Synodiporia OOC community

The Great Page Updatening is finally complete! Here’s an overview of the last few changes:

* The Rules page has been reformatted to match everything else.
* The Application form has been updated with more info about apping a veteran Traveler, how the standard telepath/teleporter power cap works, and a new section for Mark justification. Likewise, the page new characters are linked to upon acceptance has been updated to include a new Mark-related step, and a link to the Skill Equivalences page for easier finding.
*The PG/AU Details page and Veteran Intros page have been updated. The former now contains more concise information about apping a veteran Traveler, and the latter has been adjusted to cut an intro option that’s no longer viable as of Phase Three.
*On a related note, an update about apping veterans: Veteran characters are limited to Phase One and Phase Two jaunts (Moebius-Lightside/Darkside), since anything later, they’d already be Marked.
*A header for common IC knowledge about the Arcana has been added to the Metaplot Speculation page. There is also a new info page discussing the various extradimensional threats to Liminal Space and the network.
*The Questing Sense ping page has been linked under the skill description on the Previous Universe Skills page, to make it easier for folks with Questing Sense to find. Additionally, there’s now a note under the Questing Country header about moving between types of QC magic.
*The old reserve pages have been fully deleted.
*Last but certainly not least, the FAQ has been completely overhauled. It now answers questions that are asked frequently, including but not limited to our unusual app cycle, skill AC, how plot roles work, and many more. Old comments have been screened so we have them for future reference, if necessary.

I. Next Jaunt/Walkabout Vote

The next Jaunt will be Labyrinthine Shoal: Siren’s Song. Below are a pair of Walkabout options (one in an old setting, one in a new) for those players who need something different to sink their teeth into. Please ONLY VOTE IF YOU ARE DEFINITELY SENDING A CHARACTER ON WALKABOUT, so as not to water down the results.

Ivory Tower: Field Trip: Postapocalyptic scholars attending a conference near an irradiated city find there's more to worry about than academic politics when local warlords make trouble. It may be time to test how much mightier than the sword the pen can be…

I Hope I Get It: Vineland, the 1950s. Things are booming in the home of the movie business, but there is a dark underside to this small, sparkling city. It’s spring, and the next musical is being cast. People have been arriving from all over Vineland and the surrounding areas, some hoping for stardom, but most just wanting to pay the bills. Who is in, who is out, and what is going on in the background?



Voting will close at 11:59 PM CST on Saturday, December 10th.

II. Activity Check Policy Update

After reviewing a concern brought to us by our AC mods, we’ve decided to tweak Syn’s AC policy slightly. As of December’s AC, you may now use eligible comments in a thread you submitted for the previous month’s AC, so long as at least one thread you submit was started within the current activity period. This change will be reflected in December’s AC post.

III. The Great Page Updatening… Updates

Continuing in our effort to bring all the game’s info pages up to date, we’ve deployed a number of changes. Those are:

*The no-godmoding rule has been updated to include ‘ask OOC permission before using a skill that directly affects another character.’
*The character-idling policy has been clarified.
*The Suggested Destinations page has been overhauled and streamlined, and now includes a) separate toplevels for submitting suggestions and b) a list of highly-requested jaunt revisits. All the previous comments have been screened, as well as archived for mods’ reference.
*The Liminal Space info page has also been overhauled; in this case, it’s been updated to include some more practical tips about how Liminal Space functions, and gained a couple of spinoff pages.
*One of those spinoff pages is about Dreamspace, which will hopefully open it up for people to use more widely again.
*Finally, the other spinoff page is one that’s been long awaited: Dungeon info now more accurately reflects how the game at large uses dungeons, what steps in the process you need to contact the mods for, and how Shadows can work outside of ‘getting a Persona.’

IV. Glossary Updates: New Feedback Wanted

We’ve been processing and compiling feedback on necessary changes to the glossary, as well as thinking of several additions on our own. Hopefully the final product will be ready to roll this week.

In the meantime, if you want to see what we’ve got so far, please go HERE. Any glaring omissions (other than ‘Starmovers,’ which Matt will need to write about) can be left as comments/suggestions, and we’ll work on integrating them before the final rollout.

Thing the First:
Since October has been difficult for a lot of players, including your mods, we've decided to give everyone a free pass for October AC, much like we did back last February. How we'll be doing it will be the same as we did back in February: if you don't have AC you can use the pass instead of going on hiatus. If you do have AC, Skill AC, or Double Skill AC, you can turn it in as normal and bank your free pass for some other, future month you have trouble with.

