[MUD-Dev2] Procedure as a solution for a growing set of stories

[Ian Hess]

I've recently moved up from the gm staff on Inferno
(deviousminds.net) to a head admin position.  The
focus of the game is a player driven story, where
gms run events of various magnitudes during the
week for a playerbase of around 35-40 players.
Currently, we have about 5 gms, 7 ongoing
storylines, and a pool of about 15 regular npcs
that the gms run as part of those stories.

In the process of moving to as close an adherence
to "player driven" as possible, we've run into the
predictable issue of the availability of volunteer
game masters against player interest and available
times.

Based on day-job customer service work, I've been
working on an idea for a message board folder for
each character, that only the gms and that player
can see.  The player could post directions he or
she is trying to take a plotline (arrange a
meeting with X, research Y, do Z to another player).
Then, the gms could assign the idea a numeric
response of urgency and/or likelihood for a fast
response.  In thisway, player requests get
acknowledged, recorded in one place that all of
the gms can monitor, and the gms can post story
waypoints later down the road.  An example of the
last is a gm statement that the storyline is
active, finished, on hold, or some other status
message.

My goals are parallel to most ticket tracking
systems.  No one should have their involvement
dropped, lost or ignored.  Setting an expectation
level allows a player to (hopefully) not feel the
need to be demanding or pushy.  If a GM is hit by
a bus, quits, or whatever else, there is a
history of who has been doing what with who.
Also, Gms can get an idea of when a particular
storyline is being pursued by a number of players,
to include groups of people and to make plans for
rivalries or crossovers with other plots.

Has anyone tried a system like this?

In a perfect world, what I'd like to do is use an
idea like this to discover the nuts and bolts for
treating storytelling as just another character
"class" in game, albiet perhaps with a different
playing interface to a game.


Ian Hess



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