State of the Game

[tabularasa_mods]

State of the Game
Hello, everyone!

It’s been four months since Tabula Rasa opened, and we’re thrilled to see that all of you have been having fun so far. The three of us try to keep our fingers on the pulse regarding what you all think of the game as fellow players, but we wanted to address you all in a mod capacity to give you a peek into what’s coming next and get some feedback in an open forum while also answering some frequently asked questions.

Upcoming Events

For November, we will not be holding any events like we did for September and October and will instead be focusing on catching up on imprints. In the meantime, we'd love to hear any feedback anyone has for our past two events! If there is anything in particular you enjoyed (or did not enjoy) about the memory share and nightmare events, or if there are any types of events you'd like to see in the future, please let us know your thoughts.

We will also not be posting a mod-run mingle post for this month since we are not running any events to center it on. Though we've posted mingle logs without events in the past, without a central event or location to "mingle" around we've had difficulty coming up with prompts that don't feel disjointed. The secondary purpose of these logs, which was to act as an intro log for new players after each app cycle, has also become unnecessary with the changes to our app system. We feel it would be better to leave these non-event months open for players to host their own logs, mingle or otherwise, as most activity seems to go into the mingle logs as soon as they go up.

We will still be posting an imprint update on the 15th as we always do, and this certainly won't be the end of event mingles! We just wanted to give everyone a heads-up in case anyone was expecting a mingle this month.

For December, we will be running a more relaxed, lighthearted event where players will be able to receive an event bonus for their characters. There will be a sign up post for this event within the first week of December. This is all we will say about it for now, but we hope you will all look forward to it!

For January and onward, we have some ideas but nothing is currently set in stone. We will likely be introducing the imprinted concept of either mana or evolution after the holidays, so we are open to suggestions on what sort of chaos could be caused by either (or both!) of these options.

Metaplot & Lore Compliancy (Or Lack Thereof)

Tabula Rasa does not have an existing metaplot, and our intent from the game's conception has been to shape its "plot" purely around character choice and actions. This is something we feel some players may have overlooked, as Tabula Rasa works a bit differently from most typical jamjar games on Dreamwidth. We want to reiterate here that we have no long term plans for the game's direction and no overarching mystery that players must solve.

This isn't to say that there will be no long term plots or mysteries in Tabula for players to explore, however, but that any plots or mysteries that develop will be based entirely on what the characters in the game decide to focus on. We'd like to remind everyone as well to please use the Organic Imprints post whenever possible to keep us updated on what characters are up to. We can't be in every thread at once, so it's a huge help to us if we could see more of that! It also means you can be sure we've seen something if there's a particular goal or concept your character has been working towards.

We'd also like to touch on the idea of lore compliancy, or characters sticking to the rules of the setting such as on the State of the World page. A few times now we've seen players make posts or comments that contradict or misunderstand the rules outlined for the game's setting... and that's great! We want to make it clear to everyone that we care far more about the spirit of the rule being followed rather than the word of the rule - honest mistakes are fine, as is fudging the mechanics a bit for the sake of a fun idea. The nature of the setting means that any discrepancies between characters can be easily explained, so we'd really like to see this embraced as a more active method to pursue organic imprints and expand on the setting. You can see any of our TDM prompts for examples of this: everything used for these prompts is something that is not strictly outlined anywhere in the game's setting, but we would absolutely not mind it if players took similar ideas and ran with them.

You're always welcome to ask us directly if something is okay or not, and we love to see creative questions! We really want to stress that we're interested in working with everyone to build the kind of setting you'd all enjoy, so please don't ever hesitate to bug us about an idea you have or want to work towards. As this is a game driven by character actions, we want to give as much freedom to players as we can in order to achieve that.

Imprints & Influence Points

The way that the imprint system functions in regards to game mechanics is to achieve a means to an end. Tabula Rasa’s setting is a blank slate that requires groundwork to be built before more complex concepts can be introduced in the way that they are intended to work.

We’ve taken note of some OOC concerns about “wasting” influence points, with the fear that what is outlined in a submitted imprint will be misconstrued or not applied in the way that is intended. Although we understand the hesitation, we want to reassure you that there’s no such thing as wasting points! As long as your goal for the imprint is communicated to us in the submission, it will eventually be implemented as such. The road that it takes to get there, however, may not be as direct or immediate as Point A → Point B; what happens in between is where you can let your creativity shine! The world of Tabula Rasa grows with and around the influence of the characters inhabiting it, and will build itself based on previously established concepts and ideas. Reiterating what was stated in the metaplot heading, there’s no harm in asking us whether or not something can be done, and we can tell you right now that the answer will probably be “yes” - the lack of IC structure in the setting is what makes this possible.

We also want to reiterate that if something is submitted to us that we already have in the works, we won't accept the submission and "waste" those points either. New and unexpected changes to the setting may spring up through character actions, but we don't want anyone to worry about wasting influence because they submitted something that would've happened anyway! If something is already being planned for the near future that's overly similar to a player submitted imprint, we'll tell you this before we decline your submission. Once the change has occurred in the game, you're welcome to resubmit the imprint again if you feel your goals were different enough to build off it.

As a quick side note, we always select one imprint from an accepted application; any unused imprint suggestions (if applicable) are discarded and can be re-submitted with influence points.

Open Discussion

That’s about all we wanted to address, so we will leave the discussion floor to you with a few questions! There’s no need to answer all of them; feel free to elaborate on as few or as many as you like if you have feedback. You’re also welcome to bring up topics we may not have mentioned.

