Holodeck Etiquette
Holodeck Etiquette

by Greywolf

  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Glossary
  • 3. Etiquette
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    1. Introduction

    What follows are not rules, per se, but a collection of observations of "how things are done" by matter of tradition with how logs are usually run on SinaiMUCK. There are, of course, exceptions, and as we get more GMs, and existing ones change how they do things, you may find that this isn't necessarily the best way to go about things. Take this all with a grain of salt, then, but it may help a newcomer figure out what is going on, when the GM starts throwing jargon around. If all this overwhelms you, don't worry about it -- Most people just pick this up as they go. It's only included here in case you really want to read about it.

    2. Glossary

    The following are a few terms that may require some explanation.

           
    Holodeck "Holodecks" are rooms on the MUCK set aside for role-play sessions. Technically, we could role-play anywhere on the MUCK. On rare occasions that all the Holodecks are used up, we may go to another "room" on the MUCK and role-play there, logging the session the "old-fashioned way" (through the client program) in lieu of a cambot. But ideally, there are several rooms set aside for role-play, something like virtual conference rooms and gaming tables. One feature of each room is that the room description can be changed by a program called "Vista", allowing the GM to easily change the room description on the fly without being a Wizard or having possession of the room. (This can be useful so that important details about the surroundings can be stuck in the description so a forgetful PC can get a reminder by looking at the room rather than having to scroll back through the log of the session so far.)
     
    IC / OOC When role-playing in an orderly fashion, and especially since we don't have miniatures to move around on a table, or a video game to play, there is an important concept of separating "In Character" and "Out of Character" interaction. Out of Character, you, the player are a computer-user sitting at a terminal, typing commands at a keyboard. In Character, your character is an adventurer in the fictitious world of Sinai. "In Character" remarks are those made by your character within the context of the adventure. "Out of Character" statements are those made by you, the player, outside of the bounds of that fictitious event.

    From time to time, during role-play, you as the player may have something to ask of the GM. To make it abundantly clear that you the player are asking a question of the GM, and not your character asking something of an NPC or "breaking the fourth wall", it's standard etiquette to stick "OOC" in your line somewhere. First off, this makes sure that the cambot won't record the line. Secondly, it helps make sure that the GM and any other players present aren't confused.

    For example, let us say that you are signed on to the MUCK as Kevlar the Warrior, and "Kevlar" is your "player name". If you type "say Hello, everybody!", people will see "Kevlar says, 'Hello, everybody!'" Now, let's suppose that you're in the middle of a role-play session. IC (In Character), Kevlar is fighting off a horde of green-skinned Snorks. You, as a player, have no idea what a Snork is, though surely Kevlar, experienced hero as he is, should know. You therefore type something like, "say OOC: What is a Snork, anyway?" IC: Kevlar the Warrior is not asking this. OOC: You the player are.
     
    Player On SinaiMUCK, "player" has two general meanings. First off, in the "virtual" environment of the MUCK, everybody has a "player" object with a given name that may or may not be your real name. If your "player object" is named "Kevlar", then when you use the "say" command, people will see that "Kevlar" said something. Everyone on the MUCK has a "player object", regardless of whether they are indeed players in role-play, or whether they're GMs or whatever.

    In strictly role-playing terms, if you are role-playing, then you are a player. If someone refers to "Kevlar's player", then they are referring to the real life person that signs on as "Kevlar" online.
     
    PC "PC" stands for "Player Character", or just "character". This refers to your fictitious persona in role-play.
     
    Spoof "Spoof" is a global command on the MUCK that allows you to make a line of text appear on the screen of any other players present in the same "room". This is used freely by the GM for narrative purposes, so that the GM can present to the players what is happening in the world around them. It can also be used by players for purposes of describing what their characters do beyond just "Kevlar says this," or "Kevlar does that."
     
    GM "GM" stands for "Game Master". This is the person who is determining what happens in your PC's adventures. The GM plays the parts of all of the characters and forces of nature of the world apart from the PCs themselves. If you declare that Kevlar is going to attack the Snorks, then the GM decides whether your attack lands or not, how much damage it does, and whether the Snorks do any damage to your PC in turn. A GM has ultimate authority over what transpires within the course of a plot. However, it should be kept in mind that SinaiMUCK is a "shared environment". The GMs have to work together with each other. Some people on SinaiMUCK act as GMs in some plots, and play the parts of PCs in other plots.

