Now
you've made it this far—you know, the part where you picked a character and we
gave it to you—you probably wonder, "What's the next step? What exactly am I supposed to
do?" And that is where this comes
in. Everything you need to know about
starting up in an RPG, specifically this RPG—and if you think of anything we
left out, don't hesitate to ask!
Who to
Pester with Questions:
Your mods, once again with feeling, are:
|
Name
(Character) |
AIM
|
Email
|
|
Ashura
(Harry) |
seekerharry99 |
seekerharry@mailbolt.com |
|
Kristi
(Lupin) |
wolfmanremus |
koanju@yahoo.com |
|
Jess
(Terry) |
brashbootboy |
ferretlovr@yahoo.com |
The
first thing you need is an LJ. If you're a longtime
LJ user, you know how this part works. If you're not, here's the deal: you go to
http://www.livejournal.com and click 'create journal,' enter it in where it
tells you to, and poof, there you go!
The
second thing you'll need is a username.
Investigating this a little ahead of time will save you much headache,
because there are countless numbers of Harry Potter RPGs
out there, and most of the obvious usernames for all the characters are
taken. It takes a bit of creativity, but
we are confident you can do it! (And if
all else fails, add or remove underscores.)
Once
your LJ is set up, you need to let us know what it
is, by emailing or IMing us. We'll add you to the
communities you need to be in, so you've got posting access.
Then you
need to add everybody else in the game to your friends list. Ask one of us if you're new to LJ and need help with this, we'll be happy to walk you
through it. It gets a little tedious, we
know, but it's important, because that's how you keep up on the game!
Finally,
you can customise your LJ to look however you want it
to. There are plenty of preset styles
that look positively spiffy, including, conveniently, combinations of most of
the Hogwarts house colours. If you're a
veteran, you can do all sorts of spiffy things, but you've already stopped
reading this paragraph anyway!
Most of
the RP is done over AIM, or AOL Instant Messenger. First you'll go to http://www.aim.com and
sign up for a screen name. It's free,
and only takes a minute or two, the biggest problem is again that everybody and
their cat and dog in this country has at least three, so all the good names are
likely to be taken. It's up to you if you
want to use a general AIM name or a character-specific one. A lot of us have character ones so that if
we're online but not able to RP, we can just not log that name on, instead of
having to disappoint people.
We also
recommend things like Trillian (a free download from
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com), which lets you sign on more than on AIM name
at once and also automatically logs everything for you. Again, if you need help getting these things
or setting them up, one of us can help you.
Now
that's out of the way and you're all set up, you need to introduce
yourself! Just post to 3_broomsticks,
the OOC community, and let everyone know who you're
playing and how to get ahold of you: your AIM and email. (Some people set up a different email account
for their characters, some don't bother, it's up to
you. Besides hotmail, postmaster.co.uk
and fastmail.fm are both good free email services.)
You'll
also want to give people a bit of an idea where you're coming from, what your
character's been doing, how they should interact with you. If you need to work out backstory
with someone, let them know. Please do
not assume a past with any other characters unless it's canon, and even then,
work out the details with that player—otherwise it's
called powergaming, and it's bad. Most people are pretty agreeable about
working these things out, but they need to know about them!
We
mentioned RPing is usually done over AIM. (In a pinch you can toss emails back and forth
at each other too; it takes longer, but especially if one person hasn't got
access, it works.) This can be done one
in one of two formats: chat and
narrative.
This is
the same as you would use in an IM conversation with someone, and looks
something like this:
seekerharry99: *tosses himself down onto the bed* Tired. Tiiiiiired. What're you doing?
raweasley:
*makes a face* You're tired
because you dragged us out of bed to practice quidditch at 6 this morning, it's
your own fault.
seekerharry99:
Ugh. I guess so.
And so
on. It's easy as a conversational format
but doesn't allow for much detail. We
won't yell at you or anything for it, it's up to you. But we tend to prefer narrative format.
Also called
M* format (because it's what's used on MUD/MOO/MUSH games), this is more like
co-writing a story together. It looks
something like this:
Harry has no idea that anyone might be in the
house, and doesn't quite register that the door swings open a little too easily
when he nudges it, or that it doesn't look nearly so neglected as it probably
should. He closes the door behind him,
looking around the room.
Joel turns with a smile, thinking it will be Graham
or Dennis. The colour drains from his face when he sees it is not. It's too
dark for him to recognize Harry. "Hello?"
A startled light flares up from Harry's
suddenly-clenched fingers, his voice sharp: 'Who's there?'
Yeah,
you get the idea. If you're new to this
whole business, don't stress on it. You
wouldn't be here if you weren't reasonable creative and intelligent, yeah? It'll come.
Do remember that punctuation and capitals are your friends. Consider it the Internet version of good
hygiene.
Many
years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and having a hard drive was still a
bit of a novelty, Ash wrote an introduction to MOO/MUSH games. Most of the technical information is utterly
useless in this instance, but some of the general RP/etiquette tips are
applicable; if you want to look at it (or just want a trip down memory lane),
have a look at http://www.angelfire.com/wa/waterchilde/rpg.html.
The
other part of playing is the LJ post. This is a journal entry telling us what your
character has been up to. There is a 'wizardnet' of sorts consisting primarily of paper journals,
all magically linked together; in some instances a student may have something
else besides a book, but to be completely honest we've never been too
interested in overthinking this part. At any rate, everyone can see what you write
in the journal unless you hide it behind a cut tag marked "Private."
If you
don't want everyone to see what you've written, use cut tags:
"Private": for your character's eyes only, i.e. a
personal journal
"Private
to Character": means that only characters stated can see it (we don't use
this one too often, just because we usually prefer to use post or notes)
"Owl
Post to Character": an actual letter/parcel delivered to a certain
character
"Note
to Character" similar to owl post, only you've left the note somewhere or
slipped it to the recipient between classes
Post
normal entries straight into your character's LJ. The community "incendio_hp"
is for school announcements, Prophet articles, that
sort of thing. The community "3_broomsticks"
is for OOC things.
If you're not sure about something specific and where it should go, you
can always ask!
Please, we'd like everyone to be consistent about the
dates, so here's what you do:
If you are posting from a client (Semagic, etc): Post your entry. Go up
to 'livejournal' and select 'edit entry'. Find the date window and adjust
accordingly, then save changes. Remember, do this after posting, it can
screw things up otherwise.
If you are posting from the website: Sometimes it works to just enter
the date in the window the first time you post. It kind of depends on what kind
of a mood LJ is in that day. So try it; if it doesn't work, just post it and
then go back and 'edit post', then 'save changes' and you'll have the right
date.
Do not "backdate" your post. If you do, it will not show up on the
other players Friends page.
You can find the IC date on the website
under 'calendar.' It also has listed the dates for things like Quidditch
matches and school holidays. It's very handy.
Since
all games are different, here are some things you should keep in mind about
ours: