Timeline issue for The Alliance

[Taymist]

I know in the past we've done a lot of fudging as regards time but the whole reason for all the work on the Main Timeline stuff was so we wouldn't have to do that any more and we could avoid creating confusion. As such I want to have a chat to clarify things in my own head following the start of Odd and Mat's new thread for the BT/Band. 

 

Odd, you've specifically mentioned in your initial post that it's taking place a whole year after you were at The Citadel as a Soldier. I'm presuming that's a reference to the Alliance RP with the WK. If so, it doesn't fit. That RP is current time, about 3 weeks ago IC, we're in autumn 1001NE at the moment. That's how we've been RP'ing it in the Band and Wolfkin.

 

Making huge whole year jumps IC in the PSW isn't realistic, partly because of the long OOC periods of inactivity and partly because events in the main timeline tend to happen very closely packed together. If you think of the book events they didn't take place over many years; the whole thing was packed into a very short time frame. 

 

Maybe it's too early in the morning and I'm overthinking this but I don't want inexplicable time differences going forward. Particularly as these are both important main timeline RP's for The Alliance. They need to line up. Possibly there's an easy fix by shifting something that I'm not seeing so feel free to point it out.

 

Thoughts/input/solutions.

 

@Matalina @Oddpositions @Cass and anyone else who has something constructive to add.

[Matalina]

There are no solutions to Timeline issues.  The biggest reason being some of us do more in some short periods of time that can't possibly happen in say a weeks time.  In the time that Merdyn has been a soldier to the time at present, He's finished being raised to Dedicated and to Asha'man, he's gone to the white tower, he and Nox have fast tracked their relationship.  While in the BT trains much faster than the WT in that regards it's possible to stay in the current timeline because they are only available during that current timeline.  The BT didn't exist long before the story starts.

 

The best solution to this is to say things 'a while a go' or 'that one time at band camp'.  Never say weeks/months/years because while it's been over a year OOC it's been mere weeks/months IC.  And in that OOC time your character has grown.  A master timeline is only going to help keep the main timeline straight.  It's not going to untangle anything...  

 

This is why I never play in main timeline things.  I know we have a retro board, but that's for things for mostly the White Tower to do as Novices so they can be full Aes Sedai in the real game.  There is no fix for timeline issues.  And you aren't going to untangle any timeline with a master one, only cement the tangles into fixed points in time.

 

I played Matalina for 10 years.  And in that time there were 3 resets, and by the final one.  Mat had 3 sets of kids, turned darkfriend became an assassin, trained up countless TG/Warders and more assassins, later went on a killing spree before dying... all technically in less than a year.... oh and she was also MoT on and off for several years, as well as MaA during one incarnation that I removed because I didn't want her to be that on one reset.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Matalina

[Taymist]

That's pretty much been my take on it previously, the being non specific, because otherwise it hurts my brain. And I do appreciate that the main timeline doesn't solve every problem... this was just rather glaring because of the actual mention of such a long period of time I think.

 

It's not really a problem I've hit with my characters in the entire 12 years I've been playing them. Rhya's and Ely's stories fit within the PSW timeline. Kiyi's only a little different because of, as you mentioned, the retro for Novice/Accepted training. That's possibly not the norm though.

 

Anyway, it wasn't a huge deal, I just wondered if there might be any way around it that I hadn't thought of, but if not maybe Odd could just change that "year" to be something more vague.

 

Also the retro board is for anything at all that's longer than a few months "past". It's not purely, or even mainly, for WT training. I think that perception is just down to the fact that it's not used by anyone else quite so often, but it certainly can be.

 

 

[Matalina]

I don't know when the cultured changed, but back in 'my' days of running things the assumption was always things happened in retro unless it was main story related. Or at least that's how I always played my characters.  Which is what kept the timeline in tact.  Things happened sequentially but things pushed back farther and farther to a point and then forward after that point.  In the White Tower that works.