    Also, it is possible that a couple of players may be online at the same time, and want to partake in some light role-play. For example, one of the PCs owns a store, and the other PC might drop by under the pretense of buying some magical components. The purpose is mostly just for some idle chit-chat. The player whose PC owns the store might temporarily take on the role of "GM", for the sake of handling ambient events in the background and "creative control" for this particular log. This doesn't imply any authority in other plots involving that particular PC.
    Cambot "Cambots" are MPI-programmed objects, courtesy of Boingdragon, that "listen" to the poses, lines of dialogue and spoofed narrative in a room and record those for later reference, editing out any lines that contain the characters "OOC" in them. These are a regular tool for role-play on Sinai, so that adventures can be logged for later reference ... so that GMs can check back on names of minor NPCs and plot developments to ensure internal consistency, or perhaps just so that other players can keep tabs on what is going on in Sinai at large.
    Closeup One of the commands associated with Cambots is "Closeup". A "closeup" records the description of the room or of a particular object or player. Sometimes, people put visual descriptions of their PCs on their player objects. For example, if you were to type "look Kevlar", you might get a description of the PC known as "Kevlar", if he's in the same room. Sometimes, a GM feels inclined to record such a description and tack it into the narrative of a log. This gets used more often with room descriptions, as the GM may type in a room description, then do a "closeup" on it to set the scene for a role-play session and record it in the log, while players can individually "look" at the description at their leisure.
    NPC "NPC" stands for "Non-Player Character". It usually is used to refer to all of the various characters introduced and portrayed by the GM in any given role-play session -- in other words, everybody except for the PCs. On occasion, though, this term is used to refer to someone who is playing the role of a character on a temporary basis, usually a role assigned by the GM for this particular plot. The NPC is not the star of this adventure, and the NPC's "player" is often privy to facts that the players of the heroes in this plot are not aware of. Allowing additional players to participate by controlling "NPCs" is a way of involving more players in a plot even though they don't have PCs that have a good excuse to show up ... or else as a way to "break in" new GMs by giving them small parts of a plot to control, under the main GM's direction.
    Q "Q" is a pun that stands for "cue". It is a standard practice for the GM to start off any log by describing the setting, and then typing up a few lines of narrative to briefly explain who the heroes are, where they are, and why they're there. While this is going on, the players are expected to sit quietly and wait for their "cue" to begin. A standard tradition is for the GM, once he or she is ready, to type "Cue!" (or, to be cute, "Q!") to let the players know that they are free to start typing their actions.
    Dice of Doom This is nothing officially associated with role-play on Sinai ... it's just a bit of a "tradition". Some GMs may prefer to utilize dice in some fashion as an arbiter in situations such as combat or the use of skills in risky situations. Other GMs may simply choose to arbitrarily determine whether a PC succeeds or fails at any given task, based on personal discretion, dramatic import, and so forth. A GM may sometimes make an OOC note that he or she is "rolling dice" to determine a result. It's basically a way of letting the players know that the GM is trying to determine an outcome, and to ask them to please wait until this outcome is decided. The GM would then most likely either spoof a narrative of the result, or tell a PC the result and let the PC craft a pose accordingly.
    Dramatic End-Pose A tradition that has its roots before SinaiMUCK is that of letting the "star" PC type a "dramatic end-pose" to end the log on. Perhaps it's some witty remark the PC says as he rides off into the sunset ... or some parting thought as he slips into unconsciousness after being clobbered by a Snork. When the role-play session seems to be "losing steam", so to speak, or is just at a pretty good stopping point in general, it's customary for the GM to tell the players that it's "Dramatic End-Pose time". At this point, it's a chance for the players involved to type up parting lines for their PCs, and any unresolved business will just have to be resolved "off-camera" with the GM, or at the start of the next session. It's generally not good etiquette to, when asked for a Dramatic End-Pose, end with a question that demands an answer from another PC or NPC. It's also not all that good etiquette to be spending, say, twenty or more minutes trying to craft your "dramatic end pose", since when the GM is calling for this, it's probably pretty late anyway.
    Retcon Just because you type something like "Kevlar makes a mighty swing with his sword, and cleaves the Snork in half," doesn't mean that this declaration is going to stand the test of the GM. It's best to check with your GM to find out the particular "style" of the person running your games. Does the GM let you make such poses, with the understanding that the GM reserves the right to say, "No that doesn't happen," and then correct it? Or would the GM rather that you OOCly tell him or her what you plan to do, then wait for the GM to let you know the status of your action (success or failure) before you actually type anything for the log? Or, perhaps somewhere in the middle, your GM may allow you to type "Kevlar swings his sword, trying to cut the Snork in half," but it would be up to the GM to actually type "The blow connects, cleaving the Snork into two pieces right down the center."

