The Plotting Dead- A Player Event!

[postocular]

Hello, Drift Fleet! It's Frames here, coordinating a future player-run event with..you guessed it. Zombies! Anyone is free to participate or not, which is why the nitty gritty of the event will take place beforehand, including a timeline/how things are going to end up so that nobody gets their wires crossed. But this is meant to be a fun and nightmare-inducing event, traveling on the back of a few canon updates.

The best place to have it so far is going to be on one of the waystations! Lots of NPC's, lots of chances for your characters to get got or show off their action moves! For those of you who are unaware of The Walking Dead and its lore, here's the deal:

↪ Have you been bitten or scratched? ((Congrats?)) You're going to become a zombie!
↪ Like all zombie lore, you have to destroy the brain/head in order to kill it.
↪ Everyone from The Walking Dead has the virus. Is it airborne? Is it something in the water? WHO KNOWS?! The writers probably don't.
↪ There's no found cure. So things like magic or first aid will be moot

Things wouldn't go down until after the next planet, to give people time to figure out what they want to do, and to get things set up! Any and all ideas are welcome, of course! Now here's the deal for Drift Fleet:

↪ This will be considered a character death, so they will wake back up on the Marsiva when this is over after the regular amount of time!
↪ You can have your character be killed or be on a 'timer' of sorts! The Atroma would just pick them up and plop them back on the Marsiva
↪ There will be plenty of npc's to stop, too, if that's more your speed!


If anyone has any questions or concerns, I am also at skorozima.

Comments

WHO WANTS TO GET GOT?

[postocular]

Only a nibble, promise.

Re: WHO WANTS TO GET GOT?

[tallasaking]

Tyrion really isn't made for the zombie apocalypse, outside of all the superior weapons ...

[postocular]

rip Tyrion. Carl will get 'em high and Tyrion can swoop in for a surprise. c:

[veilstrike]

kill her, da'len

QUESTIONS OR IDEAS!

[postocular]

Re: QUESTIONS OR IDEAS!

[searingedgelord]

Important question: What happens if you eat a Walking Dead zombie?

(When I say “eat” I mean “devour with a magic hand.” It’s how Velvet fights stuff in canon, including undead things)

[postocular]

that is a good and also disturbing question!

I would say also infection, since a bite, scratch, or even carelessly smothering yourself in their blood/entrails also equals death.

Gotta be careful how you use walkers as a fashion statement, smh

[searingedgelord]

I am glad I get to ask the disturbing questions

[postocular]

what else is velvet for, right???

[perservering]

It's too bad the Wolves who ate Bob's leg didn't live long enough for us to have an idea. Although the Saviors who ate the pork that ate zombies seemed ok? Relatively. Health-wise.

[onlyanapple]

I just woke up so it might just be my half-asleep brain not reading stuff right , but I'm a little confused on the foundations of the plot. Are they just happening onto a waystation/planet full of walking dead zombies? I'm all for Atroma Shenanigans but as it's a canon-specific thing, I'm confused as to where they're coming from.

[postocular]

Ah, sorry! I probably wasn't terribly clear, but I'm canon updating updating poor Carl who got bit. So he's going to be a zombie for a bit and cause some terrible mayhem. Mostly because the mods are a gift that keep on giving!

[onlyanapple]

Okay, I've got some follow-up questions on this one then, so bear with me:

- Is Carl going to be cured at the end of this? I'm only vaguely aware of the TWD rules via the Telltale games but being a walker is usually the end of the line. Is it going to be a regular Atroma healing sort of deal? Or is he just going to have to be re-killed every time? I'm going to assume it's the former to keep him playable?

- How is this going to be made opt-out? As it stands, from what I understand, it's going to happen on a Waystation- but if a player doesn't want to play this plot (not everyone digs zombie plots, especially when there are (un)dead kids involved), but it would be OOC for their character to NOT be involved, is there anything in place to give the players an easy out? This is especially important seen as legit character deaths will be involved.

- The post doesn't make it clear if ONLY the TWD cast are infected or if suddenly everyone in the Fleet are. If everyone has the potential to be a zombie, then by canon rules everyone is infected, and again, some folks might not want to do that. Is there going to be a way around it?

I'm just a little concerned about how it's not really all that much of an opt out. There's no real way to avoid this plot, if you don't want to be involved in it as it stands.

[postocular]

I HAVE ANSWERS!

