Horror Story Authors...

That's right, kiddos, Cycle 2: Enter Crows Landing is officially done!

December and January of 2012 went badly for the denizens of Crows Landing, Oregon. However, for our game, I'd say it was quite a success! I won't be doing a long sum-up here, because the finale post was essentially just that (please feel free to go back and reminisce, however).

I want to take a moment to salute the top players of Cycle 2, and reward one player in particularly. For those of you who want a refresher, the points system is at the bottom of this post (there is also a handy posting guide at the top, since we do have a preference for how things are formatted). Basically, points are accumulated by playing in the game. They are directly proportionate to how much affection I have for you. Since I cannot avoid favoritism, I choose to allot it based on how active players are, rather than how long I've known them or how well they compliment my fabulous prose. Make sense?

( Yes! LET'S GET ON WITH IT! ANNOUNCE THE WINNERS, TS! )

Now, back to our cruise...

First, warnings:
Scenes at or near the 1-Week Warning Mark:

Jon and Ethan will be on the 13th (unless that's done).

Characters at or near the 2-Week Deathslot Mark:

Casper (will be at 2 weeks on the 15th)

Players have until the 17th (Friday) to chime in on this activity check post.

In brighter news, ads are going out this week! If you want to submit an ad for me to use, I will very likely use it. Otherwise, we're still gonna run with the old ones. They seemed to work at enticing you folks.

Finally, let's talk about the points tally! I'm sure you're all very curious about the numbers so far, so here you go:

( Current Points Tallied for Each Character )

Those numbers are only for scenes completed as of today's date (5/13), AUs posted thus far, and interviews, so the rankings may potentially change (and I haven't forgotten about awarding players points for rumors submitted to the rumor mill).

Incomplete Scenes That Still Need To Be Tallied:

Rob and Gilman.
Mike and Teagan.
Avery and Max.
Annie and Adelaide.

Remember, even if your characters are deceased, you can still rack up points by answering interviews, or participating in AU prompts. It looks like Gilman is winning highest-earning character! As of now, I have to discount plotmaster stuff in order to keep from winning highest-earning player. I do not like to win that title, so if you still have pawns on the board, don't be afraid to go out dramatically in the final hour!

Hey, guess what? We are going to start opening the game up for applications again on the 17th! :D Are you excited? Do you know what that means?

That means it's once again FINALE TIME!

Since people aren't even playing past the 15th, yet, this Plotmaster post for the 15th-21st is still valid.

The next Plotmaster post is going to be the LAST POST FOR THE CYCLE and will (if all goes well) largely just be a sum up of events, with the option for people to thread aftermath/prologue stuff... if there are any survivors at that point. I’d like to get that post up by the 24th at the latest, so now’s the time to start wrapping up character plots and getting your character's last scenes/placeholders out the door. Finale scenes don’t need to be completed, but they need to be up on the comm before the final plotmaster post, so that we can start getting things ready for the new puppets, and the next cycle*. Are you excited? FUCK YEAH, YOU ARE.

Characters whose finales still need to be plotted (insofar as I’m aware):

Avery
Archer
Hunter
Casper
Annie
Max
Jon
Ethan
Ophelia

If you’ve an idea or suggestion for one of the above characters (your own or someone else's), let us know in the comments below!

I'd also like to see placeholders/posts for these scenes on the comm ASAP:

• Tatum/Gilman hooking up
• Bryant hospital scene
• Annie/Adelaide face-off

Anything else that needs to be played out (or that you want to see on screen) needs to be put up sooner rather than later. Just sayin'. I am also in the process of tallying POINTS! I'm using the following numbers:

Character-Specific Points
Starting a 3rd Person Scene: 15 points
Participating in a 3rd Person Scene: 10 points per character
Closing a 3rd Person Scene: 20 points
Posting a Solo Scene: 25 points
Dropping a 3rd Person Scene (requiring a mod to finish it): -50 points
Starting a 1st Person Exchange: 5 points
Engaging in/Intercepting 1st a Person Exchange: 5 points per character
Character Nudity: 5 points points per character in the buff
Character Death: 150 points to the dead character (0 if killed for inactivity), +100 for graphic on-screen death
Character Murder: 10 points to the character who facilitates a death
Character-Voice Interviews: 1 point per answered question.

