Role play

[Aloys]

The GoW doesn't do anything; the people who *visit* the GoW and *discusss* things here are the ones who do things.

That's a good point: it is another big difference between the GoW and the other Guilds; we have much less of a structure or a membership system. (and even less of a hierarchy) people come and go (unlike the messengers, or greeters, or even cartographers). Practically speaking the GoW is more a learning/sharing place than an actual Guild...

I'm also not saying we should come up with some all encompassing storyline for the group, but it would be better, I think, if the GOW had at least some basic Role playing information. A base with which people can build their stories from.

You are right, some kind of common base is important. It can be something simple,what is important from my point of view is that it is something we agree on and that we make it 'official'. As long as it is an official commonbase that people use to RP, it's enough. Even if it is thin, people will fill in the blanks as they see fit as long as some rules are set.
A storyline for the group might be difficult to do, but it would probably help a lot. It doesn't have to be very close to our OOC story.

[BAD]

Well how about we brain storm some ideas right in this thread and see what we can get most people interested feeling is the right direction?

Like I would think we either create a character, or pick someone as the first person to decide to get writers together to share ideas. Maybe a rogue DRC member? I think if we say that a form of the GOW has been going since the DRC first allowed explorers into the cavern, it would be more plausible that we have just now started to create ages stable enough to visit.

Also even the RP version of the GOW should keep the idea of a loose membership, where the exchange and availability of information is more important than any kind of official status. Basically the GOW sees writing of ages as a new (old) technology that can be used to the benefit of the world, and that keeping it secret would only breed jealously and stagnation within the group? Perhaps the DRC is keeping the GOW from allowing the skill of creating books, ink, and writing of ages from being known to the outside world?

Food for thought.

[Chacal]

Maybe we can explain IC the disappearance of guild members by unstable Ages and insufficient testing?

[GPNMilano]

Well how about we brain storm some ideas right in this thread and see what we can get most people interested feeling is the right direction?

Like I would think we either create a character, or pick someone as the first person to decide to get writers together to share ideas. Maybe a rogue DRC member? I think if we say that a form of the GOW has been going since the DRC first allowed explorers into the cavern, it would be more plausible that we have just now started to create ages stable enough to visit.

Well, I can tell you how I went about crafting my IC backstory after I learned about age creation. It was during MOUL, when I was IC researching a way to save Sydney Austin after she got lost in Kadish. Chloe(IC) came up with the idea that someone had altered Sydney's linking book to Kadish ever so slightly so that it linked her to a instanced version of kadish that no one could get to. I started researching what we knew about the art and came across the Age Builder's site (It may have been Alcugs though) and learned about age creation and what you guys were all doing with PyPRP.

After MOUL shut down I started my account here and got more and more involved with age creation. Then after MOULAgain went up I decided, rather than start a brand new character from scratch who was just getting into the art, I'd take what i knew OOC and the backstory of Chloe(IC) and mix the two of them. What I came up with was basically this:

After Sydney was found safe and relatively sound, at least for her, Chloe(IC) continued to research the art. (Mirroring my own experimentation with age creation). While everyone else started heading for the surface after the DRC pulled up stakes, Chloe remained behind. She found a new neighborhood district, Dorehn, and set herself up in an office/apartment there. She basically lived alone in the cavern for two plus years, going up to the surface for vacations, while using her time in D'ni to research the art by restoring D'ni ages, translating documents, and raiding the stockpiles of DRC equipment. Then she discovered an instanced version of the city with people in it (When I joined an underground shard) There she met like minded people like herself who were experimenting with the Art and fixing different types of D'ni equipment. When she felt comfortable enough that she knew enough of the art from reading descriptive books and linking books she began to experiment with it. One of her raids on the Takotah building supplied her with a copy of the gahro-hevtee and now she's writing ages, and restoring them as well.


What I think is most important regarding any IC GoW's is that the backstory mesh's best with each individual explorer that may join. For this reason there should, IMO, only really be three things necessary:

1. A time frame when people started experimenting with the art. (Let's say it was around the time of Until Uru. As this gave us several years in which to work and learn the art)
2. That when the DRC first pulled out of the cavern back in 03-04 is when the gahro-hevtee was first discovered by those early explorers (matching around the time OOC when age creation started)
3. The IC GoW formed during MOUL, when the DRC announced they were restarting the guilds, those with knowledge of the art, began to meet and share what they knew in anticipation of crafting new ages and welcoming new comers who would join the guild. Then after the cavern closed up again, and everyone was once more alone, we continued to meet and branch out continuing to experiment with the art until today.

