ON TINYPLOTS [ PAGE 1]

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ON THE ROLE OF A TINYPLOT COORDINATOR

ON SOURCES OF TINYPLOT IDEAS

SAMPLE TINYPLOT SEEDS

NOTE: This Section is brand new. "On the Role of a TinyPlot Coordinator" has been transferred here from its previous home in the Admin section. "Sample TinyPlot Seeds" was already located at this URL (and some of you may have blinked at seeing the page had changed radically) but this page was not officially part of my larger Web Document, ON THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING OF MUSHES until this last update. "On Sources of TinyPlot Ideas" is the only truly new material on this page at the moment, aside from this brief explanation, but it is my hope that this new Section will eventually grow to heroic proportions as I add other Chapters on various aspects of TinyPlotting. This TinyPlot Section has perforce joined the Roleplay Section as one which is meant to be of considerable use to the ordinary Roleplayers on a mush, as well as the Admins.

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ON THE ROLE OF A TINYPLOT COORDINATOR

The following was originally submitted to an e-zine called MU*sings as an article to be published in its first issue. As near as I can tell, the e-zine never came out and the editor hasn't answered my e-mail asking about it, so I'm giving it to you here.

HOW TO WIN NEWBIES AND INFLUENCE RPERS

or

GET A TINYPLOT COORDINATOR TODAY!

Do newbies flock to your new mush because of the nifty theme and your clever advertising?

Do they all create characters, hang around the bars meeting each other, and generally rhapsodizing about how much fun they hope to have in this particular world?

Do they then drift away quietly, so that after a month or two you take inventory and realize 200 characters have been created and maybe 20 of them have been connected within the past week (and half of *those* barely dropped in to check their @mail and then left again) and your lovely mush is beginning to resemble a ghost town?

If so, perhaps you don't know how to make those newbies feel loved! Stay with me as I reminisce at length on my own days as a newbie, back in those ancient times that are only dimly remembered in song and story (fall of 1996), and draw upon my experiences for guidance in how to prevent the same old pitfalls from befalling many another aspiring RPer today.

I REMEMBER SITTING IN A BAR ALL DAY

Many's the time I have sat down in the local bar to see what happened. Barroom chatter sometimes began (unless I was all alone in there) and meandered, not being set to any prearranged purpose and thus usually not achieving anything either, beyond giving two characters a chance to "get to know each other" a little. One of the first mushes I ever frequented had something in the newsfiles specifically warning us against falling into this trap, urging us to choose interesting characters and get integrated into IC groups that already existed in one sphere of life or another. I made a sincere effort, creating a typical "warrior" character, newly arrived in town, and looking around for work. I found work that very day with a local bigshot who wanted me to infiltrate the local Castle by joining the Royal Guard while actually being a spy for him. This seemed reasonable . . . but I needed the permission of the Captain of the Guard himself (one of his flunkies could have signed me up, except for the double agent angle). I started @mailing him. A few weeks later no response had arrived (he didn't connect much). Meanwhile, my employer had dropped out from the mush, and a replacement player was frantically being sought. So there I was, stranded - one employer now "inactive" and my other potential employer steadfastly ignoring my mail.

What was I to do? Obviously, hang out at the bar and hope for the best.

WANTED: THE MYTHICAL TINYPLOT COORDINATOR

Remember, I was a total newbie, learning the commands as I went along, with no pre-established friends I could ask to integrate me into their activities. However, I am a quick study (and a fast reader) and while sitting in the bar or whatever I spent a lot of time wading through all the newsfiles I could find. One of them swore that newbies who were at loose ends and wanted help getting a little RP started should contact the TinyPlot Coordinator (TPC) and ask that worthy Admin to set up a small, simple TinyPlot to give the newbie a chance to get some RP going while he learned the ropes. Unfortunately (you see it coming, don't you?) the TPC had last logged on about 5 months previously, and wasn't expected to come back. I was still on the shy side and it took me about two months of hanging out in bars, and occasionally getting to participate in somebody else's ideas, before I decided I was probably as qualified as the next RPer to create my own TinyPlots and advertise for help in carrying them out (we're talking about something considerably more complicated than "I want to get drunk and flirt with somebody tonight" you understand - I had already grasped that much of "Tinyplotting Technique."

