returnjourneyooc | STATE OF THE GAME

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STATE OF THE GAME

Hello, passengers!

We've passed our two-month anniversary, and so we'd like to take this opportunity to check in with our players, to see what's working for you guys and what could use improvement. You can consider this post a place to freely share your thoughts, both with us and the game at large. If you'd like to engage with the mods one-on-one, please see our Mod Contact page!

Feel free to converse amongst yourselves, whether it's about expectations, concerns, or anything else.

Character Activities

We also wanted to introduce a new page we set up, to make it easier for your character to contribute to the ship and also notice those contributions! Please check out that page here.

You guys can use this page to post and track any background behavior or activities your character and others are up to, whether now or at any time in the future. Basically, things that aren't big enough to merit a player plot, but are still important to how your character engages with the setting! Think of it as something adjacent to a handwaved CR meme; you can see examples on the page itself.

We'd also like to give you guys the opportunity to plot amongst yourself, insofar as the group activities go. There were a few of these mentioned on the warden meeting posts, so if you have an idea for a group activity and would like to present it to the game at large, please post it under this header! Then, if it gets enough traction (or has received support elsewhere, like plurk), submit it to the proper header on the Activities page. Other players can show their support by adding a +1 or -1 in the subject of their replies. Let's say there should be participation from 4 or 5 characters for it to count!

That said, if a group activity doesn't get enough support (or your character wouldn't bother trying to get support and would do the activity solo), please submit it as an individual activity! You can always bump it up to a group activity in the future, if more passengers participate later.

Please note that this page is not meant as a substitution for threading out cool things or player plots. Rather, we'd like to give everyone a neat, easy way to see what's going on around the ship at any given time, so wardens and inmates can stay on the same page with their activities and share plot hooks.

Since this page will be a mainstay, if you have any questions, please ask them on our FAQ!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

no actually do lock him in a closet! dude, airlock him. seriously, i was planning he'd be murdered more. he's designed to be someone you actively want to make shut up.

my speed/activity isn't something i can super dial back i guess because i like to keep my inbox at zero and my characters active, but i can definitely threadjack less!

I think it's just a bad character/game match honestly, I'm going to probably switch him out

nah, I think people are pointing out larger tonal issues and im cool with that

i figure most inmates are fine with that, but the wardens as a whole right now do not seem okay with that icly and that's the bigger issue for me right now. others are can chime in for their characters if it's different, but as the wardens are supposed to be his allies, i really can't have him making a majority of his cr with them negative out the gate. while i do want that negative cr between bucky and inmates, i'm doing my best to never have that happen with the other wardens because his reason for being here would basically be negated if he ever does.

There's a few things I want to touch on here that run counter to my impressions playing here, so I wanted to get your perspective on them and maybe elaborate.

the extremely heavy lean into discussing the prison's political aspects. because of the way some characters have reacted icly and how people have commented on certain circumstances oocly, i feel like freely playing my character from his more harsher aspects will just alienate everyone both icly and oocly, and so i've held back on letting him do anything.

Do you have examples of the political aspects beyond what we've already discussed above with Fire? I think overwhelmingly wardens have tried to be very cooperative and collaborative, considering they've had multiple meetings, and they've also been really blunt with inmates. Jack, Travis and Rhys all spent time in solitary after attacking wardens and stealing an ATV, Rhys is facing a litany of consequences for knocking William out, and Travis has been told off by more than one warden. What am I missing re: the setting that's making it difficult for Bucky to be harsh?

comics universes are pretty wild as a basis, but bucky barnes has one of the darkest stories in the marvel comics and has arguable the darkest past in the marvel cinematic universe right now.

