Post by ADMIN on Feb 4, 2009 19:08:45 GMT -6
Yep, guidelines. I'm pretty lenient about rules, and these are pretty much just common sense things, but please do read through them, just to make sure we're all on the same page.
1) Concerning chat-speak: I don't really care if you use chat-speak OoC, just please, for the sake of we who read your posts, don't use it in character.
2) Concerning signature graphics: Keep them a reasonable size. As long as they don't stretch the page or take up the entire screen, generally they're fine.
3) Concerning post length: We have no set-in-stone word limit, because they tend to be creatively stifling, and sometimes short, quick posts back and forth can be fun. However, as a general guideline, for the most part try and keep your RP posts to a 100 word minimum. As for literacy level, try to keep it at least "intermediate". This has nothing to do with the length of each post, but rather the quality of it. We value quality over quantity here.
1) Concerning plotlines: For the most part, there is no rigid site-wide plot; we're pretty flexible here. There are a few story guidelines, and we will occasionally introduce some twists to the story, but other than that, YOU build the plots..
2) Concerning character creation: The more, the merrier! Make a new charrie any time you get the whim to, as long as you keep them all active. I will ask that you have one account per character, though if you have more than one of your characters in the same scene, it's perfectly fine to use all of them within one single post, and not switch accounts to do separate posts. Each time you make a new character, you will also have to fill out a character application and have it approved by the admin. Your display name should be your character's name, using proper capitalization and no symbols.
3) Concerning magecraft: It's first come, first serve mage-wise. If someone creates a character with a certain mage, and later you want to create a character with the same/an oh-so-very-similar mage, you must check with them first. The first person to lay claim to the mage has the right to dictate if any following characters may possess the same mage. This is to prevent too much monotony, with everyone having the same power, as well as to prevent the stealing of thunder. Should someone become inactive, unannounced, for more than one month, their character's mage is once again up for grabs. The official mage registry is located here.
4) Concerning face claims: First come, first serve. If someone is absent, unannounced, for more than two weeks, their character's actor is up for grabs again. The official cast list is located here.
5) Concerning Mary-Sues: A Mary-Sue is a character that is good at everything, is the most gorgeous person alive, is all-powerful, never gets hurt in a fight, and everyone is in love with them. And they're downright annoying. Please, do not make Mary-Sues. Everyone has flaws. Not everyone is good at everything. Not everyone loves everyone else. Your character is not going to gain a power and the next day be able to use it expertly. Yes, this is fiction, and yes, there is magic, but do keep it a little realistic. Nobody likes a Mary-Sue, despite what the creator of the Mary-Sue thinks.
6) Concerning god-moding: Just say 'no' to GMing! God-moding (GMing) is when you control a character who does not belong to you. It's just plain not allowed. You cannot speak for someone else's character unless you come to an agreement with that person first.
7) Concerning mature content: Yeah, there's going to be violence. There's going to be swearing. There's going to be romance. This is a mature site. If you can't handle it, you don't have to read it. But just because these things are allowed does not mean that you can go overboard with them. Don't swear every other word. If you go beyond a PG-13 rating in your posts, add a warning to the topic of your thread. You can do this by editing the first post in the thread.
8) Concerning canons: Absolutely NO canon characters from the Harry Potter books/movies! No, no, no, no, NO! This RolePlay takes place two centuries after Voldemort's defeat. All the canons are long since dead, and have become just names in history books. And I don't want to see any relatives of theirs popping up either, since it would be unfair for others. And please, I don't want to see any guys named Barry with glasses, green eyes, and whose parents were murdered when he was a baby. Um, no. Just no.
Q: Are creatures like vampires, part-veelas, and werewolves allowed?
A: Of course!
Q: What's your stance on veelas?
A: Just being part veela doesn't qualify a student for acceptance into ADSGMP. However, it does count as a power when the admin is considering your application. So part-veelas should, if their veela blood manifests itself in any way, have a minor mage ability.
Q: What are your vampires like here?
