Welcome to Theatre of Souls. If you are a new player, please proceed to read our help documents, linked below, to get a sense of the game. Don't hesitate, and introduce yourself to the rest of the players in The Cafe. If you have any questions, our Moderators -as well as the rest of the players- will be happy to assist you. We hope you find a place here, among us, and that you have a great time writing with us. |
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Welcome to Theatre of Souls Board Rules Quick Start Guide Rules: Reference Guide The World of ToS ToS Encyclopedia Basic Glossary NSFW Disclaimer |
Path of the Dreaming King: 1 Path of the Judge: 0 Path of the Storm: 1 Path of the Soldier: 1 Path of the Artist: 0 Path of the Pioneer: 0 Path of the Speaker: 0 Path of the Pleasure Seeker: 1 Path of the Blind Seer: 1 Path of the Protector: 0 |
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Stream Nothing After 72 hours on her feet, rest was coming to greet her. The blankets embraced her like a warm mother, diluting her aches and her anxieties. She had made it, and now she was allowed to sleep. The smell of tuna never left her fingers, but she didn't care, at that point. Survival had become a full time job, and she was becoming extremely good at it. Just when she was slipping into a placid state of blissful relaxation, the noise began. The depository of all her love was also the source of all her stress, and the affection given was returned in the form of screams and fetid refuse. She pushed a pillow over her own head, hoping she would quiet the screams, but it was not working. The high pitched wailing struck her body like a lightning, leaving that acrid taste in the roof of her mouth. She was, again, wide awake, trembling, and feeling her life was being drained through her eardrums. She stood up, and walked towards the little angel. It had been born with teeth and hair; huge, grotesque, misshaped. It had broken her on arrival, and destroyed her life afterwards. And she was supposed to love the screaming beast. She pressed a pillow against the gaping hole of its mouth, and didn't move until the noise was long gone. She felt a cold finger tracing her spine, but the noise was gone. She went back to sleep, to relax, to forget. Silence hugged her tighter than any blanket, with its cold breath whispering "Murderer" in her ears. She was surprised to discover that a whisper inside her head was so much powerful than a scream from a cot. |
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| Welcome to the Theatre of Souls; What is this place? - Technical Information | ||||||
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| Topic Started: Feb 18 2016, 11:30 AM (276 Views) | ||||||
| Creator | Feb 18 2016, 11:30 AM Post #1 | |||||
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Welcome to the Theatre of Souls. We are happy to have you, and you are probably curious about this place. Let us explain, in broad strokes, what is it that we do here: ToS is an online, board based, Role Playing Game, loosely inspired in the Swedish RPG Kult. Note that the inspiration is distant and not so obvious, at many times. This means that, if you are an avid Kult player, and you have read all the books, that will make close to no difference here. Some elements are taken from the original game, but they are so deeply changed they are most of the times hard to recognize. ToS is a game about stories. As any RPG, the main point of the game is to tell stories in a cooperative environment. Some players take the role of Storytellers, while others assume the role of actors. The Storytellers provide the situations, and play out all of the characters around the main actors; the players invest their energies in one character each, following their path along the story. Whatever the Storyteller says, it happens. No matter how outlandish, or apparently unfair, events dictated by the Storyteller will happen. That is the first, and most important rule. This means that Storytellers have a great deal of responsibility on their shoulders. ToS is not a Fan Fiction writing board. The goal is not to create the next "50 Shades", or to collectively push the paths of a group of likeable characters through a story that could be published eventually. It is a game. The fact that it is a game that cannot be won, doesn't make it less of a game. Players intending to create the incredible sagas of their beloved characters, are bound to be disappointed here. As such, importing characters from different universes, characters that have been played for a long time, and that have become the second skin of the player, is an idea that is not likely to work well in this environment.
In ToS, characters die. They die all the time. And that is fine. Holding on to a character's survival too much can make the character's actions irrelevant. In fact, most of the character development occurs after death, which can be shocking for many old school RPG players. The player is not just playing a character; he is playing the character's soul. After a character dies, the soul is judged, and valued for its actions. Then, it travels through time and space, and reincarnates in a new body, in a new character. The player gets to play again, with a new character, but with the same soul. Everything the soul learns, remains, as well as any scar and any unwanted burden. Not that the character remembers his past life, or that he even has a hint of it; but Karma is there, stalking from the shadows, ready to pay its debts, and collect what's owed to her. Players can play various different characters simultaneously, as long as that's authorized by a Moderator, and the characters never interact in any way, it is fine. Some characters are bound to be more short lived than others, while others will be involved in stories that burn more slowly.
