From Literepetition

Playing In Literary Repetition

Contents 1 Character Creation 1.1 General Character Creation Notes 2 Restrictions and Warnings 3 Composition 4 Addressing Player Problems 5 Roleplaying in This Setting 6 Activity, Character Limits, and Approval

[edit] Character Creation

This is an AU role playing game that takes place in a modern-day town, with some supernatural elements.

1. Your character grew up and lived a normal life in a modern environment. They went to elementary school, they had a family (or perhaps were adopted, etc), and now find themselves here at college. They may have attended Meridian's associated prep school (Elwood Dowd Preparatory Academy) in the past, or they may not. Up until game's start, it is unlikely your character would have encountered doors into alternate dimensions, unexpected time travel, or visits from characters from books, let alone strong memories of who they were in a past life. Keep your histories largely normal. Negability characters grandfathered in from the previous incarnation of this game may be granted a pass on remembrances of weirdness past for the sake of consistent characterization, but please make sure the mods are informed in these cases.
   
2. This means that your characters do not have super powers or abilities to the best of their knowledge without explicit permission of the moderators. They're just a normal, everyday student -- worrying over midterms, going to keggers, playing sports, nearly flunking (or not). When considering what your character's strengths and weaknesses are during the application process, please understand that the weird and supernatural things will, for the most part, only happen in-game. You're welcome to believe you're magic if you're Aleister Crowley; that doesn't mean you really will be magic, at least, not at first.
   
3. You should not start this game with knowledge that you are a reincarnation of a famous figure except by approval of the moderators. This approval will only very rarely be given. Here again, past-game grandfathering may grant you more allowances on these memories, but as this is a fresh start, we prefer that many characters have no initial idea of the premise which binds these characters together. That said, if you figure out these ties and similarities in an in-character fashion, you will not magically forget or any such thing. You are welcome to explore the mysteries of the setting; we only ask that the mysteries start out as actually somewhat mysterious.

For more specific information on applications, see the following pages:

• Guidelines
• Approval
• Age
• Author Choice
• Played By
• Character Pictures
• Housing
• Reputation
• Character Pages

[edit] General Character Creation Notes

This is an RPG with a very specific setting that celebrates literary history and its important figures.

• We are not a multifandom RPG, except in the sense that elements from disparate authors' works may be incorporated into the story-world. This RP revolves around the reincarnation of literary figures as player characters with NPCs coming from the lives and works of those authors (Zelda Sayre to F. Scott Fitzgerald is an example of the first with Christopher Robin to A.A. Milne being an example of the second). We are not currently accepting applications for these peripheral characters.

• Any author being portrayed must have died prior to the birth of his or her IC reincarnation.

• The moderators reserve the right to ask for revisions and changes if a character is unsuitable for this environment or does not seem to mesh with their origins. We will always try to give specific feedback and work with you if there is an issue.

• Keep your characterization at least somewhat realistic and natural. No character is perfect or universally talented, nor should any character demand more than their fair share of the spotlight. All of these characters are going to get time in the spotlight just by the very nature of who and what they are. Extra doses of 'the special' aren't required to make them stand out.

[edit] Restrictions and Warnings

The following is a list of general game restrictions and notes pertaining to 'political correctness' and behavior within the game.

1. This game is open to scenes of a sexual, violent, or graphic nature. Do not complain to moderators that RP of this nature happens. However, there are some guidelines for what is acceptable.
   • We leave whether a scene 'fades to black' to the discretion of parties involved. If someone requests fade-to-black on such a scene, please respect their wishes.
   • We will not accept applications from players younger than 18. Additionally, any character under the age of 18 (should any be approved) should fade-to-black any sexual RP. Sorry to say it, but we'd just rather not ever open that can of worms.
   • Any explicit adult themed material posted to Livejournal must have a warning label and a 'friends lock'. If you mark it anything worse than PG-13, stick a lock on it.
   • Finally, while the game may accept scenes of a sexual nature, this is not a sex based RPG. If all of your roleplay seems to be completely based around RP of a sexual nature, expect a talk from the moderators.
     