Sure! Bucky's had a very hard story. But I don't think he's necessarily super unique in that regard compared to the rest of the cast on the Peregrine; this isn't to say he's not special or anything, but I think he could find a lot of common ground with both wardens and inmates... Jack is a victim of awful scientific experimentation from childhood, Travis's parents were murdered in front of him and now he's a nutcase, Misty has been burned alive and alienated, William has done a lot of really gnarly R-rated shit. I think just about everyone has some heavy stuff in their story. Maybe there just needs to be more in the way of hooks going on to link up the tougher stuff in his story with the tough stuff in theirs. I've never had the impression anyone here isn't interested in playing with darker content with sufficient warnings; don't feel like you should name names here, as this is just general, but has anyone expressly told you they aren't interested in engaging with heavy stuff at all?

it's nerve-wracking to admit because i wholly expect people to come at me saying "wow that's so fucked up what's wrong with you why are you playing this character how dare you think about things like that" because it can hit a lot of real triggers for people, and we're just supposed to be writing things for fun here.

I think these things are perfectly fine to play here, actually, and I think people would give you a hugely varied responses to this if you did ask. I, for one, would not care about "fun being ruined" if you wanted to have Bucky to kick in Travis' figurative door and haul him off because that happening could be equally fun for me as a player as Travis taking goofy shit further –– but I would probably have some questions about whether something comparable to "torture" would be an appropriate or effective response from Bucky, depending on what the character did. Like, we can do it, sure, I can roll with it, but I think other characters would be well within their rights to think that's overkill (even if it's IC for Bucky!) because most of our inmates are pretty laid back in the sense that they aren't running around killing people on a whim... locking people up in a small space with minimal provisions might raise some eyebrows. I do think it's your responsibility to manage that part; it's unfeasible to ask players to minimize their characters' reactions and opinions so that you can play Bucky to his max, just as it would be unfeasible for you to play Bucky completely hands-off just so inmates can do something wild without having consequences. This definitely needs a lot of communication that I get the impression has maybe been lacking here, but that's an easy fix.

a lot of the discussion on believability and realism, were it more balanced toward the wardens, would get really dark really fast, and this isn't a horror game.

I really disagree with this note! Respectfully, I don't think a setting geared towards wardens would go horror-levels of dark because wardens are fundamentally good people who are trying to teach something good –– that isn't to say they can't do off-colour stuff, push boundaries in ways that veer inappropriate or make huge mistakes, but they are supposed to fundamentally have a code in order to get the job.

Regardless of what you choose to do with Bucky, whether that's adjusting how you play or adjusting how you interact with the game or just dropping, I wish you all the best and hope the stress in your life eases up soon!

yes! thank you. i think you've broken down the issue better than i did, and yeah. it's. like there's so much weight on not wanting to do the wrong thing on accident, that as babby lambs, the wardens have no concept of how much the inmates do deserve to be punished for stupid bullshit, probably even more severely than they are right now. and bucky's kind of the only one that doesn't care because he doesn't trust anyone anyway but all the wardens really want to trust each other and be able to trust (and gain the trust) of inmates.

I think it's definitely worth figuring out ways to "out" inmates' crimes more for sure. I'd hoped that reminders from the Navarch and Archie and the security levels would be decent clues, but if we have to make some tweaking to trickle out more information on that front, we can certainly look into that.

Just some observations and praise from my first month in the game - overall, I'm having a very excellent time!

- The mods are quick to respond, both in their capacity as mods and as NPCs!

- The setting is both easy to parse and detailed enough to provide built-in CR hooks, even for day-to-day stuff between events.

- The port I feel went quite smoothly and I appreciated having one catch-all log for it - kept things nice and neat!

- Overall my impression so far of the mod team has been very positive! You're easy to talk to, responsive to the player base and everything is well organized.

- I've found the player base to be welcoming, fun to thread with and easy to plot with. I hope I'm being the same in return!

- In general, RP is (only) as fun as the people involved, and this is a fun group! I'm really looking forward to how this game and the characters in it develop going forward.

further quick thoughts while I'm tired and will return to later probably: seconding Tam that the impression I've gotten via friends in-game is that people are in favor of realistic consequences/negative cr/etc, and that a lot of the ooc frustrations that are coming with this could perhaps be smoothed over before it becomes something that has to be dropped over — I know if I'd been threading with a certain tone with someone and they eventually said "I actually hate that tone and my character is now unplayable", I'd be pretty taken aback to see that they were having an issue and didn't approach me earlier on.

