Seonid

My newest Shard game is coming up soonish - probably pretty soon after the AG. Those are always long and complicated, and in desperate need of a co-GM.

Funny story: right after I posted, I had a conversation with an old friend who is also going. Turns out he will have 3 extra wristbands available from his plus ones, which is enough for my whole party. So I'm actually covered, and you don't need to pick up an extra one for me. But thank you so much for offering!

@CaptainRyan That would be wonderful!

On a related note, is anyone going to be in the ticket line that doesn't have their plus one spoken for yet?

Hey, so I'm not able to make it to Provo until mid afternoon. (At least, not without standing in the line for hours with small children in tow - which is mostly a non starter). What do y'all think the likelihood is that tickets will run out by 3:00?

Yep. They do. You can't blame the last ditch effort of a semi active and highly distracted villager, though. Well played, though. Good job. I shouldn't have signed up, frankly. I didn't have the time to do a good job at anything this game, so i just hovered around the borders of inactivity, trying desperately to come up with something to contribute. Ultimately, it wasn't enjoyable for anyone concerned.

Probably too late, but I think that Araris and Aonar are evil. Probably the last two, if my analysis holds. My guess would be 5 Elims for a game this size, which means 4 beads of atium for the seer. One remained unused, meaning 3 conversions. We got 1 of them, so there's the last two. @Elbereth, @little wilson, @Shqueeves (I saw you post in LG40 - I know you're around! You can at least give us a villager vote!), @Paranoid King, @StrikerEZ, @Doc12, @DarianHammersmith Posting within the next 24 hours would be appreciated, to let us know if you're around and can be counted.

Well, since it looks like there are only 3 of us, and since the vote is tied at 1-1, I'm going to do Araris out of self-preservation.

I'm convinced by Wilson's innocence at the moment as well. Unfortunately, I don't have much to point to to say for myself. I'm not evil, but I can't prove it. At this stage of the game, it's most likely a death sentence. As far as suspicions go, I don't have much. I'll try to go back through the last few cycles and see what I can come up with.

I like it a lot. Although Rose is taking this remarkably well - perhaps just a hair on the "sounds like she knows more than she's telling" side. I take it that she and Sam have talked about possibilities like this before? Is that what the Hogwarts pact is?

I've skipped ahead a bit in my writing, planning on coming back to the bits that are slowing me down. Unfortunately, that makes posting updates here a bit tricky, as they would otherwise be out of order. I'll catch up pretty soon, and do one large update. Also, I'm still behind

@The Young Bard, you've managed to almost completely reproduce my thoughts on the matter (although I haven't actually been paying attention to the metanarrative issues. I thought that it was largely defunct, though apparently I am wrong here.) If I didn't know better, I'd swear you'd been reading my mind. I haven't really been on Discord since I moved to my new place - up until recently, I haven't had a computer of my own out of storage (that was annoying - I had to finish the last game I GMed on library computers) - so I haven't been a participant in the conversations there. But I think that you are fundamentally correct with your analyses. I have been highly concerned about the amount of non-standard games coming up through the pipeline - and I think others have as well. But part of the problem is the lack of responsiveness posed by how long our GM lists are. If we start trying to change that from where we are, we don't see a response in the system for months or longer. There is a way around it - if GMs currently on the list are willing to run more standard games and delay the long and complex ones, then we can see responses in the system much sooner. I similarly hope that the GM Creation Committee will be sufficient to mitigate these issues, combined with an awareness of it. With regards to competitiveness and wanting to win at the expense of fun, I don't have a lot of firm, concrete suggestions. I also identify the problem with the growing lack of camaraderie among players. And I have similarly wondered if the Discord chat has had an effect on it. It almost seems like we are playing the games for the sake of the games now, and not because we like the people we are playing with. I started playing - back at the time of the first Anniversary Game - because it looked interesting to me. I stayed because I fell in love with the community and the friendships I made there. I left a number of times, because I got busy with work and school, but I always came back for the people. I can honestly say that, if my first game had happened at any point in the last 6 months, I wouldn't have stayed around. There's not enough glue left. Communities grow and change and evolve. This is an unavoidable fact. But as members of this community, each of us has the opportunity to be involved in shaping how SE changes. If it takes a turn for the worse, that's on us. If we want it to be better, that's on us too. For me, maybe that means not signing up for a game, even if it looks like a lot of fun, if I don't think I'll realistically have the time to participate. And maybe it means doing a better job of being involved when I do have the time. Anyone else have thoughts? I think this is an important set of issues to discuss, and I think we ought to a great deal of the discussion here, where everyone can see it.