A: Our vampires don't sparkle. If you want your character's mage to be the ability to sparkle in sunlight, that's fine - but otherwise, our vamps are sparkle-free. When a vampire is made, their sire (maker) drains their blood until they are on the cusp of death, and then the human drinks about a half-cup of their maker's blood. Then human then dies, and appears to be dead for three days. On the third night, the human rises as a vampire. The newly made (fledgling) vampire has the human's memories and even their personality, but the human's soul is gone. With their soul, such human emotions as sympathy, regret, and love are gone as well. Garlic and holy water does not bother vampires, but silver crosses burn their skin like acid, and they do burn in sunlight. The older the vampire, the longer they can stand exposure to sunlight without bursting into flames, but even so, they cannot stay in it for any real significant amount of time. A vampire could potentially wear silver jewelery (with the exception of a silver cross) and not be burned by the touch of it, though most of them steer clear of silver altogether, because if it touches an open wound, or if a wound is made by silver, they heal as slowly as a human. Otherwise, vampires heal their wounds rapidly, sometimes within minutes. They are killed either by decapitation or by their hearts being pierced by a wooden stake. When a vampire is killed, their body reverts to the state that it would be in if they had remained dead and decomposed. For older vampires, this means their body would become dust. Vampires are abnormally strong and fast, and their fangs are retractable, like snakes' fangs. They do not cast reflections, but they can show up in specially charmed photos. A vampire's hair will continue to grow after they are changed, but vampires do not age.
Q: What's the difference between a werewolf, a shapeshifter, and an animagus?
A: A werewolf is either the offspring of a werewolf (one or both parents) or is infected when the saliva of a werewolf enters their blood-stream, most commonly through a bite. The werewolf has no memory if being human when it is in its wolf shape, which is a grotesque mixture of wolf and human. Werewolves must change shape on the full moon, and grow irritable during the days leading up to the full moon. An witch or wizard goes through lots of training to become an animagus, and it takes a lot of skill to learn. When an animagus is in their animal form, which they can change into at will, they have almost no mentality of that animal, and instead have full awareness of their human self, and full access to their human memories. There is no halfway point for an animagus - they are either fully human, or fully in animal shape. A shapeshifter is a specific type of mage. They can change into the shape of an animal, and if they are skilled enough, can halt the process partway, so they only take on certain aspects of the animal. They often retain heightened senses even in human form. When in animal form, the shapeshifter is mostly aware of who they are and has access to their memories, but they also take on part of the animal's mentality and instincts. Shapeshifters can change shape at will, but changing back and forth is a drain on their energy, so they do not do it rapidly and frequently. Shapeshifters feel a strong compulsion to change shape on the night of the full and new moons, but they can resist this impulse, though not without some discomfort.
Q: May I be a professor?
A: You may indeed!
Q: May I be a Death Eater?
A: Yes!
Q: May my Death Eater be a descendant of Voldemort?
A: No.
Website Guidelines
1) Concerning chat-speak: I don't really care if you use chat-speak OoC, just please, for the sake of we who read your posts, don't use it in character.
2) Concerning signature graphics: Keep them a reasonable size. As long as they don't stretch the page or take up the entire screen, generally they're fine.
3) Concerning post length: We have no set-in-stone word limit, because they tend to be creatively stifling, and sometimes short, quick posts back and forth can be fun. However, as a general guideline, for the most part try and keep your RP posts to a 100 word minimum. As for literacy level, try to keep it at least "intermediate". This has nothing to do with the length of each post, but rather the quality of it. We value quality over quantity here.
Roleplay Guidelines
1) Concerning plotlines: For the most part, there is no rigid site-wide plot; we're pretty flexible here. There are a few story guidelines, and we will occasionally introduce some twists to the story, but other than that, YOU build the plots..
2) Concerning character creation: The more, the merrier! Make a new charrie any time you get the whim to, as long as you keep them all active. I will ask that you have one account per character, though if you have more than one of your characters in the same scene, it's perfectly fine to use all of them within one single post, and not switch accounts to do separate posts. Each time you make a new character, you will also have to fill out a character application and have it approved by the admin. Your display name should be your character's name, using proper capitalization and no symbols.
3) Concerning magecraft: It's first come, first serve mage-wise. If someone creates a character with a certain mage, and later you want to create a character with the same/an oh-so-very-similar mage, you must check with them first. The first person to lay claim to the mage has the right to dictate if any following characters may possess the same mage. This is to prevent too much monotony, with everyone having the same power, as well as to prevent the stealing of thunder. Should someone become inactive, unannounced, for more than one month, their character's mage is once again up for grabs. The official mage registry is located here.
4) Concerning face claims: First come, first serve. If someone is absent, unannounced, for more than two weeks, their character's actor is up for grabs again. The official cast list is located here.
5) Concerning Mary-Sues: A Mary-Sue is a character that is good at everything, is the most gorgeous person alive, is all-powerful, never gets hurt in a fight, and everyone is in love with them. And they're downright annoying. Please, do not make Mary-Sues. Everyone has flaws. Not everyone is good at everything. Not everyone loves everyone else. Your character is not going to gain a power and the next day be able to use it expertly. Yes, this is fiction, and yes, there is magic, but do keep it a little realistic. Nobody likes a Mary-Sue, despite what the creator of the Mary-Sue thinks.
