Bounty 003: Complete

Marlo Bronto defected from the Envoy Corps with a stolen datapad containing sensitive information on Brotherhood operations. A team of six operatives, Kadrol, Sival, Archian, Von Ricmore, Eiko and Titius was summoned by Cordelia, an Envoy Corps officer to retrieve the datapad. The team traveled to port Ol'val where Marlo was hiding on a warehouse. They fought through a wave of hired mercenaries on the first level of the warehouse and reached the second level where a sniper ambushed them, badly injuring Kadrol.

After a successful attempt at smoking Marlo out with Dioxis gas, the team, now divided in two, was both able to surround Marlo, kill the elusive sniper and recover the datapad. Ina desperate attempt to take his own life, alongside Sival's and kadrol's, Marlo activated a thermal grenade. Sival attempted to hurl the grenade far away but wasn't fast enough. They were rescued by Wyndell Tyris who had sensed danger coming from the warehouse when he was passing by.

Before returning the datapad to Cordelia, Eiko managed to access it, revealing the stolen information was mostly Eastern Expanse novels purchased by Charon Reddick, with only a sprinkle of actual Brotherhood secret intelligence...

Click here for the full transcript of the bounty!

Exarch Report 07

TL;WR

If you’re not interested in reading the whole report, here are the important things you need to know up front:

• Some Data tracking on Roleplaying Activity since the launch of the Envoy Corps / Supplemental Society.
• Wiki documentation relating to the Envoy Corps, Role Playing, and Trophy/Rank progression has been updated and organized a bit better.
• New policies on Co-Dms, and how sessions qualify for Golden/Envoy Marks.
• Voice-based sessions tested and have positive support from leadership- will be working out logistics over time.
• Exarch Staff opening (read Staffing Update for more information).

For everyone else, let’s dive in :)

Table of Contents

• Development
• Wiki Work
• Policy Updates
• Staffing Update
• Helpful Resources
• Closing

Development

For this section, I wanted to highlight some of the data tracking I’ll be doing as Exarch to monitor the progression of RP activity in the DB. It’s not much, as I’m doing most of this manually and by hand, but it should give us insight into health and progression as time passes.

Data!

• We saw a solid 17 RPs started and 13 RPs completed, which should help us see a baseline and have a point of reference as the months go on.
• We saw a pretty even amount of members reach Rank 2 in either the Players Gonna Play trophy, and the You Can Certainly Try trophy.

• From March to April, we saw an even growth with the Players trophy and a slight increase to the GM trophy, which is what we’re aiming for and hope to keep growing!

I’m happy so far with the spread of ranks, with 3 members battling it out to be the first to hit rank X in the DM Trophy, and 8 competing to be the first to reach Rank XI in the Players trophy.

Voice Sessions

After running a formal trial run session. It was a lot of fun, and I think it works really well with the Brotherhood’s lore, storylines, character sheets, and possessions. Thanks to Zuza, Nicfer, Doon, and Arch for helping me out. I used Foundry VTT to run the session’s map and tokens, but the DB CS’s were used to determine the roles.

Hopefully for the potential this will have in the future and how it could help us reach more writers/roleplayers.

Wiki Work

After weeks of procrastinating, I finally realized that the Wiki “Templates” that are commonly used are just a custom HTML/table that I could easily copy/paste and then reverse engineer. Which...then of course led to me spending too much a bunch of time tweaking the template layout and the wiki pages it connects to. Which, in the end, lead to this:

The template serves as a directory to link the following four articles together:

• The Roleplaying Handbook
• Envoy Corps
• Envoy Corps: Trophies & Progression
• Exarch

When using the template, you will always have a quick way to get back to one of these connected/related pages. Hooray!

Roleplaying Handbook

You’ve probably heard me talk about this page, but it’s really becoming more and more important to being the central “hub” for information on Roleplaying in the DB. We’ve also added the policies to this page, which you can read about below.

Policy Updates

A few important policies have been coded into existence as we’ve seen different scenarios both anticipated and not anticipated. The goal of these policies is not to restrict, but to make sure the system we use remains a positive and fair experience for everyone. With most of these policies, and the language created within them, we really are giving members the benefit of the doubt.

If you have any questions on any of these updates, please let me know and I’ll be happy to discuss why we came to these decisions.

Co-DM Policy

Going forward, the Exarch Staff will be able to process an additional Golden Envoy Mark for a member that participates as a “Co-DM”. Some good examples of why having a co-DM can be helpful:

• You have a busy work schedule that prevents you from answering players for a long stretch of time during the day.
• You need help with keeping track of larger groups through maps, resources, or lore dumps.
• You are helping reverse-shadow a new DM.
• You need time zone coverage based on being in a different time zone than your players.

All we ask here is that you email: [Log in to view e-mail addresses] so that we can track it. This also gives us a paper trail, and keeps things fair and transparent.

