SRP Update - Musings (and rewrites) of an SRP runner (March 2016)

Started by Grizz, March 20, 2016, 03:43:19 PM

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Grizz

Greetings,

I'm surprised that this is the first one of these I've written this year - and it would have been nice to have had it be a little more uplifting. However, I've spent the last two weeks evaluating the sixth season thus far and have largely concluded that it has been unsatisfactory. Due to some poor plotting on my part, largely due to the changes I made during the extended hiatus after 'Deimos,' I don't believe that it has been half as interesting as it could and should have been.

In the original plan, Accobar and Pioneer had been retaken by this point and the focus of the Vega arc had migrated elsewhere - with her motives being different to what they are now. My decision to drag out the abandonment of the homestead and weave Vega's actions in to the larger Accobar Conspiracy have greatly affected the pacing of the season which has been further hindered by a lack of diversity. The result of which has been a string of episodes which have felt extremely similar and lacking drive - and once again the once much-planned Earth content has been cut down to a single scene thus far. The realization that I would much rather be planning the next season than CO'ing the current one was a big hint that something wasn't right... and if I'm losing interest, then that clearly can't bode well.

I can only use what I can see during the episodes to gage how the season is being taken to by others as the discussion threads were abandoned due to their disuse. I'm aware that they were no longer much more than recaps. I dropped the poll for 'Internecine' to see if it would encourage more written feedback - but it was not to be. Instead, I've seen an increase of players minimizing their autonomy during sessions and simply waiting for instructions - or spending the majority of the session out of RPG-X. Again - not great signs of engagement.

As a result, I've decided to look at the rest of the season again and work on making the remaining episodes more substantial than the "Helia occurrence of the week" streak we have been on. Episode 9 will be pushed back to next week to allow more time for this to take place - as I'm all too aware that it too could have fallen in to the same pattern - Halkonians or no Halkonians. I know that another delay isn't ideal after we've finally got on a roll, but I do need more time to work on the series than I used to - and knowing that I won't run another SRP after this, I want to make sure I get it right - as I don't have too many episodes left to plan for. But more on that later. On a positive, I'm pleased that McClintock is finally getting his turn in the spotlight (after I robbed him of his Klingon excursion with Marks) and there's still more to come for our once-assimilated Chief Engineer.

Apologies to those that have found themselves SRP-deprived this weekend. Hopefully it will be for the good of all as we go in to the final episodes of this season and look ahead to the next.

[spoiler]Speaking of which... it's quite satisfying to take characters I created over eight years ago and work on giving them some long anticipated closure.[/spoiler]

Grizz