Roleplayers Realm Guidebook

[Faerie Fortune]

Table of Contents
Post 1: Basic Information, Rules, Staff List
Post 2: IC Setting Information
Post 3: Character Submission Rules
Post 4: Group/Organisation Rules
Post 5: Judgement/Critical Hit Rules
Post 6: Sparring Types and Rules
Post 7: Dedications and Credits

[Faerie Fortune]

RR Basics
Welcome to Roleplayers Realm! This thread here will hopefully get you started with all the information you need to get to know the rules and mechanics here. If you see anything missing or any misinformation at any point, please contact Faerie Fortune to fix it.

Staff List
Head of Forum/IC: Faerie Fortune
OOC Head/Character Submissions Head: Darksabre
Head Judge: Black Mage
Head of Promotion: Azoth

GMs/Assistants
Azoth
Black Mage
Gren

OOC Rules
All AL Rules apply within RR. These are as follows.

1. No Flaming - Insulting or deriding others.
2. No Baiting - Treating others in a manner intended to provoke a negative reaction from them.
3. No Drama Stirring - Attempting to maliciously discredit or undermine other members.
4. No Harrassment - Stalking another member through PM, IM, or on the boards.
5. No Flooding - Posting more than five topics in the same forum in a one hour period.
6. No Advertising - Posting links to Commercial websites, and message boards.
7. No Hacking - Attempting to unlawfully edit or manipulate board code.
8. No Trolling - Deliberately seeking to damage the community. This includes registering proxy or fake accounts - If you are registering a second account you must inform the admins.
9. No Public Complaints - Rather than privately contacting a member of staff, publically posting a complaint to how the boards are run.
10. No Post Content Abuse - Background music or media without warning. Adult Content without warning. Unacceptable Signature Sizes over 550x300 pixels.

Beyond this, RR also has its own additions to the rules that are specific to us.

11. No metagaming/godmodding. Defined as using OOC information to attempt to gain an advantage IC that you wouldn't normally have and RPing beyond your characters normal level of power to avoid an undesirable situation such as losing a fight or being captured.
12. Respect your opponent/fellow RPers. Other people in RR are here to have fun just like you are, and no one persons idea of fun overrides another's here. This includes deliberately manipulating the rules system for the best possible outcome; for example going to a specific judge you are friends with in order to gain a more favourable rating on a thread judgement.

[Faerie Fortune]

RR Setting

In the Grim Darkness of the Grim Dark year of 2012, Earth as we know it experienced a series of events that unequivocally altered the state of reality as humanity knew it.

The first such auspicious event was the election of a new President in the United States of America. At age 58, Daniel Ackerman became America’s first third party President since the very earliest days of the nation. A decorated veteran with a spotless record, a self-made industrialist, and a master of the spoken word, Ackerman was a late entry in to the presidential race. His policies and charisma managed to unite a broken nation, bridging the gap between party lines and winning in a landslide. During the end of his term, the defeated incumbent actually worked with the incoming president to put into place a solid start. The American economy entered a boom as consumer confidence swelled, sending a wave of economic prosperity rippling throughout the world. By the time Ackerman took office, he had inherited a recovering America, and was prepared to lead the world out of the rut it had been in. In a bold move, he decided to re-adopt an age old American policy: Non-Interventionalism. He removed American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving the wartorn nations to fend for themselves, while bolstering the United States’ own counter-terrorism operations. At the same time, to maintain a steady stream of oil, Congress struck a series of deals with major Saudi oil companies while at the same time providing funding for shale oil extraction. With American troops safely home and the United States well on its way to oil sufficiency for the time being, Ackerman was well on his way to becoming one of the most popular presidents in history.

National relationships, on the other hand have also begun to shift. Thanks to the United States new policy, its relationship with the Middle East aside from the Saudis has begun to sour, while it is closer than ever with its allies, namely Britain, Japan, South Korea, and Canada. Israel holds Ackerman in disdain, as it has now been left to fend for itself against many hostile neighbors. The EU remains as strong has ever, united in their drive for a strong Europe. In Africa, an outpouring of aid from the first world has stimulated Kenya, while Northern Africa begins to rebuild after the rebellions against tyrannical rules settle down. South Africa remains largely the same, disdainful of its surroundings, but otherwise secure. Further east, China and India continue to prosper, their economies stimulated in the same manner as the EU and United States. Linked as they are to America, Japan and South Korea enter similar booms, exporting computers, cars, and new technology across the globe. North Korea, however, enters an all time low as Kim Jong Ill begins to suffer from an unknown disease. He withdrew into further seclusion, leaving little clue as to the future of his people. Australia follows the United States and EU in prosperity, and South America remains a mixed bag similar to Africa. Brazil and Argentina both leave the economic crisis strong thanks for foreign investments, while the majority of the continent remains isolated and impoverished.

