new player welcome post

[yhlee]

[Hello, new players! This post is for new and old players to get acquainted with each other in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC). I will be updating the character roster shortly for easy reference. Characters from the first arc who are still wrapping things up in Move 24, feel free to continue; I'll get to y'all shortly.

In the meantime, feel free to introduce yourself in OOC threads, including any information you want other players to have about you (including pronouns if relevant, or what time zones you're usually on, that kind of thing.]

[IC]
Ashari has just recruited a number of newcomers to the team in the hopes of shoring up its weaknesses and is, in classic Andan fashion, throwing a party on the Cantata (the moth ship formerly known as the Wasp and/or Bumblebee) so that folks can meet-and-greet. There are canapés, and Ashari promised Sulen that there are no recreational substances other than the alcohol if anyone wants it; Ashari is currently in the galley mixing drinks for anyone who asks. The public spaces of the interior have been decorated with somewhat lopsided and overly colorful artificial flowers (the matter printer was feeling cranky) as well as plush moths. There are in addition six friendly levitating baby moths, all wriggly tentacles and eyes, who will gravitate toward anyone who sings to them, and who like to be petted.

For the purposes of this post, "public areas" include the galley, the common room, and the storage hold, which has been temporarily pressed into service as a place where people can hang out. People are also welcome to hold private conversations elsewhere. For the moment, however, the cockpit, engine room, commander's office, and communications room/gunnery are off-limits.

[See this wiki entry on the Cantata-Wasp for more details on its layout.]

Comments

Signifiers

[venndaai]

Sulen enters the galley and admires the flower decorations (they have no sense of aesthetics, but enjoy colorful things.) They try to unobtrusively look over the drinks, as though they could tell if Ashari was secretly planning on poisoning the guests. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, they pour themself a shot of vodka and check out the room, scanning the signifiers of the strangers.

[Our current list of signifiers is here. If anyone would like to pick one of those or make up a new one, Sulen can notice it.]

Re: Signifiers

[kese_seyli]

[Seyli's is Ashhawk Wheeling which I imagine to be an Ashhawk in the second bird pose on the top line of this image https://i.imgur.com/tEUjMtI.jpg]

Re: Signifiers

[yhlee]

[Cool! Could you also give us a brief indication of what sort of personality that indicates--a sentence or two is plenty--so I can add it to the signifier list?]

Re: Signifiers

[mafyyil]

[Actually, when it comes to signifiers, I might need a bit of help. Would Mafyyil as a foreigner even have a signifier? And if so, what would be most plausible? An Andan signifier would be the most obvious choice for a poet, but then again, she's a bad poet by all standards, and has all the artistic talent of a turnip. She's also sneaky enough to somehow scramble the rebellion assignments - it's not as if anyone would assign a mostly untrained young girl to this if everything had gone smoothly, and the fact that she arrived on the Cantata in her underwear but with a stolen gun also says one or two things about her personality and priorities - but of course she's too naive for a Shuos signifier... I'm seriously lost. Is there a signifier for "sneaky but not very bright airhead"? XD]

more signifiers, game balance

[zuhrovet]

[Foreigners and people who aren't in factions usually have whatever signifier is the closest approximation. Sasha's planet wasn't in the hexarchate when she was born, but she has a Nirai signifier. Alaric is also a foreigner, though slybrarian hasn't given us a signifier yet. For Mafyyil's signifier, it seems like Shuos or Liozh might work? Or Andan if you want a plant signifier, but she doesn't seem very into social maneuvering.

The team has previously been assigned young people without enough training. We've been discussing why that might have happened in the current move; the person we suspect is behind this is named Quill. The question of why Ashari accepted Mafyyil, given their existing suspicions, definitely arises. It's possible that Ashari wanted to avoid alerting Quill, or that they owed someone else in personnel a favor, and took Mafyyil as a package deal with someone more obviously effective.

As a general character-design principle, your character's weaknesses and their strengths should be of similar magnitude. It's easy to see how neglecting weaknesses makes a story dull. In my experience, if you neglect the strengths side, you end up with a character who's hard to motivate. Mafyyil has a lot of room to discover hidden strengths! She might be improbably good with that gun (in which case, we need to get her some practice time, fast, and the fact that we repurposed the firing range as mothling habitat is an issue). She might also have exotic powers related to those plants.]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[mafyyil]

[Concerning game balance: I definitely designed Mafyyil with some strengths although these are far less obvious to a casual observer than her weaknesses - I think she will become very good with guns if she has the opportunity to practice. She definitely enjoys shooting although her only experience so far was a two-week crash course. And once she realizes she's basically been f*ed over by almost everyone, including her own empire, she has lots of motivation to put in some effort.

She also has a natural talent for getting into places she's not supposed to be (as proven by her very presence, and the fact she stole that gun from a locked drawer in a no doubt carefully supervised place, without being a trained thief) and I designed her as an energetic person who tends to approach problems in unusual and creative ways. I mean - she just recently woke up from, basically, coma in a foreign culture, joined a rebellion and already has developed some kind of plan of how to proceed, and executed the first part of it, which apparently involved getting herself assigned to the Cantata without having any obvious qualification. Which implies she has to be talented at improvised tactical problem-solving (there's simply no other way she could have managed) although so far she's been acting on imperfect to outright wrong information, and she has a lot to learn (and to grow up, LOL). She's not going to be entirely useless for a group. I don't think she has exotic powers, though.

