ACTIVITY CHECK
This activity check is for JANUARY–MARCH 2025. The deadline to reply is
APRIL 30. You can review prior AC posts
here if needed.
Due to our inconsistency in checking this lately and not wanting to catch anyone too off guard, we're allowing people with zero links to take a strike rather than be required to drop. However, a comment with a recap summarizing what your character has been up to, however handwaved, is required to stay in the game. We're leaving the usual write-up intact below for review as needed because these requirements will be in effect for April–June.To pass AC you should provide a
brief recap of what your character has been up to with at least
three RP links per character for the relevant time period. These links can be to posts you created, log threads, rookery/crystal threads, inbox threads, or open top-levels within plot posts. You must also link to reports for any war table assignment your character completed during this period. You can do this in the body of your AC comment by sticking
"(report)" after your mention of the mission. If you haven't put up a report yet, now is the time to do it.
You can use multiple threads from within the same post, such as three different logs branching from the same open prompt. You can use threads that started prior to the beginning of AC period as long as a substantial portion of tags occurred during this AC period and you didn't already use that thread as proof for a previous AC period. There is no minimum tag count per thread. (But if you're consistently providing only threads you dropped after a couple of tags, last-minute open posts you don't tag after making AC, etc., we may contact you about that.)
RECAPS
Along with your links, you're providing a quick recap of what your character has been up to. The goal for this is to help everyone keep track of what's been happening, both with their own characters and with everyone else's. Riftwatch is a small enough organization that people are probably going to be aware of what everyone else is working on and any obvious interpersonal drama, so this is our OOC cheat sheet!
Recaps can be very brief. E.g., "Over the last three months, Paul
went to Tevinter to assassinate a magister (
report),
had a fight with his best friend Joe, and
learned how to use a crossbow." But you're also welcome to include more detail if you want, as long as you keep it to a couple of paragraphs max.
You can—as always—handwave interpersonal interactions with other characters and note those in your recap if you want a record of them. "Paul has continued to avoid Joe since their fight" with no thread showcasing the avoidance, for example. You could also handwave the whole fight! We don't care.
For work- and plot-related recap claims, however, you can only handwave your character's daily performance of their routine work. In between the more significant things you thread, we assume all characters are doing the Typical Work listed on their
division wiki page. So you could say "Paul has been diligent about his work for the Diplomacy Division and met with a few minor nobles visiting Kirkwall to talk up Riftwatch," or "Paul has been distracted and struggling with his work for the Forces Division and stumbled through his routine patrols," etc., without proving that in a thread. No one has to RP paperwork or its equivalent.
What you
can't purely handwave is anything significant or cool enough that other people would need to remember that it actually happened for future plot purposes—we'd define this as anything for which we normally require a plot request or a report, which we've previously provided some guidance on where those lines are
here—or anything that's a significant achievement for your character rather than just daily grind stuff. Basically: if you want your character to do anything cooler than competently attending to their routine work, you've gotta RP about it somehow. That can mean RPing the actual event, or it can mean RPing discussion or planning or fallout around the event–but you have to RP something about it!
SPECIFIC CHARACTER SITUATIONS
NEW CHARACTERS: Characters who were apped during this AC period need to provide one link for each full month they were in the game. For example, for the AC period of January through March, a character apped in January would need two proofs because they were in the game for the full months of February and March (but it doesn't matter which month the two links were started in), a character apped in February would need one, and a character apped in March wouldn't need any links. Obviously you're welcome to include as many links as you have/want.
IC LEADERS: You're required to provide proof of your character using their job in some way. This can be a war table assignment or player plot, if you chose to run one. But it can also just mean making sure that one of your AC proof links includes your character performing their job duties. E.g., the Head Archivist could link to a crystal announcement asking people to please stop dog-earing the books, a log in which they're reorganizing the library, or an inbox thread where they hound a specific person to stop hoarding library books in their bedroom. This requirement doesn't apply to characters who are new to their jobs as of the current quarter.
BACKGROUND CHARACTERS: Everyone has to provide the required three links for at least one character every AC period. But if you play multiple characters, then each period you can choose up to two to mark as background characters. You can rotate which characters you designate as background each AC period if you want, though
characters with leadership roles of any kind cannot be backgrounded. You still need to provide a brief, vague-as-you'd-like recap of what they're doing in the background, so everyone else knows whether they're in the Gallows doing their work or on an assignment abroad or whatever else, but you don't have to provide any links.
VOICE TEST CHARACTERS: You are not required to do AC for
voice test characters until the deadline for them becoming real characters has passed, but you can fill out the form for them anyway if you want to have a record of what they've done for future reference.
STRIKES
Failing to respond to AC at all will result in the character being swept.
If you fail to post any links at all for a character who isn't backgrounded, you'll have to drop them. If you post more than zero but fewer than three, you'll get a strike but can try again next quarter. If you fail to meet the three-link-per-character requirement for two quarters in a row you'll be required to drop as many characters as you failed with. This does technically mean that you could drag your feet for up to six months before dropping a character you've only written a single tag for in that time. We ask that you be kind to your CR and not do that. Again, if you seem to be abusing the system, we'll contact you to talk about it.
FORMS
Please post AC for all of your characters in a single comment! You only need to include the Player field once if you have multiple characters.
See the note up top regarding link requirements if you have skipped straight down to the forms.MOST CHARACTERS
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NEW CHARACTERS
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LEADER CHARACTERS
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