City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Private MA Storytelling: Who's Doing It?

Altoholic_Monkey

By Altoholic_Monkey,
Posted on: 2009-05-10 13:09 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

While I do have one arc published for general consumption, thus far most of my MA work has been dedicated to character-oriented and supergroup-oriented stories. I write the arc and publish it, the group or person it's been written for plays it, and then I unpublish it.

I currently have one ongoing storyline that's now up to six missions (spread out over 4 arcs). I have no idea how long it'll ultimately be, as it evolves based on the choices and actions of the players involved.

And they seem very happy about that. What they do can actually change the course of the story and has lasting consequences. It's a novel experience in an otherwise very static world.

For me, this is a tremendous strength of the MA system.

I'm just curious... how many other people are using it this way?

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Posted

One of my friends has been doing content in that same vein for our characters and one of her alts' SG. Not to the best of my knowledge unpublishing afterwards, but I doubt the playerbase at large would have the slightest clue what's goin' on.


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Posted

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What they do can actually change the course of the story and have lasting consequences. It's a novel experience in an otherwise very static world.

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To me, that's putting the RPG in MMORPG.

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Posted

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This is awesome stuff, and one of the main reasons I was excited about the MA when I first heard it was coming.

I don't have time to run or participate in this kind of campaign myself, but I'd love to hear what others are doing along these lines. I don't suppose your SG/group has a blog that talks about how the campaign is evolving? I'd be really interested to read more.

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Posted

As I remember (could be wrong) multiple choice endings/paths was something Positron wanted to add to MA and the game in general. Hopefully it just got caught in the crush to release MA and will be looked at again soon.

----------------------------
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Posted

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As I remember (could be wrong) multiple choice endings/paths was something Positron wanted to add to MA and the game in general. Hopefully it just got caught in the crush to release MA and will be looked at again soon.

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This would be an awesomeness cherry on top of an awesome sundae.


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Posted

Definitely not alone. Though in our playgroup's case, the missions/arcs aren't explicitly connected; they're just whatever emerges from our ongoing plotting that happens to work well in a play-through-it setting. In the old days, we made do with repurposed stock missions, but now we can create them to fit (almost) exactly.

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Posted

This is exactly what excites me most about MA. I'm not overly concerned about ratings, just in having fun.

My wife, daughter, and I all play together -- quite literally, all in the same room -- and will being doing this. My brother and my wife's brother play as well, but it's hit or miss as to how often all of us can get together.

But with the three of us, we have nine mission arcs available up front, plus rotating arcs in/out as desired. This pretty much gives us unlimited content, especially when added to the existing dev content.

Have I mention somewhere on these forums that I love the MA?

 

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AAARRRGH!!!

 

Posted

All of my MA arcs are personalized for my characters, for improved roleplaying. I might leave one published for a while if I think others might enjoy it, but not for too long. I don't care about the ratings.

 

Posted

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While I do have one arc published for general consumption, thus far most of my MA work has been dedicated to character-oriented and supergroup-oriented stories. I write the arc and publish it, the group or person it's been written for plays it, and then I unpublish it.

I currently have one ongoing storyline that's now up to six missions (spread out over 4 arcs). I have no idea how long it'll ultimately be, as it evolves based on the choices and actions of the players involved.

And they seem very happy about that. What they do can actually change the course of the story and has lasting consequences. It's a novel experience in an otherwise very static world.

For me, this is a tremendous strength of the MA system.

I'm just curious... how many other people are using it this way?

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That's pretty much all I've been doing with it. I cycle the oldest one out whenever I make a new one. I have not designed any arcs for public consumption, and I label them clearly that this is the case. Oddly one of mine still got abunch of ratings at a four star average, although I can't imagine why, as I don't see how anyone could really understand the story unless they were involved in the RP events that led up to it.

But hey, free tickets!

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Posted

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Oddly one of mine still got a bunch of ratings at a four star average, although I can't imagine why, as I don't see how anyone could really understand the story unless they were involved in the RP events that led up to it.

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My guess would be you had a team that did it, and they just liked the style of it.

My friends and I will sometimes do random MA arcs as a team. We've come across a couple of arcs that were obviously meant for a specific SG, but we did them anyway.

On one of them, even though we didn't really know what was going on, the arc was so comparatively well-crafted and detailed, not to mention fun to play, it got high ratings from us. We didn't dock it anything for not being clear, 'cuz we knew going in that it wouldn't be.

So, you should probably just take it as a compliment on your mission design. Heck, maybe it was your arc that we did.

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Posted

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Oddly one of mine still got a bunch of ratings at a four star average, although I can't imagine why, as I don't see how anyone could really understand the story unless they were involved in the RP events that led up to it.

[/ QUOTE ]

My guess would be you had a team that did it, and they just liked the style of it.

My friends and I will sometimes do random MA arcs as a team. We've come across a couple of arcs that were obviously meant for a specific SG, but we did them anyway.