Actually. She has to have some kind of Shuos signifier - I can't see her with Andan (she's horrible at social maneuvering, and arguably even worse at anything artistic although she'd clearly claim otherwise) or Liozh (she's entirely disinclined to think about ethical or philosophical questions except as an afterthought) signifiers, and Kel, Vidona, Nirai or Rahal are obviously impossible. Which leaves... Shuos, although she'd be an unusual case, and I have no idea which signifier there would match her best. Most amusing would be Ninefox Crowned With Eyes...]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[zuhrovet]

[You could take Ninefox Smiling! She does seem rather like our resident teenage Mikodez.

Otherwise, I think the key part of your description here is "improvised tactical problem-solving", and you need a signifier that admits that interpretation. Maybe something that emphasizes the Shuos interest in games? Ninefox Leaping? Ninefox Balancing? Ninefox Juggling Eyes?]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[mafyyil]

[Doesn't Ninefox Smiling also somehow imply a social manipulator? I'm still confused about what exactly signifiers mean, sorry. Ninefox Juggling Eyes sounds fun! :D I like that one! And yes, the "improvised tactical problem-solving" is quite central to Mafyyil's personality, I think. Without that she'd be a doormat, and not very interesting to play in anything going beyond crack RP.]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[yhlee]

[Yes, you're right: Ninefox Smiling does indeed imply social manipulation. If you like, we could assign Maffyil Ninefox Juggling Eyes instead, with the meaning of "improvised tactical problem-solving."

Signifiers are just one or two sentences of personality type encapsulated in a cockamamie image. XD Sorry for the confusion!]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[mafyyil]

[Mafyyil is clearly not a social manipulator, more like social manipulated, so... Too bad signifiers can't be inverted like Tarot cards, ehehehe! (Ninefox Smiling Inverted would be comically absurd...)

All right, Ninefox Juggling Eyes it is! I really like that mental image! :D It's sufficiently creepy and I think it suits Mafyyil. So... I'll consider it part of her profile now. She has a signifier, even if she doesn't know it, yay! Let's just see if anyone ever tries to scry her.]

Re: more signifiers, game balance

[slybrarian]

[Huh, I didn't realize I hadn't done a signifier. I'm thinking his would usually be something like "Voidmoth Rampant" or "Voidmoth Seeking Flame", indicating someone whose ambitions threaten to exceed either their own grasp or social propriety. That, and occasionally it just goes "404 Not Found"]

heraldry tangent

[zuhrovet]

[Heraldic voidmoths have wings, so they're more likely to be rousant than rampant, although volant en arrière is most likely.]

Re: heraldry tangent

[slybrarian]

[Hah, the angry swan one would be entirely appropriate, even if rousant lacks the same connotations in everyday language.]

Re: heraldry tangent

[yhlee]

[Do you have a preference? Let me know when you've decided and I'll update the wiki accordingly. :) ]

Re: Signifiers

[kese_seyli]

[Ashhawk Wheeling, while not unlucky, is not favored. It signals someone who may be creative with their interpretations of rules or prone to quick changes in behavior.]

Re: Signifiers

[bariolage]

[Now that I have read the discussion that answered my question while I was asleep: Ione's is Voidmoth Scattered Stars.]

Re: Signifiers

[hoardingpearls]

Reshad's signifiers is Ninefox Hoarding Pearls. That's a double-edged image: on one hand, the fox gathers a bounty of knowledge. On the other, it tends to keep it... all of it.

It's not entirely unexpected for a working Shuos to be a complete nerd about at least one thing, but that would suggest a wide collection or interests.

Re: Signifiers

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad arrives late — atypically — to find the party already in swing; he looks a little distracted, like his mind is still on whatever he was doing beforehand, but he, like Sulen, takes a moment to scan the signifiers of the newcomers, before heading over to stand next to Sulen.

“I thought we were done with foxes,” he says mostly-conversationally. “Yehan notwithstanding. But now we’ve picked up two new ones? I hope Ashari knows what they’re doing.” He sighs. “They can’t have done worse than ‘Quill’, anyway.”

Re: Signifiers

[venndaai]

"There probably wasn't a vast selection to choose from. But Ashari is good at this kind of thing, in my experience." Still, they're suddenly unexpectedly grateful for his presence. They've been somewhat miserably missing communal Rahal life for the past few days. Gossiping about signifiers is a comfortingly familiar activity, and they indulge a little. "Though it does seem just our luck to get Juggling and Hoarding foxes and not any of the more sensible types."

Re: Signifiers

[lleullawgyffes]

“Better Juggling and Hoarding than Crowned with Eyes,” Virmad says ruefully. “Can you imagine if we had one of those alongside our Knife-Winged Moth? If there’s one thing we don’t need on this ship, it’s more egos.” He laughs. “I feel like I’m back at the academy — it’s...nice, having other Rahal around. Or ex-Rahal, anyway. I thought leaving my hept to be a magistrate was rough, but at least then my coworkers all still...understood?” He shakes his head. “That’s not very clear, is it. I’m not sure what I mean.”

Re: Signifiers

[venndaai]

"I think I know exactly what you mean," Sulen says. "There's something terrifying about being an independent unit, isn't there? It's hard to think of my hept as... as the enemy. I'm glad I'm not entirely by myself."