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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. |
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Post by NAOKO on Jan 3, 2015 11:38:40 GMT
Combat Rules
As you spend time at Vigrid learning how to make your way and survive within the Network, you will inevitably reach a point where you cannot possibly hope to reason with or talk your way through a tense situation. In these cases, more often than not, a combat encounter will be initiated.
We handle every battle using the freeform method, which means you don't have any sort of numerical stats or mathematics to rely on as a means of gauging or comparing your character's level of power and skill with others. Considering the obvious fantasy elements scattered throughout the game world's setting, it is still expected of all our members to filter these scenarios through the lenses of fairness and realism when possible — what might work in a TV show could translate to words very poorly.
GENERAL GUIDELINES
The only characters you have control over is your own. Similarly, the way they respond to events is entirely exclusive to them, as well.
It should go without saying here, but you cannot take command of another person's creative property, make them take actions, or react in any way that deprives the original owner of their agency over it. This is also true in the case of puppeteering techniques, e.g., mind control, charm effects, pheromones, etc.; unless you are given explicit permission to "bunny" another person's characters, make no assumption that any endeavors to control their minds, possess their bodies, or act against their better interests will work automatically in your favor — one of the dominant themes of Digimon is willpower, and this is our way of attempting to place emphasis on it.
Furthermore, your characters are not exempt from suffering the consequences of poor decisions—they're still children, after all—they can, and should, make mistakes; otherwise there would be no point in learning at all. No one is perfect: a character cannot successfully avoid or endure every single attack thrown in their direction, nor can they strike their mark each and every time without fail. Apply common sense when participating in a fight, ask yourself some questions about the situation you are writing for.
Most importantly, we encourage you to collaborate with your writing partners! Combat on this site is purely window dressing here, not the meat and potatoes of your roleplaying experience; we want our players to talk things out and form stories that will be remembered. If you're playing solely to be acknowledged for your ability to verbalize your character's masterful fighting technique, that's okay, but allow people the opportunity to enjoy your character, not simply do battle with them.
DOWNLOADING DATA
Introduced as a concept in Digimon Tamers, when a Digimon is deleted by another, the victor will have an opportunity to download their fragmented code into themselves, gaining additional power in the process.
Students at Vigrid are forbidden to do this against other Digimon, as it is disruptive to the Network's natural processes and has been proven to become increasingly detrimental to the mental state of Digimon that frequently absorb power in this manner. Instead, a variety of training simulations and programs are available for students and their partners which all aim to ease the development process in a safe, controlled manner.
As it is considered an act of cruelty, students who are caught intentionally downloading another Digimon's data will have their Digivices revoked and both they and their partners will be expelled from the Academy—however, to ensure that any child is not simply displaced and unable to return to the Real World as a result of expulsion, they will instead be offered a choice: either be willingly sent back to where they came from, without their partners; or voluntarily cut all ties with the Real World in order to figure out their future as a new resident of the Network.
Note! In the event a student's Digimon is deleted and their data has been absorbed by another student's Digimon, both students will be expelled and sent back to the Real World without their Digivices, without their partners, and without discussion. Within the Real World of our forum's setting, there is no such thing as Digimon, so attempting to convince people otherwise will prove nigh impossible.
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
As the name implies, a random encounter is an event that occurs beyond the influence or control of player characters. These can happen at any time, in any thread (including closed ones!) and are guided exclusively by our staff. Should you happen upon a random encounter, it could be anything, from a generous Cutemon that doles out free goodies to a pack of starving Dobermon looking for a chance to ruin your day.
DEATH AND REBIRTH
When a Digimon dies, provided they are not willfully absorbed by another Digimon, their core data reintegrates itself with the Network to be analyzed, compiled, scrubbed, and then reformatted as a Digi-Egg at a data nexus; in the case of our setting, that nexus is the Binary Nursery at Skuld Terminal.
Depending on the quality of their previous life cycle, they may come back as part of the same species line, or they may reincarnate as a completely different Digimon—this happens more often than not, and is typical of life within the Network.
Sapient programs that are neither human nor Digimon also undergo the same reintegration process, and like them, may also come back somewhat different than they were before.
