View Single Post
Old 08-19-2013, 11:52 PM   #5
Agemegos
 
Agemegos's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Character assignments

The Voyages of the Starship 'Endeavour' is an unusually complicated campaign, because each player will be writing four or five characters. And that means that we have about eighteen to twenty characters to design, fit to each other, and stat up. I am afraid that that means an usually large amount of work. There is no way to eat an elephant but one bite at a time. So let's get started.

The first task is to work out who is going to play which part in the council-of-war: Captain, Ambassador, Head of Survey, and Military Intelligence Officer. The way I want to do it is this is a bit of work for you lot, but it will save a lot of time on to-and-fro negotiations. Besides, I wear the viking hat! Roar!

I'd like each player to submit a tender in which you give a brief (one paragraph, five or six bullet points) description of each of eight characters:
  1. the captain you would like to play if you got to play or had to play the Captain,
  2. the ambassador you would like to play if you had to play the Ambassador At Large,
  3. the dean you would like to play if you had to play the Dean of Survey,
  4. the military analyst you would like to play if you got stuck playing the Military Intelligence officer,
  5. the Imperial Marines section leader (corporal) you would like to play if you got stuck playing the military intelligence officer (sic),
  6. the XO, chief engineer, gunnery officer, astrogator, or naval intern (midshipman) you would like to play if you don't get the Captain,
  7. the First Secretary (public diplomacy expert), Counsellor (advisor on interstellar law), or aide (Secret Service bodyguard) you would like to play if you don't get the Ambassador, and
  8. the Survey specialist (scientist/explorer) you would like to play if you don't get the Dean.
I'd like you to do this blind, that is, without co-ordinating with the other players. Send your tenders to me by e-mail at <the obvious e-mail address>, do not post them to the boards.

I will assign parts to players on the basis of the tenders. Then you will do actual character design on the forums, discussing details with each other (and my hat) and making any changes that might be necessary to adjust the characters for fit: but only the ones that are going to be played.

I'm aware that dashing off eight character concepts is a lot of work. Blame yourselves for undertaking to play multiple characters! Keep the tenders brief and basic: remember that the characters will be adapted from the concepts you outline, and don't waste skull-sweat on superficialities that I'm only going to ask you to change.

Don't rush yourselves on this. Think about it for a while, then sleep on it at least once, and then think some more. Don't write a thing before Wednesday night, and don't send me anything before midnight Thursday. We'll start character generation on Monday.

Remember that this campaign is set in 532 PDT, which is very early in the history, before several characteristic institutions got to develop. The Empire is not divided into sectors yet, the Capital has not been built, the Senate has only about 76 members and can actually debate. The marines have never yet had every battalion suddenly used as cadre for a whole new regiment. There is no Independent Commission for Justice. Hostilities in the Formation Wars ended only about forty years ago. Elderly people (over about 110) actually remember a time before the Formation Wars began! http://flatblack.wikidot.com/timeline
__________________

Decay is inherent in all composite things.
Nod head. Get treat.

Last edited by Agemegos; 08-20-2013 at 05:29 PM.
Agemegos is offline   Reply With Quote