Hello Everyone! I’ve got a handful of “new” things that are going live on the site, including more options to the Traditions system, and Cluster of Ice tweaks.

Traditions

For those of you unaware, the Traditions system is something that unlocks upon reaching the Equite ranks. While most certainly not a necessary component of a Main Character, it does provide a fun pointer to additional context about your main character. Most of the available traditions came from the earliest days of the club or from when Light-side Force User options were introduced. They were the “Orders” of their day, and the Traditions system launched as those Orders were replaced with the addition of non-Force user Orders.

Till now, there have only been two additional traditions added to this system, Imperial and Mandalorian. This changes today! The new traditions are: Rebel, Criminal Syndicate, Dagoyan, Guardian of the Whills, Sith Eternal, and Nightsisters.

Another issue facing the Traditions system was the lack of any context for the meaning of what was there. As such, there is now a Traditions Wiki Page with short summaries on all of the available traditions.

Cluster of Ice Policy Updates

I have two major pieces as part of this update.

Run-ons

First, the system for awarding Cluster of Ice for run-ons is being changed going forward. Run-ons will be awarding Cluster of Ice purely based on the word count between posts. That means every 500 words gets a CI, just like all the other fiction submissions. That said run-on competitions max word counts per post can still get you DQ’d for placement. Please check the requirements as outlined in each specific run-on competition details.

The official Cluster of Ice policy now reads:

For Run-on type competitions, Clusters of Ice are awarded at the same one (1) Cluster of Ice per 500 words of fiction. There is no maximum for clusters awarded in a run-on.

Additionally, the competition guidelines for run-ons has been changed to:

Run-on based events must have a minimum of two (2) posts of two hundred and fifty (250) words. This allows participants to earn at least one Cluster of Ice. Run-ons must have a maximum word count per post. The recommended length is no longer than one thousand (1,000) words per post, but the amount can be determined by the competition organizers. Individuals who exceed the maximum word count for posts may still earn participation or placement within the competition, however, they must lose points within whatever grading criteria is used for the competition.

Roleplaying

This is a temporary system

There has been a growing push for “live” roleplaying sessions within the club. There are several individuals already working on proposals to better integrate roleplaying with awarding some form of clusters. At present, we are adding the ability to earn Clusters of Ice for total words contributed to the session.

The policy is:

Clusters of Ice can be manually awarded for every 500 words contributed to a text-based roleplaying session. These sessions must still utilize the member’s character sheets, and stay relevant to the DB universe. A log of the session must be supplied with the request along with the individual PINS and word counts already tallied by the submitting party. These requests should be sent to the Voice Staff mailing list for verification, approval, and processing.

I do want to make a few things clear:

• This is 100% a temporary thing, until either a proper system is in place to handle it, or it is decided there is not enough interest to merit supporting it.
• These RP sessions MUST involve using one of your characters and events within the DB universe.
• The Voice Staff will not be manually counting your RP session word counts for you. We will review the submitted log, but if you want CI to be awarded, one of the party must make the submission WITH the dossier PINs and word counts for each person.
• The correct format for submitting an RP session log’s wordcounts is PIN#wordcount, PIN#wordcount. So if I had 500 words in a session my piece would look like 3783#500.
• Please do not abuse this or make Voice staff’s lives a nightmare or it will be removed.
  
• You can submit the last session you had and any going forward while this policy is in effect.

Feats?

Feats are still in process. I had previously released some numbers based on what the system currently has in it. Obviously, part of our goal is increasing those numbers, and making sure every skill and Force power has feats associated with it.

But I also want to give a peek at some of the other pieces that will be going into the feats overhaul. First is the standardization of formatting. This may seem like a superficial thing, but hopefully, when it’s done, all feats will look fairly similar in formating/limitations. For example, some skills increase a skill temporarily. Some list a +6 max (which is GM locked). These skills will now have a +5 maximum note. Other feats state something has to be specified in a loadout for the feat to apply to. This is being standardized for all feats that require this, so terminology should be more uniform there. This also means there has been a manual review of all feats.

The second piece wanted to mention is that of clarifying what feats are doing. One of these changes has already taken place thanks to James. CS’s General Feats section has been renamed to Granted Feats. When the overhauled feats project is done, the only feats you will see in that box are ones that are granted, such as species or order-specific ones. At present there are around 6 non-granted feats that show up in that box, while every other chosen feat falls into the Skill or Force feat boxes.

More importantly, this will eventually lead to feats having a clear marker (format of which is being discussed) that will indicate what the feat itself is doing. Is it granting a new ability to a skill? Is it a situational boost to the skill level? Is it swapping one skill for another?

Most of the time these things are already pretty clear, but it is a common enough issue that I wanted to add the specification to each feat. No more ambiguity in that regard.

This is where I would like to remind people to submit feat ideas to the Feat Suggestion Form.

Important Links

• Fiction Resources
• Fiction Center
• Voice Feedback Form
• [Log in to view e-mail addresses]
• Feat Suggestion Form

Thank you for reading. As always if you have any Fiction related questions, concerns, comments, snide remarks, feel free to message me on Telegram: @IdrisAdenn or send me an email [Log in to view e-mail addresses].