The Rules
Every game has a code of conduct governing both In Character (IC) and Out Of Character (OOC) behavior. There are 10 primary rules for FRA. I'll set them out here, in the beginning, for easy reference.
- With the exception of combat situations, the first person to post will be the first person to act. I encourage players to 'hang back' for a bit if their sudden activity is likely to interrupt an important exchange between others, not only to avoid sudden plot shifts (and thereby robbing others of a chance to get questions answered, or to catch their breath), but because doing so makes it much easier for me to assemble posts for the archive. By the same token, try to avoid going 'back in time' to fix or adjust what your PC (or somebody else's) has already said or done. I am unlikely to approve such an action, unless it be the correction of a very, very minor mistake, or if someone posts a lot of dialogue and invites you to interpose a reply or two. In situations where two or more PCs perform tasks simultaneously, I will let initiative determine the order of events.
- The FRA archive is intended to read like a novel. I wanna insist that all writing acknowledges the third person past tense format, and that you do what you can to agree your style and pacing with the general flow of the story. Everybody screws this up once in a while. I am not likely to get on your case for forgetting -- as long as you don't get on mine (!), and as long as it doesn't happen every other post. I also ask that you avoid having your PC refer to anything in game terms, since blabbering about 'hit points,' 'armor class,' 'attack bonuses,' etc., tends to instantly annihilate all suspension of disbelief; that sort of thing should be saved for an [OOC] note at the bottom of your post. (See sample post below).
- Players (and DM) should do everything in their power to avoid unnecessary anachronisms, which I hate like the plague, because of their nullifying effects on suspension of disbelief -- and because they're never really that funny, when you come down to it. I know it's occasionally just impossible to resist the urge, and modern expressions often fall from out our heads without our realizing; all the same, I do ask for the strictest attention you can muster. #3 goes double for smart-alecky rogues! I love 'em, of course, but be careful, please!!
- The same prohibition goes for 'finagling,' rpg terminology for the act of describing or prescribing the actions, reactions, or thoughts of any character beyond your own. If your sorcerer is dark and intimidating, fine; just don't tell us that we're scared of him. Instead, try to conjure up colorful adjectives that will leave us readers with an impression that we ought to be scared of him, or at least that he's got serious issues. What I'm really asking by this is that everyone try to be considerate of other characters. Barring certain outcomes (magical effects, injuries, skill failures, etc.), you reserve complete control over your PC, just as I reserve control over all NPCs.
- This is a good time to mention that I'll be handling all the rolls, checks, saves, etc., and that the best way you can facilitate my doing so is by understanding the rules and by specifying exactly what you're attempting to do in game terms, with check modifiers, in an OOC note (again, to be placed after your IC post). You are also expected to keep track of your money, equipment, health status, and so on. Give me a ring if you lose your character sheet, because I'm going to keep copies on a floppy disk, and will gladly e-mail an extra to you.
- All DM rulings are final, including retroactive rulings. If you have a problem with something that's happening in the game, or need to explain something about the situation or your PC that you suspect I'm not seeing, by all means contact me! I am not a totally unreasonable fascist, and understand that mad players = no players = no game. To keep the game going smoothly, however, it'll occasionally be necessary for me to clamp down on lengthy arguments and/or rules lawyering, so please don't raise too loud a ruckus unless I'm being totally daft about something. We're all friends here! No, really! And it's only a game, after all. I'm less likely to hurt a friendly, understanding PC than an intolerably bad-tempered one.
- If you're going to insult or harass somebody, do it IC. I can not tolerate a petty player or one who deliberately antagonizes me or anybody else. PCs getting into arguments is perfectly fine and probably somewhat inevitable, but outright nastiness ought to stop 'at the water's edge,' as the old saying goes. If you see someone misbehaving, try to be diplomatic about it. If you can't think of anything nice to say, let me know first so I can deal with it. I hate it when older players gang up on newer ones, and am committed to helping everybody as best I can, just like the ACLU. Of course, if you cause a lot of people a lot of problems, there is the wretched possibility that I'll have to eject you from the game. But I'm reluctant to do that, and praying that the issue won't come up. Please pray with me. Do it, you heathen!
- Try not to post any more than a single action or two. Soliloquies or extended narratives are plain awful in pbem, because they negate the ability of other players to respond adequately. I have watched, horrified, as a PC asks someone ten complex questions without a pause, or wanders off from the main group, performs a complicated activity by himself, and returns, all in the space of a single post. God help you if you do this. It makes for more work, and really amounts to nothing more or less than 'finagling' (see Rule #4). Players who do it often will incur the ire of a merciless DM.
