Hello!

I am Mara Lee and I will be playing with some of you.

Welcome Mara!

And the family just keeps growing!

Indeed welcome Mara!

Hey Mara, hope to hear more from you soon!

Wotcha, Mara. Take care around Adrian: he's a perv.

Michelle calling someone else a perv? That's a laugh!

*lol*

Michelle, I can see you and Mara meeting... if only because you are both rebels.

I'm unsure how much time has passed since Michael began towing the fisher-ship, so I dont know how far he is from the shore, or the rescue group.

I'll have you there soon, probably in the next post as you stumbled onto what I wanted you to find.

Paging Peter bell to Painted Clues.

I suppose that means paging Max and Dawn to Peter's easel as well...

Sky, waiting on Smax to tell me what the vision was. Can't really post til then. Probably later this evening.

Belated welcome from me too, Mara! Now are you sheep or wolf?

If you read behind the OOC lines I found this post to be humorous:


As you may have noticed, Aeon's been in the midst of shifting gears and restructuring itself, and while that process is nearly complete, it has left us less...efficient...than I'd like during a crucial time."

Her smile turned rueful then. "Of course, I forget who I'm talking to. Both of you know exactly what's at stake."

Seeing as how the other characters are or were the ST's

Hehe. I didn't even think of that, actually. But that is a little funny.

I am wondering if it would be possible to better organize the ItB forum?

With all the interweaving threads and characters it seems jumbled.

A few suggestions:

The section marked "Character Profiles" actually only includes 2 "Profiles" and the rest are actually character IC threads.

Suggest moving character IC threads to archives, since they are all inactive characters, and moving Volatage and Mara's profiles to the appropriate thread called: The In the Beggining Characters (posted by Courier), where all of our profiles are.

Suggest renaming "Character Profiles" sub forum to "Character Threads" and putting all of our currently active indiviudal arc threads there in one place. This would include SalmonMax's new "Eruptions" labeled threads, which are the equivalent to our individual arc threads (where we all erupted).

Currently Active character (such as michael Peters) should have their character arc individual threads moved out of the archives and into the same sub forum as the rest of us.

Suggest moving the "Painted Clues" fic to the actual Fictions sub-forum.

The main forum would then be a lot cleaner, featuring only the rules/discussion threads and the currently active chapters that are actually "Chapters."

EDIT: I would also think it a good idea for organizations sake if the Preludes and chapters currently archived were put into the main Forum with the currently active chapters, only kept locked. That way it would be super easy to find things in either the main forum or the character arc forum.

The archive would then be only for inactive character threads.

Thoughts?

Quick apology for the lengthy delay. I've said ItB won't be a "fast" PBP, but this has been longer than I intended.

Thanks for your patience.

In regards to Michael Peters interaction on the docks... if nothing earth shattering is going to happen, would it be alright if I RP out the dock events so I can be on my way? I feel bad every time I post a 25 word post. It makes me feel lazy :P

Michael, by all means feel free. Let's get you back into the ambush action.

All right, that's the dock cleared up. If you wish Dawn, you could next have Michael flying back to the rescue ship carrying supplies. I don't think we need to cover his request for blankets in to much detail Michael can probably charm his way into it without trying.

Okay. All of you are probably either thinking "What's up with ItB?" or thinking you already know what's up with it. That's entirely my fault, and I apologize.

This is partly a newbie GM thing, I think, and partly a thing created by picking up such a big project. Most games are not as big as ItB, and had I started one from scratch it certainly wouldn't have been. That said, I'm not regretting my choice, I'm just struggling to deal with the consequences.

Upshot: ItB isn't dead as far as I'm concerned. Some of you may find yourselves getting "bumped" a bit, as I exercise the Fiat of The GM to nudge your plots past parts that are giving me headaches right now...largely because they're not going anywhere, or the places they were going originally are now no longer relevant. This is an ungraceful way to handle it, but it will get posts flowing again, which is ultimately what needs to happen.

Hopefully I've learned enough from all this that it won't happen again.

Any love for 2A coming any time soon?

Getting My Act Together

First, I owe everyone an apology for doing exactly what annoys me when I'm a player. Mysteriously ceasing to update with no real explanation. You all deserve better than that.

So here's what's going on.

A number of factors IRL that I won't bore you with the specifics of have taken place that incurred a sort of malaise in me, creatively speaking. As my updating slowed and stopped, so to did my assistant GM's...quite naturally. I've been wrestling with a sort of fundamental dissonance between what ItB is, and what I find myself wanting to run. This dissonance has resulted in a mean case of writer's block.

What am I going to do?