About seven months after the old TPC had last connected, a new RPer got the job. I knew him fairly well; like me, he had been left a bit stranded when our mutual employer kind of faded into the sunset . . . unfortunately, by that time I was about ready to give up on the mush for a while, part of the reason being RL scheduling changes, but at least the problem had finally been fixed on paper.

What was wrong with this picture?

Quite a bit, obviously. It's not going to win people's trust and affection if the newsfiles say that if they feel lonely/bored/unsure of what to do, they should contact a non-existent person. Not if the newsfiles keep telling them that for seven months, at least.

A bit later I started hanging out in bars in a few new, underpopulated mushes that had caught my eye . . . but now I planned ahead, having ice-breaking routines, unusual conversational gambits, and even (gasp!) TinyPlots ready to pull out of my hat at a moment's notice in order to get a little meaningful RP started with the "newbies" (I now considered myself an old veteran) so they would feel like there was actually A) something interesting happening on this mush that B) could involve them. In other words (though I didn't think of it this way at the time) I was doing what that legendary beast, the TinyPlot Coordinator, should have been doing all along on the mush where I acquired much of my seasoning. I modestly believe that my personal policy of trying to welcome and interact with newbies had something to do with keeping various people active on those mushes after they had created their characters and started looking around for something to do.

HOW TO LOOK USER-FRIENDLY TO THE TYPICAL NEWBIE

So: do you have someone on your Staff who feels the desire and the obligation to try to get newbies into the swing of things, actually coming up with plot ideas for them, RPing with them when he can, expediting their adoptions into pre-existing Noble Houses and other Groups (if you have any), and doing all this EVERY DAY HE'S ONLINE AS HIS MAIN OCCUPATION, instead of occasionally RPing with one or two newbies a week IF he's finally caught up on the coding and building which are supposed to occupy the bulk of his online time?

What's that? Speak up. Did you say "No?"

That's what I thought you said. For shame! Let's get something straight. A mush will not prosper unless it has people RPing in it. Now, I have seen RPers forgive a lot for a theme they believed in. They have forgiven only having a small number of rooms fully described and available at the beginning, they have forgiven problems with the comsystem or the lack of a BB or a shortage of mush-specific online files, they have forgiven all sorts of coding delays and building delays as long as, at the core of things, they felt there was some decent RP happening and the potential for more.

Are we communicating here? Of course, a really satisfactory mush (like that masterpiece you're still trying to put the finishing touches on at this very moment) requires an awful lot of coding and building and file writing and so forth, but very few people become permanent residents on a mush just to admire the lush scenery, the lengthy rules, the user-friendly special commands, and so forth . . . if they're getting bored out of their skulls sitting in the bar all day waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of those other features in real RP.

So: pick out a TinyPlot Coordinator (TPC) and tell him to get cracking on welcoming newbies. Have him draw up a list of basic TinyPlot Seeds he can use to get some action started. Have him set fire to the bar occasionally and watch people RP the panic and hysteria and so forth.

He doesn't have to be a fully empowered Staff/Admin/Wizard/Whatchamacallit if you don't want to, he could just be a regularly active RPer (such as I once was) who is public-spirited, but it's important that you find a good one. Make sure he understands the theme (train him if necessary). Keep in touch with him so if he needs a weird secret passage built in a hurry and doesn't know how, you can delegate a Builder to rig one up, Crash Priority, so the newbies can have the fun of discovering and using it. Give him a title (such as TinyPlot Coordinator) and give him prominent billing in the newsfiles so newbies who log on when he's not around have a fighting chance of realizing that they're supposed to @mail him for help.

