunch of characters planning an escape that was deemed impossible from the get-go; maybe it would have felt different if it was a planned event for interested characters to overthrow the train guards and escape or get to the front of the train. San Fran had a lot of "signs" that let characters try to warn the public about the impending attack, but their voices were suppressed by the government. Maybe the event would have felt different if it were plotted from the beginning to give characters the ability to circumvent the attack. Admiralton was slice of life in its purest form, and maybe it would have felt different if characters could "wake up" from their Hallmark state and push back against being Stepfordized to the setting, particularly given that we have so many characters who don't aspire to that kind of life –– but people disinterested in that kind of plot could still just play their slice of life, you know? The result for me is that many events just feel limited to their settings, which could be fine if it was an alien world or someplace with a radically different mode of being that characters could engage with, but when it's slice of life on a relatively modern Earth with little else to do, it feels restrictive. Event posts always seem to be written from the perspective of what you can't do, too, so it's hard to come into these events' plotting posts and be a person asking the scope of the event to change. By comparison, Mirror Barge felt like an open invitation to act.

The repeated lack of agency in events is not really what I expected of a full year in a game set on a space prison where characters are supposed to be making choices that impact their futures. I know that a lot of the game information reflects how the game culture IC might have been years ago, even ten years ago, but as it is, so much of the game information talks about violence, challenges, prison dynamics, etc –– what's on the tin isn't what is being set up as events here, and much of what I've found of that has been in player plots on an average day. The game description on the info page in particular is almost comedically out of touch with what playing in the game feels like.

It also makes it somewhat difficult to progress characters towards graduation ––slice of life can offer alternate perspectives, but I find myself running out of things for my character to observe about a relatively normal life compared to what she might observe about a life in a setting far-removed from her own experiences, particularly in a place where her actions could have higher stakes and greater consequences.

I know plots where characters can impact the flow of events are at times laborious to run, and I understand life is particularly stressful at the time for both players and mods, given the global situation. I'm in the same boat. But if the involvement requirements for running those kinds of events is the issue, I'm sure there are many players (including myself) who would be happy to step up to assist, as well. I also don't expect the game to bend to my personal preferences if these slice of life events are the kinds of events the majority of players love and enjoy, so my plan is to just hiatus next time an event like this happens. No hard feelings, I just don't have it in me to come up with another relatively-modern-Earth-AU for a while, and I don't like being a killjoy. :( And for my part, I'd like to pitch some plots in the near future, and maybe some regular barge event stuff that isn't game-wide! I don't want to be all complaint and no action! I just wanted to express myself on this because I care about this game, and TLV has been fun and I have had great CR here and love the premise.

[bargemods]

Hey, thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback!

1) Mirror Barge-esque events: Large events that tie in more deeply to the game’s setting and history happen on average once per calendar year, and the one planned for 2021 just hasn't materialized yet (as you say, what with times being as the are), but we hope to have it coming down the pipe before the year is out! We do have ideas for several more events that break the port-event-breach mold, but as they’re typically longer-running and require more planning than the usual monthly events, we’re more careful about when we set them.

2) SOL during breaches and ports: With a few exceptions (ex. this month’s Hallmark breach), we usually do intentionally try to set a good mix of SOL and more action-oriented options (day to day day to day cowboy + kidnapping blood gangs, day to day newspaper + alien monsters, day to day London + magic fear circus), and if that’s not coming through well or if the non-SOL portions feel too tacked on/tangential, we apologize! You mentioned that the flat-out disallowance of successful escape attempts during the prison train breach was frustrating; you’re actually not the first person we’ve heard that feedback from, and it’s something we’ve kept in mind since. On the flip side, the government suppression aspect of the San Fran breach was not intended to be any sort of mod-enforced limitation on character agency, but we can definitely see how it might have played out that way in practice, given that (as you point out) nothing in the write-up allowed for characters to try to prevent the eventual alien attack. We can absolutely plan on including more breaches where the AUed characters have more chances to affect the setting beyond their own personal lives, as well as breaches where the ending/general course of the breach isn’t quite so set in stone.

