Let's Get a Big Plot Cooking!

[Alois Altair]

Righto, so this isn't a traditional one on one plotter by any means. This is an attempt to get out ideas to start actually weaving characters together in less isolated means. Rather than plotting in a one on one environment and planning out one thread with one story, why not try creating some kind of story arc to span several threads and a plethora of characters? Each one is obviously dealing with things in their own ways and for their own interests, but we can link them together and actually have characters create more dynamic stories.

This is a place to toss out any and all big ideas you have! It doesn't even have to involve specific characters. If you just have an idea that you think might stir up a few waves, feel free to pick up the mic!

I had at least a few ideas myself that could potentially create some interesting developments. I'd love to hear thoughts about them.

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The first would involve Navy/pirate relations being both strained, and pressed. Could very well involve a wiping of any bounties or debts pirates might have incurred in Rhoda and the waters around it. Hell, maybe even some kind of treaty between pirates and the Navy! The basis of this would come from something I was planning to use as personal plot stuff for Alois, but I think there's a lot more that could be done with something with as much potential as this. Alda'Baras, the giant sea dragon that Alois chases, was always meant to inevitably move toward Rhoda in Alois' personal plot, but now I'm thinking a good way to do this and involve a bunch of characters would be to have the nasty creature actually move to attack the biggest port on the island, which would devastate the economy of the island and prevent a ton of trade from making its way in, as well as a lot of people getting killed. So, the Navy discerns the pattern of behavior as hostile before the dragon attacks, and sends Navy officers out to accomplish an inconceivable mission; make alliances with pirates who have armed ships, in order to defend the port. In exchange, any number of the above could be offered, as well as a monetary reward, if need be. This provides a lovely opportunity to begin a rather intricate series of conniving pirate plays and Navy shows of strength.

I think this definitely has potential for an awesome little arc, and could really open doors to relationships that you might never have thought of your characters having because of the limited interactions through regular plotters.

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The second idea I had has a bit less potential, as far as I can tell, but it's still worth getting out. Since the introduction of Lady Fang, my newest character, I've been looking into characters for potential partnerships. The primary purpose of this plot would be an issue that could really impair both pirates and Navy people, as an organised criminal group with a lot of power and money moving into the neighborhoods is a very big problem. The Blue Rode Triad is just that; a triad. They're a very well organized gang of thugs with a lot of money and power. And they're not afraid to kill. If they muscled into Rhoda, merchants would end up having to pay the classic "protection money" and they'd suffer for it. Pirates would find themselves even less welcome, as their job is to steal from the same people the Blue Rose are stealing from, which means more open fights and less money for them to take overall. Adventure seeking pirates would likely find toll blockades, to impede their movement and extort their money at the same time. This could potentially start a type of war between the Triad, pirates, and the Navy, making it a 3+ faction scandal festival. Could get even more juicy for pirates who side with Triad as business partners, or even pirates who JOIN the Triad.

In my opinion, this idea is the more exciting of the two, but involves a lot more planning, which makes it a double edged sword. I don't think everyone is going to hop on board with this one in particular.

But anyway, those are my two cents. Anyone else have anything to add or throw out?

[Nix]

So your essentially throwing around ideas for a site wide events/plots? I'm cool with that. Be nice to get the site booming with more activity. Plus I like seeing stories unravel.

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OPINIONS & CRITIQUES

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Sea Monster Attack: The idea of Alda 'Baras attacking has a lot of potential. The biggest problem with it though is it being a singular enemy. Having all of these crews working together in a single thread when it finally reaches the island is going to be massive and require a lot of coordination. So much so that there might be some stumbling involved. Not to mention how long it would take to complete such a massive thread.

Alda 'Baras is a giant monster, right? So why not take a page from other monster films? Instead of offering up your big bad, offer up his/her OFFSPRING. By doing this, you turn one enemy into many which would better explain the Navy's sudden forgiveness towards pirates when they never did so during the initial attack. And by using multiple enemies, you can give them various attributes. For example, size. Those with crews and ships can tackle the much larger offspring (lets say there's five or so to divide the load of bads while still maintaining a larger thread). Then you can have even younger, more human sized offspring to invade the town to give those without ships a chance to be involved. You get all of that and you STILL get to keep your big bad for Alois' own personal plot.

Now going a step beyond that, you can have a decent portion of Rhoda get demolished during the whole skirmish. That would allow even more chances for characters to interact during the rebuilding process. Of course destruction of that magnitude would require that admins ok.

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Triad: To be brutally honest, I'm not that big on the idea. Don't get me wrong. It has a lot of potential as a story. My main concern with it though is that it's giving a single character too much power. I understand that the Blue Rose Triad is meant to be powerful. But there's a difference between stating it and flexing that power clear across the entire board. It would essentially be a self-appointed canon position in my opinion. Now I can see this happening if it was a NPC faction or at least a faction with a NPC leader which would promote some fairness and not give too much power to a single character.

But the whole point of this thread is to discuss and throw around ideas. So please don't take offense to my criticism. I understand you're offering up what you have available.

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MY IDEAS

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Pirate Council: Ya, I know. I'm pretty much ripping the idea straight from Pirates of the Caribbean. But the idea of a disorganized lot such as pirates tossing aside their differences to actually, you know, become organized is still an amusing one. But instead of having a pre-established Council, I suggest we lead up to its creation. For example, the Navy of the seas are crushing the pirates. So pirates begin to team up as a means of survival against the Navy.

To be self-critical here, the only problem with this is what I stated above with the Triad idea. Doing this is pretty much a self-appointed canon position. And that's pretty much unfair to anyone who joins at a later date. So what I propose would be a simple solution to the matter. The Pirate Council is TEMPORARY. After each time a threat has been dealt with, the council disbands. And when a new threat emerges, a new council is made to deal with that threat. Doing so would allow anyone a shot at grabbing a seat.