The goal of the Storytellers is not to usher the doors of players' imagination, arranging the world at players' whim to make anything they wish happen; the goal of players is not to make their characters win the game, or even survive to any given scenario; the goal of the characters is not to be Gods, or Kings, nor to override their own shortcomings with logic and puzzle solving skills. Storytellers need to tell stories; their goal is to open the necessary doors for characters to evolve, to deteriorate, and to become seamless, integral parts of the plots. Players need to explore and exploit their characters to the last consequence; their goal is to enjoy all the options each character has to offer, all the meanders in the story's plot, and all the delightfully horrible consequences the character might suffer for exerting their own free will. Characters need to struggle; they are conditioned by personal goals, and by personal circumstances. When Storytellers become players' butlers, players obsess about winning, and characters conveniently forget goals and circumstances, the game becomes a chore, and it fades away in tedious statistics. Be brave. Dare to be a part of a great story. Take the plunge, and let your character be his own being, without fear of losing, or dying. Mediocre characters can win and survive; great characters are beyond those petty goals.
There are two basic forms of Storytelling that we contemplate in ToS. One of them is closest to the purest form of the game we are trying to create, while the other is more relaxed, and easygoing. Both forms coexist, but seldom intersect:
Maybe you've noticed already, maybe you haven't: the whole board is divided in two big areas:
Each player has a minimum of two accounts; one OOC account, and one for each character he plays. OOC accounts don't have the ability to post in the IC side of the board, and character accounts can't post in the OOC side. As a player, you only have one OOC account. You use that account for everything OOC; from posting your character submissions, to declaring what's your favourite color in a poll opened by some other chromatophilic player. Once you open that account, you don't have to open any other account. As soon as one of your characters gets approved, the Moderation team will give you access to a Character Account, with IC access, providing a temporary password for you to change at will. As your character evolves, he gets more areas in which he can post; his IC Level rises. As you get more involved in the game, your OOC Level rises as well, and you get access to more World Information, learning more about the universe of ToS the more you play.
Playing a realistic RPG is always challenging. Players can either go and write exclusively about things they know first hand, or they can use their imagination, and try to explore territories they ignore. There is always something of a balancing act between the two options; too much in the side of veracity, and all stories look the same, and call characters are identical, while putting too much emphasis in imagination can lead to poorly researched ideas, shallow concepts, and bad narrative. There is a middle point, though, that is always hard to achieve. The Moderation Team is always around, with the goal of helping players finding that sweet middle point, and assist them creating characters and stories that are interesting, original, and as realistic as possible, within the scenario provided. If you are creating a character that is not from your own culture, try to make some research. It is very easy to become insulting, condescending, and disrespectful, particularly when dealing with cultures that have strong reputations thanks to films and entertainment. Remember: painting any culture as killers and criminals is as insulting as painting them as "normal people who happen to be hated for no reason". Do your research and, if you are not sure if you can measure up, don't make the character's ethnicity the central point of the creation. Similarly, any subject dealing with identity can be hairy. At the end of the day, it all boils down to a very simple question: Are you sure you want to make your character's existence so focused on that sort of issue? If you are, make sure you can pull it out in a dignified way. Take in consideration that a good story (as a good character) doesn't give us the moral answers, but the questions. If you feel the need to provide the moral answer to the questions your character and your story provides, it's possible you are growing too close to this character. When creating characters from any corner of the world you don't know much about, first and foremost make your research. It sounds like pure insistence, but it will be better in the long run. We are all heavily influenced by film and literature, and it's sometimes hard to dislodge our own preconceptions from what the world of entertainment offers us. If you are creating a character who has lived his childhood, for example, in Ulan Bator, chances are you will not be able to portray a traditional US High School drama, where the popular Cheerleaders marginalize the poor nerd girl; different location, different world. The game, the universe we propose, makes use of some clear esoteric imagery. We draw inspiration from sources such as the Tarot, the Kabbalah, and the Astrology, among others. This doesn't mean that having previous knowledge of anything occult related will be of any advantage to any player; we have made a conscious effort to take the inspiration we need, and twist the meanings of the symbol to fit out wishes, so the meanings of traditional esoteric symbolism is twisted and turned into something that's not traditional nor expectable. |
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7:26 PM Jul 11