Anakin Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sith_happened) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh_ooc2022-01-14 04:35 pm
sith_happened) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2022-01-14 04:35 pm
Entry tags:
FH Rules Recap
The game celebrated its 16th birthday last year - which is a ridiculous number to think about, let alone to let sink into your aching old bones as you sit on your porch in fear of the approaching d– okay, maybe that's just us. The point is, it's been a long time, and over the years we've accrued no small number of newbies-who-are-no-longer-newbies, and the older we get, the more we treat basic RP etiquette as just a gimme.
So we thought it'd be a good idea to round up the basic principles of roleplay at Fandom High in one long post, for reference. Hopefully we'll manage to tackle all of the important stuff in this one post, but if you find something missing, let us know down below.
The stuff that's important for roleplay everywhere, not just on the island.
1. IC is not OOC, and OOC is not IC
Don't mistake the player for the character, or vice-versa. This is the core of all basic roleplay rules: between in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC) sits a clear boundary. On one side is your character: their knowledge, their feelings, and their actions. On the other is you: you know a lot more than your character does. But that knowledge is not your character's unless it's ICly established how they might have logically gotten that information.
Likewise, if a character is mean to yours, that doesn't mean the player is being mean to you. ICly, characters have different motivations than we do OOCly, and IC is not OOC means that it's best if players don't assume an IC fight is the same thing as the other player being mad at them OOC.
At the end of the day, 'IC is not OOC' is about boundaries and communication. Roleplay is based on mutual consent, and the point is for all of us to work together towards a fun experience for everyone.
2. IC actions mean IC consequences
But there's one caveat to that: if your character does something to another character ICly, expect there to be consequences. Roleplay is ultimately written improv. We work off each other to build a scene. Sometimes that means something your character does will have an unexpected IC reaction from the other character. You can't steal the inventory of Groovy Tunes in broad daylight and not expect the cops to show up at your door.
Again, this is within reason: no one should lock your character up in jail without your OOC permission. If you're unhappy with the consequences you're getting, you can always talk to the other player and figure something out that works out for both of you. Just don't expect there to be no consequences at all.
Don't assume that unpleasant IC consequences have unpleasant OOC intentions behind them. And in return, don't use IC consequences as an excuse to punish another player for their OOC actions. Trust is vital in RP, and if you're in doubt, the answer is always to communicate with the other player. The admin team is here to help you if things go sour, but we shouldn't be your first resort.
3. "Yes, and--"
Like we just said, roleplay is basically written improvisational theatre, and that means the phrase "Yes, and" is very important. "Yes, and" is how we build interactions: you say yes (metaphorically) to what the other person just offered you through their character, and then add something else they can work from themselves when crafting their reply.
This is not a fun interaction for either player involved:
Steve walks in and stares at the desk.
Jesse: "Hi? "
Steve: "I'm here to buy some ornaments."
Jesse: "This isn't a shop."
Steve: "Oh."
But this might be:
Steve: "Hey, I'm looking for some Christmas ornaments? Tony's been talking up a big game about his trimming skills and I can't let him get away with that."
Jesse: "Well, I'm… still not actually a shop, but we've got some crazy magic Christmas stuff in the basement if you want to head down and fight some flowers and see what the hell we find."
4. Don't mod someone else's character
This is an extension of our cardinal rule number 1: your own character is the only one you control. When a player writes stuff about what a character not their own is doing or has done, we call that modding.
If Character X walks up to your character, this reply is fine: My character looked at X's face and said, "Hi." What's not okay is: My character looked up at where X was glaring down at me from on top of the Kwik Stop, and said, "Hi." Character X never said they were glaring or on top of the Kwik Stop, so Character X is not on top of the Kwik Stop and you can't just put them there because it makes more sense to you. It never hurts to ask the other player if you're unclear about what the other character's expression might be, especially if it affects the response you're sending back.
5) Don't metagame
Another offshoot of "we only control our own character" is that our fake people in fake situations only know what they would reasonably know if they were a real person in a real situation.
Metagaming is when we use our own Out Of Character knowledge to make our character magically 'know' things they shouldn't be able to know.
a) Metagaming during an interaction
If a player describes what their character is doing or wearing, or their expression, it's fine (and usually intended) for your character to react to that. (Just don't invent things of your own that the other player didn't put into their description; that's modding, as already discussed above. Send them a quick question, also as discussed above.)
If a player describes what their character is thinking, though, that's internal and your character can't see it; it's there for your entertainment as a player but your character can't know or react to it: that would be metagaming. Even if your character is a mind-reader, you need the other player's OOC permission to have them read that mind, and see that thing. If they don't want to give that permission, just work with the other player to find a way or a reason that your character doesn't do it.
b) Metagaming in general
A newbie character doesn't know everyone's names and that's fine; you can play out them meeting these characters to find out. You can't have them just magically know. Likewise, if your character is a distant acquaintance of character X, they can't just know character X's tragic backstory. Character X actually has to tell them, or they have to find out in another way - with permission from Character X's player.
Now, the keyword here is reasonable. If character X is from the same canon as yours, it's probably okay for your character to know they run a restaurant in their home town. They just can't know that character's secret mutant powers or his secret daughter unless they've been told that, ICly, by character X.
The radio is in-game knowledge and is findable for all characters. But the information that your character would know is only what the radio broadcasters say that day, not the links that are included for your OOC entertainment. Similarly, you can't have a character say they heard about something on the radio if it wasn't actually mentioned there.
The Special Collections section of the school library exists for cases where characters do need to learn important background information that they couldn't otherwise find out, but that can only be used by arrangement with the Librarian and the admins, and users still can't find out information about other characters without their players' permission.
For characters who have been on the island for a while, it's reasonable that they expect Fandom weirdness and prepare for it. However, half the reason we run these events is because failure or a brush with the unexpected is interesting. Sometimes it's more fun for everyone if your character doesn't have a contingency for the new weird thing that happened this week. This isn't a rule, but we do recommend finding a balance.
Nothing is ever as simple as its basic rules, and there are a lot of situations where we've evolved exceptions or ways around problems that arise in special cases, such as:
1. Metafiction
This is a special offshoot of the "No Metagaming" rule: For the purposes of making the game work, FH has a "No Canon-Puncturing" rule, which means that even if another character's canon is established as fictional in our own character's universe, we can't use that fact to know information about that other character in-game.
Instead, we invent "meta" versions of the fictional property, with different (hopefully fun and funny) story titles and character names, and pretend that's what exists in our character's world. If you don't know/can't remember/etc. an established meta version of a piece of media, typing "meta for [media title]" is perfectly acceptable.
Unless the situation falls into one of the exceptions listed over here, no character is going to recognize another character as someone from a piece of fiction in their world. Your character didn't watch Steve and Danny on TV on Friday nights, and unless they're from a Marvel universe where he's a public figure, they didn't dress up as Cap for Halloween.