You won't regret it. When you have happy groups of RPers forming friendships and clogging the streets, doing all manner of interesting things because their TPC offered suggestions ("Time for a snowball fight, people! Meet in the park at 8 PM tomorrow!") while the wizards of other mushes are spending all their time coding and building, coding and building, or occasionally RPing with each other in the Feature Character roles they reserved for themselves while ignoring the peasants, and wondering why their nightly attendance is so low, you'll be glad you appointed somebody to take the newbies by the hand and help them feel that your mush was different from the countless competitors that take the "Sink or Swim" approach when someone shows up looking for action.

ADDENDUM : For my personal use, I once threw together a hasty list of what I called TinyPlot Seeds - simple situations only requiring two or three participants to get things rolling, which could develop into full-fledged TinyPlots if there was enough interest. The list is still online right HERE for emergencies.

ON SOURCES OF TINYPLOT IDEAS

SAMPLE TINYPLOT SEEDS

A few notes on use:

This is NOT meant to be a "Random TinyPlot Generator," i.e. I didn't set it up so that you could conveniently go down a flowchart, rolling a die at each point, and see where you ended up. Instead, it's meant to be used as a guide to finding suggestions that will help flesh out a vague idea you might already have about what sort of TinyPlot your character could do next. Look down the list of Basic Categories, find one that would suit your character's situation (for instance, Darth Vader would not be terribly interested in playing the role of a young lover in a romantic TinyPlot, I should think), then look down the list of variations on that particular Category and see if anything seems to fit. That's the way I have used it in my own roleplay, instead of closing my eyes, touching a printout of this file at random, and then looking to see what sort of TinyPlot I have to do now :)

Also, these are called "Seeds" because I generally don't try to tell you how a particular problem MUST be settled. I just outline various problems that your character COULD have to get some action started, and then you and your fellow Roleplayers are expected to resolve the problem somehow, either by OOC agreement in advance or by just improvising reactions and complications as you go along, and seeing where you end up.

BASIC CATEGORIES

That Touch of Mystery

Blatant Crime

Senseless Violence

A Stranger in Town

Treasure Map

Ah, Young Love!

From Rags to Riches, from Riches to Rags, and Other Variations on a Theme

The Stench of Blackmail (and/or Extortion)

Conversational Gambits

THAT TOUCH OF MYSTERY

1. An anonymous letter is received by Target. It is:
1. Adoring (a secret admirer with a crush on Target. Target must now start staring suspiciously at everyone of the opposite sex, wondering who to blame)
2. Threatening ("I'm going to kill you when you least expect it!")
3. Blackmailing ("Pay ten gold pieces or I will tell the world that you are actually an escaped convict!")
4. Friendly warning of a threat from someone else ("Beware the Ides of March, Caesar!")



2. A wave of petty crime sweeps across the neighborhood, but no one knows who is behind it. Possible crimes include:
1. Vandalism.
2. Theft.
3. Practical jokes, such as throwing cream pies in people's faces.
4. Armed Robbery (I call this petty crime when its somebody as flamboyant and discriminating as Zorro or Robin Hood, only robbing those who a) can afford to lose the money, and b) deserve to lose the money. This does NOT represent my philosophy about RL muggers).

NOTE: In any of these petty crimes, but perhaps most usefully in Practical Jokes and Armed Robbery, the perpetrator might wear a distinctive costume and mask so that even when he was seen doing his stuff, he was not identified as his "real" self. Consider Zorro as a perfect example of the "mysterious" armed robber.

BLATANT CRIME

1. Someone with criminal tendencies
1. Tries to pick a pocket or cut a purse.
2. Tries to pull a swindle ("look here! A genuine diamond as large as an egg! You can have it for ten gold pieces, cash").
3. Tries to blackmail a Target face-to-face, i.e. Target knows exactly who the blackmailer is.
4. Tries assault-and-battery, or mugging.
5. Tries to assassinate another character.

