InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "hello"

Mod journal for the Land of Make Believe (f_rogers) wrote,
@ 2011-01-02 02:49:00

FAQ


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS






1
	• What are Pan-Fandoms?

	Pan-fandom is similar to multi-fandom games. It includes all fandoms (aside from authors who forbid fan derived works.) We have detailed some basic misconceptions about the genre HERE if you have more questions.

2
	• Where does my character arrive? What is provided?

	Where Do The Characters Arrive*


	Good-Aligned Characters		*Evil-Aligned Characters**


	These characters will arrive in their quarters in the Castle. What they are doing upon arrival is up to you (sleeping, standing, watching TV, bathing, etc.) so long as it is something that can be done within the quarters. Go to the Housing Page to pick out their room. You can read more of what the Castle has to offer on the Castle Features Page		These characters do NOT arrive at the Castle. They arrive somewhere in the greater parts of the Land of Make Believe. You can read our Notable Places page to get an idea of the different places around the land. Once you've decided their living arrangements fill out the form on the Housing Page. If you have questions about where precisely your character can arrive in Make Believe outside the castle don't hesitate to ask the Mods.

	*There are a few characters that, due to their propensity to, and frequency of doing harm others, regardless of their over all alignment or goodness, will be required to arrive and live outside the castle.


	What Is Provided For The Characters


	Characters Arriving In The Castle		Characters Arriving Outside The Castle


	• $100^^ Starter money (LofMB Currency, not Earth Currency) • State of the art Smart Phone • Welcome Note • Basic Room and Board at the Castle (but no clothing or allowance is provided) • Castle information letter explaining staff and meal schedule of the Castle		• $100^^ Starter money (LofMB Currency, not Earth Currency) • State of the art Smart Phone • Welcome Note

	^^ Beyond this starter money characters will need to find employment or other means of procuring money if they want to do things/buy things. There are a number of pages to go for inspiration: Character Job Directory, this page lists the jobs of each character. Notable Places Page, this page lists some notable places around the Land of Make Believe, many of them hiring. Character Owned Businesses, this page lists the businesses owned by characters, if you wish to have your character work at one of these establishments you'll need to contact the business' character's player. This list is by no means the only options you have - be creative, what would your character want to do?


3
	• How do you determine who arrives at the Castle and who doesn’t?

	Characters who accept and are willing to abide by society's rules and laws regarding assault and murder will show up at the Castle. Those who struggle (in a noticeable way) with this concept will not. This means that sometimes characters who might have good intentions but struggle greatly with not killing people (eg: Vampires) will be required to live outside the Castle. If you are uncertain where your character will end up don’t hesitate to ask us. We will definitely let you know before your character is accepted into the game if they will arrive, and be forced to live, outside the Castle.

4
	• How do you determine a character’s alignment?

	The question we ask, when determining a character's alignment, is: What is their likelihood of harming/murdering others? Good-Aligned characters - agree with and follow the rules and laws of society, most particularly the rules and laws against assaulting/murdering other sentient beings. For the most pat. If they deviate from this it's usually due to extreme extenuating circumstances that happen infrequently. We do not include acts of self-defense in this assessment. Morally-Ambiguous-Aligned Characters - These characters are not necessarily ‘evil’ or ‘bad’, but either through their personal beliefs or their special circumstances the possibility they will disregard the rules and laws of society against assaulting/murdering others increases significantly. Some morally-ambiguous characters might be relatively harmless and their moral ambiguity has more to do with the setting of their fandom and what their setting required of them. Some morally-ambiguous characters are more harmful, say in the case of Vampires, who need to feed off humans to survive. Evil-Aligned Characters - These characters give no heed to social rules and laws against assaulting or murdering others. They will do this for their own joys and betterment, as in killing people who get in the way of their goals. They have no compunction against harming others, and in many cases will take pleasure in doing so.

5
	• Are the phones special? What can the phones do?

	The phones given to the characters upon arrival are a bit special. • They, like any other smartphone now days, can make phone calls, send texts, access the internet (anything found on the internet on Earth can be found online in the Land of Make Believe), use GPS, and all the other many, many things smartphones can do. • They can access the Network - a social networking site for the characters (this is the Network Comm). • They can’t be broken... not for long. If your character tries to break their phone or throw it away, it will reappear, good as new, next to them again within a few hours (time duration can vary depending on player’s mood, but no longer than a couple of hours).

