Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived The Rules

[Tiko]

Chronicles of the Omniverse is an RP designed to provide a healthy and safe environment for writers of all skill levels, writing styles, and genre interests. An element of tolerance for the less skilled, and respect for differences in RP tastes is required of everyone. This RP is very much a group RP, and we all share in it equally.

Also understand that the Game Masters of the Chronicles of the Omniverse exist only as tools for you, the players. Outside of enforcing the rules outlined within this thread we claim no special privilege, or singular ownership over the roleplay. We are stewards, not owners. In the event of conflict between players, you are all encouraged to work problems out among yourselves and to come to compromises whenever possible. We understand though that sometimes this is simply not possible, and in the event that a compromise cannot be reached any player may appeal to one of the four Game Master's to make a ruling. Everyone joining the Chronicles of the Omniverse consents to the fact that once a ruling is requested, the Game Master's decision is final.

Game Masters: Tiko, Dashmiel, and Big Brother

With that all said there are a few rules and guidelines that we must all adhere to, and when in doubt trust in the spirit of collaboration.

1. The Rules:
   
   
   • Maintain common civility towards your fellow players. Abusive behavior, harassment, deliberate exclusion, blatant sabotaging of each other's stories, and/or other similar acts of intolerance are grounds for removal from the roleplay.
     
     
   • All posts should be written in past-tense third person.
     
     
   • An effort to maintain correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation is required.
     
     
   • Do not metagame. The use of out-of-character information that your character could not have known is regarded as cheating and is disrespectful to your fellow players.
     
     
   • Do not auto-hit. You may not force the resolution of an attack or action upon another player's character - or a location that belongs to another player - without the owner's permission. All characters that are the target of an attack or action must be allowed a response. This includes claims of your character having acquired sensitive information that isn't public knowledge without posting and thus disallowing the defending party the option of thwarting the attempt. Example: Hacking into a foreign governments military files. This restriction may be voided for the sake of story development with the consent of all players involved.
     
     
   • Do not use any of the IC areas for OOC content. With the exception of the place descriptions in the first post of every thread, keep all out-of-character discussion to the OOC subforums, PMs, or the chatroom.
     
     
   • Do not make a character for another player's group without permission. This is disrespectful to the creator of the content.
     
     
   • Actions require backing content to support them. It is your responsibility to provide this. Failure to establish your content may result in actions being voided. To clarify on this point, you may not in the middle of an encounter establish that your character - an hour ago - set explosive traps that now blow up and kill everyone unless you can reference an earlier post displaying that your character did indeed do so. Likewise you can't post that your character was spying on another player's character a week ago unless you posted your character doing so at the time, thus allowing the defending party an opportunity to respond if able. This rule may be voided for the sake of story development with the consent of all players involved.
     
     
   • Encounters being collaboratively written through a non-forum medium such as titanpad.com, google docs, write pads, or chat, are perfectly acceptable and even encouraged; however, the content should be posted up at regular intervals as it's being written to allow for other players an opportunity to see the posts in the forums and thus participate. This is to prevent players from excluding other players, either intentionally or inadvertently, from participating in the RP by writing entirely off site and only posting once finished.
     
     
   • Keep content reasonable for a general audience. Violent and graphic themes are permitted, as is alluding to sexual encounters, but strong erotic tones, cybering, and overly sexualized themes are not.
     
     
   • Don't bulldozing plots. What does this mean? It means the difference between playing in a sandbox with others and simply stomping on everyone else's sand castles. Within a collaborative RP the goal should always be to facilitate RP in which everyone's contributions can thrive, grow, and influence the direction of the story. Sweeping aside other players' content to replace it with your own can lead to unhappy players on all sides. Conversely excluding other players out of fear of your own content being altered in any way bulldozes their plots. We should all work together to create a direction that fosters RP growth rather than destroying it outright. How can you tell if you're bulldozing a plot? If your action will effectively eliminate all ongoing RP and force all players to adopt your singular story, you're probably bulldozing plots. If your action will merge with and allow other stories to continue but also influence their direction? You're probably within the spirit of collaboration. If you feel uncertain if a story development you want to pursue might risk bulldozing other players' stories then I encourage you to consult any of the Omniverse GMs for advice.
     
     
   • We ask that you refrain from the use of color coding to distinguish dialogue in posts. It can be very difficult to read, and it also does not replace the need for using line breaks between changes in speakers. Readability is especially difficult when trying to juggle colors that are readable on multiple themes. A single solid color for the entire post is easier to read and when in doubt, the default color is the easiest to read and auto-adjusts for whatever theme the reader is using.
     