2. Modding rights
Having these means a player has granted permission to mod their character. For instance, you go on vacation, so you turn Character X into a bird. You give modding rights for Character X to the player of Character Y, his love interest. Character Y can then use bird!Character X in posts, within reason – Character Y's player probably shouldn't be killing Character X or putting him on a plane to Australia. Unless, of course, Character X's player has given them modding rights to do that, too. If the bird!Character is in a public scene, they are still only moddable by the player with the modding rights, and another character can't say they've seen them eating radio squirrels/hanging out on top of the Kwik Shop, etc.
As always, communication is key. Make sure the other player knows what they're allowed to mod, and don't give modding rights to players you don't trust. If you drop a character and give someone else modding rights, remember that you are signing off your ownership of that character to someone else. That player probably shouldn't do something with that character that you'd hate, to avoid OOC conflict, but they are technically within their rights to do so.
Likewise, if someone gives you modding rights to a dropped character, be kind. Don't kill them off or send them away without discussing that decision with, at the very least, the players whose characters might still have connections to that dropped character. In an ideal world, discussing it with their former player would also be kind.
When we have permission to mod another character, players usually put a little OOC note somewhere that's easily visible, just to let other players know that. It could be in the main post, or your character's top comment in a thread, or just the first time it happens in an interaction. This isn't a rule you can "break" – if you forget to do that, it's no big deal. In most cases, people are going to assume you have modding rights over another character if you say they did something. But putting it out there keeps people aware of the OOC situation, and it lets newer players (or potential players who are reading along to get an understanding of the game before they apply) know that there is such a thing as modding rights, so no one assumes it's okay to do that with any character they encounter.
3. Modding NPCs
NPCs (Non-Player Characters) usually belong to a specific player, and are "background" characters who are closely attached to theirs in some way and can appear in their narrative. They get added to the island's population only with admin permission (either in the original application for the main Player Character, or by contacting the admins later about adding an NPC). NPCs that belong to a specific player should be treated just like a regular character when it comes to modding: only do that with the permission of the player who owns them.
There are also long-running business NPCs on the island, such as Tino at Caritas and Tiny at the Devil's Nest. These characters belong to a business or serve a function on the island, but aren't attached to a specific Player Character. Everyone can mod these NPCs a little - Tino and Tiny are there to get you drinks, for instance, and the radio squirrels are Everywhere, so it's fine to mod their presence in a scene when you want to establish that you know it will be mentioned on the radio. The squirrels are also bribable so you can mod paying them off. Please add a "Not For Broadcast (NFB)" to your thread header so that the radio broadcaster knows not to summarize your conversation past that point.
However, the main modding rights for those characters lie partially with the characters working at a business, and partially with the owner of the establishment. (The radio squirrels "belong" to whoever is OOCly running the radio service, which is currently Fry.) As a visitor, you can't mod Tino messing up your drink on purpose while wearing a tutu because of a beef you've just invented. NPCs also can't tell you about other character's secrets or other gossip, especially not without the permission of that character's player. When in doubt about whether it's okay to mod an NPC doing something, ask the "staff" player who made the main post, or ask the player whose character owns the business.
Individual NPCs for the school or the island, who aren't tied to a business, are controlled by the admins. This would include characters like Fosse the Dancing Troll Janitor, Sunshine the Giant Squid, the animals who work in the school office, and in some cases, Fandom Island herself, as a semi-sentient being. So the "owner" to ask in situations where you want to do something with those characters would be the Admin Team. (You can absolutely mod the moose into signing your character up for not-IC/classes your character would hate but you as the player want them to take. You can also mod the moose into inventing a class for your teacher to teach that they normally would not.)
Fandom animals (other than those who belong to a business or the school) count as NPCs too, but they are there specifically for you to play with. You're welcome to use the teal deer (drawn to long-winded characters), alots (drawn by bad grammar), gremlins (mischievous bitemonsters with hallucinatory venom who love the taste of Skywalkers most but will settle for anyone in a pinch) or any other funny critter that's already been established on the island, in any scene you like, as long as they act in the ways that have already been established for their species, and don't do anything "big" enough that it would fall into the category of "need to send a plot proposal to the admins because this affects the whole game."
If you'd like to add a new weird creature to Fandom, though, run that by the admins first. We usually say yes, but there are a few things we need to consider first, like whether it belongs to someone else's specific canon (if it does, ask them first and let us know you did) and what effects its presence might have on the island/game.
4. Sharing Spaaaaaaaaaace…es
The area around our characters is a combination of established content and stuff that we make up as we go along, and as a game, we've evolved some ways of making that work without tripping over somebody else's fun.
a) Private living spaces
Any private space that your character owns, such as a house or the inside of their apartment, is theirs to do with within reason. Don't go knocking existing houses down without admin permission, and keep in mind that there are specific styles for buildings on the new and the old side of the island: the new side hews more modern (but isn't so big you can put a horse ranch on there), while the old side looks like Mont-St.-Michel, France: no American-style buildings here and a ton of stairs. But beyond that rule, your building is your oyster. So to speak.
b) Shared living spaces
Shared living spaces are more complicated. If you play a student, all changes to the inside of your room should be discussed with your roommate if you have one. The common rooms on each floor of the dorms have basic features in…well, common: a TV, sofas and chairs, various media players and game systems, storage cupboards and a dorm-style kitchenette; you can elaborate on those as needed, but check in with the admins before adding anything wilder than that. And speaking of wilder, don't forget that the sixth floor of the dorms may just have what you're looking for if it's not in a common room. All other spaces within the dorms should also be considered admin-owned space when it comes to major changes: you can't go pouring cement into the pool or kicking over all the plants in the rooftop garden. The dorm spaces are limited to students only except in rare BDE-related cases.
The island has two apartment buildings, MCA and MHA. These are run by player characters Jon Sims and Danny Williams. Those players are responsible for determining who gets what apartment, and they have set layouts for each apartment you should stick to. If you're going to knock down a wall, you probably want to talk to your landlord first if only to make sure they know it's happening.
Beyond that, however, individual apartments belong to the characters who rent them. Your landlord may own the building, but he or she can't make changes to your character's living space without prior permission. You're also more than welcome to decorate the inside of an apartment as you see fit, add details where you want them, etcetera. The landlord doesn't get an OOC say over what you put in your apartment, unless it's something that would change the nature of the building as a whole, like installing a wave pool or a 500-year hiccupping curse. Whether they have an IC say is up to you -- landlord-tenant interactions aren't ever mandatory, but they can be a lot of fun when everybody's on board.
c) Shared public spaces
Fandom Town consists of two types of businesses: player-owned and NPC-owned. They're both "public" insofar as anyone can enter a post set in one, but they differ in who gets to post them or can decide what's happening there.
