Post by Avery on May 8, 2014 20:17:01 GMT -5
Sign-ups are closed! We will be rolling up role placements and distributing those by this Friday, so stay on the lookout for those!
Well, it’s all quite sad, really. The Kingdom of Kyth is ruled by the venerable King Starmey Eagle, of House Ascension, a stoic widower with a whole gaggle of daughters. But when he’s tragically stricken in the prime of his life, his eldest daughter, Destiney Raven, must ascend the throne. As all the noble Houses descend upon the capital city of Medieville for Starmey’s funeral, two cunning Houses, the magical House Jade and the progressive House Stallion, hatch plots to rise to the throne... by wooing the beautiful Destiney, now queen and the most eligible bachelorette in all the land. To do so, they’ll need to recruit useful peasants, complete quests, and utilize the service of merchants. But Jade and Stallion must be careful, for as they try to win over Destiney’s heart, a grassroots rebellion group called the Shadows is plotting its own surge for the throne. Who will win? House Jade, House Stallion, or the Shadows? Only time will tell!
What about the game mechanics, however? They are as follows:
Everyone gets a role-- and each role is unique (no vanillas here!). You will either be a noble member of House Jade, a noble member of House Stallion, a member of the rebellion called the Shadows, a peasant, or a Merchant... and within each class, every specific role is an original! So the Thief and Messenger are both peasants, but have completely different role functions; the Archmage and Seer are both in House Jade, but each can do different things. Peasants are then recruited by the three factions as the game progresses.
The game is divided into Days (or rounds). Each Day lasts about 3-4 real days, and during that time, all players will be RP’ing as their created character. The RP will have Narrator posts-- if you’re not sure what this means, take a gander at any of the Mafia iterations down in Memory Lane: Narrator posts are effectively cut-scenes that move forward the plot and provide a bit of structure. Players RP and react to the Narrator posts, interacting with each other and generally building the world, their character, etc. It’s a whole lot of fun, and the characters people think of are generally pretty amazing! You have a lot of leeway with your character: it need not correspond entirely with your role. In fact, most roles will be secret at the outset (that is to say, you’re not playing specifically AS that role, but just a noble or peasant in general; only merchants are explicitly revealed from day one)... so you probably don’t want to craft your character to specifically be that role. Roles will be revealed through different means as the game progresses, at which point you can deal with it openly in the RP. (So once you’ve been revealed as say, the Thief, you can incorporate qualities of the role into your RP’ing.)
Meanwhile, as the RP is occurring, all players will also be doing behind the scenes plotting and mulling to decide which action they wish to perform in the night. These actions are extremely varied and depend on the specific role-- so the Thief might choose to steal from a certain person; the Archmage might cast a spell; the Jester might pull a prank. If you’re a member of a faction, this decision-making will be collective and cooperative; if you’re unaligned, it’ll be your own, independent choice.
All events that happen behind the scenes are then tabulated up and presented the next Day… so the Narrator post of the next Day will reflect all the biggest things that happened “in the night”. The events help steer the plot and determine the direction of the RP… for example, if a major power role is killed in the night, that’s obviously going to have a huge impact on the RP! Or if the Thief steals a precious item from a House, that’s going to have a ripple effect within the RP. Thus, while there’s a division between roles and characters (at least the outset), Night actions and Day RP’ing are nonetheless intimately intertwined.
How do you win the game then, you ask? Through points. Each role-- and faction-- will be presented with quests that can be completed through a variety of in-game actions… there are nearly two-hundred quests spread throughout the game, and they’re incredibly varied in both content and difficulty level-- some are generic quests available to all factions, whereas others are role-specific; some are worth just a few points, while others are worth much, much more than that. Complete a quest, and you’re awarded points-- simple as that.
Factions each begin with three to four (most likely four) members. The factions then each work to recruit new peasants to join their ranks. A peasant absorbed by the faction becomes a part of that team and works towards that faction’s win for the rest of the game. As mentioned previously, there are three factions: House Jade, House Stallion, and the Shadows. There are also Merchant roles which cannot be recruited by the factions, and which provide services throughout the game, ranging from helpful items to assassin hits.
If anything of this seems overwhelming now, we promise that it’s in fact very simple, and we don’t foresee much of a learning curve. After sign-ups close and roles are handed out, everyone will receive access to their own Google document that sketches the parameters of their role, possible night actions, general FAQ, etc. Each faction has its own shared document, while each unaligned role gets an individual document. Documents will be accessible by anyone with the link, so no worries about needing to give us your private e-mail! Documents will handily keep track of all your points, your quests, and everything else you need during the game.
