Re: Big Willies' Saloon (OOC)
It would be nice to have a 'how to play the game' thread or a 'what to expect when you join' thread stickied in here so that those who are just joining us know what the hell is going on.

I'll even volunteer to write it if you guys want. I think it would help in order to recruit other players.

Four ranches seems like a good start, perhaps people could earn the right to set up a new one (maybe if enough players join or characters show up, so that there's a steady ratio of ranches to work-hands?)
So here's how I perceive that we, as players, go about getting involved:
1) read through the ranches. Pick one that we like. Go to the clearly marked 'sign up' thread (Diaga, I don't think your sign-up thread is QUITE clearly enough marked; it would be nice to see 'OOC signup' in the title somewhere so people know. That way they won't think that they can just hop into RP as your 'come here first' suggests. Pheonix, 'the registry' sounds official and it's nice that it's stickied, but having a 'sign up' in the title would probably help us to know to go there first, rather than that it's just a record of who's already playing.) and make a character according to the form that needs to be filled out*
2) Show up at the introduction area (Diaga's good for this, Pheonix, maybe add some kind of 'come here first,' or let people know as they sign up where their character should start?) and make a first IC post.
3) Either the ranch owner will maneuver an NPC into showing our character around, or a PC will engage our character in... interaction. >
4) Generic roleplay between NPC's and characters or PC's as characters -- will the ranch-owners play the various tentacles if need be? Can players temporarily adopt tentacles to play against another character?
5) (this is where it begins to get iffy for me)
One of the ranches or the town that the ranches are affiliated to hosts a competition; OOC this is some kind of writing contest (??) IC it's a chance for characters from different ranches to intermingle. Some sum of money is awarded to each ranch based on people voting for favorite stories (??) or each ranch is afforded a sum simply for participating (based on amount of posts, amount of characters posting, or something?) When the competition is deemed closed (how long would it be open? Would participating in the competition preclude regular roleplay on the ranch?) the ranch owners can purchase new tentacle creatures, new space for tentacles to grow in, maybe more NPC's to work the ranch?
6) rinse and repeat stages 4 and 5 until people get bored of playing, at which point we figure out how to make it fun again. XD
*Some clarification over if we have to play 'ourselves' (which I find a little weird, to be honest. XD) or if we can play other characters that we make up would be nice. Also clarification to newbies that they can make more than one character to play in more than one ranch would be nice as well.