ddd_news | (TL;DR) MOD ANNOUNCEMENT

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(TL;DR) MOD ANNOUNCEMENT - PLEASE READ

Friends, Romans, DDDers, lend me your ears. It's been a while since a post like this was needed, but over the past week there have been a few developments and changes we need to make you guys aware of. There are also a few other things that we feel everyone should be reminded of now and then, and as some of you are probably already aware, now is a very good time to refresh your memories on them. We've got a lot to go over, so please bear with us and read every point of this announcement. ~~There will be a quiz later, and no, it won't be multiple choice. Multiple choice is for wimps.~~ If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment here, here, or bring them to any of us privately if you'd prefer.

• NPCing with regards to interpreting canon relationships - We've never made a hard rule about this type of situation, but it's come up several times in the past so we thought it was time to clarify things. As you should all be aware, NPCing of a canon character that's not in DDD requires mod permission. There are a few exceptions to the rule, such as playing out a scene directly from canon without alterations, but for the most part if you need to get an unapped character involved in DDD events or posts, you need to bring the request here first.

What we never really clarified is how to handle indirectly referencing characters that are a part of your character's life. Just as playing them in DDD can affect anyone who wants to app for that character in the future, indirectly involving them in DDD events through having the character make mention of them or assuming a relationship that's not specifically given in canon can also affect future players. For this reason, we expect these usages of other characters to be kept to a bare minimum wherever possible. Occasionally mentioning that the character is off doing something that the character frequently does in canon is fine, but mentioning that said character is, say, joining your character offscreen on an intergalactic TARDIS tour courtesy of the community is not so much.

Obviously this is going to bring NPCing into a bit of a grey area, especially when there are viruses or events that involve a character's whole world. We're not going to ask you to come to us for things that will never be mentioned in game and won't affect the character if a player should decide to app for them later. As long as the situation doesn't alter canon much and the mention is kept brief and/or vague, that should be fine. Any extensive involvement in DDD events or large assumptions about characters that aren't yours, including familial relationships that aren't directly supported by canon, should be brought to the mod approval post. If you're not sure which category your situation falls under, bring it to us and we'll be happy to let you know if permission is needed!

• Awaiting mod permission for events and viruses - We all know what it's like to get superuberexcite about a potential virus or a plot idea, and doing some preliminary brainstorming or fishing for interest in the OOC comm/chat/on Plurk beforehand is a great way to get things started. But please remember that until that virus wins or that event is approved, there are no guarantees that they will happen. We understand how easy it is for plotting to take on a life of its own once it's started, especially with the levels of excitement we maintain around here, but when people get carried away it's possible for excitement to be mistaken for an assumption that mod permission is a foregone conclusion, whether or not that's actually the case. Out of respect for the authority of the mod team, please try to hold off on the really heavy-duty public plotting until final permission is given.

• IC =/= OOC - This has been brought up in the past, but everyone needs a reminder now and then. DDD is like Vegas: what happens in game stays in game. The reverse is also true. In a game with a playerbase the size of DDD, occasional OOC conflicts are inevitable, but to keep the game comfortable for all players, every effort needs to be taken to keep those conflicts from bleeding into our characters' interactions. In a similar vein, a character's words shouldn't be taken as representing the player's opinions unless there's significant evidence to suggest it. If you suspect that this guideline isn't being followed and it's becoming detrimental to the game, the mod team is always open to hearing player concerns through direct contact or the Suggestions and Complaints post.

For more info, please see the Rules of the Game.

• Plurk – In the past, we as a mod team have taken a very hands-off approach to Plurk. Plurk accounts are the property of their owners. Their connection to DDD is obviously unofficial, and just like personal journals, they don’t fall under our jurisdiction.

However, as you’ve all probably noticed, Plurk has taken over for chat as the chief form of OOC communication in the game. As a result, occasional problems that might have normally been actionable if they’d happened on the OOC comm or chat have gone unremarked, allowing situations to fester into something worse than they should have been. With this in mind, we’ve decided we’re going to have to revise our stance on dealing with OOC conflicts that take place on Plurk. We’re going to try to maintain minimal interference with your privacy and we still recognize that these are your accounts and you have the right to use them as you choose, but if interactions on Plurk threaten the comfort of the game we may take certain steps to prevent things getting worse.

What we may do:
►Step in to act as mediators if game-related interactions in public Plurks begin to get out of hand and/or threaten to affect in-game interactions.
►Review public Plurks or private Plurks provided to us by involved parties as evidence in an official complaint. This is similar to the way we currently treat IM and chat logs that players provide to us as evidence. As with outside sources like RPS and Anon Meme, such Plurks will generally only be acted on in cases of clear harassment and/or cases where they serve to backup other evidence that’s actually in our jurisdiction (i.e. from the OOC comm or chat).