A human being is the only creature capable of achieving permanent death, which places an increased priority on ensuring that students who attend Vigrid learn how to maximize their chances of survival in a way that best suits their talents and potential—once a human dies, they're gone for good.
Characters can only be killed if the owner gives you explicit permission to do so; although it is very much a thing that can and does occur, please, do not force death upon someone if they are uncomfortable with the idea of it. It's a collaborative story; unless everyone is on board with it, don't push the issue, and there won't be one.
Students whose Digimon are deleted may continue roleplaying if their partners were not absorbed and are still allowed to attend classes at Vigrid, but they must undergo a special trial devised by the caretakers at Binary Nursery to determine whether their partner has been reprogrammed back into the Server if they truly wish to continue walking the path of a DigiDestined.
If your characters should happen to die and you have threads that are unfinished, you are permitted to wrap them up however you like, however you can no longer continue roleplaying with that character and must create a new one to replace them. They cannot inherit the previous character's post count, but they are allowed to salvage half of their funds for the new character to use, if you so desire to. |
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Post by NAOKO on Jan 3, 2015 11:32:47 GMT
Forum Rules
Before you allow yourself to get situated and comfortable, the staff team implores you to read and memorize the contents of this thread, as every member, including them, are obliged to follow the forum's rules to the best of their abilities. They are implemented with the express intent of making this place a community where people can respect and trust one another.
By holding ourselves to these standards, we can ensure this site is, and will be, a place that always strives to put emphasis on the value—and practice—of both ethics and common courtesy!
RULE #1 — Please read ALL of the rules!
Though it might seem self-explanatory, it rings true all around; there will, at some point in time or another, be a member that cannot seem to locate a particular ruling or guideline in an instance when the topic of their confusion can be found within the rules themselves, with full transparency no less.
If you should have a question about how a specific postulation of our site functions, we ask that you please refer to the Rules first. Should this method fail to provide you with the answers you seek, drop a line in our "Support Desk" board for clarification.
Addendum: Just because something isn't physically written as a rule does not make it legal or allowable! We understand that loopholes do exist and they will be found from time to time, but it is not a blanket permissions to abuse and exploit them as you see fit. Please use common sense as best as you can here; this is a hobby forum, not a proving grounds to flaunt your perceptions of superiority.
RULE #2 — Exercise respect for one another!
They call it the "Golden Rule" in most cases, but its message is perfectly clear to anyone that even remotely knows of it: treat others as you want to be treated yourself. There will be no tolerance for people who participate in harmful, abusive, or disrespectful behavior against others, and anyone caught engaging in this kind of nonsense for any reason will be dealt with accordingly. Again, this is a hobby forum, not an echo chamber for hateful ideologies.
RULE #3 — Don't flood the place with spam!
"Spamming" is defined as the reckless, impulsive posting of redundant or useless media, which can take the form of posts, quotations, images, messages, video links, or any other such content in an excessive and repetitive fashion. It's offensive to everyone and it produces unwanted garbage around the forum.
If you're looking to advertise your own site or become an affiliate of ours, you can do so in the appropriate section of the forum. Attempting to do so elsewhere will have your posts deleted until the message sinks in.
Spamming is not tolerated on our Discord server, either, and we ask that you exercise a little restraint with the frequency of your replies in its various channels; many messages can easily be typed out as a single, longer comment instead of being divided into numerous, bite-sized snippets that take up the entire screen.
RULE #4 — Trolls are not welcome here!
"Trolling" is defined as a series of actions made with the intent to cause distress or chaos among members of an online community; those who engage in this behavior are called "trolls". All of it is unacceptable here and will be dealt an immediate IP ban.
Examples of trolling include "flaming" (also called "bashing"). the inflammatory attacks or remarks made for the purposes of offending or upsetting a person or group of people; and "baiting", the posting of comments, images, or topics with aims of provoking negative responses or generalized chaos.
Simply put, anyone that voluntarily chooses to be destructive and cause unwanted, unnecessary stress within our community—especially for the sake of drawing attention to themselves—will be taken care of without the slightest shrivel of pity or care. Once more, this is a hobby forum, not a sanctuary for bullies and mean-spirited troublemakers. You are not welcome here.
