InsaneJournal

RULES

1. Respect. We at Lockdown consider "Respect" to be a very important word, and a concept that's essential to maintaining a game. What it means is simple: don't be a jerk, an asshole, or otherwise. Any OOC harassment, drama-instigating, abuse, or otherwise will get you kicked out of the game. Likewise, please be mature: Lockdown is going to have a mix of darker plots and lighter ones, but it is ultimately a game set during a war. As such, you as players should expect some serious plots and events to occur in game and potentially affect your character, including, but not limited to: battles, torture, secrets, deception on a national level, pregnancy, sex and sexuality (potentially with consent issues), mental and emotional health issues, and character death. None of this means that Lockdown is opposed to happy things, including, but not limited to: shipping and fluffy, schmoopy love scenes; friends hanging out and being silly; journal memes; and so on. All of the mods are a-okay with happy things, and we encourage players to have some potential "lighter" plot or scenes in mind so they can take a break from the darkness when they need to. You don't need to have that around, if you don't want it, but there is one rule everyone needs to follow: Respect your plots, respect the game's plot, and respect everyone else's plots. Respect keeps games healthy. 2. The Lines Between IC and OOC: Know them, respect them, love them. IC stays IC: if two characters disagree, it doesn't mean that the other mun doesn't like you. OOC stays OOC: out-of-character knowledge and biases are not allowed to influence in-character actions without there being a good reason for it. Do not take IC OOC or vice versa. To use historical analogy: the line between IC and OOC is Berlin Wall, and you are Josef Stalin —you want to keep that wall strong and proud. 3. Do not godmode, powergame, or otherwise. If you are unclear as to what this means, Wikipedia has a helpful article. Your character is not perfect or anyone else's character; you get to control your character and no one else's. Do not assume that spells or attacks hit, do not think or act for other people's characters, and do not cross people's personal boundaries without asking them first. As a general rule, ask people before doing anything that involves their characters. 4. As a corollary to the above, don't be a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. It's an example of powergaming, and, moreover, it makes the game stop being fun for everyone else. We will not accept characters who are Mary Sues, and if we see characters becoming such during play, we will talk to you about it. 5. In Character Actions Have In Character Consequences. This is important. Technically speaking, your character can act however you like, as long as you honor both the character you presented in your application and your character's affiliations — but if your character acts in a way that provokes natural, negative responses from the other characters in game, then you have to deal with this. Complaining to the mods or otherwise being immature will not be tolerated. 6. Activity. Lack of activity kills games; we've all seen it before. We expect players to update twice a month, per character. Journal entries, logs/threads/narratives, and participation in comments on another character's journal entry will be accepted as activity. For journal entries to count, they must be either substantial content-wise or have substantial numbers of comments; comments in another character's journal must likewise be reasonably substantial. Likewise, we expect logs/threads to consist of at least five multi-sentence posts per character and individual narratives must be at least 500 words long. At the end of each month, there will be an activity post, where players must comment, linking to current activity for each of their characters. Media characters will also be expected to make at least one post to the lockdownmedia community per month; this post can count towards the activity requirement. More details can be found at the media information post. 7. Hiatuses. Sometimes, real life happens, and it always takes precedence over online life. If you are going to be unavailable for reliable play for a certain stretch of time, please comment on the hiatus post to let us know. Hiatused players will be exempt from commenting on the current activity post. After six weeks of hiatus (and four weeks for major characters), we will ask you to either be active or withdraw from the game. 8. Shipping. It happens, relationships develop, and we're more than fine with ships developing and being played out in game. However, the purpose of this game is not specifically to ship, the majority of your posts should not be about shipping, and if we see someone solely shipping to the exclusion of all else, we will ask the player to get more involved in game plots. 9. When posting a log or thread, please use the following format. Remember to warn for anything potentially squick-worthy, be judicious with rating threads, and to put the actual date on the threads, rather than "sometime this morning" or similar. Any NC-17 logs must be locked. Who: Where: When: What/Summary: Ratings: 10. Have fun! We ask that you take the game's events and plots seriously, but don't get bent out of shape about anything. We the mods live by the philosophy espoused in "Internet Drama And You." This is an RPG, or, in translation, a pretendy fun-time game. We're here for fun and IC drama, not to explode with OOC drama, mud-slinging, passive-aggressiveness, etc. So HAVE FUN. If you don't like talking to someone, you don't have to; if you're having problems with someone, come talk to us and we'll work it out together. Repeat after us: PRETENDY FUN-TIME GAMES. Some additional recommended reading: Dr. Giraffery's 100% Natural Good-Time Role-Playing Solution.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