     
2. We hope and expect characters to make friends, fall in love, and hate some of their fellow students, but the game is about more than hooking up and being the baddest of the bad. Some guidelines for relationship RP and conflict follow.
   • We're fine with slash pairings, but we ask that your characters' sexuality make sense for the person you're portraying. If your author was known for his or her straight love affairs, we may ask for an explanation if you play their reincarnation as gay. If Lovecraft suddenly finds sex to be something other than icky, we'd want to know that his player had a grasp on the irony of that. As long as your explanation makes sense, we're cool, but any character that just seems to be trolling for a certain kind of sexual RP without regard to consistent characterization may be subject to questions.
   • One thing that appeals to many participants in this kind of game is that the epic love affairs of past authors can be reborn again. At the same time, it should never be expected that past relationships will carry over unscathed and unchanged. While we're perfectly fine with Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley becoming the couple of the year once again if both are on-game, Percy doesn't automatically get dibs; Mary can certainly come on-game and start dating some nice bloke from the Modernists if that's how the RP goes. Please try to respect both elements at once: that your characters may have past-life relationships, but that other new relationships may form in-game.
   • Characters may come into conflict, even the violent kind, with one another. Please try to keep the OOC tenor of your conflict as friendly as the violence is not. Sometimes, the threat of violence, if it's logical, supercharges a story and makes for very interesting RP, but try not to get wrapped up in winning or losing so much as keeping to a consistent voice for the character and telling a good story with one another. See the following: Consent and Conflict.
     
     
3. If you want only RP of a politically correct, inoffensive nature, this may not be the game for you. However, here are some guidelines for how to play the instigator IC without being a jerk OOC and how to keep IC jerks from ruining your OOC day.
   • Some elements of past authors' lives may be problematic to the modern reader. Ernest Hemingway was a violent guy with big-time gender issues and a serial monogamy habit. Lord Byron had a sexual relationship with a sibling. O. Henry was an embezzler with legal troubles and jail time for much of his life. And that doesn't even touch on the Marquis de Sade. Plenty of authors committed suicide, were hoboes or homeless, were mentally ill or violent or completely inappropriate with the opposite sex or otherwise not very nice people -- and players may choose to portray these inappropriate behaviors, preferences, habits, et cetera. Please keep in mind these elements may feature in roleplay with these reincarnations. While we ask that adult themes get locked, we hope that all players will be mature enough to separate other players from their characters, and to be able to handle their own issues with these problem elements.
   • It is never appropriate to ask people to change reasonable IC roleplay because you don't agree with it OOC. You can always not read the logs that contain the offensive behavior. You can ask they not talk about it in front of you OOC.
   • Do not have your character attack someone for IC behavior that you find inappropriate OOC. Please make sure that your character would reasonably find the behavior inappropriate. The two are not always the same and should not always be the same. Please avoid playing personal mouthpieces.
   • If you seem to be RPing out controversial material more for private fun and provocation than concrete plot or character development, the mods reserve the right to step in. While we understand how these author types might get up to all sorts of hijinks, we would (for example) probably find it a little odd if you made someone like Laura Ingalls Wilder into this year's slut of the year.
   • Should your characters be involved in possibly offensive activities, please make sure that you keep discussion about them of an OOC nature in areas where it's wanted. Don't force it on those who might not have an interest.
   • Please remember the guidelines on consent and conflict as listed above.
     
     

[edit] Composition

Write clearly, thoroughly, and in English. Many browsers, most MU* clients, and even some IM clients provide a spellchecker at the very least. When writing Livejournal posts, it's easy to write the post beforehand in Word or another word processor that provides basic grammar correction and spellchecking. If you're concerned with being able to find a word processing program that you can afford that will work on your system, check out Open Office. It's free and available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

• We're not asking you to become as great at writing as the authors you're speaking for, but we do expect something more than one-liners. It's a little weird to be playing a game of dead authors if you're not at least a little bit in love with language.

• We'll be easygoing on English skills if English happens to be your second language, but we'd like to know you're a non-native speaker ahead of time if this is a concern.

[edit] Addressing Player Problems

We require everyone to read and comply with the information and guidelines surrounding Literepetition. You do not necessarily need to comb through and memorize every single fact, character, and rule, but we do expect you to actively use the current information pages as a reference. Applicants must demonstrate a working knowledge of the game’s world in their applications; players must do the same in their posts, and are not allowed to disregard the setting in a way that disrupts game play. While scenes can take place outside the general setting of the game (travel abroad, road trips, jaunts home to the parents, etc.), you need to keep in mind that most of the story is in the town of Bartleby and at Meridian College. It is highly recommended that you bookmark and regularly read the wiki and the information pages on the LJ community.

• If you have a serious issue with someone OOCly, we hope you can bring it to them personally, as this is a friendly game. If for some reason you feel this isn't possible, please bring it straight to the moderators. We would rather be aware of interpersonal conflicts than carry on in the dark. Please tell the mods whether or not you want us to actively step in on your behalf, as well. Sometimes, you just need to talk out the problem, and we don't want to step on your toes, but we are also here to help.