6) Concerning god-moding: Just say 'no' to GMing! God-moding (GMing) is when you control a character who does not belong to you. It's just plain not allowed. You cannot speak for someone else's character unless you come to an agreement with that person first.
7) Concerning mature content: Yeah, there's going to be violence. There's going to be swearing. There's going to be romance. This is a mature site. If you can't handle it, you don't have to read it. But just because these things are allowed does not mean that you can go overboard with them. Don't swear every other word. If you go beyond a PG-13 rating in your posts, add a warning to the topic of your thread. You can do this by editing the first post in the thread.
8) Concerning canons: Absolutely NO canon characters from the Harry Potter books/movies! No, no, no, no, NO! This RolePlay takes place two centuries after Voldemort's defeat. All the canons are long since dead, and have become just names in history books. And I don't want to see any relatives of theirs popping up either, since it would be unfair for others. And please, I don't want to see any guys named Barry with glasses, green eyes, and whose parents were murdered when he was a baby. Um, no. Just no.
FAQ
Q: Are creatures like vampires, part-veelas, and werewolves allowed?
A: Of course!
Q: What's your stance on veelas?
A: Just being part veela doesn't qualify a student for acceptance into ADSGMP. However, it does count as a power when the admin is considering your application. So part-veelas should, if their veela blood manifests itself in any way, have a minor mage ability.
Q: What are your vampires like here?
A: Our vampires don't sparkle. If you want your character's mage to be the ability to sparkle in sunlight, that's fine - but otherwise, our vamps are sparkle-free. When a vampire is made, their sire (maker) drains their blood until they are on the cusp of death, and then the human drinks about a half-cup of their maker's blood. Then human then dies, and appears to be dead for three days. On the third night, the human rises as a vampire. The newly made (fledgling) vampire has the human's memories and even their personality, but the human's soul is gone. With their soul, such human emotions as sympathy, regret, and love are gone as well. Garlic and holy water does not bother vampires, but silver crosses burn their skin like acid, and they do burn in sunlight. The older the vampire, the longer they can stand exposure to sunlight without bursting into flames, but even so, they cannot stay in it for any real significant amount of time. A vampire could potentially wear silver jewelery (with the exception of a silver cross) and not be burned by the touch of it, though most of them steer clear of silver altogether, because if it touches an open wound, or if a wound is made by silver, they heal as slowly as a human. Otherwise, vampires heal their wounds rapidly, sometimes within minutes. They are killed either by decapitation or by their hearts being pierced by a wooden stake. When a vampire is killed, their body reverts to the state that it would be in if they had remained dead and decomposed. For older vampires, this means their body would become dust. Vampires are abnormally strong and fast, and their fangs are retractable, like snakes' fangs. They do not cast reflections, but they can show up in specially charmed photos. A vampire's hair will continue to grow after they are changed, but vampires do not age.
Q: What's the difference between a werewolf, a shapeshifter, and an animagus?
A: A werewolf is either the offspring of a werewolf (one or both parents) or is infected when the saliva of a werewolf enters their blood-stream, most commonly through a bite. The werewolf has no memory if being human when it is in its wolf shape, which is a grotesque mixture of wolf and human. Werewolves must change shape on the full moon, and grow irritable during the days leading up to the full moon. An witch or wizard goes through lots of training to become an animagus, and it takes a lot of skill to learn. When an animagus is in their animal form, which they can change into at will, they have almost no mentality of that animal, and instead have full awareness of their human self, and full access to their human memories. There is no halfway point for an animagus - they are either fully human, or fully in animal shape. A shapeshifter is a specific type of mage. They can change into the shape of an animal, and if they are skilled enough, can halt the process partway, so they only take on certain aspects of the animal. They often retain heightened senses even in human form. When in animal form, the shapeshifter is mostly aware of who they are and has access to their memories, but they also take on part of the animal's mentality and instincts. Shapeshifters can change shape at will, but changing back and forth is a drain on their energy, so they do not do it rapidly and frequently. Shapeshifters feel a strong compulsion to change shape on the night of the full and new moons, but they can resist this impulse, though not without some discomfort.
Q: May I be a professor?
A: You may indeed!
Q: May I be a Death Eater?
A: Yes!
Q: May my Death Eater be a descendant of Voldemort?
A: No.