FTW:RP FAQ

RP FAQ

I want to play. What are good ways to get RP?

We encourage players to be proactive about seeking RP (and respectful when someone isn't able to RP). Some good ways to do that are:

• asking politely on the knot if anyone is up for a scene. (e.g., =ftw Anyone up for a scene?)
• sitting in a public room to indicate you're available for RP or joining an on-going scene in a public room

• when someone is already sitting in a public room, we encourage you to join that person to RP rather than sit in another room by yourself
• while all on-going scenes in public rooms are considered joinable, it is considered polite to ask those currently playing if you may join them either by page or by the use of the <OOC> function once in the room (e.g., 'ooc Hi! May I join you?')

• paging a particular player to ask if they're available for RP
• by +mail if you're having trouble catching up with a particular player

If you would like additional clarification about getting RP, please +mail ftwadmin.

What kinds of things make for good poses?

While everyone has a different style of writing and therefore a different style of play, poses are done in the third-person, present tense (e.g., Sally lifts her mug and takes a long drink before asking, "What do you think of the meatrolls?") A good rule of thumb is to include in your pose enough usable details that others have something to play to. Meta-poses are those that include details that can't be played to (a character's thoughts, feelings and so on). Some players use the narrative of a pose to include some meta details that might be read within the character's body language, humor value, or for details that might be readily known by the other characters in the scene. Others don't care for meta-posing.

When beginning a scene, it is particularly important to be able to hook yourself into a scene. As with everything in RP and story-building, this is a cooperative process with shared responsibility for bringing characters into the mainstream of the scene. When possible, we encourage shaping the situation to allow the characters to interact more readily (e.g., Shy Jane and Average Joe's players want to RP, but Jane is shy and Joe isn't normally inclined to seek her out; Jane's player therefore poses Jane sitting next to one of the only open seats in the living cavern, making it easy for Joe to sit next to her.), but we don't expect players to force their characters to act in a way that is truly out of character for them in order to engage another character.

What are useful commands to know for RP?

• 'p Name=', 'page Name=', or 'p Name1 Name2 Name3=' will allow you to privately communicate OOCly with a single person or multiple people.
• 'ooc Hi! May I join you?' will become '<OOC> Name says, "Hi! May I join you?"' and show to everyone in your current room.
• '+where' lists where all characters are on the game grid; private rooms are considered not available for RP unless invited or allowed by the owner. Alternately, '+where/ftw' will show you only players in Fort-owned rooms (or OOC rooms).
• 'WHO' will list online players and their idle time.
• '+rproll/loc ftw' will offer a random location owned by Fort for ideas of where to play
• '+meetme Name' will send an invitation to Name to either join you at your location or for Name to summon you to theirs. It's a quick way of getting in the same room to play a scene. See '+help meetme' for more information.
• '+scene/set <scene set>' allows you to set a 60 character description of the scene set. (e.g., +scene/set Stormy, very few people out, after lunch.) See '+help scene set' for more.
• '+tel/ftw' lists Fort-owned locations that can be gotten to with '@tel #DBREF' where #DBREF is the number listed on the +tel/ftw list.
• Some other helpful commands are explained in the following on-game help files: '+help bb' (bulletin boards), '+help mail' (on game mail), '+help gossip' (gossip posts), and '+help events' (events calendar).

What does 'ICA=ICC' mean and how will it impact me?

'ICA=ICC' stands for 'in character actions (ICA) leads to in character consequences (ICC).' What this means is that what your character does in a scene affects what follows, either immediately (e.g., Sally steps on Sidney's foot in the buffet line by accident and doesn't apologize. As a result, Sidney doesn't like her very much and doesn't sit near her), or the longer term (e.g., Sidney blabs about Sally's surprise turnday party and the following turn, he isn't let in on the secret).

Some consequences are good (e.g., your character did good things, and he gets a promotion), some are bad (e.g., your character did a bad thing and he gets dawn duties for two sevens), and some consequences are in the grey area, possibly because your character's actions were ICly misunderstood or because there are outside factors that would impact the nature of the consequences (e.g., Rider Joe snubs Lady Jane to her face, but Weyrleader John doesn't care for Lady Jane so he softens the consequences for Rider Joe.).

