[War] GM Announcement: New Stuff

[pentaj2 at Scranton.edu]

OK all.

Some newly-formed ideas from the heads of your GMs, that will apply 
AFTER this WR we're currently working on comes out.

So far as World Reports go, we are going to aim at one every 2 weeks, 
*so long as* at least 5 (five) countries post. Otherwise, it's not 
worth it.

Next, we're introducing a whole new system of GM responses, to break 
down from the World Reports. (This entirely excludes Secret Actions, a 
topic which we shall play by ear until we can think up something.)

First off, World Reports. You know em, you love em, no change. They 
come out as 
specified above: Every 2 weeks, if at least 5 or more countries have 
posted.

Next, Action reports. If you post a big number of posts in a short 
time (we're thinking 5 in a week as a good benchmark for now), we 
write one of these to respond to em. This is also how we plan to deal 
with intense concentrations of posts like wars, crises, etc. This 
reduces our workload come WR time, and helps reward you for activity.

Finally, Flash Reports: Out-of-the-blue stuff. Natural disasters or 
similar uncaused-by-player-action things go here, among other 
examples. This is where the GMs reserve the right to spring complete 
surprises apropos of nothing.

We will CLEARLY mark each of these in subject lines.

Now, on the subject of natural disasters and weather.

By and large, we are going to follow a simple system of "read the 
fucking newspaper".

If it happens IRL, it happens in WAR, so far as Nature's Wrath is 
concerned. The events, anyway. The effects? Maybe, maybe not. Why? 
Because nobody among the GMs knows a whole lot about meteorology or 
vulcanology or seismology or the like. The choice is between amateur 
forecasting and telling you to read the paper, we choose the latter. 
If that means you get spanked by 3 hurricanes in a row, so be it. If 
that means you get hit by a swarm of locusts or boils or rivers 
turning to blood, so be it (and let them go, dammit!).

This includes forecasts. We're not going to be niggly about whether 
it's cloudy or sunny in a place unless it matters, like during a war, 
but we do care about whether that hurricane is expected to be a Cat 1 
or a Cat 3, or whether it's expected to hit Haiti or Havana. We do 
care about the difference between a 6.0 and a 7.0 earthquake, at least 
when it hits anywhere that matters.

So what does this mean? Nothing much. Just pay attention when the news 
announces a volcano's erupted or a major earthquake's hit or something.

Happy posting!

The GMs