Rules for Posting in Syliras (MUST READ BEFORE POSTING!!!)

[Dusk]

Hello all, and welcome to Syliras! For those of you who are new, my name is Dusk and I'm the Domain Storyteller (DS) for Syliras. I've taken over for Gossamer, which is why you'll see so many posts in here with her name on it. She is amazing, and I'm still clutching her apron-strings and will surely miss her dearly! As such, there are many of her rules and standards that I will be maintaining here. Syliras is a forum with high and exacting standards, and it's important that everyone understand what we mean by that. So without further ado, here is a helpful list of things that you need to know before you go posting in Syliras. Many of these are grandfathered from Goss, so they may look familiar! 1. READ THE LORE - both on Syliras and on the Syliran Knights. If you want to role-play a character in this setting, I expect you to know WHAT setting you're playing in. If I find you playing out a thread with something that doesn't mesh with the city, I will post an intervention explaining what the problem is and will later delete the thread. If you can't be bothered to read two pages worth of Lore, this isn't the city for you. We have too many players for me to police every thread, so you're expected to handle it yourself. 2. Ask questions. Seriously, just send me a PM. You and I will both be happier people. I'm extremely patient with any questions that are brought to me - however, if you don't bother asking and I come across a problem (or, worse, have a problem brought to me by another player), I'm gonna be bitchy. Please, please ask any questions you have. Use common sense, and come to me for help. It's what I'm here for. 3. When creating a character who starts off with housing in Syliras, keep in mind that the entire city is one huge castle. You will not have a cottage, you will have a 20x20 room in the bowels of the castle, and - unless you actually play out renting your room through the Housing Authority, you are so deep in the interior that you probably don't have any windows. Keep that in mind. 4. Do not post one-liners in my city. They will be deleted. Don't even try and post two liners. The threads and/or posts will be deleted. 5. Do not post so blatantly lazy that you can't even be bothered to capitalize or punctuate your sentences, or separate anything into actual paragraphs. I'm not expecting you to all be geniuses on the proper use of the semi-colon, and typos are totally understandable, but if I have to actively try to discern the meaning of your thread instead of just being able to read it, you've done something wrong. You will likely receive a PM from me asking you to fix it, and if no effort is made those threads and/or posts will be deleted. 6. I work on a "three strikes" basis. If I have to warn you of your behavior, or ask you to change something, more than twice, you will be kicked from the game. Please don't take this to include questions from new players who are having trouble assimilating - that's something completely different and I am absolutely here to help you. However, if I have to say "There is no Assassin's Guild in Syliras, stop posting about it" for the third time, it will be the last damn time I do. 7. DO NOT HIJACK THREADS. This happened recently and if I see it again I will delete your posts. If someone posts a thread and lists it as OPEN, keep in mind that it is still their thread. They have created a situation and invited people in to it - that means it is up to you to interact with them, and within the situation. Don't just have your character show up and then go off on tangents. If someone tells me their thread has been hijacked, or if I see it happening, you can expect a PM and a deletion of your posts, and you can count that as a Strike. You have been warned. 8. Do not run NPCs that you do not have permission to run. That means no Knights abusing you, no guards prodding you, no barkeeps (other than passing out a beer or two), no bandits, no robbers, no thieves or cutthroats, no brawls and NO MASS COMBAT. The only permissible reason for you to self-mod an established NPC is if you are making a purchase at a Shop (here is an example of how to self-mod a purchase without breaking the NPC rule). You also CANNOT create other NPC workers in the Shops - these are Mod territory and we have characters there already. If you're unsure about whether or not you're breaking this rule, just ask - send me a quick PM and I will gladly answer it. Some of the established players can be trusted to run their own NPCs, but they've built that trust over a lot of scenes. If you're new, you'll have to work up to it. 9. When you've completed a thread and want to receive XP for it, submit it to one of our Offices to be awarded. Don't PM it, don't post it in the OOC thread, don't just post "End" on it and expect us to hunt it down and find it. The Office threads are a way for us to track everything, so make sure you use them. 10. With this being the most popular forum for new players, we often have to deal with a lot of abandoned threads when people try out the site for a few days or weeks and then disappear. As such, I am instituting a 30 Day Abandonment Clause for Syliras. If you are in a thread with someone who disappears without any explanation, you may submit the thread for XP Award after 30 days have passed since the last time the other person posted. A warning will be posted by myself, and I will allow a few days to see if they respond before awarding and closing the thread. 11. In order to qualify for Seasonal Wages, the following must be true: (A) You must have worked out your employment with a storyteller PRIOR to trying to claiming wages. This means that we have to approve your job, and have written record of it either in PM or in a thread where you received approval for the job from an ST. You cannot simply come to us and say "I was a Weaponsmith! Give me 700+ gold!" We have to have approved your hire and agreed upon your wages. If your character has a job that is unsalaried like a thief or a busker or something, you must participate in the Wild Streets thread in order to obtain Seasonal Wages. (B) You must have participated in at least 3 job-related threads to show that you as a player have been role-playing the position. Money is not free in this game, and if you don't meet this minimum you won't be eligible for your entire Wages. Participating in more than three will earn you more wages or XP or swag from me. Seasonal XP for shop-owners or Seasonal Wages for employed character is only awarded by the Domain Storyteller. This means that if you have a job, you cannot simply add your wages to your CS at the end of the season; you must submit your request for wages to me once the season is over. Send me a PM telling me (a) What your character's job was, (b) What the agreed-upon salary was, (c) What time period they worked during [so if they only worked 30th Fall to 56th Fall, I need to know that to calculate], and (d) links to threads showing that your character actually worked; if you do not actually role play them doing their job, they don't earn any money for it. Please actually use these bullet points so we don't have to go back and forth to get all the information. I will reply with your Seasonal Wages and add it to your Storyteller Secrets thread. If you do not go through this process, you do not get to add wages to your CS. And yes, I will be checking. NOTE: In your first season, you will only be awarded wages from the Real-Life date that you started playing. So if your character said he got the job on the 2nd Day of Summer but you didn't join Mizahar until August 22nd, you only get paid for nine days of work. The following is an example of how to submit a request for wages: James Monkeyface is hired at the beginning of Summer as a bartender at the White Swan. His player has worked out this arrangement with me in a thread, and we've agreed that his wages will be 4gm. When the season changes to Fall, James' player sends me a PM recapping what his job and wages were, and giving a list of all relevant threads. I will then reply with his wages and any bonuses he might have earned for his exceptional RPing, and will add that to his Storyteller's Secrets thread. Then he can add the wages to his CS. 12. And most of all... have fun! This is a storytelling site, and we're all here to tell our character's stories and hopefully to to expand those stories through interactions with other characters. Yes, there are rules to abide by, but these are in place for consistency and quality control, and I think you'll find yourself much happier with the experiences you have here because of the rules we have in place.