STAR ARMY

Sci-fi roleplaying and worldbuilding community

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guide:new_players

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New Players' Guide

Welcome to Star Army! This article has the basic steps and info you'll need to participate. Please read it thoroughly.

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How Star Army Works

In a nutshell, Star Army works like this:

  1. You create your character.
  2. Imagine yourself in that character's shoes and write what he/she would do and say.

Account Registration

You must be 16 or older to join Star Army. There is no cost to join or participate.

The wiki login system is separate from the forum one, so you will need to register for both.

    • You're invited to introduce yourself in the Introductions Forum.
    • Forum accounts with 0 posts are regularly deleted as an anti-spam measure, so post something!
    • You'll need a wiki account to create an article for your character page.
    • No wiki knowledge is required to post your character; We have a form that automatically adds the wiki code for you.

Questions and Assistance

There are many ways to get help:

  1. The Your Questions Answered forum allows you to get your questions answered by the community. You will need a forum login.
  2. You can Connect to the Chatroom and ask our members for assistance (IRC Guide)
  3. You can email the admin at stararmy@gmail.com
  4. You can call or text message the admin, Wes, at (209) STAR-ARMY (+12097827276).

Creating Characters

The Character Creation Guide (CCG) is your primary resource for making your character. Note that there are several species-specific character creation guides to help you. Before you make your character, if possible, do a little background reading on the role-play and get an idea of the plot you want to join. Once you're somewhat familiar with the role-play setting, you'll want to get started with the CCG. It should give you vital information for your character, based on your choices.

Submitting Your Character

When you're done Creating Your Character, you'll need to:

  1. Add your bio to the wiki (if you're not sure how, see the steps below)
    1. Go the list_of_notable_characters, follow the link to your faction, and then click “Edit this page” and add a link to your your character.
    2. Save the page and then click the (red) link you just made. It'll take you to a page that says “This page hasn't been created.”
    3. Click “Create This Page” and insert your character biography code you made using the Character Template.
    4. Make any final adjustments needed and then save your Wiki bio. After saving it, copy its URL.
  2. Go to the new biography forum and create a topic containing a link to the bio page you just created.

Review and Approval

If there are no problems, approval will usually be quick and painless. If there are issues with your biography, the game master will do his best to help you adjust it so that it makes sense or fits in the role-play. The most common sources of problems are overpowered, glorious histories and skills, story continuity issues (things that wouldn't make sense, like joining the Star Army before it was founded), and lack of detail.

NOTE: If you update/edit your bio, post a reply to its thread so the reviewers will know to look at it again!

A character forum moderator will post approval of your character in the forum thread you posted. The topic will then be moved to the APPROVED forum (so if your character thread seems missing, check there!). The character forum moderator who approved your character will send a private message to you and to the GM of the plot you listed as your first preference. We encourage you to also send your own private message to the plot GM introducing yourself.

In the unlikely event your character is approved but cannot be accepted, the GM (or if he is not available, the Faction Manager or Setting Manager) will post a notice in the approved character thread and then contact your second choice plot GM on your behalf.

After Approval

Once you're accepted into the plot, edit the plot's page so your character is on their crew roster (or ask your GM to).

If your character is in the military, you will also get an orders thread in the appropriate communications forum. It will tell your character where to go and serves as a record of his/her military service including transfers, awards, and promotions.

You are responsible for keeping your character page up-to-date. Keep track of changes your character's history, skills, inventory, and finances (including pay) and edit your character article accordingly.

Roleplaying

Once you're in a plot, start role-playing! If it's a single-post plot you can start right away (or as soon as it makes sense in the plot). If it's a joint_post plot, then find out when the next chat session is (most plots have a scheduling thread in their forum).

