![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Welcome; General Terms; The Rules
Welcome to Sheep and Wolf!
Sheep and Wolf games are player run murder games. I say player run because the only role of the moderators is to protect anonymity and to run the technical side of things. There's no NPCs to interact with or influence the plot unless you count the setting itself as a plot. I'd love to not even have the letters or whatever tells the characters what situation they're in since the writer/untouchable whatever responsible for the set up is inevitably a kind o NPC but I don't have a workaround for that. Open for ideas if you've got one.
Settings, rules, etc. may change in each iteration, from network based to jamjars. Sometimes it'll depend on the cast of characters who have apped in and what we can make work for them, other times we'll make the setting and have to reject characters who just don't work in them (Sorry your Titan can't fit on the cruise ship). Attempts will be made to make it work with the player before outright rejecting (Shrink your Titan, nerf your Mindreader, etc.).
But what's consistent is that characters will be removed from the game permanently. This will usually involve implied death but not always. The one removing characters will not be a mod run NPC or force of nature however, but another player character!
There are two mod accounts, and the people behind them will rotate between games.
RNG Mod account:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sheep_dog - For running the mechanical and anonymous side of the game. Will never play a character.
General Mod account:yunon - For modding OOC stuff like AC Checks, hiatuses, interpersonal conflicts, etc. May play a character.
The moderator who is not involved as a character in the game, the RNG Modsheep_dog, will use the random number generator to select one of the applicants as "Character A." Character A will be notified by RNG Mod of their role with some private flavor text to encourage them to carry out a once a week removal of another character. Character A will also be given a tell, that is, some action or quirk that they must enact. This is so that the Regular Characters (RC) might notice them as suspicious.
Every round, all characters (including Character A) will have a vote on which character, if any, they believe to be responsible for the disappearances or death. The character they select will be removed as a result of the vote. Because of this, characters may abstain from voting. If at least a %51 consensus is not reached by a vote, no character will be removed.
The RCs win if they pinpoint and vote out Character A. Character A wins if they successfully shrink the RC numbers down to one--after all, one RC can't get a %51 vote against A by themselves.
But the RCs have one more hope: that is the potential for Character B. Character B may be chosen from the applied characters, again by the RNG Mod. Character B will be able to investigate through special means, each week getting moderator confirmation (a different flavor text reason is given in-game) of one specific character of their choosing as A or RC. Character B may be able to confirm that Character A is Character A, but since there is not guarantee that Character B will be in the game, RCs should tread with caution. You never know when A has an accomplice or what surprises might have been slipped into the formula!
Things to note:
If a power was not listed in your application and the mods weren't aware of it to plan for, you may be asked to nerf it but characters will generally not be required to be powered down. Game breakers will try to be worked around but might just be rejected outright. We'll discuss nerfing options with applications we don't think will work.
If there's a network, characters can post anonymously on the network. You have two ways to do this; either PM it to the RNG Modsheep_dog and wait for them to post it for you, or use a sock account, inform RNG Mod sheep_dog who you are and that you made the post and have at it.
As for anonymous replies, if you don't want to make a sock, you can also reply anonymously, but again please inform the mod that it's your thread. If somebody else interjects and it's not you, feel free to prod the mod to make sure it's not trolling from outside the game. If nobody claims an anon thread or unclaimed anonymous post within 24 hours, the players will be informed to treat the thread or post as non-canon.
This probably won't be relevant in the Beta game but in the long term if the game goes public, this system's so easy to troll it'd be irresponsible not to have this rule set up. Also, the mod needs to know in case a character can trace a network thread.
Character A's kills don't leave corpses. Most DWRpers do not have the knowledge to play a character doing a full forensic investigation of a corpse, nor do the mods to leave perfectly accurate clues. Thus to avoid such complications, Character A killings will generally leave no body, or only body parts, or some such. Character A will either be given tasks or tells they must perform in order to kill; for example, in Death Note, Light had to write full, real names in a notebook while knowing their face. Another example might be having to have 3 minutes of consistent physical contact with the victim. The tell might also not involve any contact with the victim at all, such as being struck with sudden and total illiteracy for the full length of the game, or other things that might make them stand out as strange.
Characters will get introductory notes of some sort to encourage them to look for odd behaviors in the killer. Try not to infomod on knowing which characters are just naturally quirky and what those natural quirks are.
Characters who aren't Character A can kill. Though it'll leave a body unlike the Character A method. If you wanna try to go forensic investigator on that you can; we just don't want to make it integral to the game in the way that solving Character A's murders are.
Character A can be removed from the game by means other than the vote, such as the above.
