Exarch Report 10

In my last report was in October of 2023, I had said I was going to aim to continue with regular cadence reports. Since then, however, I had a wedding, which lead to becoming married, which lead to going on a honeymoon, and then lead to coming back to a complete shake up at my real life job that I’m now, kind of, recovered from just as we announced a return to office that has me running around and dealing with people in person more than remotely. Yay.

Fortunately, I’m still confident in my ability to be available and accessible on Discord and in my role as Exarch. So, unfortunately, you’re still going to be stuck with me for a little bit longer.

Table of Contents

• Development
• Yearly Statistics
• Words With Wally
• Open Position
• Helpful Resources
• Closing

Development

We’ve made a lot of progress with the Supplemental Roleplaying society, though, and I felt it was important to review them here in this report. I also want to take this time to celebrate the Anniversary of the Envoy Corps!, and the subsequent “day after” follow up report. So let’s also take a look back at how the first year of the Envoy Corps has shaped out.

New Features

• Exarch Staff now has an automated method for being able to approve word counts for RPs, greatly increasing turn around time for the rewarding of RP activities and with less manual administration.
• We’ve added the ability to attach character sheet snapshots to your RP with the /rp snapshot create command and view attached snapshots with the /rp snapshot list command.
• We’ve added the ability to have another member act as a Co-DM.

Special thanks to Arch for helping update the RP 104 Exam with any of the changes we’ve been making. They’re the real MVP as Ex-Arch Ex-Exarch.

Policy Updates

• #rp-lobby has become what it was originally intended to be: a lobby chat room to help easily find an RP to join. Members are still encouraged to talk about or express interest in RP, as well as advertise them, but we’ve moved all “character question” and general banter to #fiction-chat

• We updated the Processing Roleplaying Acitvity policy to detail that: RPs must have Run for at least **2 weeks, or each participant has contributed at least **500 words.

This was done mostly to help balance our "zerg rushing" through the DM ranks and ensuring sessions have enough time to play out. You can easily bypass the 2 weeks if all players hit 500 words each (which is even easier in a 1-on-1 RP.)

• The Exarch Staff can now process a Roleplaying Session as a "No-DM" or "DM-less" session. This happens on our end, when reviewing the RP before we submit it to the site for processing (which then gives you your XP, credits, trophy point progression, and CIs).

The best examples of where this "No-DM" mode makes sense are:

1. A 1-on-1 RPs where neither player is the "DM", and both members want to progress their
2. "Players Gonna Play" Trophy rank instead of their "You Can Certainly Try" Trophy progression.
3. "Run-On" type competitions where there is no DM.
4. "Co-Op" type fiction competitions that want to use the RP coding instead of multiple Google Docs.

You can read the full policy here.

Wiki Updates

We’ve actually done a lot of work on the Envoy Corps Wiki! We’ve added some fun NPCs, expanded on the worldbuilding by a member-voted name of The Flitz hotel, the Shame Corner social space, and completely revamped the Mission Log thanks to the new collapsable wiki tables! This is where you’ll be able to find all the Envoy Corps “sponsored” RPs run by the Exarch Staff and others that have volunteered. Shout out to Zappy for his continued Immortal Sith series that I’m sure everyone will walk away from with no damage or emotional scarring from.

Please take some time to check out the wiki, as it’s where we’ll be keeping all information relating to the Envoy Corps and roleplaying as a hub and knowledgebase!

Wally’s Guide to Running an RP

The name is a work in progress, but I’m still working on a Shadow Academy exam that will be a general guide to running a Brotherhood RP activity. This should not be seen in any way as a definitive “this is what you must do” and like the Pirate Code is more of a guideline based on what I’ve seen work and create fun, successful RP experiences. It’s a work in progress, and I’ll be sharing what I end up doing with a few DMs I’ve seen step up and get their hands into the possibilities. This is something I work on in my spare time, but something I’m very passionate about and believe can be a helpful resource to continuing to build confidence in members to run more RPs.