Player-owned stores are pretty straight-forward: the player who owns it has the ultimate authority about what the store looks like on the inside, what it's called, and who can post it when. If you don't own a store or your character isn't an employee of that store, you can't post it. It's that simple.
"But what if I really want to have a drink and Eric hasn't posted the Devil's Nest?" Go to Caritas, or set up your own party space in a private space you own, or in a public space that is NPC-owned. There's no situation in which you can post a player business without approval from someone who has the right to post that business that day, be it the owner or the employee for that shift.
NPC businesses and spaces are more complicated. These belong to the town ICly, overseen by mayor Jesse Faden, and the admin team OOCly. They come in two flavors: unclaimed NPC businesses and public spaces.
A public space would be the park or the beach, for instance. These have no, and will never have, a player owner beyond the mayor/the admin team. That means anyone can post one of these spaces any time they like. Better yet, if the main park or beach or woods are already occupied with a post, you're completely in your right to post something marked 'In Another Corner of the Preserve', or to indicate a specific spot along the beach such as Selkie Cove.
Don't view a post set in one public space as 'claiming' that space for the time slot it's in. The space is still there. Unless the first player has covered the entire park in cling foil, there's no reason you have to acknowledge them - just make sure they, in turn, don't have to acknowledge you. Plausible deniability! Just be kind, and don't make a big show of avoiding a player.
NPC businesses are businesses that haven't been claimed by a player, but could be. Think of Taste of Thai, for instance. These businesses don't have an owner and can be modded as you see fit as long as you're only visiting. You just can't go in and pretend to be in charge: owning a store still requires admin approval. But ducking into the Thai restaurant to pick up some takeout or having a nice dinner there while NPC staff waits on you? Perfectly fine.
There are two exceptions to the "but could be" part up there: Jeff, God of Biscuits and the Perk. Because these are major gathering and socializing spots for all kinds of characters, they remain in admin hands rather than being open for a player character to own them. Both of these stores have their own handwavable NPC employees, both serve coffee, tea, and pastries, and they're supposed to work as stand-ins for each other. That means that if the Perk is full, you can always make a JGoB's post for the same time slot and vice versa. (It's also okay to post more than one Perk/JGOB a day if they are set at different times.) They work just like any other NPC-owned store but because they're not open for claiming you'll never need to make sure there's not a new owner; they'll always be moddable by anyone.
We're a very slow-played game now, so don't think you have to be around at a certain time to be able to play in any of these locations. However, it can be helpful to hold off on posting until you have some free time to play, so you can get your threads going quickly. Likewise, keep in mind that not every poster will ping you back if you tag in hours after their post went up.
5) How to Organize Large Posts
Some posts need wrangling to make it easier to read, and while knowing which ones those are is an art more than a science, here's a few that definitely do:
a) Classes
Classes need to have a sign-in spot, a place for interaction during class, and a place to interact with the teacher before or after the class. (And an OOC thread to close everything up or else all the comments fall out. It is known.) Each teacher is responsible for how a class is run and can prefer teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, or a combination of the two. Please try to get your students to at least sign in for each class you've signed them up for; it's how we gauge student engagement.
b) Big parties that are open to the entire game
Prom, BDE exposition-fests, annual Christmas ragers: if you are hosting something that could have more than, say, 50 pings in it, it's easier to read with some subheads. A few of these events are things the admins post, but it's good to remember for player-led festivities as well. As a reminder, NFSW threads cannot be posted in the main comms, so if you're going to have a Party Like That, take it to a private journal.
c) Posts you just feel are going to get large (not dirty)
Dirty posts do not need OCD.
d) Posts using a public space for some particular conversation/plot where you want to give people an option for not interacting with your character.
If you are using, say, the Perk for an epic break-up/singing mariachi band to invite someone to prom/place to reveal you have secretly been your own evil twin all along, it's considered polite to put up some OCD for characters who are not involved to be able to avoid, you know, all of that. You may also add an OOC note to the main post saying that all other conversations would take place before or after your big moment. You cannot close a public post to just your chosen characters: that's what a private journal entry is for.
There are some things we require you to check in about -- either with the admins, or with each other -- and we've talked about or linked to most of those in some way or another above: big plots, new NPCs, applying a character or using a plot from someone else's canon, changes to shared spaces, and so on.
But what about the stuff that's not required, it's just…nice? The little courtesies that make plots and threads run smoother, misunderstandings stick to the funny kind where your new friend thought you said to wear his birthday suit to the party, and everybody walk away happy and having fun?
Here are a few that are either common, or have developed over the course of the game as things that we've seen help our complicated, crazy island keep floating along:
1) When to contact someone about using their PB
One of the best parts of RPing on DW is the shiny, shiny icons we can use to add dimension to our character interactions. We now pause to take a moment of silence for ten years ago, the golden age of icon making, when we didn't have to scroll through Tumblr and then awkwardly re-crop images or make our own from scratch like iconning pioneers or something.
But because there aren't a ton of icons floating around any more, we do run into "oh no, our fake kids have the same face" (aka PB, which stands for Played By) moments more often than we used to. Generally speaking for weekend events (like weetinies or fake kids), it's not a huge deal to have a couple of repeats. You can choose not to interact with the accidental doppelganger if it is a plot problem for you.
But when choosing faces for guest characters – or regular player-characters who don't come from a live-action medium – it is helpful to look around at the characters already in the game. You don't have to avoid choosing a PB who looks like an existing FH character, but it's polite to contact that player and let them know that there's going to be a twin running around the island, either temporarily, or long-term. If they want to collaborate on potential Parent Trap shenanigans, that's great! If they want to mostly ignore it, that's fine too. If they'd rather not deal with a lookalike being around at all, we don't have a rule that you can't still use that face - just consider as a player whether making your character look like Miley Cyrus is worth annoying another player; maybe they could look like Demi Lovato instead?
Please note that we're not talking about introducing NPCs or new player-characters who are played in canon by the same actor as a character already on the island. It's super-nice to give the player of Professor X the heads-up that you're applying to play Jean-Luc Picard, but it's never been an expected notification, and the only time we'd require it of you is if you're applying to play a character's actual canon double, because then you'd need to notify them as a potential castmate as part of the application process. (i.e. if we already had Buffy Summers in-game, and you were applying to play the Buffybot. P.S.Natalie someone please apply to play the Buffybot. She is totally a playable character and it would be hilarious.)
2) When to contact people about you dropping a character
We've just concluded a major purge of abandoned characters, but we all know the feeling of a character just not being in our brains any more. Sometimes they come back and you are always welcome to reapply them (if someone else isn't that character in the game at the moment), but sometimes it's just time to drop them and move on. While you only technically have to fill out the dropped character form, to let us admin-types know, it's considered polite to also mention it to in-game roommates, friends, and romantic partners because it's never a great feeling to realize that the character hasn't pinged you back because you've been ghosted and you didn't find out until the tri-annual friendslist update.