6
	• What can arrive with my character?

	Anything that might be reasonably carried on the character’s body can arrive with them. Wallets, wands, a book, favorite guns, doctor’s bag, etc. If they can carry it, it can come with them. Keep in mind large things like automobiles, spaceships, large animals (pet horses or dragons, etc.) will not be arriving with your character. Anything else they need or want (such as wardrobes, large status possessions, etc.) they will need to procure on their own in the Land of Make Believe. However, these items can only be things that were accessible to your character at their canon point upon arrival. Meaning, if Harry Potter is coming from the fifth book, he couldn’t have the Elder Wand with him.

7
	• You have a lot of communities to this game. Why so many?

	There *are* a lot of communities for this game, which can be understandably confusing. Below is a breakdown of the Comms and how to use them. makebelievenet, This is the network forum (think: social network site) all characters can access via their phones. Posts in this comm are first person. They can be public, semi-public (parts public, parts private), or completely private to other, designated characters. If you are posting private messages please indicate to whom the messages are directed. In general, comment threads within posts happen the day of the posting, unless otherwise noted somewhere in the comment (such as an OOC note, etc.). makebelievelog, this is the logging/threading community. Posts are in the third person. When using this comm every player must use a cut tag and a header that contains the minimum: Who, What, When, and Warnings. If the content is mature, f-lock the post. A nice header has been provided: <b>Who:</b> <b>What:</b> <b>When:</b> <b>Where:</b> <b>Rating/Warnings:</b> <b>Status:</b> <lj-cut text="Name"> </lj-cut> makebelievecomm, this is the communications comm, for any kind of communication outside of the network. Text, Letters, Packages, Owls, Telephone Calls, Telepathic Communications, Smoke Signals. If your character is sending a message to another character and they are not using the network this is the comm to use. In general, comment threads within posts happen the day of the posting, unless otherwise noted somewhere in the comment (such as an OOC note, etc.). makebelieveooc, Out of Character comm. This comm is for player communications, intro-ing new players or characters, letting everyone know of your hiatus status, requests for plots. makebelievemeta, this is the Meta comm. Have a funny Meme to post? Or whatever (look, this one is still a hazy area, basically anything about your character that isn’t taken into play, but you want to share) this is your comm! For All Comms: Use a cut if the post contains lewd/profane language, sensitive subjects, is large, or contains media (pics or videos) to be mindful of the F-list of other players. Strike-throughs like this: "~~strike through~~" are not readable by any character, those are deleted texts. They are for you, the player, to know and not for the characters to know.

8
	• What are the Castle/Grounds/City/Land/World like?

Here are the links to our pages detailing the features of the Castle and surrounding land. If after reading the information on those pages you still have questions don’t hesitate to ask the Mods.




CASTLE	GROUNDS	WORLD	LAND	SCHOOLS	SECRET PASSAGES	MAPS

NAVIGATION

9
9	• Can my character leave this world?

	No, sorry. All characters are stuck in the Land of Make Believe. Characters may travel all over the land, however they cannot leave the Land of Make Believe - no matter what means they use from personal super/meta powers to actually trying to build a ship. Everyone is stuck below the stratosphere.

10
10	• Are there NPCs in this game?

	Yes. The Land of Make Believe is vastly and diversely populated with human NPCs. In fact there are upwards of 30 million people living all throughout the Land of Make Believe, with most living in the metro-area. These NPCs are as intelligent or as ignorant, as kind or as cruel, as entertaining or as boring as one might find on Earth. These NPCs are at the characters' disposal, they can be bosses, employees, locals known at the pub, one night stands, cannon fodder for things gone wrong. Play with them, love them, use and abuse them.

11
11	• If my character asks about the Land Of Make Believe, what will they learn?

	The people here are varied. Depending on who they ask they might receive a long, dry, detailed history of the many political movements of the Land’s past; or they might receive a curt answer about how the NPC is busy and doesn’t have time to answer questions. What your character can learn is the Land of Make Believe is on the planet Imagination, located in solar system of 7 planets orbiting a yellow star. It has one moon, that shines a reddish color. The world of Imagination has a complicated and intricate history that would take years of study at a University to fully map out. And what they will definitely learn is this world is not located anywhere near Earth.

12
12	• Do the NPCs know about the characters living in the Castle?

	Yes. They know people live at the Castle located outside the suburbs, and that the residents there come and go, which they assume is normal as like any housing complex. The NPCs, however, don’t know that the people living in the Castle are in the Land under special circumstances - in that the characters have been pulled here from their respective universes. Some NPCs might know of the characters’ fandoms (and therefore the characters themselves, Harry Potter, X-men, Avengers, etc.) - just like we are aware on Earth. It all depends on that NPC’s fandom interests. They also know about Earth and they can access the internet just like anyone here on Earth. If your character is non-puncturable they simply do not have to run into the NPCs that know about your character's fandom or your character's fandom merchandise in stores.

13
13	• What from my character's fandom is in the Land Of Make Believe?

	The moment a character from a new fandom shows up so do some features from their world. But only nonspecific 'types' of things. For example: There is a generic magical district located in the city where one can buy all kinds of things that would be found in say Hogsmeade from the Harry Potter universe or magical items from other fandoms in the game that have magic. It should be noted that this street does not look exactly like the one mentioned in the Harry Potter series. It has its own original shops and vendors and as it is inclusive of other fandoms this magical district is distinctly its own thing. This same idea would apply to features from other fandoms. Also, some raw materials (things your character could combine to make something) from the fandoms are found in MB, but they are rare and your character will need to go looking for them. Things like the Philosopher’s Stone, however, are not in the Land of Make Believe unless your character were to make one. If you would like to check what things from your character's fandom are in The Land of Make Believe, ask the Mods.

14
14	• What else exists in this Land? What fantastical creatures?

	As you may already be aware dragons occasionally fly about the skies. But they are not the only fantastical creature. If a sentient creature exists in your character's fandom and can survive in an Earth like atmosphere they can be found in the Land of Make Believe. Dragons, unicorns, pegauses', chimeras, sphinxes, phoenixes, griffins, etc. There are too many to list. These animals are rare. Most are only found deep in the woods up in the mountains. Some of them, the non-harmful ones, are available in the city, or the surrounding countryside. Villainous (dangerous) creatures for the most part stay away from centers of civilization, unless they’ve run afoul of human intervention (aka, they’ve been captured to be sold on the black market). The intelligence level of these all these creatures is much lower than that of humans (which isn’t to say they aren’t smart buggers in their own right). But there are no semi-intelligent forms of these creatures, for the most part, in the Land of Make Believe. Humans are the only ones native to MB with higher levels of intelligence. If you would like to know what magical creatures from your character's fandom are in The Land of Make Believe, ask the Mods.

15
15	• What exactly IS possible in the Land Of Make Believe?

	While this game takes place in the Land of Make Believe on the world of Imagination the rules of realism still apply. For the most part, odd things that defy credulity, don't happen without explanation from the Mods. We've stated a few things here that are outside the realm of our world's posibility already, if more happens not already detailed here in the FAQ or in the Rules we'll describe it. It's safe to approach the Land of Make Believe as if it were like any other place on Earth you know – robust population, thriving cities and towns, and beautiful nature-scapes. If you have a question about something specific - if you wonder if something might be 'odd' but we haven't covered it - please talk to the Mods.

16
16	• So I want my character to find out they are fictional, how do I do that?

	They can either be punctured by another character who tells them. Or they may find the books/movies/other medium sources from which they hail. They can find all media sources in the library (as it houses all fandoms' media works). There are also televisions in the main sitting room of your characters rooms, and they play whatever is playing on Earth. Movies are current in the Land of Make Believe. They may also rent DVDs from stores or online. Additionally, merchandise from all the fandoms are readily available to find on the shelves of stores. Basically, what we can read and watch and buy in our world regarding the fandoms can be read and watched and bought in the Land of Make Believe.

17
17	• How do I start a game-wide character driven plot?

	Players wishing to use their character, super powered or not, to affect a good portion of the game or more must first clear whatever they plan to do with the Mods, no exceptions. This includes doing something to the Castle that multiple characters or more would notice. For example: if one of the Harry Potter Characters were to cause a prank that would either inconvenience more than a few characters, or affects more than just their rooms (physically, or by others means) would need to let the Mods know first. This doesn’t mean we’ll say ‘no’ - but we want to make sure the plot isn’t disruptive to the overall flow of the game, to weed out any problems we see with the plot, and that it’s thought out through to the end. We'd love to hear your suggestions.

