Post by Accio Troublemaker on Dec 31, 2013 16:24:31 GMT
POSTING ETHICS
This is mostly in correspondence with the Fourth points in THE RULES:No Mary or Gary-Sues. They are absolutely annoying to roleplay with. Hand in hand with this is god modding. It isn't allowed so don't do it. If anything pm the other member and okay a god mod situation. As well keep your characters true to their house. Of course sometimes there is a cranky Gryffindor or a super intelligent Hufflepuff or a friendly Slytherin. But we want them to be characters true to their house. And to finish this off, don't take more than two character extras. Your character can't be a Quidditch Playing, Prefect who is also an Werewolf. It isn't fair to hog.
ONE (God-Moding)
~ God-moding: Taking away another characters choices from them and limiting their responses.
Eg. Mark pointed his wand at Stephen and sent a curse at him which hit him square in the face.
The problem with this is that the member who controls Stephen now has no choice except to react to being hit in the face with Mark's spell. He has lost his ability to try and defend himself or dodge the curse that has been sent his way. According to Mark's post, the spell has already hit him.
A better form of this would be: Mark pointed his want at Stephen and sent a curse in the direction of his face, hoping it would hit him.
Now, Stephen has the choice of either defending himself against the spell OR allowing the spell to make contact with him. This is the most obvious form of God-moding as it limits another character in their next move, and it is especially common to be seen in action sequences, but it is not limited to this. When you god-mode in this way it is easy for the other person to become frustrated at their limited choices. If you have an idea where you want to perform an action that would control the other person in some way, PM them first and make sure the other member agrees to it.
God-moding goes beyond just the obvious listed above. God-moding also includes making decisions on the way that a character has acted in previous times. In some cases, people might not mind some made up events that their characters were involved in previously, but you need to be careful that you are not dictating the way that character acted or responded.
Eg. Suzie remember the way Lucy had been acting a few days ago when she'd been in detention. She'd been moody and snappy, and she'd even yelled at a younger student to go away, which was unusual for the usually happy and smiling girl.
So, Lucy is usually happy? But a detention made her act like a b*tch? Okay... does the member who plays Lucy agree with this? Has she ever said anywhere than Lucy reacts in this way when she has a detention? Not just that, but are you really in the position to decide that Lucy had a detention the other day? Maybe Lucy is the most rule-abiding student Hogwarts has ever seen and she's never had a detention in her life, so who are you to dictate that she got a detention. See the problem we have here? If you're going to make assumptions on past events like this, make sure it fits with the other character and doesn't portray them in a way that their player would never show them. Again, a quick PM goes a long way.
As another little note to this, I'd just like to add - Consider the bigger picture. If an event has happened and you weren't there, you're probably not going to know about it. If you -do- know about it, you're not going to know every little detail. If someone is keeping a secret, just because you as a member knows about it, doesn't mean that your character is going to suddenly start suspecting the secret-keeper of being up to something. Let people keep their secrets. Don't pry into things if you haven't been given any fodder to use which would allow your character to raise the subject. Also, mind reading - just because a character is thinking something as long as it's not being spoken out loud - your character can't know about it.
Eg. Maggie noticed how strange Lou had been acting all day and she had a feeling that she'd been approached be a death eater recently, what else would explain the way she'd been acting? "Has anything bad happened to you recently?"
TWO (God-Moding Canons)
Sometimes this can be unavoidable, but we'd rather you didn't. I mean, if you want to say that a professor glared at you for talking in class then... okay, fine. But please don't create up entire situations of things that have happened. Be realistic. Be especially careful at what you do when it comes to key canons like Dumbledore and Voldemort - we have accounts for them on here and we can/will thread them with you if you really desire to, but it must be realistic.
What we're asking is that you don't make up a situation with a character like this - would Dumbledore really stop in the corridors and have a conversation with you about trivial matters? Would he really tell you some sort of order secret or huge piece of information? Probably not. Similarly, if you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort would he honestly in interested in conversation? Do you really think you can talk to him and he'll have some shocking wave of mercy which makes him choose to let you go? Come on, be realistic, and just... don't do this.
