About The Forsaken Inn

[Snowdog]

Well done Bardhwyn! Personally I think this set of rules covers the etiquette of 'collaborative roleplay story-writing' quite well. It may need a bit of clarification, polish, and such here and there. I do have a question about this part:

Please note: Per the newly amended Terms of Service: While alternate User ID's are permissible in The Forsaken Inn for Role Play character purposes, the original owner of the alternate ID must indicate their ownership of the alternate ID in the OOC thread. Any use of alternate ID's for purposeful deception will result in the immediate suspension of posting privileges for the owner ID and all the alternates.

I have been writing Tolkien fanfic and roleplaying characters under a pen-name for decades. Is this going to be part of the rules here. Are 'alternate IDs' going to be used here? Just curious about this as I usually write under my original Tolkien Middle Earth character name of Hanasían.

Also, is there going to be a rule for linking character profiles from other sites? I have most of my Middle Earth characters on RP Repository, where a registered account name can have ten 'characters' tied to the name and more if it's a paid account or items are bought from their store. I think I have a couple dozen Middle Earth main characters that I have created over the decades set up there. For an example, I present my original character Hanasían, who was birthed out of the Shadow Over Arnor RP on TORc twenty years ago.

We could continue this in this thread, or I could split it off into a new thread entitled something like "Guidelines for Role Playing in the Forsaken Inn" beginning with Bardhwyn's post. Your call!

I would say once things are set in stone, have a separate thread for the 'Rules and Guidelines' made, closed, and stuck in place in the forum and this can go back to general OOC chatter?

[Eldy]

In my experience, strict and detailed rules like those quoted on the previous page usually aren't necessary in this era of Tolkien forums. Twenty years ago, major sites like TORC or the LOTR Plaza had to manage a constant influx of new users, many of whom had no previous exposure to message board culture, as well as an established userbase too large for everyone to know each other. But in this day and age, when site membership sizes are down across the board, nearly everyone on a place like HoF has been around for years if not decades and there's a well-developed site culture firmly in place. I don't think people here require nannying. And if someone wanted to create a non-Tolkien RP or a thread that invited shorter posts ... what is the harm? I don't think it would lead to the forum losing its way or the overall level of posting quality declining, since everyone here has extensive practice at writing substantial posts, too. There aren't a lot of 13-year-olds joining traditional message boards these days. And given the relatively sedate pace of basically all contemporary Tolkien forums, declaring a limit on the number of "inn" threads and saying when they must be locked seems unnecessary, compared to the era when TORC saw well over 1000 posts per day.

[Snowdog]

In my experience, strict and detailed rules like those quoted on the previous page usually aren't necessary in this era of Tolkien forums. Twenty years ago, major sites like TORC or the LOTR Plaza had to manage a constant influx of new users, many of whom had no previous exposure to message board culture, as well as an established userbase too large for everyone to know each other. But in this day and age, when site membership sizes are down across the board, nearly everyone on a place like HoF has been around for years if not decades and there's a well-developed site culture firmly in place. I don't think people here require nannying. And if someone wanted to create a non-Tolkien RP or a thread that invited shorter posts ... what is the harm? I don't think it would lead to the forum losing its way or the overall level of posting quality declining, since everyone here has extensive practice at writing substantial posts, too. There aren't a lot of 13-year-olds joining traditional message boards these days. And given the relatively sedate pace of basically all contemporary Tolkien forums, declaring a limit on the number of "inn" threads and saying when they must be locked seems unnecessary, compared to the era when TORC saw well over 1000 posts per day.

Yeah, that is true. Didn't think of that. Probably more overall general guidelines and whoever starts a roleplay thread can post what the thread's specific rules are.

[Sunsilver]

It makes sense to me to have alternate IDs for RP characters, as long as we know who the ID belongs to. That should be stated in the OOC thread. I've also seen it done in the screen name, e.g. let's say, Sunny posting as Arwen.

Otherwise, things can get confusing....

