Brainstorming

[Nailah Weaver]

Alright, since it looks like everyone more or less agreed with the plan of a slight time-skip and a bit of character pruning let's have a thread to toss ideas around and see what people think. I'll go ahead and start since I've found myself at a slight impasse when thinking about who to cut and who to keep.

Kay is more than likely staying and not changing TOO much in the skip. Maybe being one of the "established" people at the school compared to potential new kids might make her a bit more self-assured and less whiny which is one of the biggest problems I have with her. Then again, teenager, so out-of-proportion drama is kind of a thing.

Sara is going. The character has been kind of played out and I've tried to figure out what to do with her for a loooong time now. The answer sadly turned out to be "Not much" so she will become a background character as Will's wife and possibly a TA to Stan.

Robin remains as a minor NPC outside the "Keep two characters" rule unless someone has massive objections.

Teri is going. Never really got a good grip on her and Manic Pixie Dream Locust ended up not being much to built on. She'd be great in a comic as one of dozens of mutants in a hallway/establishing shot to illustrate the weirdness. Feel free to have people mention her in that capacity. xD

Sidney is going. A new XI kid with an attitude (but less of a mean streak) will probably take her place. Essentially teenage Kat with the same daredevil streak but less power control. Might just straight up make it teenage Kat, but that seems a bit too derivative of my own stuff.

And that brings me to my biggest decision and part of the reason why I made this thread. Nailah vs. Ashlie. One gets to stay, the other has to go. Both have had huge developments and involvements. I feel Nailah has reached a plateau in her own arc, yet she remains heavily involved with Sam's Morrigan arc, not to mention Sam herself and Miranda. Ashlie has some arc left in her, not quite having reached the extent of her potential and I really enjoy her self-appointed role as the manor's butler, IT specialist and mechanic.

Right now I'm leaning towards keeping Nailah, if only for the sake of Miranda and Sam but at the same time I don't want to put myself in a situation where I only play the character because of that. Some input would be highly appreciated.

Comedy Option (kind of), get rid of both of them, make a new teacher-level char.




Also: If anybody has any ideas or suggestions in general for things that might happen during the time-skip or things they'd like to see, be it plot-wise or regarding the board-structure or about the Issue-Downtime-Issue framework or anything else, feel free to put that in here too.

[Samantha McManus]

Definitely keeping Sam, but I only have four characters really. Probably keeping Brigid. If I'm limited to three characters, it comes down to Janice vs. Dee, and I feel like I've been hitting the groove better with Dee lately than Janice. If Allison stays, Dee is definitely staying in my active group.

[Will Stanton]

We also haven't decided on two as a firm-and-fast rule. I actually like three quite a bit; that would allow both Nailah AND ASHLIE to stay.

[Nailah Weaver]

Talking about the number of chars to keep counts as stuff regarding the board structure. Or... whatever. xD

Two is jsut kind of the limit I imposed on myself to really make me think about who I WANT to play.

[Miranda Weaver]

First, the low-hanging fruit: Solana is out. Never really got her started and couldn't quite figure out how to make her go.

Laura is harder, but she still doesn't have quite the impact of the remaining three.

Miranda is the no-brainer. She's staying because I enjoy playing her too much to scrap her. While it would be a bummer for Nailah to be moved to background, I think Miranda has enough connections with other characters that I don't think it will ruin her as a character or anything.

Now my hard part, Allison or Theresa. I like Allison as a member of the faculty. She feels like this staff's Wolverine: the somewhat questionable character that everyone still always wants to have around. Her appeal would diminish somewhat without Dee, because I think that relationship helps round her out as a character, but I'm not sure just how much of a diminish that is.

If I kept Theresa around, I would probably modify her somewhat significantly and turn her into a newly minted college student. I've actually got an altered profile write-up for her to that effect. Most of her history would remain intact, but she'd be a couple of years older and would come back into the game as a freshman in college (assuming a skip to the next school year). I also think she has potential as someone who is trying to bridge that world of "not a high-schooler anymore with friends still in high school."

If anyone has thought to throw into the Allison vs. Theresa debate, I'd more than welcome them.

[Samantha McManus]

Seems to me that if Theresa is getting overhauled, she's basically a new character and thus not part of the "old characters we're keeping."

Just my take on it. We're not limiting the new characters by my understanding, just the old ones to try and make the learning curve less daunting.

