Open Discussion for All Active RP Members

[Taymist]

As you all know, things have been extremely quiet for a long time around here. It's been lovely over the past year or so to see some activity creeping back in and members returning, showing interest etc. Having said that, there's also no getting around the fact that the PSW as it stands is too big and unwieldy for so few people. Hence the gradual consolidation of boards which has been a work in progress. But I still don't feel that's drastic enough, even taking into account the things I haven't changed yet.

 

Last week, Mat approached me with some thoughts on the PSW that really set me to thinking. For any of you who've ever been in this situation, you know how easy it is to lose sight of the woods for all the trees. Being staff doesn't automatically give you all the answers, particularly with the very long, complex history that DM has. Having an outside set of eyes provide a new perspective is very helpful and insightful...and quite eye opening sometimes!

 

That said, the proposed idea (or part of it) was to move the whole RP forward in time by about 10 to 20 years AFTER The Last Battle. To basically create our own future Randland and go in our own direction. I prefer this idea to doing the opposite and going back in time. PLEASE NOTE: I want to discuss the concept and logistics of doing this NOT the details of how the world will look. We can get into that IF, and only if, we agree to make such a change, otherwise we're wasting our time and energy. Plus I haven't read the last book (yes, yes, I know) so if we can avoid spoilers I'll love you all forever. That's a request not a board rule.

 

Things in favour of doing this:

 

1. We can draw a complete line under the current PSW, its history and its Timeline. Ignore it and start over fresh by simply assuming everything up to our starting point happened as per the Books. 

2. You can still keep your existing characters, they'll just be a few years older.

3. We can do away with character limits.

4. We can whittle down to just a few OOC boards and archive the current ones wholesale.

5. Any threads/bios/info that really need to be kept can be transferred without too much problem.

6. Have a character driven PSW rather than a story/timeline driven one.

7. It's essentially a completely clean slate.

 

Now, the final decision may well be mine to make but this is your RP as much as it is mine or the Staff's so I want this to be a joint effort. Something we can all be proud of and interested in. Instead of discussing it privately with the Staff first, I decided to just go ahead and ask you all for your views at the same time.  

 

Thoughts? Feedback? Other ideas? Objections? I'm going to let you all talk for a bit and I'll keep an eye on how the thread is going. Be polite and be constructive. All input is equally valid.

 

 

[Arie]

So... 

 

This may come out in a multiple of posts from me. Because this is not the first time this has been brought up, and not nearly the first time it's been done. In fact most (95%?) of the WoT spin-off sites are deviants of the book timeline. Dragonmount being the last standing bastion of actually taking place during the books with any realm of accuracy to them.

 

The very old, traditional part of me, is kicking and screaming that the one last watch on the books timeline might go away with this. Granted that old me was very passionate and lacked the RP experience I've built over the past 18 odd years both here and in other genre's.

 

I think to put it bluntly, to move the timeline forward past the books would constitute an enormous amount of work. It would be near enough to starting from scratch as far as lore goes - even if we piggyback the world changes that happens in AMOL.

The white tower is broken, the amyrlin is new. (cool). 20 years will not fix a white tower that is likely broke from having to help the world and engaging in a world-wide war. 

 

The Black Tower is not only in ruins, it's corrupted beyond use. The knowledge of the turning of the 13 can not be undone and that power seat essentially makes it a trove for the shadow. Cool RP possibility.. but building the lore and structure around that isn't a small task. So then.. what happens to Logain? He builds his own new and proper black tower. Where? Does he join the White Tower?

 

And Seanchan. The seanchan aren't a myth, they likely have control of most of the costal continents. They and the Children of Light are likely not having a good time... Not to mention the inside war of the Seanchan that was started IN seanchan with the culture breaking knowledge of what Suldam's can do.

 

Aiel and the White Tower are likely the lone allies aside the Andorian Throne. (i think? ... )

It's rough since it's been 4-5 years since i read AMOL. 