Addendum: If you believe you are being targeted or harassed by a troll, or are experiencing any sort of directed hostility, we encourage you to inform a member of our staff team as soon as possible, and the problem will be taken care of. As a popular adage of the Internet goes, "do not feed the trolls."
RULE #5 — Explicit content is not allowed!
We want to make it clear that this is a forum that means to encourage freedom of expression. But, as per the terms of service expressed by our forum's host, we will not allow any sort of graphically explicit content to be posted on the site; this is also to take our more sensitive members into account, as some forms of media sit as an issue for them.
As a point of reference, our website follows an L2/S2/V2 rating and would otherwise be considered "PG-13" for the sake of general discussion—anything that can be found here might not be as "youth-friendly" as one would probably expect from a Digimon fan site, but we still want our members to exercise their creativity with a measure of tastefulness.
Any and all images on this board should be kept in good taste, as well! Considering our provided rating estimates, we are still likely to have some sensitive and underage members here. Try to keep your images as safe for work (SFW) as possible, and avoid posting anything of a gruesome, sexually illicit, or downright disgusting nature. Not all of us like that kind of stuff.
This being said, please take time to read the site's overall tone and try to make an informed judgement regarding what you bring into the site. If you have any kind of doubts or concerns about what's appropriate or allowable, do not hesitate to ask a member of staff for clarification.
Addendum: If, for any reason, you feel unable to compromise with the fact that there may be suggestive themes or content here, we won't hold it against you if you decide not to register! On the other hand, if you do understand these terms, you must also be responsible about what you choose to post and show others, and we will hold you accountable for any brazen attempts to stretch the limits of your boundaries.
RULE #6 — The site is not a place for drama.
We understand that everyone has problems. We also know that some issues need external input to resolve. But please, please, we ask that you keep any dilemmas and issues that are unrelated to the site itself, away from the site itself. This is a hobby forum, not Facebook nor Twitter, or any other kind of social media platform.
Furthermore, if you have a problem of any sort, don't expose your dirty laundry for everyone to smell, so to speak. If you're involved in a conflict with another member, keep it away from the public and resolve the dispute as best as you can. If it turns into an issue of harassment, either on the site or within the Discord, notify a member of our staff and we will address the problem directly.
RULE #7 — Don't attempt to cheat the system!
We are committed to promoting an environment of fairness and equality for all of its participants. As a play-by-post forum, we use post counts to measure and track the progress of characters as they are developed and reach certain growth milestones over time.
You not allowed to artificially inflate or modify your post count under any circumstances, either by rapidly stringing together nonsense posts in sequence or through a perpetual cycle of postings-and-deletions. If you are caught attempting to manipulate your way up the scale, we will not hesitate to remove an allotted number of posts, or all of them at once, depending on the severity of the issue.
RULE #8 — The secret ingredient is quality!
We ask of everyone that their posts be up to 200 words in length or above, whenever possible. This is to encourage effort and motivate a willingness to improve writing skill without imposing too steep of a restriction against others that do not suffer such issues, and while we understand that some of you may not be naturally inclined in the way of prose, it is also not unreasonable for us to expect a standard of quality from our members, however minimum.
PUNISHMENT — FROM WARNINGS TO BANS
Failure to comply with any of our rules, for any reason at all, will result in the direct intervention of our forum's staff team. We understand that errors of judgement do occur, but depending on the nature of the infraction itself, there may come a point where we are led to suspect that a member is being willfully recalcitrant towards any attempts to correct any behavior deemed problematic by consensus.
To handle this kind of troublemaker, we reserve the authority to issue any punishment that is deemed appropriate to the nature, frequency, and severity of the problem member in question. These include the restriction of certain character privileges, removal of an allotted number of posts, or even a sweeping ban from the forum and its Discord server.
<< If you are confused about any of the rulings listed above, please return to the top of the page and allow yourself to parse the information at a slower pace. If this is unsuccessful, please PM a member of staff. >>
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