The second major event was the end of the Mesoamerican Long Calendar on December 21st, 2012. This date, long touted by mystics and wackos, passed without the “promised” apocalypse, and indeed without any overt worldly events. Several cults committed ritualized mass suicides, and the world was better off without them. Mayan historians told the disappointed mystics “I told you so.” Though all the while the descendants of that Mesoamerican civilization just smiled quietly to themselves, waiting patiently for the true nature of prophecy to reveal itself. In the long forgotten writings of Mayan shamans, the end of the calendar promised not the end of the world, but rather the birth of something entirely new: the fifth world. It was the belief of many cultures native to North America that time was cyclical, a rotating wheel dividing time between various ages. December 21st was the last day of the calendar as it was the last day of the fourth world. On December 22nd, 2012, a series of changes began to creep across the landscape, invisible and imperceptible to the majority of humankind.

From deep within their slumber, the old gods began to re-awaken, and they rose groggily to view the modern world. The majority were completely starved for faith, as they no longer had devoted followers to succor them with prayers, while others re-awoke with great strength. Each pantheon began to quietly make plans within their divine realms for how best to approach the world, some of them even having grand conclaves with other pantheons. All agreed that it would take time to reclaim their former glory and that they would allow humans to rediscover them, rather than risk being cast down in their weakened states. Similarly, the Earth’s ley lines began to pulse with a fresh torrent of arcane energy. The shift from one world to the next turned what was previously a trickle into a mighty magical river, filling the world again with the eldritch power of old. All that remains is for practitioners of the craft to once again rediscover the way to work them. Some have subtly begun dabbling, unaware of the true vastness that has returned.

The final earth shattering event occurred in December 2012: a scientific breakthrough of unimaginable significance. Thanks to a series of strange dreams, world renowned theoretical physicist Francis Swighert became convinced of the existence of a transformative wave-form, and set about proving its existence. Enlisting the aid of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and particle physicist Naomi Mitsuhide, Swighert managed to craft a theorem to support his hypothesis. On December 20th, 2012 the team, using this theorem managed to generate a jigsaw wave-form with a unique effect on metals. The wave-form was dubbed the “Sagan Wave” in honor of the late cosmologist Carl Sagan, as it was the 15th anniversary of his death. The Sagan Wave produced a sub-atomic reaction in metals that caused them to radiate electrical impulses on an enormous scale. A single ounce of charged zinc, for example, could generate enough electricity to power Germany for a week, and when it is expended it can just be recharged. This discovery turned the scientific world on its ear, and due to the international nature of the team the technology and knowledge is already spreading outward on a global scale. Several commercial energy groups have begun working on a means to harness the Sagan Wave, though they have met heavy resistance from oil companies. Public attention has been caught, but it remains to be seen if science can prevail over the oil industry.

All over the world, things are changing. The very landscape of reality is beginning to shift from mundane to fantastic. Supernatural beings begin to reappear, peasants claiming to have seen dragons roaming the Chinese mountains, a rash of exsanguinated goats in the Chihuahua province of Mexico, and even of voracious panthers skulking into Ghanan cities and eating children. At the same time, science has made a discovery that will undoubtedly change the course of history. The Sagan Wave will enable a cleaner, greener earth without changing the standard of living for anyone, and allow for even more discovery.

The cycle has shifted and the Fifth World has arrived. The only real question is where do you fit in?

[Faerie Fortune]

RR Character Submission Rules

Why does my character need approval?
First of all, it helps us keep characters consistent within our own setting. Our setting is based on modern day Earth, so a Arturian Knight may not be too appropriate off the bat. If that's the case, our mods will offer some suggestions on how to make it fit and allow you the chance to rework things. As well as this, we have a lot of powerful beings in RR, and it's tough to keep them in balance. If your powers are too strong, or have no justification you will be asked to tone it down or provide an origin for your powers. We look over all character bios for this reason.

