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.
But I mean like we should give each player (how many players do we have? I need to count. 
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.