It's that time again...
Hi, hi, hi. Me again. This is a very special episode1 of the Growing Pains edition of poly mod posts.
As you know, we have over 200 players (211 as of most recent count) with 611 characters in play (unless someone drops before I get this thing up in the comm). That means we have a whole lot of new people and a whole lot of people who have been around for a long time and may need to adjust some of their play realities based on the fact that we've gotten freaking bigger than the originators of the game could have expected.
Thus, I get to bring you a list of things that don't really need a separate post, but which do need to be addressed. Let's start small and work our way through the list in no particular order:
That concludes our Very Special Episode. We can all give thanks that the bicycle repairman isn't going to do anything naughty to us in the back room.
1Yes, that really is the Growing Pains Very Special Episode™
2 Context for the kool-aid
As you know, we have over 200 players (211 as of most recent count) with 611 characters in play (unless someone drops before I get this thing up in the comm). That means we have a whole lot of new people and a whole lot of people who have been around for a long time and may need to adjust some of their play realities based on the fact that we've gotten freaking bigger than the originators of the game could have expected.
Thus, I get to bring you a list of things that don't really need a separate post, but which do need to be addressed. Let's start small and work our way through the list in no particular order:
- Affiliating with polychromatic
YES! We're happy to.
Just contact us, give a link to your community, and as long as your community is an original creation - not, say... a link to CFUD's wiki with a note that says "We're doing this, ask us how!" We're delighted to affiliate.
As we did with ad_interim, we have no problem affiliating with games that share aspects of the game conceit with poly. There's enough room on LJ for all RPs and we don't insist that you drink the kool-aid2 and only the kool-aid when you join this game. ♥♥♥
- The Hiatus Post
While we try to watch tldr for hiatus posts, tldr is filled with so many posts (forty is the record for one day so far) that we can't be certain to see your hiatus post there. Please use the official hiatus post to notify us that you are going on hiatus. It saves us a lot of trouble and you a lot of stress when you see your character on the inactivity list. That doesn't mean that you can't let people know in tldr that you're going to be on hiatus. We have no problem with that at all. Just let the mods know about your absence, too. We try to see everything, but it's that whole growing pains, 600+ characters, 200+ players thing, y'know?
- Journal Deletions
When possible, please don't delete your character journal when you leave the game or drop a character. Other characters have interactions in those journals and it's a courtesy to other players to allow them to continue to have access to that history.
- Curse Leftovers
Unless specifically noted in the calendar, curse leftovers don't leave over. In other words, things like Cloverfield spawn? No bodies the next day. They're curse objects and are gone when the curse is over. Special events like money raining from the sky? Yes, that'll stick around. You generally are assuming correctly if you assume that a curse item doesn't last beyond the 24 (or 48 or 72, etc.) hours of the curse. If you're not sure and you're hoping otherwise, check with a mod (IM's often fastest) to confirm.
- Resident Critters
The Underground has various nasties. Maybe you'll find a sleestak colony down there. Maybe you'll find a purple worm. Maybe you'll find something more interesting. Maybe not. It's up to you. But what lives down there, stays down there, barring curses or mod-arrangement.
The Wild provides similar opportunities in a more Wildish context. Use your imagination. But like Vegas, what happens in the Wild, stays in the Wild.
- Little Courtesies That Mean a Lot
Notifying your play partners/crew members when you make planned out (not out of organic play) major changes/traumas to your character is a wonderful and considerate thing. You don't have to defer your play choices to other members of your crew, but when someone finds out that their in-game (IG) father-figure has been tortured and murdered as the consummation of an ongoing plot, say, three days after the fact, that can negatively affect other people's play and IC reactions.
It's a matter of thinking about the people your characters have formed relationships with and considering not just the repercussions for your character, but for other characters and their players.
We're not making a rule telling you that you have to be considerate, just saying it's a nice thing.
- Player Communication
We want to encourage you, once again, to have a personal concrit post for your characters and to use our directory of said posts to let people give you feedback. It is absolutely up to you as to whether you log IPs or not, and whether you allow anons or not. You may find it takes some of the stress out of HMD if you have another venue for people to use. Also, we do ask people making characterization complaints whether they've used your concrit post if you have one. If you don't have one, they've lost an avenue of discussion with you, which may lead them toward the official route sooner than they would otherwise have gone.
We encourage you to do this one-on-one. We recognize that there will be instances where several people (or even an entire crew) may share concerns about a particular play or characterization choice, but from experience, (and we do try to learn from experience) we can say that people are more receptive to being talked to on a more individual level. It also lends more weight to your concern as a player when you are addressing your concern and not acting as a mouthpiece for others.
- Deleting Other Players' Posts in Your Character's Journal
Unless they are harassing or from people not in the game, DO NOT DO IT. And if they are harassing or from people not in the game DO NOT DO IT until a mod has seen it and given you the go-ahead.
Don't delete mod posts in your character's journal unless you clear it with us first.
Of course you can still delete typoed posts or another player's posts if they agree to it.
- It's OOC for him/her not to...
"It's OOC for my character not to... XYZ and I'm miserable about it."
No. Mostly no. Sometimes, yes. But mostly taking the fun out of play for that degree of ICness is not needed. Yes, sometimes there's stuff within your crew you may not be thrilled with. In that case, see above and try to work it out one on one. Canon associations can range from hard to ignore to impossible to ignore. We recognize that and encourage the adults in our game to work things out like adults. Talk to your fellow player, use their personal crit threads if they have them, and if you find that those routes don't work, we are here to hear you out on your complaints.
If it's not intra-crew, it's a lot easier. If you think that it would be OOC for your character not to react to a post, assume your character doesn't see it. "How? It's right there in blinking sparkling all caps! How can my character, The Human Eye, miss that?"
"Network glitch. Traffic volume. FILTERING." The City is more than 600 people. In fact, after being asked repeatedly to quantify the City's population, we have updated our FAQ with a lovely formula for just how many people are in the City. (Item 27.) So, at the moment there are officially over 600,000 people in the City. They all (barring infants) got communicators when they ended up there, too. They all have network access. If you don't want to see a post, assume, quite ICly, that it was lost amidst the hundreds of thousands of other City network posts.
That concludes our Very Special Episode. We can all give thanks that the bicycle repairman isn't going to do anything naughty to us in the back room.
1Yes, that really is the Growing Pains Very Special Episode™
2 Context for the kool-aid