Erin (La Cidiana) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hughes) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
damned_lounge2010-05-14 06:49 am
hughes) wrote in damned_lounge2010-05-14 06:49 am
IMPORTANT! EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT! + DELAY
As some of you might already know, we have a big, Institute-wide event planned for tonight. And, as some of you might have guessed from the ominous weather and the steadily increasing rain, as well as the warning about difficulty with moving around your character, the event is none other than….
THE PORTALS EVENT!
...Although your character will get soggy if they end up outside. Poor soggy patients. :(
PREMISE
Each time your character opens a door tonight, they will discover that it does not, in fact, lead to the area that they originally thought. Instead, each group going through a door will be suddenly transported to a completely random area, never knowing where, exactly, they might end up in the Institute… or perhaps even outside of it. This might work out very well for them or very poorly, but one thing's for sure: they'll go through the night very, very confused.
For some of the patients, the scope of the event might end here, but some might get a little (un)luckier during their travels. In fact, each time a group goes through a portal, there will be a 1/8 chance that the group will end up in the home world of a group member. Of course, it won't be permanent, and there will be enough limitations to assure the characters that they are still very far from escaping, but that hopefully won't make the experience any less shaking.
RANDOMIZATION
Each time a group goes through a portal-door, an NPC Mod must personally randomize for the area. We've already asked the NPC Mods about pitching in, since there will clearly be a lot of randomization that needs to be done, and they have graciously agreed. We're going to shortly make a post to the lounge that is specifically dedicated to randomization requests: when your character/group goes through a portal, you/a representative for your group will comment there and any NPC mod who happens to be at the computer and available at the time will do a quick randomization for you. HOWEVER, we would like to stress that if you receive a Home World roll, you must give one of the Head Mods the details on it before any of the group members go through the door. More details below.
PORTALS
Not all doors are portals, and some non-doors do count as portals.
NON-portals include:
• Any doors within the patient blocks (patient doors, bathroom doors, doors to the hallways, etc.) We're hoping that through this, characters will generally be able to meet up with their buddies for the night before getting involved in the event.
• Stairs (if not specifically marked as such), such as the 1st-to-2nd floor staircases, etc.
• Some areas might be bundled together (for example, the door between the Hall of Armor and the Weapons Range, or between the Room of Earth and its next counterpart, would not count as portals; only when the characters left the entire trial area would they be transported.)
PORTALS include:
• All doors not specifically mentioned above (some exceptions; will be revealed as the event continues)
• Trap doors (such as to the basement)
• Jumping over a wall (Courtyard/Rec Field/Greenhouse Yard, etc.); as soon as your character jumped down, they would land somewhere else.
• Exiting a general outdoor area. (if your character were transported to the center of the forest, for example, they would suddenly teleport somewhere else when they reached the edge of it.)
INCLUDED AREAS
The NPC Mods have been given a master list of all the areas included in the event, but the list will not be released to any players, as we'd like to keep the scope of the teleporting a surprise…
GOING THROUGH A PORTAL
As your character goes through a portal, they will feel some basic disorientation and then find themselves in the new area, as if they'd just walked/run/jumped into it instead of their intended destination. All characters in the group would be able to get through, but once the last group member had entered the new area, the door would automatically close behind them. If for some reason, the door were to be closed when only part of the group had gone through, the door would lead to a new area when re-opened and the group members would be stranded from each other. Conversely, if group members were to try to keep the door open while their buddies went into the next area to explore, the door would automatically shut itself once the scouting group members took more than a couple of steps away from it. However, with the exception of a Home World, your group members could spend as much time as they wanted in a single area before leaving. Hopefully, you guys can think of some interesting ways to use these rules to your developmental advantage!