What we won’t do:
►Take any mod actions in private Plurks, unless our intervention is specifically requested by a player or players involved in the Plurk.
►Take any mod actions on purely personal matters that aren't related to the game.
►Take any official action without clearly delineating it as such. We’re also players in the game, and like anyone else we have our own opinions about situations that take place. We have the right to express those opinions, so unless we make it clear to you that we’re acting in a mod capacity, please don’t assume that our personal opinions constitute an official stance from the entire mod team. (Again, this is similar to the stance we’ve taken in the past in places like RPS and Anon Meme.)

These guidelines are still new and may be revised or clarified further in the future. We’ve based them entirely on the way we treat other outside sources, personal journals, IM logs, and DDD’s official boundaries. If you guys have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please bring them up here or in the suggestions post so we can discuss them. You guys may see things from a perspective we haven’t considered, so we’d love to hear your input.

• R-E-S-P-E-C-T. FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME - Finally, and most importantly, we want to remind everyone of the #1 rule of DDD—respect your fellow players. I think most of us can say that we love our characters and their friends dearly, but at the end of the day, they’re just that—characters. The people we’re playing with should always take precedence over them. In a forum with the relative anonymity that the internet provides, it’s easy to forget that there are people on the other end of the line, but that just means it’s even more important to make an effort to remember them.

When conflicts arise, keep the other person in mind. If you’re getting upset, take a few minutes to cool yourself down. Try to look at the situation from an outsider’s perspective and see if it helps you to understand both sides of the story. Don’t jump to conclusions, especially when anonymous commenters are involved and you have no context other than what’s being given to you. When dealing with anons, don't make assumptions about who you're speaking to. Unless you've got IP addresses or a confession, you don't know for certain, but assuming you do will taint your interactions with the filters you'd normally use for the person you suspect, which could get in the way of anything useful being said. Don't dismiss criticism out of hand because of the source. Valid crit is valid crit, regardless of where it's coming from. If you feel one of your friends is being attacked and your instinct is to defend them, try to do so in a calm manner, and keep in mind that defending a friend isn’t the same as hurting the one that’s hurting them. Enabling a bad situation only makes it worse, which doesn’t do anyone any favors.

One of the things that’s kept me (and probably a lot of you) in this game is the caring that we all have for each other. To me, DDD feels like a family. Like any family, we’re going to quarrel and argue at times, but at the end of the day we still love and respect one another. I’ve seen evidence of this numerous times in my tenure as a mod. I’ve seen you guys look for evidence instead of running immediately with the easiest and most inflammatory assumptions. I’ve seen people on both sides of some heated arguments do their best to mediate the situations and strive for some understanding between both parties. After some of the things that I’ve seen this game go through, I should probably be jaded as hell, but every time I think I’ve reached that point you guys do something to restore my faith in this playerbase. I know this is more than just some game to you guys, and you care as much about it as we mods do.

DDD may still have a reputation for wank, but you’ve proven to me time and again that’s the last thing you really want. We’re here to have fun with friends and enjoy a unique hobby that brings us a lot of pleasure. Let’s all keep that in mind as we play, and remember that our behavior, inside and outside of the game, reflects on DDD as a whole.

And that's about it. Thanks for sticking with me through all of that, guys. If you've got any questions, concerns, suggestions, etc., again we're open to having discussions here. We'll be expanding on the rules and guidelines of the game to include a lot of this stuff so newbies and people who just want to refresh their memories will soon be able to find this info there. Thanks again for your patience and your cooperation. o/

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm assuming Figaro is still somewhat of an exception to the rule since he's 1, about as likely to be apped as a pet rock, has to be with Maraich and I did do everything that was asked when I was bringing him ingame.

Yep, you're still fine for Figaro, no worries!

Great!

. . .

Now I really want someone to app a pet rock.

It might be difficult writing a first person journal with the minimum word requirement.

DRATS! FOILED AGAIN!

Then again...

[The video turns on. In front of it, a rock. A pet rock, to be specific.

Whose pet rock is it? Wouldn't you like to know. Regardless, it has two googly eyes glued to it staring into your soul. One appears to be coming loose and droops lower than the other one.

This is one staring match you're not going to win.]

...

A+

/goes to app

/is excite

Yuna's been making mention of Seymour a lot lately, but everything noted by her so far is canon, unaltered. SO I HOPE I'M DOIN' IT RITE. (eep.)

You are! Things pulled directly from canon are fine and don't need approval. If the content is related to a major canon event, you may want to note in the post/comment that it's canon, just so we're aware, but brief little mentions here and there are fine.

I assume it's still okay to NPC un-appable characters? For example, Togusa's wife is a cardboard cutout, essentially, but she's important to his character.

To some extent. If you wanted to actually play out a canon character interacting extensively with the community, we'd want you to get permission for that regardless of whether they were appable or not, but for brief mentions that don't really alter their canon role, you wouldn't have to bring that to us. Make sense?

