Okay, sorry if this sounds harsh, but I really think I need to get this across.<br/><br/>Right now, we've got nothing to do. Meaning no disrespect whatsover to anyone's writing, but in my opinion everyone's last five posts have just repeated themselves because there's literally no action available to any of our characters that can affect anything or change the story in any way.<br/><br/>I'll prove it...<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Caehlim's formula</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Dyllan was nervous and it showed in the way he <em>*Displays lack of social skills*</em>. Brad. Brad. Brad. <br/><br/>He looked over at <em>*acknowledge other writers' posts*</em>, they were so much <em>*better/braver/stronger/smarter/sexier/etc*</em> than him. The heat was making it difficult to wear his <em>*remaining article of clothing that will get removed next*</em>, but he kept it on because he's just really shy and awkward.<br/><br/>He disapproved of <em>*some normal teenage act*</em> that <em>*other writer whose character was most rebellious in the last posting cycle*</em> did. It reminded him of <em>*another overprotective warning from his mother*</em>. <br/><br/>But everyone else was doing <em>*whatever's going on at the moment*</em>, so reluctantly Dyllan <em>*succumbs to whatever peer pressure is occurring*</em> and removed his <em>*article of clothing brought up before*</em> and decided to engage in <em>*whatever activity is currently occupying most of the group*</em>.<br/><br/>Some of the group were working on <em>*their latest doomed strategy to escape*</em>, but Dyllan knew that it wouldn't work because <em>*scientific explanation to justify the latest demands of the plot to try to be considerate as a player*</em>.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>The problem is that none of us can fix it, because we don't control time. I am allowed to do exactly enough with Dyllan that it gets across the action he is doing now, but I have to stop before it interferes with anyone else's action or proceeds further than the point someone else might intervene.<br/><br/>This means that each post from a player is covering about 30 seconds of time, unless a lot of people have posted before they got a chance to write again in which case they have to write an excuse of why they didn't intervene or react to earlier posts and then they get another 30 seconds from wherever the group consensus of time.  We then pretty much have to wait for nine more people to post before we take our next 30 seconds, unless we get greedy.<br/><br/>This means it will take 1,200 posts in order for 1 hour to progress in game.<br/><br/>As players, that's what we're allowed. As the GM, I think you're the only one who can decidedly advance the universal clock. It's hard to do this respectfully to everyone's character though, because as brought up above we're all stuck in the same room interacting.<br/><br/>If you want this game to work, I really think you need to take a firm grip on the pacing and make time pass.<br/><br/>For example, post something here in the OOC thread saying that you want everyone's next posts to advance things half an hour and get everyone to say in here if there's anything they want their character to do in that time so that people can take it into consideration in their own post.<br/><br/>Or say that once it hits January 18th, 8am CST the story will advance one hour, any actions that they want to do straight away they'll need to get in by then.<br/><br/>Or write,<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: GM Pacing post</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"The evil group of reality TV producers chuckled in their hidden van, watching the group interact. Over some time they found a few of the hidden cameras, but there were plenty more that they had missed. The group had been interacting in small groups as their cliques pinwheeled around one another, with one or two surprising results. Some stayed isolated, trying to remain calm in the face of their situation. Others raged or sulked, while some actually managed to cooperate, crossing the normal boundaries of high-school social rules. The combined effect of the heat and aphrodisiac had many of them stripping and by now some of them were quite scandalously dressed.<br/><br/>Overall it had taken until dark for them to reach this point and as the cameras switched over to their night-vision mode, they knew that the room would be much darker. Their laptops and phones were almost out of batteries. Tensions seemed high amongst the group, but they weren't ready for the next trick up their sleave. One of the men held a finger ready to press the button on the remote."</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>And then everyone will naturally respond to this by posting their character's actions over this time period within the framework you've established.<br/><br/><hr/>I'm not saying this is easy to do, or that you have to use the methods above (they're what I could come up with off the top of my head, I'm sure with some thought you could come up with better ways that fit more seamlessly with the story), but it's got to be you. It's part of the job of GMing for a group game.