Voice Report #8: Fireside Chat (Clarifications, Updates, New Things, Dad Sighs)

We've Got Some Bangers Dropping Today

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Updates Galore:

I've mentioned them previously; I've spoken a few times in various chats, both text and voice, about them, and I've been hinting at some of them since I first took office. I've been working with the Seneschal Staff to update and address many things behind the scenes. It's taken me away from being the rather sociable force some of you know me as, to burying me in spreadsheets, research, planning, and simulations as I watch the behaviors across the Brotherhood and interpret how some of our updates will be received, versus their overall necessity as well as how they will impact the role of my staff. C-SIR, the Character Sheet (information) Reference tool was only the beginning of everything on the docket; now we're getting into some of the more sizable changes, updates, and improvements.

Of course, there are the standard updates and workflow on the Voice Office's horizon, like more Species, Feats, story beats, events, Lorefest (have I mentioned that starts again tomorrow?), you know, standard operating procedures, but that's not what I'm talking about here. So I'll break right into it with the list.

Height and Weight - Realtime Calculations:

I mentioned this in my last announcement, but I know more than a few of us have had at least one run-in with the conversion between Metric and Imperial Measurements. While Imperial is used by small percentage of the world, it is an large part of our userbase, this simple QoL improvement makes it a little easier for everyone except those of us who measure in Bananas and Bathtubs.

Drag and Drop for Mobile:

Surprise surprise, this item we wanted to tackle, was stealth-dropped on us by James as part of a larger series of updates months ago, I announced this in my report last week as well, but as this update is focusing on all of the current updates to the system first and foremost, I'm including it once again for posterity.

Formalizing Hybrid Species:

This has been a long-running project of mine, with lots of ups and downs as I have worked towards tackling and fine-tuning the many headaches around Species classification, how to best represent species on character sheets, keeping things equitable and nuanced enough for the system to even be worth implementing and not reverting back to the Near-Human only ruling we held for the last year, and making the system clear enough to represent in an updated version of the Character Sheet. With some work, today we've launched a version of the Character Sheet wherein you can select both of your chosen Species for Hybrids.

On the back-end, we've expanded this system to give different species up to 2 Classifications and a designator for whether or not they can be used as a hybrid species. Also, once sheets are processed, if you've chosen a hybrid species, both of your Species will show. The rules have not changed regarding Hybrids; species-specific traits and abilities are derived from your primary species, while your secondary species is primarily used to designate physical appearance traits, social history, etc.

Age Requirement:

Now deployed, future character sheets will require you to select an appropriate age for the species in question. Two categories will be listed under Species following this deployment. Minimum Age and Adult Age. These exist as a way to allow members to play characters who are still developing skills and growing as Padawans or Neophytes within the various academia within the Galaxy. In being transparent, members who break policy regarding underage characters, youth harm, or inappropriate interactions may be barred from utilizing characters beneath the Adult Age through administrative action. Being an international club, we are also bound by certain international standards, such as Germany's Protection of Young Persons Act which applies to places where minors may be present and witnessing minors real or fictional performing "actions harmful to their development", this is a method of compliance, while also attempting to give you the membership the ability to write stories of developing characters.

Wording Clarifications and Quality of Life:

This is an ongoing situation; we've identified over 200 instances we need to update across the various skills, feats, and more within C-SIR, have taken a look at minor projects to update like a review of Duration and Downtime, as well as clarifying and updating the information present in the Character Sheet Wizard. There were several dead links, outdated portions of information (largely due to policy updates or system updates), or minor updates that just needed to occur. While we're still working on the C-SIR language updates, the Wizard text updates have been reviewed and deployed as of tonight.

What's left?

From here we have two outstanding projects left for this update. First is shifting the Custom Discipline Management system. A long-standing goal is to shift the way this system works from an off-site Google Sheet to something you can request, akin to Custom Aspects.

The second portion is a facelift, modernizing the Wizard's styling to align more with the C-SIR update. This stage will likely launch as a Beta, to see and adjust things as needed, and get a feel for anything else we may want to adjust as we move towards modernization, or if we choose to backpedal once we're there.

New Releases!:

New Species - Neimoidian:

Remember the CIS and the Bug-eyed Neimoidians who hosted our favorite plucky Jedi in the beginning of the Phantom Menace, as well as making a few of our favorite quotes? Somehow they didn't make it into our systems, until today. Thanks to the newly appointed PLACON, Alaris Jinn, they've arrived!