How long will it take to be approved?
If your character is acceptable for RR as it is, then it might not take any more than the time it takes for a mod to read through your bio. In cases where it may need some tweaking, it will take a bit longer as mods will offer you feedback on what parts need changing for it to be accepted.

What's a tier?
We have two tiers here in RR, Street and Global. Street level characters range in power scope from the average guy you can find on the street, to a genetically or magically enhanced human. Global level characters are one step up from this, encompassing powerful forces like demigods, devilspawn and most high technology users.

How does my tier affect my character?
In their bio, it doesn't. However, it will affect the way you play them. When you submit your character, the mod who looks it over will take into account how well your submission is written, the level of detail and background you put into your powers, abilities and possessions and judge their tier based on these things. While your tier won't change anything you have written, it does change how powerdul your character can be. A character who is Global tier can use their powers and abilities on a grander scale than one who is assigned Street tier.

What if I want to move a character up from Street to Global?
If you are assigned Street tier on approval and you want to move your character up, there are two ways to do this. You can choose not to play the character at all until you have put more detail into them, or you can play them as a Street tier for a time and let their background and skills grow organically. A character who roleplays their development within the actual environment of RR is far more likely to be granted Global tier abilities than one who is simply re-written.

I already have one Global tier character, can I have another?
Of course you can! There are no limits to how many characters of each tier you can have. However, tiers are decided per character, not per player so this statement is assumes that each of them is written well enough to justify the scope of their tier.

How many characters can I have total?
As many as you can keep track of!

Is there a limit to the amount of groups I can join?
Each player (not character) is limited to two groups, so choose carefully. Look at all the recruitment threads in the OOC forum, as well as any IC threads you can find, to see if the groups goals, writing style and background suits the characters you think you're likely to play. Players are not restricted to the amount of organisations they can join, however.

Is there a limit to the amount of characters I can have in a spar/attack thread?
Nope! If you are in a contested thread, or a spar, you can have as many of your own characters in the thread as you feel you can reasonably keep up with. However, keep in mind that a "zerg rush" strategy will weigh heavily against you in judgements unless you can play each character you bring equally effectively.

Can any character start a group?
Yes! All you need is a concept and a writeup. The tier of your leader doesn't matter when creating your group at all.

Okay, that makes sense. What do I need to submit my character?
When submitting your bio, you can submit it in any format you like, however at the very least it needs to have these things;

Name: (Simple enough, your characters name)
Race: (Again, simple. If your character is a made up race, or one that may be unfamiliar to the majority of the forum, a description of their origins might be useful)
Affiliated Groups: (If you are writing your character to already be in a group, we need to know which one)
Appearance: (At its most basic, describe your characters physical appearance. Here you can also describe their mannerisms, any habits, etc. You may use pictures in addition to description, bu not in lieu of.)
Weapons/Equipment: (Another fairly obvious one, any weapons or equipment your character carries, as well as how they got them. In the case of rare, unusual, made up or unfamiliar weapons, it's the same case as the races, a little description goes a long way. Here you can also describe any special trinkets your character carries)
Powers and Abilities: (Same as above, just with abilities. Unnecessarily strong abilities will be asked to be toned down, and all abilities must have an origin provided)
Personality: (A little bit about your characters personality)
History: (Your characters history. Simple enough!)

The more detail and background you can provide, the more likely it is that your character will be accepted at Global tier, so put as much effort into it as you can. People you RP or spar with will also use this bio as a reference for what your character looks like, or what they can expect from you in a fight so again, try to give them as much to go on as you can.

Character Creation Tips
- Be descriptive, but be concise. Nobody is judging you on word count here, and an unnecessarily verbose bio might even get you rejected.
- Be original. RR prides itself on originality and variety, so as much fun as it might seem to play Goku, we'd prefer you to think of your own character concept.
- Take your time. Your character bio is often a persons first impression of your character so make it a good one. Spell and grammar check, and proof-read for readability.
- Try not to smush too many concepts together at once. We allow you an unlimited amount of characters here, so there's no need to have a vampire-kitsune-robot-angel character when you could just as easily make each seperately.
- On that note, try to keep your characters themetically consistent. If you create a personification of an Aztec God with an RPG, explain how he got it and how he knows to use it.
- Nobody's perfect and characters shouldn't be either. Characters who are perfect from the get-go are boring to write and not very entertaining to read about, so consider writing a weakness or a vice into your character, something they need to overcome, perhaps.
- If your character has a specific mission, or goal in life, it will be much easier to find things for them to get involved with in RR, even if it's just a storyline thread by themselves, and if that goal should line up with a group, you will find it much easier to integrate your character with the group or organisation.