The game might end on Week 1 if Character A's a putz and gets caught.
The Rules
We seek to be a fast paced if small game.
1. Minimum of 20 posts a week. Two strikes, you're out.
Activity over this amount will be rewarded ICly with money, items, food, setting changes, etc, generally based on relative post counts but open to mod discretion.
What's mod discretion mean? You're less likely to get the reward if you have a lot of posts leading up to something, then flaking out and making other players have to handwave what may have been a CR building or clue dropping conversation.
This is another reason to tell the RNG mod about your anonymous posts or actions. It is, in theory, possible to get rewards without ever using your IC account. That'd be interesting to see.
2. If the voting post isn't responded to by Monday you'll be assumed to have dropped. No re-apps for that character for that iteration of the game if you're force dropped.
3. Sometimes you're just not able to touch base over a weekend when the voting/killing happens. In those cases, you can talk with the RNG Mod in advance about your kllings/votes, and/or with a general modyunon about AC levels. Hiatuses may mean your character will be IC missing from the setting for a period, but you can come back. Other characters might find it fishy. If your hiatus is short enough you can make up the backtagging, then they don't have to have been gone. We'll discuss what options are viable based on your activity level and player base size.
If the game is small enough the mod will check activity without you needing to do anything. You'll get a poke if you're under activity. While the General Modyunon may have a character in the game (you'll know who), they'll poke the RNG mod for input on whether you're anonymously active if you're at the brink on AC levels. So full disclosure: the general mod may know OOCly if your character has a lot of anonymous interaction going on. This is necessary as the alternative is getting two people to mod a game without either ever getting the chance to play in it.
If the game is quite large (25~ characters--large for THIS kind of game), there'll be an Activity Check post. In those cases, there's no hiding having to put "anonymous activity" if the RNG mod needs to confirm it, and everyone iwll no. This is necessary a the alternative is one or two mods keeping track of AC for a rather large game every single week.
Honor the mystery aspect of the game.
3. Honor System on Character A acting out their Tells. The General Mod does not know who A is, nor what the Tell is. If things seem suspiciously low on any clues, the RNG Mod will be asked to check Character A's posts and confirm whether everything is going according to the rules or not.
4. Screened or private posts on your own character journals representing private e-mails or other connections are fine! Instructions on how to do so can be found here.
Please add the RNG Modsheep_dog to the filter and understand that if a character who is a super hacker or has some other means to access that information and requests it, the RNG mod will screen cap it and send it to them. Depending on whether they seem to be able to do so without leaving a trace, you may not be notified that they can access this. This is the reason we request mod access to your private character posts. Characters with these hacking abilities must note them in their application, and will have to detail to the mods how they know of and how they can access any suspected specific communication. If your character should know of technical infiltration or attempts, also include that in your application or inform the mod when they've set up a system or method of such detection.
If you suspect a communication exists and believe your character should have access to it, or they managed to access the network's server or whatever and can read/see everything, PM the RNG Modsheep_dog, who will review the involved character's journals to see if such communications exist.yunon
Also not required, but I'd like you to unscreen them at the end of the game for everybody's enjoyment of the entire intrigue in the plot!
We assume all players are adults. Don't prove otherwise.
Things like don't god mode or info mod and not to let OOC things influence IC things go without saying. Very low lenience on god moding or info moding. Mods reserve the right to banhammer or reject players at mod discretion. Other players input may be sought on these matters. IP logging is off on all communities and will remain as such until some douche makes that impractical. Don't be that guy/girl.
5. There are no required content warnings. Play at your own psychological risk. There's certainly no rule against labeling your posts with warnings, but be aware that this is a kindness by the player providing it.
Being a paranoia-fueled (usually murder-based) mystery, I assume applicants can handle fictional text based depictions of various unpleasantries (or not-so-unpleasantries). If the setting itself is likely to involve anything sexual or gore based a warning will go up before the game starts and unless otherwise specified deaths will leave clean corpses or no corpses, but no guarantees are made that players won't take things to another level. If you're not capable of communicating your issues with a thread partner or turning away from and ignoring threads others are having with content that unsettles you, this particular game is probably not for you.
6. That said, if a player requests to handwave a thread to avoid detail, fade to black, or to go back and redo part of a thread to avoid an uncomfortable topic (NOT to avoid IC consequences), try to oblige. Posts or threads can be deleted as long as all players involved in the thread agree. No mod approval necessary. In general the mod shouldn't have to be involved in this.
But if you do need someone to step in, feel free to PM the general modyunon. This goes for OOC problems you can't work out, concerns of god or info moding, or anything not covered here.
If you have questions, comments, etc. on the rules, comment below or in the latest mod post.
