#There's more roles than canon with the new Patrol Heads plus the Educator + Chaperone too

[bonefall]

It's a shame Tree is so poorly used because playing Clangen made me think about how much drama a mediator could cause even if they have good intentions. Like trying to get two cats to get along but only making their relationship worse or committing a big political faux pass with a rival clan when they need their support at the brink of war. Conflict through diplomacy can be fun if you commit to building tension and consequences with it.

Do you think mediators will eventually become a thing in all the BB!Clans?

Mediators are a great game mechanic in Clangen. Absolutely fantastic design choice, giving you better influence over the relationships between cats in a game all about managing relationships between cats. The people who came up with that one should be kissed on the mouths.

I'm not sure how much I'd get out of them as a storytelling element for BB, though.

It's not a complete no-- Clangen's mediators are pretty close to that "Therapy" rework I floated. Making their role more about interpersonal conflict, giving advice, helping individual cats work through their issues.

At the same time though, I find that the sense of community is so much stronger when that isn't someone's "job," but just something someone in the Clan can relate to.

Jaypaw could have had some sessions with a hypothetical therapist to confront his internalized ableism-- but isn't it more interesting for him to realize that by calling himself worthless for his disability, he's directly insulting his mentor Longtail too? And that Longtail will invoke his Battle Cat right to FIGHT for his honor?

They could consult elders, find a surprising connection in a Clanmate they'd never paid attention to, reignite an old friendship they thought they lost forever. There already feels like so many possibilities, and all of them feel more intriguing than "goes to the designated therapy guy."

If there's anyone like a political diplomat in BB though, it feels like it should evolve from Merchants. Ive got some stuff about trading and bartering in the works, and I think there's more space for interesting ideas there.

[bonefall]

Do you think the clan cats having less kits per litter/less litters in general (they already have less kits than real cats) would fix the bloated cast issue? Because I look at Ginga and the cast is also bloated and only a few characters have offspring but the author keeps making other dogs join Ohu and refuses to kill the old as fuck dogs

I don't think there's any one particular "solution" for stopping bloat in series that manage large casts through generations like Ginga or WC, it's actually a few things

The #1 MOST important thing I think about bloat, though, is that it's about a ratio of quality to quantity. NOT raw size.

A long while back I made a couple of allegiance lists for certain eras. In spite of my Clans having the same (or even higher!) population as canon, I NEVER struggled with those lists being bloated. If anything, sometimes if a Clan's below 30, they look too small.

(I'm sure you can find those lists if you look, they're probably tagged BB!Allegiance, but they might be a bit out of date)

That's because in BB, there's dozens of HUGE cultural additions to Clan life. In "administration," alone, there's 3 new major divisions of skills (hunting, cooking, construction) ALL with their own "head" of that patrol, plus canon's leader, deputy, and Cleric. Not to mention subtitles like the Educator and maybe a Chaperone/Permaqueen!

So to bring it back to that "Ratio Theory," If our Clan is 30 cats, those 8 major roles immediately give at least a slight amount of character to a little over 25% of our group, with each role being something that the other 75% of cats can desire and compete for.

Canon's measly 3 is 10%, and you can ONLY vy for deputyship if you want any power. There's nothing else to BE ambitious about.

You can make the ratio higher by having hobbies, drama, skills, arts, etc. Basically; characterize background characters! Which should be obvious!! Give them traits that are useful and interesting and show the community being valuable.

It won't feel like "bloat," it has the sense of communities living their lives. Even if they go quiet for a while, when they return (just look at how much people like seeing Sedgecreek or Hallowflight mentioned lmao) it feels like meeting an old friend again.

WAYS TO MAKE BLOAT FEEL WORSE;

Giving too many "opportunities" to old characters.

Think of every relevant role a cat gets as a meal, and the bigger the role the more they've eaten. If you're only giving value to your old fanfavs, you're not doing much for them because they're already full while the rest of your cast starves.

Haphazardly killing off characters.

I actually strongly resent the "trend" where people conflate good storytelling with an author's willingness to suddenly kill characters off. I think it comes from the same place as needing to "outsmart" your audience.

If you kill off a character with VALUE, an unfinished arc, interesting connections, it's just unsatisfying. The Erins have this problem of killing background characters with some established lore or value (like Harelight and Briarlight) while leaving uninteresting background nobodies behind that they never build back up.

Before killing a character, ask yourself what their role in the cast is, and their dynamic with others. Try not to axe them without a plan to fill that "role" and/or comment on their absence. Replace what you take.

EASY REPLACABILITY

This one is HUGE, this is why Ginga is so bad with this. If a bunch of dogs die, 100 random soldiers can replace them from somewhere. That is REALLY bad, because all the random influxes of new characters do not have a chance to replace what was lost.

It also makes death feel cheaper. Oh no! Background dog 7446 got eaten by the newest type of bear. This won't make battles harder to win or cause us to lose any valuable skills though. Also a new dog just walked in from offscreen.

Population Growth outpaces Death Rate

AKA your cast is growing too fast and you're not getting rid of old characters. This is what anon was asking about-- and it CAN help to make births less frequent and litters smaller. Make sure to pair with preventing lots of new, adult characters to casually wander in, too.

ALL of these tips have exceptions and places where they can (and should) be subverted and broken. But these are just things I think about