trans_pilgrims | Department Organization Post

Hey, Saphie, your local plot!mod here. So I was talking in chat, and the Department wiki info is hopelessly out of date, some Departments aren't being used and we might want to find a new use for them or phase them out or merge them with other departments, and also a few departments need new Department Heads. This will all be Department stuff. Command and Council stuff will be handled separately.

There will be two posts on the subject. This will be the Department Re-organization Post. This post will be about department structure and electing new Department Heads, since those would most likely be characters that have been around a while so that the Command Crew knows they can handle it. The second post will be the Department Volunteer Post, after we have the department structure reorganized, nailed down, and finalized, then will will call for volunteers for the departments and I will reorganize them (or grab volunteers to reorganize them) on the wiki pages.

NEWBIES

Now that I have your attention with giant font, this post, and the next would be good for you to pay attention to. Part of the purpose of departments is get people to play Department Heads that sort of organize projects and CR opportunities for everyone to play around with between plots, and to give people excuses to have CR together. Scientific projects, adding infrastructure or architecture to the ship, researching virus specimens encountered on missions to find cures, flight and combat simulations, etc. etc. Different departments are also called on during emergencies to find solutions, like working to build ray guns to take down the bad guy or find cures for crazy diseases. Please participate in these discussions if you have questions about what the departments do, and ideas on structure itself, because the point is to make these department works as vehicles for CR, which obviously concerns you guys.

If you have any ideas for stuff that could improve things or help you get CR, please feel free to contribute. Just hold on volunteering your characters until the next post because we need the departments reorganized before we know who goes where. (However, when we do the volunteer post, please keep in mind that no matter how new you are, your character can serve in a department if they have the required skills or capacity to learn them).

SO YOU'RE INTERESTED IN PLAYING A DEPARTMENT HEAD...

Department Heads, on the other hand, should probably established characters in the department or suited to the department with players familiar with the game. ICly, they are chosen by Leon the captain and approved by the Council but we can usually handle that with a quick handwave.

OOCly, the players must be prepared to sink a little time into this. If your department is called on for something, you have to OOCly organize things, and also have to have a presence in the game of your character organizing things. OOCly, also, people want department-related things to do, and might have project ideas and you have to have your character around to handle that. Department Heads are a good role to have if you have the time, and have interest in organizing activities for others to do, and we need more of that going on.

Of course, if you aren't an old player but have a new character that might be really well suited to a department head and think you could handle it OOCly, please bring it up. While it'd probably be best to have Department Heads played by players that understand how the game mechanics work enough to help create CR opportunities, there are some new characters and players that might be incredibly well-suited to it, so if you have/are one chime up, and hopefully IC arrangements can be made somehow. The older player thing is just a suggestion, not a requirement.

THE NITTY GRITTY

Okay, onto the nitty gritty. In the comments, I'm going to do one for each department, as they currently stand, and what they each do. Under the relevant comment for the department, discuss stuff.

Topics that need to be discussed:

Are you fine with the department the way it is? Should the department functions remain the same, or should stuff be added, taken away or changed? If the department has no department head, do you have a character that might suit the job and the time OOCly to do it? Should the department be merged with another department? What things can the department do that might allow new players to get their characters involved? What activities can we have the department doing to give characters stuff to do? Are you new and do you have questions about the department that you'd like answers to so that when we do the volunteer post, you know what to volunteer them for?

As a note: Final decisions on structure will be not be decided by me. I'm just organizing the discussion as a volunteer. They will be decided by a mix of consensus, asking the main mods, and asking the players who currently play department heads, or ICly handle the department organization and appointments. If I made any mistakes on stuff or left something out, comment and let me know.

[~~Do not post until I have all the comments up and this note says you can.~~ POST GO GO GO GO POST LIKE THE WIND]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Department/Team Name: Blacksmiths
Department Head: N/A. Members are: Hiccup (

i_saw_myself), Daja (

fireforger)
Located at: Hiccup's Forge and Daja's Forge. (They may be consolidating their efforts at Daja's Forge soon, with Hiccup turning his into a personal workshop).

Duties: More an informal group of blacksmiths than a formal department, the blacksmiths help make/repair metal weapons for those individuals that don't go in for the guns and futuristic stuff. Daja has expertise integrating magic into her blacksmithing, and Hiccup is good at functional things, like metalwork needed for construction.

Where duties crossover with other departments: We could have them cooperating with Engineering, Magic, and the Science Department to augment the swords and more primitive weaponry with technological means and magical augmentation. Laser axes, anyone?