Can I transfer my old character from RR Round 6.5 to the Rebuild?
Yes, you can. However, they will need to be heavily rewritten to account for the new setting, continuity and the fact that the multiverse is now aeons away. You will also need to rescale their powers heavily and some characters may need their histories entirely rewritten. So while it is possible, it's probably just as easy to make a new character entirely.

[Faerie Fortune]

Organisation/Group Rules


What are groups?
Groups are groups of players within RR who are all reaching towards a common goal, be that a good one, an evil one, or somewhere in the middle. How they do that depends on the group and its own mission but it can range from diplomatic relations with other groups and countries to invasions and wars. Each group will have its own way of doing things, so if you're not here to set one up for yourself, look around the ones that are already out there and see which one suits you best. As a real world analogy, RR Groups are a lot like a country's government or leaders.

What's an Organisation?
If Groups are like a government, then organisations are more closely based on the corporations, charities and companies that exist within their country. With that in mind, Organisations can be anything too, from a charitable undertaking like the Red Cross, to an insidious corporation. Again, they all have their own goals and their own way of going about it, but due to the restrictions of being an organisation, some approaches are less wise than others. Organisations are more geared towards roleplaying than sparring but can still participate in wars to some extent.

What's the difference between the two?

Groups: Groups are as you would know them from previous RR rounds. They are entitled to hold territory and resources and have the right to contest other groups for their territory and resources. When a group is formed, they start off with one central point in a country of their choice, and must expend their own resources to build more points to gain influence in their home country, or expand outwards into other peoples.

Organisations: As a whole, organisations are largely non-combatants. They are entitled to one HQ in a country of their choice but can never gain more. Their HQs cannot be contested, however their members may still be attacked. They hold no resources based on their location but may "produce" their own through roleplaying efforts.

What do you mean by resources?
When you select the country your group will start in, depending on the country you will be given access to one or two resources based on the country you chose. For example, someone who chooses Russia as their country may receive food and soldiers as a resource due to the huge amounts of land, at the cost of it taking longer to expand out of their own country. Every country has at least one good and at least one bad point, and they typically won't be revealed to group leaders until their country has been decided on for certain. Unlike the EP of previous rounds, these resources aren't an OOC currency, but rather an IC bargaining chip for use in diplomacy, and with enough IC effort, a way to expand.

Which countries can we choose?
Any you like! On creating your group or organisation, simply state the country you would like to hold, and the colour you would like to represent you on the map. That's all you need to do! Once that is done, your group will be told what resources you have and you can get started!

I want to be a nomadic group, can I do that?
Of course. Each one of the oceans of earth is also up for groups to claim as home. If you would prefer to live on land though, once you have your central point set up, there is nothing to stop you simply wandering around Earth. If you are a group though, be prepared to face the consequences of leaving your central point unguarded.

Are we allowed group powers?
Technically no. However, members of groups are naturally given certain benefits. For example, if your group controls the United States, perhaps membership of your group will ensure a place in the Supreme Court. What benefits you may get is entirely up to your leader.

Sounds fun, how do I set up a group?
To set up a Group, simply post your concept here in detail so people can read over it and decide if they want to join, collect five members and congratulations, you're official. Setting up an Organisation is much the same, however you only need three members to become official. In each case, you will need to put up a description of your HQ for reference.

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A political map, and index of current groups can be found in the group index thread in the OOC forum.

[Faerie Fortune]

Judgement/Critical Hit Rules

Judgements
The first thing that needs to be thoroughly understood about judgments, as they pertain to Roleplayer's Realm and the competitive threads herein, is that they are subjective. They always will be – subjectivity is the fundamental nature of any literary analysis, and an RR judgment is nothing more than a very brief literary analysis with unusual goals. No matter how fair and objective a judging system is, any judgment will always come down to the personal opinion of the person doing the judgment.

Given that this is true, objectivity is not a primary goal of the new judgment system in **(The Rebuild: Round X)**. Fairness is, which is a much easier thing to attain.

