Marauder Elite Guide
Guide to
Marauder_Elite
This guide was originally written by former moderators dragonrhyme and erato for use in a different RPG setting. It has been modified for use at marauder_elite but is still a work in progress that current mods will adjust and add to as time goes on and new questions are raised. If you have any suggestions or questions, please do not hesitate to comment here!
Application
If you're an experienced player or have already had your questions answered, and would just like to get to the application, here it is! For those who still have questions, or are new to roleplay, please read the rest of the guide before submitting your application (it appears again at the end of the guide so you can't miss it!). If you still have questions, please feel free to contact any of the moderators-- our info is contained in Section 2 below!
The list of currently available and open characters is located here.
Here is the application for a character in marauder_elite. Please fill out the application and copy it into comments on this post. Use as many as you need, all comments are screened.
||OOC||
Are a member of Hogwarts Elite? If not, who is sponsoring your application?
Name/Nickname:
LJ name/House: (LJ name only if you are not an H_E member)
Age:
RPG Experience: (Players without experience are welcome, we just like to have an idea of how familiar you are with RP.)
Email Address:
Timezone:
If you don't get the character, would you be willing to apply for another:
If yes, which characters would you be interested in:
||In Character||
Name:
House, Age, and Year:
Bloodline:
Political Affiliation:
The following questions should be nice and detailed in your
responses.
Physical Description:
Character History:
Chacter Personality:
What are your plans for the character, plot-/ship-wise?
Proposed Played-By: (Who will represent your character in your icons?)
Sample journal entry: (First person, 200+ words)
Sample RP: (Third person, 200+ words)
Basic Information:
What is roleplay? What is a roleplaying game?
Roleplaying is what it is called when a person acts out the part of a character they have created and interacts with other people playing similar characters. Roleplaying goes on both online--in forums, through email, instant messages, etc--and offline, in face-to-face games such as Dungeons and Dragons or GURPS. It is a popular form of entertainment, a way of escaping to a fantasy world and acting out epic stories with creative people.
What is Marauder Elite?
Marauder Elite is a roleplaying game where you, the player, write about an existing or original character and interact with other people via posts in marauder_elite. You can play up to two characters in this game. As of January 2008, non-Hogwarts_Elite members are encouraged to join. If you are not a member of Hogwarts_Elite, you must have one of the current members sponsor your character application to M_E. This does not involve anything more than the current member notifying the mods that they support your application in a comment on this post, which will be screened.
What is Play-By-Post?
Play-by-post describes the style in which the game is played, and means that in marauder_elite, you will write posts in a community (marauder_elite) rather than through a chat room, e-mail list, visual chat, or instant messaging program. If you wish to conduct a scene via one of these other methods, you should check with a mod and then post the scene clearly on livejournal once you're finished.
What is the premise?
Marauder Elite is based on the world of Harry Potter, as created by J.K. Rowling. This particular RPG follows the Harry Potter canon as closely as possible. We love our canon. Marauder Elite is set in the time period when James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were active, and began with their seventh year at Hogwarts (ca. 1977). Currently in the game, this class has graduated and is trying to adjust to the new darker world. Dumbledore has recently formed the Order of the Phoenix in response to the growing threat of the Death Eaters. The first war is well underway.
Because the seventh book had not yet been released when the game began, there may be small parts of M_E’s canon that differ from the actual book canon. We do our best to incorporate new canonical information, and follow as close to existing canon as possible.
Who is in charge?
Right now, Marauder Elite is moderated by Bridey (xferinoc), Sarah (incognito323) and Maura (maxineofarc). We are the ones to go to if you have questions, problems, or suggestions for the game. We are open to new ideas, roleplaying with you through NPCs, etc, so don’t hesitate to contact us!
Character Creation:
Applying for your first character can be intimidating, but don’t worry too much. It’s not as complicated as you might think.
Before creating a character, it’s important to realize what it means to be In Character (IC). In Character is the term used to designate that a character, not a player, is currently talking, acting, and being written about. Out Of Character (OOC) is the opposite- that means that you, the player at the computer, are the one talking and acting. Marauder Elite has a specific OOC community (animagus_elite) where you can ask questions, plot, look for players to roleplay with, and interact with other people. OOC and IC should not be confused; a character's IC actions should not be taken as any reflection of the player's OOC feelings, opinions, or abilities. Posts should be kept to the appropriate communities- OOC at animagus_elite and IC at marauder_elite and character journals.