BASICS/GENERAL

So, this is an AU game, right? Yes. Lockdown is an AU Potterverse game, with a few notable differences from canon. First and foremost is that, unlike canon where the entire war appears to be a strictly two-sided black-and-white battle between Death Eaters and the Order with the Ministry sort of just there as a tool to be used by either side, in Lockdown the Ministry will constitute an active, contrary third party in the conflict. Neither the Death Eaters nor the Order are in its good graces, and it is cracking down on Wizarding Britain in order to combat both of these groups, which are viewed as opposing terrorist factions. Hitwizard and Auror recruitment is up, laws are passed that restrict citizen priviliges for the sake of 'security' and the Ministry is basically moving itself toward an army-wielding police state in response to the ongoing conflict in the country. In response to that, both the Order and Death Eaters are slightly different, balancing themselves out. Here, the Order will not be the perfect goody-two-shoes of the canon — they will get their hands dirty, they will fight, they will actively break laws and start trouble to prove their point. The Order will still not condone murder or the use of Unforgivables, but they won't be as strictly opposed to them as they have been in the past (and note, even in canon we do see at least one Order member kill a Death Eater in a duel). The Death Eaters, conversely, will tone themselves down a bit. Fighting on two strong fronts, they can't go as all-out as they did in the books, otherwise the Ministry and Order would just unite against them. Espionage, controlled strikes, and subtlety are the new names of the game. From the moment the game opens, the progression of events will be effected by player action, and not by what is written in the books. Beyond this, most elements of canon remain — history up through this point has remained very similar, Purism is still defined by the same standards, and all canon characters will be expected to have the same lives, appearances, personalities, and allegiances as canon unless you can provide a very good reason why the AU elements would influence that. We're not absolutely opposed to alignment changes, if you can make them work, but you'll need to convince us. Will stuff that happened in the books happen? Yes and no. As stipulated above, many in-game incidents will deviate from canon in their timing or in the details of the events. Likewise, not everything that happens in canon will happen at Lockdown, and not everything that happens in Lockdown will have happened in canon. What's the date and time, in game? Lockdown will be sticking as close to real time as possible. This means that Monday, August 1st, 2011 will be Monday, August 1st, 1979 in game. For the sake of making things easier for the mods, "real time" will be defined as American Eastern Time. We know that it isn't perfect, since August 1st may not have been a Monday in 1979, but it's the easiest way for everyone involved. And how about the various media things, including the underground Order and DE bits, and the DPA? If you'll allow me to get a bit metaphorical, picture that the war is... a war. And that the various media outlets are like the naval theater. All three sides want to use their respective navies to blockade supplies (i.e. public support) from the other two. Meanwhile, independent media are pirates, fucking up everyone's shit in order to make profit for themselves, often through sensationalism and flair. But seriously, the Media plays an important role for all sides, and the DPA, in particular, is an important tool for the Ministry, since they can always play the, "either you're on our side or you're a criminal" card. It's up to all the media to play up their sides' strengths and the others' weaknesses, to really pull the civilian heartstrings — what's going to win this war is getting the most people possible onto your side, keeping them there, and doing so faster and better than everyone else.

CHARACTERS

How many characters can I play? We currently are limiting players to eight characters at a time, though this may be expanded later. Under the eight-character limit, you are allowed a maximum of two characters per smaller, specific categories (Order, Death Eaters, Media) and up to three in the larger or broader groups (Ministry, Uncategorized). Depending on how things go, we may expand this, but for now the line will be drawn there. We encourage players to focus more on how many characters they can comfortably keep active, rather than the maximum under our rules. Can my character be a Pureblood? The following is a list of families whose members may be played as Purebloods at Lockdown: Avery, Black, Bletchley, Bole, Bones, Borgin, Bulstrode, Burke, Crabbe, Crouch, Dolohov, Edgecombe, Flint, Gamp, Goyle, Greengrass, Higgs, Lestrange, Longbottom, Macmillan, Macnair, Malfoy, McLaggen, Montague, Mulciber, Nott, Parkinson, Patil, Prewett, Rookwood, Rosier, Selwyn, Smith, Travers, Weasley, Wilkes, Yaxley, Zabini. If your character's surname is not on this list, then no. They may not be a Pureblood. But her parents are both Wizards! And they aren't Muggleborn, either! If your heart was set on applying her as a Pureblood, then we're sorry, but this isn't changing. She is more than welcome to have Fullblood status (more details at the Purism Information page), but she may not be a Pureblood. How important is blood status in this game? At the moment, Blood Status is not especially important. Obviously, it is more important for some characters than for others; Narcissa and Bellatrix will most likely never become enthusiastic fans of Muggleborn characters, and there are issues specific to Muggleborn characters and their experiences that aren't the same as issues and experiences that Halfbloods face. However, right now, there are going to be very few game plots that will be affected by character Blood Status. As the game goes on, this will likely change and Blood Status will become more of an issue for the characters, and this answer will be updated to reflect these changes. What does it mean that my character is marked with the predetermined death symbol? We the mods are really open about the characters marked with the predetermined death symbol. All that the "predetermined" part means is that, at some point during gameplay, the characters marked with a dagger on the list are going to die. When and how it happens, we can work out later, mods and players together, but the app has a place for suggesting ideas or listing things you'd rather not do, if you have any. Can my character be a legilimens/occlumens/animagus/metamorphmagus/wandless magic user/new spell-inventor/seer/werewolf/sparkly vegetarian vampire/other? Short version: maybe. Obviously, in the cases of canon characters who display these abilities (i.e., Snape, Marauders, McGonagall, Rita, and Greyback), the answer is going to be "yes." Remus just isn't Remus without his affliction, it's important for Snape's character and plot that he be talented in Occlumency and Legilimency, and certain things just don't make sense if Rita, Sirius, James, and Peter stop being animagi. However, we're going to ask that you please exercise good judgment when assigning these kinds of abilities to characters who don't canonically have them. Yes, they are skills (or genetic anomalies, or unfortunate curses) that anyone capable of performing the magic could pick up (or be born with, or get infected with), but if you'd like your character to have one of them, we ask that you please exercise good judgment and provide several places in which this strength is balanced out. Possible examples include: a metamorphmagus being excellent at disguise, but clumsy and horrid at stealth; having an Animagus form, but not having it be particularly useful; having some skill at Occlumency, but not enough to offer full protection; and so on.