Thing the Second:
Speaking of skills, some of you who were around back during the summer of 2015 might remember how all the characters in Synodiporia got one free skill non-dependent on AC that August. In honor of Trump Dodgeball our upcoming Welcome To The World Series event, in which all the remaining unmarked characters will be claimed by the Trumps, every character will get a free skill in November. Characters will have to wait until November AC to cash in on this, but we thought we'd announce it now to make it easier for players to plan ahead.

Thing the Third:
Finally, due to the Lightside/Darkside Jaunt wrapping up unprecedentedly early ICly, we've decided to post our Return to Liminal Mingle a few days ahead of time: this Saturday instead of on Tuesday next week. ICly, everyone will still be in January until the originally planned time. OOCly, they're coming back early, so that everyone who's been waiting until liminal to get in touch with Infiltrating CR can do so.

The Caveat:
We know some people have been wondering when we'd be voting on our next Jaunt. Since the upcoming Liminal Space event is going to be a multi-week thing, next Jaunt voting will almost certainly be some time in November.

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled Syn-ing.)

I. Voting Round-Up

The next Jaunt will be Neapolitan Beach Vacation, and it will run from May 3rd-June 4th. After a week of Liminal Space as usual, it will be followed by a 4th Wall event from June 11th-25th. And in whatever our plot beginning June 25th is, we’ll have the next set of RNG Trump encounters.

II. SotG Summary
We saw suggestions about streamlining AC & skills reporting; suggestions that the next few Jaunts not be geographically separated & that we make sure not to do too many separated Jaunts in a row; that we continue and step up weekly plot info reporting for plot-important infiltrators, and that we make sure to schedule regular cooldown Jaunts in the future. We will definitely be considering all these things, and will hopefully have AC & Skill streamlining ready to try for April or May AC.

III. Summaries!
Starting with the May-June walkabout, PG will be taking over Walkabout summaries!

IV. New Skills

Telepathic Skills
Partition Mind II: Use Partition Mind on another Investigator. Requires Partition Mind & Investigator Mind-Reading.
Network Bookmarking: Mark telepathic broadcasts or conversations for later sharing or review. Requires Network Archive Retrieval.
Psychic Mute: Turn the psychic network “off” less thoroughly than Psychic Suppression, simply shutting off direct communication, but not making oneself undetectable or untargetable to psychic skills. Requires Psychic Protection I.
Psychic Bridge: Once per week, for one minute per psychic skill you possess, broadcast telepathically across the Jaunt/Walkabout Divide. Requires Psychic Detection, Sensory Eavesdropping, & Filter Intrusion.
Infiltrator Mind Trick: Once per week, deflect suspicion from one infiltrator, especially about one’s identity, origin, or ability to blend in. Requires Infiltrator Telepathy.


Liminal Skills
Liminal Permanence: Liminal objects &/or structures created remain despite changes in Liminal Space or the Walkabout/Jaunt/Dungeon/Idle status of their creator. Requires Liminal Manipulation I & Liminal Power.
Liminal Endurance Hold one portal open indefinitely, as long as it remains within line of sight. Requires Stationary Portal & Liminal Power.
Portal Lockdown: Once per day, create an area (inside or outside of Liminal Space) of five feet per Liminal Skill possessed in which portals cannot be opened and teleportation does not function. This lasts for twelve hours. When used on an area the user created with Room Creation, can apply to the entire Room regardless of size limitations. Requires Liminal Bubble, Stationary Portal Creation, & 1 other Liminal Skill.
Liminal Bridge: Once per Jaunt, cross the Jaunt/Walkabout Boundary. Requires Stationary Portal Creation, Dimensional Senses, & Intraliminal Skills.
Summon Traveler II: Once per Jaunt, call another Traveler from across the Jaunt/Walkabout boundary. Requires Liminal Bridge & Summon Traveler.

Combo Skills
Hammerspace Bridge: Share Linked Hammerspace across a Jaunt/Walkabout/Dungeon (but not idle) boundary, once per day for one minute/Liminal skill possessed. Requires Linked Hammerspace, Dimensional Senses, & Intraliminal Skills.

V. Walkabout voting

Message in A Bottle is a Belljar Island walkabout in which investigators (no infiltrators) are dumped on an with a ruined city, trapped beneath a hemispherical force bubble, with no sign of intelligent life remaining, and no sign of either evacuation or extinction. Everyone is simply... gone. Exploring the island may be necessary to food and supplies, and is certainly necessary to determine what happened.