-It's treated as a death, so it'll be the regular Atroma-healing sort of deal!

- I figured a waystation would be a better way to opt-out as opposed to having it happen say, on the Iskaulit or one of the ships. I was trying to keep in mind that not everyone is going to want to play out this particular plot since zombies aren't everyone's slice of pie.

- Well, the canon rule is that everyone from that universe is infected with the virus, but not everyone in the Fleet would be.

Honestly, if you have any ideas as to how to make it more plausible, I'm really open to suggestion. That's why I started a plotting post now, so that it could be hammered out before next drift after the planet! I don't want to have to drag people into this that don't really want to be made to participate, you know?

[onlyanapple]

Cool stuff, thanks for the info on those points!

As for the rest, I'm not sure what I can offer, as it's not my plot, and is probably something you need to hash out with the mods (and, if I'm being honest, something that should have been squared away BEFORE a game announcement was made). But as it stands, it's not really an opt-out plot, so much as it's a "it's an opt-out if your character is willing to ignore what's going on" plot.

I'm not sure what the mods are willing to swing here, or what you guys want to go down, plot wise, so I'm not sure what to suggest really. Something that prevents characters from going onto the waystation once the plot starts? A lockdown perhaps? Or some other, smaller event taking place to divert other characters attention?

[youdontneedapictureofme]

Chiming in to say that I like the idea of a lockdown or something! I know Maggie in particular would want to seal off any Walkers trying to escape beyond a specific radius and the same could work in reverse.

I think what frames was trying to get at by making the announcement was to give everyone plenty of time to think up different ideas to go about the situation. I don't see how opting out can't happen organically if that's what you're worried about. I think it's pretty simply cut and dry of zombies are on the waystation, people get told to leave the waystation/don't go that way etc. poof they aren't involved. But as I said I do like the lock out suggestion! Just thought I'd put my two cents in.

/nyooms back out

[alwayscomeback]

What I meant by it not really being opt-out is that if you have a character who is more heroically involved, but you, as a PLAYER didn't want to get involved in the plot- there's no way of that being organic without some sort of IC barrier there. Say, in my case, I have Sokka- it would be OOC for him to not want to go and help rescue people, even if I'm uninterested in the plot myself personally. I'd have to chose between making him OOC in deciding not to help people, or making myself play something I'm not interested in just to keep him IC.

This kind of thing can't, by its very nature be an organic opt-out. Unless a player just resorts to hand-waving.

[youdontneedapictureofme]

I think I'm going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Perhaps you and Frames will come up with a better way to have it meet a conclusion you won't feel OOC about, but I think the idea of a lockdown would fit the bill.

I'd also be happy to help facilitate whatever would work as a detriment for folks not wanting to be involved so if you guys come up with something once Frames has had a chance to chime in more, I'll keep my eyes open for that.

[alwayscomeback]

Uh, it's really not a big ask, to have an IC opt-out. As Haunt pointed out below, you also have big damn heroes who can fix this kind of thing very easily, and would like to give other players the chance to do it. An IC opt-out is usually a staple in a plot like this, 'agree to disagree' or not. I'm all for a lockdown, that would absolutely fit the bill. Expecting any character to ignore it 'just because' would not.

[passingthrough]

Oh, a lockdown is a good idea!

I never really know what do with supers in events like this. I feel like they're just built to spoil the fun by wanting to save people and being all powered up and trained to the point where it doesn't seem reasonable that they couldn't clean things up especially if several of them are working on it.

And I definitely don't want to spoil the fun! But I also don't want them to be OOCly incompetent or uncaring. The RP struggle, amirite?

It is nice that NPCs can be involved though. That does help mitigate some of it.

PRIME ASS-KICKING

[postocular]

Or, you know. Head shooting and/or kicking.

plot with meee

[mikangirl]

I'd sign up both Makie and Nami! Nami would more be trying to watch out for the uninfected b/c she's a protective sort. (I've never seen Walking Dead bar the first ep, so I have to ask: would burning the zombies work?)

...Makie would be like "oh at last I needed to see if I was healthy again" and murderate her way through zombies galore.

choo choo all aboard the zombie train

[youdontneedapictureofme]

Maggie will be killing all kinds of npc zombies! Who wants to come along and help her?

