Voice of the Brotherhood: Report 10 - Dark Jedi Brotherhood

Hello all, welcome to another update on all things Voice office related. I’ll go over possessions since more activities are starting to come into my office, considerations for Character Sheets, DJB wide fictions and the fictional plot. Mention all the ongoing fictional competitions and that’s about it.

Possessions

If you read the Seneschal report below, you’ll notice where James is at in the coding on possessions, which is quite far. I wanted to take a chance in my report to explain where the Voice staff fits into the next steps towards making possessions a reality, and opportunities for all willing members to help accomplish what needs to be done. A full disclaimer, I have only been involved in possessions since I became Voice, and so many hours have gone into the important early phases already and I am just working on top of all the great iterations of work done before me.

So now I’ll go through what has been done in the process at a high level, and where we’re at today, then sort of drop some idea of what comes after. Hopefully reading the notes below you’ll have some perspective of where possessions is at in the process, and make sense of what shows up in various places across the site.

• Member Experience: This was the first step of possessions that’s been well defined at this point and I was hardly involved in, covered the reason for possessions, and major direction that it should take on what experience members would get from the system. To do this, it took modeling of different structures to see what it was like for many different levels of members, what parts of the DJB are fun and valuable, and does possessions and to that value. This included surveys of membership of what items your character might own, if you recall that. Once this was defined, James went about coding the site to accommodate, and all of you can see inventories, and credit accounts, and ability to create Aspects, and tabs on your dossier for items you own. This is all more or less done.

• Star Wars Canon: Then the Voice office became involved. All the lists created over years of possessions work went into a pile mixed years of the Star Wars Extended Universe. Once I joined the team, I immediately volunteered to go through as many items as I could to determine what is Canon, and what should make it into possessions at launch, and then add more Canon-supported items to fill the gaps for a full offering. Also looking at Canon resources as they come out (and quite a few games working with the Fist) to make sure items members will be familiar with are present. So how can you help here? Well we are going through now to create the planned list of items for a beta launch for all slots. During that announced beta, when it comes, will be when we need all the feedback we can get to address any deficiencies in the information. For now, if there is some item you’re worried may not be available, email me.

• Prototypes and Aspects: Many of you have stumbled across the create a custom item aspect section in your administration menus. Even more have likely seen where items will go on your dossier in a tab. When I mention items above, I’m talking about prototype items. That’s like to say something like a Tesla Model S will be available for sale and outlines the base options. When that prototype is stocked somewhere, be it a store, a member inventory or Clan inventory, it becomes an actual unique item. Then each unique item will have a certain number of aspects that can be changed about it once someone owns it which apply only to that item. The name of the item can be changed (in the example you could call your car ‘The Jim Mobile’ or something), and say it has a Cosmetic Aspect you could specify appearance (‘Car is a shiny black color with pink flecks in it that glitter in the light’) as well as possibly some amount of functionality (‘Car has racing slicks which give it maximum traction in dry conditions but almost no traction in wet conditions’). A similar pro/con Aspect that we see today on Character Sheets. I am going through and proposing and working on Item types, and what Aspects will be available, then applying them to prototypes. Where I can use help is, creating Aspects for items to make them available. It will happen category by category, but if you’re interested in helping out with creating these let me know and I can pull you onto a small team to compile and discuss.

• Example of an Item: Note this is all beta.

  • Prototype Item name: BlasTech DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol
  • Slot: Weapon
  • Item Category: Energy Weapon
  • Item Size: 1
  • Rarity: Rare
  • Description: The BlasTech DL-44 is a powerful and reliable heavy blaster pistol with a high degree of customization and accuracy. It packs a heavy punch as a sidearm and is perfectly optimized for medium range anti-infantry usage, yet capable of charging up shots to deal massive damage at close range that rapidly overheat the weapon.
  • Cost: 1,500 Credits
  • Aspects: 1x Ranged Weapon Cosmetic, 2x Blaster Weapon Functionality

• Future: At least from my stance, be it an unofficial one when it comes to possessions, once the currently coded system is populated with prototype items and Aspects (see above), a public beta process should likely begin to test everything out. That may require some adjustments by James to fix anything that breaks. After all that is done, then deciding how members will get items starts. This includes creating stores, creating stocking rules, adjusting all the costs and credit accounts across the Brotherhood. Then sometime after that Clan possessions.

Character Sheets

• Weapon Loadout: If you go to the Weapon Loadout section of the Character Sheet Approval Guidelines on the wiki, there is a lot of information, so I won’t go back over it here. But it’s worth bringing to everyone’s attention as a major area where remands are taking place. A few points to consider specifically.

  • It needs to be clear. Markdown list does this very well. Commas can possibly do so. If it isn’t clear it will be remanded. If it’s clear but could be more clear you’ll likely see comments on the approval with suggestions.
  • Your listed weapon must be clear enough to understand what it is, and needs to be Canon. Or some logical extension of.
  • You can preview your CS before submitting, which helps to look at how clear it is. Sometimes it looks clear in the text field, but not after going through the browser to be presented.

• Remanding Previous Approvals: If a Character Sheet was approved, then finds its way back into the queue for Voice approval, items previous approved may be remanded for if things changed or it was missed the first time.