 

Anyway.. that's jsut off the top of my head. It's a very cooooool idea and it give us a lot to play with, fresh and all, but the work might be more than our measely band of heros (players) can pull together. It would also mean pulling on fresh staff because you, kath and chae already do a lot around the tower and a change like this, imho, requires a strong vision and drive. not an idea.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Arie

[Arie]

1. We can draw a complete line under the current PSW, its history and its Timeline. Ignore it and start over fresh by simply assuming everything up to our starting point happened as per the Books. 

 

- This is something we can do anyway and doesnt' require a time jump. It just means putting to bed old ideas.

 

3. We can do away with character limits.

 

- Also doesn't need a timeline change to do this. However I am strongly in favor of this for selfish but also logistical reasons.

[Taymist]

OMG Arie, I can't even read your post lol. Spoilers galore. I presume you're actually referring to the Books. I got several lines into that first post and had to stop. No clue what you're talking about. *finds blindfold* I don't need details. I only need an "I think it's too much work logistically". 

 

ETA If people need to post spoilers can you pretty please hide them in a quote box or however they get hidden. Then everyone else can choose to read them. I was planning to read the book over the next few days. I'll stay away until that's done! 

[Matalina]

You are thinking too broad IMO.  Don't focus on creating a history for THE WHOLE thing.  When I told Tay about it in my message I gave to very concrete 'stories' that could be used to world build around.

 

The Rebuilding of Camerlyn and  Fixing the Towers. 

 

There are not enough people here to try to write a WHOLE world 20 to 30 years in the future.  You start out with okay - we are rebuilding Camerlyn so to do this, we need a location, we need to know where the queen is, what happened to her.  The rest of the world can exist, but let the users write it.  We are small.  We are good writers for the most part.  And we don't have to give everyone a whole new world.  Set rules, guidelines.  Let the story be driven by the players and not some over arching grand plan.  Yes have a direction.  Someone to throw in a monkey wrench.  But don't create a new world.  Take one point, one moment and go from there.

 

Pick a central location "This is where the action is happening" if you want to write outside of it then fine go ahead, but you aren't going to be in the hub of activity.  

 

The reason Dragonmount's RP flourished the way it did back in the day wasn't because we created a world, we set guide lines and we let people play that character.  It wasn't until years later that we started the whole timeline and the books and the plot.

 

Don't make it more complicated than it already is.  Someone wants to do something that you haven't outlined - make them outline it and then make it 'law'.  Let US do the work we want to do.

[Arie]

I wasn't even that...... o.O. sorry Tay. It's been 5 years.. I kinda assumed. 

[Arie]

I hate typoing on my phone. These boards suck...... lost my post 5 times now... anyway..

 

 

What you are suggesting still isn't an insignificant amount of work. I was being vague but they are questions we should be prepared to answer if we do a jump. Logistically new players will ask. Spoilers or not. 

 

You don't want spoilers then don't do the jump. Half the point of the spin timeline as it stands was to avoid spoiling the books too much for players.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Arie

[Jagen Sedai]

I'll keep my post fairly brief, and to the point. I could see us going two ways:

 

1) As you suggested, move forward in time to after the Last Battle. I won't go into the details here of where Randland is sitting at the end of the last book, because you haven't read it. But... 30 years is NOT a lot of time for any world to change that much, or any culture. If humans are good at anything, it's being stubborn and holding onto our past, not progress, as the world has demonstrated many times. I actually don't think it'd be that hard to jump forward to after that Last Battle. However, I would suggest a SMALLER jump. Much smaller. Like a year after the Last Battle. Lots of fighting action is going on, as well as other changes. Suddenly the players can make the world... based on Admin guidelines, of course.

There are three possibilities with this, however:

• We keep all NSW characters and keep our PSW, including our events; or,
• We do this but move into canon Randland timeline, just with different (NSW) names; or,
• We move our characters into post-canon Randland, with WoT characters being NSWs (But I think you can't for legal reasons? I have no idea how this works, but I saw it previously mentioned).

