Post by NAOKO on Jan 3, 2015 11:40:56 GMT
Getting Started
Thank you for registering with us! We're happy to have you on board!
Before you get started working on writing out your first character, we've taken the liberty of creating a step-by-step guide full of tips and pointers to help you acclimate yourself.
We encourage you to browse this thread and read it over in detail to better minimize any confusion you may have, but if you still have any questions regarding the site or its workings, feel free to PM a member of our staff team at any time, and we'll be happy to clear up any concerns!
STEP #1 — READ THE RULES
This is probably our only de facto requirement; we ask that you please read through and familiarize yourself with all of our rules and regulations, and to hold yourself by these standards. In doing this, you are helping to set a positive example for everyone by ensuring that our forum remains a safe, stress-free community that people of all ages can enjoy.
To make it even easier, we've provided links to all of our most important sets of rules below.
- Forum Rules <<link>>
- Combat Rules <<link>>
- Digivice Guide<<link>>
- Digivolution Guide <<link>>
- Currency Guide <<link>>
STEP #2 — CREATE A CHARACTER
Here on Road to Tomorrow, you will play a human child between the ages of 10 and 18 who has been selected to attend Vigrid Tamer Academy, a prodigious learning institution that aims to cultivate and develop your latent talents and hidden potential with the express purpose of becoming the next generation of "DigiDestined", the appointed guardians and protectors of the Network.
Every human that is approved to enroll at Vigrid is referred to as a "Tamer" in reference to their secondary responsibility of discovering, caring for, and raising their own partner Digimon. We may offer additional character options in the future depending on certain conditions, so keep an eye out for any updates!
With your Character's Profile, you can...
- Go above and beyond! It is absolutely encouraged here; a character with extra details is one that has been given special love and attention, and it makes them all the more unique and exciting to read over! It isn't compulsory, either, so long as all of the necessary criteria has been met, but we're certainly going to appreciate you all the more for it.
- Use an original Digimon! We are friendly towards fan-made Digimon and think of them as a breath of fresh air when done appropriately. There are caveats to using one, which are listed below.
- Plan things out ahead! Members who have their characters organized and mapped out by the time they're ready to make a profile is a huge plus, as it shows initiative and preparedness. The more you know about what you expect out of your characters, the easier their profiles will be to write out!
- Take your time! The more thoroughly you work on your profile, the more consistent, and neater, it will look to everyone who reads it. It will give staff the impression that you care about your ideas and want to express as they appear to you, which you should!
- Make a lot of characters! If you feel confident enough to juggle between two or more characters and can keep them all routinely active, then you've got the green light from us.
However, you cannot...
- Post below the required standard! We aren't exactly itching to punish you for this, per se, but we must stress the importance of meeting the minimum requirements with every profile you make. You will be reminded time and again on whether or not you've missed the mark, and continued failure to meet our expectations may result in more stricter approaches.
- Deliberately reference Digimon canon! Here on Road to Tomorrow, Digimon are a nonexistent concept in our version of the Real World, and you will be hard-pressed trying to convince anybody otherwise. Similarly, characters involved in the Digimon anime or manga do not exist here, as well, nor can they be mentioned in any capacity. For all intents and purposes, this is meant to be closer to a true isekai experience, not a concept inspired by the likes of Digimon Tamers, Savers, or other premises.
- Make multiple characters under one account! If you want to make a character beyond your first, it must exist on a completely separate account. This ensures that you will not try to unfairly farm for posts and allows us to keep track of which ones are active on the site.
- Use a banned Digimon! Very rarely will we ban a Digimon on the basis of raw power alone, but rather the circumstances that make them individually exclusive or unique; having multiple Rookie versions of Lucemon running around, for example, would defeat the purpose of having one that exists as the Great Demon Lord of Pride. If you're not sure which Digimon are prohibited for player use, please refer to this thread for more information. <<link>>
- Use a faceclaim that is already in use! Rather self-explanatory, you cannot use a faceclaim that someone else has already taken. You can find a list of all the site's faceclaims currently in use in this thread. <<link>>
Note! An original Digimon is one that has been designed, developed, and conceived by the player themselves! Using another person's artwork or ideas without permission, relying on artwork from other popular media sources (e.g. Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc.), or putting the suffix "-mon" after a name with virtually no descriptive elements, does not qualify it for denomination as an original Digimon. In the most egregious of cases, this constitutes as a form of plagiarism or even theft, and it could get us in serious trouble!
STEP #3 — HAVE THAT CHARACTER APPROVED
When you have finished filling out your character's profile, you may post it into the "Character Signups" part of our forum for approval. Then, you must wait until a member of our staff team combs through it to ensure that all the necessary details have been provided before they can approve it for roleplay.
If they should happen upon any sort of errors, mistakes, or missing information, we will notify you of any changes that will need to be met before the character is deemed ready for verification and subsequent approval. Once this occurs and all the proper steps have been taken, it will be given our official seal of acceptance and be moved to the "Character Rosters" part of our forum.
