[MOD] Rules and Guidelines
New to LJ RP? New to RP in general? The mods at netherworld_rpg have put together a handy guide here to help you out!
Rules:
1. STAY IN CHARACTER. This is the most important rule. I know, I know, the internet is such serious business. Right. But the fact remains, this is not a crack game. Character development happens, and is expected, but please keep it within reasonable bounds.
2. OU characters only. Don't try to apply for an AU character. We won't accept them. Sorry. There are other places for that. Similarly, no original characters. Yes, we know your character probably isn't a half-elf half-dragon magical self-insert princess with raven hair, color-changing eyes, and all the latest Hot Topic merchandise, but someone else's might be, and we can't go making exceptions for some people and not others.
Furthermore, our game is designed for fictional characters. While we do allow applying for characters who are fictionalized versions of real people, or actors who play a somewhat fictionalized version of themselves, please don't apply for actors or other real people if they themselves are not the characters in their series. The presenters of Top Gear, for instance, are allowable; the actors in Supernatural, on the other hand, are not. We know the difference is subtle and may occasionally be subjective, but we reserve the right to make that judgement when reviewing applications. If you have a question about a character, feel free to ask.
3. No godmoding. Seriously, guys. Let people RP their characters, and you RP yours. There need be no confusion here.
4. No metagaming. You are not your characters. You know things that they do not. Don't let them be little cheaters. And along these lines, let things develop naturally through IC interactions. Try not to do a bunch of OOC plotting if it's never played out ICly.
5. No more than three characters per person. This is a small game by necessity, and we can't allow any one person to dominate the cast. Should the character limit change, we will let you know. Also, please limit applications to one at a time, and please wait one week between subsequent acceptances and new application submissions.
6. No more than one version of each character from each fandom. Please see the list of taken characters before applying.
7. Please keep roleplay content at a PG-13 level or below. This is due to Livejournal policy being that adult content must be filtered, and due to their reactions to unfiltered adult content in recent years. Remember, fade-to-black is your friend.
8. STAY ACTIVE. You must post at least one thread per month with each of your characters. In addition, you must participate in at least one other log or thread per month with each of your characters, in which that character must have at least five substantial comments. Each log or thread must have been posted within that month (threads carrying over from a previous month don't count). If you fail the current activity check at the end of the month, you must pass the next one or your character will be removed from the game (and killed; see Guideline 8 below).
EXCEPTIONS: your character is excused from a particular month's activity check if your character joined the game during that month, or if your character was on hiatus during which they missed half a month or more (see Hiatus Post).
Guidelines:
Please keep this additional information in mind:
1. Characters may bring in anything normally attached to their person, such as clothing, weapons, and small personal items. Anything larger will not be brought in with them. Please list your character's full inventory on the application. Should something not be allowed, a mod will let you know.
2. Due to the nature of this game, the magical creation of something from nothing cannot occur. Your characters are welcome to try, but nothing will happen. Nor can other objects be transformed or transmuted into food. Your characters must find a way to make the colony self-sufficient - or starve. Other transformations or transmutations will be allowed as long as they fall withing the laws of chemistry - i.e. a chunk of metal into a metal statuette of the same mass, salt water into NaCl and H2O, water into hydrogen and oxygen. If you're not sure what would be okay, ask a mod.
3. It is, unfortunately, impossible to leave the colony by any means. Teleportation or shifting to another dimension will appear to succeed for a moment, but the character will immediately arrive exactly at the point they tried to leave from. Characters may physically fly off through space, but after about 400,000 km or so of black nothingness they will merely find themselves approaching the colony again.
4. Food consumption is monitored in terms of "food units", where one unit represents the average amount of food consumed by the average healthy human, or roughly 2,000 calories per day. This will be especially necessary to keep track of during periods of rationing, such as the initial phase while the greenhouse is being set up. If your character consumes more or less than one unit daily, please note this on their profile.
5. If your character does something that would affect all the other characters in the colony - say, shoot a hole through an observation window causing a rapid loss of atmosphere, or, perhaps, poison the water supply - please make a post to aphelion_ooc and let everyone know, so that other characters can react accordingly.
6. While the library and the media in the entertainment computer system are extensive, none of the canon sources of current or past characters can be found there. We do recongize, however, that many characters, particularly those from a modern world implied to be our own, may recognize certain other characters as fictional in their worlds. If your character has, say, read the Harry Potter series, it's okay for him or her to tell Harry/Ron/Hermione/etc "Hey, in my world, you guys are fictional! And very popular!" or whatever.
However- Please do not spoil a character's future actions for them without the permission of that character's player. This goes for characters from the same canon source but different points in time as well. Please talk to each other before going and telling Robert Thorn that Soylent Green is, in fact, people.
7. If your character spoke a language other than English previously, they will now find, to their surprise, that they can speak and understand English. However, if they wish to speak their native language or any others they might know, they can choose to do so.
8. Any time you drop a character, that character must die in the game. They can always be re-applied for later by anyone, including the original player, but they will have no memory of their time on Icelus or their death - it will be as if they were never in the game. You may kill your character by any method you choose. If you forget, or if you refuse, the mods will kill them for you, likely in some particularly horrible way so as to entertain ourselves. It's your choice.
