First weekly plot discussion post!

[cityship]

Hey, all! This is the start of a new weekly thing we've devised to help players take a more active role in plot organization and planning.

Basically, here's how it works: These posts will provide a place to discuss upcoming plots, propose plot ideas to your fellow players, and generally just brainstorm and organize for things. You will be allowed to volunteer to help OOCly with plots as well. Note, however, that these threads will not be a place to sign up your characters for plots. Those posts will go up on their own before the plot in question starts.

What you can do:
-Discuss upcoming plots (whose threads will be posted soon after this post goes up) and volunteer to help OOCly
-Propose plot ideas to the game at large. (Use the form from the plot suggestion post to make things easier)
-"Adopt" a plot from the plot suggestion post (linked below). If there is a plot on the plot suggestion post you'd like to see run, start a thread for it in here.
-Propose ongoing setting changes. For example, you can propose a new crew "team" like Starfighter Command and the Outsiders, or perhaps starting a new service for the crew like the blacksmiths and the clothier's shop.

Also, for clarity's sake, in each of these posts we will be including instructions on how to get a plot approved, which have now been simplified.

Getting a plot approved:
-All plots that take place off-ship or involve at least a moderate number of people must go through mod approval first. If you're not sure, email us and see if it would qualify.
-While we'd like you to use these posts to discuss your potential plots with your fellow players, if you'd prefer not to include it in plot discussion posts for any particular reason (for example, particular details of the plot you'd like to keep hidden), posting your plot in the plot discussion posts is not necessary to get a plot approved
-To get a plot approved, use the form listed in the plot suggestion post and email it to transmigration9@gmail.com, along with links to any plot discussion threads you believe have relevant ideas. You will be emailed with an approval once the mods have reviewed it and find it satisfactory. Once you have received an approval, you will be asked to help us determine the best time to run the plot.

Important Links
-Plot Suggestion Post
-Plot Calendar

Edit: Links have been added to the side bar for the Plot Calendar and the tag for these Plot Discussion posts.

Comments

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

*there's a lot of food waste, I meant.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

Just a suggestion, but while Sasami has already mentioned doing an inventory (exactly what my character would have suggested, BTW) she could always discover later that those cases labeled 'frozen steaks' are something less edible, like machine guns. And would she think to thaw a representative selection of the stuff in deep storage and make sure it hasn't gone bad at some point and been re-frozen?
I feel that there are ways to limit the restaurant in-game and have it be realistic, while still letting Sasami run it for a while.

[saint-sami.livejournal.com]

Alright, let's hit the big points:

1) Shae's already talked to me about the food problem. That's why, unlike the Drunken Dragon, I haven't already opened it. It's not going to have what they need right away and there is always the risk of not having enough. Heck, in the log, she's only peeked through some of the food, so even she's not certain what exactly they have. Like Anwei-mun said, what may be labeled one thing might not be what it is.

She's an eight-year-old kid. She's gonna make mistakes.

2) Yes, I understand that running a restaurant is tough work and that a lot of people wouldn't work there without pay, but seriously, when a lot of the crew isn't doing something and they wouldn't want to be training, don't you think this would be a good chance to help out another way?

3) I understand we have the Lounge, but seriously, I think a change of scenery that isn't "science all around" is a good change of pace. Have we even used the Lounge since the Drunken Dragon came about?

There are ways to work this, Saphie, trust me.

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

1) My main worry is just...there are, ICly, people that might think it's a waste of food for a restaurant to be in operation, and might give her a hard time about it. It'd be one thing if it was just a food hall, that prepared a good solid meal or two a day when they had adequate supplies but restaurant implies any food any time they want, which would likely preclude any instance of rationing.

Also, a freezer? IDK if all that stuff would be in good condition after being frozen for a year or so. Most foods can only safely be stored frozen for a few months. They've been awake on the ship for about a year and a half now, and the ship was flying for a while with only the space pirates awake before that. You might want to upgrade that to some kind of special space-age, sci-fi food storage thing because if it was a traditional freezer, all the food would be bad by now.

2) People might be critical of people exerting that much time and effort into something the Sensoriums can do for you. Admittedly, there is some stuff people do for leisure, but that's still something that's not really necessary for them to be exerting effort and resources on and it's more than the occasional dance or a ten-year-old having robots build an amusements part--that's something they'd be doing every day instead of learning how to be a medic or something else.

