Out Of Character

[Condorcet]

I am happy with treasure division also, and thanks for the efforts e-hiker.

on the ooc thing - i think it works just fine with the option in-post and sometimes this is necessary/helpful. As long as players dont 'spam' it overly it seems ok as is to me. If we all follow the rule of 'Do as much as you can 'in character' and only use ooc for anything that just *cant* be done IC' all should be well.

[waysoftheearth]

I don't think Torben is a NPC at this point. He said he was busy but he is still logging in.

Verhaden's last three posts in game were 24th Nov, 4th Dec, and 8th Dec. He's still about.

[waysoftheearth]

my boat is finally, finally back in home waters!!

Great news

[waysoftheearth]

Can't wait to see the solution for the OOC issue!

Well, it's kinda just a theory until it's put to the test.

As I see it, there are a couple of issues with the "separate OOC thread" (which we have been using up until now).

1. It's a bit of an overhead to have to read two threads (IC and OOC), and to keep the information in them mentally sync'd, to stay up to speed with current events. Then I have to do that across all the active threads for all the players--it can be very easy for me to miss something if I'm not careful.

2. It's a hassle to have to visit another thread every time you want to write an OOC comment. As we have observed, the result of this is that folks often tend to write their OOC comments in the IC threads instead.

3. When the players are split into multiple groups (which happens a lot with this sized group!) it's not always appropriate that everyone is should be sharing the same OOC thread. Each group really needs its own OOC thread to accompany its IC thread(s).

4. If I'm hunting for a post months later, I'm often not certain if it was posted IC or OOC... so information can be that extra bit harder to find.


So then. What can be done about all that?


Seems to me that most the above would be mitigated to some extent if each IC thread had its own accompanying OOC subtext. I've already provided the OOC tag to enable out of character remarks in posts, but because these comments are rendered as lines of text within the post; they tend to interrupt the IC content. So I thought it might also be useful to be able to post OOC remarks offset in a separate column so they don't interrupt the flow of the IC content. To this end I've now added the IC and OC tags.

So if you were to now post this:

  Code:

[ic]Bungo Todwop creeps down the passageway, being careful not to step on any of the egg shells...[/ic][oc]The referee rolls a surprise check 1d6=6. Oh no! Bungo is surprised by a black dragon![/oc]

It would be rendered like this:

Bungo Todwop creeps down the passageway, being careful not to step on any of the egg shells...

The referee rolls a surprise check 1d6=6. Oh no! Bungo is surprised by a black dragon!

You can also continue to use this one:

  Code:

Bungo Todwop creeps down the passageway, being careful not to step on any of the egg shells...[ooc]The referee rolls a surprise check 1d6=6. Oh no! Bungo is surprised by a black dragon![/ooc]

Which will now be rendered like this:

Bungo Todwop creeps down the passageway, being careful not to step on any of the egg shells...| The referee rolls a surprise check 1d6=6. Oh no! Bungo is surprised by a black dragon! |


So I guess the main message is that any OOC comments that are associated with the IC post should be included with the IC post.

This should mean that we only need to read a single thread to keep up with everything going on in that thread--including meta game remarks by the ref and players. It should be easier to read and write everything in one place, and also easier to find stuff later. I hope

As I've shown above, we have a couple of ways to express OOC comments now, let's try to use them. FWIW I'm going to try to use the IC/OC method for longer OOC commentary, and the OOC method for very short remarks. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, any OOC stuff that is wholly unassociated with the IC context can continue to the posted here in this thread.

Enjoy

[ehiker133]

WOTE, any chance of getting "IC", "OC", and "OOC" buttons added to the button list in the Post Reply to easily add that code to a post entry? Also, what happens if you just use the IC or OC code in an entry? Does it break? Hold on, I'll test it in Desmond's private thread... Seems to work just fine.

[Eris]

Olaf scratches his head at all this talk. He doesn't know what all this IC and OOC is all about, "Some new kind of magic?" he asks himself, "Yeah, that's probably what it is."

So we can set up out of character asides inside the post this way now, huh? I think it's a great idea, but one I'll probably forget to use.

[heartless]

Well, then that's not 11 people at all. :-\ That's 16 people.

<soapbox>
At this point, it's a little frustrating to not have input from all of the active members of the party, especially when it comes to something like XP distribution. How hard is it to take two minutes to provide your input? For that matter, how hard is it to take two minutes out of every week to make an in-game post? WOTE puts a lot of effort into this, FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT. We should all be respectful of his time and dedication to the game. It isn't necessary to match that level of input, but each player should set even the lowest level of dedication to consistently add to the content of the game.
</soapbox>

So how about this breakdown...

...
Ashtad: 1 Quarter Share @ 235xp - 25gp (150xp), 85sp (85xp)
...

This gives the younger party members a more appropriate level of XP. It gives the NPCs partial shares. It accommodates party members who haven't posted IC in over a month. And it gives The Gustave a bit, as well.

I am happy with the breakdown, and I thank you for all the hard work you put into the game.
I love the game and am committed to stay an active member, though I find I post more on the weekend then on weekdays. With the volume of posts increasing this year I send a lot more time just reading to keep up.

Now the trick for Ashtad is to survive in order to spend the treasure allocation!

[waysoftheearth]

FYI people, I've just moved a couple of in-game related posts from here into the in-game threads.

Also, I've just re-rolled everyone's hit points following the big XP catch up... a number of you have leveled up! Congrats to Dieter, Highbough, Desmond, Josiane, Armando, Helumt, and Ashtad. (I think that's everyone?)

After much screwing around with variations on how to roll hit points and do constitution adjustments, I've settled something simpler: everyone's first HD will always yield minimum 5 hit points. This means it's still worthwhile rolling for that chance at a 6, but the low-level types don't risk waking up one morning with 1 hit point. We'll see how that goes for while...

[sully]

Ways, why did you re-roll Dorgan's HP when he didn't level?

[sully]

Getting into desperate times for Dorgan so I'm grasping at straws here...

Looking at Ulric's character sheet, it says that he has a potion of Polymorph Self. If Dorgan drank the potion on the day when the Slow Poison spell was to wear off, and he polymorphed into a monster immune to poison, would that solve his problem?

If not, looking for volunteers to accompany me to Southwatch...