- Keep IC and OOC information seperate. Your character will not always know what you know; a 1st level fighter will be fairly ignorant of magic and its uses, and won't be familiar with terms like 'familiar' (ha-ha), 'spell component,' or 'somatic.' Nor will she necessarily be able to guess what is going on elsewhere, even if you, the player, have. Keep an eye on your Intelligence and Wisdom scores, folks! Not to mention your alignment and your background. Faerun is a fairly backwards place, technologically, and a formal education is tremendously hard to come by. Ignorance should amount to policy when it comes to the average low-level PC.
- There is no required posting rate for FRA. They're impossible to set and usually way too ambitious. If I feel things are lagging unnecessarily, I'll attempt to take a few reasonable countermeasures, up to and including personal contact. However! Unless you haven't logged in for a week or more (without telling me why), I will respect your PC's inviolate status. Any longer than that, and I may need to NPC your character for the remainder of the round -- with the understanding that he or she will take no outright aggressive actions, and will make no controversial life decisions. If you disappear for longer than three weeks, however, you lose your active status, and I will NPC the character freely.
Since I'm going to be pretty picky about recruiting, it probably isn't necessary -- at least, I dearly hope it isn't necessary -- to publish a lengthly discourse on the virtues of good spelling and grammar. Small mistakes can easily be fixed for the archives, but large or fundamental ones are incredibly frustrating, and players who are anything less than sure about the basic structural integrity of their posts are encouraged take advantage of the resources in the above-left sidebar. I am no natural grammarian, as you may have noticed, and I find these tools and tips infinitely more interesting and helpful to work with than just blundering on in the usual faulty way. Hopefully you do too.
Posting
Posts are most legible when published through the Yahoo! Groups page itself, NOT when composed through your e-mail program. E-mail tends to screw up the spacing and appearance of your writing, making it more difficult for others to sort out what you're trying to say. The group page, on the other hand, presents posts in a uniform way, thus eliminating some of the difficulty of archiving. I will gently remind players of this from time to time if they forget. It isn't a cardinal rule, of course, so don't worry too much about breaking it, especially if you are forced to because of Web TV or whatever.
I suppose the easiest way to explain the posting method for FRA would be to show you an example, and attach footnotes (each signified by a lowercase Roman numeral in bold) where important explanations are needed:
From: strongbad@homestarrunner.com
To: fradventures_group@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [FRA: 1402] [5: The Buns of Auggus] [Ellowen to Inn Group] i
[DM - old] ii
Once she had coaxed a flame large enough to sustain itself for another hour, the barmaid set the bellows back down beside the hearth and climbed back up to her feet. She hardly gave the group a passing look before trudging stiffly back toward the kitchen, the hem of her ragged skirt now dingy with grayish soot. iii
[Ellowen - new] iv
With the young girl safely out of the way, Ellowen leaned forward over the table and proceeded to inform the others what she had found out. "The stable boy claims a wizard came through two days ago," she whispered conspiratorially, "with two others -- henchmen, by the sound of it. They stayed here for the evening, paid for seperate rooms, and were fairly tight with their silver." v
The sudden, raucous laughter of a nearby villager gave her momentary pause, and when the elf finally went on, she had switched over to her native tongue. <*"He didn't know anything about their purposes, or their destination. Apparently they aren't a talkative bunch."> With that she fell silent, flashed an expectant glance at her friends, and returned her attention to the common room. vi
[OOC]
*Elvish
I will perform a Spot check (+3), in case anybody close by is trying to spy on us. vii
And now for the footnotes:
i. The subject line contains three data packets, each enclosed in hard brackets. The first includes the post number and "FRA" (for Forgotten Realms Adventures); the second includes the chapter number and name (in this case, Chapter 5, "The Buns of Auggus"); and the third signifies which character is posting and whom she is respond to (in this case, an elf named Ellowen is interacting in an inn with multiple other party members). Note that in the last case a character can respond to a loose group, an individual, or everyone in the game.
ii. This data packet identifies either the last person to post or the person whose post your character is responding to (in this case, the last person to post was me, the DM).
iii. Before adding their reply, players should post the last paragraph of the post they are replying to (in this case, one of mine). This gives your post a vital bit of context, and also helps me in the archival process.
iv. Like ii, except here you are identifying your character.
v. The first paragraph of your post. Note that paragraphs do not need to be indented.
vi. The second paragraph of your post. Note the space between paragraphs. You can, of course, take as many paragraphs as you need; but remember not to do too much in a single post (see rule #8.) The pointed brackets indicate that the character has chosen to speak in a language other than the Common tongue of Faerun (also called Chondathan); the asterisk draws the reader's attention to the OOC notes, where the language should be identified.
vii. Players should place their OOC notes at the end of their post, as clearly and in as concrete of gaming terms as possible. The [OOC] is a signal to everyone that the IC portion of your post is over with. Note that Ellowen's character has identified her non-Common language as "Elvish" and has informed the DM that she wants to try an active Spot check (with a +3 modifier).