Interesting. I wasn't expecting that. We may have a chance yet. Sorry @Elbereth - I didn't respond to your ping earlier. I've been distracted today.

This reminds me of the feeling I get when i finish one of the sample chapters for oathbringer. You tell a good story here. I'll withhold more specific commentary until i have a larger sample to see how things hold together

Let's be clear, my theory was not that he bussed Rae to lynch Lemon. My theory was that he bussed Rae to gain village trust and to be able to direct the next few lynches. Lemon was simply an easy target. Recent developments seem to price me wrong - it's not in keeping with Elim!Orlok. So, Orlok. Don't ask me where to look from here

I'm good for my word. Orlok I now believe that you bussed Rae in order to set yourself up as a trusted village and waste a couple cycles of potential discussion.

Here's today's writing update. 1468 words, and another introduction scene. This explains a little bit of the background of the trial we just saw concluding in the last segment. Tomorrow, the mystery thickens a little bit. We're still well behind schedule, but I'm starting to get the hang of this thing. I've got high hopes for this novel. As always, comments are very much appreciated.

Interesting! I like it so far

New update on the Starnet historical information. Most of my new writing is going to be focused on my NaNoWriMo project, but I figured I could post the updated Starnet stuff reasonably well.

Loving it so far!

So, accountability update! The first day, I sat down and was hit with the sudden realization of how woefully underprepared I was to write this story. I spent all of my prep time worldbuilding instead of storycrafting. I'd had the plot - including the high-level overview - planned out for seven years or so, and so I'd spent a great deal of time making sure I had consistency in the world I set it in. Turns out you need a month's worth of outlining and story planning before NaNoWriMo starts... Anyways, I got lost in outlining and story planning for a couple of days and didn't write anything. Last night, I decided to bite the bullet and just start writing. My compulsive outlining behavior can wait for the second draft. I'm significantly behind, and I only wrote 500 words last night. But here they are! I'll post today's writing bits later tonight. Now back to work!

Alrighty. All in favor of an Orlok lynch tomorrow?

Here it is. My first time ever really committing to a NaNoWriMo. For the past few years, I've had loads of difficult physics classes on top of full time work and taking care of a growing family. But at the moment, I'm unemployed, graduated, and being a stay-at-home dad. Which leaves me no excuse not to participate Here is where I will be posting new scenes for the story. Hopefully it won't be too boring as it spins itself out. The story is set in the Starnet (shameless plug for my worldbuilding thread - I've got the beginnings of a historical overview of the setting over there), my science fiction setting. As the Starnet is the far future of my primary fantasy setting, it's not a hard science fiction universe. But apart from one or two handwaves (justified as alien technology) and the magic system (a natural outgrowth of the cosmology), the setting is as realistic as I know how to make it. Thanks to Rocketpunk Manifesto, the ToughSF blog, and the Atomic Rockets website for hard scientific answers to sci-fi worldbuilding questions. A short synopsis of the story follows: Daern Onidsen is a decorated warship captain, pirate hunter, and a hero of the Federation. And an inmate of the highest security prison in Federation space, facing execution because his heroism threatened to expose treason in high places. But when an important visitor arrives with an offer he can't refuse, he finds himself plotting a daring prison break, stealing Federation starships, and forming a pirate band of his very own. And along the way, he may just get his revenge. Hope you enjoy!

Well, I was going to actually post what I'm writing. I expect that this threat would be just fine for word counts and encouragement. I just wanted my actual story in a separate place.

I'm in this year. I'll probably post my progress in a new thread.