• How are you enjoying the game so far?
• Are you comfortable with the daily life/event ratio?
• Are there any sorts of events that you’d like to see in the future?
• What are your thoughts on the imprint/influence system?
• Are there any game mechanics that you think need more clarification?
• What parts of the game setting would you like to see expanded on the most? (ie. building on existing locations vs. creating new ones, concepts, species, etc.)

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code bases by tricklet

Comments

tl;dr I'm so sorry

[halloflamer]

How are you enjoying the game so far?
Love it! I like that the game's cast is small enough to be really tight-knit and feel like the game all kinda knows each other, but not so small that it's slow or boring. And everyone is really funny and friendly!

Are you comfortable with the daily life/event ratio?
For the most part! I'm gonna echo the sentiments that major events would be better spaced out to every other month or so, especially if they involve heavier themes. I've noticed the majority of the game goes hard on backtagging due to the slower pace and so I think holding events back to back doesn't work well for that. As for me, I spent most of the Mementos event basically just having Blue shitpost like an idiot because I had already had him spilling his guts during a lot of the memory event, and I didn't want to drag him down to such a depressing level two months in a row (on top of dealing with an important CR drop). I totally understand why you guys timed it the way that you did, with the Mementos regain being lined up in the queue, and I also have noticed that it appears you guys have started arranging the order of queued regains by what 'works' best in pacing and I think that's definitely the best way to tackle the potential pacing issue.

I will say that I definitely (with this particular character) prefer more slice of life events and that horror themes are something I would typically avoid with him, especially if they involve gore or violence. Due to the nature of the game premise you sort of attract every flavor of character so of course you're naturally going to have some characters who gel better with serious subjects and some who flow better with SoL. I think having some kind of opt out option, even if it's just one tossaway prompt for stuff that may get too heavy for some characters/players would be nice for events like that (as would having some sort of deeper subject matter for characters to ponder/investigate- say a revelation about the universe of the void- during months where there are big SoL premises!).

Are there any sorts of events that you’d like to see in the future?
Honestly, nothing in particular! As above I like light-hearted stuff and I think there's plenty of wacky hijinx events that are fixtures of jamjar games that could be fun to have eventually for sure- I was just discussing somewhere that it would be funny if we had an age up/down event if, for example, any characters ever regained the concept of timetravel powers or time-control powers, only for them to go awry and the void to erm, misinterpret the idea of 'a person traveling through time'. Or something along those lines! I love deep character exploration like the memshare, but I also like just dumb, tropey events like that.

What are your thoughts on the imprint/influence system?
I'll also echo some of what's been said that the points amounts are fine but maybe additional ways (maybe even a different bonus goal each month, as was suggested) would be great. Personally I felt a little guilty because it does feel like bigger casts like the Pokémon cast have a bit of an advantage, even though we can't pool our points together, to regain stuff from our worlds; for example there's already a couple Pokémon species, locations and concepts but other canons have maybe just one or two of those. So I think making it easier for everyone to regain things faster might be a good idea, with bonuses. (That'll also make it easier for you to space our regains out with other people's :P)

As far as the concern for 'wasting' points, it's great to know that you'll just give us the heads up on if something is going to be implemented anyway! That said I do think that it would be helpful to have a better idea- maybe a loose roadmap of sorts- for what you, the modteam's plans are for the natural progression of concepts a couple months out, since the points for major regains do take several months to gather up. We know it's based on what you see characters focusing on or discussing, but I think it's still hard to predict how quickly we may see certain things appear in the world, which in turn makes it a bit tough to decide what sorts of regains may actually be usable or useful in the world of the game.

Alongside that- I also really like the spirit of the organic regain system (I love feeling like mods are stalking our juicy threads), but I have a couple comments on that-

Are there any game mechanics that you think need more clarification?
It's less that I'm confused by the organic regains and more that I rarely feel like the ideas that I think would be quickest to be naturally regained actually come up in on-screen conversation; for example I feel like it goes without saying that most characters have strongly noted the lack of a day-night cycle, or a monthly calendar, or even a sun or moon in the sky, but it may not actually come up in the threaded conversations (either because smalltalk like that is sort of boring to thread and threads usually end up centering on subjects about characters themselves, or because everyone has sort of taken it for granted at this point).

On the flipside, for anything I do have, I feel like none of my mentions of any possible concepts was particularly 'strong' enough to submit it (like just a tossaway in the brackets of an unrelated tag)- which is on me I guess, in the end, but I was pondering if perhaps there isn't some way, like a monthly/bimonthly player poll, that we can all collectively vote on concepts like that. Something like 'my character has most strongly been noticing 'x' or 'y' thing'.

What parts of the game setting would you like to see expanded on the most? (ie. building on existing locations vs. creating new ones, concepts, species, etc.)
I think I would like to see a steady path towards at least the basic physics and logic of the world becoming a little more established, so that things don't need to be confusing or misaligned so often? As an aside- I am totally the type of player to worry about lore compliance and double triple check the SotW page a hundred times, but I don't think I've seen much worry about lore compliance between other players myself! But if there is then I do wonder if it's less that anyone is worried about establishing the 'wrong' things and more that it can make it difficult for characters to talk about certain subjects when the misunderstanding is on an OOC level and not just a matter of 'the universe is inconsistent' on an IC level? if this makes sense...! I know it's been said that we can just take these discrepancies as 'hiccups of the void' but it does cause tangles here and there when (for an old TDM example) one player is under the impression that fire *never* burns things and another is assuming their character will get burnt, and suddenly your tags are kinda talking past each other. (I haven't actually seen this happen but that's the scenario I'm imagining you guys are talking about?)

AND to echo what a couple of other people said- giving some of the less used locations more reason to be used in threads would be awesome!

[forethinking]

seconding kit!