The Intergalactic Highway

What if in our RP episodes including the canon ones we make them more focused on one major event or a couple of characters? I think one of the problems we have here is that we all are putting in all of our characters in each episode. We have alot of OCs mixed in with canon. We have all of this fascinating characters and I know we all want our characters to have good development and time for interaction.

What I'm suggesting is that before each episode we can pick or choose what episodes we want our characters to appear in like for example, I can choose to either leave out Whitegrazer in one episode, writing her off to do something else in the background and choose to RP as Blackarachina in that one only, vice versa, or include both. Like in the BW episodes, not every character appears in every episode, but the majority of them come together in major events like the aliens or Megatron's more extreme agendas.

Another thing, maybe before each new episode (at least the ones in between canon) , we can plot maybe a couple of things that need to happen in the next episodes. Maybe even give both OC and canon characters each a turn as a major player in a certain goal. I hope I'm making sense here.

What do you guys think?

So.. Kinda like the side episodes we used to do.

Oh...right. But I mean like we should give each player (how many players do we have? I need to count. ) a chance to direct their own episode, giving them chances to do what they wished to do for their character and others can like choose to put one or both of their characters in the episode.

Sorry, I was just thinking of ways to help improve the RP abit so that people won't feel pressured to rush or don't know what to do next. Also, helping to smooth out what has to happen in an episode so people aren't lost nor are they restrained.

Ah, kinda like how characters have episodes focused on them in tv shows. Well.. that would make some of the new stasis pods coming easier I suppose.. Specially if we don't limit them to dropping on the same day and have to worry about spreading them out so thin..

Edit: Hm.. that would also work as a form of "DMing" I suppose.. either way, we could give it a shot Una. I'm guessing you have a plan for such an event?

una wrote:What if in our RP episodes including the canon ones we make them more focused on one major event or a couple of characters? I think one of the problems we have here is that we all are putting in all of our characters in each episode. We have alot of OCs mixed in with canon. We have all of this fascinating characters and I know we all want our characters to have good development and time for interaction.

What I'm suggesting is that before each episode we can pick or choose what episodes we want our characters to appear in like for example, I can choose to either leave out Whitegrazer in one episode, writing her off to do something else in the background and choose to RP as Blackarachina in that one only, vice versa, or include both. Like in the BW episodes, not every character appears in every episode, but the majority of them come together in major events like the aliens or Megatron's more extreme agendas.

I'm really torn about this idea.

I think players who are having trouble finding things for their characters to do, are at this point, writing small posts with a few lines and very little development just to establish their characters' whereabouts and not really do anything plot related. They sort of feel obligated to post. If we tried your idea, those particular players would have a more clear direction and if there was nothing for them to do, then they wouldn't have to post anything, they could just sit out.

Not to mention, the more people involved in the story-line, the longer a person has to wait until their turn comes up again to post which is why we saw little progress with the spiders' plan once they got to the bridge. There were more people that needed to post and more waiting that needed to be done. Eliminating the number of characters involved might help with that.

Yet, then again, maybe it won't help. We've all agreed that real life comes first and sometimes we get busy or aren't feeling well or we had a long day at work and are too tired to post. Eliminating the number of people involved in an episode, won't eliminate the real life factors that sometimes come up. You might still be waiting a week for a player to respond who went away on vacation or who was sick. That's what happened to us several weeks ago. Our particular part of the plot, which only involved three players, was halted for more than a week because you were sick. It's certainly no one's fault when real life factors come in to play and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it except wait patiently until that particular player can post.

Furthermore, throughout this episode really cool character developments and character interactions popped up as side stories that wouldn't have happened if the episode had been set up the way that you described. Because of characters not being involved in the central plot, those characters were able to interact together on the side. Aurora and Tigatron, for example, because they were at the base with nothing to do related to the BIG plot line, they were able to have private moments off to the side to explore their characters' emotions and reactions to other things going on. But, now, they're involved in the central plot again. If they hadn't been participating at all, we wouldn't have gotten to see them have that moment.

I mean, we all enjoying playing around with things that were not a part of the show. I think we can do that much better if there are some moments when our characters have nothing to do related to the plot. By not being in an episode, we forfeit our chance to be creative and to, more or less, create our own plot lines.

