Policies

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Alts


At this time, players may have 1 Garou character. Once population allows, we will allow each player 1 Kinfolk and 1 Mortal character. Even further down the line we may allow players to replace their Garou character with a Fera character.


Adult Content


The website is public and anybody can see it, so keep the website content PG: no obscene, sexual, or otherwise adult content. Please respect this request, and if someone edits your pages to remove non-PG content, do not put it back or else you will not be allowed to further edit the website.

On the game, use common sense and respect another's request that you stop making them feel uncomfortable if such a thing occurs. If you are uncomfortable with somebody else's actions, make very clear to the person making you uncomfortable that you want them to stop. You can email logs to thestormhowlsmux@gmail.com.

We would rather people refrain from acts of TS on Storm Howls. We are not going to be scouring the grid as staff looking for people to punish for their TS behaviors, but we will take actions both in and out of character for those we do run across in our daily activities. Logs will be posted, and since you are most likely playing a Garou, you will receive Renown loss and other nasty things for committing Charach.

If you see a nun with a ruler on your wiki page one day, that means that your picture was censored because it was inappropriate. Remember: anyone can see the website. Replace the image if you like, or delete it, but don't put the old one back.

Crackednun.jpg

Sister Crackedknuckles owns a ruler she calls Karma.


Applying


Applying is as simple as creating a character account on the game and using the automated character generator. You do not have to have your concept approved prior to using char-gen, but you do have to be approved to enter the game. If you feel a need to screen it with staff first then you are welcome to do so. We may also from time to time accept applications for characters of higher than starting Rank. If so, we will review the applications and fill them per our need. Bonus XP will be assigned to the characters once they are approved for higher ranks. All characters must have a mentality and biological age of at least 18, or older. This means they need to look and act and be 18 years old.


Building


If you want to have a building which represents a place that your character owns ICly, then you need to have the Resources associated with footing such a place. If you want to add a building to the city grid in order to contribute to places to RP in, catering to different character concepts or fun landmarks in Austin you want to share, you are welcome to do so without any requirements on your +sheet.

In order to have a building on grid, type in a +request that you would like a building and run us by a brief description of your concept. This is so that we can make sure you have an idea that we won't turn down on the basis that we already have a place like it on the grid, and that will prompt us to inform you that you will need to come up with some way to make your proposal unique. This way you won't be investing effort in a building that we tell you "no" on.

Once you've told us what you want and how many rooms you want dug for it, we'll @dig you the rooms in the Build Zone accordingly. The Build Zone is found in Player Resources (+ooc, PR, BZ). The room(s) will be @chowned to you for you to rename and describe. Take care that we generally want buildings to be represented by as few rooms as possible, so a room for every partition imagined within a structure is a little bit much. One to three rooms is what we want you to stay within. If you feel like you really need four or more, we can negotiate.

When you have desced and prepared exits (explained below) to your room(s), add to your +request that you are ready for the building to be checked out, and be sure to let us know where you want to put it. If it passes our checklist (explained below) then it's straight to the grid!

  • So that staff can use certain search functions to isolate rooms, please follow the naming convention.
    • The naming convention is <City Name > - <Building Name>. If you have a building with multiple locations, it's <City Name> - <Building Name> - <Room Name>. To name a place, you go to the location and type @name here = <name>.
    • Example: @name here = Rock Bottom – The Lusty Lady Saloon - Kitchen
    • Example: @name here = Ute Lands - Long House
    • You also can refer to a room by its DB number. For instance, @name #250 = Austin - Continental Club.
  • Each room needs to have 50 words in its description at least.
    • To describe a room, go to the room and type "@desc here = <description>." You can use %t for a tab and %r for carriage return.
    • We do have Views and Places. They are not mandatory to use, but if you do use them, each place needs to be described and have enter and exit messages.
    • Learn more by typing, in game, "+help places" and "+help view"
  • Each exit needs to be prepared with @osuccs and @odrops.
    • An @osucc is the message that plays in a room when you use an exit. If you use the exit Backstage <BS>, then the people in the room you left should see "Bobby goes backstage." To set an @osucc, with Backstage <BS> as an example, type "@osucc backstage=goes backstage." This does not have to be a fancy message. You just need to provide enough information so that people who are following other people know where they are going.
    • An @odrop is the message that plays in a room when you enter it to let players at your destination know whence you came. If you have a room called Restaurant and a room called Bathroom, and the exits lead mutually to one another, then the @odrop for the exit from the bathroom leading to the restaurant will say "arrives from the bathroom." The @odrop for the exit from the restaurant leading to the bathroom will say "arrives from the restaurant." To set an @odrop, with Restaurant <R> as an example, you would type "@odrop restaurant = arrives from the restaurant." Again, this is not meant to be fancy. You just need to provide enough information so that people can keep track of who's coming from where.
    • You can describe exits if you would like. To do this, type "@desc <exit name> = <description>."


Experienced Characters and Transfers


As mentioned in the Applying section of the game policies, we do occasionally allow for players to apply to portray characters of higher rank than normal. Those characters will be awarded extra experience based on game need.

Transfers won’t be accepted at this time. Staff is fairly certain that there are no other Wild West games currently running to transfer from.


Equipment


Ask for equipment through +request (Type +request Equipment - <Name> = <information>). Include the stats associated with this item, and if you feel it is appropriate, include the description. If you feel like there is good RP potential behind having or getting this item, also note that because otherwise we won't know. If possible, include the page number and name of the book someone can find it in.