[perservering]

hello friend

[youdontneedapictureofme]

OH HEY CAROL WELCOME TO HELL I mean Driftfleet >.> It's normally not bad, but this time it's bad. I'm super hyped also super sorry i failed so hard on your test drive pls forgive me. There won't be like *a lot* of zombies but she and Carol gotta team up and kill a couple NPCs or something. :D

[perservering]

HELLO WHAT A PLOT TO JOIN IN ON can't a bitch catch a break??? But yes let Carol flex immediately upon showing up so she can't keep up the "harmless den mother" routine

what a time to be (dead) alive

[perservering]

Hello naughty children it's time to listen to Carol or look at the flowers. In other words I am down to plot whatever but be forewarned Carol's expertise is a double-edged sword and if she identifies you as a threat it is

not good

So let's plan something!

[padadin]

I'm gonna add my +1 here to Teef because just reading the post doesn't tell you what the event actually is other than "hey, zombies". I'm guessing after reading the threads now that Carl will be infecting others? Biting them? So how does that work when he comes back from the canon update, he'll zombie out around his regular ship first or will he wake up in a waystation directly? The former one sounds like something to check with the rest of Carl's crew. Keeping the event in the waystation I think is a good idea, but I'm going to vote for lockdown too, that way you can explain why everyone isn't rushing in to save the rest. You can say people interested in the event get inside on the first day and get out when it's over (or they die).

[spaceshipit]

Hi guys! Mods here! We love player plots, and this one looks like it'll be fun for the people who want to be involved. Major thanks to Frames for spearheading this!

Two things, however.

Quick one first:
> "There's no found cure. So things like magic or first aid will be moot."
We would prefer this to be up to player discretion - people may want the scare of being bitten, but want to be cured before their character has to die. Meanwhile, some might want to attempt magic and watch it totally fail.

And the second one:
We see concerns being raised about an opt-out, and we absolutely agree that there should be one. Suggestions of a lock-down look good, so here is what we've come up with to try and help facilitate that:

1) Carl returns from a canon update having been bitten. Manages to get to the waystation. For the sake of a clean opt-out, we request that Carl does make it to the Waystation before chaos happens.
2) CHAOS HAPPENS!!! ZOMBIE OUTBREAK!! People who want to get involved can now rush in, or say their character was already on the waystation when Carl arrived. Waystation, as a security measure, SHUTS EVERYTHING DOWN. No one gets in or out.
3) The Drift Fleet doesn't go anywhere, just hovers around the waystation until the end of the event and the lockdown goes away.

Since this is of course only an info-and-idea-gathering post, obviously this is not set in stone! So, what are thoughts about this? Any tweaks, suggestions, comments?

[padadin]

Thank you, mods, for this! It's much clearer - a plot breakdown was what we needed to understand exactly the what and the why. That order of events work perfectly in my opinion! Then people involved can go all-freaking-out inside the locked waystation without worries.

[bi_otic]

Seems like a better framework, certainly. You'd want to address how access to the station is closed off. Sure, physical barriers, but what about teleportation. I think communications officers have control of teleportation (I've never been clear on this)? And what about super-powered/magical means of teleportation? What's to prevent certain people from bamf-ing/phasing through walls/whatever over there?

Secondly, how long would the event run? If it's more than a day or so, people might try to break in. If they can't do that, I think it'd be good for some kind of counter plot. Atroma's version of jangling their keychain in front of the rest of the fleet so they don't dwell on what's happening? Perhaps revisiting the strategy a few years ago of popping everyone over the Marsiva.

[spaceshipit]

We would of course address absolute specifics in an information post once it is much closer to the time of the event, working with Frames along the way. As of right now, this post was meant to survey interest, help with excitement, and think on ideas. This was not a "This Is The Plot" plot post. We have not worked out any hard and fast details, we we haven't received any sort of official write-up for end-all-be-all scheduling and clearance.

We are discussing length of the event. Again, this was only a post to gauge interest after we gave the initial greenlight that the plot would be an OK thing to run. There is much to discuss and work out!

[bi_otic]

Understood! You asked for suggestions and these were mine, formed perhaps in rhetorical questions (and I apologize if it seemed like I was demanding immediate answers). Just things to think about as the plot is constructed on your end.

[spaceshipit]

Yes! They're great suggestions, and you've made excellent points about augments, powers, etc. We've got a lot of thinking to do! (This mod is particularly eyeballing that Atroma distraction-bait idea...)

We apologize for any misunderstanding and awkward tone on our end as well - we just wanted to be sure everyone was on the same page. Seems like we are!