 

2) Go BACK in time, and start all over--make a new PSW. I don't see this option being popular with older players, but I've been on and off part of DM since 2001, but I personally wouldn't mind doing this. I may be biased though; in 2007 forward I couldn't be on DM nearly as much as I planned or wanted to, and I only just got settled back last year (I was in the military from 2008-2016, and simply never had the energy for DM in that time--along with other pursuits). So, my time ACTUALLY RPing is not that long, unfortunately.

My thoughts in this are that role-playing here would be more appealing if much hasn't happened yet. Though, I'm thinking about a future influx of people. And that won't come until, or unless WoT becomes a TV show >_>

 

I'm fine with either of these options.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Jagen Sedai

[Arie]

5 hours ago, Arie said:

I hate typoing on my phone. These boards suck...... lost my post 5 times now... anyway..

 

...

 

You don't want spoilers then don't do the jump. Half the point of the spin timeline as it stands was to avoid spoiling the books too much for players.

 

That last came across waay more harshly then intended, sorry.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Arie

[Arie]

Swore at my phone and made my co-worker blush. 

 

Anyway. 

 

This is one thing you will run into. Everyone will have a different suggested timeline for when things should start. (And remember, the books take place of only a small handful of years. It is not insignificant to think that those events would carry that momentum moving into the first decade or so of the next year. The white tower will -not- be the same. At least, not in my opinion.)

 

I'm not against moving ahead, or even pushing the 'old' timeline further back to pre-books and not start over but allow the next 5 years to actually have book timelines and consequences carry forward year by year. NO site has actually RP'd through the Final Battle because a) the books weren't done and b) the involvement of it is massive with a book character-driven ending. 

 

So a reset is cool. A fresh point for a new timeline is awesome. But either we keep our characters and roll away from the history and it's significance, or we keep it.. messy as it is. 

 

Honestly, as one of the older players, i'm cool with resurrecting 1-2 characters and letting a few other other ones lay buried. On the other hand, moving ahead will allow more connection between some of the groups that were previously quite divided. (BT and WT.. and the BT's history being far more current and dependent on the book timeline). 

 

So, I'm not sure I 100% agree with Matalina's way of thinking, but I think there is a common ground somewhere that can help us long-term. Not just as a temporary patch fix.

[Jagen Sedai]

10 minutes ago, Arie said:

I'm not against moving ahead, or even pushing the 'old' timeline further back to pre-books and not start over but allow the next 5 years to actually have book timelines and consequences carry forward year by year.

 

I think going back to pre-books would be very awesome. Like by 5-10 years back. :)

[Arie]

I am also fond of that idea. Though.. then there would be no black tower. which is why it's not been done yet here.

[Jagen Sedai]

I think there is a bit of advantage to this. Sort of. Men finding out they can channel, gathering in small places, helping each other, avoiding Aes Sedai (especially Reds)... could be interesting.

Maybe that could be a factor into favoring not going back *too* far, but a LOT of men showed up at the BT in Randland after it was set up, and not all of them were young. I wonder how many of those older men (well, 25+) were, in fact, wilders, who'd somehow managed to stave off madness for a few years. Logain and Taim certainly managed to stay fairly intact, mentally speaking.

[Arie]

I think the BT fate should be weighed in on by those that enjoy writing BT boys. :D

[Jagen Sedai]

Yes of course :)

[Matalina]

Well since there are like 2 of us lol... the point is kinda moot.

 

I'm not opposed to dropping back BEFORE the books either but BEFORE we don't have the band of the red hand, we don't have  seanchan and aiel.  Wolfkin are still just as rare, the BT doesn't exist.  Me personally I can change my bio with ease to become a wilder whose gone slightly made with power.

 

But that also limits the where you can go because you can't say break the white tower before it ever gets started.

 

1 year... Hell even just to the end of the books gives us all the choices we enjoy here at DM, but also the complete moveablitity.

 

You could go farther ahead in time... say a couple hundred years into the next age.  Have your New Camerlyn already built.  A combined tower, or whatever we wanted, but that's forcing a world you created  on speculation.   the smaller the time span the better at the end.  And I would think that more the more time BEFORE the books the better.