3) When to contact anyone
Want to squeal about how great a thread is going with the other player? Want to reiterate that it's your character, not you, judging the shit out of that outfit? Want to double-check that it's okay to ping into a party eight hours after it's been posted? Please, please, please drop an email or, if you're on it, a Discord comment. No one in this game is out there actively trying to make your life harder. This is what we do for fun, and if you're not having fun the quickest way to fix that is to let the other person know you aren't having fun. By telling them. We only pretend to be mind-readers around here. (This also doubles as a reminder to make sure there's contact information for you in your characters' information pages.) If you find yourself thinking "I wonder if I should ask…" the answer is YES. At worst, you wasted a bit of your time because they don't care; at best, you avoid offending someone and maybe even get additional ideas and a willing co-conspirator!
4) … and when to contact the admins (about another player or game situation)
As the admins we know that we wield a lot of power over the game; any action we take against a player can come across as the hammer coming down even when it's only meant to be a gentle reminder. That's why we try to avoid taking steps against players unless it's absolutely necessary.
If you wind up in a conflict, you're unhappy with how another player is handling something, or are in another similar situation, we ask that you try to contact the other player first. Generally, these kinds of conflicts can worsen quickly if the admin team gets involved. A conversation in good faith between two players is almost always the best way to handle an issue, so try to extend that good faith first.
But sometimes a situation just gets out of control. A conflict might escalate, or a player won't stop harassing you or your character. If you've tried to talk to the other player and it's just not working out, you can ask us to step in (at fandomhighadmins@iambicnut.com). We will usually try to steer the situation back to a place where the players can sort it out between themselves, unless an actual rule has been broken. If that's not possible, we may take other steps. Just keep in mind this is a process, and it starts with attempted conversation between adults: not with hauling in the admin team to punish a player you have a disagreement with.
1) About plots
We've got a full post on that over here!
2) About changes for your character
If you want your character to start taking college classes online, dye their hair, get engaged, or adopt a standard pet that's available in the real world or already established on the island, go for it! You don't need to ask the admins about that kind of thing. (Do talk to the people your character shares living space with about new pets, though.)
Things we do need you to contact us about:
a) Dropping a character
You can do that right here, or in an e-mail; we don't mind either option. Just don't do it only in an application for another character, because we're reading those primarily for other information, and little notes like "I play X, Y, And Z, but I'm dropping Q" don't always get picked up on as something that means we need to make a change to the Character Directory that's unrelated to the character you're applying.
b) Getting married
Only so we can be aware of that major character tie being created, and so that if there's a wedding post/plot planned, we can put it on the calendar so we don't schedule any big plots that will compete with your wedding. You're not asking for permission here, just letting us know for logistical reasons.
c) Pregnancy/Children
This is under the general plot page, but it is worth reiterating here: don't use pregnancy as a plot lightly. Babies are not disposable. If you do intend on having your character become pregnant/otherwise acquire a child, you are expected to carry through with it logically and correctly. There will be a baby and the character will be expected to keep and care for it if the character remains in the game. BABIES ARE NOT DISPOSABLE. End caps lock. If you're going to have a kid brought onto the scene, your character will be expected to deal with it, including its effects on their social life. Please submit all pregnancy/child-related plots to the admins first. (Also, try to keep pregnancy scares to a minimum.)
d) Getting a nonstandard pet
If you want your character to bring in a magical pet from their home canon, pick up a Flying Furry Whizzbit while on a field trip to their planet, or introduce a made-up species to the island and adopt one of them, contact us first. Most times we'll say yes, but we want to be aware of what’s living on the island, and occasionally we'll have to say "That thing couldn't live in the dorms; it's too big" or "Sorry, no Tribbles; they'd overrun the island and/or mate with the Gremlins and then what would we do?"
e) Changes to a business
You don't need permission to add or remove employees or say "I don't want to run this store anymore; my character's getting a job at Caritas," but we need to know about it to keep the Town Directory and Business Entries up to date. Any time you look at the Directory and say "Well, that character doesn't work there anymore," it's because we have to rely on the business owner to tell us those things and they haven't.
f) Major changes to the nature of your character
If you want your character to develop new powers that they weren't applied with, come back from an off-island trip 40 years older with a mechanical arm, or catch a mind-parasite who's going to live in their head and act like a second personality, submit that to the admins in an e-mail.
Again, most times, we say yes. We want to say yes to plots, plans, and ideas whenever we can. But for major changes from the character who was applied and approved in the first place, we need to review them to make sure this revised person is going to fit in the game, and that the revisions are something that could plausibly happen to the character.
There's no big finish, folks. This is almost ten pages long as it is. If you want to double-check specific issues we might not have mentioned, we've compiled a Player Handbook that bundles most of the information any new or old Fandom High player will need. This game has been going for 16 years in very large part because all of us enjoy spending our time playing out these amazing, nuanced, fake characters and hanging out with the amazing, nuanced real people behind them. It has been, no exaggerating, a hell of a few years for all of us. Continue to be kind to each other and we'll be here at least another decade.
If you have any questions, well, that's what this post is for. Let us know!
And thank you for getting through this massive whopper of a post. Or pretending to. We appreciate it.
So we thought it'd be a good idea to round up the basic principles of roleplay at Fandom High in one long post, for reference. Hopefully we'll manage to tackle all of the important stuff in this one post, but if you find something missing, let us know down below.
CHAPTER ONE - BASIC ROLEPLAY 101
The stuff that's important for roleplay everywhere, not just on the island.
1. IC is not OOC, and OOC is not IC
Don't mistake the player for the character, or vice-versa. This is the core of all basic roleplay rules: between in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC) sits a clear boundary. On one side is your character: their knowledge, their feelings, and their actions. On the other is you: you know a lot more than your character does. But that knowledge is not your character's unless it's ICly established how they might have logically gotten that information.
Likewise, if a character is mean to yours, that doesn't mean the player is being mean to you. ICly, characters have different motivations than we do OOCly, and IC is not OOC means that it's best if players don't assume an IC fight is the same thing as the other player being mad at them OOC.
At the end of the day, 'IC is not OOC' is about boundaries and communication. Roleplay is based on mutual consent, and the point is for all of us to work together towards a fun experience for everyone.
2. IC actions mean IC consequences
But there's one caveat to that: if your character does something to another character ICly, expect there to be consequences. Roleplay is ultimately written improv. We work off each other to build a scene. Sometimes that means something your character does will have an unexpected IC reaction from the other character. You can't steal the inventory of Groovy Tunes in broad daylight and not expect the cops to show up at your door.
Again, this is within reason: no one should lock your character up in jail without your OOC permission. If you're unhappy with the consequences you're getting, you can always talk to the other player and figure something out that works out for both of you. Just don't expect there to be no consequences at all.
