A Guide to Plots And The First Steps.

Concerning The Beginning

One of the most problematic hurdles that new players have to overcome when starting this MUX for the first time is the great conundrum of how to get involved in the action. In short, how to become involved in RP and plots. This article is aimed to give players a set of guide rails in order that they can find runs, rp and ultimately..fun. After this introduction I will look at what plots actually are, and then move on to the various types of plots, concluding finally with the burning question of how to become involved in them. It is a daunting task arriving fresh out of chargen, never having played a MUX of this nature before and thinking.what the hell do I do now? First of all you need to think a little about your character. Immediately try and think what this person would do, what their drive would be. Do they have an ultimate goal, and if they do how might you go about achieving this. It is often the case that characters wont have this shining holy grail of a goal, and it is something that evolves over time, so the first thing your character wants to do is earn some money and get a place where they can sleep or hole up. To do this, more often than not you will need to become involved in one of these elusive, ephemeral things known as plots..

Concering Plots

The word plot is a slightly spurious thing and the dictionary defines it as: a secret plan for accomplishing a usually evil or unlawful end. Which in many cases, it is. However, in game terms a plot refers to a persons idea for a story, or story line. The creator of this story then becomes the gamesmaster and begins to involve players who become participants in the story. The story might be simple, or it might be complex and have many twists and turns, continually evolving as the players make decisions and take actions. It can span a few days or it can span months, creeping in and out of dormancy, rearing its head with a new twist when all concerned thought it put to rest. It is much like unleashing a wild beast and letting it roam, often becoming unpredictable and unstable. It is when this state of flux happens, when the story is able to go in any direction and the gm willing to encompass any action, when the story itself reacts with a mind of its own that a truly absorbing and involving plot is created.

Without the players the story is nothing and without the story the players are without the thing they came here to do; have fun.

So we have established what a plot is. The brainchild of an evil (or good) mind that brings players in various roles to become active parts of that story, which is left open ended. Players themselves shape theconclusion of the story. Now we will look at what types of plots there are and ultimately, how to become involved in them.

Concerning Admin Plots

Members of the Roleplaying admin team, as the name implies create Admin plots. These people devote their time to creating stories for players of the mux, be they small time robberies or huge corporate scandals. They are the main shapers of the world and have unlimited resources at their disposal. Admin plots can be large or small, long or short and the main staple of action on the mux. Admin not only create plots but also respond to requests from players via the queues, judge scenes and prune the hedges. Different members of admin will run their plots in different ways and get their inspiration from different places. Some will look to player backgrounds and pull something up, others will inject the plot into the mux and see what happens. Others will have plots particularly tailored for a small group of criminals and the objective of the plot is clearly defined.

Concering Player Run Plots (PRPs)

Often players will also have a spark of an idea and wish to implement it. In this case they can run what is known as a PRP. There is a special PRP room on the mux that gives players much more scope and allows them to create custom locations. At the end of the day however, all monetary awards, equipment, custom items etc. will have to come through an RPA, so there is that limitation. PRPs are invaluable however, as at any given time there arent enough admin team members to cope with the number of players. PRPs are often intuitive, fun and well thought out and give players the opportunity to gm their own stories.

Read more about PrPs in PrP Policy on our forum….(TEMPORARY)

Concerning Tinyplots (TPs)

TPs are what the name suggests, very small sub stories that may last one or two scenes and can be crated by players or admins alike. Most often they come from a request that a player has made that an admin might latch onto and create a scene out of it. Sometimes these scenes may give that spark of an idea and develop into something much larger. An example of a tinyplot is if say, a player wants to get in touch with a contact to do some legwork and the admin presiding decides to rp the scene out. Maybe the contact, in exchange for giving some information out asks the player to go pick up a package from one of his own contacts. The player does so and all is well.it just adds to the flavour and realism of the game. It may then come about that the player is tailed or ambushed and all of a sudden the TP that came as a snap decision has evolved into something far more complex with the admins evil mind latching onto new threads and possibilities.

How do I get ‘into’ plots in general, though?