#advocateadmin

Hey everyone! I’m updating the main to confirm some temporary changes to the group moving forward. Since Covid doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon and it’s affecting our mental health in various ways (inability to work up motivation to keep to an active writing schedule for many of us) I think these will help us carry the load. (That was not intended to be dirty, you heathens.)

First and foremost, I am not closing the group, I just wanted to establish that much up top. The dashboard still moves frequently enough that I don’t think shuttering the whole operation is necessary. However, I will be putting the group on pause. What does that mean?

By putting the group on pause, I’m referring to the following new policies I’ll be implementing until further notice:

We won’t be taking on new members. We’re still big enough that we can afford to close for new applicants and not have it affect overall activity. That’s good! I just don’t want to have new people join during a time of overall slowness across the board (not just here but in other groups) and have it affect their perception of our “normal” status. We were managing pretty well up until the global pandemic situation got worse and started affecting the US, where most of us seem to be located. (Turns out launching an RP right before a catastrophic health crisis wasn’t great timing...)

Activity checks won’t be enforced. This is subject to change based on the following week or so and I’ll switch it back to the twice-weekly activity checks I intended on enforcing if need be. I know lots of us still want to be in the loop even if our activity level has been down based on who I regularly see in the OOC. On that note:

The Discord will remain open! I think staying connected right now is important for group morale and it wouldn’t be fair to everyone if I closed the OOC. Even if our activity is down, that doesn’t mean we still can’t hang out when we’re feeling up to it. It also makes informing the group of any updates to policy changes easier than having to reach out to everybody individually.

That’s it for now. Thanks again to everybody in advance for understanding my ideas outlined here, and if you feel you have to leave the group on an official basis for any reason, I completely understand.

PRESS RELEASE: ADVOCATE HALL TO OPEN FOR PUBLIC

Commemorating their third year of operations, the superhero organization known as ADVOCATES will be hosting an open house of their headquarters, ADVOCATE HALL, to the general public for the first time since launching. 

According to TORQUE, founder and chairman of the Advocates, this open house weekend will serve to “educate and enlighten” civilians about the organization’s day-to-day operations and establish greater transparency between themselves and the people they’ve sworn to protect. 

“I used to be in a highly-secretive group who didn’t want the public to know how things flew with them, and that always rubbed me the wrong way,” says Torque, who claims to be “in his mid-forties.” By opening our home this way, I hope we can build trust with those who may not feel easy our motivations as supers. Torque was infamously ousted from his previous team, the government-sponsored Freedom Coalition, for being gay; the Advocates were his solution to repair his image and “prove anybody, no matter what their background, can be heroes.”

Throughout the weekend, some of the team’s most recognizable faces will hold demonstrations, sit on Q&A panels, and offer resources to supers who may or may not choose to be become heroes in their lives.

The Advocates open house will run from February 14th to the 16th.

Evening, superheroes! Before I get into the topic at hand, I just wanted to thank everybody for helping make this group fun and worthwhile! We’ve been open for close to three weeks now (honestly three weeks longer than I expected) and we wouldn’t be able to keep it going if if weren’t for the enthusiasm of everybody involved. For that reason...

THE CHARACTER LIMIT HAS BEEN MOVED UP TO THREE PER PLAYER!

Evening, superheroes! We recently passed our first month milestone, and I wanted to once again thank everybody for keeping active and making the group viable for everybody. 

As part of our continued effort to keep things moving at a steady pace, we officially opened up for second (and then third) characters, which we’ve all been managing quite well. However, moving forward I’ll be implementing a new rule regarding additional characters: you must be active with your first for a whole week before applying for a second.

I’m glad about the enthusiasm for multiple characters and it’s mostly not been an issue up to now, but I’ve noticed that we’ve had a few cases where players took on multiple characters fairly quickly after joining and then gone completely inactive, forcing me to issue unfollow notices in their wake. It’s a shame when I have do this and I wish I could give everybody longer inactivity windows, but the reality is that I have to enforce the activity rule to keep the dash active and flowing. More characters = more work, and sometimes we’re not all able to keep up the momentum of multiples. 

Putting a week-long probationary period for new members ensures that they can get a feel of the group’s vibe and if it’s for them longterm. After a week has passed and you think you can handle a second, go ahead! (The week-long rule also applies to thirds after seconds for the same reason.)

Hey there! I’m sorry you feel that way and you could always come to me privately if you wanna talk about it, but I think it really just comes down to making an active effort to interact with others and not take it personally if a starter or reply doesn’t get an immediate response. Some characters just won’t naturally mesh with others and that could be a reason why you perceive lack of interest in your posts, which isn’t a fault of yours. Just keep trying! If you see a natural opening for your character in someone else’s starter, try to see where that goes!

As for tips regarding interactions, I have some suggestions:

Make sure your starters/replies are active and not passive. This is a very common mistake I see in starters across the board (not here specifically) which leads to frustration. By active, I mean your character has to be the one “doing” something and leading the plot, not waiting around for someone to jump in and trigger an interaction. (This is the quickest explainer on the subject I could find.) 

Failing that, you should at least give the hypothetical other person a logical opening for theirs to enter the scene, or else you’re forcing them to do the heavy lifting for you, which isn’t fun. You have to make it easy for a potential replier, or else they won’t see the incentive to jump in.

My rule of thumb with replies to put it in simpler terms is this: make sure your replies invoke some sort of “question” (literal or figurative) for the other to answer. It could be them literally asking the other something (”What do you think about ___?”), or introducing a new plot element into the thread that the other person can’t ignore (i.e. an alarm goes off around them).

As for plotting beforehand, make sure you actually approach the other person with ideas instead of putting out a vague “do you want to plot?” feeler, because it puts them in the awkward position of having to think of something for you. This is why replying to other people’s starters is preferable, because you get to see if there’s some sort of chemistry between your characters before plotting something more detailed and concrete. 

Like I alluded to, some characters don’t have a logical connection between them to build on, and that’s fine! It doesn’t mean the other person doesn’t wanna plot with you, it just means the characters, specifically, might not jive together. Please don’t take it personally if this happens.

ALSO!!! I meant to add this in the last post but in addition to opening up for third characters, I’m also officially adding the “Support” role alongside Mentors and Proteges. 

What do you mean by support, Gunn?

Support characters are, basically, those not training for field duty. They often have powers/abilities that aren’t especially useful for combat (but not always) and choose to take up jobs/services around Advocate Hall instead. These could be things like:

Doctors/healers

Tech support

Trainers

Human relations

Secretaries

Hey everyone! I mentioned this on the discord earlier but for any lurkers & current applicants, I’ve been sick today (not #TheRona, just good ol’ kidney stones) so I didn’t get around to posting an activity check or accepting new applications for that reason. We’re still very much in operation! Thank you for your patience during these weird times.