City of Shadows Mux City of Shadows Mux

Good evening and welcome to the Spider's collection of thoughts and guidelines for playing in the Changeling sphere as done in a semi random order! These words are here for YOU, the player, to be able to know what you are getting into, and things you can do to make your stay more enjoyable, as it comes to our sphere. None of these are absolutely hard rules, except for maybe one, I just fully understand that joining a new game, or a new sphere can be intimidating, and that part of that is not having a good idea on how said sphere runs, or how to do things in it.

As every sphere is, in all cases, heavily influenced by the staff that runs it, I have my role in shaping the culture the Changeling sphere here on City of Shadows...

Miserere mei, Deus, here we go.

• The first, and only true rule as it comes to the sphere. We are a community. For whatever reasons we have, we all come here as players or staff to enjoy a shared hobby that is social. We do this to have fun, to enjoy ourselves, to tell stories and to talk and make friends. Not everyone is going to be friends, but we all, including me, have an obligation to remember that we are not doing this alone. We are a community, and the objective is fun, just try and keep that in mind when dealing with your fellow players.

• I have not, at the time of this writing, played C:TL in probably close to six years. I /never/ have in second edition. I do not have encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Nor do I expect it from you. We all had to learn once, and we will all have different levels of familiarity and quote, unquote, skill. Don't hold it against me, and I certainly won't hold it against you.

• Alas, despite my best efforts to not have a life what so ever, I still have a powerful need to eat. I, like many of you, work full time, and need to do stuff like cook and clean. We are also spread across a multitude of time zones and availability. As such, jobs are your friends. While normally the best way to contact me is to yell really loudly on a channel until I say hey, I will do /everything/ I can to make sure that no matter your times I can get you involved. If you have a question and can't reach me, send in a job, if you need something, send in a job and I will try to schedule it, if I need to run entire scenes as PBEM through a job for you, I will. Do not be afraid to contact me, the worst I will tell you is I need some time.

• In dealing with the above, I am also, despite my eating habits, only one person. I am also not a robot. Sometimes I have bad days, or can't get to you immediately. I do apologize and hope you bear with me if that happens. It also means that being only one person with possibly dozens of people to help watch over, I cannot run a coherent and totally structured plot. There will just be to many of you, and while I may be a smart lady I am not smarter than thirty other people. If I try to stay to structured it is going to derail completely. This game is not a Sandbox, it will and does, have a meta, and general story arcs. But the pacing of those arcs, and how they are approached, will be up to you, the players, in your groups. I will work with you to the best of my ability so everyone can persue their interests in addition to being involved with story.

• In continuation of the above, play what you want to play. There will never be a situation where we 'need' a certain thing as a PC. Looking to be unique, or have a niche, is perfectly legitimate, but don't do something you are not enthusiastic about simply because we don't have any. I will simply adjust the plot. Again, you all will set the pace and approach. If some of you want to punch stuff, and others want to explore the mysteries of the hedge, I will do my best to do both of those things. If we don't have people interested in social stuff, I just won't put social based issues in front of them. E-Z.

• NPCs are how the meta goes about. A lot of this game is based on NPCs, their goals and ambitions, and what they want. These are your villains, your allies, your rivals, friends and contacts. How you and your goals interact with those of others is how we make a plot and a story, so expect a bit of them. There is an incomplete list on the Changeling page, and if you are looking for a tie in, or an ally or contact or the like for your sheet, I would suggest looking there.

• Group up! I don't mean permanent structured motleys, but as stated before, this is a social game, also stated, I am one overweight middle aged lesbian. I will not be able to give thirty people individualized attention all the time. So if you want to do something, ask yourself if it can be done in a group, and invite your friends along! That way everyone gets more chances at playing, and when they get some attention they may bring you along too!

• Declare intent! One thing I do ask of you is that when you are wishing to do something, whether that be a job, or an action in a scene, or whatever, you tell me your intent behind that action. It doesn't have to be some super complex thing 'I just want to kill this guy' is fine, but if your intent is 'I actually just need to get past this guy to get inside and do X, stabbing just happens to be what I see as my best option to achieve that goal.' it gives me a lot more to work with and helps string things together narratively. It also helps /you/ be more cool. Because after all if you roll poorly on the stabbing it just means you have not been able to get past them yet, not that you suck at what your char is supposed to be good at. -_^

• ACT NOW! PLAN LATER! And I mean that in all due seriousness. This goes back to the one person thing, and just ease of play. I am not your enemy, I am here to help you have fun, and what that means is that rather than clogging up the job system with a lot of planning and contingencies, most of which are never really going to be used (times thirty people) I would rather you tell me that you want to go do X. I can gaurentee you that if you come across something in a scene and OOC to me 'Hey, reasonably I could have had my contact tell me about this and have prepared X for it' I am going to tell you to make any relevant rolls and then let you do it. I am going to assume your character is indeed, pretty good at what they do, and we can keep to the fun parts rather than constant overplanning and worrying about if you had overlooked something.

• Most of all, remember to have fun. I will see you all out there. ^_^