SHIPPING, &C.

Can my character be gay/bisexual/other? Short version: yes. Slightly longer version: Lockdown is open to het, slash, femmeslash, etc., but we are going to ask that players handle this realistically. What this means is that, while we aren't going to outright cap the number of homosexual/bisexual characters allowed in the game, we will stop accepting applications for slashy or potentially slashy characters, if we see the game getting overrun by them. Can I ship So-and-So/Wossname? Yes, provided that the only plot you engage in isn't So-and-So and Wossname's relationship. I don't like Player #13's ship! Tough crap, Sparky. We're all mature individuals here, and most of us will be legal adults. If you don't like someone's ship, then put on your big kid hat, build a bridge, and get over it. Ships and their respective breeds of IC drama are not going to be the primary focus of the game anyway, and we expect that you'll be able to handle being in a game with a ship you don't like.

MISCELLANEOUS

How do the journals work? The first journals were invented in the late sixties by an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, and they weren't necessarily intended to be a serious experiment. So, he left the first prototypes lying around his apartment, where a friend found them. The friend wanted one, and then another friend wanted one, and another... so the Unspeakable started making more. Eventually, enough of these were going around that people independently figured out what their original creator had done and knock-offs started springing up. By all first appearances, the journals are just normal, everyday, normal journals. They can have any cover and style of paper that their owner wishes, but most look like smallish, black books with lined pages (think a Moleskine). Regardless of how many pages there appear to be in the book, it notably never runs out of them, and a section of pages in the back of all the journals show anything written publicly by anyone else with a journal. These pages show up to two weeks' worth of writing, and it is possible to write comments on entries. Comments appear following an entry, magically adding more parchment as more comments show up. For the purposes of identification, a journal is charmed to specifically register as belonging to one person, and that person's name will appear at the top of all entries and next to all comments. Icons do not appear and are solely for OOC purposes. Because everything written in a journal registers as having been written by the owner, someone else can take a person's journal, write in it, and the name next to the comments and entries will be the owner's. The handwriting will be visibly different, but the journal won't register this. The same magic that picks up the ink on the pages is also capable of showing other things, such as photographs or pictures taped into the journal, large spills of ink, stains from food or drinks (or other things), blood, and more. Bottom line: if it gets on the page, someone else can see it. Strikeouts are considered to be completely illegible, if rather messy. Naturally, the idea of journals that can, in theory, be read by anyone has its opponents, and some people have created warding systems for the journals. These allow characters to ward entries and comments, in part or in whole, to specific people. For total privacy, characters may ward to themselves; for regulated privacy, they may ward to one person or a specific group of people. That said, wards to groups must be very specific, i.e. "Warded to Death Eaters," "Warded to Former Gryffindors, Class of '79 and Younger," or "Warded to DMLE, including Misuse of Muggle Artifacts." They may not be based on value judgments or temporary things, i.e. "Warded to Ugly Society Women" or "Warded to Order Members Wearing Purple Socks", and they may not be something like, "Warded to Friends", unless said friends are specifically named. OOCly, please try to format your wards as follows, or in a similar fashion: [Warded to Recipients' Names] Content, content, more content. [/Recipients' Names] You have activity requirements? What do I do if my character is in Azkaban or similarly detained? Good question. Obviously, being in Azkaban is hard for people to play; characters wouldn't have access to wands or journals, much less to anything with which to write in a journal. However, Azkaban inmates are free to do logs with each other, or with members of the DMLE who can come to Azkaban. Another option is to go the classic route of putting them on a bus. I.E., the character is effectively 'dead' and out of play, you will not be responsible for activity with them, but they can be brought back, through rather extreme methods. In any case, should you find yourself in this situation, it would be a good idea to talk things over with the mods before making a move. You guys suck as mods. As above: tough crap, Sparky. As the mods, we'd like to be your friends and enjoy playing with you, but ultimately, our word supersedes yours and we need to make the calls that we think are in the game's best interests. This is not to say that we won't listen to people and attempt to make everybody happy, but sometimes, you can't please everyone, and we will always put the needs of the game as a whole first.