THREE (Mary Sue & Gary Stu)
Mr and Mrs Perfect. They are perfect, beautiful, and flawless. They're super intelligent, beautiful, friends with everyone, amazing at Quidditch, top of all their classes, and probably a prefect to - not to mention that their personality is absolutely incredible, and ALL of this amazingness follows such a devastating and pain-ridden past. *yawn*
Everyone has flaws. Everyone has weaknesses. We all want our characters to be happy and successful, but be reasonable. Not everyone is invincible. Please keep your characters realistic: Not everyone has a tortured past, and not everyone will come out of a dark past a better person. Not everyone has the weight of the world on their shoulders as if one wrong move by them and the entire world will fall apart. Not everyone can be top of all their classes, fair enough have one or two you excel at, but you're not the best in them all. Not everyone is amazing at Quidditch or performing fancy tricks on brooms. Try and keep your character well balanced and believable with an equal number of things they can and can't do.
Also, think about the age of your character. Someone under 5th year is hardly going to whipping out advanced spells that aren't taught until 7th year - they're not going to be a spell-master, or able to take on an older student in a duel and win.
Similarly - everyone has emotions. If your character gets cursed by a spell that's going to give them big, hideous boils, they're going to feel pain, and probably a whole load of humiliation, too. They're not just going to get angry and start firing spells back. Actually, with such an emotional overload, their spells are probably going to get less accurate, rather than them suddenly becoming more powerful. Please, please be realistic in what you do.
If we have to we will find or create a Mary Sue Test and make it a requirement for applications, and who really wants that if it just makes the whole application process longer? Really think about your character and who they are - make a list of the good and the bad and keep them balanced. If you put weaknesses in your application, use them. Don't just forget about them and have your character start acting the complete opposite.
No one likes a Mary Sue/Gary Stu - they're annoying and drive us all up the wall with their 'I'm-Perfect' attitude. (Gratz! The second code-word for applications is Quaffle!)
FOUR (Posting Order)
In group threads, everyone needs to be given a chance to reply, otherwise they will get completely left behind and you might as well just be threading between two people. If you are in a thread with more than two characters everyone needs to be given a chance to reply before the first person posts again.
However, there does come a point when that person hasn't replied in so long you start to wonder whether the thread is going to die completely. In this case, you can post again without a reply from the other person. If someone has not replied in seven days (without a PM to say why they won't reply or a message in the absence board saying they are going away) then we recommend that you PM that member and ask if they still want to continue the thread. If you have no response in three days, then you can continue the thread without them.
The rules are different in a thread started by a professor in a class, or a thread with over 5 participants. With so many people able to get involved, it would be easy for the thread to die out of we waited for every single person to post again and keep the order going, so if there has been no response in two days, you can skip someone's turn and keep the thread moving, so it doesn't die out, just keep the options open for that person to join in again when they are ready.
FIVE (Character Relations)
Lily Evans doesn't have a cousin at Hogwarts with her. Sirius Black's great uncle doesn't have a daughter that attends school with him. Remus Lupin doesn't return home to a house full of sisters in the summer.
Here on Accio Mischief we'd like to think that we are pretty flexible when it comes to new characters, but there has to be a line somewhere. If you're thinking of making a character like this then PM an admin first and they can discuss it with you, and we can all find a happy compromise that suits everyone.
Give us a bit of information about the character, why you want them, and exactly how they'd fit into things. If you send us a message saying 'I want to make a little brother to Bellatrix/Andromeda/Narcissa because I'm bored and I think it'd be fun', then don't expect us to say yes to him. Anything that challenges what's canon is going to be risky enough without it just being an 'on a whim' character.
We'd like to give everyone a chance around here, and if you give us a good enough explanation then we'll do our best to find that common ground with you, but it's always going to be a risk, and not everyone is always going to like it. Characters like these tend to be the ones with the biggest risk of falling into the Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu trap, so be especially careful to NOT make your character like this.
SIX (Characters from Fandoms)
It quite clearly says in our rules that there is no Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, or Sherlock Holmes. These don't tend to be the problem around here - Avoid Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, and Marvel, if you will. We don't want a carbon copy of a character from another fandom. If you make a character that has the same name, face, and personality as someone from somewhere else you will be asked to change them.
We know that it can be tempting to make a character similar to someone else. You can grow to associate a particular face with a particular personality, and that's okay, but make them original. At the very least, make the name original, or at least part of it. Don't make Clara Oswin, please, but if her name is Clara Delany then that's better than the copycat form.
The risk with characters which are carbon copied from another fandom is that you end up trying to twist Potterverse to fit that character's history, even when they're from an entirely different world. There's also the trap that if you get two characters from the same fandom you'll automatically want to make them friends and thread them together for the sake of them being from the same fandom, even when, at a closer look, they're the least likely people to get along.
We don't want copy cat characters. We're Marauder Era Harry Potter here, so don't try and twist the world to cater for someone who doesn't belong here. Your character must be realistic and fit into this world, not this world change to fit your character.
