Character Post Rules`

[merin]

Hi all,

I have spent a few days mulling this over in my mind. The recent decision to ban the character journals as they were, in my opinion, is a bad one. One thing as of late that I have found useful and helpful -- both as a relative to most people her to the game and one who doesn’t know the lore – is reading these journals. In fact, I would like to thank you, Elystole for yours. It has assisted me greatly in getting into the Clock mentality, helped me to understand how the game is role-played, and some of the recent events from an out of character standpoint.

I understand and agree completely that, while some information is gained through the journals, that it can, by people who are actually willing to give it a shot, be kept as that – reading material. For those that are unfortunately unable to, I believe that reminders and taking them aside and explaining in a conversation why and how they could not have that information is beneficial. Not everyone is a great role-player, and not everyone has the chance to be so by jumping into an unfamiliar world, an unfamiliar environment. While I agree that this could be negated with documentation, I do not feel that Clok possesses the needed documentation – not anyway – for someone to at least get a grip on history, behavior, common terms, places, and etcetera.
I have thought the argument of, “get on and learn,” however; I don’t feel that is always plausible. What if someone doesn’t want to talk to you about the latest happenings? What if someone doesn’t want to sit down and explain many years of in game lore?

While I agree that the journals would be as they were, out of character writings and knowledge, I feel that knowing common terms (Nethrum, Nether, Thaumatergy, Elemancers, the races, the accultustc, and etcetera) are extremely feasible for a person to know. Since from my understanding the Lost Lands is simply under quarantine and not a world in itself some of these common terms would be widely known to a character beforehand.

I have learned quite a bit from reading the journals and yes, I have used the more common menschen’s. I have not taken specific knowledge in character. A few of my characters don’t know who is of what guild, nor will they until they obtain that knowledge through observation themselves. Perhaps there is a bigger issue than I knows; however, I do not myself see any issues. If there are, GMs, please correct me. If this is not the case, I would kindly request some reconsideration on the journals. It really brings the world you guys have created to life and let’s be honest, are fascinating reads!

Thank you for reading.

[Rias]

I think it's sad to have to put restrictions on the journals. It does, however, go along with our rules of not talking about IC stuff on the Chat channel when it should be talked about IC. I know the situations are a bit different, but - maybe this is just my being lazy - I don't want GMs to have to moderate journals along with everything else that's on our plates, at least without some hard set rules. It's also one of the reasons I want to get rid of the Chat channel so often - it's one more thing to be used incorrectly that I don't want to have to moderate.

The primary issue I saw with the journal thing was people being talked about semi-ICly to a broad audience, but those people couldn't really defend themselves, clarify, or make their case. One could say all manner of bad or wrong things about someone, and have that presented to everyone reading as "It's IC!" but the people being talked about wouldn't really have any chance to try and defend their reputation, because "it's just a journal". I'd prefer that type of drama was all performed in-game, rather than broadcasted to a wide audience via an OOC medium. I also worried about people having "journal wars" and such, where say, "Tim made fun of me in his last journal - well now I'M going to start a journal and say bad things about him! Hah!"

All in all, I think it's a sad blow, but I can understand having rules to moderate things. We do have the IG rumor system and newspapers now to keep people more informed of goings-on and local history, and I plan on an archive in Shadgard's Town Hall as far as newspapers, so people can go back and sift through local history. I'll probably even write up some old newspaper articles expressly for that purpose - so players can flip through them and read through local history and events.