A few last minor technical things: We expect the game to last between 1-2 months, probably in the middle of this range. Short vacations/absences (preferably under 10 days) can be accommodated for and shouldn’t dissuade you from signing up. Further, this isn’t going to require you to be online all the time or anything like that. You’ll have a solid 3-4 days to submit moves for each round, and submitting the move itself is extremely simple, so even if you have a busy week, so long as you can get on for a couple minutes to submit your move, you’re all good.. And if you miss a round of posting, it’s not a horrible end of the world event.
Further, we anticipate the RP being somewhat less intensive than was Mafia, for a number of reasons: first, because we’re implementing summary methods from the outset; second, because each round will constitute a new in-game Day, so if you’ve missed a previous round, it’s much easier to jump back in without having to read all through the previous round; third, because the rounds are shorter in length, so there’s less to catch up on within a round (that means if you miss half of the previous round and half of the current one, it’s really only necessary to catch up on the current one in order to insert your character back into the picture, because it’ll be a brand new day from the last round); and finally, the organization with many of the players starting out in “teams”, and most of the players eventually ending up in teams, means that you have built-in interaction partners-- so it might be simpler to figure out what to post, which is always a bonus. We also are aware (and mindful) of the fact that some people may be much more interested in the strategy angle of Medieval than the RP angle, and that’s perfectly okay! Some people will always post more in the RP than others, and so long as you can foresee yourself being able to post once or twice most rounds, that’s completely acceptable. (Not to mention, there may be some quests that have to do with your posting habits, so if you’re into the strategy angle, posting can be a strategy in and of itself.
)
But, overall, if you’re not sure about whether you want to commit to being a full-on player, please consider NPC’ing instead.
NPCs don’t get an official role nor do they participate behind-the-scenes, but they still do get to participate in the RP in any capacity that they’d like. Being an NPC can be a seriously fun way of participating even if you don’t feel like committing full-on to the game. We don’t want to scare anyone away: if you want to sign up, then by all means do! The game wouldn’t exist without official players. But, there’s no shame in NPC’ing either, if you feel that’s all you can commit to.
Roles will be assigned by Friday the 30th. You’ll be given a solid week after that to chat with your new faction (if you’re in a faction) and come up with an awesome character. Day One will then begin on June 7th. So that there is adequate time for everyone to write an intro post (and because the prologue round in Mafia I think was cut a bit too short), we’ll give a solid week or so for Day One before easing into the “regular” schedule of 3-4 day rounds for the remainder of the game.
Sign-ups:
What is Medieval?
First, the intriguing plot:Well, it’s all quite sad, really. The Kingdom of Kyth is ruled by the venerable King Starmey Eagle, of House Ascension, a stoic widower with a whole gaggle of daughters. But when he’s tragically stricken in the prime of his life, his eldest daughter, Destiney Raven, must ascend the throne. As all the noble Houses descend upon the capital city of Medieville for Starmey’s funeral, two cunning Houses, the magical House Jade and the progressive House Stallion, hatch plots to rise to the throne... by wooing the beautiful Destiney, now queen and the most eligible bachelorette in all the land. To do so, they’ll need to recruit useful peasants, complete quests, and utilize the service of merchants. But Jade and Stallion must be careful, for as they try to win over Destiney’s heart, a grassroots rebellion group called the Shadows is plotting its own surge for the throne. Who will win? House Jade, House Stallion, or the Shadows? Only time will tell!
The House crests for Jade and Stallion:
What about the game mechanics, however? They are as follows:
Everyone gets a role-- and each role is unique (no vanillas here!). You will either be a noble member of House Jade, a noble member of House Stallion, a member of the rebellion called the Shadows, a peasant, or a Merchant... and within each class, every specific role is an original! So the Thief and Messenger are both peasants, but have completely different role functions; the Archmage and Seer are both in House Jade, but each can do different things. Peasants are then recruited by the three factions as the game progresses.
The game is divided into Days (or rounds). Each Day lasts about 3-4 real days, and during that time, all players will be RP’ing as their created character. The RP will have Narrator posts-- if you’re not sure what this means, take a gander at any of the Mafia iterations down in Memory Lane: Narrator posts are effectively cut-scenes that move forward the plot and provide a bit of structure. Players RP and react to the Narrator posts, interacting with each other and generally building the world, their character, etc. It’s a whole lot of fun, and the characters people think of are generally pretty amazing! You have a lot of leeway with your character: it need not correspond entirely with your role. In fact, most roles will be secret at the outset (that is to say, you’re not playing specifically AS that role, but just a noble or peasant in general; only merchants are explicitly revealed from day one)... so you probably don’t want to craft your character to specifically be that role. Roles will be revealed through different means as the game progresses, at which point you can deal with it openly in the RP. (So once you’ve been revealed as say, the Thief, you can incorporate qualities of the role into your RP’ing.)
