Guidelines (Aetheric Realms)

So you want to play "Lords of Creation"? Great! We'd love to have you. 
 
We do request that you read this page, however. It contains just a few brief guidelines for how we expect players to behave and interact. Unfortunately, experience has taught us that it is good to ensure everyone is on the same page. 
==We’re making something.==
* LOC is a role-playing game designed with the intent of producing a usable campaign setting. We should all work towards that goal. 
==Interactive means “together.”==
* As a role-playing game, at its heart LOC is an exercise in improvisational acting. A good improver takes what others give him (or her) and builds on it. 
* However, just because you are building on someone else’s work doesn’t mean you have to take it in the same direction as they did. 
==Don’t be a jerk.==
* This includes leaving your interactions with other characters open-ended; don’t dictate the actions of someone else’s characters. 
* Creatures, races, and nations can count as characters too. If a player creates a race and starts to add a particular fluff to them, don’t come along and try to forcibly impose your will on it. You are free to attempt to introduce the changes you want through interactive role-playing, or “taking” a portion of whatever it is elsewhere and playing with them there, but don’t knock down other people’s blocks, as it were. 
==Update the Wikia.==
* The wikia is the central location for a lot of information regarding the game, from gods to domains to places and things. Since the goal of the game is to produce a usable campaign setting (see #1), you should do your part to include both the fluff and crunch necessary for doing so on the wikia. For example: Create a homebrew race? Great! Post the stats to the wikia along with some fluff. 
==Winners can be losers.==
*The goal of the game is to have fun, tell good stories, and create a campaign setting. None of that requires that you always “win” or come out on top. When the role-playing has led to it, allow your hero to be killed, your artifact destroyed, your god imprisoned, your nation overthrown, your armies defeated, etc. It isn’t about being uber cool, it is about telling a good story. So there are no setbacks or defeats, just opportunities to role-play.
==It is better to ask permission than forgiveness.==
*Fairly straight up; it is better to ask another player or an Admin if something is acceptable than to just do it and hope for the best. Generally this only applies to things you aren’t sure of (or shouldn’t be sure of). For example: Have an idea for a cool and unusual artifact? Great! But you might want to run it by an Admin. Asking if you can create a mountain from a shape land action generally wouldn’t need approval, on the other hand.
*Asking permission is just inherently better; either you are allowed to do it or you’re not. But if you go ahead without asking for permission, you might have to then ask for forgiveness and you have no guarantee that forgiveness will be forthcoming. Indeed, banning might be the result instead.
==There are no secrets.==
* It is fine if you want a character to do something secretly or in a manner that other players and gods would not know about. However, you must do this publicly. State that the text to follow is done secretly, but if it isn't in the IC thread, it didn't happen.
* Respect other people’s secrets. Just because you-the-player knows something, it does not follow that any of your characters knows it. Acting on information a character does not know is called metagaming and it is strongly frowned upon. This relates to #3. Repeat offenders may be punished.
Category:ARRules