I'd also suggest having him just go for a shitty impulse if it presents itself and all hypothetically-involved parties are on board, things like that often turn into miniplots and produce good character beats, as well as kind of clear the ic air and allow for other characters to have some input or knock sense into people as needed to make ic adustments that a character wouldn't manage on their own. (Or more tamely, plotting ahead to ensure characters have opportunity to talk about [insert whatever] for like, a mental dry run/opportunity to Check Themselves.)

I think this is a very good point. I know Lucifer has already ICly had a discussion along these lines with Waver, trying to remind him that the inmates are all here for very good reasons, no matter how sympathetic they may be. Finding ways to make that more clear, as an OOC mechanic, might be helpful to some characters!

I know that would be helpful to me, personally!! I have no knowledge OOCly of the other game/the other ship and how things worked and what went down, so speaking as somebody coming in totally blind, it'd be useful to provide a real touchstone reason for my idealistic Warden to treat the place as more of a prison and less of a, like, sleepaway camp for troubled youths

I can't speak for everybody obviously but I think for all the people who weren't around for the initial "here's the number of people you killed on your nametag" event to have concrete info to rely on somehow.

Yeah, I think like, that's the question, isn't it? Because all the inmates have to do is go "Why should you believe someone as shady and hands-off and untrustworthy as the Navarch over me, someone you see and interact with and eat lunch with every day?" and yeah it's manipulative but.... I mean MY warden would buy it.

Yeah! Some of the inmates are obviously going to be lying, manipulative shits and some will be very good at it, and some wardens are just not gonna be prepared to deal with that without arming them with some information somehow.

First, I do want to thank the mods for all their hard work and labor. I saw ads for this game and was hype and stalking plurk for it. I love me a good redemption arc and meaty CR, and I'm grateful to be able to play in a game that encourages that. Thank you also to my fellow players. I've been loving my interactions with everyone.

I really don't have any major problems or complaints about the setting so much as worries for my own ability to RP. I'm kind of amused Alex has been almost a model 'prisoner' in many ways, by behaving. Which in some ways makes a lot of sense for him as he's seen no 'need' to act out or cause destruction or chaos yet. He's dangerously intelligent (I am not), and can be manipulative, but only when he sees a purpose for it. Not just for chaos.

So I feel like in some ways, I'm failing, by not being able to portray that more. Or like I'm doing something wrong. I need to look for opportunities/ways for him to actually let the asshole-side of himself out. Especially since for his arc, redemption is going to be "Don't become a monster like you could easily be.". It's probably me, as I've had a lot of trouble lately in RL with things draining me. I'm also more reactive sometimes to things than 'active'.

I had a lot of fun with the port, and I loved the SIRE thread I did. I'd love to do more like that, and for people to get to know Alex AND his fucked up crimes. (He has no doubts why he's an inmate. He'll just be very reluctant to do 'therapy' vs. 'hard time for his crimes' as it were--that's the conflict with him.)

Other than that, I hope I'm approachable and people can come to me with concerns. I'm on plurk pretty much constantly, and while I can be on discord--I prefer to poke people/friend them first for reasons I'd rather not get into. Please ask though if you want my disco info. I like talking about plots, and chars, and honestly engaging with someone else (Jenn and Kels have been wonderful about this already) can often help me figure things out.

oh dawg i just wanted to poke in here like

no one ever pinned him for it but volk was an ice cold manipulative motherfucker playing the game as below the belt as he could think of

bad person!!

For sure! Personally, I really prefer a harsher ship –– and honestly, Travis has had more consequences/pushback/judgement laid on him in 6 weeks than my inmate on the other ship had in 6 months, so that's why I'm not terribly concerned. We're still in early times, we're finding footing, so I think it'll be important to

a) make it more clear to wardens what inmates are in for
b) open up more avenues/motivations for inmates to act out
c) ideally recruit more inmates so that wardens don't outnumber them
d) encourage more communication OOC so that it's clear that inmate players are looking for consequences and warden players are interested in playing hardball.