• Guidelines Intent: All of these guidelines, each comment or remand, are all done with the goal of making a Character Sheet easy to understand and a clear representation of a character to participate often collaboratively in many different activities. I use this logic with every decision made regarding a CS.

Competitions

I don’t want to discourage members from bringing prompt ideas and opportunities to write fiction across the entire Brotherhood, but it seems lately members have felt discouraged seeing their ideas remanded or rejected. If you head to the DJB Wide Competitions section of the Voice Competition Approval Guidelines you’ll get a good idea of what the Voice office is looking for with competitions run that are made available to everyone, but even then we still look at what’s already running and what we already have planned.

So, please continue to bring your ideas for DJB wide opportunities to me if you have them. Submitting them directly to the site will get an official response but know that in the future I intend for my staff to run a lot more competitions DJB wide to keep a steady flow of opportunities and so that may end up with far less being run by members unless it fits in with what’s going on.

Fictional Plot

We don’t have a lot new at this point. Things are where they are, but expect going into next year with Episode VII solidly in all our minds, things will move forward, but not before.

• Dark Council: I may have brought this up in the past, but there are ongoing efforts to reconcile Jedi on the Dark Council. To better define the fictional role of the Dark Council and relationship between that body and the Clans. I have some ideas I haven’t really worked out yet, primarily waiting on Episode VII. I know that Vy’r will be heavily involved in this discussion from a Jedi perspective, and personal one, and between all the Voices and former Voices on the Dark Council we can come up with something that works. If you have any ideas you can send them my way for consideration.

• Undesirables: They are still a thing, yes, but as we define the entire Brotherhood fictionally we will address the existence of some still within the ranks and how Darth Pravus is going about eliminating them. It comes down to what is a perceived threat. Much like above, it will all come out as part of the same and Episode VII will set the tone for all that as a familiar setting.

• DJB System: This has quite a bit of work done it already and while part of it is waiting on some resolution in other areas, I expect that soon we should see all this released. For now, fictionally speaking all the Clans should still be under the impression the Dark Council is mobile and considering Antei as the central physical location.

Voice Staff Notes

Here are some notes of things my staff and I are working on that don’t warrant a deep discussion.

• NPCs: One of my Magistrates, the great and powerful Xen, is still working out NPCs. Like the plot, this likely won’t see a full update until next year. He and I will look at NPCs that are introduced in the Run-Ons though. Still no clear plans to let members or Clans have NPCs but it’s on my mind for now use the awesome wiki.

• DJB Fiction Archives: My other great and powerful Magistrate, Kz’set has joined the growing team of find old fiction and get it into a presentable format team.

• CI for Character Development: This comes up a lot, from a lot of people. Members developing their characters as an activity towards Knighthood. An Equite solidifying their fictional ascension to a Quaestor role. A Battle Team forming in the capital city of their Clan planet. There are so many examples of fiction currently not covered by Clusters of Ice. I’ll continue to find ways to award for this type of activity.

• CI for Competitions: Right now the process has word counts submitted to the Voice staff. If you look at the Seneschal report below, you’ll there are plans to get this more automated. Until then, keep submitting, but the suggested has been noted and is being addressed.

• Weapons: Wally put together a great weapons selection guide to help members put weapons on the CS that will be approved. Also, I looked this over to help ensure the weapons would later exist and be possible in possessions. Of note, yes, you can use an Electro-whip.

Active Competitions

• Legends Never Die: Part of the Grand Master’s Episode VII Celebration, the Voice is running a competition to write of a fairy tale or legend your character has heard, based on a more creativity and entertainment focused version of the standard fiction rubric.

• Heroes are Made, not Born: Part of the Grand Master’s Episode VII Celebration, the Deputy Grand Master is running a competition to build a Character Sheet for a Canon Star Wars character.

• The Inquisition of the Force: Part of the Grand Master’s Episode VII Celebration, the Grand Master is running a competition where you form a team, and carry one one of several missions in Run-On format.

• Holiday Celebrations - You've Been Voluntold!: Keira Viru is running a Fiction competition that runs until December 31st, where your character has been voluntold to organize and manage an official celebration for your Clan.

• Just What I've Always Wanted: Kz’set di Plagia is running a Fiction competition that runs until January 6th, where your character is given a gift.

Competition Results

Destruction of Outpost TC-152 Alpha:

Time Circuits On!:

Wait! Don’t kill me!:

Voice Staff Links

Cluster of Ice Requests

Organizers must send their pins and word counts (for now) to [Log in to view e-mail addresses], for Clusters of Ice to be awarded.

• Fiction Format: Pin#wordcount
• Run-On Format: Pin#wordcount#postcount

Conclusion

That should cover all the major Voice office activity since the last report. I hope my insight into possessions helps put some understanding behind what’s going on and where we’re at. Looking forward to what lay ahead, and exciting times that await us all together.

If you ever have any questions, ideas, feel free to let me know. I do my best to reply quickly. Telegram works for a quick question but major proposals and long thought processes definitely get more reception in an email.

In darkness,

Evant Taelyan Voice of the Brotherhood