Game Conventiions FAQ Communications and Journal Updates Upon joining the team, each member is given a Personal Digital Assistant, which is essentially an extremely powerful Blackberry-like device which they are required to carry with them at all times. Characters use this for their personal diary, a way to send messages to other characters, an mp3 player, and a GPS locator.
Characters are required to keep diaries, or mission logs if you’d rather. They can also send messages to other characters. This is done in the character’s personal journal in the following format.
<*lj-cut text=”Private”><*b>Private</b>
Private diary update goes here
<*hr> (hr gives you a hard return, which puts a line in between separate posts) <*lj-cut text=”CharacterName”><*b>CharacterName</b>
Message to the Character listed above goes here.
<*hr> Repeat the above with any character you wish to write to.
Other characters respond in the comments, putting the name of who they are sending the message to in the Subject Line. In many cases, the original poster may send the same message to multiple characters, so this indicates whether they are replying to all or not. To clarify- a blank subject line is a "reply to all," if a character's name is on the subject line then that is the only character who can "read" that information.
RPs All current RPs go in the main community x_nihilo, with one character writing the opening post, and other characters using the reply thread to continue the action of the RP. The subject line of the RP will say Open To (List of Characters Able to post in the RP). If an RP simply says Open than anyone can reply. If you are writing your character alone (usually we use this to advance a plot point quickly or to do character development) we call that Third Person Closed. Putting this in the subject line indicates that the post is complete as is and nobody can reply.
All RPs are written in Third Person, past tense, with description of action, thoughts, and feelings as well dialog with other characters.
Dialog Conventions 1. Internal dialog (aka characters’ thoughts) should be italicized. This indicates that other characters cannot respond 2. Telepathic messages go between sets of two forward slashes like this. //message//. This can only be used by non-telepathic characters when teams are psychically connected in combat situations or when you are thinking something that you intend a telepath to “hear.” It is presumed that a telepathic character is polite enough to not poke into the thoughts of others or respond to something that is not directed towards them. 3. Anything said out loud goes in quotation marks.
Posting Order In general, rps are posted in rounds, with every character the rp is open to getting a turn to post before the first person posts a second time with the same order of character posting repeated in each round. If you would like to post out of order for either player or character reasons please ask one of the mods.
In many rps, the posting order will be posted in the subject line of the rp or if the rp splits into separate threads, in the beginning post of each thread.
History Community There are 2 things that the history community out_of_the_past is used for.
1. Any RPs taking place in the past. This is a good way to establish character relationships without assuming anything. All RP conventions are the same for history rps, except in the subject line, add Backdate to (whenever it is) so that readers will know how long ago the RP took place. 2. Weekly Updates! This is your quick and dirty recap of everything that’s happened in the game in the past week (or two weeks if it’s been slow), and includes links back to each RP or Journal Post for your reference.
OOC Community The OOC Community out_of_a_bookwill be used for things like informing players when and how to add new journals as friends and giving information on RPs (especially large combat ones, where we need to explain who we’re fighting and split up teams). It can also be used by you if you have a question or idea for an rp and the other player(s) are not on aim. That way everyone can be on the same page.
AIM should also be utilized for OOC comments, questions, and planning,
No OOC comments should be put in character Journals or either of the other communities.