User blog:Jed Revenant man/Collaborative Article(s): "Da Plan".

Hello again, folks: so, this blog is where, hopefully, we truly get the ball rolling on this thing.

The things we'll need to decide in this particular discussion are as follows. My personal thoughts are below them, take those as my thoughts only: this is all up for discussion before we put metaphorical pen to paper.

1: names, general backgrounds and general factions of the primary Imperial and antagonist collaborative factions that will be the first players in the war we're creating, as well as whether any other collaborative characters are necessary (for example, do we want a collaboratively created Inquisitor to know that the antagonist factions are seeking an artefact?).

Personally think we might be best off with a Space Marine faction for the Imperial side, because Space Marines, much as they are perhaps a tad over done, are nonetheless the archetypes of the setting. Also think that the antagonist would be best off being a Daemon Prince, for reasons I'll detail below (plus Daemon Princes are suitably powerful antagonists). As for needing any individual characters, that can be decided by everyone - I'm uncertain either way.

2: The Plot Device item - do we decide on a specific nature of it? Do we not? Is it at a set location? Is it not? Why are our factions seeking it, are they collaborating to do so, etc?

I think Jochannon's point still stands that an artefact that is essentially unknown is best, but we might be best served by having it be "the legendary something of something" that's rumoured to do something but might do something else, if you follow me. That way, there's a more definite reason for Chaos forces to risk acquiring it, without losing the basic mystery of what the thing is/does. Maybe use the word "casket". I like the word "casket".

3: The location of the conflict (that is to say some general background details on the planet that the conflict will happen on).

Got no real opinions on this, but I think an area with some urban areas - so a civilised or Hive or Forge world - would be better for a variety of reasons, including possible siege scenarios/fortress battles.

4: The general order of the "primary" story (that is to say, the primary antagonist's search for the object in question) + outcome. Honestly have no idea how the outcome should be decided, but we can work it out.

5: How we format the delivery of the story to be able to include additional users that want their factions to be added.

Both of the above points are linked, and should be discussed together. I've no real strong opinions in any case, but I've had some thoughts about the formatting I've listed below.

Some of the important points that were raised from the previous discussion:

In general, I think it's right to say that the idea of having multiple factions present is most popular, as people have all manner of factions and want to include them all in this project, so whatever we write will have to have some room for that.

Supahbadmarine raised the point that if the artefact is in a known location then the story will become a very one dimensional - not to mention dull - plod to that location. One possible solution we might consider is making the location of the item an unknown factor - I feel this will benefit the story by a considerable degree, since it becomes less "charge at X location and keep charging til everything else is dead" and more about individual forces searching different areas for signs of the artefact.

Supahbadmarine also pointed out that certain factions - such as Orks, Chaos, Dark Eldar - aren't likely to have sub groups bonding to fight together out of the kindness of their hearts. While I'm uncertain whether we have enough Dark Eldar or Ork sub factions for that to be an issue necessarily, that might be an issue for Chaos. One possible solution I believe I mooted previously would be having the collaboratively written antagonist be a head-honcho daemon prince, powerful enough to gather followers (even if its only on a temporary, "come with me if you want to kill shit and screw over the Imperium" basis) and not have them fight among themselves.

I've had some thoughts about the formatting of the article, in order to make it easy for people to add in sections. I think that the way I wrote the article The War for Sanctatum is a good format to follow for the actual conflict story, as it has a format that goes something like this:

Major section
The war happened

Geographical section
This is what was happening in this sector

one thing that happened in this sector
This is one of the things that happened in more detail

I think that this formatting works because all one has to do to add a story is either add in

another thing that happened in this sector
Or

Different geographical location
Summary of what happened in this sector,

thing that happened in this sector
This way any additions are unobtrusive and don't affect other people's segments or the collaborative segments. That is about everything I think we've got so far. Lets do this thing!