    Whenever a GM vetoes an action, this is often referred to as a "retcon". The GM may either delete the "offending" pose or spoof from the cambot log, or else stick in a note that the line should be deleted ... and then types in a "replacement" pose, corrected to reflect the actual outcome, or to correct some factual point in the narrative.

    This sometimes also happens after a log is finished. Suppose that a new GM doesn't realize that machine guns don't work on the surface of Sinai, yet he has some Kampfzengruppe soldiers firing them in the Desert of Himaat. Well, once that particular inconsistency is discovered, unless we can come up with a really good reason why those machine guns should work in that situation without contradicting precedents already set, it may be necessary to "retcon" that log (change it after the fact) and inform the players about what had to be changed. (Hopefully nothing all that drastic. Maybe they used crossbows instead?)

    3. Etiquette

    Here are a few notes about how a role-play session is usually run, and some etiquette to note while role-playing on SinaiMUCK.

  • First, the GM checks with the players to agree upon a time to meet to role-play. This might be on a regularly scheduled night, or on a regularly changing basis, or maybe just whenever the GM happens to come online and finds some players who haven't anything better to do.

  • If a player will not be able to attend, the player hopefully notifies the GM ahead of time by some accepted means, such as leaving page #mail on SinaiMUCK, or sending an email. These things happen. Similarly, if a GM can't show up, he needs to make sure that the players find out somehow, so they won't all be sitting around and waiting on him.

  • Provided everybody hasn't cancelled out, the GM and players show up at the appointed time (or as close as possible). The GM picks out a Holodeck to run the plot in, goes in there, and notifies the players. The GM also grabs a cambot by using the "callcambot" command.

  • Once the players are there, the GM goes through the initial process of starting the log, describing the setting (by setting the room description, through narration, or whatever), and giving to the players any IC and OOC information necessary to get them prepared for the action. Sometimes, if a GM has some spare time before the log actually starts, he may edit up a "script file" that he can quickly upload to the MUCK, basically firing off a quick series of "spoofs" and other commands to describe the start of the log quickly, rather than having to sit and think it up there on the spot. The GM, of course, if he does this, should be prepared to sit and wait for the players to catch up reading all of this before they start.

  • Once the GM is ready for the players to decide their PCs' initial actions, he lets them know this. Traditionally, a quick way of letting players know this is by making an OOC "Cue!" or "Q!" remark to let them know that they can start.

  • The players then do their poses, say whatever their PCs would say, and so forth. If it's a narrative line to go in the log, then it is typed in using pose, say, or spoof. If it's an out of character question for the GM or explanation to the GM or whatnot, then either make a statement that has "OOC" somewhere in the line so the cambot won't log it, or else privately page or whisper to the GM.

  • Sometimes, the GM will reveal information to individual players without mentioning it in the narrative, and without saying it where others can see it. For example, one of the PCs might have "night vision", and the action is taking place in a dark room. The GM may privately page the player with "You see that the dark shadow is actually an Eeee in a cloak." This does not obligate the PC to any sort of reaction -- It is simply additional information that the player may choose to act upon or ignore.

  • If a PC wishes to do something in secret, without other PCs also in the session being aware of, this is another case in which it is best to page or whisper to the GM privately. It will be up to the GM to determine whether the results of this action will show up in any manner that the other PCs can witness or not.

  • Out of character commentary should be kept to a minimum if not relating directly to the plot. Sometimes, a player may have been called away from the keyboard, and comes back and types something like "say OOC: Sorry, guys, I had a phone call. I'm back now." That's fine. Continuing to complain about the fact that there was a salesperson on the line, or so forth will probably distract from the role-play. The same goes for making out-of-character quips about the action, puns, and so forth. If your character says such things (and does so in character), that's just fine. But if you're playing a stone-cold serious warrior in character, and out of character you keep throwing puns around, it makes it very hard for the GM to take your PC seriously, and probably breaks the mood for other players involved as well.

  • Try to avoid using "emoticons", such as "smiley-faces" =) ;) and thought balloons . o O and other cartoony "net-isms". This is largely a matter of "taste", but such things are likely to get edited out of the logs when they get posted.

  • Try to avoid using greater-than (>) or less-than (<) signs for emphasis. The logs are posted up on a web site, and any text enclosed in these marks may be interpreted as html code. Whomever edits the log will hopefully look for problems like this, but you can make the job easier by not leaving such little "land mines" waiting in the log.