[BAD]

I have no problem with that time frame.

Until Uru and Alcugs was the birth of Uru modding, so naturally it can be seen in an IC way as the first time explorers began experimenting with the gahro-hevtee.

We are still kinda lost with exactly how the gahro-hevtee were learned by the early groups who experimented with writing. I fear we may have to leave that veiled in mystery, unless we could get some approval from Cyan (RAWA).

We could go with the whole Gehn reasoning and the only advantage we had over him is that there were many of us and our differing ways of thinking fleshed out our knowledge faster. Yes, Gehn was brilliant, but he didn't have the power of 50 plus minds working together.

I like the idea of a rogue DRC member giving out notes on the art to explorers as they backed out of the cavern that first time.

I think as long as we keep it very simple and a bit vague, we can accommodate most of peoples story ideas that way

[Aloys]

Really, IC there's only one way we could have learned of the ways of the Art: by exploring the Cavern. By going beyond the DRC's barricades and finding Descriptive Books, and well as other D'ni Books.. (D'ni GoW school books maybe?)
This is difficult to pull off though, because we are stepping on Cyan's toes here and we are talking about things we don't really know.. Maybe the DRC already raided the City and took all the Books? Maybe they took them to the surface out of our reach? etc...
I agree that keeping things simple and vague might be our best option here.

Also even the RP version of the GOW should keep the idea of a loose membership, where the exchange and availability of information is more important than any kind of official status.

I agree.

Basically the GOW sees writing of ages as a new (old) technology that can be used to the benefit of the world, and that keeping it secret would only breed jealously and stagnation within the group? Perhaps the DRC is keeping the GOW from allowing the skill of creating books, ink, and writing of ages from being known to the outside world?

Involving the outside world in Uru always seems like a very slippery ground to me. You'd think that as soon as people knew about the possibility to 'create' worlds; greed would take over very fast and people would flood to the Cavern. The US government would try to take possession of the caverns (they are under US ground after all). We would see fights, theft, vandalism, even wars... Sirrus/Achenar all over again, but way bigger. That can't work.
Prentending the outside world (people who haven't felt the Call) doesn't know about D'ni is just simpler. Even if it's a little less realistic..

[Trylon]

We are still kinda lost with exactly how the gahro-hevtee were learned by the early groups who experimented with writing. I fear we may have to leave that veiled in mystery, unless we could get some approval from Cyan (RAWA).

We could go with the whole Gehn reasoning and the only advantage we had over him is that there were many of us and our differing ways of thinking fleshed out our knowledge faster. Yes, Gehn was brilliant, but he didn't have the power of 50 plus minds working together.

Wouldn't it be pausible that the original D'ni Guild of writers had at least some guidebooks or instructional texts around to help instruct the newbies to write Ages. We could have found a number of them, or rather fragments of them, which would explain the long research time. If it's plausible that there were some instruction texts, it'd also be plausible that Gehn had at least a few of them but never told about them, or that het was so focused on finding Korteeneas and Descriptive books that the overlooked the "tutorials" and "Writing for Dummies" books. He was crazy after all

[Chacal]

After Sydney was found safe and relatively sound, at least for her,

You mean physically sound, I suppose.

[Metaigahn]

A lot of excellent ideas here.

I like the idea that there are instruction manuals on the Art, which the DRC took away, perhaps in order to avoid leaks to the surface, among other reasons. It is possible the DRC missed some, if not in the Cavern then perhaps tucked away in other Ages we're exploring -- and that we found enough of them to learn the Art ourselves. To me, the GoW now includes those explorers (us) learning the Art somehow, doing new experiments in crafting Ages and then exploring through Writing new linking books -- as well as refurbishing older ones recently found. And OOC, that translates to learning to build, script, texture, convert, test, debug, redux and then document the 3d builds and associated linking objects (books) we're merging with the game.

I, personally, have no issue with bouncing between OOC technical and IC arcane RP analogies to what we're doing. We have a wiki here OOC -- why not assert IC that we have translated manuals on Writing too?

Anyway, I would like to call attention to this thread...

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20379

Apparently there's an effort to organize an all Guild event in Kirel. Whether or not one is into RP, this could be a good opportunity to promote the GoW. What do you think? I can stop by Kirel when I can that weekend. Anyone else able to participate in this?

[Aloys]

Going slightly on a tangent here: should we open a new IC sub-forum to get started?