- Posts:
- 1,588
- Group:
- Administrator
- Member
- #1
- Joined:
- June 15, 2008
- Time Zone
- MST
- You Found OM Where?
- In the fangasm corner of my mind.
- Country
- Canada
- Age
- 18
- Gender
- Femme
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Once upon a time, there was a young generic nobody named Bob. This generic nobody stumbled across the forum one day. He had a lot of questions for me. So, out of the goodness of my heart, and the five dollars he gave me, I agreed to sit down with Bob in Mr. Todd's parlour to explain it all. I sat comfortably near Bob, who was adjacent in the barber's chair. He looked about nervously, trying to ignore the bleeding ungentlemanly gentleman on the floor next to us.
"Have no fear," Said I, "'Tis only the work of a good barber."
Bob was unconvinced, but his curiosity, at the moment, outweighed any feelings of impending doom, so he proceeded to ask his questions...
- Q} What is this place?
- A} What is this place? What IS this place? My God, Bob, you've really been missing out. But I shall enlighten you, because I could really use five dollars right now. This is a play-by-post role-playing message board.
- Q} And what is THAT?
- A} Well, Bob, that means, essentially, that our members are creative writers. We assume the perspective of a character, and with each In-Character post, we write from their point of view. Then, eventually, other members write a section of story as their character, who interacts with the first character, and so on, until eventually a new story unfolds between them. There is usually no limit to the amount of characters which can join in the story. These bits of stories are written in the form of a 'thread' or 'topic', utilizing the utilities of a message board. That's it, in a nutshell.
- Q} What's Obscurité Musicale's story, then? HMM?
- A} Jeepers, Bob, for that, I suggest you take a look through this thread. It might give you a clue.
- Q} Hmm. Yes, quite illuminating, that. Well okay then, what does Obscurité Musicale mean, exactly?
- A} Obscurité (French) = "darkness"; "obscurity". Musicale = Well golly Bob, I'm sure you can figure that out for yourself. As our ad says, 'Musical Obscurity' would be our English title, though perhaps more fitting would be 'Darkness in Music' or 'An Assortment of Victorian Musicals, All of Which Happen To Have Dark Themes, Therefore Our Skin Is Dark, Therefore Our Overall Theme Must Be Dark Too, Savvy?'. You can take that title whatever way you please.
- Q} Well that was perhaps a little more than I desired to know, Alandree. But I can deal with it, I guess. Moving on...How can I get involved in all this...this...'role-playing' business?
- A} The first thing I would suggest is that you get yourself some experience with the play-by-post roleplay system. We're not a beginner-friendly site, and we expect you to know your way around a forum of this kind, particularly in general role-playing etiquette and general writing technique. What we want from you is a passion for writing, and a willingness to contribute to other people's stories as well as your own. If you have that, then you're off to a good start.
- Q} Well fine then. Once I've acquired such experience, what do I do?
- A} The next step would be to read through all the topics found in the 'Rules & Details' forum. That's the most important thing to do first. Next, you may find it helpful to read through the 'Announcements & Updates' forum. There are some notices that may be useful to you. After that, to get a feel for the board and the writers you'll be playing with, I'd suggest reading through some of our archived threads, found in the, you guessed it, 'Archived Thread' forum.
- Q} Right. Did that. Very nice threads. Now what?
- A} Well, now you can go ahead and sign up! In the top right-hand corner of the board, you will find a 'register' option. Click that! Register with a general alias, then you've begun! Welcome to the board!
- Q} Okie dokie. I've registered, now what, Alandree?
- A} Now you can go on over to the 'Biography Submissions' forum, and go to the 'Biography Format' topic, copying the first post's contents. Now, proceed to the 'Biography Submissions' forum again, and click the 'New Topic' button. From there, just paste the copied text into the text box, and proceed to fill it in for a character of your own creation, deleting the text informing you of the specifics of each field, replacing it with the details of your own character. Once you've finished that, just title the thread as your character's first and last name, then click 'post topic' button.
- Q} Great! I've done that. Now what?
- A} Now all you have to do is wait for your character to be accepted by an administrator (Alandree or Liza). She may have some things in mind that she'd like you to modify, but that can be easily worked out, I'm sure. In the end, your character will be stamped as accepted, and from there you are at last free to start joining in on the action!
- Q} How do I do that?
- A} You can go to any one of the forums under the In-Character category, 'Paris', and either join an existing topic started by another member, or start one of your very own!
- Q} What if nobody replies to a topic I've either responded to or started?
- A} Be patient. We all have lives, you know. But if you end up waiting for an unreasonable amount of time, then I'd suggest either sending the member in question a private message (if applicable), or, if a thread you've started yourself has not received any replies, you may wish to start a topic in the 'Plot Discussion' forum, asking someone to play with you. You may want to detail some of the things you'd like to happen in your thread, or you can just leave it up to the other members to decide that in their character's responding post.
- Q} What time period is OM set in?
- A} Since each musical is set in a different time, Les Mis in the 1820s-30's, Sweeney Todd in the '40s, and Phantom in the '70s, we're generally open when it comes to anachronism within the span of the era. I like to say tentatively that it's set somewhere in the middle of these three specific times, but I believe actually labelling the year might be a bit restricting with regards to the canon. In the future we plan to add more musicals to our official canon, and as such, though Victorian, the years still won't match up exactly. We're by no means a fantasy RP, but we're not shooting for absolute historical realism either.
- Q} What language do the characters speak?
- A} As stated in 'Canon Specifics', our Paris here at OM is an 'alternate universe', given that the city is (generally) divided into French and English 'districts', especially from one side of the river to the other. Public locales, such as the opera house, have bilingual staff, and it's generally a good idea for a character to know enough about each language to at least ask for directions. This does not automatically mean that each character must be perfectly fluent in both languages. If substantial dialogue is required to be spoken in French, there is no need to translate, merely denote that the character is speaking another language in the narrative in some way. Minor phrases or exclamations need no translation, since it's pretty well obvious as to what 'Mon Dieu!' or 'Merde!' mean.
In regards to papers and books, it will of coarse vary from place to place amongst the city. Newspapers are always sold in both French and English however. There are at times joint bookstores and libraries where both languages can be found, but mostly they are divided according to district. Fleet Street would have English speakers primarily, for example, but community establishments or places of commercial industry would need French subtitles in their printed work, such as on signs or menus in a restaurant.
I'm sure Bob will have many more questions as he gets into the board. But for now he jut wants to get away from the corpse on the floor. So I conceded, and let him out the door, past Mr. Todd, who was eyeing him gloomily in his orange dress.
Edited by Alandree, Feb 12 2009, 01:10 PM. |
6:41 PM Dec 2