Don't assume that unpleasant IC consequences have unpleasant OOC intentions behind them. And in return, don't use IC consequences as an excuse to punish another player for their OOC actions. Trust is vital in RP, and if you're in doubt, the answer is always to communicate with the other player. The admin team is here to help you if things go sour, but we shouldn't be your first resort.
3. "Yes, and--"
Like we just said, roleplay is basically written improvisational theatre, and that means the phrase "Yes, and" is very important. "Yes, and" is how we build interactions: you say yes (metaphorically) to what the other person just offered you through their character, and then add something else they can work from themselves when crafting their reply.
This is not a fun interaction for either player involved:
Steve walks in and stares at the desk.
Jesse: "Hi? "
Steve: "I'm here to buy some ornaments."
Jesse: "This isn't a shop."
Steve: "Oh."
But this might be:
Steve: "Hey, I'm looking for some Christmas ornaments? Tony's been talking up a big game about his trimming skills and I can't let him get away with that."
Jesse: "Well, I'm… still not actually a shop, but we've got some crazy magic Christmas stuff in the basement if you want to head down and fight some flowers and see what the hell we find."
4. Don't mod someone else's character
This is an extension of our cardinal rule number 1: your own character is the only one you control. When a player writes stuff about what a character not their own is doing or has done, we call that modding.
If Character X walks up to your character, this reply is fine: My character looked at X's face and said, "Hi." What's not okay is: My character looked up at where X was glaring down at me from on top of the Kwik Stop, and said, "Hi." Character X never said they were glaring or on top of the Kwik Stop, so Character X is not on top of the Kwik Stop and you can't just put them there because it makes more sense to you. It never hurts to ask the other player if you're unclear about what the other character's expression might be, especially if it affects the response you're sending back.
5) Don't metagame
Another offshoot of "we only control our own character" is that our fake people in fake situations only know what they would reasonably know if they were a real person in a real situation.
Metagaming is when we use our own Out Of Character knowledge to make our character magically 'know' things they shouldn't be able to know.
a) Metagaming during an interaction
If a player describes what their character is doing or wearing, or their expression, it's fine (and usually intended) for your character to react to that. (Just don't invent things of your own that the other player didn't put into their description; that's modding, as already discussed above. Send them a quick question, also as discussed above.)
If a player describes what their character is thinking, though, that's internal and your character can't see it; it's there for your entertainment as a player but your character can't know or react to it: that would be metagaming. Even if your character is a mind-reader, you need the other player's OOC permission to have them read that mind, and see that thing. If they don't want to give that permission, just work with the other player to find a way or a reason that your character doesn't do it.
b) Metagaming in general
A newbie character doesn't know everyone's names and that's fine; you can play out them meeting these characters to find out. You can't have them just magically know. Likewise, if your character is a distant acquaintance of character X, they can't just know character X's tragic backstory. Character X actually has to tell them, or they have to find out in another way - with permission from Character X's player.
Now, the keyword here is reasonable. If character X is from the same canon as yours, it's probably okay for your character to know they run a restaurant in their home town. They just can't know that character's secret mutant powers or his secret daughter unless they've been told that, ICly, by character X.
The radio is in-game knowledge and is findable for all characters. But the information that your character would know is only what the radio broadcasters say that day, not the links that are included for your OOC entertainment. Similarly, you can't have a character say they heard about something on the radio if it wasn't actually mentioned there.
The Special Collections section of the school library exists for cases where characters do need to learn important background information that they couldn't otherwise find out, but that can only be used by arrangement with the Librarian and the admins, and users still can't find out information about other characters without their players' permission.
For characters who have been on the island for a while, it's reasonable that they expect Fandom weirdness and prepare for it. However, half the reason we run these events is because failure or a brush with the unexpected is interesting. Sometimes it's more fun for everyone if your character doesn't have a contingency for the new weird thing that happened this week. This isn't a rule, but we do recommend finding a balance.
CHAPTER TWO --THE FINER DETAILS
Nothing is ever as simple as its basic rules, and there are a lot of situations where we've evolved exceptions or ways around problems that arise in special cases, such as:
1. Metafiction
This is a special offshoot of the "No Metagaming" rule: For the purposes of making the game work, FH has a "No Canon-Puncturing" rule, which means that even if another character's canon is established as fictional in our own character's universe, we can't use that fact to know information about that other character in-game.
Instead, we invent "meta" versions of the fictional property, with different (hopefully fun and funny) story titles and character names, and pretend that's what exists in our character's world. If you don't know/can't remember/etc. an established meta version of a piece of media, typing "
Unless the situation falls into one of the exceptions listed over here, no character is going to recognize another character as someone from a piece of fiction in their world. Your character didn't watch Steve and Danny on TV on Friday nights, and unless they're from a Marvel universe where he's a public figure, they didn't dress up as Cap for Halloween.
2. Modding rights
Having these means a player has granted permission to mod their character. For instance, you go on vacation, so you turn Character X into a bird. You give modding rights for Character X to the player of Character Y, his love interest. Character Y can then use bird!Character X in posts, within reason – Character Y's player probably shouldn't be killing Character X or putting him on a plane to Australia. Unless, of course, Character X's player has given them modding rights to do that, too. If the bird!Character is in a public scene, they are still only moddable by the player with the modding rights, and another character can't say they've seen them eating radio squirrels/hanging out on top of the Kwik Shop, etc.
As always, communication is key. Make sure the other player knows what they're allowed to mod, and don't give modding rights to players you don't trust. If you drop a character and give someone else modding rights, remember that you are signing off your ownership of that character to someone else. That player probably shouldn't do something with that character that you'd hate, to avoid OOC conflict, but they are technically within their rights to do so.
Likewise, if someone gives you modding rights to a dropped character, be kind. Don't kill them off or send them away without discussing that decision with, at the very least, the players whose characters might still have connections to that dropped character. In an ideal world, discussing it with their former player would also be kind.
When we have permission to mod another character, players usually put a little OOC note somewhere that's easily visible, just to let other players know that. It could be in the main post, or your character's top comment in a thread, or just the first time it happens in an interaction. This isn't a rule you can "break" – if you forget to do that, it's no big deal. In most cases, people are going to assume you have modding rights over another character if you say they did something. But putting it out there keeps people aware of the OOC situation, and it lets newer players (or potential players who are reading along to get an understanding of the game before they apply) know that there is such a thing as modding rights, so no one assumes it's okay to do that with any character they encounter.
3. Modding NPCs
NPCs (Non-Player Characters) usually belong to a specific player, and are "background" characters who are closely attached to theirs in some way and can appear in their narrative. They get added to the island's population only with admin permission (either in the original application for the main Player Character, or by contacting the admins later about adding an NPC). NPCs that belong to a specific player should be treated just like a regular character when it comes to modding: only do that with the permission of the player who owns them.
