Between Event Actions

When emailing plot for Role Play interactions there are some core rules to keep in mind to keep things flowing smoothly. This is to help maintain clarity in the email as to what is going on for both the PC and the Plot Member(s) involved to readily be able to respond to one another. Plot juggles an entire PC player-base so try to be concise.

  1. Title your Email Subject Line appropriately. The reason for the order is for ease of Subject line reading for the Plot Members to quickly find the email they are looking to read and respond to:
    1. Your character name / Title of Action / Plot Member
      1. Ashley Shambloke / Investigating ghost - Fakeman Farm / McPlotterson
      2. Steve Fakeman / Conversation with Quarrymaster Shambloke / Any Plot
    2. If you have multiple PCs involved in your plot email, include the name of each PC in the beginning of the subject line (first names only) or designate a group name.
      1. Mage Group: Alpha Velvet Thunder / Magic Milk Cow Farm / McPlotterson
  2. Remember to include a Time Stamp (TS) at the beginning of the post. This lets everyone in the game world know exactly the date and time when this Role Play is taking place and can affect whether or not certain characters are available to be interacted with.
  3. State where the Role Play is taking place. This helps give a setting as to where the events are taking place which can affect the atmosphere, and possibly the characters, who would be around to participate.
  4. State how you arrive. There are three ways to travel: by foot, by horse, and by boat. This will affect your travel times, if any.
  5. Inner thoughts of your character should remain inner. If you wish to express those thoughts do so through descriptive writing, or verbal character dialogue.
  6. When speaking always use quotation marks “     ” around what you are saying. This helps differentiate between your character speaking and describing your character’s actions.
  7. Sometimes a skill that your character has will be useful in the development of your interaction with plot. Plot Members will not know your character sheet off by heart, so it is helpful to include any pertinent skill, or lack thereof, within the email to help clarify if your character may have an edge in a situation, or a disadvantage.
  8. Be concise in what you want to accomplish. Some Role Play may simply be conversation, or other such tasks that don’t require much specificity in physical actions. However, if you are tracking someone, for example, to another town then you would want to include what you do once you get there, and how you initially go about the investigation. Where you first look at, any NPC contacts your characters may have, and so forth.
  9. If you are uncertain as to what a character looks like, or need further clarification on a scenario description, you can ask by using (  ) brackets around what you are stating out of game. It helps to add in OOG: at the beginning of what you are going to write for clarity. This is most useful when done at the top of the email so Plot may think on that first, and then proceed with the in-game interaction.
  10. If you are investing downtime hours into your action(s) that will need to be recorded when you log it is helpful to add that to the bottom of the email as well. Both for keeping track of passage of time for the Role Play, and for easy referral for both the PC and the Plot Member. This can be for travel time, investigation time, or any other number of actions you wish to focus on.
  11. Remember that if your character is off adventuring they may not be in town for when online Role Play occurs in the FA In-Game Forums. Be mindful of this and whether or not your PC is available for interactions while you’re dealing with plot via email.


Example


Subject: Ashley Shambloke / Investigating ghost – Fakeman Farm Stelton / McPlotterson

TS: Friday, October 27th, 2017 8:00am

Ashley rides her horse to the Fakeman Farm in Stelton where she has heard rumours of the farm being haunted. First Ashley heads to the local library to begin research on local ghost legends, specifically looking for the history of the Fakeman Farm or legends that match the reports of the haunting at the farm. After a few days of research, Ashley heads to the tavern to speak to the locals:

“Hi everyone! I’m looking for the family that lives at Fakeman Farm, or anyone that can give me any gossip about it. Hoping to hunt down some ghosts and rid that place of those spooky spectres.”

She spends the remainder of the morning in the tavern collecting as much information as possible. Later in the night she stakes out Fakeman Farm (she got a map to it at the event) and watches to see if the rumours are true, watching for any ghost activity. (OOG: Ashley Shambloke does not have Spirit Sense). She remains nervous throughout the night, constantly fidgeting and sharpening her steel dagger.

(Below is the following downtime spent)

Travel Time: 6 hours by horse – regular 12 hour by foot one way.
12 hours total, there and back.

Research: Local Ghost Legends 20 hours

Ghost Watching at Fakeman Farm: 8 hours

40 hours downtime total.