Hey all!

Because of some birthdays and a holiday, the beginning of November has been SUPER frontloaded as far as activities go in IRL Land. So rather than keeping you guys waiting for the nice coded plotting post, I'm gonna just do a shitty one. We're also going to hold off on a State of the Game, since most of what is worth covering was already on the AC change post.

Having had two VERY heavy events, this month we're going to keep it as light as possible using a suggestion from Blue, inspired by one of their favorite scenes from RWBY. On the way up to the Dance of Celestine, characters have a chance to step into a subtle fairy ring on the ground, trapping them in a pocket dimension ostensibly within the Faewilds--- with a puzzle to solve, and a single companion to solve it with.

It can be any sort of puzzle, something simple or complicated, but the key gameplay element will be that you need to have an important discussion in order to advance. The primary concept for this was that it'd be between two characters who have existing CR and something long overdue to discuss--- repressed feelings, unresolved conflicts, long kept secrets. But it can also be used to create CR by pairing off characters who have something meaningful in common to discuss, closely guarded secrets that they need a neutral party to talk to, or might have valuable advice for the other. Feel free to do whatever you like with it, as long as it's two characters who have something of value to discuss that would further their character development.

Once they've reached some form of catharsis, closure, or other resolution, they will be released from their trap at the top of the mountain, and can enjoy the rest of the festival in peace! I'll talk more about what the Dance of Celestine entails in the post itself, but it's good fun.

Because the fairy ring traps are ICly random, this event is inherently opt-out friendly, and very strictly limits each character to ONE heavy thread a piece, which should make it easier to manage thread loads during the slower season and keep backtagging the absolutely MONSTROUS October event. We have this event slated for November 22nd, which is the weekend before Thanksgiving, to hopefully allow people to both get some things started before they start to travel while also taking advantage of any holiday downtime they may find! (I know I spend HOURS after Thanksgiving dinner just doing nothing while my parents watch sports.) Plus, our December event will be a bit later in the month and will mostly just be an open forum for personal plotlines and seasonal gatherings.

Anyways, I hope you all have fun with this one! 'Tis the season for keeping things light!

Hey all! As you know, we've been having some conversations within our community about updating our Activity Check policy.

For a long time, I've never felt that it's truly necessary to implement anything stricter than a check-in. It's simple, it's flexible, it's low-pressure and lenient. It keeps admin work minimal and player stress low. To put it frankly: it was delightfully lazy, and I mean that with nothing but fondness, because it has generally been perfectly fine. However, as we move toward some major plot beats and ultimately endgame, we've been reflecting on the impact of prolonged character absences and just how important it is for characters to be present, both for their respective player's satisfaction and for the sake of their CR circles.

So, after discussing it with the bulk of our community via our Discord server and workshopping ideas behind the scenes, Team Pumpkin has landed on what we'd like our expectations to be for Activity Check, with a hard launch in January of 2026! (To be checked for the first time during February's AC period.)

In preparation for the new policy, starting in November, we are going into our training wheels period for AC! That means that for this month’s activity check (performed in December), and for AC in December (checked in January), it’s now time to start practicing hitting AC under the impending new policy. There’s currently NO CONSEQUENCES for not making AC under the new policy, so don’t panic! Your job right now is to pretend as if the policy is active and treat your approach to activity accordingly, as a way of practicing. During this time, please think about how this impacts you as a player, whether or not your current activity level during most people’s slowest months is meeting the minimum, how challenging it is to juggle your current cast with the new expectations, and what changes (if any) need to be made to prepare for the change in January.

Our goal with this is that it will basically be barely felt by the average player, while some of our struggling players can use it to motivate themselves to be more present in the game and hold themselves accountable. If we find that more people are struggling than anticipated, having training wheels time also allows us to make tweaks to the new policy. It also allows people to get used to thinking about AC minimums again before it will actually impact you. Here are the new rules that were landed on by the moderation team:

• These rules must be met with at least half of your current cast, rounding down to a minimum of 1 character.
  - If you have 1-3 characters, the minimum is 1.
  - If you have 4-5 characters, the minimum is 2.
  - If you have 6-7 characters, the minimum is 3.


• You must submit within your normal AC at least one thread with 5 comments from you, or 2 threads with 3 comments from you per thread.


• The threads you submit for AC must be tag-outs. This is due to the large number of toplevels we typically get--- we want to encourage people to give those some love, as well as branch out with their CR! Threads from your own TL can still be used for bonuses, just not for required AC. This may change if we find the toplevel to tag out ratio balances out consistently. If you’re submitting a 2-thread minimum, both being tag-outs is preferred, but only one is required.


• Failing to meet the AC requirement will put you into time-out status until the following month. This means you do not receive any Brass (your character’s stipend goes directly to equal-value groceries) and you will need to make AC in the following month to be timed back in. If you have multiple characters and fail to reach AC for the minimum number of characters, we can discuss a partial time-out that only applies to a portion of your cast, proportional to the discrepancy.


• If you have been on time-out for two months and fail AC a third time, you may be asked to make some changes, including but not limited to cast reduction, hiatus, or DTNPC status.


• You must submit AC even if you do not meet the minimum. Failing to do so will put you at risk of sweeping, as before.


• Moving forward, if someone misses AC ONE TIME and cannot be reached via PM, Discord, or Plurk within 3 days for correspondence, they will be automatically swept. If someone who misses AC touches base with a mod or has been seen in the Discord server, probation will proceed as normal. If someone is swept in error because of this, they can request to be reinstated by approaching a mod directly within a reasonable timeframe, I'm just not going to make our AC team continue to do admin work for people who are most likely ghosting out.


• As before, a hiatus relieves you of the responsibility of AC. Extensions, as usual, will be available upon request. However, automatic check-in AC will NOT count as meeting AC minimum, and those who do an auto-check-in will still be in time-out. Functionally this means that you cannot auto-check-in more than twice in a row.


• It is our intention to be lenient towards players who get very close to achieving the minimum and are maybe one or two tags shy, or who were unable to complete the thread due to their partner's absence. If you have a thread that almost makes the mark, feel free to turn it in and in most cases we will be able to approve it, so long as it is not becoming a pattern.

If you have any concerns about the new AC policy, please reach out! We'll have a thread here, but mods can also be approached via Discord or PM for questions, comments, or concerns.