If you want to play a character that someone else has played, then given up (usually these characters have entries in their journals and an already-existing user info page), you are free to change the details of their profile, the model or actor that represents them in icons, and any other background information you see fit. It's a good idea to read over threads they were involved with in order to get an idea of the way the character was being played and how your changes will affect the consistency of the game; however, you are free to customize a previously-played character just as you would a character who has not had a player before.
The first step to actually create your character is to imagine what kind of persona you would like to roleplay-what kind of character do you want?
Original Character or Canon Figure?
In marauder_elite, one of the most important decisions you will make is whether you want to play a previously existing canonical character (someone mentioned in the books) or a new character. Canon characters vary in how developed they are- for example, we know a lot about James Potter or Peter Pettigrew, and very little about someone like the Death Eater Yaxley-he doesn’t even have a first name!
The list of currently available and open characters is located here. This list is updated on a monthly basis.
You will occasionally hear some characters referred to as “major characters." Typically these characters are people like the Marauders, Lily, Dumbledore, Voldemort… characters important to the plot of the Harry Potter books. This does not mean that different rules apply to these characters, it just means that we know a lot about them-- and therefore we would prefer only people with a lot of time to commit to the game apply for these high-profile characters, as they have a wide pool of people to interact with and lots of important canonical events that need to be roleplayed.
Canonical Events are major happenings in the Marauder era that have to happen in the game. For example, in order for the prophecy in book five to apply to both Harry and Neville, the people playing their parents must roleplay out the three times each set of parents defies Voldemort. How and when it happens is up to them, but it has to happen! We love our canon.
Original characters can be a bit easier to make, as you don’t have to worry about incorporating canon into your character design. Original characters may be of any race/sexuality/disposition, so the sky’s the limit in that respect. Keep in mind that this game has a number of canon characters with very loose personality limitations (or about whom we know very little beyond their names), so please consider first whether you could make your concept work with a canon character. If you strongly feel you would prefer an original character, please be prepared to back up your reasoning and his/her connection to the plot or other characters.
Order of the Phoenix
In the fifth book, Harry receives a photograph from Sirius which delineates exactly who participated in the Order. This photo can effectively be used as a roster.
It is unclear how public the Order of the Phoenix was, but at M_E we feel that it was predominantly a secret society; therefore the knowledge of its existence can only be acquired by having your character told about it, in character, by someone who is a member or is close enough to a member that they have been told. Therefore, in Marauder Elite we do not allow original characters or canon characters not included in the picture to enter the Order of the Phoenix.
Original characters and canonical characters without contradictory political leanings may be Order sympathizers or supporters, but will not be allowed into the Order proper.
Death Eaters
Likewise, throughout the course of the books, it become fairly apparent that Voldemort's inner circle of associates bears the Dark Mark and the title of Death Eater. We have no effective roster of who was and was not highly trusted, so for our purposes, any character named as having been Death Eater in the books is eligible to be a Death Eater here at M_E.
At M_E, we feel that the Death Eaters would claim responsibility for events and be generally recognized as a group of Voldemort's followers, rather than a secret society. Their existence is therefore common knowledge, that any character can know.
Original characters and canonical characters without contradictory political leanings is may sympathize with Lord Voldemort and act as supporters or followers, but they will not be allowed into the Death Eaters proper or allowed to receive a Dark Mark.
Good Habits
It is a good habit to keep a copy of your character’s profile on hand when writing. We suggest keeping a copy on your own computer in case something should happen to the community logs. A convenient way to do this is to list the profile in the userinfo for that character. A good example of this can be seen in Frank Longbottom’s user info: mefrank. Don’t fret if you’re not an HTML whiz, even a simple set of statistics can be helpful.
Do not put any information in your profile that you plan to reveal to other players in the course of the game. Anything you put in your character’s userinfo can be read by all members of the roleplay, so posting things there may spoil surprises. However, don’t leave this blank simply because you don’t want to come up with something. You need to know details about your persona that other people may not need to know.
Make sure your character has the ability to interact with others. Shy characters have a hard time roleplaying with others, and characters with serious disabilities (i.e. being blind, deaf, both) can be tiresome to deal with. Likewise, if your character lives far away from other characters or doesn’t want any friends, you will have a hard time finding people to play with. (Hush, Snape.) These are all things to keep in mind when filling out the character application.