Vanity Fair is a Purgatory walkabout, set not in the city of Melasurei but in a marketplace further from the borders of Hell. Exploring the trade in Sin and Virtue in the afterlife, the future of the Peregrines, and the moral ambiguity or ambivalence of Purgatory, Travelers will have a number of chances to pick up magic or magic items - and a risk of having themselves or qualities they possess bought and sold by uncaring immortals.

Questing Country (unconnected to Junkworld), Sarmatia, and Digital Frontier are all available as write-in options.

Voting will close on April 17th at 11:59 PM. Please do not vote unless you plan on participating in the Walkabout.



EDITED TO ADD: Parameters added for Infiltrator Mind Trick!

It’s pretty obvious that we’re far behind schedule. Matt’s pending move has been absorbing far more time and psychic energy than expected, so a lot of this, unfortunately, won’t be resolved until the end of the month. With that in mind, the date of the final event mingles is being moved back to the 17th, and the return to Liminal Space / end of the Jaunt/Walkabout to the 24th. Apps will still be open from the 21st-29th, and new characters introed on March 1st. Thank you very much for your tolerance and patience.

Because of the ongoing delays, any comprehensive attempt to address any other issues in the game is also going to have to wait until March, but people are more than welcome to mention, catalog, and discuss those issues here - it’s just that voting on and implementing solutions will have to wait.We’re still working on sorting out and implementing some of the suggestions from last SotG

That being the case, the only business for the State of the Game which will be getting its own header is the vote for the next Jaunt. As always, voting is weighted - first choice receives two votes, second choice one vote, third choice zero votes. Voting will be open until 11:59 PM CST February 16th, after which results will be posted and Walkabout voting will go up.

Compass Fell:
A team amnesia plot. Dropped onto a hex-grid of wilderness terrain with no tools and no memories, the Travelers must find a way out and determine just who or what has hijacked their Jaunt - or what the Trumps really have in mind for them. Both infiltrators and investigators will have the option of total or partial amnesia, and some investigators will be able to avoid memory loss altogether if they wish, but this is a jaunt that will blur that investigator/infiltrator line - whether that sounds cool or terrible to you, please keep it in mind.

Hearts of Hypnos:
In a bleak and empty extradimensional space float the mindscapes of a few troubled souls. The mysteries of who they are and what they need to be healed can only be answered by diving into those minds, where emotions, concepts, and archetypes of the collective unconscious made physical threaten the minds of the Travelers, who may join the lost souls here if they can’t successfully confront their own inner demons. This jaunt contains elements of the player-plot concept known as a heart game, a confrontational journey through a character’s psyche with ramifications for their relationships and state of mind, and would heavily prioritize investigation over infiltration. In the poll below, please let us know if you’d be interested in running a Heart Game for your character - if not enough players would be interested, we will not be running this plot regardless of how many votes it gets.

Code of Dishonor:
A Ninja Fantasy plot, with warring martial artist clans and traditions, spirit-summoning and elemental magic, lies, betrayal, and assassination against a background of forbidden cities, imperial demands, and the threat of foreign invasion. The most straightforward and swashbuckling of the available plots, it will still, like the others, contain metaplot elements.

Hi everyone!

By this time we expected to have apps done, a new mingle posted, an HMD meme up, the new plot write-up available, and to be gearing up for our CR meme and the beginning of our next plot on January 7th! We also have a Trump info post that is, while not late, in progress.

Then the holidays happened, and things got more than moderately hectic for the entirety of the mod team.

We're going to be getting everything done as quickly as possible and as thoroughly as possible, but it may take a few days before we're all caught up. Thank you for your patience, tolerance, and any help you may or may not be lending us. Rock on, Fellow Travelers, and Happy New Years!

While the hunt for the dragon continues uninterrupted, in the last week of the Jaunt magic on the Walkabout will open up an optional side plot that anyone in the game, no matter their current location or status, will have a chance to participate in.

In the world of the Walkabout, the revived Illuminant mages will attempt a direct challenge of the powers of the Trumps, trying to break into Liminal Space. This will partially succeed for a time, leading to the following developments:

-A private confrontation between the Illuminants and the Trumps, which the Trumps will win, ejecting them from Liminal Space once again. As it was the players participating in this side of this plot which enabled this to happen, the players who brought this to us will each get a chance to thread in a closed log for 5-10 comments with a Trump.

