Saturday Statistics & Let's Talk Plot!

[ironwood]

Month two of Tu Shanshu's IC gameplay is coming to an end and, wow. Time flies when we're having fun and, based on the comm stats, we're going out on a limb here to conclude that things have been fun.

To celebrate our second month, here's a little statistics compilation of what's been going on!

Membership:
We have 67 characters played by 44 different players, with the roster spread varying from one to four per player. This is spectacular and exceeds the initial estimate and hopes we had when we launched. You guys have been amazing at making Turtletopia a total success!

OOC Community:
There are 132 entries on the OOC comm (133 with this one) and a total of 5,028 comments posted. This works out to an average of 38 comments per entry or 75 comments per character!

Console Community:
Here, there are 93 entries and 10,819 comments (give or take some tagging that's happened in the past hour). That's an awesome 116 comments per entry or 161 comments per character.

Logs Community:
Finally, our beautiful logs community has 64 entries and 4,091 comments -- working out to an average of 64 comments per entry or 61 comments per character.

While we've lost a few characters and members along the way, all of whom we miss, things have been moving ahead steadily and we (the mods) want to than you (the players) for being instrumental in getting Tu Shanshu up and running in terms of IC gameplay.

Plot Direction:
In addition to the stats up yonder, this is also a Let's Talk Plot type post! You guys have all been great so far, and you've rolled with every punch we've thrown at you, but we're looking to make this a fun and enjoyable environment for everyone, and that includes checking to see if we're all on the same page regarding plot. Tu Shanshu is a largely collaborative effort, and everyone's opinion is equally important, new and old players alike.

So... essentially, if you have any metaplot suggestions, make 'em here. Be outlandish as you want! 'Giant Turtle collides with Kraken, news at eleven!' Or perhaps you want to see someone try to assassinate the Emperor? Would you like to have characters shake up the political or economical structure of Keeliai? This is the post to bring any such ideas forward. Mostly this is just to get a gauge of where people would like to see the metaplot go, and how they'd like to see it develop. Don't be afraid to suggest things that are dependent on characters rather than the environment or NPCs, either! This can be a good place to hash out any player plot ideas you might have but want to discuss or think about, too.

Please note, Tu Shanshu doesn't at this time support 'slice of life' plots, like sex swaps or age up/age down style events.

This is also a reminder: For the entire month of November, Tu Vishan is making landfall! What wonders may come of this, you ask? Well, what sorts of things would you like to see?

Comments

[littlecousin]

I was told there was a possibility of the turtle diving to the ocean floor. I want this because I am apparently very selfish and don't care if everyone else but Superman is trapped inside the city. 8Db

[stickshift]

There is indeed! Any ideas for what we could do with that sort of plot? Beyond, you know, HEY TURTLE FLOOR. Maybe they could find sunken ships or something? Whatcha think?

[stickshift]

Wow I meant... ocean floor. gj self.

[littlecousin]

Fuck yeah sunken ships! Exploring shipwrecks! Possible pirate ghosts!

(Shipwreks are where Namor gets his money in canon, actually.)

[littlecousin]

"shipwreks"

[stickshift]

I think all of this can potentially be arranged. November is pretty full with New! Exciting! Things! and December's a downtime month, but maybe January? :|a

[littlecousin]

Realistically by then I'll have forgotten I asked and it will come as a total surprise.

[cowled]

;ksdf And we might have a Namor by then too...

And maybe an Aquaman...


...


Shenanigans.

[littlecousin]

I'm already looking forward to the "NO I'M KING OF ATLANTIS" posturing.

[cowled]

This is all making me want to play Kaldur from Young Justice ;-;


omg Nita would love him it'd be so adorable


no roy bad

[littlecousin]

ha-ha point and laugh at Roy's inability to play a dozen characters at once

[wolfnamedkitty]

Roy, you can't have a MONOPOLY on all the awesome characters.

[andaway]

I am 0k with this plot /Seal of approval

[disfavored]

DID SOMEONE SAY POLITICS

In other words: yes politics. Political anything.

