Writing Styles/Posting Rules

From what I've seen of everyone who's played here, this is a relatively advanced group of roleplayers.  Because you're all mature people with the ability to compose coherent thoughts, I thought I'd cook up some guidelines for posting, so we're all on the same page.

1. Every post should be thoroughly checked and proofread for spelling errors and grammar mistakes before actually being posted. Also, it helps to read the post out loud to see if it makes sense sometimes.  If there are spelling or grammar mistakes, I'll probably edit them, so please don't be offended, it's just part of my Storyteller OCD disease.

2. EVERY post should consist of at least a paragraph. A paragraph here means four or more complete sentences.  I know some people work well with short posts, but there's really nothing more irritating than writing up a big description of the Prince's facial changes and long speech at a meeting only to have the response be "So?"  I'm not saying  you have to say a lot, but give me an idea of body movement, or lack thereof.  Maybe some facial ticks to show that there's some wheels turning upstairs.  Or voice inflection.  Something, anything, so there's human (haha, irony) interaction being shown.

3. Be descriptive. If you're stuck and need more to write describe the scenery/setting. Talk about body movements, talk about where the character's eyes are, whether they're paying attention, etc.  Keep in mind that if you give people nothing to work with, they have no reason to engage your character.  Merely posting in a scene isn't enough.  Engage and interact.

4. Don't tell what your character is thinking.  Be more creative than that - does it show up on his/her face, does she suppress her thoughts to the point of showing no emotion at all?  Giving thoughts is giving away a higher level discipline for free, so don't do it.

5. God-Moding or controlling other people's character either in thought or action is not permitted. You do not have control over anyone's characters but your own, so don't try to. This includes PCs as well as Admin-controlled NPCs. In the case of any other NPCs, please ask the permission of the player who originated the NPC before controlling their actions. Also, just because your character is an Elder or Master Mage doesn't give them automatic dominion over others PCs. Please work together to come to an acceptable compromise when using powers that control the minds or bodies of others.

Finally, understand that this is a role-playing game. We want you to feel welcome and have fun here, but we also want other people to feel the same and in order for that to happen we all have to be on the same page and try to do the best we can as far as posting goes. No one is perfect and we don't expect you to be, but we also don't expect you to slack off and be half-assed about posting. If that's how you want to be and you're too stubborn to take advice and change, then perhaps this isn't the site for you.

Hopefully everyone understands and respects this and will adhere to it.

Bump

Giving this a 2015 bump