FAQ

[varnished_truths]

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Frequently Answerable Questions for newcomers and anyone new to journal RP.

General

• How do you join?
  • That’s easy: make an account, go to the main community's profile and click "join community", read the rules, and follow the instructions for new characters at the bottom.
• Is there an activity check?
  • Nope! Come and go as you please.
• Is there a word count?
  • None of that, either.
• Is there an application process?
  • Nada.
• Do you require character sheets?
  • Not really. So long as all the pertinent info is listed somewhere people can find it, you can style it however you like.

Plot

• What is the plot?
  • There is no single game-wide plot. Plots are developed by the players; the moderators only get involved in an official capacity when there’s a LOL or event that needs approving/managing or when there’s a conflict that needs resolving.
• How do I get my characters involved in plots?
  • Tag other characters. Ask questions. Give answers. Be interesting. Talk to other players. Post in the OOC community with ideas. Plan an event. Post engaging open threads in the main community.
• I want to start a plot!
  • Great! If it’s going to be a community-wide event, double-check the rules for those; if it’s going to involve only certain characters, approach their players and make the arrangements.
• What’s a “LOL”?
  • A LOL is an event where, for some reason, something strange happens to the characters involved. Shenanigans generally ensue. It could be stray ambient Nexus magic, it could be a mischievous fairy, it could be a character with good or ill intent running experiments. Some common ones include body swapping with other participants, being de-aged, being given temporary superpowers, or being turned into a chibi.

Setting

• Where is all this crazy fun happening exactly?
  • The main action of the game happens in a place called “the Nexus”, which is the space in-between all possible realities. That said, you can take your characters literally anywhere you want from there.
• The Fourth Wall: leaning, bending, breaking
  • The “fourth wall” is the invisible wall between a work of fiction and its audience. Given that everyone in the Nexus is a work of fiction, every character has a fourth wall. Some characters are canonically aware of this. Some characters come from universes where it’s known that stories of real people from alternate realities become the fodder for writers and artists. So it’s entirely possible for someone in the Nexus to know that another character is from a work of “fiction”. They might even be aware that they themselves are considered fictional characters in other places.
  • Not every player wants their character to face the existential crisis of learning they’re considered fictional or that there are movies chronicling the worst parts of their lives. Be aware and be kind: if your character is likely to break the fourth wall, advise the other players involved and get their consent.
  • Leaning on and bending the fourth wall passes for funny in these circles, so feel free to have a go at it.
• How does the Antiviolence Field work?
  • Really well, except when it doesn’t. :P Essentially, some mysterious energy that permeates some parts of the Nexus acts to protect visitors by forming a sort of force field around them that wards them from physical harm. People can choose to forgo this protection, either by stating their intent plainly or by leaving the protected areas of the Nexus.
• How much can I/my character permanently change the Nexus?
  • Short answer: ask a moderator. Long answer: nobody but the moderators can change the entire Nexus. However, players and characters can change small portions of the Nexus, both temporarily and permanently, provided these changes don’t undo or get in the way of what other players or characters have done.

Account/Character Creation

• character/account creation walkthrough
  • Decide on a character and come up with an appropriate journal name for them.
  • Set up an account. Fill in as many details as possible.
• What kinds of characters are allowed?
  • All kinds! You can play pretty much whoever you want. The only characters that aren’t allowed are those whose concept is going to be legitimately hurtful to someone. So no making characters that mock a race, gender, lifestyle, etc.
• Are AUs (Alternative Universe canons)/OCs (Original Characters) allowed?
  • Absolutely! Go crazy!
• How AU is too AU?
  • We won’t stop you from playing any AU you want (so long as it follows the rules). However, there may be natural consequences for you choices; if your character or roleplaying style is uninteresting or hard to understand, you’re not going to get much attention.
• Where’s your “taken characters” list? What about faceclaims?
  • We don’t do that here. If everybody wants to play Tony Stark, we’ll need a bigger infinite space to hold the ego, but that’s fine. You can use any played-by you like, even if someone else is already using that face.
• What info should I put in the journal/journal profile?
  • Fill out and post the IC/OOC Permissions Meme to your character’s journal (it's very short and shouldn't take long). Make sure this post stays easy to find: you can link to it in the character’s profile, and/or keep it at the top of the journal by changing the posting date to decades in the future (or using the sticky post feature).
  • Make sure your character's name and canon source is somewhere in their profile. If you're playing an AU or OC, please make that clear in the profile as well.
  • Make sure other players have a way to contact you, either in a journal post or by private message. “How’s My Driving (HMD)” posts are popular for this: it’s a post in your character’s journal with anonymous comments turned on and IP logging turned off. Comment screening can be turned on so that nobody but you ever sees the comments. These posts can be used to discuss how other people think you’re doing playing the character, leaving OOC notes, developing plot, or just about anything else you like. These can be combined with other posts, such as the IC/OOC permissions meme.
• My character’s got this cool power! How do I let other people know?
  • If your character has an unusual power, make sure you explain it somewhere in their journal. A Wiki link is fine for this, so long as the relevant info is easy to find. A journal post that’s easy to find (linked to in profile or kept at the top of the journal) also works.
  • If your character's power is always on, ask permission before engaging a new character. Make sure the other player understands how the power works and would affect their character.
• Do I need an OOC account?
  • Not really. If you want to have one, that can be helpful, but it’s not required.
• Do I need to disclose who all my characters are?
  • Not unless you want to. If you do, that’s fine, if not, that’s also fine. We respect each player’s right to privacy.

