Special Counseling
Special Counseling happens every other Nightshift (with on SCer on M-U night), and four lucky players are selected at random from the Landamned roster to take part in it. (Once a player has taken part in it, they will be ineligible for selection (for M-U, as well) until everyone else in the entire roster has also had a chance (unfortunately, since we get so many new players each application cycle, the chances of this are very unlikely); players may also be considered ineligible for selection on a particular Nightshift if they are on hiatus or inactive.) Once four players are selected, the mods will decide which of that player's characters would work best with SC that night (i.e. if they're strong enough to pose a threat, but not strong enough that they'd destroy all of Landel's), and then notify the player of their good fortune and of the mods' decision.
But what is Special Counseling? It's.. well, it's this (XD):
1) For one night, your character is working on the Institute's side, and their main goal is to stop patients from proceeding any further through the Institute's grounds and to get patients to go back to their rooms. However, your character doesn't necessarily need to be fully aware of their orders; for example, if your character was a good guy who worked for a particular vigilante organization, they might have been temporarily brainwashed into thinking that the patients are the bad guys that they're trying to capture.
2) Your character gets all their normal powers, clothes, weapons, defenses---everything back. If you think your character is WAY too powerful for the purposes of SC in their normal state, however, you should certainly talk to us about giving them some limitations.
3) Your character has explicit orders to NOT kill any patients. They can badly injure them, immobilize them, or knock them out, etc., but killing is a big no-no. (The only exception to this is if you work something out with a player who's looking to get their character killed off.)
4) Your character cannot be easily "snapped out" of their brainwashing. The only people that would have even the slightest chance of affecting them would be people they were extremely close to in their original world, and even then, it would probably only cause enough of a hesitation to give a chance to said person to knock your character out before they did any more damage.
5) If your character is knocked out, they're free to be looted by other patients. Although all of their clothing, special items, weapons, etc, are free to be used during that entire nightshift by whoever grabs them, only ONE possession taken from your character will still exist in the morning. (So, for example, your character has a gun, a bullet-proof vest, and a helmet. Although three different people take those three objects once your character is knocked out, only one of those people will still have the item they looted once the morning comes.) What gets kept and who gets to keep it can either be worked out amongst the players, or, if people decide to compete for one or more objects, we mods can be called in to randomize who gets what. ;)
As far as what happens to your character before they appear as a bad guy: Your character is taken from their room by orderlies immediately after dinner (before the intercom's last dayshift post) and carted up to the third floor, at which point your character's memories get really fuzzy. (They might remember bits and pieces of being injected with serums or having their skull drilled into, being strapped down to a table--creepy stuff like that, but nothing vivid or tangible.) After that, they're put in the SC1, SC2, and SC3 cells on the second floor, and after that, they're unleashed on the unsuspecting public.
Given that we now have a dinner shift and possible roommate onlookers, you should inform your roommate's player that your character got SC so that you guys can keep things consistent. HOWEVER, neither you nor your roommate's player should tell anyone about the identities of the patients who got SC. Let's keep it a surprise, kay? >:]
Characters have all their former memories during SC, though they've been warped in whatever way the Institute sees most appropriate to make them work on their side. Your character will also remember all the events of Special Counseling (except for the aforementioned third-floor stuff) come morning.
As far as how attacking other characters works: Basically, you choose a location on one of the maps (a room, a hall, or an area outside), and run it by us mods to make sure no one else has claimed it or that it doesn't pose any logistical problems. Once you do that, you wait for an unsuspecting character or group of characters to enter your assigned area, and when the time seems ripe... BOOM! You attack! Still, some guidelines you should follow are...
1) All the fighting against your character should occur within one thread. Yes, we know that this makes posting harder than if one antagonist is going after smaller groups in different threads, but one person jumping from thread to thread is bound to cause some continuity errors or godmodding, regardless of how accidental those actions are. The exception to this rule is if your character completes a fight with one group of patients (as in all their opponents have been knocked out or have run away), and decides to go on to a completely new bunch.
2) Your character may be powerful, but that doesn't mean they're invincible. As a player of an antagonist, no matter how temporary, you must take responsibility to keep up good communication with the other players in your thread so that there aren't any misunderstandings about attacks or how they damage characters. Also remember that it's just as easy for other players to slip into godmodding during a fight as it can be for an antagonist, so don't be hesitant to let us mods know if you think something is awry. It's happened before, and we're happy to help sort things out!
3) If no one enters your area after a couple of days or so, you're perfectly welcome to ask us to re-assign your character's area to somewhere that would be more active and fun.