SENSELESS VIOLENCE

1. A fight occurs between two or more characters. Method:
1. A snowball fight! (Usually these are not done with lethal intent)
2. A food fight! (Also nonlethal - generally)
3. A barehanded fight
4. A fight with blades
5. A fight with impressive magical or hi-tech weaponry (handguns, for example).

A STRANGER IN TOWN

1. Target is minding his/her own business when a stranger breezes in and announces:
1. He's a long-lost relative of Target!
2. He's the messenger (a lawyer or family servant, perhaps) telling Target that a distant relative has just kicked the bucket, and Target has inherited:
1. Money.
2. Real estate.
3. A title of some sort.
4. A rare (magical or extremely hi-tech or just plain precious) item of obvious value. (A ring of invisibility, a prototype supercomputer, a painting by Rembrandt, etc.)
5. An odd knicknack or family heirloom of no particular value - APPARENTLY - except that someone mysterious tries to buy it for a ridiculously large sum.
6. Other (tailor this to suit your own plans).
3. He has a warrant for the arrest of Target (charges may be true or false, it's up to you. Stranger isn't even necessarily a real law enforcement officer; it could be a bluff, a swindle, or a kidnapping, using a counterfeit warrant to deter suspicion).
4. He's asking LOTS of strange questions about someone Target knows well, or even about Target himself (if he doesn't recognize Target). Target can try to play dumb while sounding him out.
5. He's just dying to sell Target some special little item (possibly it's stolen and people are looking for it?)
6. He's dying of his wounds. (If he actually dies, you might want him to just be a Puppet Identity, instead of going to all the trouble of creating a Player Character for the occasion). But before he dies (or faints, anyway), he manages to gasp out a mysterious message. "Why didn't they ask Evans?" (That's just an example. Agatha Christie used the line once.)

TREASURE MAP

Having a treasure map, or ancient record of an expedition to a lost city or some such thing, turn up in the early stages of a story is a venerable tradition in adventurous fiction. Consider TREASURE ISLAND (novel, Robert Louis Stevenson), SHE (novel, H. Rider Haggard), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (movie, principally the idea of George Lucas), and many another stirring tale of derring-do.

1. The "treasure map" could be any of the following (or something else):
1. An actual map, with coastline and mountains and things drawn on it. A big X in one spot probably means something interesting :)
2. A coded message.
3. A riddle of some sort which needs to be untangled so that you can find the right place - but at least it's written in a language you can understand, unlike the coded message mentioned above.
4. A piece of evidence (photograph, diary, personal letter, anything) which might help unmask a murderer, or prove the guilt of a spy, or something of the sort (not all "treasure" is in the form of a chest of gold and silver coins buried on an uncharted island).

AH, YOUNG LOVE!

NOTE: A few comments on the do's and don'ts of finding IC Romance are right HERE.

