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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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Basic Board Rules; What to do, what to avoid
Topic Started: Feb 18 2016, 11:33 AM (197 Views)
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HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME
If you are used to playing board oriented Role Playing Games, skip this first bit. Otherwise, read on.

This board, itself, is an RPG, a Role Playing Game. In this sort of game, one player takes the role of the StoryTeller, and the rest play the characters populating the story. Think of it as interactive, improvised theatre, with a clear external guidance. The player taking the role of the StoryTeller plays all the characters and events around the leading characters, while the rest of the players inhabit the skin of their characters, reacting to whatever happens around them in a coherent way. In the case of board oriented Role Playing Games, the game is focused on one expressive tool: the written word. As such, the end result is closer to cooperative writing than it is to theatre.

Each character action, or reaction happens in the form of a Post, which is hosted within a Thread. Let's look at it this way: Any story is, by default, divided in three parts; the three basic acts. Each of these acts, is also divided in sections; the scenes. We call these scenes Threads. Within each Thread, there are smaller action units, which correspond to the specific character actions. Each time a character does something, says something, or reacts in some way to some event, that is expressed through a Post.

Posts are not just basic action descriptions, such as:

"Barry points his fork at Gemma, and screams all the fruit names he knows"

Posts involve descriptions, character speech, action definitions, and even the internal monologue of the character. The way a post is written gives many clues at what the character really thinks. We only accept posts that are a minimum of 150 words in this board, but we'll get there later. For the time being, suffice to say that the example up there wouldn't be acceptable. However, if that line was:

"The heroic Barry drew his signature weapon, the Legendary Soup Fork, and extended his heroically trembling arm, pointing at the evil witch Gemma, while screaming: 'Mango, Kiwi, Orange, Banana, Pineapple, Grape, Peach!!!', in heroic fashion"

That would give a greater deal of information to the reader; namely, Barry's perception of the situation, and his point of view about it.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Every now and then, situations arise that seem conflictive. Two characters have engaged in an activity in which they compete against each other (wrestling, speed reading, counting pigeons in a park...), and the outcome of such competitive task is uncertain. It is possible for the players to post how great (or poorly) they perform. In fact, it is highly desirable for that to happen. But the outcome of the competing action cannot be determined by one of the players. Particularly when that player is concerned about winning whatever is the competition. In that sort of situation, the Storyteller, or Moderator, has the last word regarding who "wins", and who "loses". The only exception to this rule comes when one of the players decides that his character "loses", in which case the story can progress without Storyteller or Moderator intervention (although they can intervene, anyway).

Let me put this down with an example:

"Barry challenges Gemma to a game of Jenga. Barry is great at Jenga, but Gemma has a very steady pulse."
  1. Outcome 1: Barry posts how he wins the game without consulting the player of Gemma.
    Result: Wrong. Barry cannot make that decision. The Storyteller, or Moderator, will probably ask Barry to edit his post, or any other solution to the problem created.
  2. Outcome 2: Barry and Gemma post how they play, but don't decide the outcome. They wait a Storyteller or a Moderator to help them decide who is the winner of the game.
    Result: Partially Right. The Storyteller or Moderator might not realize that there is a Jenga match waiting for his attention fast enough, and Gemma and Barry may get stuck for a while, waiting in well behaved silence.
  3. Outcome 3: Barry and Gemma post how they play, but don't decide the outcome. They contact a Storyteller or a Moderator to help them decide who is the winner of the game.
    Result: Right. The Storyteller or Moderator revises the information at hand, and makes a judgement call based on facts, and on narrative potential. The decision cannot be appealed; the Storyteller's word (or the Moderator's) is the law.
  4. Outcome 4: Gemma realizes that losing the Jenga match results in much more interesting and entertaining, character development wise, and she posts how she loses the match.
    Result: Right. There is no need for Moderator or Storyteller intervention, although they could intervene if they considered the result unfair or dramatically non productive.


As a rule of thumb, when a Storyteller or a Moderator intervene in any conflict, their word is the law, and there is nothing to do about it. That is why it's generally advisable to negotiate an interesting outcome with your scene partners before calling in a Storyteller to assist you; otherwise, you can end up facing an outcome that you never wanted in the first place. In any case, this leads to the next point:

NOBODY WINS
"Winning" a combat situation doesn't equate to winning the game. In fact, winning that sort of situation generally ends with a character going to jail, fairly accused of aggression and bodily harm. Even when a character accomplishes his in game goals, there is no winning. This concept may seem a bit frustrating for players who are not used to RPGs, or for players that have only played computer RPGs, where there is a clearly defined winning line that characters cross; in the sort of game we are in, there is no winning. The character struggles to achieve his goal and, as it happens in life, as soon as he achieves it, it stops being a goal, or even relevant.

Players that play RPGs with the idea of winning are bound to get disappointed, and to create endless confusion and disruption around them. The experience is not about winning, or about demonstrating that the player is better in any way than the rest. It is not a competing game, but a cooperative one. The real goal is to tell fantastic stories in a cooperative environment.

