How To Make Ribbons

The Ribbon Creator lets you make your own plot-related ribbons.

If you can't access that page after logging into your normal PD account, you probably don't have the crew data flag active on your account. Ask Matthew Pennington to activate your account for data if you can't access this page and need to create ribbons for plot.

Most of the ribbon creation process is well documented on the ribbon creator itself. Despite the text, all of the ribbon creation methods now work, not just the first. The only item-related effects which are not implemented yet are spiritual effects, such as Hallowings, and other RP effects added to a standard bonded item.

If your item has a spiritual effect that should cause someone holding or bonded to it to have an Insight response, please put the details in the Ref Notes field for now.

If your item should be Hallowed or otherwise needs to have an on-bond RP effect alongside a standard item power, create it as a unique bonded item, and copy the normal powers into the bonded power box before the RP effect. If your RP effect should not be detectable with magic, make sure you've added a Detect Magic response with just the normal item powers.

If you need help creating your ribbons, contact Michelle Taylor from Plot Support for further help and information (via Facebook or by email to chessypig at gmail dot com). If you receive any errors during the process, please contact Matthew Pennington as soon as possible so that he can look through the web logs and find the problem.

Miscellaneous hints and tips on creating good items:

• If you can possibly create your item as a standard magic item, please do so! You can change the name, give it a visible RP effect, and set up custom magic responses on a standard item - the only thing you can't change is what happens when they bond the item.
• Remember that people tie ribbons to things and generally abuse them - don't put an always-on effect that they need to react to quickly, especially a long rambling one, on a ribbon - remember that someone is going to have to read the ribbon, possibly having to untie it first, before they take your effect. Good ways of getting around this are effects that happen 'when you concentrate on this item' or which say things like 'you start to feel...' rather than 'you feel...' - but also you want to keep the word count down and front-load things that are very important or obvious.
• If you're creating a standard item or a unique bondable item, it will default to having a year to run - feel free to reduce this by editing the second dropdown, especially for powerful items.
• If you're creating a Unique Non-bonded Item it will default to Expires on Activation - if it's actually an always-on effect rather than a one-shot, please consider giving it an expiry date by changing to Expires At Event and picking an event in the next year.
• If you're creating a Non-magical Item the expiry will default to Not Magical, which is the same as never expiring - if your item ought to have an expiry date, you should probably be thinking of calling it a Unique Non-bonded Item instead, even if it's not strictly 'magic' that is powering it (e.g. an expiring foodstuff).
• Generally you shouldn't mess with the 'Event Created' field - it will default to the current or upcoming event. This is an OOC field and used for tracking 'when did this ribbon get created', not 'when did this item get created' - if that's important, stick it in Item History later.

Curse Ribbon Tutorial:

We currently use ribbons to track curses (hopefully we will get a better system eventually). Here is how to make your curse ribbon:

• Select Activated Item
• Put the effect of the curse on the player (the bit that goes on the card/paper for them to read) in the 'activation effect' box
• Put the source of the curse in the Creator box
• Put the name that goes on the card in the 'ribbon name' box
• Put the detect magic, Bright Lantern and Balanced Blade responses in the detect magic, divination info, and curse info boxes
• Put anything else a ref needs to know about the curse in the Ref Notes box

At the point of deploying the curse, stick this ribbon ID in the notes for the character that's been cursed to attach the curse.

You might also want a curse card (or 100) to give out to players so they remember the curse effects:

• Name: 2-3 words for big text on the front
• Ribbon ID: the ribbon you just made
• Basic description: 5-10 words for small text on the front, summarizing the effects they should start taking immediately
• Longer description: For the back of the card, everything else the cursed player needs to know about the curse