Requirements to Join, if any: Blacksmithing skills, ability to learn blacksmithing skills, smith magic.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes, both offer their skills on the omnicoms sometimes.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Daja (

fireforger) or Hiccup (

i_saw_myself). OOCly: Blue or Saphie

I would like to possibly involve more people in this blacksmithing stuff and get a little blacksmith buddy group going. There are a lot of people that use metal weapons and there could even be a long-term project to work with engineering, science, and magic guys to augment weapons and give them upgrades if the players would like that, and try to keep the ground even between the guys who have swords and the guys who have laser guns that go pwew pwew.

It's also a skillset a lot of characters could easily pick up, making it ideal for newb characters good with their hands.

Edited 2011-01-27 09:09 (UTC)

I remember ages and ages ago (before I dropped Daja and brought her back), I was thinking of her doing some basic blacksmithing classes, for the people at engineering and whatnot, so that's something we could do if there's enough interest. Though in terms of advanced skills, Daja would probably only take on a couple of apprentices at most (and maybe delegate them to teaching the newbies the core skills.)

Structure wise...well, they're not really an actual Department (if anything they operate more like private business owners), but if they were Daja would probably be Head considering that she's a more experienced smith than Hiccup. Though maybe it might make sense for them to become an official Department? While Daja's part of Engineering, she actually spends most of her time in her forge, and just periodically goes to see what Engineering needs.

Yeah, she's the better smith, so she probably ought to be in charge but I'd be willing to help with organization stuff.

Normally I'd be happy to go and organise stuff, but since I'm already doing stuff for Intelligence...yeaaaaah it could be a bit hectic. It'd be a different story once Intelligence is properly set up and we're not busy trying to figure out how to actually get everyone in it.

So yes, organisational help would be appreciated? (We could always both look after it oocly, even if Daja's the one officially in charge)

That's what I'm thinking. Daja's ICly in charge with Hiccup kinda on the fringes teaching newb basics maybe? He could teach basics. And I can help OOCly. I don't have any department heads or command guys or anything. I just run plots and my mod duties are just having Karl mine my brain for stuff when we hang out.

Edited 2011-01-27 09:33 (UTC)

WELL - that's actually how Daja would run a big forge, if she had one. She'd teach the advanced smiths, then have the advanced smiths teach the mid-level and newbies. So since we don't have any other trained smiths on board (I think), we'd probably end up with Hiccup teaching new people while Daja does more of the co-ordinating with other Departments?

Re: Blacksmiths and Engineering, Blue and I kinda have an offscreen setup with Daja and Billy's agreement to cooperate. The groundwork's there for people who want to take on combined projects.

Actually, now that I think about it...I wonder if we should make blacksmiths like, a sub-division of Engineering? Though I'd need to see what Saphie thinks as well, but it might make more sense than making them a Department all on their own.

ALRIGHT after talking to Saphie...possibly it might actually be better for them not to be part of Engineering. Since they also tend to trade / do business, it'd probably be confusing as to why they're part of a department but asking for payment...

In which case, I'm thinking that maybe instead of being a department, they can instead be more like independent contractors. So like, they'll work for free when a Department Head signs off on it, but for the rest of the time they'll want to trade.

...which would kinda make Daja not really part of Engineering. But then, she has kinda always been acting more like a contractor anyways, now that I think about it. ~~okay I'll stop rambling now...~~

Yeah, that makes sense.

Mei-Xing would be slightly interested in learning blacksmithing. She has some knowledge of it, but no real experience.

She's mainly interested in it, however, because she wants to expand her knowledge of enchantment and artificing, and the best way to do that is to get in and get your hands dirty.

(She'll have some tough luck finding a teacher, I'll bet.)

Yeah, I'm afraid Daja has taken a dislike to Mei-Xing, and her agreeing to teach her is...not likely. From the sounds of it, I guess Hiccup's not any more likely to either?

But if we ever get any more people learning it though, possibly one of them might be convinced to teach her? Though Mei-Xing would probably end up with a lot of bad habits by learning from a newbie.

I didn't even know Daja and Mei-Xing had met. :|a Reputation thing?

No, they talked on the omnicomms once. Daja was asking for help with Duuv and Mei-Xing responded with 'eew blood' and that she was replying because she was bored, remember?

Ah! Now I do.

Yeah, she's kind of a troll. She needs to be called on that more often.

Hey, Daja is up for calling people on stuff! Just...really politely XD

Department Organization Post

BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

and now i bed for reals this time

GO, SLEEEEEEEEP

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS

Re: BLACKSMITHS