1. Assuming for the moment that the Players of a male character and a female character have agreed to RP some sort of romantic involvement, some of the more common situations include these listed below (NOTE: I generally assume the man is more aggressive than the woman in giving gifts, etc., but you can switch roles if you like):
1. One person rescues the other from danger ("Don't worry, Prince Charming! I, the heroic Snow White, will rescue you from that evil witch with my dazzling swordplay! Or was it YOUR turn to rescue ME tonight? I forget!")
2. Man gives lady gifts in his own name (flowers, jewelry, anything appropriate). Depending on the local customs and how things stand between them at the moment, she might react in the following ways:
1. Accepting them with squeals of glee (or at least sincere gratitude, however it is expressed)
2. Nervously trying to return the gifts, proclaiming that
1. It's too much to be "proper" for her to accept
2. She doesn't know him that well, and wouldn't want to give him the wrong idea.
3. Retaliating with gifts of her own.
4. In the event that she really doesn't want him pestering her right now, conspicuously
1. Throwing the gifts away.
2. Giving them to someone else.
3. Man sends anonymous gifts, flowers, etc., to woman. Her reactions can include:
1. Peering doubtfully at all acquaintances of the opposite sex (or maybe just the bachelors among them), trying to guess who's behind it. (note: this could precede either of the next two options, or could last until Man finally declares himself the author of the gifts).
2. Reaching a firm conclusion that good old X is behind it, but being dead WRONG, with the result that X (this requires a third party in the roleplay, obviously), gets VERY confused by her behavior changes toward him (she may be pleased or angry, but either way he hasn't a clue what's going on). Meanwhile, Man is seething with jealousy at seeing HIS gifts benefitting a rival.
3. Correctly deducing that Man is the author of the anonymous gifts/messages/etc., and
1. Confronting him with it directly.
2. Playing dumb to see how long he'll keep it up before declaring himself openly.
3. Launching some sort of counterattack, to lure him out into the open, such as:
1. Publicly speculating (when he's in earshot) that good old X (a different man) is the author of these things, to see if he breaks down and confesses.
2. Sending anonymous notes of her own to him, to hint that she's fully aware of what's up.
3. Apparently ignoring the gifts entirely, but doing something else provocative (such as kissing another man in public) to see what happens. Or otherwise dropping hints that she would like to find out who is sending these things.
4. They get engaged, impulsively, (i.e., not too long after they first met) which probably means stupidly, which probably means either
1. The engagement won't last very long.
2. If they elope and get married, they'll probably end up regretting it because they really don't each other very well - they just admire one another's good looks, or some other silly thing which is NOT a good foundation for a lasting relationship.
5. Assuming they are romantically involved, whether or not they are officially engaged or anything similar, they break up again in a tearful argument, possibly inspired by:
1. National / political / racial differences which make it impossible for them to see eye-to-eye. "But I'm a blue-skinned libertarian Martian colonist; how could I ever marry a green-skinned Venerian fascist?"
2. The realization that they have VERY different ideas of what married life should be like . . . for instance:
1. One of them wants to have lots of children, starting right away (well, right after the planned wedding, anyway - hopefully no SOONER than that :), and the other wants to either a) Wait a while (say, 5 years or more), or b) Have no children at all, ever, or only one or two.
2. One of them thinks it's the husband's job to support the wife while she stays at home, and the other thinks both should pursue careers simultaneously. (Or even have the wife support the husband, at least temporarily - young men have been known to get married in RL, working on the unvoiced assumption that the wife will immediately start working full-time to finance his time in graduate school, AFTER which he will take over the job of being the breadwinner . . . if the man doesn't discuss this with her in advance, it can cause a LOT of turmoil if her plans were a trifle different).
3. Jealousy, i.e. fear that the other one is too interested in somebody else. This could be
1. Absolutely true.
2. Slightly true, as in he (to assume the man is the one with torn loyalties) USED to be in love with another woman, and still feels a certain attraction to her, but is doing his best to ignore this and intends to be utterly faithful to his current True Love from now on . . .
3. Totally false. Perhaps she misunderstood something he said or did, or perhaps a slander is being deliberately spread by an enemy. (Read Shakespeare's OTHELLO for a beautiful illustration of how a totally amoral villain can create a "scandal" out of thin air, while appearing to beg the husband to be patient and open-minded. "It's probably nothing! It just SEEMS peculiar! Don't even think about her cheating on you!")
4. Distrust, caused (for example) by the discovery that the Significant Other has been hiding a deep, dark, secret which he apparently didn't trust his beloved to keep. A previous marriage? A previous child? He's actually a secret agent for another country, using a phony name and cover story? He's an ex-convict? All sorts of possibilities, these barely scratch the surface.
5. Family ties, honor, laws, etc., tear them apart DESPITE their still being crazy about each other (Examples: "Sorry, but my father has ORDERED me to marry Count Slobbovitch. We owe him ten thousand gold marks, and this is the only way we can pay." "I CAN'T marry you, you killed my brother!")
6. They attend a dance or masquerade together... act lovey-dovey in front of witnesses, making those who are not currently in love feel jealous.