 

For the Band/BT and their IC alliance that isn't in the books, it's all current timeline... the BT having been created in the books... makes for all our rps to be set in a short period of time... So we spend years upon years upon years NEVER aging our characters.  Kinda like the Simpsons... which in reality shouldn't be the case.  Maggie should be more 30 not the toddler she is.

 

It's only a problem in the character development.  And yes in this particular case removing the time frame would rectify the problem.  But it is never going to untangle the web we weave here because of the short time frame and the amount of REAL life time we spend working on things.  Characters don't develop that fast in comparison to the main story.  

[Cass]

Is it enough to mark the timeline as the tokens being discovered after the inter-div RP, but before the Seanchan skirmishes (that are to come)? 

 

I don't really think we can be more specific than that.

 

The tokens could be considered an important addition to the Band/Alliance, so I get wanting to pin down the point in the timeline when they occur, but I also agree that character developments don't really fit with main/book-related timelines, or even with the side-events that we create. 

 

I can't remember exactly how many years the books were meant to span, but the events do happen close together- and they're probably just too close together to ever truly match up with a game system where writers are encouraged to progress their characters from newbies to full-ranks.

 

Going fuzzy on the exact details of timing like Mat says is likely the only way to mesh, considering writers enter the RPG at all different times and progress at different rates. I've kind of always thought like Mat describes, with character development mostly in retro, except for direct participation in the main PSW storyline, which I see more as a series of key events  than a timeline, so to speak.

 

How long would we expect it would take someone (IC) to reach full Asha'man status after reaching the BT? Or train up in the Band/with WK after their initial arrival?

 

Also, Mat, I think I had a young Warder trainee during one of Matalina's ruling years, back in the days when Alin was around *ponders*

[Taymist]

Yeah, I get all that. It's cool. We can pick a close enough time for this RP in the Main Timeline and wishy washy the character stuff. Like I said, it wasn't a huge deal...mostly my curiousity/pernicktyness. The sudden "oh it's a year later" threw me this morning is all.

 

BT chars all got trained up during the timeline of the Books, so I never really thought about it as being a problem in the PSW. The books took around 3-4 years tops if I remember correctly. It was a very short timespan. Asha'man were trained super fast. Same goes for the Band, it didn't exist prior to the Book timeline. We actually gave the Band a much longer lifespan in the PSW. The Wolfkin... didn't exist in the Books the same way as here so we have a super long history for older characters to fit into if necessary but most of us, again, fit into the main timeline.

[Oddpositions]

Whoops!

 

Sorry gang. The mention of time was more for flavoring the text than anything. In my head it certainly feels like Merdyns story has taken a year to get to this point, but I see why that can't be the case. . I didn't consider the implication of being that specific, but I will certainly be mindful of it in the future. I will edit the post. Thank you all for explaining things.

[Oddpositions]

Post has been edited ?

[Liitha]

The issue is in books many wouldnt do what we put our chars through to not get bored, so its basically not posible to fit our chars into it, unless you make stricter rules in which case you got to make up a set up for when different chars are allowed to interact in. 

 

Or make boards with more specific timespans to make people more aware. Which is why we had to add time in last major make up because different orgs had lived on different timelines so merging them without adding time was imposible

 

Also got to remember we are a PSW and not books, so its completely plausible the events in main time took longer time in our world (and likely will make your head hurt less)

 

You look at different chars timelines, relations and families its an imposibility but at end of day so long as we keep somewhat in track and then ignore the rest is probabibly the best you will get

 

For instance not sure how many people come to the wt with warder siblings, that there would have to be forbiden if you wanted to clean timeline, also interaction of yard and novice pc's it take a wt'er 20 years to train, you may join yard around 15-16 by time your sib make it to AS your 35ish

 

Trust me most yard chars tend to try to keep around 30ish or something to keep vitality of younger age

 

Its a huuge mess and dealing with it while keeping people active is not posible. 

[Taymist]

I have no intention of making rules around this over and above what already exists. I wasn't looking to actually debate the timeline issue as a whole, so much as possible solutions to this specific instance. It's now solved. I'm happy. Thanks for the input folks.