Crisis Guide
Player Apostate pages you: Basically I am going to use AP in crisis actions as tie breakers and to effect the magnitude of actions. It didn't make much difference for the silence action because comparing 85 actions with one another would have made the 30 hours it took to write responses more like a hundred, and it wasn't pvp in any way or form
Crisis actions are queued and simultaneously resolved by GMs periodically.
See Actions for excellent step by step details! (Formerly +storyrequest)
The following files may be related and are viewable via help <filename> on the game as well:
@Action Limits
Board: News, Post Number: 99 Poster: Tehom Subject: New action and assist cap Date: 01/18/18 03:28:20
So I was asked earlier today by GMs to change the cap of actions and assists you can participate in to 2 actions and 2 assists per 30 days, far more restrictive than previously uncapped assists and 2 actions + 1 action per crisis. I realize this may seem draconian to players, but GMs asked for this specifically because they were overwhelmed and couldn't keep up.
To clarify, this means you can only submit 2 actions and 2 assists within a 30 day period. Some characters will have far more than that at the moment, but it just cares about how many you've submitted within the last 30 days. So if you've submitted an action on Jan 1st, and another on Jan 10th, by Feb 1st you'd be able to submit another action, and then another on Feb 10th, etc. Assists are on their own timer, based on when the action they were assisting was submitted.
As of this writing, this has been adjusted so that a player may have more assists by 'giving up' an action. IE: 1 action, 3 assists; 2 actions, 2 assists; 0 actions, 4 assists. You can not, however, 'replace' an assist with an action.
Typing 'help @action' on the game will show you what you have available:
"You are permitted 2 actions and 2 assists every 30 days, and have currently taken 0 actions and 0 assists. Assists can be made instead of actions, and assists over 2 count toward the action cap."
This only changes when the @action itself is submitted, even if you've codely submitted your assisting @action (or so I assume since I have done @action/submit on one I am assisting and just got the above).
Example
Board: News, Post Number: 97 Poster: Pax Subject: @actions and You! Date: 01/14/18 23:41:18
So, as we've been going through crisis actions, we've found that there's still a bit of confusion on how best to use @action.
We've often had people put in assists that are entirely different actions on a similar topic, or just trying to do other things as part of the same effort. We've had, more than once, secret actions that are entirely separate actions only tangentially related to the main action. This makes it very hard to GM, and it also makes it very hard to recordkeep (especially since we can't include replies to secret actions in the main story, obviously).
The key is that a single @action should always have a single focus. Assists should be how you are assisting that one particular effort, not a related but different effort. Secret actions should either be how you are helping or hindering that specific effort, if there are elements you want us to take into account that you don't want the other people on an action to see.
An example might be the following:
- Joe wants to find an aardvark to be his familiar, so puts in an 'I am searching for aardvarks' action. He details where he's looking for aardvarks.
- Jane puts in that she's using her expert survival and tracking skills to help Joe find likely aardvark habitats.
- Fred puts in that he's helping Joe by providing useful gear for the trip.
- Secretly, Fred sets the 'traitor' switch because he wants Joe to fail.
- Fred sets a secret action that he's coated all their gear in aardvark repellant.
- Petunia puts in that she's helping Joe, by using her knowledge of animals to find an aardvark.
- Petunia puts a secret action that she's using a secret aardvark-detecting compass to help Joe.
All of the assists, and all of the secret actions, are related to Joe's search for aardvarks, and directly provide an impact on the success or failure metric of that specific action.
Now, we often see things like:
- Ronald wants to learn more about plants, so wants to use Joe's trip to collect as many specimens of herbs as possible.
- Wendy helps Joe find aardvarks!
- Wendy actually is looking for buried pirate treasure she thinks might be near the aardvarks, but she doesn't want to share it with the others.
Ronald's assist, and Wendy's secret assist, are not directly related to Joe going out to find an aardvark. They should be entirely different @actions, rather than assists, because it's a completely different set of outcomes (a bunch of plant information, or secret pirate treasure) than Joe's (one or more aardvarks, hopefully).
If you want to take an unrelated action which is only made possible by being a part of the main action, you should submit your normal assist with the main action, and then put in a second, separate action of your own referencing it. You can then put in a secret assist on the main action which references the other action. For instance:
- Ronald is assisting with finding aardvarks!
- While out there, Ronald is also separately looking for herbs. Please see @action 12345 for details.
This will let us handle responses in a concise manner and makes for better recordkeeping. Please help your GMs stay sane, and group your actions appropriately; our sanity is a limited resource!