FROM RAGS TO RICHES, FROM RICHES TO RAGS, AND OTHER VARIATIONS ON A THEME

1. Economic Changes. The subject:
1. Loses his job.
2. Finally gets a job.
3. Goes broke.
4. Makes a bundle in a clever business maneuver.
5. Inherits a lot of money/land/other resources.
6. Is disinherited by his family and cast out.

THE STENCH OF BLACKMAIL (AND/OR EXTORTION)

1. Assuming that one character has a nasty hold on another, and is trying to get something that the victim would not voluntarily give (goods, services, classified information, any useful commodity), the threat held over the victim could be:
1. Evidence of some vile crime, civil sentence of death or imprisonment sure to follow, ie Murder, Grand Theft, Treason, something of the sort.
2. Evidence of some scandal that would do great social harm even though it's not necessarily a "crime" in the sense that you would end up in prison (or executed) for having been involved: adultery, petty crime as a previous profession, illegitimacy, that sort of thing. For instance, if your character is the heir apparent to the Duke of Holdernesse, and someone claims to have evidence that your mother actually had a torrid affair with another man about nine months before you were born, that would be a grave threat to your well-being despite the fact that you are in no danger of being locked up in a dungeon if the word gets out, since YOU didn't do anything wrong - but you WOULD be disinherited and seriously embarrassed.
3. Threat of economic harm - foreclosing on the mortgage, firing someone, causing him to lose an important job, arranging for his house to be burned down . . . (and no fire insurance in this culture, or it's not so much of a threat).
4. The threat is actually a purely physical threat such as "Do this or I slice you up with a knife so you'll never look pretty again!" This is extortion rather than blackmail, but it all lumps together.
5. Variations on the above situations include:
1. The evidence is faked, no crime or impropriety has been commited, but the victim has been maneuvered into a situation where he would LOOK guilty. Or in the case of extortion, the Villain a) has no way of carrying out his threats, or b) has no intention of doing so - he's bluffing in the hopes that they THINK he's nasty enough to torture an innocent girl to death (or whatever he threatened to do, but wouldn't dream of REALLY doing).
2. The threat is not to the victim directly, but to some close friend or relative whom the Victim feels a need to protect.

CONVERSATIONAL GAMBITS

1. Assuming none of the above suits your taste, and you find yourself seated at the bar wondering what to say to the stranger who just settled down on the stool next to you, here are some things to consider:
1. You could always recite your IC biography to him, and let him recite his to you. This gets old really fast (say, after you've done it five times in one week), but at least it's an icebreaker. Some people who have just created characters are DYING to find a chance to talk about themselves.
2. If your mush has lots of IC activity relating to one of these, you and your new acquaintance could try to hold a spirited argument on:
1. Local politics ("I think Lord Kevin should take the throne after the King dies!" "Nonsense, I support Lord Jason!")
2. Religion. Theological disputes, for instance.
3. Gossip about the local Features (or other Bigshots). ("Do you REALLY believe that story about Queen Delilah's torrid affair?")
3. Carefully arranging this by paging back and forth, you could "accidentally" say something that REALLY offends your acquaintance ICly, and then roleplay the consequences. ("But I think we all have to agree that people from Testosteroneia are the dumbest things on earth - oops. I beg your pardon, I hadn't noticed your accent!")
4. If you have a TinyPlot of some sort coming up, you might want to drop a few cryptic hints about what it will involve ("But if you see a mysterious black statuette of a falcon floating around town, let me know, okay? I'm in the market for it. It's not worth a thing - ha ha ha! - except in sentimental value.")