And if there's anything else we can add to that, we will.

On top of that: I did very much like it when Grace told Travis the fuck off for being flippantly conversational with her when he's a bad guy. She's fantastic.

I can say straight up that our characters don't have actual negative CR, at least from my end - it may seem that way based on the one post, but as I mentioned elsewhere, my character is still adjusting to this role and the culture shock, and has been overbalancing as a result.

I was going to have him address it directly IC, but feel like now it would just come off weirdly OOC/IC blendy, so: V realized he was being micromanagey about the way Buck was handling Theo and cut himself off. It wouldn't have been IC for him to explain that in the moment. That's all.

Can't speak for anyone else's characters, but mine is fine with him. He's just... bitchy.

eta: That is not where I wanted to hit post, but okay, thanks fingers. ANYWAY I hope your concerns can be resolved, we're all here to have fun. Okay that's all.

Edited 2022-03-06 05:54 (UTC)

I don’t know, I think wardens disagreeing with each other over how to handle things is kinda par for the course? Again you can always talk to the player and figure out a way to make it work for everyone!

I think there is something to be said that IC conflicts between wardens is a thing that will happen in a setting like this (I was in TLV for a while a long time ago and it was a regular occurrence there too). I also completely understand feeling overwhelmed by thinking your character is the only warden who is currently on the more hard-line end of the spectrum, and you don't want him to be ICly dogpiled for being that way.

I will say that I've been playing Lucifer as a bit of a softie out of the gate here, for a lot of the same IC reasons that you have for Bucky holding back - he came in a new warden, he's literally the devil, he wanted to try and make the best impression he could on the other wardens because he didn't want to make enemies of them, so he's been very careful.

Of course, he's also kicked Travis's ass a couple of times already so there's that.

But I am not necessarily planning to have him keep being like this forever. He's literally the Devil, after all, and he's not above some tough love when he feels it's necessary. For instance, he's really been doing a number on Theo since being temp paired with him - not physically, but emotionally pushing him to the edge of a breakdown deliberately and for the express purpose of forcing Theo to face his guilt and self-loathing. It's real rough, but he believes it's necessary.

(It's also possible I'll have Lucifer backslide, or do some shady things at some point, he can be prone to that stuff and I'm always looking for opportunities.)

I GUESS basically my point is - at least a few of the wardens might not react as harshly as you think if Bucky is tougher on the inmates generally. And if you're ever in doubt, have an idea but want to make sure it won't get that kind of dogpile reaction, please feel free to run it by us! I hope and think we're all willing to discuss things OOC to make sure stuff goes down the way we want to and in ways that are fun for everyone.

No totally!!! OOCly that's the vibe i got from our thread, no doubt, like it was CLEAR that Volk was being hugely manipulative of Grace who was clearly insecure, it was GREAT

I had no issues with that, I don't want you to think that I did!!!! My issue is entirely with the mechanics, and it's easily fixed. If anything, I think Volk being a pushy li'l shit is just more incentive for some warden sometime to snap and do a Big Punish. Like if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes. Obviously ICly all the wardens want it to be one big happy family where everyone agrees on the course of action collectively but OOCly i crave violence

What am I missing re: the setting that's making it difficult for Bucky to be harsh?

predominantly what anna described, because between the wardens (together) trying to gain the trust of the inmates, it's become almost sacred to do anything other than solitary, where they still have a lot of freedom and might not learn anything. i don't think it's just locked to bucky being harsh, but if any warden were particularly harsh, it'd be like a collective gasp moment almost.

