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Well I’m back for some more Voice office related updates and news. Now with some actual updates on some new ways to earn Clusters of Ice and status reports on all the things. I just want to touch on a few new things and highlight some competitions more than anything.
If you head over to the Cluster of Ice wiki page, you will notice some formatting improvements, as well as updates to the ways you can earn Clusters of Ice.
The Voice office will begin to award Clusters of Ice for qualifying official Clan fiction. That isn’t to say Clans can’t do whatever they want fictionally, that still remains under the purview of the Consul entirely, but when done in a beneficial way to the membership, that fiction will now award Clusters of Ice. These fictions must be published to discourse, or a news post in some way so that they are documented on the site.
Specific wording: “ All "official" Clan fiction updates, as submitted by the appropriate Consul to the Voice for approval. Must be published to discourse (forums), or a news report, with URL and dossier # of the author with word counts to the Voice's office. Fiction must be relevant to the Clan, advance the Clan fictional story forward in some manner and incorporate more than one member to qualify.”
This applies to any fictions going forward. I will be working with the Consul from each Clan to look back as far as the assault on the Avenger II at the start of the Dark Crusade for a one time submission of past fiction for consideration for Clusters of Ice to catch us up to current.
Keeping it together: The Voice is running an open ended competition, and will be until July 10th. So check it out and take your shot at a diamond crescent.
An Objective History: Andrelious from Clan Arcona is running another DJB wide competition this time focused on different items your character has owned. Since we’ve all considered this as we responded to possessions surveys, maybe you already have a great idea in mind. So take a look.
Chaos Ensues: Mayda from Clan Scholae Palatinae is running a DJB wide co-op fiction competition that is rather unique, and short. So take a look and considering tracking down another member (or 3) and submitting.
My JW Experience: Mayda from Clan Scholae Palatinae, in keeping with the Judecca World theme is running another short 200-800 word fiction competition including dinosaurs.
Hear Me Roar!: Mayda from Clan Scholae Palatinae, also in her cluster of Judecca World competitions on dinosaurs has a unique one based more on entertainment than writing skill but it may appeal to the more creative among the membership.
Reminder again: Organizers must send their pins and word counts to me, for Clusters of Ice to be awarded. ‘’’Format: Pin#wordcount.’’’
I’ve got a lot of things out there being discussed, especially around the Fiction Society with sanity checks on my own crazy ideas. In the meantime I’m trying to make sure the opportunities are available to earn the necessary awards like Clusters of Ice to properly reflect contribution in the ranks. So you’ll see changes like the Clan fiction awarding.
If you ever have any questions, ideas, feel free to let me know. I do my best to reply quickly.
In darkness,
Evant Taelyan Voice of the Brotherhood
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Good report. Still waiting with bated breath to see this mystical Fiction Society. :D * Sits by with typewriter *
For Hear Me Roar... the comp subscription opens tonight/tomorrow, but the idea is that... you write AS a dinosaur... from their point of view. A once-in-a-character-lifetime opportunity! Growl and smash and have a ball! Don't miss out. Word min is 200, so this is made for even those who aren't comfortable with writing much or just want to try something new!
Rawr!
Very nice update, Evant. Loving the additional way of gaining some CIs! Keep it up!
I notice that the RO rules still operate on a by posts basis, rather than a word counts basis?
Surely this should move to words, too? You could have people writing 2 2k word posts, and getting 1 CI, whereas those 4,000 words in a fiction would earn 8.
@Mark - Run Ons will continue to award Clusters of Ice based on post count (versus word count), because of the collaborative nature of the activity. When participating often less is more, and emphasis should be on getting everyone involved to get in more posts and tell the story together, and not on one person dominating the story and running solo. That type of activity is what fiction competitions are for. Or put another way - I a more interested in someone who stays engaged the whole time and gets in 6 posts, than someone who writes a novel in the middle full of fluff when it comes to the Run On format of competitions. There are arguments on both sides, but I lean towards use of post basis awarding on Run Ons.