Sheep and Wolf games are player run murder games. I say player run because the only role of the moderators is to protect anonymity and to run the technical side of things. There's no NPCs to interact with or influence the plot unless you count the setting itself as a plot. I'd love to not even have the letters or whatever tells the characters what situation they're in since the writer/untouchable whatever responsible for the set up is inevitably a kind o NPC but I don't have a workaround for that. Open for ideas if you've got one.
Settings, rules, etc. may change in each iteration, from network based to jamjars. Sometimes it'll depend on the cast of characters who have apped in and what we can make work for them, other times we'll make the setting and have to reject characters who just don't work in them (Sorry your Titan can't fit on the cruise ship). Attempts will be made to make it work with the player before outright rejecting (Shrink your Titan, nerf your Mindreader, etc.).
But what's consistent is that characters will be removed from the game permanently. This will usually involve implied death but not always. The one removing characters will not be a mod run NPC or force of nature however, but another player character!
There are two mod accounts, and the people behind them will rotate between games.
RNG Mod account:
sheep_dog - For running the mechanical and anonymous side of the game. Will never play a character.General Mod account:
yunon - For modding OOC stuff like AC Checks, hiatuses, interpersonal conflicts, etc. May play a character.The moderator who is not involved as a character in the game, the RNG Mod
sheep_dog, will use the random number generator to select one of the applicants as "Character A." Character A will be notified by RNG Mod of their role with some private flavor text to encourage them to carry out a once a week removal of another character. Character A will also be given a tell, that is, some action or quirk that they must enact. This is so that the Regular Characters (RC) might notice them as suspicious. Every round, all characters (including Character A) will have a vote on which character, if any, they believe to be responsible for the disappearances or death. The character they select will be removed as a result of the vote. Because of this, characters may abstain from voting. If at least a %51 consensus is not reached by a vote, no character will be removed.
The RCs win if they pinpoint and vote out Character A. Character A wins if they successfully shrink the RC numbers down to one--after all, one RC can't get a %51 vote against A by themselves.
But the RCs have one more hope: that is the potential for Character B. Character B may be chosen from the applied characters, again by the RNG Mod. Character B will be able to investigate through special means, each week getting moderator confirmation (a different flavor text reason is given in-game) of one specific character of their choosing as A or RC. Character B may be able to confirm that Character A is Character A, but since there is not guarantee that Character B will be in the game, RCs should tread with caution. You never know when A has an accomplice or what surprises might have been slipped into the formula!
Things to note:
If a power was not listed in your application and the mods weren't aware of it to plan for, you may be asked to nerf it but characters will generally not be required to be powered down. Game breakers will try to be worked around but might just be rejected outright. We'll discuss nerfing options with applications we don't think will work.
If there's a network, characters can post anonymously on the network. You have two ways to do this; either PM it to the RNG Mod
sheep_dog and wait for them to post it for you, or use a sock account, inform RNG Mod sheep_dog who you are and that you made the post and have at it. As for anonymous replies, if you don't want to make a sock, you can also reply anonymously, but again please inform the mod that it's your thread. If somebody else interjects and it's not you, feel free to prod the mod to make sure it's not trolling from outside the game. If nobody claims an anon thread or unclaimed anonymous post within 24 hours, the players will be informed to treat the thread or post as non-canon.
This probably won't be relevant in the Beta game but in the long term if the game goes public, this system's so easy to troll it'd be irresponsible not to have this rule set up. Also, the mod needs to know in case a character can trace a network thread.
Character A's kills don't leave corpses. Most DWRpers do not have the knowledge to play a character doing a full forensic investigation of a corpse, nor do the mods to leave perfectly accurate clues. Thus to avoid such complications, Character A killings will generally leave no body, or only body parts, or some such. Character A will either be given tasks or tells they must perform in order to kill; for example, in Death Note, Light had to write full, real names in a notebook while knowing their face. Another example might be having to have 3 minutes of consistent physical contact with the victim. The tell might also not involve any contact with the victim at all, such as being struck with sudden and total illiteracy for the full length of the game, or other things that might make them stand out as strange.
Characters will get introductory notes of some sort to encourage them to look for odd behaviors in the killer. Try not to infomod on knowing which characters are just naturally quirky and what those natural quirks are.
Characters who aren't Character A can kill. Though it'll leave a body unlike the Character A method. If you wanna try to go forensic investigator on that you can; we just don't want to make it integral to the game in the way that solving Character A's murders are.
Character A can be removed from the game by means other than the vote, such as the above.
The game might end on Week 1 if Character A's a putz and gets caught.
