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[Suggestion] Event summaries in lore


Eventide

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Hey.

I gather there have been a few recent important historical events in WoE. In an RP, an attack on the crystal empire was brought up, by caribous apparently. I'm not sure of how to form my character's reaction since, OOCly, I don't know about it. I could search for the RP threads of the event and read through them to learn about it, but that seems inconvenient and time consuming. I would prefer not to dig around RP threads for setting information and context whenever a significant event that my characters should know about is brought up. I can also ask a player about what happened, though I get the feeling the same question might continue being asked by other new players.

My suggestion is, there could be a section in the world and lore archive for summaries of such events, maybe even some kind of timeline. I guess long-time players might add to it, for new players to have an idea of what has happened in recent years. Really it could be no more than a sentence and I'd be happy. Having the history available might also provide some prompt for future RPs. To clarify: I don't expect someone to go through all of the RP threads and report each detail, for the same reason I don't want to have to find them myself, we just don't have that kind of free time. I'm picturing brief summaries from memory, just enough about what happened to know and be able to respond about it in-character. No doubt it'd be something that would only expand gradually.

I think it would make the site a little more accessible for new players. It might be fun to read through accounts of previous episodes in WoE history, kind of like a documentary I suppose. I'm a bit nervous to make this suggestion, but feel free to disagree, don't hold back, and tell me why. What do you guys think?

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I can't really see a problem with this. +1

The only thing to keep in mind is a fair few players really don't like the history of WOE and think the events were pretty terrible all things considered. There were some really dark events going on which could change characters mostly for the worst and there was quite a bit of an outcry over it. In fact I was one of the more vocal users where that was concerned since my character was essentially wrote into a corner, as with most folks, though mine was to the point where there was little more I could do than either ignore and retcon the event, or just type 'KIA'. 

Which brings me nicely around to my point, and indeed, the point that was made when I asked about it when the new Canterlot rules came into play. The history of WOE should be taken into account on a thread by thread basis, and any brief summary of the event lore should indicate that you don't have to include it if you don't want to, and indeed, that some users may not want to include those events. 

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7 hours ago, Zealot said:

I can't really see a problem with this. +1

The only thing to keep in mind is a fair few players really don't like the history of WOE and think the events were pretty terrible all things considered. There were some really dark events going on which could change characters mostly for the worst and there was quite a bit of an outcry over it. In fact I was one of the more vocal users where that was concerned since my character was essentially wrote into a corner, as with most folks, though mine was to the point where there was little more I could do than either ignore and retcon the event, or just type 'KIA'. 

Which brings me nicely around to my point, and indeed, the point that was made when I asked about it when the new Canterlot rules came into play. The history of WOE should be taken into account on a thread by thread basis, and any brief summary of the event lore should indicate that you don't have to include it if you don't want to, and indeed, that some users may not want to include those events. 

While I appreciate your opinion on this matter, I disagree with you. Events, by and large, have been something a lot of people worked very hard on to bring something fun to our players. We have had wildly successful events, and events that could have used some tweaking to improve them. If you didn't like an event, that's fine, but I think your reasoning needs another look -- nor would I say that "a fair few players think events were terrible, all considered." 

A lot of the negativity you're mentioning stems from how a few players chose to approach an event, and the fact events feature a mix of skilled and developing roleplayers. People are ultimately responsible for how they choose to approach a roleplay, and to keep within the spirit and flavor of their characters, and the roleplay as a whole. An example that stands out to me would be the Changeling Invasion. We have a lot of characters mingling together, having fun, changelings show up. Ideally players would look at the characters they designed themselves and choose how they would react to this sort of situation. A lot of players, instead, gave their characters sudden super powers (unaddressed or unapproved on their applications) and started trashing all over everything we had set up.

Giving a harder look at the roleplay sphere at large, this is a game that we play by communicating with others and finding creative solutions. "Writing yourself into a corner" is not even possible, because you're not forced to accept anything happening in a roleplay as character canon unless you will it. Again, communicating, making compromises, and being creative trump complaining about a roleplay and refusing (willfully or not) to find solutions with others.

I think people should be passionate about what they do. I also think that sometimes some perspective is necessary. This is a My Little Pony-based roleplay, still designed at its core around a cartoon that has canon dictated in a near-constant flux for the sake of delivering a good story to the audience, not for a text-based forum roleplay. How you choose to "fill in the gaps" is what this game is about, and if you choose negativity instead of creativity, you'll find your experience just as lacking as the others who did not find the focus they needed within the game.

As for the OP's suggestion: Event canon is open for use however the players will to use it. We do have a section holding all posts from past events, so if someone likes, that content is there and available for reading. My suggestion is to treat any event canon as its own thing, or cherry pick bits of it you want to use. It is by no means required that a character know all event history. Not all characters need to know all events that are happening around the would all the time. Ideally your character might find something in a roleplay that they would learn about an event from, rather than just automatically accepting it happened (especially if that character was not involved or even there). 

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1 hour ago, Rosewind said:

It is by no means required that a character know all event history. Not all characters need to know all events that are happening around the would all the time. Ideally your character might find something in a roleplay that they would learn about an event from, rather than just automatically accepting it happened (especially if that character was not involved or even there). 

True. No character can be omniscient, and I understand to avoid IC use of OOC knowledge when the character shouldn't know it.

I am sure there are some events they would probably know about, particularly in Equestria, and considering the time it would have had to spread. For example, my character probably will have already heard of the attack on the Crystal Empire, and although he wasn't there, he's not going to assume it didn't actually happen before he finds something in the thread with which to learn about it. Plus, I think it would just be nice to have a concise source available to OOCly be aware of the past.

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We're talking about a land where crazy stuff happens pretty consistently, if not daily. FiM even makes fun of itself in this regard. I think my main point is that it would be more interesting for characters in-game to discuss and share knowledge that is relevant to them, rather than just assume they know everything about the world at large. Locally, sure, but Equestria is a pretty big place, and it might take time for word to get around.

Summarizing all of our past events for some kind of canon indoctrination would be quite an undertaking -- not to mention unfair -- since that would remove some creativity from the player. You could use the concept of time and recurring events to maintain any sort of canon you wish. "Hey, remember that Running of the Leaves a few years ago when Twinkie Dinky lost her horse shoe in that bird's nest?" Here you've been able to create your own character canon for yourself without having to peruse volumes of old roleplay threads, and it's a perfectly acceptable way to present new information in a roleplay thread that makes sense for your character.

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Crazy stuff happens consistently, for sure, ranging from on the scale of just a town, and being cleared up in half an hour or so, to that which might affect the whole country, or at least make the headlines around, for example an attack on a major city. I'm not saying we should make our characters know everything about the world, as that is unrealistic use of OOC knowledge IC, but it is logical they might hear about and remember some of these events.

Summaries of significant events would only come about gradually, I can see that, but just a sentence of explanation from memory would be fine honestly. It is exactly right that I don't wish to read through a novel's worth of old threads, however I would still like to know the gist of what happened in some of these events, particularly when one is brought up in RP and my character would respond by discussing it. Sometimes a previous significant historical event may indeed be relevant to our characters.

Canon indoctrination certainly sounds like a bad idea. I agree with what Zealot mentioned about that, "any brief summary of the event lore should indicate that you don't have to include it if you don't want to, and indeed, that some users may not want to include those events."

I think we can have some history available to read, without it being dogma, and we would certainly still be able to be creative and make up our own past occurrences for characters during RP like you say, regardless of said history. ;)

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