From Tapestries MUCK

Revision as of 05:20, 3 October 2014

The golden rule for roleplay in the Chehon Region is "do not disrespect other players". Cooperate with other players or, if you find yourself unable to do so, step back from the scene and the game and come back when you're calm. Don't ruin the experience for others.

Definitions

1. "Retcons" or "declaring retroactive continuity." This is basically undoing a scene or set of scenes, and/or OOCly agreeing that those scenes should have happened in a different way with different results. This is a powerful option to allow players to go back and tweak an event to help set the stage for additional RP that's more entertaining for everyone.
2. "Fading to black" and "off-camera" events. Some events which might be inevitable in-character might be, for some reason, something that one or more players in the group either can't or don't want to actually play out. This can range anywhere from detention to beatings or worse, or even really boring, mundane things like mowing the lawn. (Show me someone that likes RPing lawn-mowing to an empty room, and I'll show you a dirty liar.) The assumption that some events happen even when people don't play them out helps to keep folks focused on the FUN parts.
3. Non-player characters, or NPCs. Usually, any roleplay environment has far fewer players than there are IC people walking about. By including interactions with NPCs into your roleplay, you can help make the scene feel more realistic...and have a way to assume that various things happen in the background without your character having to personally attend to it. Bartenders, pedestrians, waiters, shopkeepers, and extremely bored customs officers are all excellent choices for NPCs.

IC and OOC

First, all players are expected to separate their own emotions and goals from those of their character. There should be a wall between your character and you as a player which provides distance from disappointment when things go wrong for your character. IC drama and conflict should be interesting and fun to roleplay, not stressful. Maintaining a separation between IC and OOC helps with that.

Areas are marked as either being IC or OOC.

• IC areas are for roleplay; all OOC conversation should be done using the "ooc" command and should either be about the scene, or should be only a brief diversion from the scene.
• OOC areas are for general OOC or OIC (half-IC, half-OOC) interaction. Canon roleplay in these areas is not a good idea, as the areas don't exist in-theme.

Canon

One purpose of the Chehon region is to maintain a single unified super-plot which every individual character's own storylines fit into.

• All roleplay falls into one of two categories: canon, or non-canon. Canon roleplay is a part of the region-wide storyline and can be referenced freely in other scenes. Non-canon roleplay is considered a separate "side-plot" which has absolutely no effect on the region-wide storyline.
  • All public scenes are assumed to start as canon unless otherwise specified.
  • In canon scenes, the actions a character takes and the consequences of those actions are persistent. Altering the actions themselves requires a retcon; altering the consequences can be done via a retcon, or some other thematically appropriate way.

However, there are times when events will clash with what a player has in mind for their character. The player of a character has final say what happens to that character, and has final say over what RP they participate in:

• OOC safeword/time-out will always be respected. In the event of an OOC time-out or safeword, participants in a scene need to stop what they're doing and talk amongst themselves OOCly to try to resolve the issue before play continues. If the cause of OOC discomfort or dispute cannot be resolved, the scene should be declared non-canon and retconned.
• Any player may convert a scene to non-canon if they dislike the lasting effect the scene in progress would have on their character.

Warning: Players who abuse this part of the policy in order to play an unbearable pain in the ass while avoiding any negative consequences for the character will be classified as trolls. Trolling is against policy.

Unfair Play

There are types of play which are just unrealistic or unfair.

Metagaming

The use of information obtained via alts or a strictly out-of-character source should not be used in an in-character way. Informational tools such as "WA" are provided to help promote roleplay, not to be used to gain some form of perceived advantage.

Similarly, alt characters or OOC calls to friends should not be used to sneakily get the upper hand in a roleplay without the permission of your RP partner(s). All IC information exchanges with other characters (such as calls for backup) should be roleplayed out or -- if the way you're calling for backup is invisible/inaudible/etc ICly -- should be mentioned OOCly so that other players are aware of the call and, if their character has the means, they can respond to it.

Powergaming

Declaring that an action against another player's character is automatically successful without their explicit OOC consent is not allowed. All actions taken against another player's character should be worded as though they are attempts, not that they're assumed to've succeeded. The other player's character then decides how successful that action is.

• Example: "Teal smacks the wolf across the mouth, then drives a fist into his stomach." is bad. "Teal reaches out to smack the wolf across the mouth and -- if he does -- follows through with a short uppercut towards the wolf's stomach." is much better, and less likely to make people mad.
• Exceptions
  • Players who indicate that they're in "dynamic" mode [mechanism for this to be determined] are allowed to take mild, non-damaging, non-permanent actions against people flagged the same way and assume automatic success. This flag indicates that the player is comfortable sacrificing a bit of control in order to speed up their roleplay.
  • If all players in the room and the scene/event agree upon it, the powergaming rule may be suspended entirely. (Hint: Most people suspend the rule completely or in part for sexual scenes.)

Problematic Character Types

• You may not play a law enforcement officer or a core-building policymaker/regulatory officer/etc. IE: your character may not directly represent the interests or in-character authority of Layleaux or Chehon.
  • Exceptions: little