I don't think he's necessarily super unique in that regard compared to the rest of the cast

i wasn't trying to say he's unique or special. that was just the explanation for why he would be exceptionally harsh, especially compared to others. since you mentioned william though, he has actually been plain on the network on how poorly inmates were treated on the last ship, and that gives strong ic cause for a lot of wardens to be more careful because no one wants to make things as bad as they were on the other ship. william also isn't going to be as harsh either. there was a whole chunk of network interaction where bucky was lambasted for giving silco a nickname, which tells me oocly that icly characters will not take to harsh things well.

has anyone expressly told you they aren't interested in engaging with heavy stuff at all?

no. while i expressed my anxiety with that, i know there are some plot beats that people are trying to get in with the current situation in-game, and since it would affect that, i have held back because i don't want to impact the story some people are in the middle of still telling. is it something i can ask and check with them each independently? yes, but even icly right now a lot of wardens would take it very poorly and that's something i'm trying to avoid as a player.

I do think it's your responsibility to manage that part; it's unfeasible to ask players to minimize their characters' reactions and opinions so that you can play Bucky to his max, just as it would be unfeasible for you to play Bucky completely hands-off just so inmates can do something wild without having consequences.

i don't disagree. i'm not asking people to change for my character, and i'd never want them to. my writing about it is expressing my feelings as a player, not a criticism of other players/character. i'm laying that out so people know what's going on for me right now since it's related to the current state of the game. it's a catch-22 for me/bucky from ooc and ic perspectives.

re: horror game, that was a more extreme comparison than i really intended, so i'm sorry i expressed that poorly.

thank you so so much for all your support, jenn. i really really appreciate it, and i'm sorry if i've done poorly with explaining anything or letting my anxiety color things a particular way i wasn't intending. a lot of the ooc anxiety i expressed about people reacting negatively has more to do with not knowing if i'm speaking well enough or not and less to do with anyone directly.

Thank you!!! I have to say I've had no issues with the mods or communication or ic/ooc divide and everyone I've played with and spoken to have been super welcoming and awesome. It's clear the amount of work that goes into making this game great for everybody in it.

and YEAH GOD she was SO confused, like "bro why.... are you talking to me like we're buds, what is happening, WILLIAM COME GET YOUR BOY" I mean it's always been clear that Travis is there to stir shit up and be A Problem so thank you for the opportunities he creates in that way, it's wonderful

venn diagram between "mother i crave violence" and "jail for mother for ten thousand years"

dawg volk's point of death is someone literally got TOO fed up

god actually dropping was a great idea i feel so easy breezy beautiful covergirl right now . the freedom

Edited 2022-03-06 06:20 (UTC)

Yeah I talked more with you about this on plurk but: yes this

I also think that it's something that'll come with time/more incidents, but I doubt Bucky is alone in being capable of pushing back against the inmates more, I think it's just a thing where we need to progress a teensy bit further along in the overarching plot before we have REASON to

I mean Grace right now is a timid li'l insecure babbin but she's absolutely CAPABLE of dark, violent things, and her entire arc is learning to be proactive and stand up for herself against inmate manipulation and threat, so just speaking for myself I know it's absolutely on the table. I think it might seem like, at least ICly, because of the current environment people are averse to more outright punishment, but I don't necessarily think that a little IC conflict among wardens is a bad thing. Not that you should feel like you HAVE to put yourself in that position if you don't want to, and I know that's where you're coming from right now, so. I GET IT, IS ALL I'M SAYIN', AND I'M LEAVING IT IN A POST HERE FOR POSTERITY, GOSH DARNIT

sorry, i think i expressed things poorly, since the situation you described isn't really what i'd meant by it or what's happened, to my knowledge.

overall, the ic circumstances make it difficult for me to want to involve my character in that way oocly, and that's not something i'm trying to directly pin on anyone oocly. i just wanted to share where my character is right now in relation to the game. the anxiety i expressed oocly about upsetting people is separately because, while i know a lot of characters have rough histories, i'm conscious of how the topics related to it aren't comfortable for everyone, even in explaining it, i don't want to misspeak and be misunderstood about respecting people's boundaries.

+1 to these sentiments, am very pleased!

but also: get outta here with that icon

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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STATE OF THE GAME

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