Envoy Corps Leaderboard

As we see more new members reaching the milestone Rank 12 in the “Players Gonna Play” Trophy, I wanted to still provide a way to honor our top RPers who have not let “maxing out " their rank stop them from enjoying RP activities. While there is flexibility to add more ranks and awards in the future, that is going to take some time to plan and calculate as we continue to get more data. For now, going forward, once a month, I will take a log of our top 10 Envoy Marks earners overall. I am working with Erinyes and James for some other ideas I have, but for now, consider this just a monthly “shout out”.

The names on here should come as no surprise to you, as these are most active RPers day in and day out. I omitted anyone still in the hunt for Rank 12, but once members reach that milestone, they’ll start showing up on the Monthly Leaderboard.

RP Society is not just about getting the most Envoy Marks, but I know there are some of us (me included) that enjoy a bit of competitiveness to bring us additional joy in an activity we’re already having fun doing.

Statistics

So I mentioned we’re monitoring RP activity very closely, and are committed to using data to inform our decisions we make going forward. For this report, however, I really wanted to highlight some Year-To-Date data, since I believe it shows you how far we’ve come from the launch of the Envoy Corps.

I’ve broken this data down into a side by side comparison of the Envoy Corps at 3 Months, 6 Months, and the full 12 Months since we started formally tracking these metrics. I am optimistic that this data will be useful as a comparison in the future, but for now let me try to share my thoughts on the numbers.

Completed RP / Total Word Count

When we look at "RPs Completed", we are looking at RPs that were organized, run, and qualified for Envoy/Golden Envoy Marks.

We started off with a humble 41 RPs over the first three months, which exploded to 103 RPs in 6 months (a 151.22% increase from 3-6 months). And over the past 12 months, we've managed to go beyond that limit to hit 189 RPs run to completion (83.49% increase from 6-12 months). And we've got plenty more in the oven and/or cooking as I type this all out!

Word Count is obviously one of the easiest metrics we can track, since it’s at the core of how we log RP activity and attribute writing to each DM or player in an RP activity. Encouragingly, we had a nearly even ~~840k increase at each checkpoint, leading to a total of 2,023,460 words of Fiction. For context, that means RP has contributed to 4046 Clusters of Ice.

RP without RP Society vs. RP with RP Society

From a word count perspective, this was kind of expected. I didn’t need to look at the data outputs to know that we’d see something ridiculous, but it is still nice to see a 284.99% increase in word count generation. Will that realistically be as high next year when we compare this year's data vs next years? Probably not, but as long as we see an increase, we’re doing the right things.

For completed RPs, we saw a jump from 51 completed from 2022-2023. Which, when compared to 2022-2023, according to Google Gemeni AI, is a 270.59% increase in completed RPs year over year.

While this dataset might seem like an easy scoring goal on an open net, it does help lend credence to the importance of not just having a Roleplaying Society, but in also fostering the culture of collaborative writing and in engaging with the activity on a day-to-day basis. The Envoy Corps design-intent was to meet the members where they are already doing the activity without any kind of push, and to just give them more encouragement and incentive to continue and do more. This clearly seems to have paid off.

Unique Players by Clan

I am sharing this data, specifically, to show growth. This is not a contest or comparison of which Clan has done the most RP activity, but a way to visualize the growth of RP across the entire Brotherhood as a daily activity driver. You can see that for each Clan, at least 4 and as many as 24 new members have tried their hand at least 1 RP activity. Without knowing the Clan names, we still saw an upward tick in unique participants,

This tells me that we’re doing all of the right things. I hope to continue to see this number grow, albeit more slowly, over the coming months.

I will also say that there is very clearly a correlation with the Clans that have the most active RPers are also the Clans that are running the most RPs. Overall, though, as I mentioned above, I think the number of RPs run has been encouraging.

