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Updating Goals

Posted by Apostate on 12/05/18
So I wanted to clarify how goals can be used, because I think they are so wide open they might be confusing people. Goals can be for anything, no matter how minor or how grand to a character. They could be trivially easy that any reasonable person could complete, or could be very intentionally oocly impossible, where the failure of it would show character growth and development, and anything in between. They could be something that can be resolved entirely on screen with RP with other people, or something that would have to take @actions, plots, or live GMing from staff. Because of this, what we are really looking for in updating goals is to just update the -consequences- of someone that believes they've achieved their goals, and wants staff to sign off on it, rather than something broad and nebulous and looking for directions. Let me give examples.

Bob the Courtier has several goals. He has a Heartbreakingly Modest goal of the King using his name, due to him having a shrine to Alaric in his home. He has a reasonable goal of becoming a Whisper of the Whisper House. He has a venomously ambitious goal of being ennobled in a great house and becoming a voice. And he has a megalomanic goal of becoming an archmage.

For updates, if he has an RP scene with Alaric and Alaric uses his name, that's that. If Bob wants to put in a goal/update saying, 'SENPAI NOTICED ME! Is this done?' then yep, I might ask Alaric if it happened just to confirm, and then I'd update it as complete and give him a tiny xp reward. What I wouldn't want by contrast is for Bob to put in a goal update for that very modest goal to meet the king with, 'Hey, I'm lost here. Alaric won't respond to my messengers just because I sent him creepy hand made portraits of him and tried to buy his hair. What do I do now?' No, goal updates aren't intended for providing direction like that, so much as us check marking things off, and providing a response to actions people have taken. If someone is lost on goals, I generally would point them towards something more intermediary, like, 'Convince the King's Own you aren't a crazy threat' or something.

Now say the goal about becoming a Whisper is after being recognized for some great social achievement. The goal update then could also result in a vox update, or any kind of GMing in response to the organic RP that already happened. Basically, what we're hoping happens more often is people making organic RP on grid meaningful, and giving staff things to work with and trigger off of, so we can spontaneously make more stories about the actions of players in day to day actions in the city. We want to reward people giving their RP meat, and we're happy to do so.