The House Rules
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 10:34 am
Below this message, you will find a list of the house rules for the “Halfling walks” series. These are rules that have developed during the course of the story. While most of the rules should be pretty obvious, I felt that it was better to have something in writing and posted for all to see.
Rule #1: To be an active member of the “Halfling walks” series, you are required to post at least three times a week to your story thread. You are always welcome to post more than three times, but we use this rule to keep someone from popping in for a couple days and then disappearing for the next few months. If you know that you are going to be away (i.e. vacation or busy with a project), then we will grant you some leeway during your absence. A simple IM to me is usually all that it takes. Failure to notify me of your long-term absence will result in the “retirement” of your character.
Rule #2: With players being from different parts of the world, it is sometimes difficult for everyone to be around at the same time. To cover for those who are away during sessions, we will be posting actions and comments for different players. You are not, however, allowed to force any player to do something that they do not want to do. Likewise, you should try to stay as true to their character as possible.
Rule #3: In addition to Rule #2, no player is allowed to die without the player’s permission. You cannot attack another player and wound them fatally unless the other person has already approved this. The only notably exception to this case is “retirement” due to lack of player activity.
Rule #4: You should keep your character within a certain set of realistic boundaries during gameplay. While an ubercharacter, who can do anything or knows everything, might be fun for the player, it tends to spoil the fun for the rest of the group. I strongly encourage that you develop your characters and make them special and unique, but this growth should not overshadow the other characters
Rule #5: All out-of-character comments should be made on the thread designated for them. Likewise, I prefer that players do not use a lot of quoting within the actual story threads. Both OOC remarks and quotes take up space and break up the flow of the story. Use them if you need to, but they should only be used when absolutely necessary.
Rule #6: There isn’t an official word count or size for posts, but you should use some common sense when you are responding. Writing five page dissertations on what your character sees and feels would probably be overkill in most situations. In fact, it would be annoying to most other people if they had to read through a lengthy post when a couple paragraphs would suffice. On the other hand, one-line responses also tend to be inappropriate. We are telling a story, and one line doesn’t say or accomplish very much. My suggestion is to try to have at least three or four sentences for any posts that you make (since that would help promote covering more than “My character looks around cautiously.”).
Rule #7: DM’s ruling is final. I like to give everyone a fair amount of room to improvise and implement their own ideas into the story, but there can only be so many people running the story at one time. Feel free to add in comments and actions as you see fit. However, I reserve the right to ask you to alter something in order to preserve the integrity of the storyline.
Rule #?: These rules are merely a guideline and not all inclusive of how things should be run. I tend to be rather lenient on these rules for the most part, but you should try to follow them out of respect for your follow players. If we feel that there is a need to create new rules or amend the old ones, then I will make the appropriate changes as time goes on.
If you should have any questions about the rules, then feel free to contact me via e-mail or private message.
Jason
Rule #1: To be an active member of the “Halfling walks” series, you are required to post at least three times a week to your story thread. You are always welcome to post more than three times, but we use this rule to keep someone from popping in for a couple days and then disappearing for the next few months. If you know that you are going to be away (i.e. vacation or busy with a project), then we will grant you some leeway during your absence. A simple IM to me is usually all that it takes. Failure to notify me of your long-term absence will result in the “retirement” of your character.
Rule #2: With players being from different parts of the world, it is sometimes difficult for everyone to be around at the same time. To cover for those who are away during sessions, we will be posting actions and comments for different players. You are not, however, allowed to force any player to do something that they do not want to do. Likewise, you should try to stay as true to their character as possible.
Rule #3: In addition to Rule #2, no player is allowed to die without the player’s permission. You cannot attack another player and wound them fatally unless the other person has already approved this. The only notably exception to this case is “retirement” due to lack of player activity.
Rule #4: You should keep your character within a certain set of realistic boundaries during gameplay. While an ubercharacter, who can do anything or knows everything, might be fun for the player, it tends to spoil the fun for the rest of the group. I strongly encourage that you develop your characters and make them special and unique, but this growth should not overshadow the other characters
Rule #5: All out-of-character comments should be made on the thread designated for them. Likewise, I prefer that players do not use a lot of quoting within the actual story threads. Both OOC remarks and quotes take up space and break up the flow of the story. Use them if you need to, but they should only be used when absolutely necessary.
Rule #6: There isn’t an official word count or size for posts, but you should use some common sense when you are responding. Writing five page dissertations on what your character sees and feels would probably be overkill in most situations. In fact, it would be annoying to most other people if they had to read through a lengthy post when a couple paragraphs would suffice. On the other hand, one-line responses also tend to be inappropriate. We are telling a story, and one line doesn’t say or accomplish very much. My suggestion is to try to have at least three or four sentences for any posts that you make (since that would help promote covering more than “My character looks around cautiously.”).
Rule #7: DM’s ruling is final. I like to give everyone a fair amount of room to improvise and implement their own ideas into the story, but there can only be so many people running the story at one time. Feel free to add in comments and actions as you see fit. However, I reserve the right to ask you to alter something in order to preserve the integrity of the storyline.
Rule #?: These rules are merely a guideline and not all inclusive of how things should be run. I tend to be rather lenient on these rules for the most part, but you should try to follow them out of respect for your follow players. If we feel that there is a need to create new rules or amend the old ones, then I will make the appropriate changes as time goes on.
If you should have any questions about the rules, then feel free to contact me via e-mail or private message.
Jason