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 subject
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?