Failure to follow the guidelines will make us sad. Failure to follow the rules will result in a warning and you will be sent to the principal's office for a talk regarding your conduct, which is just sort of embarrassing, really. Repeated inability to follow these very simple rules will result in harsher penalties, up to banishment. And nobody likes being banned. :(
Rules:
1. STAY IN CHARACTER. This is the most important rule. I know, I know, the internet is such serious business. Right. But the fact remains, this is not a crack game. Character development happens, and is expected, but please keep it within reasonable bounds.
2. OU characters only. Don't try to apply for an AU character. We won't accept them. Sorry. There are other places for that. Similarly, no original characters. Yes, we know your character probably isn't a half-elf half-dragon magical self-insert princess with raven hair, color-changing eyes, and all the latest Hot Topic merchandise, but someone else's might be, and we can't go making exceptions for some people and not others.
Furthermore, our game is designed for fictional characters. While we do allow applying for characters who are fictionalized versions of real people, or actors who play a somewhat fictionalized version of themselves, please don't apply for actors or other real people if they themselves are not the characters in their series. The presenters of Top Gear, for instance, are allowable; the actors in Supernatural, on the other hand, are not. We know the difference is subtle and may occasionally be subjective, but we reserve the right to make that judgement when reviewing applications. If you have a question about a character, feel free to ask.
3. No godmoding. Seriously, guys. Let people RP their characters, and you RP yours. There need be no confusion here.
4. No metagaming. You are not your characters. You know things that they do not. Don't let them be little cheaters. And along these lines, let things develop naturally through IC interactions. Try not to do a bunch of OOC plotting if it's never played out ICly.
5. No more than three characters per person. This is a small game by necessity, and we can't allow any one person to dominate the cast. Should the character limit change, we will let you know. Also, please limit applications to one at a time, and please wait one week between subsequent acceptances and new application submissions.
6. No more than one version of each character from each fandom. Please see the list of taken characters before applying.
7. Please keep roleplay content at a PG-13 level or below. This is due to Livejournal policy being that adult content must be filtered, and due to their reactions to unfiltered adult content in recent years. Remember, fade-to-black is your friend.
8. STAY ACTIVE. You must post at least one thread per month with each of your characters. In addition, you must participate in at least one other log or thread per month with each of your characters, in which that character must have at least five substantial comments. Each log or thread must have been posted within that month (threads carrying over from a previous month don't count). If you fail the current activity check at the end of the month, you must pass the next one or your character will be removed from the game (and killed; see Guideline 8 below).
EXCEPTIONS: your character is excused from a particular month's activity check if your character joined the game during that month, or if your character was on hiatus during which they missed half a month or more (see Hiatus Post).
Guidelines:
Please keep this additional information in mind:
1. Characters may bring in anything normally attached to their person, such as clothing, weapons, and small personal items. Anything larger will not be brought in with them. Please list your character's full inventory on the application. Should something not be allowed, a mod will let you know.
2. Due to the nature of this game, the magical creation of something from nothing cannot occur. Your characters are welcome to try, but nothing will happen. Nor can other objects be transformed or transmuted into food. Your characters must find a way to make the colony self-sufficient - or starve. Other transformations or transmutations will be allowed as long as they fall withing the laws of chemistry - i.e. a chunk of metal into a metal statuette of the same mass, salt water into NaCl and H2O, water into hydrogen and oxygen. If you're not sure what would be okay, ask a mod.
3. It is, unfortunately, impossible to leave the colony by any means. Teleportation or shifting to another dimension will appear to succeed for a moment, but the character will immediately arrive exactly at the point they tried to leave from. Characters may physically fly off through space, but after about 400,000 km or so of black nothingness they will merely find themselves approaching the colony again.
4. Food consumption is monitored in terms of "food units", where one unit represents the average amount of food consumed by the average healthy human, or roughly 2,000 calories per day. This will be especially necessary to keep track of during periods of rationing, such as the initial phase while the greenhouse is being set up. If your character consumes more or less than one unit daily, please note this on their profile.
5. If your character does something that would affect all the other characters in the colony - say, shoot a hole through an observation window causing a rapid loss of atmosphere, or, perhaps, poison the water supply - please make a post to aphelion_ooc and let everyone know, so that other characters can react accordingly.
6. While the library and the media in the entertainment computer system are extensive, none of the canon sources of current or past characters can be found there. We do recongize, however, that many characters, particularly those from a modern world implied to be our own, may recognize certain other characters as fictional in their worlds. If your character has, say, read the Harry Potter series, it's okay for him or her to tell Harry/Ron/Hermione/etc "Hey, in my world, you guys are fictional! And very popular!" or whatever.
However- Please do not spoil a character's future actions for them without the permission of that character's player. This goes for characters from the same canon source but different points in time as well. Please talk to each other before going and telling Robert Thorn that Soylent Green is, in fact, people.
7. If your character spoke a language other than English previously, they will now find, to their surprise, that they can speak and understand English. However, if they wish to speak their native language or any others they might know, they can choose to do so.
8. Any time you drop a character, that character must die in the game. They can always be re-applied for later by anyone, including the original player, but they will have no memory of their time on Icelus or their death - it will be as if they were never in the game. You may kill your character by any method you choose. If you forget, or if you refuse, the mods will kill them for you, likely in some particularly horrible way so as to entertain ourselves. It's your choice.
Failure to follow the guidelines will make us sad. Failure to follow the rules will result in a warning and you will be sent to the principal's office for a talk regarding your conduct, which is just sort of embarrassing, really. Repeated inability to follow these very simple rules will result in harsher penalties, up to banishment. And nobody likes being banned. :(