[stickshift]

Would you be interested in a united coalition of foreigners? :|a

[disfavored]

Yes, yes I would.

[stickshift]

Do you think it's something Tarrlok would be interested in or capable of starting up on his own? We can give it a push ICly with NPCs and whatnot, but we need PCs/muns who're up on the political side of things who want to work in those parameters as well.

[disfavored]

Yes, he'd be willing to start it up, he needs something to get his mind off of moping about his brother.

[cowled]

Then let's do this thing! There's an audience with the Emperor on Oct 5th if you wanted to have him touch on it with her beforehand, or if you think he'd just jump into it himself that's cool too!

What sort of structure would he be looking at? Some sort of electoral process? Nominations, campaigns, a Roman-style forum? :|a

[disfavored]

Alright, I'll probably wait and have him talk to her then.

He'd probably want to go with something he's familiar with, which I'm guessing is some sort of election with nominations and campaigns, with multiple representatives being elected. Although he'd encourage self-nomination because he doesn't think anyone here would nominate him whoops.

[cowled]

hahahaha oh Tarrlok. I bet Amon would nominate you. Anonymously. While holding a little sign that says 'love me'.


Yeah I like this plan. PC-held elections could be pretty fun, actually. We could set that in motion in October, given that November is gonna be a month of 'all hands off the turtle on this here mainland thing'.


What sort of in-game power do you think should go to elected officials? :|a (AND ANYONE WATCHING THIS CONVO feel free to chime in!)

[wolfnamedkitty]

Work regulation! Helping set up PC run businesses? Being the Foreigner Representation to the government of turtletopia. Pizza party planning. (Okay, maybe not that last one.)

[sharpes]

Dude I think pizza party planning should be an important and integral function of these newly elected officials.

[littlecousin]

Nita will be Chief Undersecretary of Gettin' Down Tonight.

[sharpes]

You're hired!

[disfavored]

He'd nominate Tarrlok and then vote against him anyways or something. You're weird, Amon.

October is fine! As for power goes, they might be called upon during plot events, deal with foreigner crime a bit, plan events, kidnap the Avatar, stuff like that? YES ANYONE ELSE PLEASE CHIME IN

[sharpes]

Yeah well you smell like a lady!!!


I like all of this. AND YES MORE CHIME-INS PLEASE? <3

[littlecousin]

Nita would be so tickled at getting to vote on something. WILL THERE BE REAL BALLOTS? CAN SHE GET A STICKER?

[arches]

i want to know who is cogsworth and who is lumiere in this situation

[cowled]

One is Tony Stark and one is Bruce Wayne.

I'll let you figure out which is which.

[histruename]

Outlandish ideas, you say? How about some of these crazy suggestions:

I'd really love to see some playing around with the whole "In Between" thing, and maybe some breakdown of the magic involved with that. Like an incident resulting in many dead kedan/characters leads them to be resurrected as zombies instead of coming back whole, leaving those who remain to resort to killing again, ultimately reversing the curse. Or people start having hallucinations as their dreams become something more tangible.

Mostly I'm just very interested in the type of power the Emperor has over the land and its people... what it is, where it comes from, and what effect it has on everything.

More Asian folklore elements injected into the game would be awesome, too. We have the Kirin and, of course, the giant freaking turtle so I'd love to see some more NPC-able critters running around, perhaps wreaking a little havoc in the meantime.

Not sure how these suggestions fit into the plans for the overall scheme of things, or if they could even work, but I thought they might be fun to bring to the table.

[ex_capt410]

secondeeeeeeed i am also interested in a metaplot type deal involving the inbetweenness of turtleland (and zombies are fun)

also yeah i've been in a couple games where there are npc-type "imps" or whatever that players could use to instigate minor chaos to spice things up, so that might be worthwhile to look into.

