Player Run Plots (PRPs)

So you’ve got this idea for a story. You want to save a town. Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe you’d rather take over a town. Maybe you want to fight your nemesis in his secret lair or RP about getting that thing your character has been wanting to stabilize his powers. Maybe you’ve got an epic planned out that will shake the world and bring tears of joy to the eyes of all who read it.

How do you go about doing it? How do you know if you can do it at all?

On Inheritance Gambit we want players to be able to tell their stories with a minimum of hoop-jumping. At the same time we want to provide a stable, cohesive, living world for those stories to be set in and that means necessarily restricting some of what can happen. Below we’re going to go over the details of what exactly those restrictions are, but before we get to that we want to make sure one thing is very clear: We’re all here to tell stories. All of us. That means staff is empowering the Players to do so.

Now, let’s get to the details.

Playing In Your Own PRPs

On Inheritance Gambit, it is perfectly acceptable for a Player to have a Character in a Scene or Plot they are running. Most of our Players are here to roleplay their own Characters.

On Inheritance Gambit, it is perfectly acceptable for a Player’s Character to be the ‘star’ of the Scene or Plot they are running. No one knows your Character better than you!

Why do we take this stance, which is contrary to the generally accepted MU* PRP format? Staff feels that the issue should be self-regulating.

Generally, the policy of either not being in your own Scenes or not “starring” in your own Scenes is to keep Players from giving themselves some sort of advantage. On Inheritance Gambit, conferring any kind of game balance disrupting advantage on yourself is largely not possible. In addition, Staff feels if the Scenes you’re running are too rigid or scripted or other Players don’t have anything to do but watch your character Be Awesome, no one is going to want to be in the scenes you run.

If you are running a Scene or Plot either that your Character is in, or is about your own Character, remember that no one likes feeling like an extra in a movie. While the Scene or Plot might be about some element of your Character’s past or a goal of theirs etc., a good storyteller makes sure that everyone in the Scene is engaged and gets a moment to shine. Just because the Plot might be about your character doesn’t mean you can’t drag in elements from other Character’s stories to enrich your own.

NPCs and Locations

Let’s face it. You’re going to need to need to create NPCs when you’re telling and you may need to create locations as well. And that’s fine. Much as we want you to tell stories, we want you to populate those stories with interesting characters as well. A good support cast always makes a plot better and a good setting can really make a story come alive.

So go ahead. For the most part Staff is perfectly fine with you creating what needs to be created for your stories. The grid itself covers a fair amount of space that’s only generally described and most of the towns, cities and so on in the off grid portions of the immediate area are left for players to establish. When dealing with NPCs specifically, there are a few guidelines we’d like to set out for what constitutes something that can be created at will or off the cuff and what constitutes something Staff needs to be involved with (or at least know about).

Please talk to staff if you want to:

• Create or use an NPC with a more than moderate amount of on-grid influence. Town mayors, guild leaders, corporate executives, detectives, crime bosses and super-villains of less than globe spanning power are all fine. The President of the United States, the head of Hydra, etc. and their immediate subordinates are things we’d like to talk about first. The rule of thumb here is ‘if whatever they do could be countermanded by someone who isn’t himself the biggest power in the area’ then you’re good.

PRP Types and Requirements

Staff wants Players to be able to tell the stories that they want to tell with a minimum of hoop jumping. Staff also wants to maintain a coherent, believable world that reacts to events and player actions. The PRP policy is the compromise between those two desires.

On IG there are three kinds of plot, divided by what kind of impact they have on the game world, and thus what kind of oversight they need from staff.

Please note: A plot must be in our system (found here) in order to submit for Plot Experience, even if there is no staff approval or oversight involved. A plot does NOT need to be in our system for you to run a scene for it. You CAN put the plot up and submit for Plot Experience retroactively. 

Level I Plots: Does not require Staff oversight. Does not require Staff approval.

A plot is level I if it primarily affects consenting PCs, assets controlled by consenting players (teams, NPCs, companies, etc), or changes the status quo of an on grid area/entity not larger than a single district (examples: West Side, Central). Level I plots may be run in any place on or off the grid, at any time, by any player without needing to run it by staff. Seriously, feel free.