Special Circumstances
If you want your original character to have some kind of special circumstance (like being an Auror, or working a high level position in the Ministry) you must ask the moderators for permission. We do this to make the number of characters in a certain field plausible.
Joining:
Here is some information on the joining process.
After you have picked a character
After you have figured out who you want to play, fill out the application located at the top or bottom of this post (not both-- it's the same thing) and wait to see whether or not you have been approved.
If you are not a member at Hogwarts_Elite
Make sure that your sponsor has commented on this post with your livejournal name, telling us that they do in fact know you.
The Process
There is no particular time schedule when it comes to approving applications. Usually you will hear from us within a few days. If you have a question about your app please feel free to ask any moderator.
Journal Access
If your application is approved, a moderator will email you with the username and password to your new character’s journal. Therefore, make sure that the email you give in your application is one that you check regularly.
Please make sure that if your character was one played by a different person, the e-mail address for your journal has been changed. Otherwise the previous player will still receive LJ’s e-mailed comments notifications for your character journal.
Also, if you mean to keep the same “played by” face in your icons as the previous person and want to keep using the icons, make sure you ask them if you may use the icons they made.
Posting
Once your character is approved you are permitted to post threads in marauder_elite, and to post entries to your character journal. If you are posting to your character journal, and do not want the contents of the post to be public-- restricted to your character's associates, kept completely private-- you must note this in your post title or in an lj-cut ("Hexed Private" or something of the sort).
What is a heading?
The heading is the required information at the top of a roleplay post. It looks like this:
WHO: What characters are involved? Edit and add any additional characters if they join in that particular session.
WHAT: A sentence or two describing the main action in the
thread.
WHERE: The location(s) of the action.
WHEN: The date and time that the action takes place. Feel free to forward-date or back-date posts as necessary.
RATING: If your thread will include content above a rating of a US PG-13 (UK 12A), you must indicate that in your header.
Please be aware that real-world time is not perfectly matched to game time. The game is backdated several months, which means that in real-world time, June 1st, 2008 = January 1st, 1979 in game time.
What should I rate my post?
Rate your post according to the movie ratings used in the US. When in doubt, pick a higher rating, to avoid offending anyone, or explain the rating you chose (for example, say “PG-13 for violence” if there’s a fight in your plot).
Posting Etiquette:
Timely Posting
If you agree to start a thread with someone, please be prompt. If you're going to be gone for more than a couple of days, tell the person you are posting with so that they can anticipate a break in the action. It's not polite to keep people waiting, after all. If a player you're waiting on has been absent for more than a few days, try contacting them via the information in the contact post.
Power Gaming
Power gaming, godmoding, whatever you like to call it, is strictly forbidden. Power gaming is when one player manipulates another's character without their permission. The best example of this is the fist-in-the-face example.
What NOT to do:
Draco swung and struck Dumbledore in the nose.
What TO do:
Draco swung, aiming for Dumbledore's nose.
See the difference? In option one, Dumbledore's player has no choice to make--whether he gets hit or not should be his player's decision, but Draco's player has made that impossible. In option two, both players can choose their actions--if Dumbledore's player didn't want him to be punched, that could be arranged. This is a fairer way to roleplay. Godmoding is not allowed in any capacity. (Note that if the players consulted with one another and decided on the punch landing before the post, it doesn't count as godmoding, because both players have already agreed on the course of action.)
Do not repeat the content of a previous post in your response, or add information about another character that he or she didn't include. For instance, if Character A posts with some dialogue, there is no need to quote the dialogue in Character B's post-- we just read it above. And if Character A didn't note in his post that he seemed nervous, Character B's post should not refer to him as if he did.
Waiting Your Turn
Most threads settle into a pattern of posters. For example, characters A, B, and C are posting together. C posts first, then A, then B. When everyone has posted, that pattern repeats--C, A, B, C, A, B. This ensures that everyone gets a chance to respond equally to things that are going on. It can be very frustrating to participate in a thread when one player responds to every single comment--it can be confusing, and cause a lot of double-posting.
Post Participants
Anyone wishing to post a thread directly involving more than one character must talk to the other players beforehand. This includes contacting moderators about playing NPCs before starting a thread the mods are expected to be involved with (for instance, if you need Dumbledore or Voldemort).