If there’s anything else you feel we haven’t covered here, please do reply back; we’d love to have an open dialogue with you!

3) The writing of event posts: Having reviewed a few recent flood posts, we do notice a tendency to emphasize the scope of whatever effect is going on, generally with the intention of making sure people who wish to opt out (either out of the event as a whole or out of a specific portion of it) have room to do so - and in defining that scope we tend to primarily list limitations. It can sometimes read as a list of 'don'ts' and we'll work on being more careful with that balance.

4) Player-suggested plots: If a plot suggestion is envisioned as a port, breach, or flood, players generally submit a bare-bones idea (“a Star Trek port set on a space station!”) and we flesh it out ourselves if/when pick it for a given month. That said, there have been times when players have expressed interest in doing some or all of the event-writing themselves, and we’re always open to receiving submissions from people eager to run them! 

5) Game tone and info pages: The general tone of the game is harder to respond to, as it is of course set by the day to day activities people want to engage with. There have been a fair number of murders lately, but not many people interested in apping hard-line wardens that would be more likely to strictly enforce the prison dynamics you mention. We'd be happy to see some, as all of us enjoy the conflict (both warden-inmate, and lax warden-traditional warden) that that can cause - but maybe the consistent ebb there is a sign that we need to undertake another edit of the game info page.

Finally, we do want to reassure you that we don’t see you as a killjoy for writing up this feedback, and should in the future we throw up another event that you just aren’t feeling, we won’t see you as one if you decide to hiatus through it, either! I think we’ve all had events that have made us go “eh, not into this one; hopefully the next one will be more up my alley”. We’re sorry that so many in a row have been like that for you, and we hope that that will change! To allow you the teeniest of sneak peaks and hopefully some amount of reassurance, the port idea we’ve been bandying about for July is exploration and survival-based, with far fewer options for SOL than usual (sort of the anti-Hallmark, if you will).

[ukan]

No rush on this, just a question!

Lark is having Rags build up maps of the Barge (especially as the vents change) and keep track of any noises he hears. Lark's goal is to find out if this ship is living like the original was, especially if it has a "heart" like the one Arthas went after. (His goal is to protect it and make contact if possible.)

So my question is, is this a viable player plot to pursue in the long run? (Lark is seeing it go on for months so it is a very slow burn idea). And what could Rags and Lark learn?

[laszlo]

[And now for something completely serious.]

So... what are the chances the library has a pornography section? More like literature/history, not magazines so much.

[bargemods]

Sure, go for it! But yes more Lady Chatterley's Lover, less Playboy.

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

Hi! This is a stupid question for y'all - I'm having trouble getting Ruth to gel for me, and I'm thinking another character would work better. (I made a bad choice, basically.) Is there a length of time I need to wait in order to app someone new, in this circumstance? I know with second characters, it's 30 days, but I wasn't sure if this would work the same way. Thank you for your help!

[bargemods]

Sorry to hear you're struggling with Ruth! If you do drop her, you wouldn't need to wait 30 days post her acceptance date to app a different character.

[newpest]

Hey, just popping by to let you know I'm having serious problems with the game (even though I literally just apped a character, I know). I figured Kovacs being a depressive was the issue, and thus Bev, but it's looking to be a serious issue in both cases.

Basically: I apped both of these characters to this game specifically because it seemed to be a game based around morality, making moral judgement and helping others to do so. Instead, in game, whenever my character expresses distress with generally reviled topics such as murder and mass murder, they are told that's just how it is, you can't judge people, and to keep your head down.

The prospect of playing these characters, who have strong moral compasses, just kind of ignoring goings on in this game is not a very fun one. Have I misunderstood the premise of the game?