Non-Character Specific Points
AU Scene: 10 points to participating players
AU Drabble: 5 points to the writer

Re: NPCs - NPC participation will net points if the NPC is played off of a character's journal (for instance, Dahlia's mom scenes earned Dahlia points), or in the case of a named NPC that becomes pivotal to a PC plotline and is always played by the same player. One-use NPCs and NPCs that change hands frequently do not earn anyone points. NPC death or nudity, graphic or otherwise, likewise does not earn extra points.

I'm still tallying numbers, but right now the highest-earning character points-wise is Gilman. The highest-earning player so far is me. I really do not like winning this title, and y'all are running out of time to beat me. Better pick up the pace. Characters that end up going negative due to drop scenes will be automatically removed from the game.

So gimme more blood, folks. Let's not end Cycle 2 with a whimper!


*No, I haven't officially put info on the comm about Cycle 3. We're hoping to get some new players in before we talk about it in depth.

I just finished updating the threadtracker.

This is just a friendly reminder to make sure that you're wrapping up your incompletes, and getting things up under their respective placeholders as soon as possible.

:)

Thanks guys!

So it's been one week since I posted a timeline plot post attempting to check in with everyone and reminding y'all that there's a once-a-week-tagging policy. A few of you did respond to it, but no plotting was done. Alas!

But we did have one of Ari's game chats last week, wherein we discussed the activity policy. Not everyone was able to be there, but here's the rundown:

( There is an activity policy, I haven't been enforcing it well, that needs to change. )

For what I hope will be obvious reasons, mods will not be policing AU scenes and gdoc scenes. We can only focus on what's on the comm, and what matters to the actual cycle plot.

Basically, by joining the game you're saying you want to play in it. When you apply for a character, you're saying you can write that character. So I'm gonna need you all to prove it. Most of you are, so this is just a formality.

If it turns out that you don't want to play in it, or can't write for a character, that's fine. It's a horror game. We can kill off the characters you guys don't like writing, and just not revive them next cycle. It's also an internet roleplaying game, which means players dropping out isn't a huge heartbreak, either. We're all of us replaceable.

Scenes at the 1 Week Warning Mark
Charlie's death scene.

Ian's interrogation scene (going on 2 weeks, I think it just got lost to the wayside).

I'm not even sure what is and isn't done in the Gig Thread, but if Sue/Eden, Max/Fauna, and Hunter/Ian aren't wrapped, they seem to have gone dead?



Living Characters Who Haven't Been On Screen in Over 2 Weeks

Sue - (Last seen March 27th)
Fauna - (Last seen March 23rd)
Mallory - (Last seen in February)


Every other living character has been tagging, engaged in first person communication, or otherwise moving their scenes along within the last week, so far as I can see. Because this is late cycle and we're trying to wrap things up, I want the above-listed puppets to die this week. So unless someone convinces me to do otherwise (say, by posting a scene on the comm that will lead to their deaths), I'll kill them off-screen in news reports on Thursday.

Speaking of which, I'm compiling news reports - snippets from the Crows Landing Observer - to post on Thursday as the in-game plot post this week. DOES ANYONE WANT TO CONTRIBUTE AN ARTICLE BLURB OR ANY IDEA FOR ONE? Comment below!

Just a few things this week, folks, as I'm waist-deep in RL BUREAUCRACY HEADACHES.

Because I am a sadist, I will now pass off some of those bureaucracy headaches onto you! While we don't have a rule about reading each other's posts, we do encourage it. We're hoping that this game is fun to read as much as it is to play in. We care about continuity (as many of you have noticed), and we do try to connect things as much as possible. That isn't as easy as it might sound, and it takes active, engaged players. First, some reminders:

- We do have a general tag-at-least-once-a-week policy (preferably more often for tags, but that's the bare minimum). Players who are slower than that (routinely going more than 7 days between tags) aren't really able to keep up with the game and should be benched from the main plot so that we can move forward. Ari and I need to get on top of that, I know. As far as open, public threads go, anyone is allowed to jump into them, even if it interrupts someone. We encourage cutthroat rping in that sense. No more "holds" on an open thread for more than 1 day.