[Nailah Weaver]

Basically. The 2 people rule is also just a suggestion at this point and from what I've heard so far 3 might be the better number. Aside from pruning existing clutter for a less daunting entry for new people this is also meant to reflect on your chars and see which ones you really want to play. So try to get to two just to force that line of thinking but if you have three chars that you absolutely have stuff for/want to play then three is probably fine. Especially if you're shifting one of them like that.

[John Hino]

I'm definitely keeping John, as I'm rather attached to the big warrior dork and for plot potential.

Kevin and Nick are a harder call. I enjoy both but am never entirely sure what to do with them. Kevin has Mira, so he has the advantage if I decide I need to choose.

Graham I'm keeping, as he's all but brand new and doesn't quite count.

Sergei may return, but as a new character with the same name.

[Miranda Weaver]

So in light of that reasoning, I'll be keeping Allison and Miranda as-is.

Theresa is in the process of being reworked as a slightly older character and already has a new avatar.

Everyone else is getting scrubbed.

[Will Stanton]

To Do List Before Time Skip:

1. Decide focus (Primarily XI with XU Mentors? Primarily XU with XI adjunct? Combination of both?)
2. Decide timing (after Mad's plot? After Black Air plot?)
3. Get buy-in from North and Trev
4. Decide where/how aggressively to recruit
5. Create new characters for new board
6. Come up with initial plot to welcome new people
7. Create "these are the current character" post for new people
8. Recruit
9. Profit.

Anything I'm missing?

[Nailah Weaver]

I would move "Create new characters" down towards the "Recruit people" stage. It might help people showing up get an idea for the process "in action" and also give them an easy jump in point along with our new chars. That's kinda how it went down when XU started and that seemed to work well, speaking from the perspective of a then-new person.

[Will Stanton]

No, I disagree--I'm not saying we should POST new characters before people arrive, but if we're all going to create a new character, it doesn't make sense to go "everyone come! OK, now wait for us to get our act together"

[Nailah Weaver]

But... getting new people in is the exact same process as approving our own new characters. There's no shit to be gotten together, it's one process.

[Will Stanton]

THere's the process of "us thinking about and creating new characters"--that takes some time.

[John Hino]

Planning ahead is all you mean?

[Nailah Weaver]

Well I would recommend that people have their character ideas somewhat worked out but that is literally how the boards started. It's not being unprepared, it's just hopping in at the same time as new people.

[Miranda Weaver]

In my case, I don't think I'll be creating a new character right away. I'd rather get the three existing characters established with others' new characters before I think about trying to figure out a new character.

[Stan Bowen]

I'm down for putting in the work to get things restarted.

Currently, my three will be Stan, Bear, and Eric, though that depends on the focus of the new forum.

[Will Stanton]

Anyone have an opinion on which characters, if any, I should keep?

[Miranda Weaver]

I think your originally discussed picks of Will, Mira, and Roland make a lot of sense and they seem to be the characters you're the most into.

[Nash Riley]

I've been busy with other things and not gone into IRC in quite a while. I've still been checking the forums but haven't found anywhere to put my characters as any interesting threads are well on their way before I notice them.

The only character I will keep is Nash, but he will definitely age in the time skip. I just don't know what to do with Cecil so he's gone. Patricia being a x-geneless Avenger makes it harder to find places to put her so she's gone too, maybe re-imagined as a student.

[Will Stanton]

I think your originally discussed picks of Will, Mira, and Roland make a lot of sense and they seem to be the characters you're the most into.

I'm just trying to think what to do with Will with so many pre-established characters leaving.

[Miranda Weaver]

I like Will as the leader of the X-Men. He has a Cyclops-ish "Am I doing this right" quality that I think works really well for the role.

[Will Stanton]

Yeah, I dunno--I have to think about it more. It just seems like threads and plots with him don't go anywhere recently, so I'm debating starting afresh

[Stan Bowen]

I like Will. Any perceived lack of Rp with him I blame on myself, not Will.

[Miranda Weaver]

Because it's not really dependent on the other steps, I'm working on my portion of the "who are these people" post. I'm starting with trying to sum up my characters in 3-5 short bullet points. My rule of thumb is only including information that someone asking Joe Random NPC could find out relatively quickly.

