I decided to focus on Kit’s question… so… voila! I;m just going over various things about being an ST, going into detail in some parts... and being vague in others. And I'll start at the beginning...
So… in my opinion… STness (at least at the moment) is a combination of three things:
- Development
- Grading
- Moderation
Of course, an ST running their own city would have a lot more responsibilities, but since that isn't the case at the moment, I stick with these crucial things. I keep track of how ‘active’ I am ST-wise by making sure I’m always doing some of these things… and to avoid just wandering as I am prone to do. So… when I explain this, I’ll divide it into the three sections, and go into each.
Grading:So… I actually quite enjoy grading. I’ve set myself up with
generally two threads every other day, with an average a thread a day. Sometimes I feel like grading- other times I don’t. Personally, I prefer threads 2 pages and under, with 1 page perfect. This isn’t optimal for the PC, I know, since 3 pages of a decent thread will often get you the right amount of XP. It’s more I’m incredibly lazy about long threads… as I’ve mentioned to some people, I’d rather grade 3 short solos rather than one 3 page thread. Honestly, I love grading solos, as it’s much easier to keep track of the lores and xp with those. More often than not, PCs delve into awkward stuff with not much to give in social threads, generally leaving me with little to give. Solos are generally more to the point, and simpler to grade. However, there are some pretty good collab threads out there… but sadly, I haven’t come across many. It seems like 1 out of 4 threads are abandoned, sadly… and though those are also easy to grade, it’s also kind of depressing.
Now… I love grading for two main reasons: I enjoy reading the actions and thoughts of other PCs, and I like making people feel good. A grade is always something nice, and I personally
love it when I get a grade for my PC, no matter how small. I enjoy passing on that feeling to other people, by grading their threads and giving them the XP that they earned. As Baldy so conveniently says: “A happy you is a happy Balderdash” (or Abstract, in this case). It’s the same thing with development and moderation as well: this is one of my main driving forces for being an ST : ). Now.. for the first reason, I like grading for the same reason I like reading. However, it gives me a reason to judge character’s actions, and see how they’ve improved in their skills. It’s incredibly interesting for me to see how stories and tales pan out- or don’t, in some cases.
I honestly don’t feel like going into
how I grade, since.. well… there isn’t much to say about it, but if you guys want… I can add some stuff about that : )
Moderation:Now… moderation is where things get a little complicated. I have modded very few threads, and despite some long and serious ones… I’m not very good at them. I’d love more practice however, but I’m trying not to start any new ones right now for various reasons… which will be explained at another time. Now, I am not a good ‘plotter’ as you could say. My plots are pretty vague and not as amazing or epic as I’d love them to be. Most of the time, to come up with an idea, I take pieces of various stories and information and shove them together so they make something where you can (hopefully) not tell the source. These might be a certain minor plot point from a book, or a certain loophole I saw in a monster lore article. I have to admit, Mizahar has a
lot of weird lore stuff to work off of, which is very useful. At the moment however… I think maybe for my next quest I’m going to pull out my favor from Caelum and see what she comes up with…
Now, for actually moderating the quests, I still have a long way to go. My discretional skills are… iffy… and though I can come up and play NPCs pretty well, I’m not sure how well I do in posts overall. Maybe some feedback on those who I’ve moderated for? That would be highly appreciated. On two of the quests I’ve done, most of the plot was completely improve, something I’d like to change for next time. If I can, when I start up moderation again, I’d love to put together an intricate quest for somebody… and see how that turns out.
Now, to go specifically to what Kit asked… messing with PCs. I like messing with them, it’s actually quite fun. However, my favourite thing to do is give choices- and each will lead to something completely different and epic. Though I’ve done this once or twice, I’ve only really been able to do ‘yes you get it’ and ‘no you don’t get it’. It’s kind of annoying, honestly… and again comes back to putting together some complicated quest. Also… I’d like to be able to hone a quest to a PCs skills. Though quests with fighting are common, and generally wanted, I find they sometimes get a little… stale. Though they can be incredibly interesting, what about all those PCs who don’t focus on fighting? I know I only have one. What about those scholars, those medics, all those other people who want to work on their skills and gain something appropriate for their PC? That’s where fighting quests aren’t useful anymore. I’d love to make a quest with something for every PC that joins…
Now, as a side comment, I’ve found one ST whose quests are just… epic. I’ve been following the Lhavitan SQ for a while, and I have to admit… it’s AMAZING! The plot… the suspense… Ely, you’ve done an amazing job! I’m super jealous of all the PCs in your city… they’re so lucky to have an ST like you
DevelopmentWow… this is getting long… Now, for keeping up in development, I always like to have the project on the go. Sadly, since I’m sort of in a limbo moment right now, that isn’t the case. However, for all September, I was writing up a bestiary for the wildlands. It took a WHILE… but it was pretty satisfying when I finished. I plan on later coming up with a list of projects and development stuff I need to do and chip off things on that, to always give me something development-related to do.
Now, when developing things, people generally think of locations. True, that’s a big part. But there’s also animals, plants, NPCs… all that jazz. Something like making a bestiary is probably very useful for both PCs and STs, as they know what normal and abnormal creatures reside in those locations. As well as IC development, however, there’s also OOC development… for example, creating systems to make a city run more effectively. This could be setting up a codex, or a grade request thread, maybe a development forum or a perk point system! All those funky systems that make the city more attractive for new and old players to come to. Those are what I’d love to work on… and hopefully soon enough I will be : )
I think I’ll stop here… I did skimp out on some parts, so if you guys have any questions, just tell me, and I’ll write something up. Honestly… this was pretty fun! Explaining stuff is interesting. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did! Hopefully something on music will be coming soon : )
by Kit Rowan on October 22nd, 2013, 12:49 am 