     
   • We also ask that you refrain from over fluffing your posts with aesthetic imagery and formatting. It's very distracting to the readers, and this is a collaborative writing roleplay. This means that we put emphasis on writing with words. To clarify on this point, occasional pictures for complimentary imagery is fine, but centered posts with sparkling banners and multicolored cursive font is unnecessarily.
     
     
     
2. Not Rules but Recommendations/Things to avoid.
   
   
   • Avoid lengthening posts for the sake of length. Sometimes a post only calls for a sentence or two, and that's fine. Sometimes they call for five paragraphs. There's no one right post length for all contexts, and you should be comfortable with writing shorter posts if it's called for. Example: Heavy dialogue encounters are liable to result in shorter posts. If you open any book, dialogue is typically done with rapid one line exchanges to maintain a flow of conversation. Too much filler causes a reader to lose the rhythm and flow of the dialogue. Writing short dialogue posts is perfectly acceptable. Conversely, if you're engaged in a massive space siege encounter, you can expect a post to require much more substance to it so that the other players have something to work off with their own posts.

 

[Tiko]

A Guide to Understanding Combat and Power Divisions in the Omniverse​

Given the size and scope of the Omniverse, it can at times be difficult to understand how various elements of the roleplay are scaled and balanced against one another. This guide is to the serve the purpose of helping to clarify upon that.

The first and foremost point that every player within the Omniverse needs to understand though is that not all characters, nations, weapons, and abilities are going to be equal in power and strength. It would be strange for a powerless ten year old character to have equal attack and defense power as a fully armed military soldier, or a fantastical dragon. This is the nature of the Omniverse. These varying power levels are balanced not by ensuring that every single entity is of equal strength as every other entity, but rather by a system of checks and balances. Consequences if you will.

To explain I will use our powerless ten year old child character as an example. If that child is hit by a high-powered weapon, or takes a direct hit from the above mentioned dragon, then the child is likely to be a puddle of dead meat. Neither the soldier or the dragon is OP for being able to swat the child aside. That said, with proper resources at its disposal the child may be able to AVOID attacks, via hiding, or by acquiring the aid of more powerful characters in the vicinity. This concept works on a two way road though. In turn if the soldier or dragon engage an opponent stronger than THEM, the defending opponent isn’t OP for being able to weather their attacks, or deal out stronger counter attacks.

With that explained I’ll now address a common concern. If there’s no limitation on character power levels, what’s to stop high powered characters from stomping all over low powered characters for kicks and giggles? Well this is where consequences come into play. If the above mentioned dragon is rampaging around a city trying to kill everyone’s low powered characters, chances are it’s going to attract the attention of higher powered characters and entities within the region that it will have to contend with instead. If the dragon is of an intelligent nature, it will know this is the outcome of its actions and thus not take those actions so as to not die. Equally if the dragon is minding its own business, the player of a less powerful character likely isn’t going to approach it and provoke it into a fight when their character knows they have no chance of victory.

This system of consequences is what allows a sandbox world like the Omniverse to function, and what prevents any one player from saying ‘my character/nation/weapon/ability is more powerful than anything else’. There will always be stronger entities to anything that exist in the Omniverse. Whether this is a single more powerful entity, or a combined effort of several weaker entities, no one person is above this design. Thus ALL people are bound to the simple fact that actions have consequences, and higher power abilities in play will attract higher powered enemies, or an accumulation of enemies that combine their powers.

This concept applies on the broader scale of nations and empires as well. A weaker nation isn’t likely to deliberately attack a stronger nation if they have no chance of victory, but if a strong nation is attacking weaker nations with impunity, those weaker nations may well search out stronger allies or begin to band together against the greater nation. The notion of varying power levels spills over into combat between these nations as well. An attack or action isn’t deemed OP just because it can’t be stopped by what another nation has in play at any given point at time anymore than the dragon was OP for being able to swat a powerless child, or a soldier for being able to shoot an unarmed child. An attack or action is only deemed OP if it is OOCLy declared as ‘unstoppable via any means’ and if a player can’t explain or back the declaration as feasible within the realm of what has been established ahead of time. A player may BELIEVE their attack or action unstoppable, but it rests on them to PROVE it if a defender pulls out a defense that the attacker didn’t expect, or vice verse. Furthermore it may well turn out that an attack or defense IS unstoppable given the current scope of a scene, and the abilities/resources available at the point in time of an attack. But as noted above this doesn’t make the attack or defense OP, if under other circumstances and with the right abilities/resources it COULD be countered.

I hope that this helps clarify on any questions and concerns regarding varying power levels in the Omniverse, but please don’t hesitate to PM me directly if you have any specific question(s) that weren’t covered.