The judgment system in Roleplayer's Realm focuses on a competitor's total effort in a thread. Gone are the days of a judge spending months doing an individual mini-judgment for each and every post in a given thread, then combining the results to declare a winner. That process was slow, hard as hellfire on the judges, and didn't work well at all when a battle had an inequal number of players in it – a far more common occurrence than not. It also inclined everyone involved in a thread to cheerfully despise everyone else involved in a thread, which is not the sort of attitude we wish to foster here in RR.

Instead, a thread is judged on three categories – Coherence, Strategy, and Entertainment. A judge reads the thread through naturally, absorbing the entirety of that thread and the players' contributions to it, then awards each side either a Win or a Loss in each category. Whoever wins the most categories wins the thread. It's that simple.

A judge is expected to back up her verdict, of course. Most judgments will consist of a page or two of high points and low points which swung the judge in favor of one side or the other for a given category and explain why one side defeated the other, as well as any advice the judge may have for how the players could potentially improve their efforts in the future. As well, to lessen the chances of bias or favoritism, each judgment has to be cosigned by at least one other judge, with two being preferable.

That's not why you're here, though. You're here to learn how to win battles, right? Well, here's the categories you'll have to master.

COHERENCE: Coherence is a measure of the flow, mechanics, and general smoothness of a post, and is easily determined by how easy it is to read one's work. This is the category measuring your grasp of the rules of the written language and your ability to bend them into an easily digestible story. Ideally, your audience – which is everyone reading your work, including the judge – shouldn't have to exert any conscious effort to read your work at all. The words should simply flow off the page and into your readers' brains, with minimal time spent working at jumbles of letters with a mental pickaxe. If at any time your reader has to stop reading, stare at the screen, and go “Huh?” when reading your work, you've just lost points in Coherence.

The winner in this category is the side the judge felt was the easiest to read; the side whose posts were the clearest, the most concise, and the simplest to decode. Posts should be neither too long nor too short; detail is appreciated, but should be kept to what is needed. Recall that 'most concise' is another winning factor in Coherence. Your information should be arranged in a manner which makes sense to the reader – this category, more than any other, is where proofreaders show their value.

STRATEGY: Strategy is a measure of the IC actions of the characters within a thread and their ability to accomplish their goal. It's also at least partially a measure of how well the player behind the keyboard stuck to the characterization of his IC henchman, given that executing actions well outside the scope of one's character's persona, knowledge base, or physical capabilities is certainly poor strategy – as well as, typically, cheating. Characters engaged in combat are trying to defeat each other; it is the player's job to make sure his character succeeds and his opponent's fails.

The winner in Strategy is the one who conducts their battle in the most effective and successful manner. Successfully executing clever or unorthodox tactics, manipulating one's opponent, making proper use of the battlefield and working together with one's allies are all good ways of boosting one's final scores in Strategy. Standing in place blasting in your opponent's general direction with increasingly ridiculous cascades of energy, typically, is not. Use all the capabilities your character has to their utmost and you'll receive high marks in Strategy.

ENTERTAINMENT: The oft-neglected but most important part of a post in Roleplayer's Realm: is it fun to read? Entertainment is a measure of how well you made the story come alive in your audience's mind, of how well you got people invested in what your characters were doing and why they were doing it, and whether or not you had them looking forward to your next post or dreading it with every fiber of their being. An extremely subjective category usually omitted from literary analyses, Entertainment is nonetheless of absolutely critical importance in Roleplayer's Realm – if your posts are all mechanically proficient and strategically sound, but about as much fun for the reader as dropping a bag of hammers on their own face, then no one will want to play with you no matter how technically adept you are.

The winner in Entertainment is, simply enough, the side whose posts the judge enjoyed reading the most. It's very hard to define what entertaining writing is without examples to give, but we've all encountered it every day of our lives. The comic books we can't wait to go buy at the end of the month, the novels we curl up with for hours of decadent enjoyment, the really well-written judgment system in RR (...no? Aww...), all the little pieces of storytelling that make a given piece of writing memorable.

An additional point to remember regarding Entertainment is that major critical posts awarded against a player in a battle are felt quite keenly here. The penalty for being a big enough dickbag to warrant a major critical post against oneself is an automatic loss in the Entertainment category. Nobody wants to read someone being a monstrous ass to their opponent in a fight; suffering a major crit is proof positive that you were doing something terribly wrong in your work.