MOVEMENT BETWEEN PORTALS
In a room with only one door (e.g. Music Room, janitor's closet), your group would simply have to return through the same door in order to reach a new area. However, in a room with multiple doors or exits (e.g. Sun Room, Rec Field), your group would first appear at the "main" door (in the Sun Room, the southmost door, in an outdoor area, one of the doors from the main building; if unclear, just use your best discretion) and find that returning through that same door would take them back into the area that they were just standing in! It would only be when they crossed the area and proceeded through a different door that they would continue into a new area. This is an attempt to prevent…
ABUSING PORTALS
We understand that having a group go back and forth between a single door in an effort to get them somewhere "good" can be a tempting prospect to players and possibly even to their characters as well. However, in an attempt to keep things running as smoothly as possible throughout this crazy night and also to save the sanity of our NPC Mods, we ask that you be reasonable with how quickly your character moves from area to area. As a trade-off to not having to deal with as many hallways, we ask that you have your characters explore the newfound areas as thoroughly as ICly possible, and, indeed, the Head Doctor himself will be none too pleased if his convoluted method to keep the man down ends up benefitting the patients instead…
PUNISHMENTS FOR ABUSING PORTALS
Since we understand that some patients might ICly do what players may not, we have given NPC Mods clearance to dole out IC punishments for too much portal-jumping from a particular group. (While we can't give a definite requests-per-day type limitation given the newness of the event, we're fully confident that the NPC Mods will be able to recognize it when they see it.) Some of these IC punishments include: an area's doors/exits being locked for a certain amount of posts, a group being dumped and locked into a Solitary Confinement for a certain amount of posting rounds, nasty monsters being thrown at your group, and whatever else the NPC Mods might come up with and have approved by us. In extreme cases of OOC portal-abuse, an NPC Mod may request from the Head Mods that a particular group's Home World randomization privilege be suspended for the rest of the event.
HOME WORLD RULES
Now, the part you've been scanning this tl;dr to get to! In the event that your group is given the chance to visit a character's home world, you may choose one of two scenarios for them to experience. In both cases, your character will arrive in a place of personal significance in their home universe and it will be either at the point in time at which they were taken or a point in time consistent with how many days they have spent at the Institute. (For example: If your character was taken from May 17, 2007 and has been here for five days, then they could either appear at May 17, 2007 or May 22, 2007.) If your group contains multiple characters from the same canon and/or the Institute contains multiple characters from the same canon who are taken from points in time that would realistically contradict each other, you must choose a way to work this out amongst your canonmates for the purpose of the event.
Given those parameters, the two scenarios you can pick from are:
1) Your character (and their group) appears in the player-chosen area. Everyone in the group who is also from that particular home universe will find that they have regained their clothes, equipment, powers, and physical state consistent with the point in time at which they left (or be completely healed of all current wounds). (All non-home universe characters will remain unchanged.) While all members of the group may interact with the environment as though it is real, they will find that the entire "world" is completely devoid of any other people – and that it may perhaps contain foes of an Institute or canon-based nature. If they do encounter any enemies in that area, they may freely use any tools or abilities available to them while still within the world, but when they leave and/or appear in Landel's again, all the home universe characters will find they have reverted back to the physical state in which they left, without any of their clothes, equipment, or abilities. A character from that particular home universe may choose ONE item (subject to approval/limitation by the mods) to bring back with them to the Institute. This is the only item that the group as a whole will be able to keep from that particular world.
2) Your character (and their group) appears in the player-chosen area. Everyone in the group (including anyone from the home universe) remains in the same physical state with the same outfit and equipment. The area will contain as many people as it usually would, possibly including major canon-based characters who are not currently at the Institute. However, while they can view the actions of these characters, members of the group will find that they cannot fully interact with the physical environment, as if they are ghosts; they cannot be heard, seen, or felt by the world-based characters. This is unfortunate, because the world-based characters would currently be dealing with your character's sudden or extended absence in a way consistent with the time frame and with their characterization. (The actions/dialogue of the world-based characters would be written from the perspective of your own character, within their own posts. The details of this should be worked out between your canonmates and with the Head Mods)
Clearly, your group couldn't have access to the entire world, so when you are notified of your randomization success, you must choose a concrete portion of the world (an area, a room, a building) that has canon-based importance to them. (It does not have to be of world-shattering importance, but it can't be picked for random, fanon, or purely lulzy reasons.) To give an example, Sora could end up on the play island of Destiny Islands, but not Tarzan's treehouse. If ANY characters in your group are from differing canons, you must choose whose world it is among yourselves or ask one of the HEAD MODS to randomize for you.
Although a group may enter multiple home worlds during the night, each individual character may only enter their own home universe once during the night. If, in the event that two different groups get a Home World roll and all the group members would like to meet in a single home universe, or split up and rejoin in a home universe, any other reasonable/minor event customizations, etc., the proposed details may be discussed with the Head Mods. However, this might make our decision take longer and any proposals are certainly not guaranteed approval.
REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES YOU CHOOSE, YOU MUST CLEAR ALL ASPECTS (whose world, what part of the world, the boundaries, the world-based characters, the one item) WITH A HEAD MOD BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THE THREAD.
---
REGARDING SPECIAL COUNSELING TONIGHT:
We know that tonight was supposed to be a Special Counseling night, but we realized fairly quickly as we were planning the event that it would be unfair to SCers, as there'd be no telling whether or not any groups of characters would show up in areas long enough to actually be viable victims. For that reason, we're going to be switching to M-U for this Nightshift if any of the people who are eligible would like to take part in it despite the event going on. The players currently eligible are: E, Korii, Tim, Acacia, Shira, and Stefan. If any of you would like to do M-U this Nightshift (with a character who was not accepted during this most recent cycle), please let us know! In the event that we do not get all five slots filled, we will open up a poll for other players to offer up their characters.
----
I… think that's pretty much all the important stuff! Given the nature of the event and all the logistics that we'll be dealing with, we're sure that we haven't yet covered quite everything that could realistically come up during the night. As such, please feel free to ask any questions you might have and we will try our best to answer them! However, please try to keep them to issues that you are relatively sure would occur and be relevant to your character or to the player body in general, as we unfortunately have limited time in which to answer questions. ;;
NPC MODS: We will be posting a mod-specific information post to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
damned_mods shortly, so please hold on until then to ask any clarifying questions about what you'll be doing or anything that might contain event spoilers. :X
SO! That's the event, and we hope that you guys have fun with it and are looking forward to some surprises! Thanks for your patience in reading everything and we hope to tackle any problems that may arise!
Also, we can't remember who originally suggested an event like this, but er... CREDIT WHERE CREDIT'S DUE? |D
ALSO SORRY FOR TYPOS OR GENERAL FAIL I'M TIRED K
ETA: Given how we'd like to give NPC Mods a chance to acclimate to the system and players a chance to rework their plans for the night, (as well as give players some more time to wrap up Doyleton backthreads) I AM MAKING THE EXECUTIVE DECISION to delay the shift change for one more day. ...PLEASE DON'T KILL ME COURT UM if a bunch of you want the change, though, lemme know and I can do it in a few hours. 8D;
...Although your character will get soggy if they end up outside. Poor soggy patients. :(
PREMISE
Each time your character opens a door tonight, they will discover that it does not, in fact, lead to the area that they originally thought. Instead, each group going through a door will be suddenly transported to a completely random area, never knowing where, exactly, they might end up in the Institute… or perhaps even outside of it. This might work out very well for them or very poorly, but one thing's for sure: they'll go through the night very, very confused.
For some of the patients, the scope of the event might end here, but some might get a little (un)luckier during their travels. In fact, each time a group goes through a portal, there will be a 1/8 chance that the group will end up in the home world of a group member. Of course, it won't be permanent, and there will be enough limitations to assure the characters that they are still very far from escaping, but that hopefully won't make the experience any less shaking.
RANDOMIZATION
Each time a group goes through a portal-door, an NPC Mod must personally randomize for the area. We've already asked the NPC Mods about pitching in, since there will clearly be a lot of randomization that needs to be done, and they have graciously agreed. We're going to shortly make a post to the lounge that is specifically dedicated to randomization requests: when your character/group goes through a portal, you/a representative for your group will comment there and any NPC mod who happens to be at the computer and available at the time will do a quick randomization for you. HOWEVER, we would like to stress that if you receive a Home World roll, you must give one of the Head Mods the details on it before any of the group members go through the door. More details below.
PORTALS
Not all doors are portals, and some non-doors do count as portals.
NON-portals include:
• Any doors within the patient blocks (patient doors, bathroom doors, doors to the hallways, etc.) We're hoping that through this, characters will generally be able to meet up with their buddies for the night before getting involved in the event.
• Stairs (if not specifically marked as such), such as the 1st-to-2nd floor staircases, etc.
• Some areas might be bundled together (for example, the door between the Hall of Armor and the Weapons Range, or between the Room of Earth and its next counterpart, would not count as portals; only when the characters left the entire trial area would they be transported.)