- That said, if it hasn't been a full week, there shouldn't be complaints about a thread being dead or a player being too slow. Chances are, everyone will have busy weeks now and then where they fall behind on their threads. If this was a tabletop game, we'd only be playing once a week (granted we'd all be in the same room, which would help). One of the reasons we have AU prompts is so players who are on top of everything can have something to do while waiting for the main plot to catch up with them. That's also why I opened the NPC journal for active players to help the rest of us out.

- The game plots are interwoven. That means every time you do something on screen it has potential to have a ripple effect and people are allowed to react to it. So, right now our timeline for the last week or so in-game is looking like this (I'm not just linking to the threadtracker because I want to include first person contacts as well:

( THIS IS WHY DATES AND TIMES ARE IMPORTANT. )

It's very clear that some characters got left behind, and we need to figure out what's going on. Which means giving time for the pivotal scenes to get resolved and figuring out what everyone else is doing and wants to do! So, PUPPETS, what do you still want to do within the above timeline? How can we work it into those events that have already happened as listed? If you are lost and need help, don't be afraid to let us know! If you want to benched, that's fine, too. If you are Wut, Pixie, or Char... you're probably winning on game points, seriously.

LET'S DISCUSS!

Okay, folks! Players who have not commented to this post will be getting removed from the game tomorrow.

Just an fyi since I believe it's been a while since I typed it, but we will welcome back players who had to drop out or who were dropped for inactivity (life happens, blah blah blah). Characters don't need to be applied for a second time (if they got in once, we'll take 'em again), unless someone new has come in and made an overlapping version of that character type. Then we make the returning player come up with something else.
Basically, we don't side on "who came first" or even "who we personally like more." We side on "who is actually playing right now." But it is a game, and we're happy people want to play in it, so we're all about leniency and second chances and such.

That said, I'm still gonna kick you out if you're inactive. Like closing dead threads, it's a matter of housekeeping. And the only way I know whether or not people are active are player activity checks, since characters should be dying off and whatnot.

Speaking of that, Cycle 2 has officially snowballed! The crazy outnumber the sane! But even the most active kids are still posting for the 11th, and the less active ones haven't caught up to that date, yet, so we're going to sit on this calendar post a while longer. Finish up your incompletes, but feel free to throw in with (and add) to any mayhem! If you're waiting on something to resolve before you can move your pieces, we're still doing Fairy Tale AUs! Remember, fairy tale au scenes are considered birthday presents to me, and I am notorious for favoritism. Just sayin'.

And I will never procrastinate updating the threadtracker ever again.

It is now officially up to date as of this moment. And it took me, like, 4 hours to update it. *iz ded*

ON THAT TANGENT:

• Please check the incomplete tag. If you have a thread on there that is complete and hasn't been tagged as such, please go tag it! TS and I will go through and remove the incomplete tags on completed threads as we see them.


• We have hit three pages for the tracker thus far for Cycle 002. Cycle 001 had two pages. Feel accomplished or something.


• I know TS posts this any time she puts up a Belli plot post. But I will reiterate: please finish older threads before moving on to new ones.


• Also, regarding continuity, make sure to date your threads. I have a thread with Sully and Fauna that is complete but doesn't have a date for me to stick it in chronologically so it's out of sorts at the moment.


• When dating your threads, please make sure that they don't conflict with other events. Makes my tracking that much simpler. (And then I won't come yell at you for it. I don't like being mean, guys. Believe it or not.) This applies to 1st person threads even though I don't officially track them.

Thanks guys!

Once again, any player who hasn't responded to the activity check poll by the 22nd will be removed from the game. A new activity check goes up this Friday. Hint: It might be the Cycle 3 vote.