In the event that more than two sides are competing for the same prize, then a judge will rank each side's performance in all three categories relative to each other, similar to how multiple athletes can compete in the same event to earn Gold, Silver, or Bronze medals. The side with the best overall performance – that is, the lowest combined 'score' across all three categories – is declared the winner. Otherwise, the judgment system is exactly the same, including the requirements for a second judge to cosign the final verdict. In the event of a tie, Entertainment is considered the tiebreaker – the best score in Entertainment wins the gold. Note that this makes the penalty for major crits even more painful – please, play respectfully folks.

And that's it! See, not so bad after all.

Critical Hit Types

Critical Posts: Critical posts are posts awarded by a judge in which one player may make closed actions against his or her opponent in a normally open or hybrid thread. There are two types of critical post, each of which has set rules governing when it is and isn't permissible to be awarded. They are as follows:

Minor Critical Post: A minor crit, also known as a Disadvantageous crit, is a critical post in which the critical writer may, typically, close out his last attack against his opponent in lieu of that opponent providing a defense themselves. The attack may not cause significant damage to the critical writer's opponent, but it can put that opponent in a poor position to respond to the next attack in the fight.

By far the most common criteria for being awarded a minor crit is a time lapse – one player fails to respond to his opponent's post within the time limits mandated by the thread without any reason given. Another unfortunately common criteria for being granted a minor crit is harassing a judge or other forum staff; repeatedly asking for a critical hit or closing post that has already been denied, or consistent belligerence in a battle's OOC thread may all result in a minor critical hit being awarded to discourage any further abuse.

Because the typical justifications for minor critical posts are essentially harmless and tend to constitute honest mistakes rather than deliberate maliciousness, these critical posts don't directly affect the final score of an officiated battle. How each player responds to a minor critical may well play into their score, but the minor crit itself doesn't add or subtract points from the final outcome.

Example: Two Street-level characters are contesting control of a research facility in Madagascar. One can generate and manipulate kinetic energy in the form of force blasts and barriers, while the other is a mystic swordsman who can cut anything he can perceive. They've been fighting steadily and well; the battle is seven posts in, with the force-user having posted last. The thread is on a ten-day time limit, and twelve days later the swordsman has yet to so much as give a peep in the OOC thread, let alone posted his reply to the force-user's last attack.

This is a time lapse – the swordsman hasn't provided adequate justification for his absence. The thread's judge awards the force-user a minor critical post in the interests of moving things along. The force-user's last attack was a wide-area wave of kinetic energy hurled along the ground, trying to catch his agile foe in a blanket strike. Given leave to write a minor critical, the force-user makes an eight post and writes for his enemy, playing the swordsman as having cut through the force wave the same way he's done the force-user's other attacks so far.

Since this is a critical post, however, the defense backfires partially – not all of the impact of the force wave is dissipated by the swordsman's cut. He's spared the brunt of the attack's damage, but the swordsman is thrown backwards, fetching sharply up against the walls of the research facility and left dazed while his foe prepares a volley of kinetic blades to finish the job.

The kinetic blade attack may be executed in the same critical post, but is left open as a normal attack so the swordsman has something to respond to. The force wave didn't cause any significant injury to the swordsman – he's got a few new bruises from hitting the wall and will have a mighty headache for a while, but nothing was done that seriously impairs his ability to continue the fight. He[/i] is, however, in a lousy position to defend – his back is to a wall and he's partially stunned from the impact against that wall, leaving him briefly less coherent and thus somewhat more vulnerable to attack.

The next day, the swordsman's player returns and finds out that he's suffered a minor critical post in his absence. He's upset, and understandably so – he was gone because his mother took ill and he had to make sure she recovered properly. His reason for leaving is perfectly valid, but the minor critical post stands. However regrettable the circumstances of the swordsman's unexplained absence was, if he couldn't find a minute and a half to post three sentences in his fight's OOC thread explaining why he may be gone for a time, then neither his judge nor his opponent can be faulted for wishing the thread to move along. Allowances can only be made if the circumstances behind them are known.

Major Critical Post: A major crit, also known as a Traumatic crit, is a critical post in which the critical writer is allowed to inflict significant injury to his opponent as well as put them in a disadvantageous position. The enemy is left with serious wounds, the maximum severity of which is usually specifically stipulated by the judge, but will in all cases be grave enough to affect how the character fights from that point on. These posts are only rarely awarded, and never for an honest mistake. Major critical posts are only awarded to players who have suffered deliberate and outrageous IC misconduct on the part of their opponents, typically in the form of consistent and extreme powergaming or particularly egregious examples of metagaming or breaks in continuity.

In short, major critical posts are only granted against players who are a shaved ass-hair away from getting their fight shut down entirely on the strength of the BYaC Exemption – this is the last warning a belligerent player will get that he is on thin ice and needs to stop, reevaluate how he's been conducting his battle, and proceed in a more respectful manner. Because of this, a major critical post will negatively impact a player's score in final judgment.

Example: The same two Street-level characters are fighting the same fight, but things have not gone well. This time, the swordsman's player is being a righteous ass; he's spent the entire fight overreaching the scope of his abilities to powergame the hell out of his opponent, overwhelming the poor force-user with cuts against his life force, cuts against his aura, even cuts against his mind and personality themselves. Finally, in his fourth post, the swordsman cuts the binding that hold an Elder Demon-God in his prison; a prison the swordsman discovered years ago, and one only he can perceive. Now the beleaguered, sliced-up force-user is facing a creature which would be a tough match for a Global fighter, as well as his original enemy. Oh, and just to top it off, the Demon-God's primary ability is a massively up-powered version of the force-user's own kinetic manipulation powers, allowing him to dismantle the force-user's every attack with contemptuous ease.

Anyone would agree that the mystic swordsman has drastically overstepped both the bounds of his tier, his abilities, and of all possible sportsmanship. Even worse, the desperate entreaties of the force-user's player in the fight's OOC thread, outright begging his foe to play fair, have earned nothing but scorn from the swordsman, who claims that he's simply exercising his powers as he sees fit and that if the force-user can't deal with it, perhaps he shouldn't have bothered contesting the research facility. At this point, the thread judge awards the force-user a major critical post, further stipulating that the force-user is allowed to turn the Demon-God against his summoner and execute a single Global-level attack which may remove the swordsman's off arm. After the attack is executed, the Demon-God vanishes, never to trouble the Earth again.

The clear and unmistakable ridiculousness of this example should go to show how rare major critical posts should be; ideally, this type of critical post should never need to be granted.

The BYaC Exemption: The BYaC Exemption states that the moderation staff reserves the right to unilaterally take punitive action against anyone who displays douchebaggery, tomfuckery, trollfacery or any other form of poisonous, community-damaging shenanigans of a magnitude too astounding to let stand, in the interests of preserving and protecting the community from the sorts of douchebags, tomfucks, and trollfaces who once brought it so near to utter ruination.

In terms of judgment and critical posts, this means that a judge can, if a thread has proven sufficiently disastrous, intervene and immediately end any given officiated thread. The thread will then either go to judgment, if the staff feels any part of it can be salvaged, or be annulled completely. In such cases, it's not uncommon for both sides to be deemed the losers and for the asset being contested to be destroyed. It does not pay to be a dickhead about one's battles in Roleplayer's Realm.

Thread Cappers: A thread-capper or victory post is a type of critical post awarded by a judge at the end of an officiated thread which determines how the events of that thread end. A victor is decided by the thread's judge using the [insert link here]Judge's Handbook[/insert link here], and the scope of that player's victory determines what sort of thread capper is awarded to the victor. In all cases, the victor is expected to write their post within the same thread time limits as any normal combat post, and to treat their victory post respectfully. Remember – next time it could be you with your character at another's mercy. Don't do anything you couldn't tolerate being done to your own characters – unacceptably vicious or brutal victory posts will result in a sanction and, quite possibly, a short-term ban.

Withdraw: Withdraws are the least damaging type of victory post. Any player may, at any time during the thread, request a judge-sanctioned withdrawal if for whatever reason they are unable to continue with the thread. In a withdrawal, the victorious character is considered to have won his objective while the losing character withdraws in good order, suffering no additional injuries or debilities on his or her retreat. No decisive victory is scored in an IC sense, though the end result of the battle is the same.

KO/Forced Withdrawl: A KO post, often also called a forced withdrawal, is the next most severe type of victory post. In this type of thread capper, one character achieves a decisive victory over his opponent, but that opponent manages to get away both alive and in a recoverable state - i.e. the character may be injured, possibly even gravely, but his or her wounds are of the sort which can be treated and survived. Any lingering debilities – cursed wounds, delimbings, or other persistent negative effects – are either settled amicably between players or specifically awarded by a judge for unusual circumstances in the battle. One cannot inflict a lasting debility on one's opponent in a KO post without either specific judge sanction or the public permission of one's opponent. In all other cases, a character who suffers a KO/Forced withdrawal loss is able to make a full physical recovery.