Though, perhaps you have a point, perhaps there are times when it is best to stick to the intended story line and not have those moments. Perhaps we can have, as we had before, side episodes to have our characters have those moments together. Maybe instead of setting it up the way you described for every episode, we can just set it up like that for when there is a lot to cover in a particular episode and not a lot of time to have side stories within the main story line. Sometimes they are great to have, but sometimes they hold us up.

Another thing, maybe before each new episode (at least the ones in between canon) , we can plot maybe a couple of things that need to happen in the next episodes. Maybe even give both OC and canon characters each a turn as a major player in a certain goal. I hope I'm making sense here.

What do you guys think?

As far as this particular episode is concerned, I think we bit off more than we could chew. If you remember way back before the episode started, we DID discuss the basic outline of things that were supposed to happen in a thread called "First Season Finale Discussion." The list went something like this:

• The Vok make contact again with their giant, nutty green dome thing. It doesn't matter if we stick to the show or not, so it doesn't have to necessarily be Airazor and Rattrap who discover it first, but it should probably be Maximals who do and would then contact OP about it to get his monkey butt over there. Optimus will be the one the Vok will want to speak to for obvious reasons.

• Megatron should still obtain the alien gold disk, so a Predacon needs to find it and retrieve it for him since he is a lazy t-rex.

• Truce or no truce between the factions? What do you guys think since we'll be skipping the episode that started that?

• Tarantulas and Blackarachnia (or other Predacon scientists) invade the Axalon and create a stasis pod functional for flying to the moon/weapon that will lead to Primal's death.

• Primal is terminated, saving the planet, his Maximals and the Predacons. Transwarp wave is created and sweeps the planet, detonating most of the raw energon deposits, rocking the planet, and possibly killing Terrorsaur and Scorponok. ...Can't remember what was decided on their fates.

And that was just the stuff BEFORE we started brainstorming more stuff. We said we were "skipping" the episode with the truce, but we really didn't. The current episode, entitled on the forum as "First Season Finale Parts I-III," is actually three of the show's episodes all together. It is the events from "Before the Storm," "Other Voices Part I," and "Other Voices Part II." So it's no small wonder why it's taking a whole year to get through it! Perhaps it would have been better to have split this up into other episodes instead of trying to do it all as one.

This is what has happened so far:

> Inferno finds the golden disk for Megatron (Before the Storm episode)
> Truce talk between Optimus and Megatron (Before the Storm episode)
> Meanwhile, Predacons attack the Axalon (Original content)
> Both factions have to discuss this with their team and make everyone aware that there is a truce and what is allowed and not allowed (Original content)
> Truce talk rerun between Optimus and Megatron (Original content)
> Meanwhile, Ironclaw sneaks into the Predacon base to discover that they have the gold disk (Before the Storm episode)
> Debriefing of both teams (Before the Storm episode)
> Spiders make their allegiance and their plans to get off the planet (Other Voices Part I)
> Discovery of the Mushroom (Other Voices Part I)
> Airrazor and Whitegrazer get trapped inside the mushroom (Other Voices Part I)
> Optimus goes in to save them and gets trapped himself (Other Voices Part I)
> Spiders get to the base and shoot up the bridge (Other Voices Part I)
> Truce ends (Other Voices Part I)
> Optimus gets out of the Mushroom thing (Other Voices Part I)
> Termination sequence starts (Other Voices Part I)
> Maximals head back to base (Other Voices Part II)

As you can see, we still have a lot left to do. We've only just started the events that make up Other Voices Part II.

I think we just had a lot more to do than we all realized and it feels like it is taking an awful long time, but, keep in mind, this was supposed to be a four part episode in real life. Bob Forward had to change that. So even the writers of the series realized that this episode was kind of a big deal and had a lot of stuff to cover in it.

I guess there's the possibility of doing it comic book style. Characters have their own individual issues that are considered to be canon in their respective universes. Yet, there's often a macro-scaled issue running at the same time featuring a bunch of different heroes and villains. A character may be featured in both his/her individual story as well as the big event.

So, assume I decide to make a topic called "Orcariner #1: Blast from the Past!" that features my main OC with Rampage as his villain. Other OCs such as Aphrodite may join in on that topic since said OC is related to the story. However, Orcariner may also be found in the primary episode that's simultaneously running ("Code of Honor" for example). Both stories are considered canon, but we leave actual dates ambiguous so that they all can fit together in the end.