That's not to say you can't do it, but I imagine ICly, there might be criticism over the waste of time, so I'm just saying you might wanna be prepared for that.

3) The Lounge has actually been used a fair amount, and is set up to allow people to cook meals with a massive food and alcohol storage section, so a restaurant is somewhat redundant.

There are ways to work this, but it doesn't make it any less redundant an addition or something that will avoid criticism ICly for use of resources. So what I'm saying is if it might be better to set it up a different way (less restaurant and more a communal chow hall, maybe? So it's like the mess, but they don't have to eat slop?) And you really have to manage the food well or when supplies run out, people don't say "Okay, we need to get rid of the restaurant, it's using too much food when we need to ration." OR we have to do away with Stacy ever running out of food altogether, but then we'd not be able to base any plots around it.

Also is Sasami, in the future, going to procure food herself for the restaurant during shore leaves or is she doing to dip into the communal food supply? Because people might want to ration the communal supply.

I'm all for additions to the ship, but personally, even as a player, I'd like to see how the resources work to be consistent, and allow stuff involving them and involving procuring them to be something we can use as impetus for plots, especially since stuff like bargaining for food or working out diplomatic deals in exchange for supplies or wheedling with merchants on shore leaves can be something non-powered people can do and they want stuff.

And even beyond that, they can get fully-functioning restaurants in the Sensoriums, with no need for waiters or cooks (unless people want to do it for fun), so that's another way a restaurant would be redundant. If we're going to commit to cultivating real food, we might want to damage the Sensorium's ability to do that or something.

[governorkang]

Just want to add in that the tavern doesn't have any real food, just alcohol and other drinks. So, people still need to go to the Lounge if they want that.

[saint-sami.livejournal.com]

Okay, Saphie. I'm curious. What do you think should happen, or at least as an alternative?

You're shooting here with worst-case scenarios and giving reasons as to why its redundant, but I'm just not seeing anything as alternatives. It's kinda not fair telling me "Do it, but you have all these problems to deal with" and not go "but here's a few ideas to fix it."

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

I gave plenty of alternatives:

1) Treating it as more of a chow hall with set daily meals that can be limited (like just one group meal a day with a few meal options if supplies are low) than a restaurant.

2) For the freezer, just changing it to be a magical, high-tech freezer or something, so all the food in there is still good. If it's a normal freezer, it'd all be bad by now, but it can be IDK, some high-tech special, anti-microbial vacuum freezer or something.

3) Shutting down the restaurant whenever there are food shortages.

4) After the freezer runs out, having it so Sasami procures her own food supplies with her own resources on shore leaves so she's not using the communal supplies, so no one can really criticize it, since it was gained with her own resources.

5) Seeing about causing a glitch in the Sensoriums to make it so they permanently can no longer give out real-tasting food for some reasons, and moving towards more reliance on food supplies and actual food services, maybe even farming.

or 6) Doing whatever you want, but understanding people might have IC reservations about it. OOCly, we know they'll have periodic times they can get food supplies. ICly, they don't, and some people might be more finicky about how the food supplies will be used once the freezer runs out because what's grabbed is the ship's communal supply. They might even have reservations about what's used in the freezer, seeing as supplies are running low.

You can do what you want, and I can't stop you--no one but the mods can--but with the setting having been set up a certain way, there might be IC consequences to it, or we might need to change how the setting's set up, that's all I'm saying.

Also, I've been plenty fair. I'm just criticizing an idea, and I'm just doing it as a player, I'm not criticizing you as an individual. And I'm doing it politely. And I gave you all these suggestions in my last post, but you just focused on the problems. There's no need to be defensive or anything, dude, it's just like any IC change or addition: it's got to make sense and fit what's already there, and some people might not see the point or might see ways it could work better or make more sense.

[saint-sami.livejournal.com]

...

*facepalms, rubs face*

Stop tl;dring, then! *fistshakes* That's all I could pull out of that. That, and I was sick, so I couldn't BS at the moment. Still can't, but that's another story...

I'll go about seeing what I can do...!

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

Er, well, if you wanna respond to comments without reading all of them, that's your prerogative, I guess, and you might wanna wait until you're feeling better, but it was all there, and it was pretty straightforward. :|a

Anyway, you know, we might want to actually discuss as a game the possibility of crippling the Sensoriums' ability to output food. It could lead to more stuff to do with obtaining supplies, make any other places that provide food more important, and lead to farming stuff like people were talking about. Could be interesting.