[bargemods]

Sorry to hear that you've been having trouble with the game! As we draft a reply, we're realizing we've got a lot of follow up questions. Would you be up for jumping into a plurk for a discussion?

[bcpd]

Good evening! I realized after I posted this to the poll discussion post that you'd said you wanted to communicate only as players there. For that reason, I'm also copying it here, so we can discuss on a mod-player basis:

The poll results seemed to suggest a lot more interest in change than what you've proposed here, especially in the following areas:

• Over half the playerbase was interested in increased austerity, with another 30% neutral on it, which I don't see mentioned here outside of short bursts of plot
• Nearly half the playerbase wants to move away from the kind of luxury items that tend to show up among the character-added customizations, with another 30% neutral on the subject. Additionally, the actual poll results for removing those character-added items showed 90% of the game felt neutral-to-positive about the idea.
• The mistletoe plot actually seems astoundingly unpopular as an in-game canon thing - over 70% of players wanted to memeify it or remove it, not run it with increased opt-outs. Could you explain a little more why you're keeping it?

I don't expect this game to conform to every poll answer I personally provided - and honestly, I'm not sure all of these questions I have relate specifically to my answers. But while we were told this wouldn't be a simple majority-rules situation, I think that some of these decisions are pretty surprising, given the clear mandates we've seen in the polls.

If y'all have time to give us a little more of a roadmap of what you're planning, beyond these initial changes, I think it would give a clearer picture of what the ultimate direction of the game is going to be. As it is, I have to admit that I'm a little confused by some of these choices. And while I have some other thoughts on some of the subjects raised in the poll, I want to make sure I'm not wasting your time by asking questions / making suggestions about changes y'all are simply planning to make in a few months' time.

[bargemods]

As stated in the post, the vast majority of the playerbase is interested in increased austerity. However, approximately two-thirds of that vast majority wants the increase to be relatively minor. We're basing this off of the results in the final section of the poll ("Section Eight: Tone"), where most responders' "this is where I want the game to be" rating was only a few points higher than their "this is where I feel the game is now" rating. As for the myriad ideas in the rest of the poll, there was actually a good deal of diversity in most people's reactions! There was a small group of players who were gung-ho for nearly every change, but most players were much more all over the map, feeling positively about some ideas and negatively about others. Details like this aren't visible to anyone who doesn't have mod journal access, but they're vital things to take into account.

Regarding the ability to add to the setting, there seems to be some confusion between "luxuries" and "changes". There's a huge difference between "now the pool has a water slide", "now one common room has a weird???? tree in it???", "this floor has a creepy mural now" and "all the chairs in this common room are gone because they were broken into bits for shivs and haven't been replaced." Changes to the setting can be positive, neutral, aesthetic, or negative, and the really luxurious ones are likely to be trimmed as part of the reductions mentioned briefly above. Based on the screened comments we received, the main issue for most people was not the idea of characters being able to affect the setting, but the difficulty in keeping up with changes/having correct IC information without having to dig through threads of comments/feeling blindsided by something they didn't know about, so that's what we're most trying to address.

Regarding the mistletoe, while a clear majority did vote to nix it, a sizable enough portion really, really, really wanted to keep it that, after much deliberation, we decided to give it one more year with further tweaks above and beyond what we've done in years past. It's a long-standing TLV tradition that is, historically, enormously popular in terms of actual play and which kickstarts a lot of CR at a time when people are often too busy to engage in more in-depth plots, so it's getting one more chance to see if we can bring it to a place that feels more acceptable to its naysayers. If the adjustments to the meme allow for a successful compromise, then we want a chance to figure that out before throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But if post-December polling shows that we didn't succeed, then it'll be gone going forward.

As you've noticed, we're generally leaning conservative in a variety of areas. As we mentioned, we had a lot of comment responses along the lines of "austerity sounds fun, but not too much". Everyone here chose to join the game as it currently is, and while we're interested in it continuing to change and grow - especially given the popularity of at least some shifts! - we would prefer to be cautious and not pull the rug out from under anyone.