As part of the review process the Exarch staff already does, Exarch Staff will check the RP thread to make sure that the co-DM contributed in a meaningful way, and manually append the additional dossier when submitting the activity. In general, the Exarch Staff will trust the DMs, and only take action if there appears to be blatant abuse of the system.

You can view the policy [https://wiki.darkjedibrotherhood.com/view/Roleplaying_Handbook#Co-DM.2FGM_Policy here on the Wiki].

Processing Roleplaying Activity

We had to make a few wiggles in regards to how RP activity co-ops with the Cluster of Ice policy. Thanks to assistance from Idris, we were able to better codify the policy on what “counts” for RP activity in efforts to prevent “gaming” the system. And while some of this may be something you already know, I’m going to highlight it once again for optics.

Roleplaying activity is awarded based on the cumulative word count from your posts in the RP session. 500 words are equal to 1 Cluster of Ice (CI). As a result, RP activities must utilize the Brotherhood character sheets system in some way, and stay relevant to the Brotherhood’s lore within the Star Wars universe.

For more on the Cluster of Ice, see: Cluster of Ice: Text Roleplaying on the Wiki.

Additionally as a reminder:

1. 100 words minimum are required by a DM or a Player to qualify for Golden/Envoy Marks.
2. DMs must allow at least one week for any joined players to post before closing. If a week elapses with no posts, it is then at the DM's discretion.

The second point is important to note, and new, to cover instances of a DM starting up an RP, doing work, and making an opening post, but then not having players be able to make time to contribute. The 1-week cooldown prevents anyone from prematurely closing an RP, and hopefully strikes a safe balance for DMs to not feel like they will waste their time if circumstances outside their control cause an issue. It also prevents DMs from just starting a session and closing it on a whim.

Exarch Staff Oversight

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The Exarch and their staff review every RP before it’s submitted, and coordinate with the Voice Staff to process RPs for both Clusters of Ice and Golden/Envoy Marks. During this process, the Exarch and their staff reserve the right to make case-by-case decisions on if member(s) are engaging in activity that goes against the spirit of RP Activity.

As part of this oversight, the Exarch Team reserves the right to close out RPs that have not seen any activity for over 30 days, but not before talking to the respective activity organizer.

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This new addition basically just helps give Exarch Staff the ability to step in and help when we need to. Our team is here to help and to grow this activity for the Brotherhood.

Speaking of our team...

Staffing Update

Due to personal issues outside of his control, Appius was not able to join up with the Exarch Staff. We did, out of respect, wait to try and fill the spot, but now I’m comfortable enough to see if there is any additional interest in joining our team.

While the heavy lifting has been done, there is still a lot I want to accomplish in my time as Exarch. To do that, I’m going to need some help. Here is what I’m looking for in our next team member:

• The ability to help submit RP logs to the Voice Staff for processing RPs.
• Active presence on Discord and willing to drive conversation in #rp-lobby.
• Willing to help run monthly Exarch-sponsored RPs in the form of Bounties, Missions, or Contracts for the Envoy Corps.
• Contribute in discussions of new features, updates, and policies for the Envoy Corps in #exarch-staff
• Comfortable helping and answering questions about the RP functions and mechanics for members, and jumping in to help new Game or Dungeon masters with their RPs
• Have passed the Activities 104: Roleplaying exam.
• Excited about the Envoy Corps and RP activity!

The big thing here is being interested in running things open to everyone in the Brotherhood. We are seeing a huge amount of smaller and personal Character RPs, so we're really hoping to increase the number of options members have on a week-to-week basis and are playing the numbers game with it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Otherwise, send all applications to: [Log in to view e-mail addresses] by Friday, May 26th, 2023.

I know that there was an idea floated about each Clan having a “representative” on the Envoy Corps, or for Exarch Staff. For reasons relating to my 14 years of being in this club in some form of leadership capacity, I don’t see it as being the best way to achieve our goals. That said, if anyone is interested in getting involved with the Envoy Corps, fictionally, or running RPs that relate to the Envoy Corps, please reach out to me or a member of staff.

In the end, the goal is to have more RPs running, so that there are more opportunities for people to play and have fun in the Brotherhood.

Helpful Resources

You can find everything you need in Roleplaying Handbook Wiki. This page hosts links to Exarch Resources such as maps, rulesets, system types, and information about Role Playing activities the Brotherhood.

Some useful pages to bookmark:

• Exarch Resources Google Drive Folder
• Envoy Corps Wiki
• Envoy Corps Trophy Rank Rewards Table
• Envoy Corps Items
• Envoy Corps CS Feats
• Character Sheet Reference Tool
• Roleplaying Handbook

Closing

That’s all for now. Myself and my team are here to help and answer questions- don't be afraid to ask!

-W