[cowled]

Oooh, that is actually a really neat concept. Gimme a couple months and I'll see about utilizing something like that in the metaplot. /chinhands

[cowled]

... r-rofl I WON'T LIE we actually have something very like that first suggestion in the works. /innocent whistle


There are all sorts of alternate critters! Most of them are outside the city, however, and people are free to run into any sort of vaguely-mythological-based creatures they want, so long as it's reasonable for them to do so. Like... no hundred foot fire-breathing dragons, guys, but smaller or more localized creatures are totally a go. Tu Vishan is about the size of Qatar, and it's got a lot of outlying territory, mountainous regions etc where little creatures lurk around. I should consider doing up a bestiary, actually, so people get a good idea of what they might be able to find. :|a The problem is that most animals that are edible have been hunted pretty much to extinction, so... yeah.

These are all awesome suggestions, though. I'll see about sneaking them into the overall plot. :3 And if you have any more ideas or whatnot by all means lay 'em out on the table. I love ideas I am an ideamonger.

[wolfnamedkitty]

Beyond pc-npc interaction, I'm also kinda interested in the idea of turtle land reclamation/revitalization/turtleforming since that is a lot of bare shell.

Then again, that is part of the landfall stuff, yeah?

I'm also interested in seeing more culture stuff! Will there be anything like Bon or other things in the future?

[cowled]

'Bon'?

[wolfnamedkitty]

It's a day of the dead! Except Japanese. So instead of sugar skulls and candy being set on the grave and then eating them later it's floatin' paper lanterns in water.

(Personally, I prefer the Mexican way of doin' things because you shouldn't eat lanterns, but you can totally eat sweets made in the shapes of skulls. Mmm calaveras~)

[amonfire]

Not going to lie if the PC-NPC interaction escalates again, and by then he's up for it. I'm going to make serious attempts for Amon to get his groove back with a more political slant than fuckyourmagics, and start publicly protesting either the Ironwood Emperor or police force.

Also, if we're straddling the line between life and death like it's its stag party? I would like to echo interest in seeing that explored in greater detail.

[cowled]

I'd be more than okay with having this happen. I love political shenanigans and Amon (and Tarrlok) would be a great vessel for that to happen. /chinhands

There are definitely plans on the horizon for that breach to be filled in (we're doing a ~ghost event around Halloween that's going to lead in to some bigger moving and shaking in that regard) so yeah. The build-up is a little bit slow right now but everything's still settling into place from the launch date. :|a

[amonfire]

oooo I'm going to get my markers and start making picket signs

For the record I'm completely down with slow and steady build when it comes to exploring the overarching meta-plot. Sob I'm still tagging the bomb disposal log.

[cowled]

I want your love and I want your ... revolutionary...???


Yeah I'm a big fan of the slow burn. /rubs hands together evilly muahaha

[demon_brat]

... random idea, but tossing it out here, may be useful at some later point or for somebody.

This far, there has been little use made of the fact that the kedan are shapeshifters. But it could be a good source of confusion, or even something the PCs can use. Possibilities:

* The kedan could impersonate PCs, on their own as well as on request, I would assume? This could help out the more nefarious foreigners, or create havoc...
* There could be doubles, triples, etc. of the named NPCs.
* The named NPCs could be up and about in seekrit.

I don't have a specific plot concept, so if anyone wants to run with it, go right ahead?

[cowled]

The kedan could indeed impersonate PCs!


The named NPCs, however, are not kedan. Eshai, Lieuen and Evandau are all Something Other Than Kedan. /mystery music plays!!

[demon_brat]

OH!

Ohhhh... Now this is INTERESTING!

That. Leaves two of the points valid...

... and possibility for the PCs to find out, eventually. NOM NOM NOM!

[cowled]

the PCs have already been given some hints-- to the point where observant individuals are probably aware of it. (Eshai always refers to the kedan as 'the kedan' and it's always a 'them' and never an 'us' with her, so people keen on the nuances would pick up on that straight away)

The kedan probably wouldn't imitate the NPCs for... reasons I probably can't divulge at the moment. But yes.

[demon_brat]

*nods* I remember that, but I didn't think it meant she lacked some of the abilities of the kedan, just that she had more. But yep. Ohhhh mysterious music and I LOVE IT!