The Rules
We seek to be a fast paced if small game.
1. Minimum of 20 posts a week. Two strikes, you're out.
Activity over this amount will be rewarded ICly with money, items, food, setting changes, etc, generally based on relative post counts but open to mod discretion.
What's mod discretion mean? You're less likely to get the reward if you have a lot of posts leading up to something, then flaking out and making other players have to handwave what may have been a CR building or clue dropping conversation.
This is another reason to tell the RNG mod about your anonymous posts or actions. It is, in theory, possible to get rewards without ever using your IC account. That'd be interesting to see.
2. If the voting post isn't responded to by Monday you'll be assumed to have dropped. No re-apps for that character for that iteration of the game if you're force dropped.
3. Sometimes you're just not able to touch base over a weekend when the voting/killing happens. In those cases, you can talk with the RNG Mod in advance about your kllings/votes, and/or with a general mod
yunon about AC levels. Hiatuses may mean your character will be IC missing from the setting for a period, but you can come back. Other characters might find it fishy. If your hiatus is short enough you can make up the backtagging, then they don't have to have been gone. We'll discuss what options are viable based on your activity level and player base size. If the game is small enough the mod will check activity without you needing to do anything. You'll get a poke if you're under activity. While the General Mod
yunon may have a character in the game (you'll know who), they'll poke the RNG mod for input on whether you're anonymously active if you're at the brink on AC levels. So full disclosure: the general mod may know OOCly if your character has a lot of anonymous interaction going on. This is necessary as the alternative is getting two people to mod a game without either ever getting the chance to play in it.If the game is quite large (25~ characters--large for THIS kind of game), there'll be an Activity Check post. In those cases, there's no hiding having to put "anonymous activity" if the RNG mod needs to confirm it, and everyone iwll no. This is necessary a the alternative is one or two mods keeping track of AC for a rather large game every single week.
Honor the mystery aspect of the game.
3. Honor System on Character A acting out their Tells. The General Mod does not know who A is, nor what the Tell is. If things seem suspiciously low on any clues, the RNG Mod will be asked to check Character A's posts and confirm whether everything is going according to the rules or not.
4. Screened or private posts on your own character journals representing private e-mails or other connections are fine! Instructions on how to do so can be found here.
Please add the RNG Mod
sheep_dog to the filter and understand that if a character who is a super hacker or has some other means to access that information and requests it, the RNG mod will screen cap it and send it to them. Depending on whether they seem to be able to do so without leaving a trace, you may not be notified that they can access this. This is the reason we request mod access to your private character posts. Characters with these hacking abilities must note them in their application, and will have to detail to the mods how they know of and how they can access any suspected specific communication. If your character should know of technical infiltration or attempts, also include that in your application or inform the mod when they've set up a system or method of such detection.If you suspect a communication exists and believe your character should have access to it, or they managed to access the network's server or whatever and can read/see everything, PM the RNG Mod
sheep_dog, who will review the involved character's journals to see if such communications exist.yunon Also not required, but I'd like you to unscreen them at the end of the game for everybody's enjoyment of the entire intrigue in the plot!
We assume all players are adults. Don't prove otherwise.
Things like don't god mode or info mod and not to let OOC things influence IC things go without saying. Very low lenience on god moding or info moding. Mods reserve the right to banhammer or reject players at mod discretion. Other players input may be sought on these matters. IP logging is off on all communities and will remain as such until some douche makes that impractical. Don't be that guy/girl.
5. There are no required content warnings. Play at your own psychological risk. There's certainly no rule against labeling your posts with warnings, but be aware that this is a kindness by the player providing it.
Being a paranoia-fueled (usually murder-based) mystery, I assume applicants can handle fictional text based depictions of various unpleasantries (or not-so-unpleasantries). If the setting itself is likely to involve anything sexual or gore based a warning will go up before the game starts and unless otherwise specified deaths will leave clean corpses or no corpses, but no guarantees are made that players won't take things to another level. If you're not capable of communicating your issues with a thread partner or turning away from and ignoring threads others are having with content that unsettles you, this particular game is probably not for you.
6. That said, if a player requests to handwave a thread to avoid detail, fade to black, or to go back and redo part of a thread to avoid an uncomfortable topic (NOT to avoid IC consequences), try to oblige. Posts or threads can be deleted as long as all players involved in the thread agree. No mod approval necessary. In general the mod shouldn't have to be involved in this.
But if you do need someone to step in, feel free to PM the general mod
yunon. This goes for OOC problems you can't work out, concerns of god or info moding, or anything not covered here.If you have questions, comments, etc. on the rules, comment below or in the latest mod post.