There are also long-running business NPCs on the island, such as Tino at Caritas and Tiny at the Devil's Nest. These characters belong to a business or serve a function on the island, but aren't attached to a specific Player Character. Everyone can mod these NPCs a little - Tino and Tiny are there to get you drinks, for instance, and the radio squirrels are Everywhere, so it's fine to mod their presence in a scene when you want to establish that you know it will be mentioned on the radio. The squirrels are also bribable so you can mod paying them off. Please add a "Not For Broadcast (NFB)" to your thread header so that the radio broadcaster knows not to summarize your conversation past that point.
However, the main modding rights for those characters lie partially with the characters working at a business, and partially with the owner of the establishment. (The radio squirrels "belong" to whoever is OOCly running the radio service, which is currently Fry.) As a visitor, you can't mod Tino messing up your drink on purpose while wearing a tutu because of a beef you've just invented. NPCs also can't tell you about other character's secrets or other gossip, especially not without the permission of that character's player. When in doubt about whether it's okay to mod an NPC doing something, ask the "staff" player who made the main post, or ask the player whose character owns the business.
Individual NPCs for the school or the island, who aren't tied to a business, are controlled by the admins. This would include characters like Fosse the Dancing Troll Janitor, Sunshine the Giant Squid, the animals who work in the school office, and in some cases, Fandom Island herself, as a semi-sentient being. So the "owner" to ask in situations where you want to do something with those characters would be the Admin Team. (You can absolutely mod the moose into signing your character up for not-IC/classes your character would hate but you as the player want them to take. You can also mod the moose into inventing a class for your teacher to teach that they normally would not.)
Fandom animals (other than those who belong to a business or the school) count as NPCs too, but they are there specifically for you to play with. You're welcome to use the teal deer (drawn to long-winded characters), alots (drawn by bad grammar), gremlins (mischievous bitemonsters with hallucinatory venom who love the taste of Skywalkers most but will settle for anyone in a pinch) or any other funny critter that's already been established on the island, in any scene you like, as long as they act in the ways that have already been established for their species, and don't do anything "big" enough that it would fall into the category of "need to send a plot proposal to the admins because this affects the whole game."
If you'd like to add a new weird creature to Fandom, though, run that by the admins first. We usually say yes, but there are a few things we need to consider first, like whether it belongs to someone else's specific canon (if it does, ask them first and let us know you did) and what effects its presence might have on the island/game.
4. Sharing Spaaaaaaaaaace…es
The area around our characters is a combination of established content and stuff that we make up as we go along, and as a game, we've evolved some ways of making that work without tripping over somebody else's fun.
a) Private living spaces
Any private space that your character owns, such as a house or the inside of their apartment, is theirs to do with within reason. Don't go knocking existing houses down without admin permission, and keep in mind that there are specific styles for buildings on the new and the old side of the island: the new side hews more modern (but isn't so big you can put a horse ranch on there), while the old side looks like Mont-St.-Michel, France: no American-style buildings here and a ton of stairs. But beyond that rule, your building is your oyster. So to speak.
b) Shared living spaces
Shared living spaces are more complicated. If you play a student, all changes to the inside of your room should be discussed with your roommate if you have one. The common rooms on each floor of the dorms have basic features in…well, common: a TV, sofas and chairs, various media players and game systems, storage cupboards and a dorm-style kitchenette; you can elaborate on those as needed, but check in with the admins before adding anything wilder than that. And speaking of wilder, don't forget that the sixth floor of the dorms may just have what you're looking for if it's not in a common room. All other spaces within the dorms should also be considered admin-owned space when it comes to major changes: you can't go pouring cement into the pool or kicking over all the plants in the rooftop garden. The dorm spaces are limited to students only except in rare BDE-related cases.
The island has two apartment buildings, MCA and MHA. These are run by player characters Jon Sims and Danny Williams. Those players are responsible for determining who gets what apartment, and they have set layouts for each apartment you should stick to. If you're going to knock down a wall, you probably want to talk to your landlord first if only to make sure they know it's happening.
Beyond that, however, individual apartments belong to the characters who rent them. Your landlord may own the building, but he or she can't make changes to your character's living space without prior permission. You're also more than welcome to decorate the inside of an apartment as you see fit, add details where you want them, etcetera. The landlord doesn't get an OOC say over what you put in your apartment, unless it's something that would change the nature of the building as a whole, like installing a wave pool or a 500-year hiccupping curse. Whether they have an IC say is up to you -- landlord-tenant interactions aren't ever mandatory, but they can be a lot of fun when everybody's on board.
c) Shared public spaces
Fandom Town consists of two types of businesses: player-owned and NPC-owned. They're both "public" insofar as anyone can enter a post set in one, but they differ in who gets to post them or can decide what's happening there.
Player-owned stores are pretty straight-forward: the player who owns it has the ultimate authority about what the store looks like on the inside, what it's called, and who can post it when. If you don't own a store or your character isn't an employee of that store, you can't post it. It's that simple.
"But what if I really want to have a drink and Eric hasn't posted the Devil's Nest?" Go to Caritas, or set up your own party space in a private space you own, or in a public space that is NPC-owned. There's no situation in which you can post a player business without approval from someone who has the right to post that business that day, be it the owner or the employee for that shift.
NPC businesses and spaces are more complicated. These belong to the town ICly, overseen by mayor Jesse Faden, and the admin team OOCly. They come in two flavors: unclaimed NPC businesses and public spaces.
A public space would be the park or the beach, for instance. These have no, and will never have, a player owner beyond the mayor/the admin team. That means anyone can post one of these spaces any time they like. Better yet, if the main park or beach or woods are already occupied with a post, you're completely in your right to post something marked 'In Another Corner of the Preserve', or to indicate a specific spot along the beach such as Selkie Cove.
Don't view a post set in one public space as 'claiming' that space for the time slot it's in. The space is still there. Unless the first player has covered the entire park in cling foil, there's no reason you have to acknowledge them - just make sure they, in turn, don't have to acknowledge you. Plausible deniability! Just be kind, and don't make a big show of avoiding a player.
NPC businesses are businesses that haven't been claimed by a player, but could be. Think of Taste of Thai, for instance. These businesses don't have an owner and can be modded as you see fit as long as you're only visiting. You just can't go in and pretend to be in charge: owning a store still requires admin approval. But ducking into the Thai restaurant to pick up some takeout or having a nice dinner there while NPC staff waits on you? Perfectly fine.