Because this is a cooperative game, it can be helpful to touch base with the admin team or whichever IC authority would eventually be called upon to mete out just rewards to make sure that likely consequences will work for you OOCly. This game is about having fun, so ideally consequences will make sense for the character imposing them and be fun for the player of the character receiving them; please try to be flexible and willing to work with other players to reach a mutually satisfying situation.

We understand that much of what happens for characters in scenes is organic in nature and as such, you may not have an opportunity to touch base with the IC or OOC authority ahead of time. In these cases, we recommend that you wait to post your log until you've touched base so everyone is on the same page when it gets posted. An example of when this might be important could be: Candidate Sally and Candidate Sidney end up, unexpectedly, in a fistfight in their scene. A fistfight might mean expulsion from candidacy so Sally and Sidney hold the log until they talk to admin. In talking with admin, Sally and Sidney are able to work out consequences that will still allow Sidney to stand on hatching day and Sally decides she likes the story that getting kicked out of candidacy makes and rolls with it.

What about dragons? What's normal for them on NorCon?

Each dragon is unique as any other character and ultimately how you play your dragon or how you play with dragons is up to you. On NC, dragons typically don't bespeak humans who aren't their rider except under special (usually emergency) circumstances. Dragon poses can be included in a rider's pose or may be posed separately by the dragon puppet as described in '+help puppets' or through the DTU (Dragon Talk Unit) commands listed in '+help pro'.

What do I need to know about using the wiki and setting up my wiki page?

NorCon uses a game-wide wiki which you're currently reading and encourages contributions from all players. If you don't have a user account, +mail ftwadmin with your desired user handle and a valid email address and we will get one set up for you.

Once you have a user account, you can edit your character's page (auto-generated for you when your character is approved to join a PC area). Some elements are automatically transferred from your on game +sheet (see '+help sheet updates' for on game help to make changes to it) or WYSK ( '+help wysk') and others you will be able to fill in. An easy way to do this is to go to your character page (http://ncmush.net/YourName) and on the drop down menu, click 'page tools' then 'edit with form'. There are detailed help files available on the wiki (a list can be found at here), including Help:Character_Pages which applies specifically to character pages.

Users are encouraged to upload a main image for their character and at least one (but not more than 50) character icons for use in RP logs. Please see Help:Etiquette#Images for information about image parameters.

If you're having trouble with things wiki-related, feel free to ask one of the admin for help.

How should I post logs of my roleplay?

Logs are one way to share the story you're building for your character with the community. Vignettes (snippets of your character's life that don't otherwise fit in a scene) are another way. As a community, we encourage posting both roleplay logs and vignette logs on the game wiki.

When a log is uploaded to the wiki, it will automatically show up on each participating character's page as part of their list of logs. While each log should only be uploaded by one player, all players are encouraged to participate in log posting.

For a helpful guide on how to do that, please see Help:Logs.

How do I get involved with ongoing plots?

The best way to get involved with ongoing plots is to OOCly touch base with the person or people running a plot. Area plots will have a point of contact. If you're not sure who that is, feel free to ask the admin team to find out. It can be helpful, but not necessary, to have an idea of what kind of RP you're looking to get out of your involvement as knowing that can help the plot runners involve you appropriately.

I have an idea for an event or a plot. How do I go about running it?

For personal events, such as mating flights or small-scale turnday parties, poker night, an individual wing's drills, etc., you can schedule the event at your convenience with those players it would impact. We recommend avoiding dates where large events (hatchings, turnover parties, plot scenes, etc.) are already scheduled so players who might have characters involved in both won't have to choose between one event and the other. The same is true of personal or small-scale plots that won't have impact beyond your own character (and those that play with you).

For events and plots that involve a wider group of players (a feast, a festival, a plot that affects more than just your character), you should +mail your proposal to ftwadmin and we'll work with you from there. You can expect that admin will ask questions and get clarifications, will look for details like specific desired timeframe, what you want from us, what we'll expect from you, and other things so we can all be on the same page. In the end, we'll encourage you to take your plot and run with it!