Spoken Truths - Amber PBM

[Stormwind]

@jibbajibba: How about every player/character creates a thread with 2 lists ... the first being things that are publicly known (skills, powers, etc), and the second being things that can be found out with fairly minimal effort (basically requiring some story behind why an individual knows these details).
This would mean less work for jibbajibba which means he can focus more on events, and such a listing is easy enough to create (just go through your character sheet and determine what others are likely to know).
Then each character can maintain a certain amount of private details, which might, or might not, come out as the story unfolds.

I have created such a thread for Elaine that is viewable by everyone (Elaine/Rumors)

[Logos7]

not the biggest fan of that, because now I know that elaine is a intrigue whore, because i spent ten minutes trying to figure out how i get an intrigue.

Perhaps the best way would be GM 'common knowledge' modificatiions we can link to our character home pages. That way if you want to find out you can look and all that, without having to apply if;elses operations manually.

[The GIT!]

I'm pretty much in agreement with Logos7 on this. I really think it should be left up to the GM to ascertain exactly what each character knows of the others. I appreciate that we should all know something of each other (which I also feel is a little lacking at the moment) but I don't like the idea of posting info about my character for all to see.

On the whole I think the use of the Wiki for this game has been very successful. Having been involved in previous online Amber games run by Jibbajibba I have to say that this seems to be the most successful thus far; really enjoying it

[jibbajibba]

Okay MM is finished so I can focus on this again.

I think what I will do to satisfay this itch is to start a bunch of flashback threads. These will be open threads with the options of each player to participate in each one. Now this does seem like a pretty odd idea but bear with me

i) A horserace set 100 years ago. Lord Bartholomew of House Feldane issues an open invitation for a challenge to a horse race running from Castle Amber through The Vale of Gsrnath cuting back through Arden down to the Rangers Barracks.

ii) An Arts exhibition set toward the end of the reign of Oriana as queen in Amber. Oriana as a parton of the arts has offered a golden laurel wreath to the best entry.

iii) A murder investigation where hte PCs investigate the death of a servant in the castle.

What do you think do those ideas have legs would people take part, would they distract fromt eh drama in teh current threads or provide a welcome , possibly humerous relief

[The GIT!]

Well, I don't have a problem with the idea in principle. Needless to say Tristram won't participate because he won't be in Amber

[jibbajibba]

Okay post murder mystery catch up complete.

I have posted updates to all os threads.

Just so you are aware the situation currently is a little complex as there are 5 groups of PCs all acting in the same time frame and there is a possibilty at any point that any one of those threads can influence any of the others.

This means that sometimes I might need a response of thread A before I can post to thread B. I try to avoid that to keep things flowing but ...

I will kick off those historical threads over the next week.

[boulet]

What is working?
The wiki, with configurable visibility and ease to develop scenes in present or past. The commitment of the group. I think we're doing some neat gaming here.

What sucks?
Can't change the name of an article/thread. The table of content (title index) should appear by default too.

What do you need more of?
Flashback scenes (good initiative Jon). They surely would feel more organic than rumor threads and I enjoyed this exercise before.

Where is it weak?
Dead time when a player is slow to answer. But it's not something you can do much about, and I guess there are stuff happening behind the scenes that explain many delays. It's not worse than a table top game (except we're talking days rather than minutes).

Where are its strengths?
This game kicks asses compared to any pbp rpg I've tried. It doesn't feel linear or railroady for instance. I assume it's both your talent as a GM and the flexibility of MoinMoin.

Among the flashback suggestions I'm interested by the art exhibition.

[boulet]

Just an idea I thought of: a chronological display of threads. It's not necessary right now but if/when the campaign ends that would probably help readers.

[jibbajibba]

Just an idea I thought of: a chronological display of threads. It's not necessary right now but if/when the campaign ends that would probably help readers.

Nice idea .... I woudl have to start with a dating scheme on each some how .. hmmm...

[boulet]

Nice idea .... I woudl have to start with a dating scheme on each some how .. hmmm...

That or just a graph showing how the threads relate to each other.

If a node has no link to it, it begins a story arc (be it flashback or main story).

[boulet]

Also I would appreciate if there was a mention that a thread is in pause mode, waiting for other players to catch up. Sometimes I'm wondering if I'm supposed to describe sth to make the story go forward but it's just a case of "we're waiting for other players to finish some stuff".

[Stormwind]

Ok ... just to mention - I will be traveling during easter and internet access will be limited (but available). Thus bear with me if I'm a little slow to respond over the next 5-6 days

[boulet]

Oh! And a RSS feed or email notification when a visible thread is updated would be neat.

[jibbajibba]

I think there is a mail engine I can link to for updates I'll take a look.

The waiting for other players is a given in all PBM games the only way to extricate is to have players never meet. I have bene in Web games like that and it just feels a bit crappy.

I suspect the current clumping of PCs will start to deminish shortly and this should be less of an issue.

I am looking at thread index opitions You can do a find and look for stuff like everythign containing the name Degion but there shoudl eb somethgin neater. There are plenty of mods on teh main MoinMoin site I'll have  a look for somehtign that serves. Its easter hols here and the wife is visiting friends so i have a few long evenings to waste

I will be postign the flashback threads this weekend and has anyone seen Gregory ? He hasn't posted for a couple of weeks and i need to know if that is becuase the thread got boring or becuase he is on vacation or whatever.

Lastly the one thing I think i have been a bit weak on in some cases is providing the sort of game the PC wants. If you have a sort of thing that you are lookign for let me know and I will try to build that into the thread. My default mode is to adopt a tone very similar to the novels and to focus on character with a dosing of action but I can get that balance wrong and som PCs might find themselves in an investigation sub-plot or an extended social setting when they just want to kill some things. The plot (yes there is one ) has space for a whole range of actions so I can pretty much throw any play style in seemlessly.  If you have any play style you want more of or less of drop me a PM or an email or start a discussion thread on the wiki (a couple of PCs have these for general GM discussion) or post here.

[Xenon]

gregory status- stressed out by RL, will try to post again soon. also, was somewhat confused by trump regarding timeline, which slowed me down a bit.