THE BIG DEVILS
There are a few terms that trigger all sort of negative connotations in experienced players. These words are the Devils of RP. Simple enough:
  1. Metagaming
         This is probably the worst gaming practice of them all. Simply put, it consists in playing a character, as if the character had access to the same information as the player. Players can have plenty more information than characters; they can read the other players' posts and thoughts, for starters. Using that knowledge to get the upper hand for a character is just wrong. Unless that happens -very exceptionally- in a Storyteller or Moderator sanctioned way, allowed in order to give an extra layer of narrative depth to the story, or to circumvent some incredibly tedious part of the story, Metagaming is not allowed.
         This has a double edge. In order to avoid metagaming, many players just refuse to read what other players post that is not relevant to their characters. That is a great idea, security wise, but it's also one of the grossest ways of disrespecting a colleague. It makes the non reading player as lazy, disrespectful, and uninvolved.
         If a player starts metagaming in a thread in which you are involved, don't hesitate letting the Moderation team know.
  2. White Knighting
         Often, players get to play more than one character. These characters are not allowed to interact under any circumstance. However, there are sometimes way to make the actions of one directly affect the other one. When a player uses a character he controls to benefit another character he controls, that is called White Knighting, and it is incredibly rude.
         Furthermore, the term can be expanded deeper, so it includes OOC friendships. Bending a character's nature to create a situation that benefits the character of a player who happens to be our friend OOC, is wrong. Doing the same, but doing so in order to put difficulties in the way of a player we dislike; that's even worse. Within reason, it is always possible to find ways to play with people we like, and even to play in game friendships and romances. But one needs to be careful and vigilant, particularly when there are third parties involved.
         If a player starts white knighting in a thread in which you are involved, don't hesitate letting the Moderation team know.
  3. Mary Sue
         This problem comes before the game itself; it comes when the character is created. A Mary Sue is a character who is great at everything, and who has no personal problems. The problems a Mary Sue has are always external to her; or irrelevant to the story. A character who is a master in several martial arts, an expert hacker, a trained marine, a math genius, a published writer, a millionaire, handsome, smart, perfect, and whose only problem is that he can't say the word "Wood" without chuckling, that character is a Mary Sue, and doesn't have room in this game.
  4. Puppeting
         Also known as "Bunnying", this term refers to the horrible habit of controlling other people's characters, or non playing characters (Storyteller controlled), without consent and for personal gain. Dictating how another character acts, feels, things, or what they do, is a very bad habit.
         Another, more subtle version of this action, is the tendency some players have to pre-plan their threads in advance, determining the outcome in out of character conversations, before actually playing it. That is also wrong, and it kills part of the game's fun. As a player, you can predict how other character's, and the world, will behave, but you can never be certain of being right; anybody and anything should be able to surprise you, no matter how mundane is the situation. Puppeting the story only leads to a very boring and uninspired game.
         If a player starts puppeting in a thread in which you are involved, don't hesitate letting the Moderation team know.


UNDERSTAND, RESPECT, CONSENT
It is awfully easy to play a one sided game, focusing on the character's life and events, and ignoring the world around him. Many players take that route, and do not make any effort to read what other players post. As you well know by now, that is just wrong. When interacting with other players, it is always important to try to get to know their characters. Reading their biographies, and their sheets, is only logical. In some cases, some players have particularities that can only be known by reading; if Barry has the strange ability to cause repulsion and disgust in everybody around him, and that information is clearly stated in his sheet, it would be of poor taste approaching Barry in game without factoring in the disgust and the repulsion. The player of Barry would -very logically- feel offended.

Once there is understanding of the environment, and the other characters in the story, the next step is the respect. All of the "Devils" quoted above are, after all, ways of being disrespectful towards other players. Respect is earned by being a good player, finding solutions to conflictive situations, communicating with other players, and behaving in a cooperative way towards the moderators and storytellers. Respect is lost when players try to win the game, when they throw public tantrums for no reason, when they behave in ways that are insulting to other players out of the game, and that sort of thing. Respect buys a player access to bigger chunks of the board, and to more outlandish and supernatural oriented adventures.

Consent is the peak of the pyramid. It's the mortar that holds the construction all together. By signing up to the game, you are consenting to accept the mod team's rulings, to accept the universe they propose, an to respect the rules they propose both in and out of the game. By signing up, you consent to respect the rest of the players, and to try to find friendly solutions to any hairy situation that might arise. By signing up, the people in the board consent in treating you with respect, and trying to assist you finding stories to join in, and playable situations for your character.

Consent is present in every aspect of the game; replying to a post is a form of expressing consent. This is very important; if a player starts metagaming in a thread you are involved in, and you reply, you are consenting to the metagaming. It is also present in all conflict resolution issues; the losing player gives consent to the other to become the winner, both players give consent to the Moderator to decide on an outcome, etc... In case of doubt, seek consensus and ask the Moderation Team. You cannot go wrong there.

CLEAN POSTING
There are a few rules regarding what a post can, and what a post cannot look like. Namely:
  • In game posts need to be over 100 words long. Always.
  • Ideally, posts should be between 200 and 500 words long.
  • Moderators will freeze threads where players go below the line, and warn players who constantly stay around the 100 words mark.
  • Dialogue can be written in a different color, as long as it's readable.
  • Different fonts can be used, as long as they are readable, or they serve a specific narrative purpose in a specific situation.
  • Players should try to build stories together. As such, it is advisable to stick to the tense used by the original poster (avoid jumping to present time when the thread has been posted in the past, for example).
  • Do not quote. Quoting other character's dialogue in your post, in order to clarify the replies, makes threads tiresome to read, and makes the other players' posts superfluous.
  • Respect your fellow players. If your thread partner is giving you high quality, 500 words posts, with emotional content, internal monologue, descriptions, and clear exposition of the character's hidden vulnerabilities, do not reply with one liners and pure dialogue.
  • Take your time, but don't leave people hanging. If you don't post in a week, that's fine. If are not going to post in a month, let your co players know. If, after six months, you are still expecting your old thread to still be relevant, you are bound to be disappointed.
  • Players have the right to ask moderators for summarized endings to inactive threads. A player that has been made wait for over a month can request the mods to find an ending to the thread, and terminate it in one last post.
  • Do not bloat posts just for the sake of making them longer. As long as you get to the 200 / 500 words zone in your posts, there is no need for you to over extend everything with endless descriptions. Sometimes, shorter is better, clearer, and more efficient.
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