Just as an example, here's Allison:

Allison Rogers
- Lion Feral Shapeshifter
- School's Attorney and a Social Studies teacher
- Biker and Beer Drinker
- SO of Deirdre Quinn

This may not be a bad form for the final post to take, but it's at least a good way to get started. Makes you focus on what's really important and visible about the character without getting into backstory too much.

[Nailah Weaver]

Excellent idea that I'm going to steal and also use for a couple background NPCs/retired-but-still-technically-present PCs.

[Theresa McMasters]

1. Decide focus (Primarily XI with XU Mentors? Primarily XU with XI adjunct? Combination of both?)

I'd say some combination of both if we've got the interested people to support it. I think there's good things to be done on both side, especially if we go with the idea of having high school student teams for "smaller" things. The downside is potential new person confusion about which direction to go (XU vs. XI), but I suppose having the options open might also be a plus for some people.

2. Decide timing (after Mad's plot? After Black Air plot?)

Definitely after Mad's plot. It's possibly selfish, but as much as I'd like the switch to happen sooner rather than later, I think doing the Black Air plot before the time skip would be good. I think the results of that plot could inform a lot of what MIranda's like after the skip.

3. Get buy-in from North and Trev

Not much to say here. North's already responded and Trev's been crazy busy lately, but seemed to buy in when last we talked to him.

4. Decide where/how aggressively to recruit

I really don't have a lot to say here. I'm in the process of selling coming back to Keahi and she's interested. Beyond that, I don't have a lot of contacts that I think might be interested.

5. Create new characters for new board

I'm probably going to skip having a new character for the time being unless one's really necessary. I've had enough problems with characters lately, and I think focusing on my three would be a good idea, especially since one's a rework.

6. Come up with initial plot to welcome new people

School attacks are frequently good for this, if a bit overdone and only really good for a short boom. If XU focused, maybe some sort of X-Corp sponsored (or just school sponsored) "X-Game" competition between teams. If XI focused... I don't know. High schoolers tend to be pretty good at generating their own drama.

7. Create "these are the current character" post for new people

My portion of this is pretty ready and could really be posted at any time. I really think the bullet point version would work best. Gets around the "too long, didn't read" problem and keeps us from dipping too far into backstory to describe the characters.

[Nailah Weaver]

Agreed with pretty much all of those and creating new chars is by no means a requirement.

For the initial plot I think an attack on the school would work well since it allows both XU and XI to get involved right away.

For the "Current Characters" post, would people mind PMing me their bits when they're done? I was thinking about making a sticky in the Orientation board with one post for current chars and then another for notable NPCs/former PCs who are still technically around. That way we could keep it in one uniform format and also make sure we have all of them at one time. Obviously if things change anyone would be allowed to edit the post for their own chars (which should be no problem since everyone could magic button to one of their chars, edit, and change back to Narrator or whatever)

For the recruiting I think we should compile a list, especially for former people just to see if we're missing somebody or if it reminds people of somebody else to recruit. I also have a couple links to other Marvel RP boards with a different focus who have an "Advertise" section. This would obviously bring in more "random" people and I'd like to hear from others what they think about that.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Well, I'm late to the party, but I'll put in some input for whatever it's worth.

I'll probably keep Ryan, Alex and Daniel. Probably. There are some things to be said for Victoria, but she's also a big problem char, and she overlaps with a lot of people. So probably those three. I'm open to suggestion, though.

As far as the focus, the plots for the xi kids just feels more accessible to me. It's got a lot more freedom to be quirky and... Not all together, I guess? A mix of focus would probably be best, but I don't think that should be dropped.

[Haley Crusek]

Hey guys, been swamped with work, so sorry for going AWOL.

Melody would probably go away if I had to pare down. I like my others. Haley is by far my favorite.

Not sure if I'd make anyone new right away.

I like the XI / XU split we have currently . If we had to pick one way or another I think high school is a bit more accessible to new players, and nostalgically-speaking is what got me into the boards.

Will--I like Will as leader and definitely enjoy Roland.

I need to look at the rest of this thread when I'm not on tapatalk. Ping me if you need stuff.

[Nailah Weaver]

Since the old board logo seems a bit out of date ever since the move to Maldon I put together a new one. Keep in mind that it'd be sitting on the dark grey background of the top banner.
If anybody thinks it looks hideous or has any suggestions feel free to shout them in my general direction.