USS MACRONIN - A Guide to Role Play

I have taken the time to put this together and post it to the website becuase I feel it will help new players joining the ship and even those players who have been in the game for awhile. I hope that it will bring a consistancy in the fomatting of the posts from the USS MACRONIN and it's always nice to have a few guidelines to refer to when needed. Please note that this is not intended to tell you how to write your post, but rather to give you the format for a post so that it makes its way to the groups it's intended to go to and so that it gives the reader a good idea when and where the post is taking place and ties it to any other action that has previously taken place. This guide will also give everyone a kind of rule of thumb about the various ways to interact with other characters, writing other characters and so on. It is not intended to tell you how to write but rather a tool to try and prevent confusion with so many people writing the same mission.

So, lets start with some really basic stuff.

Posting to the news groups

This is really important. The posts we send to the groups generate interest in our ship and in the club. Not only that but they also act as a valuable resource archive. So please always remember to post to:

• mac-rpg@yahoogroups.com
• starfleet-rpg@yahoogroups.com

If it's difficult for us to remember to do this I can set up a fwd system where it will appen automatically and when a post is sent to mac-rpg it will also go to the ASR list, however, the problem with this is that if someone sends an NRPG to that RPG list it will also go to the ASR list and we don't want that. So it's just safer if we try to remember to post to both the MAC and the ASR list.

Subject Lines

The subject line is very important. It's one of those things that we all screw up from time to time so don't get hung up on it if you mess it up, or even forget it. I can set up the list to put the USS MACRONIN in the subject line without anyone needing to remember to do so, but it still needs it there to post to ASR so it's best that we each manually try to remember to put it in the subject line. It also needs to be in the Subject line so that people following the ship from the ASR list will be able to identify our ship and follow the threads.

Headers. In Harry's own words:

I have filters on the stuff coming out of yahoogroups. In order for a post to be sent to the newsgroup, the subject must begin with one of the following:

• USS
• HD
• HOLODECK
• ASR
• ALB
• CINC
• CSFO
• FILE

Please make sure that ALL posts BEGIN with one of these prefixes. If a post's subject begins with some other letter combination or phrase, it will not get posted to the newsgroup.

In the case of the MAC the format we use is as follows: USS MACRONIN: Title of post

You may use the following where a mission has been given a title. USS MACRONIN: Mission Title - title of post

You may also use the same title following the title with Part One, Pt. 1, or some other expression that it is a continuation of the previous post of that title. USS MACRONIN: Title (backpost)

Which brings us to.

Back Posting

The backpost is our friend. It allows us to clarify things for our characters that might have been missed and it allows us to make sense of something someone else has written your character doing by letting you go back and give it a logical rational in the chain of events. It allows us to go back and just fill in something you really think is important to your character when the rest of the story has advanced leaving a chunk of "what happened to me" still up for grabs. It is important to clearly indicate that the post is taking place before the current events. It is important to give it a Mission Date. It is important that before you write the backpost that you have carefully read what has already been written. You cannot alter the future (anything that has already been posted to the group) with a backpost. It is our friend when we use it wisely.

Retconning

A retcon is the prerogative of the Captain and the First Officer in the Captain's absences. If you are upset with something someone has written that has your character doing or saying something you think is seriously out of character and you can think of no way to justify the post then email the Captain and the First Officer. Do not email the other player and get upset with him. I like a peaceful ship. Don't just retcon it yourself without contacting the command team because that can cause problems within the group. The command team ensures the smooth melding of posts and retcons are sometimes needed to do that. Work with the command team to fix the post in such a way that you and the person who originally posted it are happy. Remember it's just a game. You're supposed to enjoy it.

Paying Attention to what has been written already.

Yes, not always easy. We are all busy and we all want to get out post out as fast as we can when we really, really, really want to get in with an idea. The problem is that if that post then contradicts what has already been written then we have a retcon situation, which we are all trying to avoid. But even more than that it is upsetting to the person who spent time to create a post and add to the story if that post is simply ignored. We don't intend to ignore it and we're all human, but we should at least make an effort to take the previous posts into account and build on them. That's what this game is all about, taking what has gone before and progressing the story from that point.

Interacting with other Player Charactors

This can be done in numerous ways.

You can write a post that involves other characters. You write all the characters being careful to play the other characters with the same attention as you write your own. Take their bios into account and how they have played their characters when they write them. When you write all the characters you must never kill or injure a player character seriously without the writer's permission and you cannot make a life altering change for them without the writer's consent. And if you are unsure of what the character might say or do then consult. We have email and IM, so it's not usually all that difficult to do.

You can write a JP. I enjoy JPs. You can write them by bouncing email back and forth or in IM or however you prefer. The benefit here is that you get the immediate input on the characters direct from the horses mouth and it is most like actually table top role play gaming. It's very often a rewarding writing experience.

You can use tags. Personally I dislike this form, but that doesn't mean you can't use it. I would like to make a note about it however. I really don't see the point in putting a tag into a post to have another writer put in their reactions when the decisions are already made for them in a following paragraph. It seems to me that the tag tries to force another player to insert his thoughts and feelings only where the first writer wants them to be. I much prefer an invitation to freely insert wherever I want or feel necessary. If I ignore your tag it is not a slight towards you in anyway, it is that I simply don't see any reason to add anything to the scene. If tags work for you then by all means use them but try not to predetermin the other characters responses. If you do what was the point of using the tag?

I'm sure if we think about it we can think of other ways of interacting.

The Plot

The plot belongs to everyone who contributes to the story. When the mission is created there is usually no finite end. That is created during the course of the role-play, and even if we have some idea where we want it to end the way we get there is totally up to the writers. The command team will guide when necessary and will retcon when someone writes something that contradicts what has already been written. The first post to hit my email has priority. Don't feel that you have no part except to react to what has been written. You can do that if you want to, but you can also have something happen to advance or twist the plot. If you are uncertain about what you're going to write you can talk to Noah or me. We'll let you know if it's going to interfere with anything else.

Mission Dates

Mission dates allow us to keep track of time. We can also write the stardate if you wish. The mission date takes the form:

MD: day of the mission since the mission started . (dot) then the time in military 24 hr clock. MD: 21.0100 = Mission Date: 21st day at 1:00am.

If you want to use the Stardate then that's ok too, just use the Mission Date as well. Stardate takes the form, Year, Month, Day . time (again in 24hr clock). SD: 140409.2200 would be 2414 April 9th at 10:00pm.

For those who really want to know the actually date on Earth Noah and I will set that when we dock at SBK. Time on the ship and time on Earth and Starbases is relative. so to speak, so it may be that we skip a lot of time between missions to keep pace with the rest of the universe.

Anyway, that's about it for the time being anyway. Finally let me reiterate that this was not to TELL you how you HAVE to write except for certain formatting issues. What you write is up to you. I do ask if you are going to write something sexually explicit that you rate it for the benefit of the list. You can send an edited copy to the ASR list separate from the Rated copy sent to the Mac list. The ASR list is often read by kids under the age of 13 or 14 years and although I have no desire to dictate what you write or to censor it. I think adults should be allowed to read and write what they want to, kids on the other hand I do have some issues with.

I only want to encourage the wealth of creativity and excellence I know this crew is capable of. We won the most improved ship at the last awards and that was before we got all this wonderful new talent so let's keep it going. And most of all HAVE FUN! That's what this is supposed to be about!

April
AKA
Captain Caitlan Thorne

PS: This guide may continue to change and develop now that I have it started. If you have thoughts you would like to add to it please feel free to send them to: writingliberty@earthlink.net