For Level 1 plots please do not:

• Substantially shift the balance of power on a global scale on either a political or corporate level.
• If on grid, make rapid, sweeping changes to the nature of districts. Because these kinds of plots can be run by anyone at any time it’s important that, say, the West Side of Chicago not be cleaned up of crime and drugs and turned into a glittering bastion of civilization one day by one player only to be turned into a riotous anarchistic mess the next day by another.
• If on grid, include massive property damage or destruction of assets not owned by a consenting player, or massive loss of life. The IC authorities tend to respond quickly and harshly to either situation. A bit of property damage, wrecked buildings, etc, kind of comes with the genre, but please don’t level our neighborhoods. Other people have to play in them.

For Level I Plots, you will need:

• To add your plot using our ‘add plot’ button found here. That’s it, and it’s mostly so we can keep track of things when handing out experience.

Level II Plots: Does need Staff approval. Does not need Staff oversight.

This is category is for things that have more grid impact than the often personal stories told with Level I plots. This is when you want to affect and change things. Staff thinks that’s great, we just need to know what is changing and how, hence the need for approval.

A plot is Level II if it makes major changes to the status quo for an on grid entity larger than a single district – such as the entire city of Chicago or major portions thereof, a mega corporation, or an entire nation – that is not the purview of a single Player OR if it makes changes in the way the world functions that is likely to impact other Players.

For example, a plot involving the assassination of the Mayor of Chicago would be Level II because it changes the city for everyone, whether or not they are involved in the plot. Conversely, a plot that involves a war between Russia and the EU might not be level II if the end result of the war doesn’t change the world’s balance of power. Thus, people not involved or not interested can essentially ignore the plot. The impact on them is minimal and the plot can be run at Level I.

For Level II Plots please do not:

• Make major changes to your plans without telling us. Staff has all run plots at one time or another and we know things change. We don’t need to be kept abreast of every little thing and we want you to have maximum flexibility in your story telling. But, if you get that brilliant idea to take things in an entirely different direction, or you realize that events call for more mayhem than you’d previously discussed with us, drop us a line just so we can give it a nod.

For Level II Plots you will need:

• To submit the plot using the add plot button (link above) with some idea of what you are going to do. You don’t need all the details, but Staff will want the broad strokes of how your plot will change things and what things they will change. Don’t be afraid, we don’t bite.

Level III Plots: Does require Staff approval. Does require Staff oversight.

Some concepts, characters and places hold central positions in the metaplot of Inheritance Gambit or in the way the world is set up. These are generally marked with an * somewhere on our website, but include things like the Genophage, the world’s overall political order, the absence of aliens and cosmic artifacts from Earth. Things of that nature.

Any plot affecting things fundamental to how the world is set up, or characters, places or concepts marked with a * is a Level III plot and must be submitted to staff who will probably want a fair amount of detail. This is not meant as a discouragement or punishment for wanting to do big things. It is more intended to make sure the core tenets of how our world works change in ways that A) are fun, B) are not disruptive and C) are consistent with the OOC goals that the setting was designed around.

Fair warning, some things will not be changeable at this level. Staff is unlikely to allow a cure for the Phage for instance. However, if you want to ask about what might be possible or you have some ideas for how things might change feel free to toss them at us. If we like them, we’ll work with you to figure out a general direction you can run and then set you loose.

To be clear, just because a plot involves one of our central concepts or characters doesn’t necessarily make it Level III. Many people know about the Phage, for example and are attempting cures. It’s not unreasonable a player would want to center a plot around the search for a cure. Such a plot would only be Level III if the player wants to cure the Phage or make a major breakthrough.

For Level III Plots please do not:

• Be offended if we say no. We love to hear your ideas, we really do, but for the sake of consistency there will be some things that are not possible not matter how cool they would be. Again, we don’t bite and if you have an idea we’d love to hear it. Just be aware that things central to our setup here will change slowly if at all.

For Level III plots you will need:

• To submit your plot in a fair amount of detail. We will work with you on this and it’s fine to come with us with just a ‘what would it take to do X’ kind of question. But before the plot begins we will have to hash out what the end state of the major world set pieces is going to be.

Plot Abandonment:

We don’t see this coming up much but as a general rule if a plot has gone for more than a couple months (60 days) without any activity Staff reserves the right to declare it dead. Mostly this policy exists so that set pieces and NPCs that other people might want to use aren’t locked in by plots that no one is pursuing.

Revision History

• 2017-10-10 by Galactica – Policy Created
• 2018-01-07 by Reliant – Policy Revised