GAMEPLAY FAQS

[mpu]

GAMEPLAY: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

CHARACTERS / POSTING / TIME PASSAGE / THREADING REQUIREMENTS / WHAT'S NOT ALLOWED / THE FINE PRINT C H A R A C T E R S I PLAY AN UNDERAGE CHARACTER. WHAT'S DIFFERENT FOR THEM? There are certain restrictions placed on underage characters in this environment. The legal drinking age at Outpost 12 is 18. If your character is younger, they're welcome to visit all areas but they may not gamble or purchase alcohol anywhere on the Outpost. In the casino, there's an arcade for underage characters to enjoy. Since all ordering and gambling is touch-sensitive based on handprint, the computers running the environment will know and deny access if underage players try to gamble or order alcoholic beverages. Since we'd like to keep the game as far as possible from any legal trouble, sexual content involving underage characters is not allowed. HOW DO I RESERVE A CHARACTER? If you're currently a member of the game and wish to reserve a character, send an email with your request and the reasoning behind the reservation request to the mods (we do not accept reserve requests from non-members). Please don’t reserve a character simply because you might want to play him or her “some day.” Reserve them because you know you want to send in an application for them in the near future. We’ll consider all reserve requests, but might not grant them. Note: If a character reserved for a current member isn't applied for and approved within two months, that character will no longer be considered reserved. WHEN SHOULD I RETIRE MY CHARACTER? If the time comes when you no longer want to play a character, you'll have to determine whether the character is a good candidate for retirement. Retiring characters removes them from the pool of available players and can only be done if the character has a significant history with other character(s) here or has made some other sort of significant impact on the Outpost itself and the mods agree that retirement is the best course of action. Otherwise, the character will simply be removed from the cast list and considered available for play. CAN MY CHARACTER HAVE A PET? You’re allowed to have pets, but we don’t allow pets to be played as separate characters. This means that while you can write your pet into your own posts, you may not use your journal to play your pet separately. NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCS) Sometimes, play will require the use of non-player characters, or NPCs. We understand this need and ask that you use NPCs sparingly and not as a way to get around the character limit. If you have questions about appropriate use of an NPC, contact your moderators. P O S T I N G MAIN COMMUNITY POSTS VS. CHARACTER JOURNAL POSTS When the action takes place in a common area (casino, hotel, restaurant, shopping, city streets, etc.), then that thread should take place in the main community journal with the current in-game date in the subject line. When it's in a character's room or at a setting outside the confines of Outpost 12 (someone's office, for instance, or another planet or asteroid or spaceship), then you should post it to your character journal and link it to the main community (again, with the appropriate date as applicable). Feel free to make use of DW's "location" option to delineate where the action occurs, and the [open], [restricted], or [completed] tag to let your fellow players know the thread's status. RESTRICTED POSTS VS. OPEN POSTS Sometimes, threads need to be locked to just a few other characters. If that's the case, be sure to use the [restricted] tag. However, note that most community posts take place in public areas and others might stop by. Consider all community posts not tagged [restricted] or otherwise marked as plot-locked open for anyone to join. If we see a preponderance of plot-locked posts in the main community, we might ask you to reconsider and let other characters in. USE OF TAGS The moderators look at tags on community posts to determine frequency of play. Note that the tag system is set up to be used only for character names and thread status. When a character is approved, the character's name will be added to the tag list. However, your character's tag will not show up on the list until it is used for the first time. THE [OPEN], [COMPLETED], AND [RESTRICTED] TAGS These three special tags display the status of your thread. They're used to denote whether or not your thread is all done ([completed]), ready and waiting for all comers ([open]), or only open to a subset of characters ([restricted]). When a thread is finished, we ask that you change its tag to [completed]. If you're in the middle of an open thread, about to wrap it up, and don't want any more people posting in, you can also feel free to change [open] to [restricted] at that point. However, as stated above, we'd rather not see any one character restricting most of their posts, particularly if they take place in areas of the resort where people often hang out. If you're in the middle of an open thread and want to mark it as done without actually finishing it, please communicate with your fellow players in that thread before simply marking it [completed]. Exceptions to this would be anything announced in the OOC community in advance (for example, the site-wide party threads that are only designed to stay open for a limited amount of time). MULTIPLE CHARACTER ENTRY POSTS If you'd like to play more than one of your characters simultaneously, that's absolutely fine. We do ask, however, that you don't make a single post to the community for more than one of your own characters at a time (unless they're interacting in a thread). T I M E   P A S S A G E TIME at the Outpost passes half as quickly as time in real life. For your reference, the current date at the Outpost is updated every other Sunday. You'll find the date in the main community journal's sidebar. T H R E A D I N G   R E Q U I R E M E N T S TIMELINESS AND PACING We may be a small game with a slower pace, but we're eager to play! We highly encourage you to let people know when you'll be falling quiet for extended periods of time. A quick e-mail or a post to 7hoursfrommars is all it takes to show consideration for your fellow players and your continued interest in your threads. W H A T ' S   N O T   A L L O W E D CANON PUNCTURING Canon-puncturing is only allowed with the prior and express permission of the characters involved. Keep in mind that many of the characters in the game are likely have heard of popular books, movies, television, etc. A character's internal narrative about those around him is one thing, but walking up to another character and telling them they're fictional is another. Please respect your fellow players by making sure they're okay with being canon-punctured before your character says anything aloud to them. If you are canon-punctured without permission, please contact the mods immediately. MINIMALISM One-line posts are fine and sometimes even the most logical and in-character thing to do, but we don't want that to be the bulk of anyone's work. We thrive on thoughtful roleplay and enjoy exercising our writing skills. META THOUGHTS IN CHARACTER POSTS We define meta thoughts as those things that you know as a player but your character can't possibly know. If your character doesn't or can't know something, it doesn't belong in the post. EXCLUSIVITY IN THREADING We encourage interaction between a wide variety of characters. While there are certainly times where two characters would spend a great deal of time together, everyone should attempt to make their characters available to others. GODMODING You may not write someone else's character's thoughts, words, or actions for them without having permission from that player. KILLING OTHER CHARACTERS Murder is generally considered poor etiquette. No killing other characters without their prior and express permission. MAJOR IMPACT TO THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT Your character(s) may not make major changes to the geography of the game (building hospitals, for example, or destroying the ISSP station) or drastically affect a large group of NPCs without running it past the mods first. IGNORING THE CURRENT RESTRICTIONS ON PLAYABLE AREAS From time to time, areas of the asteroid will be off-limits. Any current restrictions on playable areas are posted as the top note in 7hoursfrommars. T H E   F I N E   P R I N T PLOTS No Outpost-wide plots will ever be mandatory, although occasionally basic infrastructure and routines may be changed. SETTING You might notice that this seems strangely similar to some things in Bandai Entertainment's anime series Cowboy Bebop. We're fans and it’s Bebop-inspired. The setting is original, however, within the constraints of that particular universe. LEGALESE All sexually explicit posts must be labeled as such, and the content posted behind a cut All graphic violence must be labeled as such, and the content posted behind a cut No in-character sexual interactions with underage characters will be tolerated