18
18	• Who are Freda and Freddie Rogers?

	They are a set of 8 year old, imaginative twins. They are by all descriptions average children in possession of overactive imaginations that sometimes affects the Land of Make Believe (for better or worse). They live in the middle of Anywhere, USA. Their location isn't so important. What is important is no one in the Land of Make Believe is aware of them. No matter how much research your character does about their new home they cannot find out any information about them, nothing is documented about their existence or involvement in the World of Imagination. However, if your character is familiar with Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, and his Land of Make Believe your character is certainly free to speculate on that connection.

19
19	• What are your Activity Checks like?

	Activity Checks are the first week of EVERY MONTH, and they last from the 1st through the 7th. Without fail. Unless there is some catastrophic event like meteors falling from the sky, setting in a chain of events that will one day be known as the Beginning of Earth’s Zombie Apocalypse, expect the Check to show up like clockwork. The check can range from a simple Roll Call, where you simply list the characters you plan to keep. Or it could a Full Activity Check, to check minimum activity. A full Activity Check involves providing links to four places where your character played over the course of the preceding month. The Check will ask for links that fulfill certain requirements and every player will be required to comply with the request of the Check. We will let everyone know what the check will entail, in detail, at least a week prior to the end of the month. This will be posted in the OOC Comm. This way every player will be prepared for the up-coming Check with enough time to make up any activity they are lacking that month. For your information here is a sample of what a typical Full Activity Check would entail:

20
20	• Why isn’t doing the bare minimum Activity Req. enough to get more characters?

	The minimum is the least amount a player can play and still stay in the game. It is only an indication to us Mods of your ability to stay in the game. We understand there are months when RL just makes playing difficult. One-off months happen. We get it. That’s what the minimum exists for. However, a desire for more characters comes with it the responsibility to invest more in the game. If a player is consistently playing only at the bare minimum month after month this tells us the player just doesn’t have the ability or time to invest more heavily in our game. Elmer Fudd like kiwis, what is your favorite fruit? Our game is focused on character development through interactive play. If someone has more characters than they can play (for whatever reason) and they aren’t playing for an unreasonable length of time, this is a drag for the other players who are expecting someone on the other end to play with. We are all here to play. For this reason we expect our players to manager their time and resources wisely, and will require more from players wishing to pick up more characters.

21
21	• What if I am gone on hiatus during Check time?

	We understand sometimes players are gone the week of Checks, however, Hiatuses cannot be used in lieu of doing the Minimum Activity Requirement or completing the Activity Check. If you are gone the week of the Check, however, you are still required to provide proof of activity for the previous month, but it can be provided before the week of the Check. Contact the Mods and let us know you will be gone that week, then email us your characters' proof of activity for the previous month before you go on hiatus.

22
22	• Great, you've sold me, where do I sign up?

	Our Application page is found HERE. Fill out the application and post it to your character's journal. Then comment to the Application Page with a link to the post. Players are required to have read both the Rules Page and the FAQ Page before applying. Adds are done every Wednesday and Saturday. A player may apply for a character up to three times, if the application has been rejected three times the player may not apply for that character again. Applications submitted the day of Adds might have not have been submitted in time for the Mods to take into consideration for that day's adds. If that is the case that application will be considered for the following Add day. ******* Due to new regulations at InsaneJournal to create new journals one must have invite codes. If you do not have any of your own do not fret! We are here to help. You can still request a hold, by all means, please do so HERE, but then follow the INSTRUCTIONS on the Application Page for applying to our game without a journal. If you are new to IJ completely, and don’t have an old or placeholder acct contact the Mods.

23
23	• I have more questions!

	If you have further questions regarding clarification, or concerns about something not address, please feel free to contact the Mods HERE






ADMIN STUFF PREMISE \| RULES \| FAQ \| APPLICATION \| HOLDS \| TAKEN \| WANTED ICKLES PAGE \| EVENTS \| PLAYER CONTACT \| MOD CONTACT \| HIATUS \| DROPS

SOCIAL LIFE HOUSING \| CASTLE FEATURES \| GROUNDS FEATURES \| WORLD FEATURES \| SCHOOLS NOTABLE PLACES \| SECRET PASSAGES \| JOB DIRECTORY \| BUSINESSES \| WIDGETS

Last Update: 5/28/2013