Just Something I Thought Of

[Blackrosefencer]

I think it IS what we're doing right now. I mean, we are doing some stuff from the shows and making little twists to it with our own characters' stories fitting in. And we do discuss before hand what we want to cover in the episode and which characters will be doing what. Like I said...I think what has made this episode so daunting was the fact that we were doing WAY too much in one episode. I mean, in reality, if we split it up into smaller episodes we'd still be at the same spot in the plot line, but at least we'd have finished like two or three episodes and it would feel like we're making a lot more progress. We've accomplished a lot with this episode in such a short time, but it doesn't feel like it because we are thinking of this all as one episode instead of three which story-line wise it is three. I don't think we were really ready to wrap up this season when we started. I mean, we were still doing our own added stuff halfway into the episode!! We weren't even at the finale stuff until the episode dubbed Season One Finale Part Two!

The first time Una posted here it sounded more like she wanted side episodes that weren't related to the plot at all, but fit in as filler episodes between large story line episodes. Episodes that were directed by a particular player in order to tell a part of their character's particular story like comic books do. That certainly makes sense. Every character has its own story and it certainly is part of the role playing experience to be able to tell our original characters' stories. Perhaps it would make the main story line episodes go a bit smoother if there was a place for all of that to happen like a side episode.

The problem I see with this is this:

1) It would be optional. I hate to sound like a cynic, but what if people choose not to participate and decide: "I'll wait until my character's story to participate in a side story." That could be pretty devastating to the player who really was looking forward to playing out their story and then no one participates (it would probably end up being me which would just kill me!). Which is why I think if we combined stories that might be similar or might be overlapping, we'd at least be guaranteeing that three people would be participating.

2) If everyone had their own separate episodes, there'd be a lot of side episodes going on at once which we already discussed a solution to that.

3) I feel like it might get confusing to keep track of all of these side stories. I mean if we do a side story with Starshadow in October and then everyone else gets a turn for however long it takes...we might not get back to the Starshadow story for at least a year! Do we pick up where we left off? Who's going to remember which characters were involved, what they were doing, and where we were in the Starshadow side story?!

On that note....some players' characters' stories might not include other players' characters. Starshadow's story line, for example, seems to include all of her player's OCs....so how would the rest of us fit in?

4) I also worry that one person may end up hogging all the spotlight from everyone else......

5) And what would we do with players who have multiple characters? Do all of their characters each get their own episode??

Just some thoughts I was having....

[Alak]

Just keep it as it is. Have a canon episode running alongside an OC episode (maybe two OC episodes at most). OC episodes are pretty much filler anyway while the canon episodes give canon characters a chance to progress the overall season.

[Phoenix]

Personally I prefer the OC episodes to the canon ones. People tend to be more engaged in the OC stories so they progress faster, and there's less downtime since we aren't wasting so much time waiting for certain players to finish their canon parts. The OC stories are also more unpredictable and thus allows for more use of imagination.

[NaitoKage]

Alright.. we'll put together a small event then. We'll set it after the transwarp explosion so it'll be season 2, and insert some new characters. Tantrum currently wants to join in, so we could have another OC pop in that one of you ladies or gentlemen has decided, and maybe insert something small to freshen up a typical stasis pod run. If it's just Tantrum that is fine too, we can set up two groups for a smaller adventure.