This is just one way to allows our characters to speed up with character development while at the same time participating in major events. On the other hand, we have a ton of OCs on the roster which means the RPG board will be flooded if everyone makes a new topic for their character.

Eh.. yeah. Plus we'll probably have to set up some side quests for all these stasis pods.. which I've lost track of. Definitely first off the list will have to be Scaleblade, Tantrum, and Aphrodite. Maybe I can set something up.. though I'll have to contact those players.

Alak wrote:I guess there's the possibility of doing it comic book style. Characters have their own individual issues that are considered to be canon in their respective universes. Yet, there's often a macro-scaled issue running at the same time featuring a bunch of different heroes and villains. A character may be featured in both his/her individual story as well as the big event.

So, assume I decide to make a topic called "Orcariner #1: Blast from the Past!" that features my main OC with Rampage as his villain. Other OCs such as Aphrodite may join in on that topic since said OC is related to the story. However, Orcariner may also be found in the primary episode that's simultaneously running ("Code of Honor" for example). Both stories are considered canon, but we leave actual dates ambiguous so that they all can fit together in the end.

This is just one way to allows our characters to speed up with character development while at the same time participating in major events. On the other hand, we have a ton of OCs on the roster which means the RPG board will be flooded if everyone makes a new topic for their character.

True there would be a lot of different threads going at once, but perhaps we could set a limit to how many side stories are going on at once. And instead of just featuring one character, perhaps we could feature two that maybe have similar stories or maybe are interacting together or even two stories at the same time so that we wouldn't have to keep making a separate story for each character. For example, the side saga that we did before the finale episode is kind of like what you're describing. I mean, the arrival of Ironclaw, Arachnitron, and Aurora were definitely central themes in that episode (I think that was it, did I miss anyone?). So instead of calling it "Episode 5.5: Side Saga" or whatever we ended up calling it, we could have called it, "O.C. Adventure Episode #1: Featuring Ironclaw, Arachnitron and Aurora." Before we started the episode, we divided characters up into teams: "So-and-so and so-and-so will be going after So-and-so's pods," etc.

Maybe we could limit it to having the main story happening and one OC Episode happening that maybe features one minimum-three maximum OC's. And then, maybe we could set up a rotation so that everyone's OC gets a turn and if you don't want to have your OC featured in an episode, then you opt out or if you wanted to wait until a specific time, we could pencil your character's episode in at a specific time. And that's not to say that you can't have side stuff happen during either episode, but there just has to be an agreement that it isn't going to be anything that would take the attention away from the central story line or that would cause your character to miss out on parts that they are supposed to be participating in.

Perhaps we could even layout, in a separate discussion, OC story lines that characters want to happen around the same time as what is happening in the main story line. To clarify: Maybe Orcariner wants to have an episode with Rampage that occurs after Rampage enters, but around the time as one of "The Agenda" story lines. And other characters can choose to participate in the side story with Orcariner or in the main story line or both if they aren't really playing a vital role in either story. But maybe the featured OC or OC's have to opt out of the main story.

Maybe there are even cannon plot lines that we don't want to include in the main story-line, but some people are still interested in playing with their particular character. That could be something we could do as a side episode as well.

Personally I much prefer the non-canon episodes since they allow for more freedom in using your imagination and better character development than most of the canon episodes have (or at least for me). But I don't really want everyone to set off on their own little separate adventure since that would likely mean that people don't interact much together since that would require them to actively participate in "other peoples' threads" when they have their own to worry about. And so we essentially will have a bunch of people writing fanfics instead of an rpg that encourages people to interact with others.

I hope that makes sense.. I didn't get much sleep last night.

So instead of calling it "Episode 5.5: Side Saga" or whatever we ended up calling it, we could have called it, "O.C. Adventure Episode #1: Featuring Ironclaw, Arachnitron and Aurora."

I'm not so sure about this either.. This particular episode may have been where I introduced Aurora, but I'd say Nemesis held a much bigger role in this episode than Aurora did. Although it would be nice if we could give the episodes actual names based on specific events that take place in them or something of the sort.

