modormenace | METAPLOT AND OPEN COLLABORATION

METAPLOT AND OPEN COLLABORATION

The world of Mask or Menace is intended to be a dynamic, evolving environment where character actions have meaningful impact. We aim to accomplish this by building a setting that generates a broad range of hooks for player engagement. Other plotting options (e.g., player plot requests, reporting NPC injury, etc.) are on this page, where all comments are screened.

Players are encouraged to approach us on this page to brainstorm with other players and othewise engage with or investigate the setting! Please make sure to use the subject line to indicate what you're trying to accomplish:

Plot Brainstorming: These are open calls for collaborating on a plot idea with the mod team and other players. To open a brainstorming session, please submit a central idea or jumping off point for discussion! The team will unscreen these once we've determined viability to allow for input from other players who may be interested in developing the idea with you. In most cases, submissions involving investigation of modplot elements should be submitted like this to allow for collaborative planning.
<big>PLOT BRAINSTORMING SUBMISSION</big> Player: Your name/handle Character(s): Yours and those of whoever else might be already involved. Plot Pitch: A broad stroke summary of your idea in 1-3 sentences. (e.g., 'a renaissance faire goes wrong,' 'time-loop,' 'a zombie attack') Details: Please lay out any elements and ideas you've already got covered and are not looking to change. Looking for: If you have any particular plot hooks or themes you're hoping to get other players interested in exploring with you, this is the place to list them! Anything else: Anything not covered above!
MORE COMING: Watch the Mod announcements for more on this page!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey all! Thanks for getting back to me. If it's not too much trouble, I have a couple follow-up questions.

- For "vast majority of IC events that correspond to player-run plots", this looks like an intentionally nebulous guideline. Would it be safe to say that, for events where none of the directly-involved characters remain in game, it's definitely gone?

As for events where those characters are still in game, should this be taken as sort of a Player's Choice deal? For instance, if I personally ran an event in 2017, could I say it still happened in this new chronology? / Could I say "it mostly happened, but different characters were involved / it ended differently" ?

This is a sort of, how much control are we being given over the plots that we-as-players explicitly ran ourselves?

- This one specifically is just because Ruka really cared about this event and would be one she would investigate deliberately, but: modplot event THE SHIMMER (plotting, conclusion). Still happened / no longer happened? I bring this one up mostly because of the whole De Chima "park full of trees that look like people" thing — since if the event didn't happen, or happened differently, Park is Gone.

- Is the Porter/military base on the Moon officially gone? I'm told this was part of a player event, but because it was A Porter, I thought I'd double-check.

- Finally, just for total clarity: if characters have previously kept personal, physical records of their lives in-game — photo albums, private diaries, conspiracy boards, etc — the events detailed would correspond to the events of the New History, correct?

Hi Olesia,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you! As you may have guessed, in addition to fairly hefty and unfortunately overlapping RL complications for the mod team, providing answers on this particular topic requires a fair amount of careful thought on the back end. In transitioning to a new chapter of metaplot, we're doing what we can to balance the preservation of important game history/details with the task of streamlining years of accumulated lore to make the prospect of participating less daunting... while trying to make the effects any changes have on the setting ICly exciting and engaging rather than distressing for our playerbase!

As a general rule: while the differences characters may notice between the world of MoM in August 2020 vs November 2020 could be unsettling, there don't appear to be any significant, disruptive changes. In fact, the relatively frictionless and almost accommodating nature of the shift might even seem statistically unlikely to Ruka and others with a background in dimension-hopping.

Q: Would it be safe to say that, for events where none of the directly-involved characters remain in game, it's definitely gone?: A: ICly, It would be impossible for characters to ascertain if the world has a new, alternate history of any specific event without having knowledge of the original— they'd have nothing to compare with.
OOCly, it's probably easiest to think about the historical events in MoM as being considered current canon or not. If an event (and any directly observable, persisting effect it had on the setting) no longer has any active impact on player characters, it's not current canon.
...and we can't think of anything more 'superhero comics' than that!
Q: For events where those characters are still in game, could I say it still happened in this new chronology? / Could I say "it mostly happened, but different characters were involved / it ended differently" ?: A: This depends on the scope of the event in question. If the only things you're affecting are aspects of the shared setting you wouldn't need mod permission to use, you're good to go, though as always you'd need permission from other players involved before writing in changes that would significantly impact them. In cases where events resulted in a permanent change to the shared setting of the game (such as the creation of player-submitted locations like the Ted Kord Memorial Center or Nox's Import Museum) by default, these locations still exist. However, they may have undergone minor changes in appearance, and in some cases, have new histories that don't match imPort memories.

If you would like to contribute a specific alternate history of a significant event you previously ran that leans towards world-building or would have an impact on how the native population feel about imPorts (Oh, that hospital was opened to support the survivors of Actual Cannibal imPort Shyest the Beef's wild rampage through the woods of De Chima back in 2012) please run it past us!
Q: Did THE SHIMMER still happen? Is the "park full of trees that look like people" gone?: A: This is a good example of what has and hasn't changed! When Ruka looks for reports of the Shimmer event occurring, she won't find any mention of it in the media, and the native population won't know what she's talking about. However, if she chooses to go to the location where she remembers there being a park full of trees that look like people, it will still appear to be there. The individual trees may look different or seem to have moved pose or position, but not significantly.

If she then asks about the trees and their startling resemblance to people, friendly locals will cheerfully inform her they are the work of an artist who spent years carefully training them to take that shape (probably while asking for autographs and pleading for selfies).
Q: Is the Porter/military base on the Moon officially gone?: A: No! The base exists, though all records suggest it was established decades ago and is a largely unremarkable part of operations at NASA. It's about as newsworthy and accessible to the native population as the International Space Station is in real life.
Q: If characters have previously kept personal, physical records of their lives in-game — photo albums, private diaries, conspiracy boards, etc — the events detailed would correspond to the events of the New History, correct?: A: This we leave up to the preference of individual players, as people may have different ideas of what would count as their character 'losing their personal progress', which we promised wouldn't happen. Players can choose to discover their character's personal, physical records have been altered if they want to use that as a prompt to engage with the setting shifts. If they don't want to deal with that level of alteration, personal items can essentially have arrived with them on Oct 1 and appear unchanged.

As these setting details may be of interest to other players, we'd like to ask if you (and any other players with characters involved in this investigation) would be willing to help disseminate the information ICly, on the network or through any other means that would be true to their individual characterisation. We would write an OOC announcement linking relevant posts and this Plotting thread, so that players can ask for more guidance or ideas on what characters might notice.

If you'd like to talk details or have specific ideas/questions about Ruka's individual role, we can hop onto Discord to hash things out or move the conversation to Mod Contact.

METAPLOT AND OPEN COLLABORATION

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