On one of them, even though we didn't really know what was going on, the arc was so comparatively well-crafted and detailed, not to mention fun to play, it got high ratings from us. We didn't dock it anything for not being clear, 'cuz we knew going in that it wouldn't be.

So, you should probably just take it as a compliment on your mission design. Heck, maybe it was your arc that we did.

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Also, for me, an attempt at a story is 4 stars, minimum.


That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.

 

Posted

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I don't have time to run or participate in this kind of campaign myself, but I'd love to hear what others are doing along these lines.

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Right now I've an ongoing arc that actually started on Test. It spotlights a friend's character, but has been designed to draw in other characters as it unfolds. So far, I've managed to pull that off.

The kick-off was a 2-mission arc, investigating a new and dangerous drug hitting the streets of Paragon. For reasons I won't get into, 'cuz it'd require lengthy explanation, the central character was ideally suited to head up this investigation. She got some friends (sg mates) to help.

They broke the drug ring, but it raised more questions than it answered. Many roleplay scenes ensued. The characters set out to analyze samples of the drug, in order to hopefully gain some clues. This drew in other characters, and actually involved some dice rolling.

Second MA arc was a dream sequence--a nightmare--experienced by the central character, allegedly caused by the antagonist (encountered in the first arc). The character is certain she was accosted in her dreams. Others are not so sure. More RP scenes bloom out of this.

Next MA arc focused on gathering samples of extremely rare and preternatural substances to match them against the drug analysis. This arc ends with a choice for the central character: get the last ingredient via an easy and morally questionable way, or choose the far more dangerous but "right" and proper option. Which mission she gets now will depend on her choice.

The most gratifying thing about this process has not actually been the arcs themselves, but everything that's gone on, roleplay-wise, between them. For this reason, I recommend that anyone thinking of using MA this way should break up their story into installments for maximum roleplay potential.

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Posted

My group is also using this method of writing missions that are actually made to be part of the plot(s) the SG is currently undergoing. We used to have the plot and say "Oh, we'll be using the Dr. Vahz arc but Vahz will be (custom villain), and the minions are (custom)."

I was surprised when, at the conclusion of the arc I wrote, it spurred an IC debate among the characters as to the ethics and punishment that should go along with crime committed by an AI.

So the RP has been improved by the MA, in my opinion.

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Posted

(QR)

Well mine are semi-private...

I created six MAs that link together to form a Task Force. These missions were made for my RO mates. The storyline and custom characters will only be known by those in RO. While they are published and can be found by anyone, the average AE player will probably find them difficult.

If they offer more more MA slots, I plan to create more customize missions for the specific SGs I lead. I'd like to have ones that maybe test out recruits playstyles, just to check out the newbies.

Unfortunately, I used up all my MA slots on each account to make up the Task Force



 

Posted

At first, I was obsessed with telling the story of my characters. I wasn't trying to make them Mary Sues, but I realized I was inserting them into storylines where they weren't really needed and were making things more confusing then they needed to be. For instance I had a Mad Scientist experiment and I had President Evil behind it, even though thinking back that didn't make much sense. I'm working on revamping it because I realize the scientist would work well as a Nazi super scientist working for the 5th Column.

I also decided to make alterations to my custom group and while he may end up being a boss in an arc, President Evil is just one of 10 high ranking officers serving a greater evil.

 

Posted

Well so far my arcs are designed for me to roleplay in, but I also make them enjoyable for others who might just want to play... for example I'm roleplaying a litterary character (Ozma from the Oz novels) she's public domain so don't worry about that... and in my second arc that I just published she is the contact and shows up as an NPC in the last mission... when I'm roleplaying that I'll ignore it and act as the contact myself and pretend there isn't a double of me in the last mission.

 

Posted

Most of my published stuff (apart from the two in my sig) are for my RP supergroups and tend to be cycled out once a week as the next installment gets played.

I write each installment based on discussion of the previous one and anythign that gets done on the forums in-between play sessions.

I'm always vaguely amused (and pleased) when I get stranger feedback on them because I've managed to make something that's enjoyable even if you don't know the backstory.

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Posted

I have one arc I made for public consumption. (Atlas Stands)

The other two slots I use as needed for RP missions. One off missions when there's not an arc or Radio mission that would fit what you need right now.

Currently working on an arc that's come about as a result of a friend's character needing a body. I'll probably put it up for the VG to run and then take it back down after a a while.

 

Posted

I have one published arc for the community with only minor references to actual characters (something to make Liberty players smile).

I'm using private arcs for story telling - the ability to take heroes to the Rogue Isles and fight our archnemesis, investigate certain villains, fight our opposite number VG, for the villains to fight the SG.

Ultimately, once the crash bugs stabilize for me I will be writing full-blown private arcs for my SG. I can't publish them, three slots isn't many and I already have plans for the last two.

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