There are two exceptions to the "but could be" part up there: Jeff, God of Biscuits and the Perk. Because these are major gathering and socializing spots for all kinds of characters, they remain in admin hands rather than being open for a player character to own them. Both of these stores have their own handwavable NPC employees, both serve coffee, tea, and pastries, and they're supposed to work as stand-ins for each other. That means that if the Perk is full, you can always make a JGoB's post for the same time slot and vice versa. (It's also okay to post more than one Perk/JGOB a day if they are set at different times.) They work just like any other NPC-owned store but because they're not open for claiming you'll never need to make sure there's not a new owner; they'll always be moddable by anyone.
We're a very slow-played game now, so don't think you have to be around at a certain time to be able to play in any of these locations. However, it can be helpful to hold off on posting until you have some free time to play, so you can get your threads going quickly. Likewise, keep in mind that not every poster will ping you back if you tag in hours after their post went up.
5) How to Organize Large Posts
Some posts need wrangling to make it easier to read, and while knowing which ones those are is an art more than a science, here's a few that definitely do:
a) Classes
Classes need to have a sign-in spot, a place for interaction during class, and a place to interact with the teacher before or after the class. (And an OOC thread to close everything up or else all the comments fall out. It is known.) Each teacher is responsible for how a class is run and can prefer teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, or a combination of the two. Please try to get your students to at least sign in for each class you've signed them up for; it's how we gauge student engagement.
b) Big parties that are open to the entire game
Prom, BDE exposition-fests, annual Christmas ragers: if you are hosting something that could have more than, say, 50 pings in it, it's easier to read with some subheads. A few of these events are things the admins post, but it's good to remember for player-led festivities as well. As a reminder, NFSW threads cannot be posted in the main comms, so if you're going to have a Party Like That, take it to a private journal.
c) Posts you just feel are going to get large (not dirty)
Dirty posts do not need OCD.
d) Posts using a public space for some particular conversation/plot where you want to give people an option for not interacting with your character.
If you are using, say, the Perk for an epic break-up/singing mariachi band to invite someone to prom/place to reveal you have secretly been your own evil twin all along, it's considered polite to put up some OCD for characters who are not involved to be able to avoid, you know, all of that. You may also add an OOC note to the main post saying that all other conversations would take place before or after your big moment. You cannot close a public post to just your chosen characters: that's what a private journal entry is for.
CHAPTER THREE -- THOSE LITTLE BITS OF NETIQUETTE
There are some things we require you to check in about -- either with the admins, or with each other -- and we've talked about or linked to most of those in some way or another above: big plots, new NPCs, applying a character or using a plot from someone else's canon, changes to shared spaces, and so on.
But what about the stuff that's not required, it's just…nice? The little courtesies that make plots and threads run smoother, misunderstandings stick to the funny kind where your new friend thought you said to wear his birthday suit to the party, and everybody walk away happy and having fun?
Here are a few that are either common, or have developed over the course of the game as things that we've seen help our complicated, crazy island keep floating along:
1) When to contact someone about using their PB
One of the best parts of RPing on DW is the shiny, shiny icons we can use to add dimension to our character interactions. We now pause to take a moment of silence for ten years ago, the golden age of icon making, when we didn't have to scroll through Tumblr and then awkwardly re-crop images or make our own from scratch like iconning pioneers or something.
But because there aren't a ton of icons floating around any more, we do run into "oh no, our fake kids have the same face" (aka PB, which stands for Played By) moments more often than we used to. Generally speaking for weekend events (like weetinies or fake kids), it's not a huge deal to have a couple of repeats. You can choose not to interact with the accidental doppelganger if it is a plot problem for you.
But when choosing faces for guest characters – or regular player-characters who don't come from a live-action medium – it is helpful to look around at the characters already in the game. You don't have to avoid choosing a PB who looks like an existing FH character, but it's polite to contact that player and let them know that there's going to be a twin running around the island, either temporarily, or long-term. If they want to collaborate on potential Parent Trap shenanigans, that's great! If they want to mostly ignore it, that's fine too. If they'd rather not deal with a lookalike being around at all, we don't have a rule that you can't still use that face - just consider as a player whether making your character look like Miley Cyrus is worth annoying another player; maybe they could look like Demi Lovato instead?
Please note that we're not talking about introducing NPCs or new player-characters who are played in canon by the same actor as a character already on the island. It's super-nice to give the player of Professor X the heads-up that you're applying to play Jean-Luc Picard, but it's never been an expected notification, and the only time we'd require it of you is if you're applying to play a character's actual canon double, because then you'd need to notify them as a potential castmate as part of the application process. (i.e. if we already had Buffy Summers in-game, and you were applying to play the Buffybot. P.S.
2) When to contact people about you dropping a character
We've just concluded a major purge of abandoned characters, but we all know the feeling of a character just not being in our brains any more. Sometimes they come back and you are always welcome to reapply them (if someone else isn't that character in the game at the moment), but sometimes it's just time to drop them and move on. While you only technically have to fill out the dropped character form, to let us admin-types know, it's considered polite to also mention it to in-game roommates, friends, and romantic partners because it's never a great feeling to realize that the character hasn't pinged you back because you've been ghosted and you didn't find out until the tri-annual friendslist update.
3) When to contact anyone
Want to squeal about how great a thread is going with the other player? Want to reiterate that it's your character, not you, judging the shit out of that outfit? Want to double-check that it's okay to ping into a party eight hours after it's been posted? Please, please, please drop an email or, if you're on it, a Discord comment. No one in this game is out there actively trying to make your life harder. This is what we do for fun, and if you're not having fun the quickest way to fix that is to let the other person know you aren't having fun. By telling them. We only pretend to be mind-readers around here. (This also doubles as a reminder to make sure there's contact information for you in your characters' information pages.) If you find yourself thinking "I wonder if I should ask…" the answer is YES. At worst, you wasted a bit of your time because they don't care; at best, you avoid offending someone and maybe even get additional ideas and a willing co-conspirator!
4) … and when to contact the admins (about another player or game situation)
As the admins we know that we wield a lot of power over the game; any action we take against a player can come across as the hammer coming down even when it's only meant to be a gentle reminder. That's why we try to avoid taking steps against players unless it's absolutely necessary.
If you wind up in a conflict, you're unhappy with how another player is handling something, or are in another similar situation, we ask that you try to contact the other player first. Generally, these kinds of conflicts can worsen quickly if the admin team gets involved. A conversation in good faith between two players is almost always the best way to handle an issue, so try to extend that good faith first.
But sometimes a situation just gets out of control. A conflict might escalate, or a player won't stop harassing you or your character. If you've tried to talk to the other player and it's just not working out, you can ask us to step in (at fandomhighadmins@iambicnut.com). We will usually try to steer the situation back to a place where the players can sort it out between themselves, unless an actual rule has been broken. If that's not possible, we may take other steps. Just keep in mind this is a process, and it starts with attempted conversation between adults: not with hauling in the admin team to punish a player you have a disagreement with.
CHAPTER FOUR -- WHEN TO CONTACT THE ADMINS ABOUT OTHER STUFF
1) About plots
We've got a full post on that over here!