A message from Rally’s Mistress, Sandra:

Back to Rally 1 and where we are up to: pippintooke that has just joined us in the story is in a wheelchair in real life. I can't remember exactly what was wrong with him but he had had a couple of op's on his back and I remember him saying he was in a lot of pain at times and he couldn't walk anymore. He was a very nice man but sadly he wasn't with torc for very long and seemed to just vanish. The tweezers that have often come up in conversation in Rally 2 are in the story line now. Also at this time, Tempest and Roninscott took a story line to the Pony and she killed him. He returned to Rally as Inwir_Draunimion. But little ole me didn't know. Somehow I missed it all and didn't know what was going on. I thought this new guy Inwir was out to take over the thread. How rude I thought and caught Scott on IM to ask what he thought about it. He laughed his socks off..its me he said. He never forgot that, said it always made him smile when he thought about it. I felt such an idiot!

[Snowdog]

It makes sense to me to have alternate IDs for RP characters, as long as we know who the ID belongs to. That should be stated in the OOC thread. I've also seen it done in the screen name, e.g. let's say, Sunny posting as Arwen.

Otherwise, things can get confusing....

I agree. I'm just not sure how the logistics of this would work with this forum configuration. It could generate a lot of work approving new account names along with the likely requirement of having a unique email for each ID for activation purposes.

[Sunsilver]

Hmm, yeah that would be a problem! How did TORC manage it?

And I really don't see that a lot of people will be doing RP, certainly NOT the way it was on TORC!
We may get a few people coming here just to be able to RP, but I think with the TORC forums closing down, we would have seen it already if there was going to be any sort of a big migration.

[Frelga]

Our challenge is getting anything off the ground at all, not managing an overabundance of (often young) users and threads.

Some of the TORC rules make better sense if you recall that in its heyday, TORC also had the Green Dragon for non-Tolkien RP, and that lighter RP also ran in guilds (and spilled into Pony), and in wassname, the chat forum, where we had the men of Middle-earth threads, the in-character club, and so forth. Oh, and the Scriptorium for collaborative but more plotted stories as well as solo stories.


Here, I doubt we get so many threads that there will be a need to sort them into multiple forums.

For multiple avvies, again, the only reason why not would be extra work for account management. We may ask to put the writer's name in the sig.

I'd keep rules to the minimum of "don't do anything that changes something significant about someone else's character without their permission".

If V prefers to keep to at least Tolkien inspired themes, that's fair. Otherwise, I would not limit either the subject or the format. Add-a-line story could be fun, for example.

I would also defer to V regarding the maximum rating. Pony was mostly PG-13 and I'm personally cool with sticking to it.

[Impenitent]

How about posting under our regular IDs and using the Subject field to indicate the character, as I have done in this post?

It is then possible to write innumerable characters without having to sign in and out of various usernames and bloating the MB membership.

[Sunsilver]

Cool, Impy! Never thought of doing that!

Re. RP spilling into other forums - some of the best writing I ever read on TORC was in Talk, in the thread where Rho was campaigning for RPer of the Year. It was a battle between Hades and Barad-dûr.

Anyone know who wrote Hades?

Frelga, yeah mostly PG13 with one or two notable exceptions [Nazgûl Lord **cough**Bachelor Party**cough]

Edited to add: wow, where else on this planet would the automatic spell checker offer me the correct spelling of Nazgûl Lord, complete with the circumflex accent over the 'u'! Very impressive!

[Alatar]

The Barrow Downs link doesn't appear to have copied over Bardy

[Frelga]

Sunny, I think Hades was Nin, but I'm not sure.

Festivals and awards were fun.

This is making me nostalgic.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It makes sense to me to have alternate IDs for RP characters, as long as we know who the ID belongs to. That should be stated in the OOC thread. I've also seen it done in the screen name, e.g. let's say, Sunny posting as Arwen.

Otherwise, things can get confusing....

I agree. I'm just not sure how the logistics of this would work with this forum configuration. It could generate a lot of work approving new account names along with the likely requirement of having a unique email for each ID for activation purposes.

Yes I don't think that would work here. I think Impy's suggestion is a good one.

How about posting under our regular IDs and using the Subject field to indicate the character, as I have done in this post?

If V prefers to keep to at least Tolkien inspired themes, that's fair. Otherwise, I would not limit either the subject or the format. Add-a-line story could be fun, for example.

While that is my preference, I don't see any reason to make it a hard and fast rule. I don't want to stifle inspiration.

I would also defer to V regarding the maximum rating. Pony was mostly PG-13 and I'm personally cool with sticking to it.

Again, that would be my preference, but I am willing to allow folks to use their discretion. I doubt anyone is going to post any hardcore porn that would need to be removed!

[Alatar]

Challenge accepted!

