I TINK I THAW A POLY RULE - I diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid, I DID thee a poly rule!

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

We've had a few players voice inquiries in this vein, so figured to address these issues publicly as well – when one asks, ten tend to be thinkin' it.

I. So Two Different Canons Walked into a Bar --

Any standard declaration of "my canon trumps yours," or "my char > everyone," or "my char has power X and Y and Z and goes undefeated in his/her canon, so that clearly extends here as well"? Is NOT moderator-endorsed, and subject to player discussion and negotiation. We do supervise applications and the game in its overall, but we can't account for every single post, thread and userprofile in every single character journal – so if you encounter these sort of statements, know that while they might be backed by player logistics, they are not promoted by Ze Modly Fluff Puff Muffin Unit.

Upon Poly entrance, we ask that people pleeeeeeeease tone down their characters' powers. This has precious little to do with our undying respect of the City's rather fugly buildings never leave Maemi in charge of architecture, kids, and far more with the fact that we really want to avoid canon differences resulting in OOC d0rama. Even if your character was Teh_Shit in their canon, please always try to accommodate the fact that their other-fandom rival in this Battle O' Doom? Might have been the Big Boss in their home world too. Talk things out, don't try to stress the importance of your canon.

Likeliest chance?

The other side doesn't care. ~_~b

Bonneh-lass brought up a good point, namely characters who are specifically designed to be pinnacles of power. That's their canon function, poor dears, and robbing them of their abilities would just mean keeling them slowly.

We're OK with chars' maintaining the full extent of their powers, insofar as players keep in mind that, usually, chars with the ability to DELETE ALL? Also have a no-interference policy. If they don't, they're asked to please develop it now, for Poly purposes. I know this sounds a bit "stupid" : what's the purpose of having an overwhelming power if you can't use it? But it's also a bit stupid to allow every single character with said power running around, killing things. There're only so many flattering takes on the CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY routine.

Save it for the Hallmark specials?


-- then Canon A bent Canon B over the bartop and banged him like a marching drum. Lube or no Lube? You decide! EVERYONE, PLEASE THANK BONNIE FOR THAT LOVELY, EDUCATIONAL STORY.

II. I Know You Know He Knows She Knows They Know We Know I Know --

Re, infomodding and what we mean by that –

If your character didn't possess information before entering the City and hasn't legitimately received it throughout game-play (be it either directly or through logical inferences)? You are not allowed to assume it. Even when you're drawing said inferences / conclusions, if you're dealing with sensitive things concerning someone else's character, it's good form to OOCly secure their approval. No one's going to raise an eyebrow if your character A realizes that if char B has been throwing money left and right, then they probably have quite a bit of it – however, they might be a weee uncomfortable if, from this same amount of information, your char conveniently realizes that it's all one giant money scam on B's behalf.

A particularly unsavoury breed of infomodding is Fourth Walling. Let's face it: we all know a lot of fandoms, and with Poly exposure? We're only going to learn more. Unfortunately, what you know should never be a 100% match with what your character knows.

So, for instance, having a character randomly pop up and tell yours, "WOW I KNOW YOU, YOU'RE FROM THAT MOVIE – " just because they come from a time when the other char's canon would be available in viewable format? Not cool. If you want to assume that your character has been exposed to someone else's canon this way, please talk to the player of the canon in question.

Even if, canonically, your char possesses information about some particular canon? ( Most series throw in a Star Wars joke at one point, y'all.) Please defer from referencing it unless you have the abovementioned player approval. It's… just not nice for most people involved, if you don't.

So does this mean no more cultural references? Not really, no. It does mean, "Tread lightly with the canons of characters involved in present gameplay."

Likewise, it is not the best of ideas to constantly tailor your character's set of skills in order to suit a particular situation – not without the proper character development. We realize that it's sometimes easy to fall in this trap when you're OOCly announced of "daaaaaaanger coooooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiiing," but please try to follow the natural flow of your character's evolution. You don't always have to win. In fact, a small KICK IN THE SHIN, KNOCK ITS TEETH OUT, OH-EM-GEE IS IT STILL MOVING?! Is good for every char, now and then.

Does this cover everything? IT HAD BETTER. ._.v! Just kick a mod into Question Tim0rz, no harm meant or done either way. We like to think that this and very cheesy usernames are what we're here for.

We've been getting a lot of new players recently [thanks for giving the game a chance, guys!], so let's try to give'em a proper welcome. Multifandom love and all that?

Here's to hoping that everyone's week went smoothly ~ !

Comments

[holymadonna.livejournal.com]

Shiny, shiny.

We're OK with chars' maintaining the full extent of their powers, insofar as players keep in mind that, usually, chars with the ability to DELETE ALL? Also have a no-interference policy. If they don't, they're asked to please develop it now, for Poly purposes. I know this sounds a bit "stupid" : what's the purpose of having an overwhelming power if you can't use it? But it's also a bit stupid to allow every single character with said power running around, killing things. There're only so many flattering takes on the CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY routine.