4) Your character may not leave their assigned area without permission from us. We basically have the assigned-areas rule so that patients won't feel so ganged-up on as they would if we had SC patients running amok all over the place, but if you want your character to give chase and the players of the people you're chasing totally want you to do that too, you're perfectly welcome to so long as you run it by us and we give it the go-ahead.
But what is Special Counseling? It's.. well, it's this (XD):
1) For one night, your character is working on the Institute's side, and their main goal is to stop patients from proceeding any further through the Institute's grounds and to get patients to go back to their rooms. However, your character doesn't necessarily need to be fully aware of their orders; for example, if your character was a good guy who worked for a particular vigilante organization, they might have been temporarily brainwashed into thinking that the patients are the bad guys that they're trying to capture.
2) Your character gets all their normal powers, clothes, weapons, defenses---everything back. If you think your character is WAY too powerful for the purposes of SC in their normal state, however, you should certainly talk to us about giving them some limitations.
3) Your character has explicit orders to NOT kill any patients. They can badly injure them, immobilize them, or knock them out, etc., but killing is a big no-no. (The only exception to this is if you work something out with a player who's looking to get their character killed off.)
4) Your character cannot be easily "snapped out" of their brainwashing. The only people that would have even the slightest chance of affecting them would be people they were extremely close to in their original world, and even then, it would probably only cause enough of a hesitation to give a chance to said person to knock your character out before they did any more damage.
5) If your character is knocked out, they're free to be looted by other patients. Although all of their clothing, special items, weapons, etc, are free to be used during that entire nightshift by whoever grabs them, only ONE possession taken from your character will still exist in the morning. (So, for example, your character has a gun, a bullet-proof vest, and a helmet. Although three different people take those three objects once your character is knocked out, only one of those people will still have the item they looted once the morning comes.) What gets kept and who gets to keep it can either be worked out amongst the players, or, if people decide to compete for one or more objects, we mods can be called in to randomize who gets what. ;)
As far as what happens to your character before they appear as a bad guy: Your character is taken from their room by orderlies immediately after dinner (before the intercom's last dayshift post) and carted up to the third floor, at which point your character's memories get really fuzzy. (They might remember bits and pieces of being injected with serums or having their skull drilled into, being strapped down to a table--creepy stuff like that, but nothing vivid or tangible.) After that, they're put in the SC1, SC2, and SC3 cells on the second floor, and after that, they're unleashed on the unsuspecting public.
Given that we now have a dinner shift and possible roommate onlookers, you should inform your roommate's player that your character got SC so that you guys can keep things consistent. HOWEVER, neither you nor your roommate's player should tell anyone about the identities of the patients who got SC. Let's keep it a surprise, kay? >:]
Characters have all their former memories during SC, though they've been warped in whatever way the Institute sees most appropriate to make them work on their side. Your character will also remember all the events of Special Counseling (except for the aforementioned third-floor stuff) come morning.
As far as how attacking other characters works: Basically, you choose a location on one of the maps (a room, a hall, or an area outside), and run it by us mods to make sure no one else has claimed it or that it doesn't pose any logistical problems. Once you do that, you wait for an unsuspecting character or group of characters to enter your assigned area, and when the time seems ripe... BOOM! You attack! Still, some guidelines you should follow are...
1) All the fighting against your character should occur within one thread. Yes, we know that this makes posting harder than if one antagonist is going after smaller groups in different threads, but one person jumping from thread to thread is bound to cause some continuity errors or godmodding, regardless of how accidental those actions are. The exception to this rule is if your character completes a fight with one group of patients (as in all their opponents have been knocked out or have run away), and decides to go on to a completely new bunch.
2) Your character may be powerful, but that doesn't mean they're invincible. As a player of an antagonist, no matter how temporary, you must take responsibility to keep up good communication with the other players in your thread so that there aren't any misunderstandings about attacks or how they damage characters. Also remember that it's just as easy for other players to slip into godmodding during a fight as it can be for an antagonist, so don't be hesitant to let us mods know if you think something is awry. It's happened before, and we're happy to help sort things out!
3) If no one enters your area after a couple of days or so, you're perfectly welcome to ask us to re-assign your character's area to somewhere that would be more active and fun.
4) Your character may not leave their assigned area without permission from us. We basically have the assigned-areas rule so that patients won't feel so ganged-up on as they would if we had SC patients running amok all over the place, but if you want your character to give chase and the players of the people you're chasing totally want you to do that too, you're perfectly welcome to so long as you run it by us and we give it the go-ahead.