Idea Post!

[livebait]

Hello Aather! In the interests of making Aather the best game it can be, we'd like to toss around some potential ideas for what you'd really like to see in the near future!

Since the game has been running incredibly strong for over 3.5 years now (///), we want to make sure we're keeping things bright and engaging, while still staying true to the game as it is and what's made it what it is.

We've had more open slots recently largely due to a lot of characters moving to Happy End or Legacy after being played for several years, and game turnout is a little lower lately (probably also because some of us have been doing this game thing for longer than we've lived in any one place in real life, I don't know about you); and we've also dropped down to a bit of a quieter pace that's a better fit for the playerbase at the moment—but some of these are fairly big changes functionally! so we want to make sure we can continue adjusting and growing the game to fit that.

The mods have some ideas for things we want to do in the future (and I'll make note of some of them in this post!), but we'd also like to hear:

❥ Game or event ideas you'd like to see! Games that we ran two years ago you really liked, or just "a secrets game" or "a costume game" or anything like that. Things we haven't done in a while you wanna see again, or things we've never done that you have a good idea for.
❥ Plot hooks or directions you'd like to go in. "I want to find out more about why there's always a tree in the Ring" or "I want more helping Personae break roles" etc.
❥ Elements that would help you or your characters be more engaged!
❥ Other things that would be cool—quests? Abilities? Themes? Laser beams for Burupya?

At least for this post, we would really just like to hear ideas and suggestions—nothing will be definitely going to happen and someone might have an idea that you don't think would work for you, but that's okay! We are also not looking at making any changes to activity/game structure & functions at the moment—just gameplay, please!

For now—please help us with suggestions about what you'd like to see and we will do our best to make some things happen! If you have multiple ideas, please feel free to leave them as separate comments if they're about fully different things.

Thank you as always for being such a stellar playerbase, and please do always feel free to come to the mods in private if you have questions or concerns or suggestions or pictures of kitten paws.

Comments

[idkmybffnirvash]

I think there are two separate issues here, so I'm going to split them apart. First, I feel you on the frustration with something being advertised as trauma and not successfully pulling it off. I enjoy my bit of drama, too! However, game runners may have an idea but the execution doesn't go over well which I can't blame them for. I think that can be fixed in bouncing an idea of someone. I wouldn't want to impose it as a rule, but it might be something that should be looked over twice, especially if someone is going for that trauma game label. I think people get shy of engaging deeper topics and pressing buttons, because there is that line . . . ? Like I would enjoy more games with deep hard issue conversations that may be tense and even conflictive but not traumatic in the same way as losing an arm.

The second issue is getting rid of trauma games which I am not calling for. The IC motivation of Zen is different from my OOC stance, but I would like to see him rewarded in order not to burn him out. A new Personae can pop-up that is taken down by the heroes, or the Darkness becomes more connected with the traumatic games and the larger reward comes with leaning on Personae to help put everyone back together as well as trusting in each other to push off the Darkness and so on. There are ways to have games that fulfill OOC desires while also giving characters a way to feel successful at the end of the day by having stopped one entity that wanted to take their friend's head off. I think, honestly, trauma games might need to break free of the idea of being a game . . . At least, in the sense that some teams take home a memory for acting a certain way. There certainly is enough interest that we don't need that particular set-up to have people show up.

. . . I could keep going on, but that covers my points, I think . . .

[takeabow]

Okay!

I THINK WE ARE MAYBE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SAME THING CONCEPTUALLY! I don't disagree with many of your points and I didn't assume you were wanting to get rid of trauma games. BUT I'M SO TIRED I CAN'T ARTICULATE WHAT EXACTLY MY POINT IS. Like there are maybe one or two things that I don't totally agree with but it's a tangent and not salient to the point I was trying to make so! I just saw "keep people from getting hurt in games" and read that as "reduce the impact of negative things overall and/or reduce the ic context for negative things" which i am seeing now is not the point you are making so no worries!

[idkmybffnirvash]

Yeah, it's confusing because I made a comment more geared toward an IC issue in an OOC discussion post. But I wanted to give a good reflection of where one of my characters is as a touch base for what is going on ICly. To me, it feels like you have to balance both sides with Aather, because if we pandered to our OOC desire to maim and brutalize often then that would be a different game which creates a different feeling in characters . . . And those who are apped!

[takeabow]

:3 yeah fair. my comment was basically "this is a difficult line to straddle" so. what you just said! I'VE BEEN UP SINCE 5:45 OK

[idkmybffnirvash]

Sleep well when you get there. ♥

[soldieronwards]

The idea of trauma events instead of games is an interesting one...although I don't think trauma games will go away entirely, giving people the option of running traumatic events to take up the month's slot instead is worth investigating!

[idkmybffnirvash]

I would like to see it! Because Eureka has a sense of learned helplessness of all the trauma games in the past, even if the tension seems to have gone down to me as a player, so it would help to give a wider room along with something that doesn't have to be "broken" in order to achieve something. I mean, it's different when you can fight an enemy or comfort a friend that thinks they destroyed the world, than it is to take on tasks in order to come out alive at the end . . . The feeling is different.