And finally, as far as roadmapping goes - like we said in the intro to the poll, this poll was just a preliminary interest check. We have a metaplot outline that some of these ideas (increased restrictions to Admiral requests, restrictions on warden travel, and some amount of supply scarcity, for starters) have already been slotted into, but we don't have a step by step guide for precisely what is going to happen when, and for how long, and to what severity - because by and large, those are things we plan to tweak and adjust as we move forward, based on how they play out in practice. Likewise, November is a port month and we're planning to use it to test drive some of the port-related suggestions we polled for, but we're not at all at a stage where we're prepared to say "this is how all ports are going to play out moving forward".

[smugreport]

Posting this here as well because I'd like a mod answer as mods!

It doesn't make sense to me that there is a form needed to justify a character demotion but not graduation. Why??? I really think players should have to show their work with regards to graduation, otherwise it just (and has, from what I've seen as both a former player, lurker and current player) give plenty of room to handwave the reasoning which makes the mechanic completely unbalanced for players who want to actually put in the time. It doesn't have to be super intensive, but a clear trajectory of growth should be shown in the form of links, maybe with summaries of the thread and how it was a stepping stone, a solid list of clear examples. And then after that an approval process. I think it's the only way to keep the system relatively fair.

[bargemods]

Jumping on this one first because it's quick: we are indeed planning to require a form to be filled out for graduations! The details are mid-post, in the paragraph starting with We're going to build in a place to track, describe, and celebrate graduations!

[classifieds]

Hi, mods! I'm just bringing this here because I'm hoping for a little more input on how some of the changes will proceed. Please don't feel rushed to answer, I know you guys have a lot to respond to. I'm not saying anyone needs to stop playing what they like or are playing the wrong way, I'm just hoping to propose some things that would balance things out a little.

For me it isn't a problem that people can play more permissive and understanding wardens. All of my threads here have been great, and that includes threads with wardens whose philosophies are different than what Carol needs to graduate. Being exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints and being able to debate them makes things more interesting.

My issue is that the current overall tone is so far towards the 'acceptance/positive reinforcement' side that inmates who need punishment and consequences and the stricter wardens that would enforce them are stuck really going against the grain. Destructive actions by inmates are very easy to recover from (even death!) which means they also don't come with a lot of IC consequences, and while their warden (or any given warden if they're unpaired) can decide to enforce consequences, those consequences tend to come off as harsh due to the fact that inmates really aren't threats. I've only been here for a short while and have already seen multiple big network arguments about the fact that death and other destructive actions are treated so casually here and how that might do more harm to an inmate than good, but the end result always seems to be that that's just how it is because it's hard to get characters riled up about something that has almost no consequences.

A lot of the things we voted on would have, in my opinion, been great steps towards fixing this without changing the setting too much: making death and injury and damage to the barge have more lasting consequences, limiting inmate access to weapons, consequences for wardens that sit back and do nothing, and so on. The initial response to the feedback makes me feel like these changes got lost in the shuffle with the survival elements and shared rooming and the like, so I'm just putting this here to wonder if they are going to be addressed?

[bargemods]

Hi, Ven!

We want to assure you that this has not at all been lost in the shuffle! The things that you're concerned about are just the things that are going to take more time to shift organically. Our goal is, over the course of the next several months of plot, to make changes to the Barge through events that will change the stakes/consequences/options for EVERYONE, so that the incentives for stricter wardening vs gentler wardening are more balanced.

For example, if the consequences of death on board are higher, then wardens are incentivized to take violence more seriously! But we don't want to just drop 'the Admiral makes death tolls unreliable or much worse after 15 years of them mostly being totes fine' on the game, because that makes it seem like the Admiral is a giant asshole who's punishing the victims!