So much word. Their powers are more fun to show off with a limited-well done plot than as routine (boring, IMO). :P

About info modding... What about those characters from a historical or common culture background? Dunno, Dracula, Henry Fitzroy, etc, those references that people from Earth who studied history would know? Not speaking of Anime/Manga/modern novels/movie stuff.

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

Insofar as the character has a legitimate reason for holding this information (...please no iliterates debating the historical inaccuracies in Marlowe's first plays), historical / geographical / non-particular-fandomy knowledge should hold.

There's a difference, however, between knowing the outcome of Vlad Dracula, Romanian liege, and Dracula, Stoker wonder extraordinaire.

[playstheblues.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that if a series breaks it's own fourth wall by the REGULAR characters, it's okay. In the case of Henry, he WAS a historical figure, and I think asking him, "Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Somerset blahblahblah" wouldn't be a horrible fourth wall breakage...unless they also knew he was a vampire (because I'm pretty sure the real Henry Fitzroy also died at the age of 3, or something).

I think, at this point, Dracula is a pretty moot point ~_~ considering we have like...four of them? Or have had that many in the past? I mean, there's a Dracula from almost every canon that has vampires (yes, there are notable exceptions, like Preacher and the Blood series). But Saya, for example, only knows about her world's Dracula, who is vastly different from Hellsing/Bram Stoker/Wes Craven Dracula.

Of course, this is all my opinion.

[dubia-lux.livejournal.com]

Uch, sometimes avoiding infomodding is hard. My recommendation is to really pay attention to who you've interacted with in game what's been behind filters if you play someone who makes erm...a LOT of inferences. *worries about infomodding...a lot*

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

BUT YOU ARE SO GOOD ABOUT INFERENCES *__*v

[warconductor.livejournal.com]

*feels this pain*

I think you do a really good job of it, if it helps.

[theotokos.livejournal.com]

Word on the infomodding, I wish it would go away. I mean, unless it's for comedial purposes, since there are a few otaku characters? No, no, and no.

And yay for power limits. Frankly, it's more fun playing someone that can't handle powers/is absolutely powerless. But yes.

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

Ditto from personal experience - I guess it's all a question of how you can approach the character, too. Sometimes having a looooooot of power is integral to your char's function: like the Endless, from Sandman. They're the representations of power, after all, and if there were none of that, they'd... prolly not be around. But they also don't really interfere with things, soooooo. It balances out.

[playstheblues.livejournal.com]

The other side doesn't care. ~_~b

Yes.

Maybe this is nasty or petty ~_~ but personally, the more someone tries to make their canon powergaming on my canon or if I see an example of someone powergaming one canon over another, I'm really really inclined to stop caring/stop rping with the powergaming canon. It makes me feel like it's a power struggle rather than a game. I mean - I would like to think that if someone doesn't like something another character wants to do, a simple "no" would suffice.

An example would be character a beating up character b for c reason, I think that the mun of character b should have the right to say, "No, I don't want to run that plot, figure something else out to work out your aggression." Isn't that the challenge of this stuff?

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

To be fair, sometimes fights will happen, and there's no reason to exclude an environment that is fun and suitable for people's needs - it's just best for people to talk these things out at leisure, rather than assume that the other party intrinsically knows, understands and approves of their point of view.

[warconductor.livejournal.com]

I've never liked telling anyone that "such and such thing" is impossible, so very yes on the power limits and negotiation. I mean, my understanding was that this sort of RP is very much built on compromise. All-out victories and all-out defeats are... kind of rare, even in fandoms where a character exists as the pinnacle of paragonness.

So... basically I agree and highly support compromise and OOC contact? I always support OOC communication in all it's myriad and wonderful forms.

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

OOC contact ftw. ._.v

[redstrength.livejournal.com]

Agreed, on all accounts. Thanks for saying all this. ♥

Power-wise, I've been trying to tone down Hikaru by not letting her have magic or Rayearth, so she's down to just her basic fighting skills, which are still pretty... strong. But I'll be setting those limits pretty soon as well.

[malkuthmalakh.livejournal.com]

All hail mods. I too, like L-mun fear my infomodding/inferences are inappropriate. I'm never quite sure how much an angel should be able to sense, so I request that everyone give me great spankage if I have overstepped, as I fear I have. I try to turn his power down immensely/not use it as much as possible, mostly because it is more fun to get the crap kicked out of one/decapitated/wings stolen etc. Also I am evil to my chars, as they are mopers/stuffy people who deserve it.

[so-very-greedy.livejournal.com]

I totally agree on all points. It was actually fun to have Greed suffer a rather tremendous ass-kicking recently, at the hands of Gilgamesh. Ultimate Shields are nice, but will reasonably fail against legendary mythological weapons. Sometimes losing is good in that it makes characters reassess and come up with new plans.

[knightofgotham.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much on so many levels that I cannot even stand how thankful I am for this. Seriously.