• It sometimes happens that people pull out of a game due to dissatisfaction; sometimes it's just not meshing with a character, but other times, it's an event fraught with drama. We won't stand in the way of a character who's simply not working whom you're walking away from in a friendly way, or an exit due to time constraints, or any other good reason. However, no matter the case for leaving, we would like to be told when and why, so that we can at least try to resolve the issues and so that we have tools to keep the game going for others who are continuing to play. We're here to help make the game as comfortable as possible; we have less of a chance to do so if we're not in the loop. If you do leave without warning, the mods reserve all rights to keep the game going around your character's absence. Your say in how you exit is directly proportional to how much consideration you give other players and the mods in making it.

• In that vein, please do not delete your character journal if you leave the game. We'd like to maintain game continuity, and that's hard to do if entries and scenes disappear. Your interactions with other players involve them even if you're not here any longer, and we'd rather keep you in our memories.

• IC events will often require OOC negotiation and talk. Please keep things friendly, and remember that other people's storylines are important to them, too.

• All normal online, roleplay, and personal etiquette rules apply here. Treat others as you'd like to be treated. Try not to be a spotlight hog or a drag on storylines. Be polite and friendly, and your fellow mods and players will return the favor.

• If a fellow player is a problem, while we hope you will address it with them personally in discussion, we would ask that you not take it upon yourself as a fellow player to correct them from on high, lecture about their RP, hand out consequences, or play whispering games. These actions don't help make a fun and respectful RP environment. The best way you can be part of the solution is to do your personal best within the game, and keep the mods aware of things that might need to be addressed.

• Keep the drama to a minimum. Assume the best about your fellow players until concretely proven otherwise, and try to be inclusive, friendly, and appreciative of others.

[edit] Roleplaying in This Setting

• This game takes literary history and diverges from it. Many characters will be quite similar to their original counterparts; others will have changed because of the lives of their original incarnations. Regardless, we expect two things: that characters will be consistent unto themselves, and that they will have some accordance with previous history.

• Consistency unto themselves means that we expect that if your character's personality changes, that it will be a logical outgrowth of IC events, roleplay, and reflection on the person you are portraying, and not whim or the feelings of the player. We ask mostly that your actions make sense enough that the players around you won't be sitting in confusion trying to figure out how to react to what you've been doing. A little crackfic-silliness at times is okay, or some honest mistakes, but if your greatest consistency is that people sit around waiting to see what personality your character is going to exhibit this week, or wondering if your bad mood will leak through to the person you play, there is a problem, and the moderation team will step in.

• As for accordance with previous history: This is a literary history RPG, where most to all of the characters are re-envisionings of well-known authors (and folks associated with them). Your character does not need to be a letter-perfect clone of the life of the author in question. That said, we would prefer not to have thinly-veiled excuses to play pretty people whose past selves have no real bearing on their present soap opera. We hope you play as if you have some awareness of the thoughts and writing, as well as the personality and history of your previous incarnation. If your Oscar Wilde is a straight emo boy, hold the irony, we reserve all rights to look at you funny, and then call you on it.

[edit] Activity, Character Limits, and Approval

• Activity checks are run once per month. Characters that haven't had (on average) a Livejournal post every other week and a log that includes their roleplay posted every other week will be issued an activity warning. If activity hasn't increased by the next month's activity check, they will have their approval removed and be placed on the available lists again.

• Players are allowed to take hiatuses. If you would like to go on hiatus, please contact the mods as soon as possible, particularly if you fear you will be caught out as inactive due to hiatus. We will NOT drop the journal of someone who has notified us of the need for a break and given us a time-frame for return. See the article on activity to get the details of how to do this.

• If you were dropped for inactivity but return at a later date when you are better able to play, you must formally reapply if you wish to pick up the same character and journal. If someone else has chosen the character in the meantime, you're out of luck.

• Players are currently allowed up to five active characters. Retired characters and characters on hiatus do not count towards this total.

• Approvals are at the discretion of the moderation team, and we reserve the right to hold an app for any reason. We will try not to be arbitrary, but sometimes an influx of new blood needs to be paced out so every new character gets their day in the sun. Likewise, we encourage you not to play more characters at any given time than you can handle.

• If you desperately want a particular character, and they are not taken, reserve them in advance. It helps keep there from being confusion. Priority is always given to people who've told us they are reserving someone.