I hope this helps clarify things. If you don't understand, go ahead and e-mail me for further answers -- or, if you're an intrepid soul, you can try and read some of the mailing list material and work out the right method for yourself. I know it's kind of fussy, but once you get used to it I promise it'll come fairly naturally. The whole purpose for a standard posting format is to help make things as clear as possible for the other players and for me, nothing more. It's not to make your life miserable. I swear.
Forgetting to follow any one of these protocols is no big deal; forgetting several is a little worse, and forgetting after a hundred million reminders from yours truly is kind of a major no-no. But trust me, you'll get the hang of it. If I can, any chimp can.
1 extra hit point for knowing who Strong Bad is.
Posting
Posts are most legible when published through the Yahoo! Groups page itself, NOT when composed through your e-mail program. E-mail tends to screw up the spacing and appearance of your writing, making it more difficult for others to sort out what you're trying to say. The group page, on the other hand, presents posts in a uniform way, thus eliminating some of the difficulty of archiving. I will gently remind players of this from time to time if they forget. It isn't a cardinal rule, of course, so don't worry too much about breaking it, especially if you are forced to because of Web TV or whatever.
I suppose the easiest way to explain the posting method for FRA would be to show you an example, and attach footnotes (each signified by a lowercase Roman numeral in bold) where important explanations are needed:
From: strongbad@homestarrunner.com
To: fradventures_group@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [FRA: 1402] [5: The Buns of Auggus] [Ellowen to Inn Group] i
[DM - old] ii
Once she had coaxed a flame large enough to sustain itself for another hour, the barmaid set the bellows back down beside the hearth and climbed back up to her feet. She hardly gave the group a passing look before trudging stiffly back toward the kitchen, the hem of her ragged skirt now dingy with grayish soot. iii
[Ellowen - new] iv
With the young girl safely out of the way, Ellowen leaned forward over the table and proceeded to inform the others what she had found out. "The stable boy claims a wizard came through two days ago," she whispered conspiratorially, "with two others -- henchmen, by the sound of it. They stayed here for the evening, paid for seperate rooms, and were fairly tight with their silver." v
The sudden, raucous laughter of a nearby villager gave her momentary pause, and when the elf finally went on, she had switched over to her native tongue. <*"He didn't know anything about their purposes, or their destination. Apparently they aren't a talkative bunch."> With that she fell silent, flashed an expectant glance at her friends, and returned her attention to the common room. vi
[OOC]
*Elvish
I will perform a Spot check (+3), in case anybody close by is trying to spy on us. vii
And now for the footnotes:
i. The subject line contains three data packets, each enclosed in hard brackets. The first includes the post number and "FRA" (for Forgotten Realms Adventures); the second includes the chapter number and name (in this case, Chapter 5, "The Buns of Auggus"); and the third signifies which character is posting and whom she is respond to (in this case, an elf named Ellowen is interacting in an inn with multiple other party members). Note that in the last case a character can respond to a loose group, an individual, or everyone in the game.
ii. This data packet identifies either the last person to post or the person whose post your character is responding to (in this case, the last person to post was me, the DM).
iii. Before adding their reply, players should post the last paragraph of the post they are replying to (in this case, one of mine). This gives your post a vital bit of context, and also helps me in the archival process.
iv. Like ii, except here you are identifying your character.
v. The first paragraph of your post. Note that paragraphs do not need to be indented.
vi. The second paragraph of your post. Note the space between paragraphs. You can, of course, take as many paragraphs as you need; but remember not to do too much in a single post (see rule #8.) The pointed brackets indicate that the character has chosen to speak in a language other than the Common tongue of Faerun (also called Chondathan); the asterisk draws the reader's attention to the OOC notes, where the language should be identified.
vii. Players should place their OOC notes at the end of their post, as clearly and in as concrete of gaming terms as possible. The [OOC] is a signal to everyone that the IC portion of your post is over with. Note that Ellowen's character has identified her non-Common language as "Elvish" and has informed the DM that she wants to try an active Spot check (with a +3 modifier).
I hope this helps clarify things. If you don't understand, go ahead and e-mail me for further answers -- or, if you're an intrepid soul, you can try and read some of the mailing list material and work out the right method for yourself. I know it's kind of fussy, but once you get used to it I promise it'll come fairly naturally. The whole purpose for a standard posting format is to help make things as clear as possible for the other players and for me, nothing more. It's not to make your life miserable. I swear.
Forgetting to follow any one of these protocols is no big deal; forgetting several is a little worse, and forgetting after a hundred million reminders from yours truly is kind of a major no-no. But trust me, you'll get the hang of it. If I can, any chimp can.
1 extra hit point for knowing who Strong Bad is.
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