"Open" threads are fine--posts with a note in the header that welcome anyone to get involved if they wish--but don't stick the name of someone else's character in the header of your post unless they are aware of and cool with the fact that you want to roleplay with them.
Post Hijacking
Hijacking posts is what it's called when a player not invited to participate decides they want to anyway, and starts posting on a thread other people started. Generally speaking, most posts are not "open" for anyone to participate in. In fact, posts will specifically say in the "Who:" section of the heading if they allow characters not listed there to get involved. It is very rude to jump into someone else's thread without asking.
If you desperately want to be involved with someone's already active post, ask them about it. You might get lucky!
Roleplay Etiquette:
Activity Levels and Standards of Etiquette
Players are expected to post at a bare minimum of once every TWO weeks to their personal journals or a roleplay thread. Those who do not meet this standard will be placed on the "inactive" list and opened up for application from others, but the original player may remove them from the list by becoming active. Those who do not post for two consecutive two-week periods will be removed from the "inactive" list and placed on the "open" list; they will be opened for new applications, and old players must reapply. If you need to leave temporarily but know you will be back, be sure to let us know so that you don't slide onto these lists.
Players are expected to treat others at all times with courtesy and common sense; this is particularly true of veteran players roleplaying with new folks. If you wish to RP sex or violence in your threads, make sure your roleplay partner/s are okay with this in advance. Don't spring surprises that might make someone uncomfortable; if in doubt, always ask. Likewise, if you are ever uncomfortable in a thread, stop posting and contact a moderator right away so we can help resolve the situation.
The moderators reserve the right to ask any player to leave the community at their discretion, if they feel a player has shown a pattern of disruptive or disrespectful behavior. Disruptive or disrespectful behavior may include, but is not necessarily limited to, direct violation of any of the written rules set out in this guide. Common sense, respect, and courtesy to others are the most important guidelines.
NPC's
NPC stands for Non-Player Character. A non-player character may be a character run by the moderators (Voldemort, Dumbledore, and any other characters that don't have a player but are important to a scene) or a background or ancillary character whose actions or presence can be mentioned in passing, as long as your own character remains the primary focus of the post. This includes characters like barmaids, bus drivers, anyone minor or without a player. It is acceptable for chararacters with small children to describe the children's actions; otherwise, you should limit the direct appearances of family members.
It's fine to mention NPCs in journal entries. If you want to use an NPC for roleplay purposes (you need your character's parent to play a thread with an important PC to wrangle an invitation to an upcoming social event, for instance) you may do so, but you must get permission from the moderators first. Otherwise, you should not use an NPC as a player character without permission-- if you find you have an NPC you want to use as a player character, you must submit a regular application.
Private vs. Public conflict
It is a good idea to deal with any personality conflicts or problems you have with another player or even a moderator privately, rather than publicly. E-mails are listed on the contact post for a reason, so feel free to make use of it.
Moderator Conflicts
If you have a problem with the way the Moderators are handling a situation, please be straightforward with why you are dissatisfied in a private forum (AIM or Email is best). If you don't feel comfortable talking to us, you might talk to the Prefects or Head Girl of your House, or even Noah himself. You can also take things to the official complaints thread, where all comments are screened and only high-ranking members of the community can read them.
Please keep in mind that the moderators are juggling marauder_elite duties along with real life like any other member. We try our best to be timely and efficient, but sometimes that is just not possible.
Application
Got all that? Great! Here is the application for a character in marauder_elite. Please fill out the application and copy it into comments on this post. Use as many as you need, all comments are screened.
||OOC||
Are a member of Hogwarts Elite? If not, who is sponsoring your application?
Name/Nickname:
LJ name/House: (LJ name only if you are not an H_E member)
Age:
RPG Experience: (Players without experience are welcome, we just like to have an idea of how familiar you are with RP.)
Email Address:
Timezone:
If you don't get the character, would you be willing to apply for another:
If yes, which characters would you be interested in:
||In Character||
Name:
House, Age, and Year:
Bloodline:
Political Affiliation:
The following questions should be nice and detailed in your
responses.
Physical Description:
Character History:
Chacter Personality:
What are your plans for the character, plot-/ship-wise?
Proposed Played-By: (Who will represent your character in your icons?)
Sample journal entry: (First person, 200+ words)
Sample RP: (Third person, 200+ words)