Meanwhile, as the RP is occurring, all players will also be doing behind the scenes plotting and mulling to decide which action they wish to perform in the night. These actions are extremely varied and depend on the specific role-- so the Thief might choose to steal from a certain person; the Archmage might cast a spell; the Jester might pull a prank. If you’re a member of a faction, this decision-making will be collective and cooperative; if you’re unaligned, it’ll be your own, independent choice.
All events that happen behind the scenes are then tabulated up and presented the next Day… so the Narrator post of the next Day will reflect all the biggest things that happened “in the night”. The events help steer the plot and determine the direction of the RP… for example, if a major power role is killed in the night, that’s obviously going to have a huge impact on the RP! Or if the Thief steals a precious item from a House, that’s going to have a ripple effect within the RP. Thus, while there’s a division between roles and characters (at least the outset), Night actions and Day RP’ing are nonetheless intimately intertwined.
How do you win the game then, you ask? Through points. Each role-- and faction-- will be presented with quests that can be completed through a variety of in-game actions… there are nearly two-hundred quests spread throughout the game, and they’re incredibly varied in both content and difficulty level-- some are generic quests available to all factions, whereas others are role-specific; some are worth just a few points, while others are worth much, much more than that. Complete a quest, and you’re awarded points-- simple as that.
Factions each begin with three to four (most likely four) members. The factions then each work to recruit new peasants to join their ranks. A peasant absorbed by the faction becomes a part of that team and works towards that faction’s win for the rest of the game. As mentioned previously, there are three factions: House Jade, House Stallion, and the Shadows. There are also Merchant roles which cannot be recruited by the factions, and which provide services throughout the game, ranging from helpful items to assassin hits.
If anything of this seems overwhelming now, we promise that it’s in fact very simple, and we don’t foresee much of a learning curve. After sign-ups close and roles are handed out, everyone will receive access to their own Google document that sketches the parameters of their role, possible night actions, general FAQ, etc. Each faction has its own shared document, while each unaligned role gets an individual document. Documents will be accessible by anyone with the link, so no worries about needing to give us your private e-mail! Documents will handily keep track of all your points, your quests, and everything else you need during the game.
A few last minor technical things: We expect the game to last between 1-2 months, probably in the middle of this range. Short vacations/absences (preferably under 10 days) can be accommodated for and shouldn’t dissuade you from signing up. Further, this isn’t going to require you to be online all the time or anything like that. You’ll have a solid 3-4 days to submit moves for each round, and submitting the move itself is extremely simple, so even if you have a busy week, so long as you can get on for a couple minutes to submit your move, you’re all good.. And if you miss a round of posting, it’s not a horrible end of the world event.
Further, we anticipate the RP being somewhat less intensive than was Mafia, for a number of reasons: first, because we’re implementing summary methods from the outset; second, because each round will constitute a new in-game Day, so if you’ve missed a previous round, it’s much easier to jump back in without having to read all through the previous round; third, because the rounds are shorter in length, so there’s less to catch up on within a round (that means if you miss half of the previous round and half of the current one, it’s really only necessary to catch up on the current one in order to insert your character back into the picture, because it’ll be a brand new day from the last round); and finally, the organization with many of the players starting out in “teams”, and most of the players eventually ending up in teams, means that you have built-in interaction partners-- so it might be simpler to figure out what to post, which is always a bonus. We also are aware (and mindful) of the fact that some people may be much more interested in the strategy angle of Medieval than the RP angle, and that’s perfectly okay! Some people will always post more in the RP than others, and so long as you can foresee yourself being able to post once or twice most rounds, that’s completely acceptable. (Not to mention, there may be some quests that have to do with your posting habits, so if you’re into the strategy angle, posting can be a strategy in and of itself.
)But, overall, if you’re not sure about whether you want to commit to being a full-on player, please consider NPC’ing instead.
NPCs don’t get an official role nor do they participate behind-the-scenes, but they still do get to participate in the RP in any capacity that they’d like. Being an NPC can be a seriously fun way of participating even if you don’t feel like committing full-on to the game. We don’t want to scare anyone away: if you want to sign up, then by all means do! The game wouldn’t exist without official players. But, there’s no shame in NPC’ing either, if you feel that’s all you can commit to.
Roles will be assigned by Friday the 30th. You’ll be given a solid week after that to chat with your new faction (if you’re in a faction) and come up with an awesome character. Day One will then begin on June 7th. So that there is adequate time for everyone to write an intro post (and because the prologue round in Mafia I think was cut a bit too short), we’ll give a solid week or so for Day One before easing into the “regular” schedule of 3-4 day rounds for the remainder of the game.
Sign-ups:
