THE RPG LIST RULES

If you want to belong to some existing family, contact the other members of the family or the family's RPG contact if one is appointed and ask if it will be OK for you to join them. Usually no one will have anything against that. You can find the list of the families at the Matrix Ops site at http://www.oocities.org/matrixops.

When you have created a character to your liking, please submit the character's 'Profile' or 'Roll Call' to the family RPG contact and Matrix Ops at MatrixOps or matrixops_tech for approval. The Matrix Ops team will then add it to the list of characters and to the family trees. You can find examples of the Roll Calls at the Matrix Ops site, where you can also find a Profile form at Character Template. The Matrix Ops might contact you with suggestions how to change your character, most likely concerning the laran Gifts, family relations or general background. If they do, please comply and change the Roll Call accordingly. After that, you can send the Roll Call to the RPG list.

Afterwards, if something happens to the character that will dramatically affect it's actions(gets married, becomes blind, develops laran, loses it's left arm, finds it's long lost true family, becomes a Renunciate or a cristoforo monk), please remember to update the Roll Call.

If the player and creator of a character is away, unsubscribed or unreachable by email for six months, the character becomes an NPC or a Non-Player Character, and can thereafter be played by anyone.

If you need to be away for more than six months but definitely plan returning, you should provide your character with a good explanation why it's inactive: it has gone off-planet (to Terra, Vainwal, Samarra, Wolf, Alpha &c.), has gone hiking in Kilghards or mountaineering in the Hellers and disappeared, has been injured or fallen ill and has to be kept in a hospital or perhaps even in a Tower in a stasis field, or has gone to Nevarsin to become a monk. Whatever suits you best, as long as it gives a believable reason to why your character isn't around, but also allows it to believably return later. Remember also to let the other players know that you will be away but will return at some point. Otherwise the character might be dead when you come back, despite all your plans.

When your character is ready and you want to participate in the RPG, just send your messages to darkover-rpg-l@yahoogroups.com. You can also post your messages from the Darkover-RPG-L Main Page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darkover -rpg-l by choosing the link 'Post' on the left side of the screen.

Note that no attachments are allowed: the list server automatically removes all attached files from the email messages. This is to protect the list and the list members from all kinds of nasty viruses.

If you have found something of interest to the general populace of the list, you can either send a message containing the URL of the interesting site to the OOC list, or you can upload the text or image to the list's 'Files' section at http://groups.yahoo.com/files/darkover-rpg-l/.

When interacting with other characters, you are not allowed to seriously harm or kill other characters without their explicit consent. Try to leave the other characters some space to move in your story, do not force them to do anything they are not willing to do. At least, leave open some way for them to use as an "fire exit" if their characters do not want to do what your character's proposed.

Use discretion before jumping into an ongoing storyline. Make sure you wait for an appropriate spot where your character may enter, and be sure that the others you will be joining will not object to your character being added into the storyline. If the storyline happens in a private, restricted setting, you will have a hard time to find a way in without the other players' consent and you might just as well abandon the idea. On the other hand, if the setting is public, an inn or a shop or the Great Market Square in Thendara, they should not be surprised if someone interrupts them in the middle of a private conversation. But USE DISCRETION!

Then we come to an important point about the RPG. WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN, HAS BEEN WRITTEN! If a character is written to leave a room without waiting for an answer, then there will be no answer. People can run after the character, or catch it up later or something like that, and if they write they caught the character, it will have no chance "escaping at the last moment into a closet" (Thanks, Jaelle :)). If you write your character saw someone somewhere, then it did and the other character has to be there. Which might not precisely fit the idea of the other character's player, so BE VERY CAREFUL about what you write.

Before writing anything, READ ALL THE PREVIOUS MESSAGES IN A STORYLINE so that you will not contradict something that has been said in the earlier parts of the story. After you've sent you message to the list, IT CANNOT BE RECALLED!! If you then find out you've somehow contradicted the earlier events, be very sure to find an acceptable explanation why your character did this when it was earlier said it didn't. Saying "oops, that was a mistake, let me write it like this" isn't acceptable. Everybody's already read your message, everybody's noticed it's contradictory, they cannot erase it from their minds, SO FIND A BELIEVABLE EXPLANATION!

There should be as little of OOC or Out Of Character discussions as possible on the list. The list is a role play list, so play. Do not explain your actions in OOC messages. If you simply *have* to tell something about your character's actions or situation in OOC to everyone else, then you should send the message to Darkover-RPG-OOC-L@yahoogroups.com.

If you want to arrange for someone to babysit your character, do that on the OOC list. If you need to plan coordination between characters, or reveal future plot twists to other players, please contact the other players involved by personal e-mail instead of making the plans on either list. That way, the unfurling plot will not be spoiled for other people.

Learn to crop your quotes. When replying to someone else's message, DO NOT QUOTE THE ENTIRE MESSAGE in your reply, only the relevant parts. Usually it is enough if you quote the last line of the other message, or the one or two lines of the original after which your own reply is intended to take place. Most of the time quoting isn't really necessary at all.

Finally, remember that there are people all over the world on this list. When posting, keep in mind that on the other side of the world it is the middle of the night. It might take at least 12 hours before anyone responds to your messages. Allow all participants of your storyline time to react. Some of us have only limited access to email, some can only post from work or school and cannot therefore participate during the weekends. Try not to post more than two or three messages a day, so that everyone can keep up with your storyline and can respond if needed.

Also, it is not necessary to announce that you are now going to be off-line for a few hours, or that you will be away for the weekend. Many of us are so that is hardly news and everyone will know that if you do not respond immediately, you are away. On the other hand, if you are going to be away for a week or longer, you should let people know, at least those that are involved in the same storyline as you are. If you will be away longer, you might want to give some of your fellow players permission to use your character so as not to keep the storyline suspended in limbo waiting for your return.

People violating these rules will be warned three times. If they do not correct their behaviour, they will be banned into Zandru's ninth hell for a month. After they have been released from their banishment and still continue to violate the rules, they will be sent on Banshee Express to Dalereuth, where they will be put inside a stasis field, locked into a cell in the deepest dungeon of the Dalereuth Tower and the key will be thrown away. In addition to that, they will be banned and unsubscribed from the list.

To unsubscribe from the list, go to 'My Groups' at the Yahoo!Groups web site, at http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups. There you will see all the lists you're subscribed to. On the right side of the screen you will find scroll boxes under the header 'Edit My Groups'. Choose 'Unsubscribe' from the box besides the name of the list you want to unsubscribe from and then click the 'Save Changes' button.

Another way to unsubscribe is to send email to darkover-rpg-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Here you can also change your subscription between 'Individual Emails' mode and 'Daily Digest' mode. The first delivers every email sent to the list individually, in real time. The second collects a certain amount of messages and sends them in one big digest once, or if there are lots of messages, twice a day. You may also choose the 'No Mail/Web Only' option, if you only want to read the RPG messages through the Internet at the list archives, or if you need to be away for awhile but do not wish to unsubscribe from the list.

After all these rules and guidelines, have fun! J

Adelandeyo!

Piedro Aillard-Syrtis,

Keeper of Dalereuth Tower, Second Circle

The List-owning Fool of Valeron Plains