There will also be a calendar bump on Friday to open up more dates. I'll continue dealing with inactive characters via shop posts (if you've been tagging in the last couple weeks, you're fine; if you haven't been, but are hoping to start back up soon, best let me know here -- I do not hassle players outside of this comm). Also, if you're sitting on a dead thread that needs closing, just point it my way. Especially if it's plotblocking a character for you. Sometimes I miss 'em.

Cycle 2 still has some meat on its bones, but we are trying to snowball, now, so if you have ideas or whathaveyou, pitch 'em here.

( Not sure what's going on? Want a refresher? Want to know what we're hoping to see? CLICK HERE. )

For those of you who want a break from the main plot (or can't move until new stuff gets rolling), there is a new AU Prompt post. AUs are literally "anything goes," so have fun with 'em! But go figure those out on that post. THIS post is for cycle plotting. Comment below and let's figure some shit out. Who can play? Who won't be able to play in the foreseeable future and needs their kids benched? The bellhops aren't going to light any fires or drug the food to escalate things for us this time. We gotsta do it ourselves.

All right! I did move the calendar forward to the first week of January, but a lot of people are finishing up December still so I am going to stall the calendar there for a wee bit. Those of you who aren't finishing up completes have quite a few days there to play with. Those of you who are... well, carry on, please! If you're sitting on a dead scene and need a mod to come close it, please tell me. Sometimes it takes me a while to find them, or I'm uncertain with the wording whether a scene is finished or dead.

I also removed O'Brien, CJ, and Wren from cycle plot. I'm not going to kick them from the comms, since we've heard from their players (heck, Erin even came back from her hiatus). Hopefully, Anna and Llama will be able to come back next cycle, as well. And if they're able to return before Cycle 3 kicks off, they can do AU scenes, or even haunt the living if they want to (please check in with a mod before doing ghost scenes, tho). We're really flexible here at Horror Story, but we do eventually have to move things along.

That said, I'd like to check in with the following plots and characters:

- Hunter's Dog
- Ethan's Ghost
- Mike's Investigation
- Tatum's Camera
- Casper's Hijinks

If y'all need mod help with any of these shenanigans, let me know. Sure, I might remove plotblocks with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, but they will be removed!

( Got Plot? HAVE SOME MORE. )

Hope that helps. Feel free to comment below to work out scenes!

Also, we've only got a couple of weeks left for the Valentine AU scenes. I'm going to toss out the questionnaire this week. If there's something romantic that you'd like me to ask the characters, suggest away!

Because there weren't a lot of threads on it, I edited the last plotmaster shop post to go up through the 31st of December and stuck in some mention of current goings-on.

So the calendar is now open up through New Year's Eve! I think most people are still working on past stuff, anyway, but that gives us a couple of more days to work with. Soon it is going to be 2013 in game. ARE YOU STOKED, PUPPETS?

( EVERYONE CLICK HERE FOR PLOT STUFF. )

There are other things going on as well, I know, but I'm getting this up in a hurry. If you want me to add something (like Mallory's typewriter-of-the-gods plot?), want more plot for your characters, or even have an idea for plot for someone else's characters, let me know! Discuss all plottiness below! With me and with each other. COMMENTS ARE NOT SCREENED.

( Activity Check/Missing Puppets. )

As Smee pointed out, this is kind of a crappy month, but we'll get through it! Dominoes falling in slow motion are still dominoes! Patience, perseverance, etc.

Alright guys, I've not done a post like this since last cycle, and it's not going to be a regular thing. But due to being frustrated in the state of things at home (never get roommates), I had to vent said frustration, and that apparently turns into me making lists.

So, we've got incompletes, and some are due for mod closure per activity policy (last tag is in red on those). So TS and myself will be working on those.

So part of this is reference for you guys, part for TS and myself, and mostly for other reasons already stated.

( Incompletes as of February 6 )

Also the threadtracker has been updated, and is now officially in two parts.

First off, we have new rumors! Dahlia is now on the rumor list, and several others have been added to. That is clearly the most important thing. XD You can talk about rumors you believe in here!