-However, the release of energy will also lead to the Trumps manifesting directly, if briefly, in both the Jaunt & Walkabout worlds. While they will absolutely not be making themselves conspicuous or interfering in any ongoing plots, anyone, infiltrator or investigator, can stumble across them.

In the recent State of the Game it was proposed that randomized Trump encounters would be more fair than first-come first-serve threads. While there’s still a lot to discuss about this, it’s definitely worth a try, so in the comments below you may sign up with a character who has no previous Trump CR for a Walkabout Trump encounter or Jaunt Trump encounter, and we will select a total of eight people to have threads 5+ comments long with a Trump during the month of December. These may or may not result in Trump favor marks being given. Please only sign up with one character per player at this time - if we don’t get enough sign-ups, we’ll expand this.

Characters with marks or previous Trump CR may sign up as well under a different header, and four of these characters will get their own threads of ~ 5 comments with a Trump, for a total of 12 randomly selected Trump threads (8 new CR, 4 old).

Because these encounters will be isolated and personal, there’s no reason to believe they’ll disrupt ongoing plot events in either setting, and so no-one should be worried that the endgame of either Jaunt or Walkabout will be displaced by this. We’re not going to let that happen. Trump tags in these encounters, given their volume, will be spaced throughout December, at a slow pace, and shouldn’t be disruptive to anyone’s focus, we hope.

It’s our sincere hope and belief that this sort of player-driven development, masterminded by a few focused players but open to participation from anyone in the game, and not disturbing the existing flow of events, is in keeping with the wishes for new alternatives we’ve seen expressed. It won’t replace the old way of doing things, just give us new options to play with as we move forward.

Sign-ups will be open from now until 11:59 PM CST December 8th, at which point the random selections will be made and the relevant logs will go up. If you’re only interested in encountering certain Trumps, let us know in your sign-up comment and we’ll consider that - only a couple options will be made available here and now, but when we know what you’re interested in, we can work with you to make it happen in the future.

Feedback and Discussion and Questions are very, very welcome - but we’re going to link you to the toplevel on the SotG recap that just went up, rather than putting them here, so we can more easily reference them in the future.

(Due to calendars and holidays and Jaunt scheduling, the next State of the Game post will be in early January).

The post that follows is not yet a poll - everything is up for discussion, but until we have concrete options and player feedback sorted out, the only thing we’re voting on is Jaunt options. We mention this because in poll posts, people rarely discuss in depth or make suggestions, and we want to be clear on what’s what!

I. Change to the Mod Team.
First of all - now that the new comm layout is up and running (we’re aware of the mobile issues and Cocoa’s trying to fix them), Cocoa will be stepping down from her coding mod position. At her request, we’re disclosing that after she was discovered to be participating in anoncomm discussions, she volunteered to step down, and the rest of the mod team agreed that this was the appropriate consequence. More on related issues in a moment, but we want the playerbase to be able to trust our discretion and judgment, and any of us turning up in inappropriate discussions would be subject to the same consequences.

II. Complaints (coming Soon).
We very urgently want to address the way that recent anonymous complaints and other behavior have affected the morale and trust of our community, but as of right now, we’re still working hard for precision and clarity in our language. A more comprehensive section about the current problems with this game’s conflict moderation, both modside and playerside, will be up within a few days, but we didn’t want to hold up the whole SotG while we worked on our wording there.

III. Mod Helper Update
We’ve already got NPC helpers, AC helpers, & Summary helpers in play, and it’s our opinion that they’ve been working out great so far, but we’re open to feedback. Our skill helpers haven’t been trained in yet because of difficulty matching up schedules and finding available time, but that will be happening soon.

Helper mods are in no way involved in reviewing complaints or applications - we saw a concern voiced about that somewhere and wanted to clarify.

IV. Infiltration Ideas
We’re still looking, as always, for ways to streamline Jaunt mechanics and make plotting easier on everyone. One suggestion is Infiltrator Profiles that plot and other infiltrators could fill out, and which would be posted on a dedicated post to make it easy to check the current who’s who and what’s what in a Jaunt. Additionally, it would help explain player perspectives, hopefully lessening concerns about infomodding or other OOC behavior.

It’s also been suggested that, in summary posts or in their own dedicated posts, we might wish to re-instate the old habit of weekly OOC plotting posts. What do people think of this option? We don’t want to flood the OOC comm with too much information to keep track of - we haven’t forgotten Jaunt density and infodump concerns - but we don’t want to loe people due to lack of direction, either. Weigh in below!