Sure, no problem. Wouldn't want to play his boring-ass wife, anyway, but maybe I'll have his daughter get 'hold of his cell phone sometime. ♥

Uhm, crap. The other characters thing presents a slight difficulty for Josh in that his game is ABOUT shifting character relationships and TEH DRAMAZ. I'm going to need a little help finding a middle ground, so bear with me.

Of course, part of this is moot because he's interacting with characters from the VN what isn't out yet, but stuff like mentioning he and Meredith are a potential couple... help me figure out how to deal with it?

Sorry about the late reply! I kind of...thought I'd already replied to all of the comments here. >_>;;

Well, without knowing more about the canon I can't go into too detailed a description of what is and isn't acceptable. A good guideline would probably be what's flat-out canon and what's interpretation, fanon, or potential/future situations. Things that are explicitly given in canon should be okay to bring up, preferably sparingly. If a character's actually in a relationship with another or they have feelings for another character, that canon information can be mentioned, but if the relationship is only hinted at from one side or the other and not realized in canon at that point, it should only be mentioned insofar as the DDD character is aware of it at that particular point in canon. No assumptions should be made about another character in DDD without player permission, and the same goes for a character that's not in DDD unless it's minor information that's entirely consistent with what's shown of that character in the canon. If needed, bigger things can be brought to the mods for approval, and if ever in doubt, you can always bring stuff to us and ask whether it needs approval or not.

Another thing to keep in mind is the purpose behind the NPCing rules. The main reason is, of course, to avoid hampering any potential new appers with information that may not be consistent with their vision of the character. Everyone deserves the right to play their character from scratch and let them develop in game as they see fit, without having any baggage attached from prior in-game incidents.

The other purpose that I think may be less obvious is that we want the focus of DDD to be on DDD. It's great that the game's format gives us the opportunity to play characters in both their native environments and in the weirdness of other people's worlds, but the interactions happening between players and their characters should be the main content of the game. We're here to play with each other, not with ourselves.

Also, keeping a lot of focus on the stuff going on in a character's own world, especially when they don't have many castmates in the game, can make it difficult for other characters to respond to information because they have no frame or reference. Similar to people talking on a real online community, if a character is talking about things that everyone can understand in some way, they're going to get more people interested in what they're talking about. An event on someone's world may not mean much to the community, but how that event made that character feel could strike a familiar cord for others or earn understanding from characters who've gotten that same feeling from situations in their own lives. General information that isn't related to an unfamiliar world or unfamiliar characters is a lot easier for most characters to take an interest in and opens things up to a wider variety of possible responses.

So yeah, TL;DR answer, but basically wherever possible you should try to avoid making mention of non-canon events that involve characters not in DDD. If you really want to involve a non-DDD character in the game in some way beyond minor mentions or direct canon info, bring it to us and we'll work with you to decide what could potentially affect future players. Does that answer your question or do you need me to clarify anything?

No, that's a good answer, and it also helps me realize that I've been DOIN IT WRONG for a while.

All that I know fo sho right now is that Josh is from earlier in the default campaign rather than later, and that he and his Anchor DO hook up, so I'll try to keep it to that with occasional battles in the future. Seem like a sound plan?

Sounds good so far. Again, if you ever have questions about what is or isn't appropriate to use, just come to one of us and we'll be happy to work with you in figuring it out.

...I'd been wondering about the NPCing and referencing of other characters for a long time. Concerning viruses, though...if another character from your canon is not a member of the community, can it be assumed that they were not involved in or have no memory of certain viruses and events? I was intending on having Megavolt be afflicted with the fairy tale virus (if I would have seen this post earlier, I might have even asked earlier! pfft), and have others from his canon playing other roles in the fairy tale. Is this okay to assume? Because again, I'd like to think that characters that aren't actually affiliated with DDD wouldn't be affected so much...more like it was kind of like a dream, in that only Megavolt really experienced it. That would also mean that anyone else who would app into DDD later wouldn't have to worry about it.

Is this acceptable?

...Appropriate icon keywords are appropriate. XD;;;

I'm really sorry I wasn't able to reply to this sooner! Road trips to Canada don't allow for much internet time or the brain power to utilize it. >_>

The question of other, non-DDD characters being affected by/around viruses is obviously a bit troublesome. Some of the viruses have been large enough that the other people in their world can't help but notice the effect, and it can be difficult to play around that without directly involving them. Preferably it's best to keep that sort of impact minimal wherever possible, by doing things like not directly addressing how the virus is affecting anyone but your own character, and it's safe to assume that most of the other characters will disregard the whole thing as a fluke after the fact/handwave it and go along their merry way.

A situation like you're describing could also be acceptable, but since it involves the canon characters so directly in the virus (even if they'll dismiss it as a dream after, they're still playing a part in it as it's going on) it would be best to bring it to the mod approval requests first as an NPCing request.

Does that help answer the question?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(TL;DR) MOD ANNOUNCEMENT - PLEASE READ

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