  • Don't waste your time embedding html code in lines of text. The GM may (out of habit) go ahead and include html coding in lines of description or in dialogue, but there's no need to slow yourself down to get every little line just perfect and ready to be posted to the web. More often, it's of greater importance to hurry up and type up your line so that the GM can react to it. If you want to put emphasis on words, there are some excepted means of "shorthand": /italics/, *bold*, _underline_ ... or the old fallback of typing things in ALL CAPS.

  • Keep it short and simple, especially when there are multiple PCs. In real-life conversations, we don't sit around in utter silence, suddenly spurting out entire soliloquys in one-second bursts ... but that's exactly how it looks on a player's terminal screen, when another player is utterly silent, crafting a pose for twenty minutes or so, and then suddenly the screen fills with a block of text, all at once. For one thing, it doesn't give anyone a chance to get a word in edge-wise. For another, it means everyone has to sit and wait on you. If you really want to let people know that you're not finished typing yet (your PC is still acting or speaking), then end your pose or spoof or speech with "..." to let people know that more is coming. (Conversely, don't habitually stick "..." at the end of your line unless you really want everyone to sit and wait on you all the time.)

  • You should wait on the GM, but the GM won't always wait on you. In an action-packed sequence, if the GM thinks you're just stalling, sitting and being indecisive, the GM may start a "count-down", and if you don't return a response, the GM may move on. Sometimes, yes, there is net-lag, or you may have a broken connection. A good GM should try to accommodate for any misunderstandings that arise from that. But you shouldn't abuse the fact that the GM can't tell if you're busily typing, if you're just staring at the screen and drooling, or if you've gone off to the fridge for a sandwich.

  • Let the GM know if you have to go AFK (Away From Keyboard). The GM doesn't necessarily have to know just why, if you don't care to announce to everybody that you've really got to go to the bathroom, but it's a common courtesy to let people know that for the next several minutes, you won't be there listening.

  • Avoid ambiguity in your poses. Some players (and GMs) may have a habit of referring to the same character by several different names. For instance, perhaps there is an NPC who is a black Khatta (cat-morph) who is also a mage, and who is named Prince Sebazhan Dack. Rather than starting every pose by this prince with "Prince Sebazhan Dack says," the GM may alternately refer to the character as "the prince" or "Prince Dack" or "Prince Sebazhan" or "the black Khatta" or "the black cat" or "the cat mage" or various other combinations. It's often done to break up monotony, but it can be taken to extremes ... particularly if there is more than one Khatta in the room, or if someone is present who doesn't know full well that all of these terms refer to the same character. Even worse is when you type a line that only refers to your PC by pronoun ... especially when there are other characters in the same room of the same gender, thus leading to possible confusion. We may be putting these logs up for reading, but remember that primarily this is a game, not a novel. Clarity and speed should take precedence over fancy and convoluted spoofs and poses. If we want to make things fancy later, we can clean it up in the log when it's posted to the web site.

  • Sometimes, the GM may stick a correction or note in the log itself, without putting an "OOC" mark beside it. There's no set rule for this, but tradition is for the GM to spoof something like "spoof *** Note to Editor: Delete the previous line." The cambots have editing commands for the purpose of deleting lines and swapping them around or editing them on the fly, but in the course of fast-paced role-play, it may be more convenient to simply leave a note for later editing, rather than to slow things down by editing right away.

  • If a player accidentally mis-types a line, the best way to deal with it is to just type it over again immediately and put it out there. If you've started typing a line and accidentally hit return, unless this was a really long pose, you can probably more quickly just try again and get the whole line out, rather than stopping to OOCly apologize for the typographical error and ask everyone to please wait. Most people can probably figure out what happened.

  • Eventually, the plot will get to a point where it's time to wrap things up. The GM may call for people to make a "dramatic end-pose". That's your chance as a player to type up some ending line for your PC, as the "scene" ends. It's usually best not to spend an extraordinarily long time on this, especially if it's fairly late and the GM could use some sleep! It's also not a good time to stir things up again by asking a question that demands an answer, or making an attack or whatnot. If you do, then expect that this log is likely to end as a "cliff-hanger", cutting off right at that point, the resolution of your PC's action waiting until the GM's leisure (or the next session).

  • On a similar note, sometimes the GM may opt to "fast forward" to a new "scene" without necessarily stopping the log entirely. The GM may ask for a "scene end-pose" from the PC or PCs, and then the GM may do a "scene change", moving the action further forward in time and sometimes to a new location. Time in role-play, after all, doesn't pass at the same rate as real time. We don't type that fast!
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