Not to spoil y'all, but the current request-related austerity is the start of a plot where some things are going to challenge the Admiral's power. It's going to let us trial a lot of more intense situations where stakes are high and some justifications for being strict make a lot more sense! And when the plot is over and we see how some of those measures worked in practice, the Barge is going to be reconfigured in response to that plot. How the Admiral comes out of that challenge is going to set a new status quo rather than revert perfectly to the one that exists now.

This stuff is mostly what we mean in the early section of the results post about the tone and '3 points stricter' - obviously that's vague and abstract and likert scales are not the most precise instruments. It's vague now because a) it's stuff that is going to take more time and effort to do right, and we're going to provide more details as we go, and b) we don't want to spoil you for this plot! But we promise it is not being ignored or forgotten. The reason we did specifically focus on things like reduction of luxuries, availability of supplies, and the amenities available on the ship is that, by and large, these were the most controversial sections of the poll, and the things that we heard the most concern about in the comments; we wanted to clarify our position there directly and up front (namely by make it clear that whatever else we have in the works, we're not planning to turn TLV into a hardcore survival game to the detriment of its premise). For everything else, we heard a lot of enthusiasm and ideas and thoughts - but not a lot of anxiety, and so we didn't feel the need to address them all individually, instead lumping them into a general category of "cool things that we're definitely going to experiment with (permanently or temporarily; with tweaks and without)". We definitely didn't mean to give the impression that any poll item not specifically named was glossed over, forgotten, or discarded, but we can see how we might have inadvertently given off that impression, and we apologize.

[bargemods]

From here:

Re: the game tone ratings, the subjectivity of that particular section is actually exactly why we put less weight on comparing different players' responses to each other, and more weight on comparing each individual player's responses across all four questions. Even when providing a scale with clearly-defined extremes ("basic panfandom jamjar" on one and "total authoritarian lockdown" on the other), you're entirely right that "this player thinks the game is currently at a 4" doesn't tell us much on its own. But being able to look at a single person's responses across multiple questions gives us details like "this player thinks the game is currently at a 4, but they want it to be at a 6" - or even, when we add in the other two questions in that section, "this player thinks the game is currently at a 4, but they want it to be at a 6. They'd be comfortable with it going as high as 9, and would be uncomfortable with it falling below 4." Adding in a player's answers to the rest of the poll questions then gives us an idea not only of where they think the game should be relative to where it is now, but also of how exactly they'd like to see that happen, and adding in their thoughts from the comments section (where applicable) gives us details on clarifications, stipulations, and nuances that can't be reflected in a poll. Putting all these factors together gives us a decently comprehensive view of where each individual responder stands, which we feel allows us to have a much better idea of overall game trends than simply going "11 people think the game is currently at a 5, and 15 people think the game should be at a 7".

As for the rest of the poll, we can assure you that it's not being ignored! Purely OOC changes to game pages (apps, plot forms, graduation and demotion forms, etc.) are easy to implement quickly, particularly since many of these were landslide votes. The vast majority of potential IC changes, on the other hand, aren't things we want to introduce abruptly or without IC justification, nor are they things we want to lay out a strict implementation timeline for, since what is implemented when and to what level of severity will depend on a lot of factors (the player-to-player discussions we're reading along with here, mod-to-player discussions had in public and in private, reactions and feedback to specific ideas as they're tested out mid- and post-metaplot, the feedback we get during future polls). The interest check poll was step 1; this discussion and "here's a quick and dirty list of changes we're fine with implementing immediately, without requests for further discussion, feedback, or testing first" is step 1.5. Step 1 is the start of a process, not the end of one.

[iworry]

Thank you for the reply, but I do not want to discuss this subject any longer, given the tone of the main post.

Wishing you the best with implementing these changes, even if they don't make sense to me.