PORTALS include:
• All doors not specifically mentioned above (some exceptions; will be revealed as the event continues)
• Trap doors (such as to the basement)
• Jumping over a wall (Courtyard/Rec Field/Greenhouse Yard, etc.); as soon as your character jumped down, they would land somewhere else.
• Exiting a general outdoor area. (if your character were transported to the center of the forest, for example, they would suddenly teleport somewhere else when they reached the edge of it.)
INCLUDED AREAS
The NPC Mods have been given a master list of all the areas included in the event, but the list will not be released to any players, as we'd like to keep the scope of the teleporting a surprise…
GOING THROUGH A PORTAL
As your character goes through a portal, they will feel some basic disorientation and then find themselves in the new area, as if they'd just walked/run/jumped into it instead of their intended destination. All characters in the group would be able to get through, but once the last group member had entered the new area, the door would automatically close behind them. If for some reason, the door were to be closed when only part of the group had gone through, the door would lead to a new area when re-opened and the group members would be stranded from each other. Conversely, if group members were to try to keep the door open while their buddies went into the next area to explore, the door would automatically shut itself once the scouting group members took more than a couple of steps away from it. However, with the exception of a Home World, your group members could spend as much time as they wanted in a single area before leaving. Hopefully, you guys can think of some interesting ways to use these rules to your developmental advantage!
MOVEMENT BETWEEN PORTALS
In a room with only one door (e.g. Music Room, janitor's closet), your group would simply have to return through the same door in order to reach a new area. However, in a room with multiple doors or exits (e.g. Sun Room, Rec Field), your group would first appear at the "main" door (in the Sun Room, the southmost door, in an outdoor area, one of the doors from the main building; if unclear, just use your best discretion) and find that returning through that same door would take them back into the area that they were just standing in! It would only be when they crossed the area and proceeded through a different door that they would continue into a new area. This is an attempt to prevent…
ABUSING PORTALS
We understand that having a group go back and forth between a single door in an effort to get them somewhere "good" can be a tempting prospect to players and possibly even to their characters as well. However, in an attempt to keep things running as smoothly as possible throughout this crazy night and also to save the sanity of our NPC Mods, we ask that you be reasonable with how quickly your character moves from area to area. As a trade-off to not having to deal with as many hallways, we ask that you have your characters explore the newfound areas as thoroughly as ICly possible, and, indeed, the Head Doctor himself will be none too pleased if his convoluted method to keep the man down ends up benefitting the patients instead…
PUNISHMENTS FOR ABUSING PORTALS
Since we understand that some patients might ICly do what players may not, we have given NPC Mods clearance to dole out IC punishments for too much portal-jumping from a particular group. (While we can't give a definite requests-per-day type limitation given the newness of the event, we're fully confident that the NPC Mods will be able to recognize it when they see it.) Some of these IC punishments include: an area's doors/exits being locked for a certain amount of posts, a group being dumped and locked into a Solitary Confinement for a certain amount of posting rounds, nasty monsters being thrown at your group, and whatever else the NPC Mods might come up with and have approved by us. In extreme cases of OOC portal-abuse, an NPC Mod may request from the Head Mods that a particular group's Home World randomization privilege be suspended for the rest of the event.
HOME WORLD RULES
Now, the part you've been scanning this tl;dr to get to! In the event that your group is given the chance to visit a character's home world, you may choose one of two scenarios for them to experience. In both cases, your character will arrive in a place of personal significance in their home universe and it will be either at the point in time at which they were taken or a point in time consistent with how many days they have spent at the Institute. (For example: If your character was taken from May 17, 2007 and has been here for five days, then they could either appear at May 17, 2007 or May 22, 2007.) If your group contains multiple characters from the same canon and/or the Institute contains multiple characters from the same canon who are taken from points in time that would realistically contradict each other, you must choose a way to work this out amongst your canonmates for the purpose of the event.