V. Metaplot and Trump Information
We lost our notes on this. If you’re one of the people who contributed suggestions over the last month, comment and remind us on what they were if we forgot or misrepresented them - otherwise, we’re gonna wing it!

In part to combat accusations of infomodding, in part so IC confusion doesn’t become OOC Confusion, we want to start collecting information about the metaplot and Trumps in centralized locations with easy summaries.

There are two ways we’ve thought of to do this, and our current instinct is to both all of them. Let us know what you think.

One: create a timeline post with thread links. This post will contain no speculation, but only references to every time a Trump appeared or acted directly. This can get newer players caught up, act as a quick refresher to veterans, and provide easy access to clues, without compromising any secrets or presenting misleading speculation. Additionally, characters with advanced psychic abilities could make something like this resource ICly accessible, if all the people the Trumps talked to shared their experiences. Obviously not every character would, but we could mark on the OOC post what had and had not been made available IC.

Two: create an OOC theories and speculation post. A few facts have been repeatedly confirmed or are beyond question, i.e. “The Lovers was present for Doki Doki No Gakuen” or “The Trumps claim four of their number are dead.” This could create a database of what’s already known or suspected, common knowledge or common theory, and in the comments players could share other ideas and less confirmed speculations where they can be easily referenced or debated. Again, it wouldn’t be hard to make a similar database ICly accessible.

Three: everything we’re missing here that you suggested already, or will now suggest below. We don’t want the metaplot to be the exclusive purview of only our longest-lasting or most-invested players, and more resources that help share information can only benefit the game as a whole.

VI. HMD Meme & Other Memes
While rolling out so many new things, we haven’t gotten to all these yet. Should we have a regular bi-monthly date for HMD Memes, CR Memes, & SotG posts? Or should they remain as-needed items that can be shifted depending on mod workload and priorities? Any other feedback is also welcome.

VII. Jaunt Voting
Our next Jaunt! After a long, relaxing holiday Liminal Space, we’ll be back in early January with a new Jaunt, and we’d like to kick off the New Year with a bang! January 7th we’ll institute one of the plots below. As always, voting is weighted - your first choice will receive three points, your second choice two points, and your third choice one point.

Escape From Junkworld:
Space opera in the same universe as Questing Country, not featuring magic or dreams but allowing for Hecatites and Gorgons to be played, as well as robots and other alien races. A rag-tag band of refugees, human and alien, salvage a pair of mysterious alien derelict vessels left on a junk planet and head off into the universe at large, racing a stellar natural disaster they understand as little as the technology of the ships they pilot. Majestic science fiction playing fast and loose with science, swashbuckling and epic but deeply personal and character-focused, this jaunt would (temporarily) separate characters geographically, but not by faction - everyone would be working together for the common good.

Compass Fell:
A team amnesia plot. Dropped onto a hex-grid of wilderness terrain with no tools and no memories, the Travelers must find a way out and determine just who or what has hijacked their Jaunt - or what the Trumps really have in mind for them. Both infiltrators and investigators will have the option of total or partial amnesia, and some investigators will be able to avoid memory loss altogether if they wish, but this is a jaunt that will blur that investigator/infiltrator line - whether that sounds cool or terrible to you, please keep it in mind.

Olympus Upended:
Classical Myth & Fantasy, set in a Trojan War-era Greece full of gods, monsters, & titans, the Olympians and their chosen heroes must deal with the machinations of fate when their powers and domains begin to ebb and flow, faltering or in some cases transferring to others. Whether a curse, a trick, or the inevitable twilight of the gods, before the last oracle is cast and the mystery revealed, the foundations of the world will shake.

As before, Walkabout voting will go up in one week, after Jaunt voting closes. Jaunt voting will close 11/22/15 at 11:59 PM CST.



VIII. New Discussion (No Old Business?)
Shockingly, we couldn’t find any leftover old business ongoing or unaddressed. Raise new concerns, questions, and discussion topics here - or if we lost track of something we promised to addressed earlier, remind us here.

Very sorry about the delay on the last mingle - it's been a busy, distracting month for a lot of people, and there are a lot of balls still in the air for this plot, and we're working out how to gracefully address ongoing plots without putting too much pressure on people for a quick wrap-up, and what we can safely drop or shuffle aside. The mingle will be up soon, and the plot may be extended a couple days to make sure everyone has time to tie up loose ends.

Thanks for your patience and understanding, and rest assured we didn't just forget to post, and we're working on it!