Secondly, we also have a few plot things to take note of:

- As of 12/23/2012 in game, Susanna Wilson will no longer be in Crows Landing. She was last seen publicly on the 22nd, in a bar with Marcus Caravahlo and Jon Bennett. If anyone would like to worry about her on screen, or even try to report her missing, they may do so. The cops will get an official missing person report (filed by her mother if nobody else chooses to do so) on the 25th (in game).

( Here is a quick list of other things going on, for those of you who don't read all the threads. )

Now, I know that some of you are still on soft hiatus and whatnot, but there's still quite a bit going on for those who aren't. Feel free to continue playing in the York party thread. Those who aren't at that party might want to head to the bar for a drink, or post their own threads for the weekend.

As for players, if you haven't responded to activity check, please do. Just so we know who is still with us.

Edit: The following incomplete threads are at or nearing the two-week deadline:
- Archer and O'Brien in Archer's apartment.
- Sully and Fauna at Fauna's home.

Let us know if we can mark either of those complete as is, or if they need to be closed by a mod.

Hey guys!

Just a couple of things really quick.

→ Please run the Friend Button. We have a new character!

→ We are also now OFFICIALLY closed to new players, dust off your elitist snob hats, they're back in style.

→ Don't let this discourage you from rolling another character. If you've not reached the hard cap of four, and the character is of a type we can use in the current cycle, they will be considered. Keep in mind that players who only have one character will take precedence over those who have more.

Thanks guys!

A bunch of new rumors have been added! Congratulations, you guys broke IJ's entry limit with your gossip. I have now split the rumor list into two sections and put it on the plotmaster journal for easy reference.

GOOD JOB.

XD

Also, last warning: If your character has not been participating on screen for Cycle 2, he or she will be put on hiatus for the rest of the cycle.

Characters on hiatus may still play in AU scenes, but will be written out of the main story (often in an anticlimactic and offhand way). On Wednesday, I'll be checking tags against the cast list, so you have until then. If your character doesn't have a tag, let me know and I'll fix it.

( List of Current Open/Public Scenes You Can Jump On )

Also, just to let you guys know, because the antique store thread is getting a bit long, I changed the dates so that it now only goes up to the 20th (instead of the 23rd). I'll be posting a new store thread this week for the 21st-24th, which will also unlock the calendar through Christmas Eve. So if you want your character to visit the store after the 20th, there'll be a shiny new post for you later this week.

( Updated Cycle Roles List! )

It's time yet again to hit The Friend Button, because we're adding another new puppet to the cast list. I already gave out the homework privately, so I won't list it here.

We are down to 1 Generic Witkin Skull Icon left on the cast list, which means that once we accept one more player, we're going to lock the game! I hope you all have your elitist snob* hats ready!

Activity Check Reminder: characters who have not participated on screen in Cycle 2 by the 8th will be put on hiatus. Players who have not checked in with us by the 8th will also be removed, but I believe all current players in-game are good.

Plotmaster opted not to kick the calendar forward this week to give the new puppets a chance to catch up with the cycle 2 stuff so far. For those of you who aren't sure what to do, you can:

Hop on Jenny's Open Thread!

Go check out the odd new antique store in town sometime between the 16th and 23rd of December!

Go back in time to check out the odd new antique store on its opening day!

Or start a new scene, if none of those quite raise your flag. Flashback scenes also count for participation, if you want to establish history between characters anytime prior to December of 2012. The sky is basically the limit. There's quite a lot going on, so nobody should be bored, but if you find yourself idle, we're running Holiday AU Prompts through January. Holy shitballs! It's amazing!


Just a note for the new kids: we are not actually elitist snobs, but game-locking is done to preserve The Plotmaster's sanity. He spins an awful lot of plates.

Rumors for Crows Landing
This is being moved here for visibility. Any characters CAN believe any and all rumors. Each character MUST believe at least 1 rumor per every other character listed (not counting him or herself). No maximum. If you don't see any rumors that your character would believe, go make some up! Click this link to go submit more rumors about your own or other characters. WARNING: Only comment on this post to talk about what rumors your characters actually do believe. Comments here are NOT screened.