Given those parameters, the two scenarios you can pick from are:
1) Your character (and their group) appears in the player-chosen area. Everyone in the group who is also from that particular home universe will find that they have regained their clothes, equipment, powers, and physical state consistent with the point in time at which they left (or be completely healed of all current wounds). (All non-home universe characters will remain unchanged.) While all members of the group may interact with the environment as though it is real, they will find that the entire "world" is completely devoid of any other people – and that it may perhaps contain foes of an Institute or canon-based nature. If they do encounter any enemies in that area, they may freely use any tools or abilities available to them while still within the world, but when they leave and/or appear in Landel's again, all the home universe characters will find they have reverted back to the physical state in which they left, without any of their clothes, equipment, or abilities. A character from that particular home universe may choose ONE item (subject to approval/limitation by the mods) to bring back with them to the Institute. This is the only item that the group as a whole will be able to keep from that particular world.
2) Your character (and their group) appears in the player-chosen area. Everyone in the group (including anyone from the home universe) remains in the same physical state with the same outfit and equipment. The area will contain as many people as it usually would, possibly including major canon-based characters who are not currently at the Institute. However, while they can view the actions of these characters, members of the group will find that they cannot fully interact with the physical environment, as if they are ghosts; they cannot be heard, seen, or felt by the world-based characters. This is unfortunate, because the world-based characters would currently be dealing with your character's sudden or extended absence in a way consistent with the time frame and with their characterization. (The actions/dialogue of the world-based characters would be written from the perspective of your own character, within their own posts. The details of this should be worked out between your canonmates and with the Head Mods)
Clearly, your group couldn't have access to the entire world, so when you are notified of your randomization success, you must choose a concrete portion of the world (an area, a room, a building) that has canon-based importance to them. (It does not have to be of world-shattering importance, but it can't be picked for random, fanon, or purely lulzy reasons.) To give an example, Sora could end up on the play island of Destiny Islands, but not Tarzan's treehouse. If ANY characters in your group are from differing canons, you must choose whose world it is among yourselves or ask one of the HEAD MODS to randomize for you.
Although a group may enter multiple home worlds during the night, each individual character may only enter their own home universe once during the night. If, in the event that two different groups get a Home World roll and all the group members would like to meet in a single home universe, or split up and rejoin in a home universe, any other reasonable/minor event customizations, etc., the proposed details may be discussed with the Head Mods. However, this might make our decision take longer and any proposals are certainly not guaranteed approval.
REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES YOU CHOOSE, YOU MUST CLEAR ALL ASPECTS (whose world, what part of the world, the boundaries, the world-based characters, the one item) WITH A HEAD MOD BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THE THREAD.
---
REGARDING SPECIAL COUNSELING TONIGHT:
We know that tonight was supposed to be a Special Counseling night, but we realized fairly quickly as we were planning the event that it would be unfair to SCers, as there'd be no telling whether or not any groups of characters would show up in areas long enough to actually be viable victims. For that reason, we're going to be switching to M-U for this Nightshift if any of the people who are eligible would like to take part in it despite the event going on. The players currently eligible are: E, Korii, Tim, Acacia, Shira, and Stefan. If any of you would like to do M-U this Nightshift (with a character who was not accepted during this most recent cycle), please let us know! In the event that we do not get all five slots filled, we will open up a poll for other players to offer up their characters.
----
I… think that's pretty much all the important stuff! Given the nature of the event and all the logistics that we'll be dealing with, we're sure that we haven't yet covered quite everything that could realistically come up during the night. As such, please feel free to ask any questions you might have and we will try our best to answer them! However, please try to keep them to issues that you are relatively sure would occur and be relevant to your character or to the player body in general, as we unfortunately have limited time in which to answer questions. ;;
NPC MODS: We will be posting a mod-specific information post to
damned_mods shortly, so please hold on until then to ask any clarifying questions about what you'll be doing or anything that might contain event spoilers. :XSO! That's the event, and we hope that you guys have fun with it and are looking forward to some surprises! Thanks for your patience in reading everything and we hope to tackle any problems that may arise!
Also, we can't remember who originally suggested an event like this, but er... CREDIT WHERE CREDIT'S DUE? |D
ALSO SORRY FOR TYPOS OR GENERAL FAIL I'M TIRED K
ETA: Given how we'd like to give NPC Mods a chance to acclimate to the system and players a chance to rework their plans for the night, (as well as give players some more time to wrap up Doyleton backthreads) I AM MAKING THE EXECUTIVE DECISION to delay the shift change for one more day. ...PLEASE DON'T KILL ME COURT UM if a bunch of you want the change, though, lemme know and I can do it in a few hours. 8D;
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