The idea allows for a variety of story ideas since backstabbing and politics could be going on as well as have interaction with characters and crews who normally wouldn't interact. Plus it would be the easiest to implement without having to bug any admins to get involved.

To take it a step further for you Alter, the Pirate Council can tie into your Alda'Baras plot (Alois' personal or site wide) if you want to do something for the long haul. Such as a second or third site wide plotting event for example.

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Magic Island, Secrent Treasure: The seas are filled with wonder and mystery with a ton of mythology connected to them. So why not dip into that pool for some ideas? I vote for an island that only appears, say, every century or so. Legend has it that they're a treasure inside that'll either make someone all powerful or so rich that their family line will never know poverty again. Translations and stories differ from person to person of course (such as all oral tales).

The entire point of this plot would be to be like Rat Race and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. A single treasure open to everyone which becomes a race against each other to find it first. Now what is this treasure you may ask? Who knows! Could be something. Could be nothing. The entire point is the journey and not the destination. Trickery could be involved. Friends become foes in this competition. Unlikely alliances are struck to split the reward. There's a plethora of story ideas to come out of a winner takes all styled race.

Now the biggest hurdle with this idea would be that it would need admins to be involved. An entire island would need to be created. Yes, this could technically be held on one of the islands we currently have. But neutral ground would be nice and having a mystical island that can only be discovered every century adds a little weight to the tales. Plus the island would need to be massive to add a variety of scenery and scenarios for this little race. Then there's the matter of figuring out the treasure (if there is one) along with any clues that might be given out to aid the treasure hunters (my suggestion would be to actually write a story that could be told orally with extremely minor and vague hints instead of the usual list style for maps).

So while this type of thing would probably be the most fun. It would also require the most work to get going.

[Alois Altair]

To put Alda'Baras' size a bit into perspective, since I've yet to actually do that, its mouth would be large enough to bite the average ship in half. It's damn big, but usually it's timid, so it tends to get scared off when shot by a few dozen cannons. And to be honest, it's not really like I'm sacrificing Alois' personal plot for the sake of this big one, it still accomplishes the goals I set out to accomplish, just in a much bigger way.

As for the offspring, the idea had crossed my mind several times, I just forgot to mention what I was thinking for them. For starters, the primary reason I had figured for the dragon to attack would be Alois (since he's literally paid to follow the monster around and ruin its day) destroying its nest, basically. He blows up the babies and then goes back to Rhoda to make the report, Alda'Baras comes back to the nest, and then after doing a few monster-esque brain blasts, begins to slowly make its way to Rhoda, destroying everything on the way as a means of tipping the island off. It's certainly possible a few babies could have survived and journeyed with Alda'Baras back, which would give another reason to extend the time it would take for it to reach Rhoda. Overall, I think we can involve both ideas! They're both very solid.

As for Rhoda being demolished, I'm kind of iffy on that. I mean, the whole point is to stop it from being hurt. If it happens anyway, what reason does the government have to give the pirates what they wanted anyway? I suppose it could work to create even more strife between them, but I'm not sure on it.

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As for the Blue Rose, I was actually fully intending to leave the power out of Lady Fang's hands. She's not the head of the Triad, and she wouldn't be in charge of everything. It's more like a go-between relationship, where she occasionally organizes a new partner or two, and then hands out jobs on behalf of her hubby. She's just the face of the organization in Rhoda. It's why I chose NOT to make her the leader of the entire organization when I was first creating her. And her position as second in charge is mostly in name only. Because of her somewhat flighty nature, she always has someone else to do more for her position than she herself does. And since the power isn't in my character's hands, we more than likely could keep this kind of a round table discussion as the story arc continues, and have the RPers of the involved characters sort of plan out how the Triad moves.

Your concern is entirely valid, but I think I've covered my bases well enough to ensure that a character of mine doesn't end up with supreme power or anything. Believe it or not, I can't stand having big responsibilities, so I tend to go to great lengths to avoid them! It's a talent, really.

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IDEA VIEWING AND CRITIQUE TIME!

I like what I see in the pirate council! It's pretty simple, and you've already proposed a pretty good solution to the one issue I saw with the idea. I'm all about spontaneous changes and junk, so the idea of a forever-the-same council was worrisome.

As for a tie in, it's kind of all over. Alois' personal plot just needs to end with Alda'Baras dying, which is something I never wanted to write out alone, y'know. If anyone had ideas about binding any of these things together, I'm down, so long as it ends with the dragon dying. XD

And the magic island, I'm liking it. It has the potential to pull in pirates and Navy, actually. I dig it. The island reappears, and Rhoda's all like "OH CRAP, WE NEED DAT MONEY AND KEEP IT FROM PIRATES," and send out Navy characters. Obviously probably a bit more complicated than that, but eh, you get my point. With the focus of the story being on the journey, rather than the destination, I can safely propose a lack of wealth for anyone at the end. And by that, I don't mean the treasure isn't there, but maybe it took too long for people to arrive at the treasure, and the island begins to...well, I imagine it breaking apart and falling below the sea, taking all the cash with it. It could also be some magical booby trap, akin to the end of Treasure Planet.

This would kind of act as a buffer as well, to keep one pirate crew from getting obscenely rich from a member plot. We get the story without breaking any systems! Hurrah! XD

It does seem like a lot of work, but I think I could support this. It's a lot more in theme with the other ideas, I think, since the site presents itself as an exploration site more than anything. I would never volunteer to head this thing, but I'd be willing to provide what help I can.