2) About changes for your character
If you want your character to start taking college classes online, dye their hair, get engaged, or adopt a standard pet that's available in the real world or already established on the island, go for it! You don't need to ask the admins about that kind of thing. (Do talk to the people your character shares living space with about new pets, though.)
Things we do need you to contact us about:
a) Dropping a character
You can do that right here, or in an e-mail; we don't mind either option. Just don't do it only in an application for another character, because we're reading those primarily for other information, and little notes like "I play X, Y, And Z, but I'm dropping Q" don't always get picked up on as something that means we need to make a change to the Character Directory that's unrelated to the character you're applying.
b) Getting married
Only so we can be aware of that major character tie being created, and so that if there's a wedding post/plot planned, we can put it on the calendar so we don't schedule any big plots that will compete with your wedding. You're not asking for permission here, just letting us know for logistical reasons.
c) Pregnancy/Children
This is under the general plot page, but it is worth reiterating here: don't use pregnancy as a plot lightly. Babies are not disposable. If you do intend on having your character become pregnant/otherwise acquire a child, you are expected to carry through with it logically and correctly. There will be a baby and the character will be expected to keep and care for it if the character remains in the game. BABIES ARE NOT DISPOSABLE. End caps lock. If you're going to have a kid brought onto the scene, your character will be expected to deal with it, including its effects on their social life. Please submit all pregnancy/child-related plots to the admins first. (Also, try to keep pregnancy scares to a minimum.)
d) Getting a nonstandard pet
If you want your character to bring in a magical pet from their home canon, pick up a Flying Furry Whizzbit while on a field trip to their planet, or introduce a made-up species to the island and adopt one of them, contact us first. Most times we'll say yes, but we want to be aware of what’s living on the island, and occasionally we'll have to say "That thing couldn't live in the dorms; it's too big" or "Sorry, no Tribbles; they'd overrun the island and/or mate with the Gremlins and then what would we do?"
e) Changes to a business
You don't need permission to add or remove employees or say "I don't want to run this store anymore; my character's getting a job at Caritas," but we need to know about it to keep the Town Directory and Business Entries up to date. Any time you look at the Directory and say "Well, that character doesn't work there anymore," it's because we have to rely on the business owner to tell us those things and they haven't.
- If things change with a business you already own – new employees, ex-employees, new voicemail link, new description – go to the Business Entry for that business, and let us know in a comment. That way we've got the information right there on the page where it needs to be changed, and also you as the business owner can see what the entry says now, vs. what you want it to say going forward.
- If you want to start an entirely new business, run it by us first - either in your character application for a new Townie, or in an e-mail if you want an existing character to become an entrepreneur. Once that's approved, you'll still need to go over here and fill out a Directory Form so that we can create a new directory entry for the business.
- If you're handing off a business to another character, or just handing it off to the admins to become NPC-Owned again, send us an e-mail. You don't need permission to drop a business, but we need to know, and sometimes we might have to say "No, sorry, you can't hand off ownership of the Devil's Nest to a student. You'll need to pick someone else, or just let us mark it as NPC-run and open to be picked up."
- If you're dropping a character who owns a business, please include that information either in the "Anything else?" section of the Drop post form, or in your e-mail to us if you choose to notify us of the drop by that method. "Also, Zangief owned The Bear Arms, so that place will be up for grabs now."
f) Major changes to the nature of your character
If you want your character to develop new powers that they weren't applied with, come back from an off-island trip 40 years older with a mechanical arm, or catch a mind-parasite who's going to live in their head and act like a second personality, submit that to the admins in an e-mail.
Again, most times, we say yes. We want to say yes to plots, plans, and ideas whenever we can. But for major changes from the character who was applied and approved in the first place, we need to review them to make sure this revised person is going to fit in the game, and that the revisions are something that could plausibly happen to the character.
CHAPTER FIVE--THE BIG FINISH
There's no big finish, folks. This is almost ten pages long as it is. If you want to double-check specific issues we might not have mentioned, we've compiled a Player Handbook that bundles most of the information any new or old Fandom High player will need. This game has been going for 16 years in very large part because all of us enjoy spending our time playing out these amazing, nuanced, fake characters and hanging out with the amazing, nuanced real people behind them. It has been, no exaggerating, a hell of a few years for all of us. Continue to be kind to each other and we'll be here at least another decade.
If you have any questions, well, that's what this post is for. Let us know!
And thank you for getting through this massive whopper of a post. Or pretending to. We appreciate it.
I have a question!
Re: I have a question!
Re: I have a question!
The best we can get is a link to click - but I've put a working link on both the FH and townies profile pages now!
Re: I have a question!
But that is beautiful -- thank you so much for getting on it so quickly!!
Re: I have a question!
I have a VISION!
Nobody's visual interpretation is automatically canon, but sharing what we imagine things look like when we write about them can be a lot of fun.
Fandom Radio Squirrels
Re: Fandom Radio Squirrels
Re: Fandom Radio Squirrels
Caritas
The bar: The design behind the bar is the same, and the stools are definitely the same. It's established that any kind of alcohol you could want from various universes can be gotten here, and if they don't have it, it can be ordered for your next visit!
The stage: The curtain is there, there's a prompter for you to read lyrics off of. It's also bigger than the pic, because there's a four-person zombie band up there between the singer and the curtain and room for DJ equipment. You can see the stage from the bar and the lounge.
The Lounge: Close to the stage but, there are plenty of round tables and chairs around them. There are also booths against the walls, so you can get some privacy.
The Back Room: There is no door to the back room but there is part of a wall that blocks this room off from the bar and lounge so that you can mark an area as a designated party area and have it make sense. There is a TV on one wall that you can see from the bar/lounge. There's also a dart board, and I swear I will add more someday.
The rest here is clearly written by my architect brother who once owned the place:
There's also a storage room behind the stage. The hallway that leads to the back room also features the stairs: one set going up to the small second floor apartment and one heading into the basement where the zombies seem to live when they're not on stage. The restrooms can are probably accessible from this hallway as well. Tino lives upstairs.
The double-door main entrance is near the bar and is a somewhat fancy-looking wood finish. There is an additional door in the back room with access to the alley. In the name of fire safety codes, there is presumably a fire escape exit from the second floor apartment.
The floor is a dark wood-veneer tile. The walls are painted light gray, although they look darker in the dim light. It reflects the blue accent lighting nicely, though.
The table lighting is in the form of pendants centered on the tables, hanging from 11'-0" ceilings. nothing too fancy in that respect, just simple pendant lights. There are also recessed cans for general lighting purposes. At the stage there are two soft spotlights as well as filtered lights to provide lighting effects at request during performances.
I have an OOC!
Re: I have an OOC!
Re: I have an OOC!
Re: I have an OOC!
Re: I have an OOC!