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh dear

[Alatar]

Fifty Shades of Gandalf the Grey anyone?

ETA:

I just had to google it....

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh dear.

[Bardhwyn]

The Barrow Downs link doesn't appear to have copied over Bardy

?? There was a Barrow Downs link in there somewhere??

Great! Lots of discussion, this is good.

I think having some overt, obvious and clearly displayed guidelines as key because it will help RP newcomers and veterans alike. The newcomers can read up and the veterans can point newcomers to the guidelines and it saves a lot of time and a lot of hassle in the long run.
We found some clear guidelines invaluable even in the short lived RP forum on newTORC - where I and several others were writing. They weren't overly long or detailed, those guidelines, but it was enough. We met newbies even on those short-lived boards and they needed guidance ; newbies will always need guidance, whether they be few or many.

I personally would prefer to have some guidelines up and visible before I even think about getting into an RP. It will help depersonalise any efforts to sort things out. 'Hey, I'm just referring to the guidelines...'

I did suggest those guidelines wouldn't be 100% applicable - so let's do some editing!

Ok - do we have a general consensus on JUST this bit here - the intro and section 1 (with some new and minor edits, courtesy of moi:

Guidelines for Role Playing in The Forsaken Inn

First of all, welcome to Hall of Fire. If you are reading this then you have shown an interest in Role Playing. This guide is meant to help you begin to Role Play, to tell you the rules and give you a few tips to make your Role Playing the best it can be.

1. What is Role Playing or RP?
Role Playing is a new here at Hall of Fire. Basically, role playing (or RPing) is a fun way to tell a story! You get to take on a persona different from your own, and create a history and a personality for your character, and then take him/her on an adventure, or to a party, or all sorts of other kinds of things. But the thing is, you very rarely know where the story will lead you or what will happen along the way. RPing is interacting with other posters, who are also part of the story. And most of all, Role Playing is fun!!



We ok with that so far ??

[Eldy]

The Barrow Downs link doesn't appear to have copied over Bardy

?? There was a Barrow Downs link in there somewhere??

The TORC rules you quoted had a link to the name generator on the Downs. That link was broken, and while the page is still online at a new URL, it won't give me any results when I try to use it. For what it's worth, the name generator from Age of the Ring—which claims to be a "name translator," but is actually a random generator—is still functional, and IIRC it's basically the same as the Downs' was.

I personally would prefer to have some guidelines up and visible before I even think about getting into an RP. It will help depersonalise any efforts to sort things out. 'Hey, I'm just referring to the guidelines...'

I think Snowdog raised a good point about letting people who start threads set the rules for them. I think that's a workable compromise between providing structure for those who want it while trusting people with a degree of creative freedom appropriate to this era in fandom. For RPs where structure is the goal, people can still point to the rules in question in an impersonal way, if that's considered desirable.

As someone who only ever made a handful of posts on TORC, I don't know how common fanfiction was or if it had its own subforum, but RP guidelines would have little to no relevance to such threads if someone were to post a fic they wrote in this forum. That said, I'm not opposed to having some of introduction to RP or, like, best practices that people can consult when making rules for a given thread. I think the boldface portion of your most recent post is a solid start to such a document.

[Snowdog]

I think the way characters are presented on LotR Fanatics Plaza (I believe Eldy you are on that site?) will work. Post as your account, and header the RP post with what character you are writing. There can be a separate thread for character profiles like on LotR Plaza and old TORc) that can be linked to if desired.

Bardhwyn's opener is a good start. Add to it some etiquette guidelines on literacy and the rating that the House of Fire has overall, and we are set to go. I can copy over a scene/setting for an inn from one of my old RPs to get an in-character Inn started. I can copy over a fanfic as well as an example. I have them saved from when I was posting them on Henneth Annûn and Many Paths To Tread.

[Eldy]

I think the way characters are presented on LotR Fanatics Plaza (I believe Eldy you are on that site?) will work. Post as your account, and header the RP post with what character you are writing. There can be a separate thread for character profiles (like on LotR Plaza and old TORc) that can be linked to if desired.

Yeah, I think the Plaza approach to RPing as multiple characters works well. (I am indeed on that site; it's where I got my start in the fandom, actually.) Having a brief header at the start of a post with the name of your character in boldface, sometimes accompanied by an icon, clearly establishes who you're writing as without needing to register multiple accounts, which the Laws and Customs discourage anyway.