If you haven't the time to finish your profile and have the whole thing posted on the spot, that's okay! Simply post the draft into the "Pending Characters" section of our forum with a tag to let us know that it's a work in progress, and we'll not touch it until you are ready to have it evaluated. When it's done, remove the tag and notify us, and we'll give it a look.
Remember! Don't pester or annoy our staff to have your characters approved. If it takes us more than three days to look it over and we haven't done so yet, you may nicely notify one of us, and we'll get right on it—you will have much more success this way than by adopting a passive-aggressive attitude, playing coy, or being outright hostile. If our staff catches wind of something fishy or out of place, we will be obligated to make note of it.
STEP #4 — ROLEPLAY
After you've received the green light, you can begin your adventure!
When you roleplay on Road to Tomorrow, your threads can take place in either the Real World or our forum's version of the Digital World, called the Midgard Server. Each of these distinctive planes follows its own temporal laws, meaning time flows completely differently between both worlds; a minute in the Real World is equivalent to a full day in the Server, and a full day in the former translates as 1,440 days—or four years, rounded up—in the latter.
Since we actively expect most of your character's adventures to take place in the Server, our forum employs what is known as "liquid time", which means that members can participate in as many threads as they want, provided they're up to the task of juggling multiple points of activity.
As a point of caution, we recommend that you only take as many topics as you can handle, and to try and plot out your tales accordingly. Inconsistencies with your character's experiences create room for bigger gaps and holes in their story overall, and attempting to bite off more than you can chew (so to speak) may upset some of the more active people you're involved with.
In a thread where more than three people are participating, if you have been waiting for a reply for some time, you can appeal to the absent player and ask for permission to skip their turn; if it takes more than three calendar days for a person to post in a topic after an appeal is made, you may have a member of the staff team sanction the skipping of their turn.
Note! Unless otherwise specified, we highly advocate the use of posting orders in a thread.
The kinds of threads characters may roleplay in include...
- Normal threads — Most of the meat and potatoes behind your character's experiences on the forum will take place in one of these sorts of threads, whether the topic is exploration, socializing, fighting, training, or participating in classroom activities. All events that occur in these are considered in-character and are unalterable once they happen.
- Assignments — Threads that require the characters to register for them in order to participate, these offer a series of objectives that must be met in order to be considered successful. Such topics are typically relevant to the character's individual stories and can be useful to improve them in the long haul, in addition to yielding some rather nifty rewards in the process. Like normal threads, these are also in-character, therefore unalterable once they happen.
- Story events — These are topics that affect the continuum of our site's overarching story and allow members to influence the direction of its future in exciting and unpredictable ways. These types of threads usually require a lot of member participation and have increased stakes, but in return, they offer the community a valuable chance to get hands-on with shaping the world and its setting, for better or worse. These also happen in-character, and are unalterable once they occur.
- Club activities — This kind of thread caters to the interests of an extracurricular club and its members, thus can only be participated in by characters who are part of that specific club. Rewards are generally smaller than your average assignment, but offer a chance to put the spotlight on your group and earn public recognition. You are only permitted to engage in one club activity thread at a time.
- Non-canon threads — You are allowed to roleplay a scenario out-of-character at any time, with the only stipulation being that it has no bearing or effect on your character's history as it has been established thus far. Completing one of these offers you no rewards nor does it play an influence on other characters or even the forum's setting itself; for all intents and purposes, these happen strictly "for fun's sake".
- Prompt of the Week — A special writing challenge meant to improve your skills in wordplay, these excerpts inspire you to create a response to an out-of-character scenario in exchange for a neat little reward for your troubles. Prompts of the Week are considered non-canon and will not be applicable to your character's established history across the site.
Remember! Feel free to participate in as many threads as you like; as a bit of courteous advice, we sincerely encourage you to monitor your list of active topics with the use of a thread tracker template, and please post responsibly!
ADDITIONAL TIPS
Some Other Things to Consider...
- Join our Discord server! — We're always looking for people to add their own distinctive flavor to our growing community, and we have staff members from numerous time zones on the lookout for anyone in need of help or advice!
- Think outside the box! — Your character can do much more than just sit in class or fight enemies! Want to add depth and substance to them? You can make an entire plot hook out of your ideas; we actually have a board for this very purpose, which can be found under "Character Resources". Try a few things out and collaborate with others to see how you can make an impact on the site!
- Winning isn't everything! — There is a reason we emphasize the "school" setting; characters who go to Vigrid are there to learn how to protect the Network from danger, not to be acknowledged as all-powerful and indomitable. Beating every challenge is not a necessity here, and we actually want to put importance on having characters learn from their mistakes. Don't be afraid to take a licking every now and then!
- Character aging is optional! Really. Because time flows so differently within the Network, we don't actually require that characters be aged up every year they spend in the Midgard Server. However, characters will age normally if they spend the majority of their time in the Real World — but how you choose to go about this little caveat is completely up to you!
- Have fun! This is a hobby forum above all things. We want people to create and grow their ideas here without fear of retaliation or negative criticism, and we can't make this happen without everyone doing their part to ensure this forum is a safe, inclusive, judgement-free zone.
If you have questions or need anything in particular clarified, feel free to PM a member of our staff team, and we will respond as quick as humanly possible.