Edit: As of 1/7/2013, you guys broke IJ's post limits with your goddamn gossip. So you can now click here to go to the first half of the rumor list. It's divided into two posts now.

Hello, Puppets! Christmas is over for those of us in the real world, but we're still not quite there in game. I did, however, move the calendar forward another week and a half. I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to rush us through those days. I just felt that each of those days would read as very similar, as far as my shop posts are concerned. The important stuff for your characters to note is that it is now snowing a bit, so you can assume slushy, cold weather from the 14th to the 23rd. The snow is not sticking, so it's not the fun, snowmen and snow angels kind of snow, but rather the kind that just makes walking outside suck that much more. The popular euphemism for weathermen in PNW for rain and snow together is "wintery mix."

And even though many of us are on hiatus, there have still been points accrued. For those who like to keep track of such things, here's my current tally:

( Cycle 002 Scores So Far )
That's pretty good for the first two weeks, especially considering the RL Holiday Madness that have taken many of our players out. Keep that shit up! And it's probably about time for an activity check. I'll keep this one easy out of respect for the holidays wiping everyone out/distracting folks until the 1st:

Any character who has not participated in Cycle 2 by January 8th (2 weeks from today) will be put on hiatus for the rest of this cycle.

Meaning that character will not be included in the main game plot in any way. Complete radio silence from a player between now and the 8th will result in their characters being removed from the game entirely, as per the activity policy. You're always welcome to come back when you do have time for us, but we aren't going to beg anyone to stay.

All right, puppets, that's all from me for this week.

Happy Horror Days!

We have a new puppet! This might be as good of a time as any to hit the friend button. We'll continue accepting new characters and new players for so long as there are Witkin skull icons on the cast list.

Housecleaning ends on Saturday, so if you haven't chimed in for your characters by then, you'll get swept away. Ever beloved, fondly remembered, but ultimately left behind.

Not sure if that means you? Check the rumor list! If your character is being gossiped about, then you're fine. No worries. If they aren't, then we're not sure if they're in town yet, so you might want to reply to the role call, for a job, and maybe tell us where you want to be living, while you're at it.

We start each cycle off with a setting post on the OOC, and an IC Scene Post that is open for anyone to hop into. Ari did this sexy as hell directory as a setting post, which we're slowly but surely filling in with images and such. The IC Scene Post is here, and anyone can still jump on it if they like to (it's not mandatory, however). Right now, we're still doing scenes for the first two weeks of December 2012 in game. You can also do flashback scenes for anytime before December of 2012 if you like.

In addiction to all of that, we're running Winter and Holiday AU Prompts through January, and I just put up a Christmas Questionnaire (there will be another generic Winter Questionnaire thrown up in mid-January for you guys, as well, because I love asking you questions).

Holy shit, that's a lot to do! Right? And since many of us are going to be dealing with holiday stress, and might have demands placed on those of us who bothered having families, we aren't going to rush ahead with the plot. Christmas in Crows Landing is going to last a while, folks, so I hope you like eggnog. As my Christmas gift to you puppets, I will not run another activity check until after the 25th. I will not rush the calendar forward. I will not set fire to your homes or send in a hurricane just 'cause. That's how much I love you. Enough to give the gift of patience. You're welcome.

For those of you who can play this week, I hope we've given you enough to work with. We can always add more prompts to the prompt list, and many of us will still be around for scenes and whatnot (being a bot, I don't even celebrate holidays). Next week we'll open up the calendar for another chunk of days (from the 14th until the 23rd). Then we'll do Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, and so forth. Unless someone has another suggestion for the pacing, and can convince me to do otherwise.

So, in conclusion:
Game plot slowed for the impending holiday. Weather in Crows Landing is currently cold and wet, but not yet snowing. A new shop has just opened up in town, and people are gearing up for the holidays. Feel free to establish character backgrounds via flashback scenes, or do any scenes you like up until 9AM on 14th (which will be when the shop next opens).

Sound good? Questions and concerns can be posted below, but comments to this one aren't screened.