Idle Players


No player accounts are deleted if they get approved at some point. They are taken out of the active player roster after a 30 days of inactivity. A player is 'inactive' if they do not sign in: logging in and out is enough to keep your character bit so that if you have RL trouble and want to keep the character, you have the option.

Player Killing/Character Death


No staff-run plot will have PK on the agenda, but characters may end up getting involved in something physically dangerous and character death can happen. In that case, you can transfer XP to your new character. Please understand there will be no ret-conning of circumstances that lead to a character death unless some sort of exceptional case occurs, like someone got the mechanics completely wrong (so then you'd have to re-roll).

It is your responsibility to ask someone who is running a scene to help you understand what your character would know of the dangers inherent in participating in a given situation. Don't have your character invite someone home or give personal information which could be used for stalking/casing purposes or the like if you don't know that character very well.

If your character does die, then you have options for transferring XP to your new character. You may transfer any unspent XP to your new character. This will be added to your sheet after you have created the base character.

OOC Masq


Staff does not enforce an OOC Masquerade but we do not violate it, either. Your character is your business, not staff's. You should be aware that telling other players about your character does make it such that a player might know what to make their character look for in order to obtain that information ICly, but it's still yours to tell.

Please, however, respect that other players may want their information private regardless of how you came about knowing it, so please do not indulge others in the particulars of other peoples' characters OOCly as a matter of courtesy.

PrP


Yes! Do them! As for rules, please contact staff in advance if you intend to make something spectacularly big happen. You know the standard set of scenarios: grid destroying, summoning some kind of Eldritch Abomination, involving NPCs of considerable power/clout, involving content from a core book not currently supported (especially that)... I mean, use your common sense here. But PrP is the best thing ever. Let staff know how we can accommodate for you.

If you run a PrP, you can get everybody some experience points per scene. Get a copy of the logs to staff, and we’ll make sure everybody involved gets an XP reward depending on the content of the scene.


Resources


Players can combine dots in resources to jointly own property.

Restatting


Sometimes, you make a character with one concept, and you find some time later that your character is nothing like what you originally intended. Sometimes this is to the point where the sheet just doesn't make enough sense anymore. To this end, you can re-stat your character, but only once. There is no grace period in which you must wait after char-gen to restat, but you are only allowed to use it once, ever, so make it count! To reap this benefit, put in a +request. We will log what your XP total is, put you in CG, and let you run free. You make your sheet over again, spend your 35 CG XP + your earned number of XP, and comment that you're ready for perusal on the +job. We'll check you out and make sure you've got everything straightened up, then send you through if there are no hitches such as min-maxing or improper XP spends. You cannot do this after your character has been in play 60 days.

Getting XP


The Storm Howls uses a +vote system for XP with limitations on it in order to circumvent +vote abuse, and promote people RPing outside of their comfort zone of contacts. The XP system is designed to encourage players to move on to new characters after they have exceeded 300+ XP by making each vote give gradually less XP the more XP that you have. We also grant flat XP for players who run scenes in order to reward PrPs and storytelling.

If you run PrPs, however, you can earn up to 5 XP per scene, determined by the contents of the log rather than by how much XP you have. Redeem this XP by posting a log of your scene(s) and then sending a link to staff via +request. Tell us that you ran this and would like the XP for it, and we'll reward you.

At no point do we make it so that there is no way you can gain more XP. We just want to prevent an extreme power imbalance and we encourage you to move on to a new character after you have hit a certain point of character development by making XP gain faster for new characters. If you have an XP count in the two and three hundreds or more, you have to contribute to the game (run PrPs) in order to further advance your own character with speed, or else slowly accumulate XP over a period of months.

Details:

  • You can vote for each, individual person once every twenty four hours. If you RP with 10 people, you can vote for each of them.
  • Additionally, you can vote for each, individual person three times in a week. If you RP with the same people every day, then, you can only get so much XP from them, and in this manner we encourage you to look for a variety of players.
  • Each +vote grants XP proportional to the amount of XP the recipient has: New XP = (-.18/325) * Total XP + 0.2.
    • At first, players get 0.2 XP (so they can expect to average 3 XP a week).
    • Towards 150 XP, players get 0.1 XP. At 3 XP a week, running no PrPs, this will take about a year to kick in.
    • Towards 325 XP, players get 0.03 XP (so they can expect to average 1 XP a month).
  • Getting XP from running scenes and PrPs is not affected by how much XP you already have. You can gain up to 5 XP per scene you run.
  • Anybody can run a PrP the day their charbit is approved, regardless of XP status.


Spending XP


You will notice a stat, "Spendable XP", on the bottom of your +sheet. Spendable XP rounds up the XP you have to integers. This means that as soon as the decimal in your Current XP hits '5', it rounds up. Having 3.5 to 3.99 XP means you can spend 4 XP, for instance, but having 3.01 to 3.49 XP means you can only spend 3 XP. This makes XP more quickly accessible to newer players, as their fractional XP grants them more per individual +vote. In this manner, newer characters have an easier time earning XP so that they can compete more competently with older characters.

To spend it, type +ooc, then go to Player Resources by typing 'pr,' then go into the XP room and use the onscreen commands.

Website Content and Whitewolf Books


Do not post content on the Wiki which endorses or illustrates methods to obtain World of Darkness books illegally. If you want to add to the website's basic information about the WOD books, sure, but don't put links to places on here, please.