First, I'm going to talk to my assistants and look into the very real possibility of getting more help. There's a lot of loose sideplots whipping around, and that's been an unexpected hangup for me.

Second, I'm getting my RL situation back in hand, which will hopefully lead to more time, and more importantly more energy.

"That's all great, but when will the updates be?"

I will make a commitment to update the threads before the end of this month. I, or a designated assistant, will then update each thread no less than once a week.

I really want to make this work, and I think I'm finally ready to let go of the game I want, and just let the game be what it is.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

SM- As I have mentioned to you before, I have my RL straightened out, and I am here. If you need/want me to help out in any way, say the word. Good luck, buddy, and keep your chin up!

@SM No worries Max. I may only speak for myself, but you're doing fine in my book. Picking up a large, established game is never easy, and I understand the troubles this can cause.

@Titan Good to see you again, big man. Hopefully you and Max can work out something for the game!

I agree with MP.

Same here, Smax. Don't take it too hard on you. We're a patient crowd and I prefer quality time over quantity time anyways

Not saying that I don't have patience, or that I don't really appreciate you taking up the reins, but that was 4 weeks ago today, with no further word. What's up SMax? Still having RL issues? We are a patient crowd, but we really love playing this game. Any word on when it might be coming back?

Heh. *red face*

Shortly after posting that, Titan got in touch with me. That conversation touched off an episode where I was trying to work with him to bring him on as an assistant GM. At this stage, since I've had very limited luck contacting him, I'm starting to think that ain't gonna happen.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I kept thinking 'today's the day I'll hear from him.' And it wasn't. Got into the habit of it.

On the plus side, I finally have decided what to do with you guys in the future, which was a major block for me, so I'm much closer to being ready to just go with it again.

Once this chapter closes out, I want to change the flow of the game a bit. Make it less "GM throws plot at you" and more player-directed.

Thoughts on that?

I love player directed... but I have a strong idea what to do. Lots of characters could/should drift.

I'd be willing to give it a try... so long as it doesn't get too much like the open world games...

I don't have any big goals in front of Knockout, to be honest - or at least, nothing that would necessitate her own dedicated plotline. Plus, I like interacting with other player characters on a regular basis, and it's much easier to do that when you all share a goal or a plotline.

So, while I would be cool with player directed: if there is any kind of large "main plotline" moving forward, I'd like to tie into it.

I'm not really interested in an open world setting for Inoue, but I can just bow out easily as well since she hasn't even met any of the other PCs.

I don't mean open world. And I don't mean no plots or stories from the GM. I just mean that the PCs and their actions will be among the main sources of plot events and game direction.

I'm up for a very PC responsive, I just don't want to have to be the one making up plot for my character. It may sound lazy, but this is game where I just want to -play- instead of being a sort of co-ST just so my character has something to do on a regular basis.

No, I totally concur with that. In fact, that very issue is one reason I have so much trouble with WODA.

No, the goal with ItB is that the PC's will have goals and things that they want to do. The things they do to achieve those goals and wants will reverberate, causing cascades of consequences (that I will define and adjudicate). In this manner the PC's will define the game world, but not because their players are working out plots...but rather because the PCs are taking actions that change the world.

That sounds good SMax... though I'm unsure how it differs from what we're doing right now. Of course, it may be that I'm in/on a side plot that's already structured that way, so I don't see it...

Oh well, still sounds good.

hey - my todo-list goes from here to Alpha Centauri - I got loads of things to do. I'm ok with player-driven and an occasional story line - or something like a "general" direction that gives me the feeling the world moves on and register changes.

Yeah, when HG gets back from the future he has things to do already in mind - although racting to other events will also come into it...

Hey, I'm open for progress All the ideas put forth sound good to me.

Got room for a new player?

Lets make sure I have room for the ones I have first.

Hokay. Keep me in mind.

Jedi has tons of goals and most of them are large and world effecting so that's cool with me. Just let me know when we are kicking things off again and I'll jump back in. To be honest with things stalled, I haven't been checking in much around this game lately, that's my bad.

Inoue is going to need to be attached to someone(s) else, at least to begin with. She's just started to understand that she doesn't have to be the perfect Japanese daughter to live a fulfilling life, but her personality is definitely more of a beta than a alpha. So, I'd love to have her meet up with other PC's and see what happens.

I can volunteer Peter Bell, the Precog. Many people cross his lives and he likes to make portraits of people using his gifts, creating art that has future meaning.

Peter is a good social hub as it seems. He is connected to everyone it seems.

"You keep drawing this hot blonde with big boobs in all of your paintings. Is she important to the future?"

"No, I just like drawing hot blondes with big boobs. Tell me I'm wrong."

One day this will happen.

*poke poke* Hello?