Phoenix wrote:Personally I much prefer the non-canon episodes since they allow for more freedom in using your imagination and better character development than most of the canon episodes have (or at least for me). But I don't really want everyone to set off on their own little separate adventure since that would likely mean that people don't interact much together since that would require them to actively participate in "other peoples' threads" when they have their own to worry about. And so we essentially will have a bunch of people writing fanfics instead of an rpg that encourages people to interact with others.

It makes perfect sense and is another reason why I, too, am torn with the idea.

I'm not so sure about this either. This particular episode may have been where I introduced Aurora, but I'd say Nemesis held a much bigger role in this episode than Aurora did. Although it would be nice if we could give the episodes actual names based on specific events that take place in them or something of the sort.

Well, it was more of an example than an actual suggestion to put in play, but I do agree. Which I guess brings us to another good point. I mean, no one knows where the story will go when it starts. We have a basic outline when we begin an episode, but sometimes things happen that change the story. We could name it one thing like "Night of the Mummy Creature," but then never actually get to the part about the Mummy Creature because some other story ends up engaging the players more than the main story that was intended to happen (that was a really horrible example, but it was all I could think of). We could have said, as you pointed out, that the episode was going to feature Aurora, but then Nemesis ends up upstaging the feature character. In other words, sometimes what we plan to happen and what actually happens are somewhat different.

Ummm...if you guys are sticking to the "OC Episode X: featuring A, B, C", how about making a roster? Whoever has an idea for their OC episode could start first.

.:Example:.

1. Ironclaw, "title of episode", "brief episode summary like those in wikipedia"
2. and so on
3. and so on

Scaleblade's currently kinda busy with her real life stuff. I'll contact her if we finish the first season.

starshadow wrote:Ummm...if you guys are sticking to the "OC Episode X: featuring A, B, C", how about making a roster? Whoever has an idea for their OC episode could start first.

.:Example:.

1. Ironclaw, "title of episode", "brief episode summary like those in wikipedia"
2. and so on
3. and so on

Scaleblade's currently kinda busy with her real life stuff. I'll contact her if we finish the first season.

I think it's kind of still just an idea. I mean, it was Una's idea and we sort of ran with it....not sure if what we're describing is even what she had in mind.

Hmmm..if I'm not wrong, the idea is like a "TV episode" or something like that, ummm am I right Una?

For example, Season 1 episode: The Web, which mainly focuses on Cheetor. If that's what Una's suggesting, lots of thinking of the episode idea has to be done. I kinda like this idea!

I apologize if what I said didn't make sense or was hard to understand, guys. I know alot of times I don't make much sense. I'm sorry. I'm bad with words sometimes.

Starshadow, yes, that was what I was going for in a sense. I was trying to think of a way for all of us to have chances with our characters especially in development and interaction. We have all these canon and OCs together and it would be a shame if they all don't get their chance. So I was trying to think how we can give each player a chance so how about each player get a chance to direct an episode? They can put up a plot they want and players can choose to either join or not. Those that don't...we can have another thread that takes place where the other players can either interact, do their own thing, and/or like was suggested, have another mission happening. So there would be two threads open, but no more than that. I believe three may be too either confusing or difficult to keep up.

Blackrosefencer, yeah, I understand. I was thinking about it and got a bit torn too. It would be fun, but it would probably cause other problems too. I mean we don't have many players if we have each direct an episode but what if real life takes away players for a time or how long would we take until we get into a canon episode.

So I was thinking...now, don't yell at me. We don't do them. I mean the events can happen, but storyline is just told differently. We just pick and choose what events are really important like in S2, the aliens and the Agenda. We just make sure we do them, but we don't have to do them as we saw on the show, bringing up all our little twists to the story along with what has been happening to both canon and OC characters.

I mean we are already doing it already. Why not make it officially so we know what major events need to happen but the other stuff? We can all do whatever we want. XD

I hope this makes sense now.

I like the idea of character or event specific episodes. I understand that some may say that we are currently doing that. Maybe. But like what some have already said, maybe some sort overall theme for an episode so that a specific player can drive the plot. Now it seems that everyone is pitching in their ideas and episodes are formed by beginning and carrying on and on until we have to rush to finish. Maybe more structure? I don't know, its just and observation. However plot specific episodes would be a nice idea.

EDIT: I haven't been a part of the RPG that long. Not trying to step on anyones toes.