I think I've got the time to do this now, so here goes. sweatdrop
As stated above, The Grand Stage is for serious roleplaying. I'm looking for Free-Form Role Playing myself, where very few rules are used beyond content limits for genre (ie: swords and sorcery don't mix with laser pistols and warp drives...unless specified at the start. We'll get into that later.) To put a very broad idea out there, here would be like playing an RPG without all the random monster battles. Just the story, and we all make up the people in that world.
These things tend to develop nicely on their own. Mix in enough people and it stays entertaining. Considering how few people we have that stay active though, I suppose playing multiple characters isn't too awful of an idea, but I'd like to avoid it.
Thread Rules
For Free-Form RPs, my idea was each thread is a different area in the same game. Where Outer Oblivion (OO) and A Broken World (ABW) are independent and self-contained, the games I'd like to start are going to span over multiple threads, what I'd like to call 'rooms'. What happens in Room A can reflect on Room B, but a person in B won't hear/see/know what's going on in A at that time. I hope that makes sense.
Tagging
The first major rule issue I'd like to tackle is tagging. For every Room in the same game, I want a tag at the end of the title representing that game. I will keep all tags listed at the end of this thread for reference. Anyone can make a new Room for an OPEN Game. CLOSED Games must have any new Room cleared by their creators. All games' status will also be listed below.
Rooms
Next up, Rooms. Now you may be thinking at this point "If everything happens in Rooms, what about outdoors?". If you're not, well bear with me. I'm only gonna explain this once. smile A Room can be any kind of location. A single room in a larger building; an entire building; a small town; a large, open, undeveloped tract of land...whatever. Your imagination is all that really limits what there can be.
Descriptions
Here is the most important part of the games. Descriptions. Your words are all our mind's eye have to work with. The more descriptive you are about a Room, the better! Don't be afraid to write pages of detail into a Room. FFRP is all about the literary content. Lots and lots of words make for good roleplaying. Mostly I think I'm begging for people to avoid Rooms that look like this.
Living Room
This is a living room. There's a couch and a TV. Its a big TV and the couch is really nice.
A more appropriate version of the same room might look like this.
Living Room
As you step into the living room, you are awed by the dominating presence of a sixty-one inch plasma television that rests against the East wall. Directly opposite the television is a large leather sofa, upholstered in a dark, chocolate brown color, that blends nicely with the cherrywood coffee table and end tables. The sofa appears to have reclining seats at both ends, with cupholders in the armrests, and could comfortably seat five. The rest of the room lacks inspired decoration, the walls covered in a plain faux-wood-paneled wallpaper. Narrow windows in the West wall let in sunlight from behind the sofa.
And that's just a quick description. But I hope you all agree with me when I say it paints a much clearer picture of the Room. Try to be detailed. That's all I ask.
Form
If we can keep things uniform, that would be wonderful. But I doubt its going to happen. If you use action brackets for describing what you're doing, stick with it. *adjusts her glasses* If you're not going to use brackets for actions, then you need to use quotations for talking. " " or ' ' are both fine. I tend to mix things up on accident and use " ' or ' " myself. Try to ignore those. sweatdrop Also, if you feel up to it, use both. But whatever you decide, try not to change it up too much. Stay with one set.
Characters
You'd think I'd place this higher on the list, right? Well I'm scatterbrained, so deal with it. Characters do not need a complete Bio listing when they enter the games. A detailed description of your character (how they look, dress, move, act, sound) should be posted whenever they enter a Room. I realize this will end up looking like a lot of repetition, but it will also help new players see everyone as they are when they join, instead of having to scroll through pages and pages of backlogs. Quick note, make sure to note when you leave a Room as well, otherwise, as far as everyone else is concerned, you're still there.
Now, in the realm of FreeForm, anything goes, right? Yes and no. I generally won't put the kabosh on anyone's character, but please, no God-Mode-ing. Its all well and good to be mysterious and hide your true powers, but please, don't act like you have supreme power over everyone and everything. It ruins the game for other people. Try to keep it in check.
Fighting
I've never seen a FreeForm that didn't come to blows at some point in time, so I'm going to institute a basic set of Fighting Rules. For those of you that don't see how fighting can really be done, I'd suggest taking a look at the tussle between The Phantom and The Cerulean Knight we had a few weeks back. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.
So, here's the basics of the 3-Hit Rule.
1. First player to score three Hits on their opponent is the victor.
1a. A Hit is scored when the target of an Attack/Counter decides that they cannot possibly Defend themself from the Attack. (I realize that for stubborn people, fights like this could go on for years. I've seen real-time fights in this style go on for hours. It can be interesting.)
2. A player need not be killed to be defeated.
3. Any Attack begins a battle.
4. The basic options of battle are Attack, Defend, Counter, Flee and Concede.
4a. A player is allowed both and Attack and a Defend, or a Counter, but never all 3 at once.
4b. If a player Attacks, s/he must wait for his/her target to either Defend or Counter before responding.
4c. If a player Defends, they may then Attack, Flee or Concede.
4d. A Counter must involve both a response to an Attack, either by evasion or defense, AND a response of an Attack.
4e. If a player chooses to Flee after Defending, they must leave the Room. If they are encountered by their opponent at a later time, however, the fight can continue.
4f. If a player chooses to Concede, then they have chosen to lose the battle for whatever reason and are considered defeated. The battle is ended.
...that's all I can remember right now. I think that's enough anyways. You people can figure out how a dispute is handled after a fight on your own. But if you lost, don't pull some wild energy out of nowhere and start attacking again. No Dragon Ball antics.
Now where was I...?
Oh! Right! More small things.
Please refrain from using Quotes in the RP's. Let events unfold one statement at a time.
If you need to say something out of the game, make sure you do it Out Of Character, or OOC. Designate this before/after the statement, so people know where you're back in character. [OOC] [/OOC], using the CODE or QUOTE box, et cetera. Just make it obvious.
Please, for the love of God, don't use smilies! I'm not going to explain myself, and I really hope I don't need to. Just...don't.
Unless you've worked it out ahead of time that your characters know one another, please don't go about talking to people and saying their names unless you've been to introduced one another. Everyone is a stranger until you know them.
One last thing. If you could remember to, detach your signature from any RP posts. See that box right under the text entry, says Options: [ ] Attach Signature ? Use that. You don't have to, but I'd appreciate it. I expect to forget 90% of the time myself.
...I think that's it. I'll start a Fantasy Role Play (FRP) soon. Happy RPing!