Drac Magic and Tech and Teaching

[no_innocents]

Heyo! I wanted to check in with you on something, since I didn't want to overreach. Specifically, about Drac potentially teaching 'true sciences' and/or magic to people. I just wanted to lay out what I've been doing and make sure you're good with it:

1. I'm trying to stick to what's available in the Castlevania games and/or visibly seen in the Castlevania Netflix show for the weird gothpunk tech he's got going on and this is (heavily) restricted by materials so as not to get out of hand. Mostly the tech/'true sciences' stuff is theoretical and if we were going to do anything more than that, I'd want to check with you guys. So far all he's done is very simple toy automatons and it would probably stick to really low-tier stuff like that given size limitations. Otherwise, a lot of what he teaches is just... modern day science. Like there's totally modern equipment in Lisa's office in canon so he probably knows weird gothpunk versions of what would be normal or a little advanced for our understanding of tech.

2. Magic: as magic is about as defined as Drac's backstory in canon (both in the games and in the show), I'm taking a somewhat-modified DnD model for what he can teach someone else. Starting with the idea that for someone who does not in canon have a magical bloodline/background/lineage/something, the only thing that could be possible is ritual casting available to arcane spellcaster (no cleric and paladin spells!) with the necessary verbal, somatic, and materials required. Most of these spells are more interesting than bombastic or allow for interesting plots and I wouldn't think that they'd be any more or less disruptive than what a character could feasibly get at a port or do through technology in one way or another.

Similarly, for those who do have magic in them, I'd probably still take the DnD approach, and again restrict his knowledge to the sort of arcane spells that he'd know (no divine, obviously, which also makes sense for why he'd prefer science for healing over something along those lines) and to give his magical abilities some structure.

For all involved, the progress would be reasonable and require RP mention and 'work', much as they would be in a DnD campaign, so no one's throwing around a Fireball (a lvl 3 spell) after one lesson. Generally, I'll also have him using 'magic' in a similar vein (using DnD spells as a framework) even if he'd probably be like 30th level and obviously without some of the more game-breaking spells or things that would make a character plot or his own plot useless (like Wish, etc.). I'd think of him as an artificer/wizard as classes go for that with the accompanying spell lists/specialties.

TLDR: here's how I'm structuring these things, I'm trying to do it to allow for interesting gameplay, something meaningful to his 'lessons', and not being an OP twinked out butthead in a shared space.

Re: Drac Magic and Tech and Teaching

[bargemods]

Hey there, thanks for reaching out! We realize that when a canon includes an incredibly broad/powerful but not well-defined magic system, it's unrealistic and prohibitive to ask players to stick only to what characters are specifically shown doing in canon, and overall the limits that you've self-imposed to avoid him being unreasonably OP look great to us. Here are a couple further guidelines we'd like you to keep in mind:

1) Using DnD rules to try to define limits that are undefined in canon is fine, but please don't overrely on DnD for specific spells.

2) Dracula can do things that it's reasonable to extrapolate are in his wheelhouse from other vampires/magic users in the Netflix show, but what he teaches should be more commensurate with what Isaac and Hector are shown to be able to pick up rather than anything pulled in from another canon.

3) We don't allow mixing and matching of powers in between mediums (ex. someone who plays from MCU can't tack on comics powers that their character doesn't exhibit in the films), and while we realize that this is a lot more blurry when dealing with an entire system of magic rather than with individual superpowers, as a general rule of thumb we'll also ask you not to automatically take random powers from game boss fights as canon, and to only bring them into your play if they jive well with the magic system that he uses in the Netflix show.

[cephalopunk]

Hi mods!

A suggestion re: the new jobs

I think it'd be beneficial to have two slots for the inmate monitor role. This would give the unpaired inmates a little more freedom, so to speak, with who they can turn to for any warden-related needs.

Since, right now, if an inmate has reasons for not wanting contact with the current monitor they're out of luck. At least with another warden there'd be a better chance of at least one being an okay option (from the inmate's perspective) to turn to.

[bargemods]

Sure, we're up for this! We'll add in a second slot.

[anti_altruisms]

Hey, guys!