Capture: A Capture post is the second most severe form of victory post, and is easily the most involved. Capture posts involve the victorious character imprisoning the defeated character in some manner for whatever reason. The captured character is, obviously, unable to act freely thereafter and must either escape his or her incarceration or be released by the victorious party. Because of the long-term ramifications of a Capture post, a judge cannot arbitrarily award a Capture; he or she may indicate that a Capture is the most logical/desireable outcome, but both parties must agree to the Capture before it can be awarded. If a Capture is not agreed to, the thread capper automatically downgrades into a Forced Withdrawal.

Kill: A Kill post is the rarest and most severe form of victory post. They are typically awarded in only two circumstances – when the IC events and circumstances of the battle make it crystal clear that no outcome other than the death of one of the fighters could possibly make any sense, or when one player has shown consistent and unrepentant IC disrespect in the thread. In either case, the result is self-explanatory – a kill post results in the death of the defeated character. Kill posts must be cosigned by a second judge who agrees that no other outcome is reasonable; otherwise, the judge may only award a Forced Withdrawal with debilitations.

[Faerie Fortune]

Sparring Types and Rules

Open Style: The Open Style of sparring revolves around as little modding, or use of your opponent’s character, as possible. It involves your character throwing attacks and your opponent deciding what damage they do and whether or not they hit. As an opponent, you should never dodge every attack or have no attack affect your character; to do so is bad sparring and falls into the category of god-modding, which is a huge no-no in sparring.

Closed Style: The Closed Style of sparring is based upon you writing whether or not attacks hit and on how large a scale the damage of the attack is. You should not ignore your opponent’s abilities to block, evade, counter-attack, attack, etc. for this is also considered god-modding. If using this style, you must describe, in full detail, every attack and what affects each one has, even something as simple as a kick to the stomach can be the turning point of the battle for either fighter. Your job, as an opponent, is to return the favor of your enemy’s attacks back at them, or find some tactical flaw in their attacks to exploit, and then take full advantage of it.

Hybrid Style: The Hybrid Style of sparring is almost identical to the Open Style, but with some of the Generic Closed Style added to it. In this all the rules of Open, excluding the one about not modding your opponent in any way, apply. So, essentially this is a blend of modding your opponent and still leaving large attacks open-ended. There are four styles of this that I have seen used, and each has its own variations, of course.

Sparring Rules
RR has no specific standard set of rules for sparring threads. There is no mod-mandated time limit, word count, post limit or style. What this means basically is that you and your opponent/s are not only welcome to, but encouraged to discuss the terms of your spar beforehand and set up your own set of rules of engagements. All rule variations must be posted in the first OOC post in any sparring thread so that both your opponent and any mods who have to look over your thread know and agree to (in the case of your opponent) the terms. Beyond this, all rules are set by the players.

[Faerie Fortune]

Dedications and Credits

Credits To: Ebby Exaspimaru, Axiom, He Who Eats Bears, Ryokuken, Asimov, Matt Nada, Words, Gren, Reno, Pies, Reno, Black Mage, Darksabre, Alucard, Faithy, and all the members of the RR community who suggested ideas and changes for the rebuild. I might not remember all your names but I remember and appreciate your contributions.

Special Thanks:

Ebby: For stepping up with me and slogging through the hardest part of this rebuild. For seeing the herculean task we had before us and diving right in with as much enthusiasm as you did. For not going on a killing spree at my stubbornness to get certain things in the roster.

Axiom and He Who Eats Bears: For the setting and judgement systems respectively. For keeping me sane during the late night slogs. For explaining other people's ideas to me in a way that made it make sense. For proof-reading, grammar-checking and reading everything I wrote to make sure it was ready to roll out.

Darksabre, Alucard and Faithy: The CS staff, for being so willing to work with us and for being so enthusiastic about joining us in the new world. For helping me make sure our rules are understandable for everyone, and reading over them at least 80 times each to confirm it.

The RR community: For stepping up to the plate with me and helping me feel like I wasn't entirely alone in this. For actually believing this was possible. For all your suggestions, thoughts, opinions, criticisms and ideas. For staying when you could have left. For not giving up.

Finally, a very special thanks go to Matt Nada, Asimov, Ryokuken and FreeSaiyan. It's your system this is based off, and if you guys hadn't put in all that work years ago, I wouldn't have been able to do it now.