Basic Rules

  • Respect other players' player_rights.
    • Do not control other people's characters.
  • Write well. Your posts should be easy to read. Please use proper spelling and grammar and post in third person.
  • Communicate with other players and with your game_master.
  • Don't disappear on us. Don't vanish and leave people waiting on a post that will never come.
    • Absences are fine as long as you give advance warning in your plot's OOC thread.
    • If you need to leave a plot, follow the instructions here: Leaving a Plot or The Community

Full rules are available here: Site Rules

Format and Use of Forum Code

The following formatting is standard for in-character posts:

  • Bold text is used for announcements (such as the ship's intercom) and emphasis.
  • Italics are used for wireless communication and telepathy.
  • Quote boxes should be used for any content from a previous post and for in-character quotes of things like electronic mail, dinner menus, etc.
  • Parenthesis are used to signify OOC (Out Of Character) comments. Please don't make off-topic OOC comments during JPs, and keep the OOC to a minimum in IC posts.

Communicate!

There are several available methods of Communication available to RP Members. Yahoo! Messenger, E-mail, private messages, and the forums themselves are some examples. Sub-plots, problems, questions, concerns, suggestions, and many, many other things have to be worked out between members, and these are the best ways to do it. Please respect the decisions of your Game Master.

Conflicts

Any major event, situation, condition, action, etc. which directly involves another Player's character must be discussed with said Player beforehand, if possible. The Player reserves the right to have any post deleted that directly involves their character and was not discussed beforehand, unless that post was made by the GM. The post will be deleted or moved and sent to the offending Player for editing.

In the case that someone has used your character in some way, or done something that went against one of your plots, sort it out politely and quickly. Attempt to work it out with the offending Player first. If this fails, take it to the Plot GM. In an RP as large as this one to become, it is nearly impossible to avoid all problems, but if we can sort them out smoothly, politely and quickly, there will be minimal difficulties.

Metagaming

Let's all remember to keep OOC knowledge separate from IC knowledge. Don't direct your character to stuff if he/she wouldn't find it by themselves. That includes sniffing at a random moment when a character has no reason to do so and then find someone stalking them that way. If something is hidden, let it be hidden until there is a plausible reason for it to not be. Just because you know a player character is plotting to kill yours, etc. does not mean you can have your character act like he's especially alert for some reason. Keep it realistic.

Keeping Up

Try your hardest to read each and every new post in your roleplay. This cuts down on confusion and prevents conflicts in the storyline from arising. If you don’t have time, at least read the ones involving your ship. Print them if you need to. You are expected to post regularly (at least one RP post a week). If you can’t for some reason, let people know why and kindly excuse your character or arrange for someone else to play her in the meantime.

Starting a Side Plot

In each adventure there are two types of plots: The Backbone Plot, and the various Sub-plots. The Backbone Plot takes precedence over sub-plots. Sub-plots must be worked in and around the Backbone Plot in order for the RP to function correctly. This is not to say that because a sub-plot goes against the Backbone Plot it can't be used. It simply means that you must either rework, or put off the sub plot until such a time as it can be used.

Quality Of Writing

Writing is the means with which we interact with one another. It is vital that you write well, so that others can understand you and so they aren't distracted from the RP by errors. Don't bother posting a sentence if you can't be bothered to capitalize it or put a period at the end. The clearer your post, the less the likelihood it will be overlooked or misunderstood.

  • Sentence structure, and correct grammar and spelling are a must.
  • Double spacing between paragraphs is required. This means paragraphs should have a full blank line between them.
  • All posts should be written in third person past tense. The third person is mostly for clarity because there are many “I's” in this story.
  • Please use your character's name in the first reference to them in a paragraph (especially in JPs).
  • Try to be detailed and descriptive.

Play-by-Post Roleplaying

Most Star Army roleplay is done by posting directly onto a thread (or start a new one), which is called a Single Post or just a post. Sometimes single posts are consolidated into compilations.

See: single_posts

Joint Posts Roleplaying

For JPs, we usually arrange a meeting time or just spontaneously start role-playing with whoever is online that fits into a plot. These RP sessions usually last about an hour or two and when we're done, one of the people in the RP session saves, edits, and posts the transcript (then referred to as a joint_post) onto the boards. The above methods of RP are why some parts of the board tend to have big, long posts with multiple characters and few replies–so don't let them intimidate you, they're just giant edited transcripts.

For more information on JPs, read the Guide to Joint Posts.

Other Helpful Pages


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guide/new_players.1359387141.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/12/20 15:52 (external edit)