Just wondering, but would it be possible to add a segment to the Jobs page that lists Wardens who help in the kitchen?

I know there’s supposed to be one Warden in charge per shift and the rest of the slots filled by Inmates, but that very rarely seems to happen. I think having a list of Wardens who help on kitchen shifts would help us keep track of things oocly.

Thanks!

[bargemods]

Hello! Thank you for your suggestion -- after discussion we've made a few changes to the kitchen section of the Jobs page:

- one additional Warden position made available for each kitchen shift
- kitchen volunteer section added for OOC tracking of characters who unofficially help in the kitchen.

Newbie Questions

[chaos_drifter]

This is kind of a silly question, but I can’t find any sort of page for activity checks or HMD posts. Are these just meant to be posted in personal journals, or is there a page that I can’t find?

Re: Newbie Questions

[bargemods]

Hey there! We post activity checks monthly on the OOC community and HMD posts every three months on the OOC community. You can find the past HMDs here and the past activity checks here.

[notsoblackbeard]

Hiya, Mods!

I'm considering canon-updating Ed here, which would make him an inmate rather than a warden. Do I understand correctly that I'd need to drop and re-app? And if so, would I need to completely fill out a new app, or would it be acceptable to tack a few paragraphs on the old one? Thanks!

[bargemods]

Hello! You're correct that you need to fill out a new application, but you would not need to drop Ed to do so; you can submit the new application with a note that it is for a canon update, then implement the update after the new application is processed. Because he is going from warden to inmate rather than vice versa, he can also keep his Barge memories if you want him to.

Because warden and inmate applications have a different structure, you would need to rewrite some sections completely (for example, warden justification and inmate justification likely will not have much overlap.) However, any parts of your original application that are applicable to both his original and new canon point do not need to be revised.

Canon Updates???

[chaos_drifter]

So, this could be a very on-the-surface answer, or it could go deeper. But the basic question is, how do I handle canon updates for an OC? The update in question is a change to the magic system. It wouldn’t affect Avalon’s abilities, but it would affect how they contextualize magic. I can comment with my notes about the actual magic system if that would help. It definitely hasn’t been a month since I developed this part of the magic system, so I can definitely wait, but I’m curious about how I would handle this if/when I decide to do it. Thanks!

Re: Canon Updates???

[bargemods]

A canon update that involves a character moving further down their personal timeline could be handled much the same way as a canon character's canon update (though we may ask for an info write-up, depending on the circumstances). However, it sounds like you're talking about a change/retcon to the worldbuilding of the world he comes from, which we would not allow. You would need to either stick to the original magic system as outlined in your app, or - if you truly do not want to play from the version of the world you outlined there - you'd need to drop Avalon entirely, and reapp them with the updated world information. If you went this route, they would need be a fresh version of the character straight from their new canon, with no Barge history.

Memories of arrival

[chaos_drifter]

Could something like this allow characters to remember details of their death and arrival if they were brought to the Barge against their will?

Re: Memories of arrival

[bargemods]

Inmates who were brought to the Barge against their will can remember as much or as little about their death as the player wants them to, so gaining clearer death memories would be fine. However, they would not remember anything between death and regaining consciousness on the Barge - if they arrived unwillingly, they would not have experienced a conversation with the Admiral. (For characters who arrived willingly, such as wardens or inmates who chose that option, they would not be able to remember any details of the Admiral's appearance or the exact words spoken, regardless of the means used to recover those memories.)

[ukan]

Warden apps are closed right now but could I swap a warden character for the one I have right now? That way it wouldn't be adding to the warden population...

[pitofguilt]

Hiya, the graduations/demotions post says to give y'all a poke if it's been 48 hrs since a comment is posted to it. I commented for Natalie's graduation on Monday night. No rush, just checking in. Thank you!

[bargemods]

Checking it now, thanks for the head's up! We don't get notifs for the graduation page, so we have to manually check it, and since new comments roll in inconsistently it's an easy thing to let slide.

