AMA - Ask The Mods Anything

[ourearth]

It's getting closer and closer to opening time! On the 14th of April, the first reincarnation relationship plotting post will go up. On the 22nd of April, reserves will open, and on the first of May the first test drive meme will go up. On the 15th of May applications will open. On the 8th of June, a second test drive meme will go up along with a second relationship plotting post. And then on the 15th of June, the game will open! (As a note, we are still looking for mods, especially app mods who will help us judge applications.)

In the spirit of that, this post is here so you can Ask The Mods Anything!

More specifically, in this post we want to give prospective players the opportunity to ask any questions that they might have about the game or playing in it (you obviously can also use the FAQ or mod contact, but we hope that having this place will lower the threshold of "is this question too unimportant/dumb to bring it to the mods").

Please don't hesitate to ask your questions, no matter how dumb they feel - we want to use this post both to try and clear up all questions players might have and to see if there is anything that crops up often enough or otherwise strikes us as something to address on the game's info pages.

Please make sure to use the toplevel that seems the most appropriate to your question! That'll make it easier for other players to see what has already been asked and answered.

Information about the game can be found if you follow the links below:

Rules | FAQ | New Player Guide
Locations | Soft facts & Gossip | British stuff | NPCs
Premise explained | Network explained | Echoes explained

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Comments

AU QUESTIONS

[ourearth]

Questions along the lines of "Can I do X with my character's AU?" go here.

CHARACTER QUESTIONS

[ourearth]

Questions along the lines of "Can I play X character in this game?" go here. Please don't assume that the mods know your character/canon and give us a brief description of what aspects of the character make you ask the questions.

Re: CHARACTER QUESTIONS

[hadthenerve]

Hello mods! I have a dumb, rambly, character specific question here. I'm really sorry you have to wade through my nonsense. orz

I'm considering Caramia from Ozmafia, which is an otome game where a bunch of fairy tale and storybook characters inhabit this town that is essentially run by rival mafia families. He's the boss of the Oz family and is actually the cowardly lion from that story.

This is post wizard visit so he, like the scarecrow and tinman, has received an item that represents the gift he got from the wizard. The traits they got from these gifts are literally represented in these items. In an 'if it's lost he will also lose the gift' kind of way. So when the scarecrow looses his, he becomes an idiot, the tinman becomes completely emotionless, and this lion here becomes a coward. As in like, scared of everything. I promise you I am not making this up.

But I have been wanting to play him in either a memloss or au game with the idea of starting him out as a coward and then regaining his courage. I wanted to ask whether this was feasible in this setting. I know item regains are possible, but it would result in a major (and very abrupt) personality shift. I could certainly include with/without courage info in his personality section, but I also know the idea is kind of weird and is different from the kind of gradual change that is more typical in a setting like this.

Anyway, thanks for reading that mess and I really hope it made sense. I should not be doing this at 1am.

[ourearth]

This sounds indeed perfectly doable!

We do indeed prefer gradual shifts, but the extent of just how gradual it is is mostly up to the player (as long as we don't spot a theme of constantly pushing the upper end), and a sudden shift in one personality trait would fall within the margin of what is possible. So if you wish for it to be a sudden shift, that would be possible.

You could still make it a gradual shift though, if you would prefer that: Items can be regained in stages, too (regain the item without the gift, then echo the gift at half-strength, and then echo it at full strength, or something like that).

We would definitely want to see something about the difference in him with and without his courage in his preincarnated personality, and also in the reincarnated personality a bit on how it affected his life that he never received the item granting him courage.

[hadthenerve]

Thank you so much for the prompt response!

I appreciate all the options but I was hoping to play with the sudden shift here because what I really like about it is that those things they wished for that seemed like they should magically fix everything didn't. Suddenly gaining an overabundance of courage does not necessarily solve all your problems. Actually it just gives you different problems. Like being a lot more reckless. Taking too many chances.

And I can assure you it would just be that one trait that was sudden. Everything else would be gradual.

Thank you!

Re: CHARACTER QUESTIONS

[orbislife]

I've been considering Zenyatta from Overwatch for this game. The question/problem I have is the lack of canon history for him.

He has been a playable character since game release and has a distinct personality, but Blizzard has yet to give him any lore for his background. Most of his official hero bio talks about the Shambali (robot religious group) as a whole more than him specifically. Oddly enough his hero bio neglects to mention his student, Genji, but game voice lines and a one panel comic appearance show their connection.

