I can’t tell you guys how happy we officers are to see all the RP threads and stories taking place lately on the boards. This is the most activity I’ve ever seen in my entire time at Wolfcry, and it’s extremely encouraging to know that so many people are getting into the spirit of the story and of the group. Of course, since we’ve never had this much writing, we’ve never felt it was worth it to put up any regulations. Since that’s changed, we’d like to present our (hopefully reasonable) fiction rules.

These first rules apply to planned storylines which will eventually effect the entirety of SDI. If it is a story which begins as a solo piece (involving only your own character) and eventually you plan to have it effect the entire group, these rules apply to that as well. If you only intend to involve yours a few other characters, these first rules don't apply. If you aren't sure whether the story should be treated as group-wide, just ask an officer.

1.) Please send a PM to an officer before starting a group-wide storyline. This will help us manage storylines, and ensure that everyone gets the time to do what they’d like with the characters, as well as trying to time things so the group isn’t constantly full of drama.

This obviously doesn't mean we want to know about every story you write, but we'd like the chance to look at anything which could result in major character changes or affect their membership of the group (for example: character death, kidnapping, demonic possession, killing someone, character being turned into a vampire/god/cyborg/demon/etc.)

2.) Try to include a summary of the entire storyline, to the best of your abilities. We’re not asking you to tell the whole group what’s going to happen in a story, but we are going to ask that you tell the officers in a PM. (All PMs will be read by all officers; you only need to send one.) We want to make sure there aren’t any aspects of a fiction that will contradict the goals, or established storyline of a group, or just cause more Drama (tm) than we can deal with.

3.) Make sure, before you begin a pre-planned group story, that you are willing to see it through to the end. It’s understandable if you find yourself becoming bored with your own character, but it doesn’t excuse leaving other players hanging. You’ll have to tough it out, or hand the storyline over to another player, if you feel that you’re no longer able to continue running a storyline.

4.) We may ask you to postpone a large/group storyline if too many start to occur. Wolfcry is both a collection of solo stories and a single overarching saga; if we focus too much on any one aspect, the other will suffer. Typically, we’ll avoid having more than one group storyline going on at once, and will probably try to leave some breathing room between events.

We may also ask you to postpone a story, or alter the time scale little to enable the group to deal with current events. No-one likes grumpy, stressed out officers - especially the officers.

If you want to start a thread for open RP of characters hanging out or participating in a one-shot, straightforward fight, you’re free to initiate that without approval. As long as it doesn’t start with your character facing off against Recluse in Atlas Plaza, we’ll probably be fine with it.

The following rules apply to all fiction.

5.) You cannot under any circumstances describe the actions of another player’s character without the player’s approval. Each character is the product of their creator and that person is the only one who can allow you to use them. Unless the player has clearly told you that they don’t have a problem with you using their character, you must PM them with any post that uses another Wolfcry member, before posting it. This may slow down the process a bit, but that’s a reasonable sacrifice for making sure everybody is happy with the end result.

6.) Stories or roleplays which last less than a day should be considered non-canon until completion. This is so we don’t have confusion regarding in-game roleplay, as it’s often the case that a forum roleplay event will take several days to play out, but only spans a few hours in game-time. Because of this, such events should be assumed not to have taken place until they are complete. Other, larger storylines may have several phases to them, and we will try to make it clear when the events of a story have officially happened. If you’re confused as to whether a story has actually occurred ICly, feel free to post a query in SDIOOC or ask the story’s writer, and we/they will try to clear it up.

7.) Avoid altering canon. Anything written into the CoH history (or the Wolfcry history, for that matter) is off-limits to manipulation. As a roleplaying group, we have chosen City of Heroes/Villains as our setting and all stories written for our characters should occur within that setting. If you feel the need to use an important NPC, such as an archvillain or hero, try to use them in a way that doesn’t have any impact on their main storyline within the game. Likewise, SDI is an established group with a fully detailed history and setting. You can’t go blasting holes in the SDI building or claiming your character was best pals with Samiel Dayne without specific approval from management.

8.) Think first! Everyone loves their five minutes in the spotlight, but is Drama really necessary? If you're AFK, rather than having your character get kidnapped, in hospital or murdered, could they, say, go on vacation for a week, visit family, or be seconded to another agency to explain their absense?

Hopefully, following these rules will help our fiction form a group-friendly collection of stories while still allowing you the freedom to tell the story you want. And, of course, we are available via the forums, email, or in-game if you have any questions. Thanks!

-Management.

Moved to be more relevant, Fiction Rules now in Fiction section.

~Management!~

Stickied!

While I'm doing that, could I please ask everyone to have a quick read-through of the fiction rules?