[lachtara]

Hey! I wanted to toss an idea at you and see if it could be something that could be done in-game.

I wanted to know if there was any way that Emet could make a new little area on the Barge. Since he and Hyth have creation magic, this area could be for creating weird monsters that people of the Barge could interact with, adopt, (eat?) fight, whathaveyou. It could become a regular thing to have a little boss monster for people to fight to get their aggression out. Also maybe for potential plots in the future.

Just a thought! Wanted to see if it was potentially possible.

[bargemods]

The Admiral doesn't create public areas for use by certain wardens, as a general rule, and their creation magic wouldn't be able to change the Barge's structure to make new public areas. However, they could repurpose an existing area, such as using creation magic to build pens for monsters or protective wall/flooring panels in a common room or one of their personal cabins, for example! The Enclosure would also be a perfect place for them to hold larger "boss fight" events if they wanted to work together to create an occasional big monster for people to fight as a challenge.

We will note that when it comes to creating weird monsters, their access to aether is limited on the Barge and building new creatures should require a fair amount of IC design work -- we're entirely okay with them making weird little monsters (or medium-sized monsters) but these should be more along the lines of special hand-crafted designs that require a meaningful expenditure of their personal energy, rather than mass production.

[sanityinruins]

So over the course of the time frame where he is handling all the bugs that Taylor had on board ( and is still handling since she is still limiting her ability over them because of reasons ) Ye Zun has been teleporting and handling dark energy in various tasks while some of the bugs - most notably the bees - are riding along with him. Since it is his own energy ( and the weird space time energy of his portals ) would be ok for him have created a hybrid insect group this way? It would take longer than actual magic but radiation has made some changes in bugs so figured it would be okay if the hybrid is about after a while.

[bargemods]

Based on the fact that living things close to strong dark energy sources (Shen Wei's fish, the tree by the Dixing portal) don't seem to have mutated in any way in canon, we don't think this should be a passive effect, but if Ye Zun wanted to deliberately try to change or mutate his insects with dark energy that might be possible. What kind of effects are you imagining? Are these completely cosmetic changes, or would they have new abilities/features/etc, and if so, what kind?

[una_persson]

Due diligence here: following on to this post of Una's, I'm thinking of putting up a log for the Barge Holiday Variety Show on the 18th or 19th, with an OOC post in advance so that anyone who might want to can sign up with a description of the act their character plans to put on, plus any other plotting stuff they might want to put in. Sound okay?

[bargemods]

Of course, go for it!

[themostfun]

Hi. So i am on hiatus this month for health and travel reasons, and in early February i will be having surgery. Would it be okay to have my hiatus cover both months? I have no idea how long I'm going to be out of commission post op, so the February hiatus would help a lot. I'm happy to work out something else if you'd prefer.

Thank you!

[bargemods]

We can absolutely accommodate this; thank you for getting in touch, and good luck with surgery!

[cobbledtogetherenvy]

Poke for the graduation/demotions page. Envy's has been up for a few days.

[bargemods]

Aye-aye; thanks for the ping!

[greatoldjohn]

Just dropping a line to let you know that John Doe's username, which was previously 'appreciatesforboth' has been switched to 'greatoldjohn'. I took the 'forwarding' option for his username so hopefully everything should switch over nicely, but I figured I'd drop a line here!

[no_kyouken]

Hello guys!

I've come to ask for another month of hiatus. I have successfully gotten medical leave from work and just need to focus on myself for the moment. I expect to be around, and maybe even enjoy some tags, but need to do it without thinking about how many.

[bargemods]

Given your situation, that's understandable, and fine with us! If you continue to need hiatus extensions after this month, we may want to chat with you about potentially reducing your character load until things smooth out, but for the time being keeping them all on hiatus is fine. If you could drop a comment about the extension on the haitus post, that would be great!