About the Star Army Role-Play
Purpose and Goals of this Site
StarArmy.com is the home of a community of
creative, friendly guys and girls dedicated to producing and constantly improving superior original collaborative story writing, role-play, and military
simulation. It's also a fine place on the internet to call home. Let us
welcome you.
Our goals:
- Provide an interactive story-writing
experience to all competent role-players. Preferably, hours after they join,
24/7.
- Maintain an ever-growing, highly interesting
player-made setting, to which anyone can contribute.
- Mentor and stimulate players and
game-masters to constantly improve.
If you've got some imagination, you should
join us. Here's why:
We Offer Many Interesting Benefits
Star Army offers a wealth of exciting things
to do. It is a mature community that has been running for years, yet isn't
overgrown; each person can receive individual attention. Its player-made setting
is open to change through your contributions and your characters' actions; you
could literally alter the face of the universe! Star Army provides an excellent
outlet for writers, a fun
gaming experience for role-players, and a
lively, friendly community to visit
- we want you to become a regular! Using guides and personal assistance,
you can get settled in fast.
Even if you don't have time to become a frequent
visitor, we can still help you. There's thousands of pages
to read for your personal enjoyment, and if you're an artist,
Star Army will commission you to
do character artwork!
As a writer, you get to write as much as you wish
among a community you can trust to tell to criticize yet don't have to worry
about things getting too harsh. You can write on your own, or take advantage of
the site's role-playing plots and write as a group either through forum posts or
even live online chat rooms. Nothing is more inspiring than an immersing
yourself in a group of like-minded writers and artists.
You will improve as you write more. Orson Scott
Card once said, "Every writer has 100,000 words of crap" he needs to get out of
his system. Well, hey, we're happy to help you get through that before you start
working on published stuff. If you write a little every day, you'll be through
that in no time; writing is not work here--it is entertainment, and when
you're having fun, learning is easy. One of the greatest benefits of a group
story-writing/role-play setup like this is that in addition to the usual
spelling and grammar, you'll also develop a great sense of style, plot, and
especially characterization.
All People Role-Play. We do it as a hobby.
Anyone who's ever put on a fake smile, or ever
pretended they were something or someone else has role-played. We might change
our dialect when we encounter someone of another culture, or fake surprise when
opening a Birthday gift. Maybe you've had to act tough to drive someone hostile
away. These are all examples of role-playing in your everyday life.
Wikipedia
writes, "In role-playing, participants adopt and act out the role of characters,
or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different
from their own. Role-playing is like being in an improvisational drama or
free-form theatre, in which the participants are the actors who are playing
parts, and the audience."
The fact is humans are born with the ability to do this! Anyone, with
minimal effort, can role-play. The more experience in role-play you have, the
more amusing and empowering you will find it.
How do I Role-Play here?
Role-playing here is easy. After you and your
character are ready, join a plot or start your own and start posting! Posts
should be in third person and past tense (like most novels read). A post can be
either a single post (a single player posts directly to the forums), a
joint post (multiple players
meet up and write a post, usually in a chat room, then edit and post it to the
forums) or a compilation (where multiple single posts are worked out elsewhere
and combined into a single post. Imagine what your character would be doing
and/or saying in the situation the role-play presents--then just type it
out.
Most of the plots are military themed. You should
check out this guide on
military role-play. We also recommend exploring the site for few days to get
a feel of the setting. There's also a number of other guides on the site.
On Flexible Activity
Because of the nature of internet message boards,
you do not have to ever be in the same place or even the same time as your
fellow role-players. Take advantage of the mobility offered by online
chat and the flexibility in scheduling offered by play-by-post role-playing.
Well, everyone sixteen or older, anyway. We
wouldn't want some kid's parents to get mad, would we?
Star Army's message boards (also called the
forums) are the heart of the Star Army community. Anyone can read most of
them, but some forums are only displayed to people who are logged in.
There's also a few that require membership in a group (such as Nepleslia and
Yamatai's government forums - only their citizens can see them). To post and
reply to message, you'll need to sign up. It's actually quite easy to join
the Star Army Forums - you'll need a valid email address to activate the
account. If you have any trouble with the process, simply
contact the admin about it and he'll help
you out. All people are welcome on the forums; all we ask is that you
conduct yourself responsibly.
Building the Universe
Any player, whether or not he has an active
character, may submit materials to the
New Technologies and Setting Elements forum, where new technologies, races, and other items are
discussed and (usually) approved for use in the Star Army Role-play. If you
have a cool idea for a ship or species, go ahead and put it in there. You
can even post it unfinished and ask for help; usually some of the other
members will be willing to help you develop your concept.
There's a huge amount of material available
that you can read at your leisure, including material in the
current (Star Army of
Yamatai) plots on the forum,
archived plots, and
for really far back, the archived
text files. Here's a few highlights you may want to check out:
Suggested Stories for Reading
Giving our writers feedback
Got a plot idea? Tell the authors! Star
Army's style provides you a cool opportunity to contact authors of various
plots and characters as they are writing the story! If you've got
ideas, comments, or criticism, let them know! As a reader, you not only get
to enjoy the stories, but you can provide feedback right to the source via
the forum's Private Message System or discuss it in the forums.
Attention Artists!
We'll pay you to draw for us. There's
a lot of characters in Star Army. Every good character (and starship) deserves some good
artwork. That's why Star Army will pay for characters to get artwork. It
costs the players nothing and is provided as a courtesy. You have a chance
to help the role-players, writers, and GMs of Star Army by contributing
artwork or by doing a paid commissions project. Are rates are usually around
$15 a portrait and we tend to ask for art in bulk (10 or so at once).
Remember, this is all coming out of the admin's pocket.
In addition to cash, artists also have access
to friendly art criticism, other artists, and wonderful chances to inspire
others--your portrait brings someone's dream to life. It might even inspire
an epic adventure or story!
Suggestions, Questions, or Comments
If you have any questions, comments,
suggestions, flames, or input about this site, say something. We will read
and consider everything. You don't even have to log in. Just use our
contact form.
Ready Yet?
Head on to the
New Players' Guide for list of
steps on how to get started making, equipping and getting an assignment for your
first character.
Back
Written by Wes Davis. ©2006 StarArmy.com
This web page was last revised Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 4:17pm EST
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