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New Feat Series - Malacia:

This one says it on the tin, growing from JM to Elder, it focuses on debilitation through offensive use of Control Self, starting with dizzying one target at JM, and growing to Dizzying, Nauseating, or causing Loss of Balance for a group at Elder.

Feat Adjustment - Synergy:

Synergy has been adjusted to only affect allied targets. More on this below.

Feat Series Adjustment - "Run & Gun", "No Scope", "Down Scope":

These feats do not compound with one another. Previously the belief was that No-scope or Down Scope could be combined with Run & Gun. This is not the case, each of these feats are niche use cases and meant to stand alone.

Now That I've Addressed the Good:

There are several things I have to address in this report, and I know a few are going to rankle feathers, so I'm going to go ahead and get it out of the way now. If you feel targeted by things I've done. Don't. It takes more than one instance of a situation for me to bother looking at curbing it. If you're still upset and angry about the statements I'm going to make, take a step back, relax, and feel free to discuss things in a collected manner when the initial anger has sailed past.

Powergaming/Minmaxing:

If you were to ask anyone who has known me for the last 20 years, they can tell you I have a proclivity for powergaming and theorycrafting. They can also tell you that when it comes to social games and settings I set the hammer and anvil down. We've seen a recent abundance of cases where people want to make powers that are not offensive increasingly combat-oriented. We have also seen a heavy push of powergaming and stat-oriented focus among members. If your character is solely based on their stats, you are DBing wrong. While several of our systems have grown increasingly gamified over the years, the DB is not D&D, the ACC is not consistently about who has the higher point values, and being the best at everything statistically isn't possible. We can't all be Arch.

Several discussions about how to use and abuse certain abilities have come around from this, as well as how to curtail them. The introduction of Malacia, and the clarification of Synergy, Run & Gun, Down Scope, and No Scope are part of efforts to clarify the matter. I am not a fan of having to curtail member creativity, but when abuse persists and circular discussion and confusion about the rules persists, action must be taken.

Minor-aged characters:

This is a situation that keeps coming back, has been a general rule for a while that I was introduced to when I joined 9 years ago, and has been something we've treated rather laxly in recent years. I've instructed my staff to stop allowing characters aged under the majority age of a species until such a time as the next review of the Character Sheet goes live The updated Character Sheet system, wherein age checks are automated, has gone live. As such the Voice staff will resume full approvals, including those of characters at the "Minimum" listed age. I will take this moment to remind the membership that Character Sheets were and primarily are focused for ACC and Event-focused designations. They allow your characters to possess weapons and be utilized in fictions that put them in harm's way. We will not sheet child characters below the listed minimum age any longer. This enforced minimum age is representative of an average "Padawan" experience equivalent to ~15 Human years of age.

Any child characters should be NPCs designed through Wiki articles of their own or addenda to their relevant parents/family members.

The Member / Character Divide:

This one I have seen a lot of problems with. Some of us have a character whose views are antithetical to our own; sometimes we're exploring a concept, sometimes we're just being evil to be evil for a storyline. Yes, sometimes we reflect ourselves in our characters, not always. Do not take the actions of characters in storylines personally, unless given reason to believe they are personally driven. Often the lines between who we are as people and who we are as characters can get blurred. Such as Kamjin the person is, in no way, shape, or form, a Hutt.

However, from time to time this line gets blurred, and people may have their feelings hurt (but not Kam, Hutts have no feelings).

If you’re concerned about how someone is engaging with you or your character, please reach out to your leadership team, myself, or Kamjin to get another read on the situation. Often it is an unintentional misunderstanding that can be easily addressed.

Expect some Bugs:

There are still several bugs in the admin side of these recent updates, so if you run into one, or if something seems off about some data input or a feature, do not hesitate to reach out to me or my team. Chances are it was something that didn't get immediately addressed when we pushed to live. It may be something we are currently in the process of updating (there are a few items I need to fix after launching this report) or something we've missed entirely. As always, updates are messy, and many things can be misplaced.

Important Links

• Character Sheet Reference Tool
• Fiction Archive
• Fiction Resources
• Fiction Center
• Fiction Rubric 3.0
• Character Notes Template
• Voice Feedback Form
• Voice Staff Email

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As always, if you have have any Fiction related questions or comments, feel free to find me in #fiction-chat on Discord @albireowolfe, if you've got system questions, concerns, snippy comments, or proposals, zip me and my staff an email at [Log in to view e-mail addresses] just keep it civil.