Some Questions about Stories

Now I've been making use of the story system for a little while, I wanted to ask a few questions about the right way to do it that've come up for me so far. Apologies if this has been covered before! I tried searching "STORY" in the Forums and very quickly regretted it.

1) How many stories is reasonable to have going at once?

I'm something of a maximalist when it comes to gaming; I can't resist the urge to do everything. I also LOVE the story system for letting me track the everything I am doing in a coherent way. Right now I have three stories open simultaneously and was thinking about starting a fourth, but is this... overkill? Is this insanity? I think all of them certainly fit the examples laid out on the Personal story wikipage, but surely at some point it's just too much, right?

2) How do you handle overlapping developments?

So two of my stories were created thinking they would inevitably have some amount of overlap, but due to uh... IC, there have been several cases where I'd realistically post almost identical developments even across all three stories. This makes me feel a little bit guilty about duplication, so I've tried to limit it where possible/combine developments, but I was unsure if there was any kind of standing policy there, or if maybe I should even close my most overlapped stories in favor of a new single story, etc.

3) How long is too long for descriptions of developments?

I do these mostly on the website rather than in-game so I end up writing some stonking long descriptions, sometimes a couple middling paragraphs' worth. Is there a specific length that's desired for staff having to read this stuff? (SORRY.)

4) Is there some way to include... brainstorming?

This is a little more frivolous, but I'd love to be able to include like, a page of scribbled incoherent thoughts or something alongside logs/impressions/etc. Any thoughts on a good way to do this? I could write them all down IC, but the character limits on pieces of paper are quite low.

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Thanks!!

As a fellow enjoyer of the story system, here are my few cents (keeping in mind that I am just one player, so take as many grains of salt as needed):

> 1) How many stories is reasonable to have going at once?

In my opinion, as many as you like so long as you're not expecting/asking for staff attention for all of them at once. My understanding of the story system is that staff can look at our stories at any time, but they are by no means obligated to do so unless the story is placed in the queue for attention. I believe you can only queue once every 90 days anyway, so perhaps superfluous to even say. I have had up to five or six active at once, though not all of those were stories in the traditional sense - see my following answers for more on this.

> 2) How do you handle overlapping developments?

I don't think there's a wrong way to handle overlaps, it's more a matter of preference. I myself have ended up merging stories when they had too much overlap, adding details to one and archiving the other. However, there is no reason you couldn't just maintain them all separately even if they do overlap - with one caveat: impressions/logs/forum posts can only be added to one story, and then they are no longer available to attach to other developments, so you cannot use the same ones for multiple stories. This is the only real mechanical limitation, as far as I am aware.

> 3) How long is too long for descriptions of developments?

I think that when you are requesting staff attention to your story it is probably ideal to keep it reasonably brief, yes. However, with that said, I have frequently written developments that are many pages long for various reasons (which I do not expect staff to read). See below.

4) Is there some way to include... brainstorming?

I use the story system for keeping track of all aspects of my character, from current stories to background memories, stories, and characters and OOC notes and brainstorming for myself. The story system is very flexible and can be used any way you see fit, really - at least, staff has yet to reprimand me for the ways in which I have used the system, so I am taking this as at least tacit approval :]

I tend to keep at least one story running for current events or plots or goals my character is involved in, as many as might be needed given the circumstances, as well as a story for background information and stories from my character's past. I will also use developments to flesh out characters in my own character's past such as family members etc, going so far as to essentially go through chargen and give them a short description, long description, height, weight, age/birthday, history and personality, etc. I also use developments in the current story/stories as brainstorming or planning, whether IC or OOC. The OOC comment function is perfect for some of these cases. (As a side note, do be aware that you can only add one OOC comment per story development, and if you try to use the function a second time it will simply overwrite what you entered previously, rather than adding another comment.)

Oh it did NOT occur to me to just make a development for writing things, somehow. DUH, what a good idea. I thought I had used the same log in multiple developments before, though... In fact I'm almost certain I have. Huh.

Oh, maybe I am wrong then. Or maybe it only applies to impressions and cutscene logs? Because I am almost certain of those two, at least - I have clear memories of wanting to use a certain log and a certain impression for two different story developments, and them being missing/unavailable when I went to the second development.

It's also possible that pilgrim has developed things since I last tried, and maybe my information is simply out of date. Like I say - many grains of salt lmao, I am by no means staff or an actual expert, my apologies for passing wrong information

Chiming in as just another player who has tinkered with the story arc system, so please take my input with another grain of salt! Overall I think the system is really here for us to use as we see fit for our characters. Its open-endedness is something that I really love about it, though I have certainly struggled (and in some ways continue to struggle) in figuring out how to best use it, precisely because it is so free-form! I think I probably underutilize story arcs as a whole, but I try not to pressure myself one way or the other. :)

1) How many stories is reasonable to have going at once?

Agree with pof Mathias! And generally speaking, I think it's quite normal/natural to have multiple ongoing story arcs. I also think it's to be expected that not every story will progress at exactly the same pace! Some stories might progress quickly, some might progress in starts and stops, and some might smolder in the background to be updated only every once in a while - and every one of these could very reasonably be "active" stories. It's also possible to archive and then un-archive ("revive") a story arc if you realize that something you had shelved is coming back into relevance. (Or maybe you hit the wrong button, like I do.)

2) How do you handle overlapping developments?

Just to add to the above conversation on this thread - I can confirm that I've been able to attach individual cutscenes, RP logs, and dreams/visions/etc to more than one story arc. I've not tested impressions specifically, however.

3) How long is too long for descriptions of developments?

Agree with pof Mathias, and I am also guilty of the same crime! I *try* to be relatively brief, maybe 3-4 paragraphs at most when I am compressing multiple events into one thematic development. But sometimes if a description is becoming lengthy to the point that I think it will be disruptive to reading, I will provide a quick summary and add a link to something like a google doc which contains said lengthy writing. Don't know how helpful or *un*helpful that is to the staff who might need to read the story arc, but it helps me feel like I've achieved a nice compromise. :'')

4) Is there some way to include... brainstorming?

And also like pof Mathias, I am using the story arc system to brainstorm and keep track of details related to my character's family and her past as I continue to flesh them out! I currently have a couple of active story arcs which are functioning as centralized places for me to add all this information, with the added bonus that everything there could be accessible to staff in case those details are ever needed. And since the story arc is so flexible by nature, I could easily add developments that might be, for example, brainstorming how in-game events are affecting Marwa's off-screen-but-extant family, right alongside developments detailing past events between Marwa and her parents/siblings/etc that might have been formative but don't really have anywhere else to go!

Hope this was at least a little helpful!

Matty: No no no, don't apologize! You were still so super helpful, and have blown my mind with the idea of using developments sans logs/impressions/etc to track info.

Marwa: Thank you for chiming in as well! I thought my descriptions were mega-long, and now I feel way better about them. 

You both have encouraged me to start up that fourth story after all without shame or hesitation (muahaha)...