Journal RP

• Why RP in a journal?
  • Journals have several distinct advantages over traditional forum games. First, how you see every journal is up to you. You don’t have to worry about someone choosing annoying layouts because you can turn them off and see everything in the basic site layout if you want, or you can use your own layout options.
  • Posting in a journal allows for more sophisticated coding than BBCode. A little basic knowledge of HTML (or copied templates) allows for embedded videos, text wrapped around graphics, easy use of tables, and other visual details that add a nice touch to the games.
  • It’s easy to keep track of everything for your character because you basically have your own built-in subforum. You can keep a copy of your background notes for the character, any non-play writing you do, thread and relationship trackers, and even make visual reference guides. Clever use of tags makes it easy to navigate these kinds of posts.
  • You can use one account to play a character in multiple places around Dreamwidth.
  • You control who has access to your journal posts.
• How to start RPing in a journal
  • Once you’ve made your account (see above) and filled in all the necessary information, you can start posting. If you want to jump right in with a post in the main community, that’s fine and welcome. If you’d rather start commenting on other people’s posts, that’s also fine and welcome.
  • Posts to the main community traditionally include a question. Whatever kind of post you choose to make, it’s recommended to include some kind of hook--give other characters a reason to want to answer you.
• What’s the difference between a journal post and a community post?
  • Technically, only where you put the post. Conventionally, community posts are open to any and all members of the community. Posts that will only involve a select few characters, responses to writing prompts, OOC information, visualosities (collections of pictures), and the like go in the character’s journal.
• What are tags and how should I use them?
  • Tags are a way of indexing posts. They’re links that show all posts with that tag. So if you’re looking for posts set in a certain part of the Nexus, click the appropriate “location” tag. If you’re looking for mod posts, you can find those. The tags for the community are listed in the sidebar.
  • When setting up tags for your character journals, consider making a tag for every character in the scene, so you and other players can find those posts again easily. Other tags for locations, themes, or what game canon it’s part of are also useful. You might use “nexus” for a post related to Nexus Sages, three character tags for the people involved, and “fluff” to indicate it’s a fluffy happy post.
• How do I tell the difference between IC (In Character) and OOC (Out Of Character)?
  • In the main community and RP journal posts, IC is the regular type. OOC is set off with double parentheses, ((like this)). In the OOC community, everything is OOC. In a journal post marked OOC in the title or tags, everything is OOC.
• Why do people write in different styles? What style should I use?
  • Some players prefer to write in prose (like you’d see in a novel), while others prefer action brackets (punctuation setting off non-dialogue text). Either one is fine! Do what you like best.
• How do I reconcile all the different comment threads?
  • To the best of your ability. The Nexus operates in liquid time, which means multiple things can happen sort-of simultaneously. When the threads are finished, use your best judgment. Or just don’t mention it, nobody else will either.
• What’s “liquid time”?
  • Liquid time means that the timeline is soft and multiple things can happen more-or-less simultaneously. A character can be in multiple threads at once, so long as the player can reconcile their timeline afterward. Multiple comment threads on a post are all happening at the same time and distinct from each other, to be reconciled by the players at the end.

What To Do When You're New
Ready to join in? Great! Please do a few things to help make the experience fun for everyone.

• Fill out and post IC/OOC Permissions Meme (it's very short and shouldn't take long).
• Make sure your character's name and canon source is somewhere in their profile.
  • If you're playing an AU or OC, please make that clear.
• Make sure other players have a way to contact you, either in a journal post or by private message.
• If your character has an unusual power, make sure you explain it somewhere. A Wiki link is fine for this, so long as the relevant info is easy to find.
  • If your character's power is always on, ask permission before engaging a new character. Make sure the other player understands how the power works and would affect their character.

Quick and Dirty Journal Tricks

• Multimedia journal posts
  • Pictures
    • HTML for pictures is in the code boxes below; copy and paste it, then replace "blah.gif" with the URL for your image. Basic code is in the first code box. To wrap text around the picture, use the second code box. If you want the picture on the right instead of the left, simply switch where it says "left" and "right" in the code. You can alter the size of the padding too, just change the numbers to make it bigger or smaller. Padding is the amount of blank space between the picture and the text.
    • <img src="blah.gif" alt="blah">
    • <img src="blah.gif" style="border: 0pt none; float:left; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom:10px">
  • Music
    • With music, it's easiest to use a text link.
    • <a href="MUSIC LINK HERE">blah your text here</a>
  • Embedded video
    • YouTube offers pre-generated code to embed videos. Under "share", click "embed". Copy that text and paste it in your post.
  • Visualosity codes
    • Visualosities are like in-journal photo albums: you collect pictures based on a theme and present them in multiple columns, either floating or grid. These codes can be copy-pasted and filled in, just follow the directions. My go-to codes are visualosities in two floating columns and one, two, and three column tables
• How to turn on site skins for journal posts
  • Organize ---> Manage Account ---> Display
  • Text search “Entry Pages: Shown to You”
    • “Entry Pages” are posts with comment threads displayed underneath
    • “Icon Pages” show all account icons
    • “Journal Pages” are the front page of the journal, with multiple entries listed