 

The idea is to move away from the idea of a story we didn't write.  We could easy say in this portal stone world that Rand's mother dies on dragonmount instead of gives birth.  No Dragon Reborn, and we have to fight the Dark One ourselves.  No following Cannon.  We pick a point and we save the world ourselves using the knowledge we gained from reading the Wheel of Time.  No Dragon Reborn, maybe it takes an army to do what one man did....  I dunno... the possiblities are endless with true portal stone worlds, not just a mimicing one.   I mean in one it looked like the Seanchan had taken over randland... certainly that worlds 3rd age wasn't precicesly the same as ours was.

[Arie]

I guess the main question is.. Do we want to stay true to the books, as was the intent of the RP (ish) adopted over time... Or do something different. 

 

Because only a very very small handful of WoT RP sites exist and none have any semblance on the books. Stepping away from that breaks the tradition of the site, but allows us a holy amount of freedom to do whatever. 

 

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that possibility, knowingly being part of DM's RP history and what occured at such pivitol points here.

[Taymist]

18 hours ago, Arie said:

o.O. sorry Tay. It's been 5 years.. I kinda assumed. 

 

Ha ha, you're fine. I was laughing as I typed that last post. It's totally my own fault for not getting to it sooner. It's amazing I've managed to avoid spoilers for so long to be fair.

 

I'm down with 'flu at the moment (thanks to my other half's generousity *insert rolling eyes*) so I've finished reading TGS, about to start ToM this evening and then finally get aMoL read. Once I feel human again, I'll be back to catch up properly. 

[Jagen Sedai]

Taymist, I hope you make a big long post about your readings of the last books; I really want to read your reactions/thoughts! :D

 

Slightly, possibly more on topic: Any way to mass email all DM members about this thread? At least the RP members, anyway? Or perhaps Groups should have a thread directing them to this one?

[Guest]

Wow you have all been busy

 

For me, going to the past, would mean creating a new character. I have a brand new Aes Sedai - current RP time - I doubt she'd be of any use if that is the option we would take. Maybe more people are in the same situation as I am and don't want to have to abandon their Sedais/Warder aso. Of course, you could say that the current timeline could still be open for these people ... but if they don't have RP partners interested in posting in that timeline as well, it is not really interesting option.

 

What I like with the idea of going forward is the freedom we would have to write what happens to our characters: there are things story-wise that are not possible at the moment ...

 

Now isn't it possible to make a mix of both?

 

= to jump in the future but leave a wide door open to retro-RPs? That way and for example, if Red Sisters <3 want to chase for men to gentle they can still experience the hunting. This would still allow us to use all the timelines/material we are currently using.

 

For the character limit, I'd still suggest one : what if we are joined by brand new RPers who don't know their limit yet (the site is open for teenagers of 13+ right?). It would be nice for them to have guidelines.

 

> There's also something I would like to address but here is probably not the place - It is the inactivity of some of the staff members. This inactivity is already very frustrating at this stage and I am afraid it will become even more frustrating if we have to build up something new.

 

 

But in the end I am ok with whatever will be decided lol

[Taymist]

15 hours ago, Chaelca said:

 

> There's also something I would like to address but here is probably not the place - It is the inactivity of some of the staff members. This inactivity is already very frustrating at this stage and I am afraid it will become even more frustrating if we have to build up something new.

 

 

Yeah, I don't disagree, but different topic. Internal staff is something you and Kat need to discuss and sort out in private.  

[Jagen Sedai]

I do want to add I would love to Retro RP stuff for my current AS, though I'm guessing I can do that any time I wish, as long as it's not too major of a plot point (I do want Jagen to have had part in some kind of gentling stuff, though, and I want to RP that out).

 

I would only see a major benefit of moving the timeline *back* if PCs are allowed to take part in major plotlines, alongside or just shy of the major [NSW] characters.

[Kathleen]

I’ve never paid much attention to the main timeline. For one it’s been under construction for several years, for another there hasn’t been activity to really do anything major justice, and more so because I’ve personally never really cared too much for it. 