I personally really like it when players who have characters who, in canon, have "infallible" ways of finding out things about other characters (be it detective work, or even psychic/magical abilities) make posts going, "Okay, my character can do this. What do you want them, if anything, to know about your character?"

I don't know, I'm not being coherent from this being a great day and this post making it better. ♥

[dubia-lux.livejournal.com]

I personally really like it when players who have characters who, in canon, have "infallible" ways of finding out things about other characters (be it detective work, or even psychic/magical abilities) make posts going, "Okay, my character can do this. What do you want them, if anything, to know about your character?"

I love those too. I've done a couple...I really should put a permanent one in L's journal.

[maemihatesyou.livejournal.com]

Maemi says how the buildings look is unimportant. STFU

[asyouw1sh.livejournal.com]

My big problem with characters who break the 4th wall actually isn't when they're recognized, it's when the characters use the information to their advantage without asking someone first. Like, X had Y problem in canon, in the city, Z character brings up Y all the time. I put a contact post up in the journals of characters who have that problem, and I'm always up for Emails/AIM :x

[freakyfanboy.livejournal.com]

Autor's a little troubling in that in canon he is presented as being someone who is obsessed with books (although more Drosselmeyer's stories than others), so in some cases it'd be odd if he didn't, say...recognize someone from a Shakespeare play, or Dracula, or Alice Liddel, or fairytale characters, etc...I try not to have him be too obnoxious about it, though? And I'll try to contact muns before I ever do something that could cause damage.

Also, everyone's free to contact me OOC and hit me with a stick if I do something out of line.

And for reference, my general rule is Autor doesn't know anything that was published after 1900 or so, since...Tutu's so vague on what time period it's set in.

edited for obnoxious redundant use of the word 'though'

[(Anonymous)]

Out of curiousity, #2 applies for all canon, right?

For instance, character A comes from the same universe/world/reality (not necessarily the same canon) as character B, but character A has no involvement with character B beyond what is in character B's canon.Not sure if that makes sense, but I wanted to be clarified.

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

Could you perhaps elaborate a bit? I'm not very sure I understand what you mean, and I wouldn't want to give you an improper answer.

[ginironosora.livejournal.com]

Oh lawl, fourth wall-- what the heck is that thing? XD

But no, I can completely understand how easily boundaries are overstepped, so I always make sure to double-check any cracks and dents in the fourth wall before Gintoki barrels right in... orz

Just wanted to say thanks for reiterating the all-powerful business~! I've seen a bit of that going around lately and cringed. |D; Keep up the good work~!

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

Oooooh! It's a term from (I think, if memory doesn't phail me as always) Brecht's drama? Theatre realism = actors pretend that the "stage opening" leading to the audience is actually a wall in itself. They ignore the audience. Breaking the fourth wall = acknowledging that you're in a play.

No problem, oi. Please bring whatever issue you might have to our attention.

[princeofknaves.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah. I'm going to have to come out and say a big "I am very, very, very sorry." to anyone who's toes I've stepped on with the Joker and/or Gilgamesh? I'm trying to get better at this, I swear!

[whofelltoearth.livejournal.com]

We're OK with chars' maintaining the full extent of their powers, insofar as players keep in mind that, usually, chars with the ability to DELETE ALL? Also have a no-interference policy.

Hahaha...yeaaaaaaah.

[dearprincess.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is all really helpful. :3

I have two questions, though. I apologize in advance if they're stupid or have been answered already.

First question. About the infomodding/fourth wall breakage as it pertains to characters who know and acknowledge, in their canons, that they themselves are fictional. This isn't really an issue for any of my current characters, but I might (mind you, might, I'm not 100% sure yet) be apping someone eventually who is quite aware of their own fictional status and occasionally jokes about it in canon. Is that something we should be careful of, too? Or is it okay as long as they don't recognize anyone not from their canon as fictional?

Second question: Likewise, it is not the best of ideas to constantly tailor your character's set of skills in order to suit a particular situation – not without the proper character development. We realize that it's sometimes easy to fall in this trap when you're OOCly announced of "daaaaaaanger coooooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiiing," but please try to follow the natural flow of your character's evolution.

I agree with this in general, but players will still be allowed to "sit out on"/ignore plotlines that make them -- and I mean, the player her/himself, not the character -- uncomfortable, right? I definitely agree tailoring your character's skillset to avoid any kind of danger is super-uncool, but if there's a specific particular TYPE of "danger" that you, as a player, have trouble dealing with, but might be OOC for your character not to get involved IF they knew it was even going on. Is it okay to fudge things -- like, by arranging circumstances a certain way and stuff, not giving your character special new abilities or anything -- so that your characters don't have to know about it and by extension, both they and you don't have to deal with it?

[ninja-mod.livejournal.com]

OK, er, getting this at 5:02, in case of further uncovered edits -

It's ok for a char you app to recognize his / her own fictional status, but please abide by the above-mentioned rules concerning other players and their characters.

Likewise, it's all right to avoid particular type of conflicts (as we've discussed); we were aiming more towards "please be constant in your character evolution" with that bit.