What are AIL and NANOWRIMO?, An introduction to each

[Sebastian Dash]

Alright, this is a special duel purpose thread. I'll be doing a small number of posts to explain where I'm taking the AIL game for my players. But first, I want to explain how a nanowrimo works here for my players- and how AIL works so I can link this thread in the nano discussions!

I’m doing a separate post for each subject. If you’re familiar with NaNoWriMo but not AIL, skip to the second post. If you’re an AIL regular, you might want to read about NaNoWriMo in the next post, but anything in the second post, you probably already know.

Enjoy!

[Sebastian Dash]

NANOWRIMO


If you're coming here *from* nanowrimo, you can skip down to the reply to this. That's where I'll explain what AIL is, and give an overview on how it works. When I get the post done explaining how the two are related, I'll link it here.

This is for people who haven’t had the good fortune of learning about NaNoWriMo.

I heard about nanowrimo a few years before I actually started going it two years ago.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/ - National Novel Writing Month. The idea's simple, and like most good things, it can be broken down into three parts.

1) You start writing a fresh novel. You can have a script ready- I'm going to desperately need one for this year's- or you can improv it from the go, as you go. I more or less did this the past two years. You start NO SOONER THAN November 1st. It could be at 12:01 AM of the first day, or you might not get it going til a few days in. I wouldn't suggest waiting TOO long to get going.

2) The official deadline for the novel is the last second of November of THAT year... No, it doesn't count to give yourself 12 or 24 extra months.

3) The goal isn't to be finished with the novel, per say. The goal is to have written at least 50,000 words in your novel and ideally, to have verified them through the NANO website! There is a website, funded by donations of charitable members, along with an expansive forum where the hundreds (thousands?) of participants come to encourage each other, share tips and stories, and generally chat.

As you can tell, it's a rather popular concept! The idea is to get people *writing.* Regularly. No excuses, no expectations of great quality, although some nano's have famously gone on to be edited and turned into published novels, I understand.

Some people take additional challenges, or try to get to an even more insane count in a month. I’ve heard of people trying for 100K or more in their stories- but mine is going to need to still be readable without a ton of editing, so I probably won’t be going that route!

The general rule is “If you consider it a novel, so do we.” That’s repeated quite often on the forums.

That’s my own personal ‘extra challenge.’ I'll be writing will be intended to be pushed out very soon after it's done, which is going to require some marathon editing sessions on my part.

But I'll get to that in a later post...

SD/ sg

[Sebastian Dash]

Adventures in Loathing

Alright, now that we've covered what a NANO is, let's dwell on this game itself, for anyone who's come here from NANO. AIL players or potential players will know most of this, since I explain this in our introduction as well as our handbook.

Most important notes: UNLIKE Nano, this goes on pretty much year round, and it's way slower paced, since I understand for most of our writers, writing for AIL is low on the to do list. Which makes sense. It's here for fun and self improvement, not a lot like a nano, but in reverse. Kind of. With a heavy dose of KOL thrown in.

It’s also run on these very boards.

As a reminder, I handle Becky Joy and Sebastian Dash as my official characters here.

The idea's pretty simple. I lifted the concept from another game I played online, but modified it a bit, and totally rewrote the rules to fit a game loosely based on Kingdom of KOL. Kind of like a fanfic game, but a step more creative.

Actual gameplay is divided into "missions." For example, we've had missions to stop a "Chrono dragon" on the Mysterious Island of Mystery, an original creation set at an in-game location. We've also had more personal missions, like travelling to Hey Daze in a (not very successful) attempt to save some clannies 'souls' from Hey Daze. (This was actually a 'last chance to roleplay or be killed off' scenario for them- since they'd been inactive for several months.)

I’ll break a typical mission down to it’s core three parts here.


The FIRST PART of the mission is simply titled "Rollover." If you've played KOL, you'll remember this is the time when it goes down for system maintenance. Your character's stomach is emptied, they sober up, get more turns, ext. In AIL, a Rollover is the start to a mission! The two people that write AIL, Catrina and I, write a small story to set the mission. We also post mission notes in another section, summing up the mission and giving out of character notes and extra in character information that doesn't fit into the Rollover story.



PART TWO is open roleplaying. Anyone in AIL who's send in an application - and had it approved- can roleplay during this time. It usually lasts 2 weeks to two months. Something kind of went wrong the last mission and we had to keep it open six months, but we're trying to get back to a faster, more active game!

Roleplaying is loosely divided into two parts- the character going for the main mission goal, and any side stories. You're *not* allowed to win the mission in a roleplay, as that would obviously kill the point of the game.



PART THREE is where we wrap the mission up! Again, it's usually me writing this, sometimes with the help of my main assistant, who handles Catrina Whiteclaw and Todd Blackpaws. THIS is where the mission is wrapped up, and a winner is illustrated as clearly as possible. Whenever possible, I get a non player to judge the roleplays and send me comments on what they liked and didn't like.

Besides posting a mission finale, usually in three parts, we post a separate list of scores for each player. This doesn't currently affect anything in game, although some missions have in-cannon prizes associated with them. It's just to add a bit of fun competitive spirit.

Scoring currently works like this- 20 points to the winner. Less points to everyone else who participated, determined by how well they did in general, how active they were, and how well they did compared to the winner of the mission.

I'll sometimes post ooc notes on the finale with the scoring as well.


There you have it. It might seem a bit confusing at first. If you're interested, check out our introduction section, linked below, and generally just read through a mission or two. We have some non KOL players, and we've had a few players who joined KOL in order to understand the AIL game better.

It's VERY casual, as I said. If you don't want to participate in a mission, don't roleplay for it. As long as you try to keep in touch, or/ and participate in a few missions a year, we won't kill you off. Even if you do, all you'd have to do is contact us to arrange a 'comeback.'

Of course, you have to APPLY and be accepted in order to allowed to roleplay.

Of you're just interested in chatting with us, we've also got a host of non game sections for that. The AIL Roleplaying board is only for actual roleplays from approved members, but we've got a section for non cannon and filler stories at our "Typical Tavern" section! Right now, pretty much anyone can post one.

We've also got boards for non game chatter.. if I get a couple responses here asking for one, I wouldn't be adverse to adding a NANOWRIMO forums here too!

So that's AIL in a nutshell. For more information, I refer you to our "Introduction & How to Play" section. http://z11.invisionfree.com/AiL/index.php?showforum=2

Enjoy! I actually have a good deal of AIL writing to finish THIS MONTH so I will be set to write the mega-Rollover next month!

I plan to post my ‘plans’ for AIL soon, then I can get back to working on this mission’s Finale.

SD/ sg