So if the Cluster of Ice is going to be the fictional equivalent of the Cluster of Fire, does that mean Consul's will be allowed to create open ended fiction competitions?
I assume the goal of this award is to act as an incentive for writers to start racking up as many of these prestige heavy medals as possible, to offset the crazy advantage in prestige that gamers have.
@Etah - No, I mean insofar as the fictional story of the Clan is ongoing (open ended) and will now award Clusters of Ice. Who gets the opportunity to write those types of fiction entries and content of those and type of progress of the Clan plot is up to the Consul. They own the fictional identity of the Clan.
The Fiction Society will itself will bring about new ways to gain prestige similar to those who game have with the GMRG as members progress through the ranks. So the systems will be better matched off. As far as gaming being open ended, or rather, on demand where - you find another member game and submit matches - get medals. I am looking at opportunities to bring on demand fictional content to the Dark Brotherhood. You may have participated in Wally's ACB pilot, and I have my own unrelated ideas. So you will hopefully see some of this down the road.
Guys, just a couple quick things from the Magistrate's cage...er...cave...er...area.
Going off track, but seeing as Kz'set opened the door with respect to:
"I've been noticing, and having to remand, an increasing number of character sheets with items in the Lore line when someone has no skill points in that skill. Please, if you have no points in Lore, leave the line blank. Failure to do so will make the insect unhappy."
The Character Sheet guide says: "CS TEAM NOTE: Characters are allowed to have a broad, basic knowledge of the histories of the Brotherhood, the New Republic, and the current era in general (ie. we all know what happened at the battles of Yavin and Endor). It is also assumed that you would have a general idea of the history of your own species and home planet."
My past sheets have had the above listed, and would like to continue listing what my character can and cannot talk about in there to have everything in the same spot (the character sheet). It keeps things simple for us, by making it easier to keep track of those details we think are pertinent to our characters... So yeah, we might have 0 in Lore, but your guide says we actually do have some knowledge and lore we have access to since our character are expected to have had some basic knowledge already.
My 2 centicreds, Calindra
If the point about run ons is keeping people active and engaged then why have a hard cap of 3 CIs for a run on? It Means there's less incentive to post more than 8 posts. Not to mention at this point you're already earning at least one less CI than you would have done with the same amount of words in normal fiction.
@Malik - I agree with your concerns on the hard cap in a Run On. I plan to review the CI awarding in the ACC (and have already begun to do so with Wally) and also Run Ons. All I know right now is that I expect neither will move to a word count for CI format, but I want all writing activities to be in line with "500 words of effort" as it were much like gaming trying to balance out CFs for time investment. That isn't to say anything will change, but I want to look more closely at these things and plan to be very transparent in whatever decision is made (or not made) as far as reasoning.
Ok...so.
4 members write a run-on together. They each write 5 posts of around 2k words each.
Another 4 members write a run-on. They manage 8 posts each, each post between 250-300 words long.
You're saying it's fair that the RO with the shorter posts (and arguably less effort) gets more CIs?
@Mark - No, what I'm saying is in a fiction you write a story, and in a run on you work with other people to generate a series of posts that form a story. It would be unfair if the rules or standards around how Clusters of Ice were being awarded somehow changed in the middle of someone writing something and they didn't get what they expected to get, there is nothing unfair going on here.
I do understand what you're getting at in your example, but the opposite side of that is that 20 posts over 2 weeks is much easier to manage than 32 posts over the same time frame while keeping in the structure of a Run On and what those organizing and leading the teams are up against. There is no way to tell which team exerted more effort to get their final product out the door. It's exactly what you said, 'arguably' less effort but on either side.
@Malik, Andrelious: Seems the wiki is out of date. The Run-on CI awarding formula was updated about four months ago, but it seems the update never made it to the Wiki.
As per the post-GJW VOICE Report:
I have updated the Cluster of Ice wiki page to reflect what James is talking about regarding how Clusters of Ice are awarded for Run Ons. Any questions please let me know.