 

I  tend to focus more on character development and then world development. I’ve never been a huge fan of wealth building. I’ve always been more character and plot driven. 

 

That said I do like that the RP is set in the time that it is. I’ve seen a lot of other sites where it’s so far removed from the books  that personally I feel it loses something.

 

I would be completely fine with stopping it forward to after the last battle of the books end, and going forward on how do we rebuild the world.

 

We could in character decide What to do.

 

I think it would be cool to stick as close look at the books as we could in the sense that we pick up where they left off. Where we go from there could be completely our own.

 

Perhaps the way tower and black toe are doing together, or perhaps they start to separate towers. The sheanchan could stay this side  and it could be something between the greys and them and the nobles to figure out where the new borders are going to be. Perhaps they go back where they came from.

 

When it comes to world building it’s really not my strength so I would be more likely to just keep doing plots that may characters would enjoy. And stay out of the bigger things Going on in the world am I someone else suggested.

 

All of that said I really do like the idea of non-PC characters in all major positions. I think it is the smartest plan because people do leave and come back or leave and don’t come back. It is a lot up in the air i going on in the world am I someone else suggested.

 

All of that said I really do like the idea of non-PC characters in all major positions. I think it is the smartest plan because people do leave and come back or leave and don’t come back. It is a lot up in the air If people just abandon their post.  Plus people can’t get to power-hungry with their own characters if the top positions are NSW. 

 

 I would be up for trying out what everyone says, but I think that keeping things closer to the box and not jumping ahead and time I will keep us unique.

 

I suppose my vote is for going from the last battle on if we want to Clean Slate Tattoo we can grab a line. Or jumping back in time to before the last battle as if were still working up to it, but that gets messy we want to keep any semblance of what has been done and what hasn’t been done. 

 

I will support anything decided Though. Activity in a different direction is better than no activity with the status quo.

 

 

[Arie]

I think having an NPC Mon/Amyrlin/Keeper is okay. I kinda disagree in the fun factor but it makes sense when the activity slides (UNLESS someone shows extensive activity over years). But Head's and Sitters I always believe can be PC's. 

 

Nothing sucks more than to hit Aes Sedai and be an OOC in that role and not be able to play the character you invested in in that role. That sucks. And as someone that played for years where everyone was a PC it really helped make for some interesting (flawed) dynamics between the ajah's and characters. 

[Arie]

As for RP. I want to play the books for a change. >.> Not going to lie. If I wanted to play non-books I could go back to Grey-Tower (where I RP'd Carra and Ashie's and Aes Sedai get along), or just go make my own site.

 

I write lore. I write a lot of lore. it's easy for me. timelines and content? easy. It takes time doing it, but I've never saw it as a ... issue aside the amount of time to do it. (The more cooks in the pot makes it harder, which is why I hesitate here because of the voices and making sure everyone is happy). 

 

We want old players to return and have a place, with new and old characters. We want something new and refreshing that we can all since our virtual teeth into. And we want to grow our own... storyline, but stay with the books. 

 

I always loved the year-before EotW RPs, anything where Rand has control of the BT but hasn't completely removed from the world, and then the idea of Seanchan doing their damage (thought it's not my favorite to play personally - i'll admit).

 

So (with port/wine in my system) my crazy suggestion is to simplify the system over all as far as application and standards go, and set a fluid timeline (maybe not a reset?) and have set events that can happen in Real Time that once past, that's it. Next event. Allow the admin/staff be proactive in the organization and if no one is interested move on. If it's a past event.. well.. That's kinda what Revolution is for. 

 

(My mind honestly sets the Revolution RP area for post-books, PSW storylines that might not fit the current timeline).. So the old stuff? It happened, it's part of the character, but it doesn't have that same affect on the "now". 

 

And if this doesnt' make sense i'm sorry. i'm drinking. it's been a shit day. I've learned a lot over time to allow fluidity in my character timelines without removing everything about them that makes them them when I write them. Much like Nox is for Matalina, Carraidhin is for me.