The game itself is a first person shooter but is not considered canon in terms of the characters' stories. Personality can be taken from the game but not events. For example, Zenyatta working with Genji, Tracer, Reaper, Widowmaker, and Hanzo to deliver an EMP bomb to underground King's Row is something that could happen in the game but would absolutely not happen in the actual story. Zenyatta would never cause a mass murder of his robotic kind. However, the voice lines about being troubled by the suffering of his kind in the location and the fact that he misses his brother shed light on what kind of person Zenyatta is.

I can write a personality section for him easily, but a canon history section is only going to be a few sentences long without headcanons.

Can I app Zenyatta for the game, or does his lack of background material make him not a good fit at this time?

[ourearth]

The way you describe him, Zenyatta would definitely be appable.

Our only hard rule on appability is that "characters with a canon base must have enough canon for the applicant to write a cohesive personality for them without having to rely on headcanon". There are no hard requirements on anything else, so a few sentences of canon when it comes to history will be sufficient! Just pad it out with headcanon that is in line with what canon supplies you with.

[orbislife]

I saw that in the FAQ, but I still wanted to double check before I started working on an app. Thank you for the quick answer!

[ourearth]

That's totally fair! It is a point that differs between games, and our stance is probably a bit unique. The reasoning behind it is that the history and the power section is fully subject to being echoed back (or not) and holes in it will therefore not affect the playing experience. A full understanding of the personality, on the other hand, is necessary - both because it needs to be present in its entirety from the start of the playing experience (=preincarnated personality section), and to be able to tell what differences a different upbringing would have made (=reincarnated personality section).

(Also: You probably saw that, but we ask that any headcanon is marked as such in the application, preferably by formatting those sections in cursive.)

SETTING QUESTIONS

[ourearth]

Questions along the lines of "Can I add X to the setting?", "Does X exist in this setting?" or "What is [setting detail]?" go here.

[sunbloom]

Not the journal I'm using, but I just want to check something briefly, so it's probably fine. The reincarnation I want to run, I intend to have operate an auto repair shop; is that something Mossgate is large enough to have and give reasonable business to? I don't need "super busy", I just need it to be enough to pay the bills and be at least a little recognized in the community, maybe be able to hire a couple people. I've already made most of the other relevant decisions there, I just need to sanity check it.

[ourearth]

Hi,

That is absolutely possible! A town that size would normally have a couple, although generally on the outskirts rather than in the centre of town (think about placing it in the business park or between Mossgate and Tarwich). In the UK it's pretty normal to have independent garages, so while there are a couple of country wide firms (Halfords is one), an independent one with a good reputation would be able to easily provide a good living for its owners and some extra jobs.

[sunbloom]

The business park is actually where I think I had it planned to be! That tells me everything I needed to know; thanks much!

ANYTHING ELSE

[ourearth]

Any questions that don't fit into one of the above sections go here.

Re: ANYTHING ELSE

[aki_bara]

Out of curiosity more than anything else: Why is the relationships plot post going up before the reserves post? I'd feel uncomfortable plotting with people for a character I didn't have reserved. But maybe that's just me.

Re: ANYTHING ELSE

[perfectpawn]

I was actually really glad the plotting post was going up first.

Because I'm really indecisive and I still don't know who I want to play. The plotting post will go a long way toward helping me decide. That may not be the reason they decided to do it that way, but I do appreciate it.

[ourearth]

Thank you for your input, we took it into consideration when making our decision.

We have moved Reserves to the halfway point between the Relationship Plotting Post and the TDM going up, so people who would like to plot before reserving will have time to do so and people who would like to have reserves be open before plotting have time to do so before the TDM goes up as well. Thus Reserves now open on the 22nd of April.

[ourearth]

We had three main reasons for this that tie closely into one another:

- The first relationships plot post serves a double purpose: Let people bounce their plotting ideas off one another, and let people get inspired by what other people are planning as AUs. We hope that that will give people a better feeling for whom they'd like to reserve/apply for (sometimes seeing someone else's AU or a spot in their AU that they'd like filled can inspire a reserve for a character that was lower down on the list of priorities or that they hadn't even considered).
- Doing this before anything else, we were hoping, would let players throw around their ideas more freely and give them time to get inspired and make decisions in a relaxed, tentative atmosphere.
- We figured that opening Reserves, TDM and plotting post at the same time would be too much and thus decided to spread things out a bit, and this seemed like a good distribution.

We also didn't think that it would be an issue, because reserves by no means guarantee that the person who reserved a character will really be applying for them (and be accepted). But it does make it more likely, and thus you bring up a very good point.

After some discussion, we have decided to move reserves to the halfway point between the Relationship Plotting Post and the TDM going up, so people who would like to plot before reserving will have time to do so and people who would like to have reserves be open before plotting have time to do so before the TDM goes up as well. Thus Reserves now open on the 22nd of April.