Words With Wally

I’ve packed a lot into this report, and hope everyone takes the time to actually read it. Being Exarch is a weird, strange position in the club. On paper, the position is a Society Leader, meaning that in the grand hierarchy, it’s not a DC position, but mimics a similar management and workload. That is likely because new features require coordination with the SCL. If we want to add new items or awards, that’s SCL + MAA + Regent coordination. We work closely with the Cluster of Ice, and Fiction is owned by the Voice, so Xen very kindly hangs out with us in our staff chat. There is a lot of data to understand, feedback that needs to be translated, and policies that need to be invented. We currently have 3 full-time staffers, and if you keep reading, you’ll see we’re going to add to that by filling our vacant 4th seat.

I think in the future, the project manager side of Exarch will eventually fade and the role will settle into a true Society Leader: overseeing and managing a staff and then cheerleading RP culture. I see plenty of members that I think would be a great fit for it, especially those currently on staff.

But, I still think I can perform at a high level, and am the right person to try and keep our momentum going into our second year as a supplemental society. I don’t want to sit in a position just to sit in it, so if I ever feel like I’ve slowed down and become ineffective, I will step down on my own volition. If anyone feels that I’m not doing a good job, or just have general ideas for improvement? Hit me up on Discord or email. I’m happy to discuss anything and maintain that transparency is king.

I’m mostly saying this out loud for someone to throw it back in the face a year from now if I’m still writing out these reports. Speaking of throwing...things into...peoples...face...

Survey Says...

Piggybacking off the GM’s recent XP Survey, it’s very clear that RP has been a key component to the Brotherhood experience. Out of 96 multi-selection responses, 52 members aid that they view RP as their preferred way of getting XP.

This warms my heart because all of the work that went into the Supplemental Society, the Trophies, syncing with Howie and Anubis and James on XP and Credits and CIs...it really mattered and everyone seems to be having a positive experience as a result!

RP Survey

Speeaking of surveys, I’m going to share one that I’ve created and would appreciate everyone taking a few minutes to fill out.

Data is important. It might sound boring, but it really is. The more data and feedback I have from members, the more I can argue press the GMs and James on new features or activity support. Without your input, I’m guessing and firing off my ideas randomly. So, please fill it out, share it with your clanmates or friends or fellow leaders.

You can find the survey here.

Open Position

So, we actually had planned on a 4th staffer, but because of a lot of things happening over the past year, I genuinely forgot we had the slot. I think now is a great time, however, to get someone new on board.

The most important thing I’m looking for in our next staff member is a desire to learn the administrative side of things, as well as help with keeping our Wikipedia pages up to date. I’d also prefer to get a member not already on multiple staffs, or high-level Clan leadership. So in respects to that, I don’t care what rank or experience you have, just that you have a passion and desire to make the RP Society one of your primary focuses, beyond just joining RPs as a player.

Please review the Exarch Staff Expectations for a list of the formal requirements for the position.

If you are interested and think you can do the job, apply. Even if you’re not selected, it shows interest and lets me know that you want to possibly be involved in future things. ** Send Applications to: [Log in to view e-mail addresses] I will accept applications up until March 16th, 2024.

One More Thing

This role is not for “creating” an official Roleplaying Ruleset/System. This is not something that’s going to happen while I’m Exarch. It’s been discussed at large, and the best feature of RP Society right now is that anyone can run any kind of ruleset/system that they want. While the “Brotherhood D20” is the most popular (using either D10 dice + modifiers), we’ve had multiple new ideas surface.

You do not need to be a member of the Exarch Staff to do this. Anyone is able to create a Google Doc, write down some rules, and share it with others or do a playtest. If you need help or have any questions, reach out to the @Exarch Staff and we’ll make sure we help you out!

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

I have been adding Maps to the folder, and assets I've purchased or found from Patreon subscriptions. If you have any table-top assets that fit the Star Wars/DB sandbox, please let me know so I can help get them added in :).

Closing

Lastly, I know it's come up a few times in conversation, but "Voice" RP is being worked on. My hope is that with enough feedback from the survey, I can try to make the solution and implementation jump a bit higher on our 2024 projects with the GMs plans.

TL;DR:

• New Features and Policies
• Yearly Stats and Data Analysis
• RP Survey
• Apply for Exarch Staff

And yes, I will continue to find ways to interject Lucifer Morningstar into my reports, because he’s great and because I can.

-W