Wiki Modifications

[Rodimus Prime]

We've expanded our 'overdone' list, and have formally announced a policy that we've had in place for awhile.

On the Characters page ( deadzone.pbworks.com/w/page/Characters ) under Original Characters, we've added:

Finally, very childlike characters are considered overdone. The worst offenders are: childlike characters who try to use being cute and/or small to get their way unduly, childlike characters who require tedious education in order to operate as normal members of society, and childlike characters who need 'adult' characters to look after them, for whatever reason. In fact, unless you already have another player volunteering to be your care-taker, we'd just as soon avoid seeing any characters that call for regular baby-sitting, as that's not the sort of thing we want to force other players into on a regular basis. Fully self-sufficient 'child-likes' are more acceptable (for example, G1 Wheelie, with his survival skill set, is rather self-sufficient).

On the FAQ, question 2.8 (overdone characters), the answer has been expanded considerably ( deadzone.pbworks.com/w/page/FAQ )

Currently, overly ruthless and Decepticon-like Autobots are overdone. Eastern-style martial artists, particularly of the melee/Ninja variety, are over-represented and will be judged more strictly than normal, with a bigger emphasis on what else the character has to offer the game. This applies to both FCs and OCs regardless of series. Further, the more of this type of character a single player already possesses, the harder it will be to get a new one. This restriction does not apply to other forms of melee centric, such as, for example, a Western-type boxer or pugilist, and a player could probably argue more easily for a non-ninja ranged martial artist, like a Zen archer or something. Finally, very childlike characters are considered overdone. The worst offenders are: childlike characters who try to use being cute and/or small to get their way unduly, childlike characters who require tedious education in order to operate as normal members of society, and childlike characters who need 'adult' characters to look after them, for whatever reason. In fact, unless you already have another player volunteering to be your care-taker, we'd just as soon avoid seeing any characters that call for regular baby-sitting, as that's not the sort of thing we want to force other players into on a regular basis. Fully self-sufficient 'child-likes' are more acceptable (for example, G1 Wheelie, with his survival skill set, is rather self-sufficient).


We may add more or remove more personality-types as time goes on.

Of course, the 'overly Decepticon Autobots' and the eastern Martial Artists thing was already there (although we did realize that the Martial Artists thing was on the Characters page, but not the FAQ).

On the dropped character page, the following line was added ( deadzone.pbworks.com/w/page/DroppedCharacters )

When a dropped character has been assigned to a new player, the old character account is disabled.

Also, the actual list has been replaced by a link to the thread on this board, since that gets updated more often.

[Rodimus Prime]

Oh, hey, another addition. Under the Original Characters section of the Characters page (already linked above):

Original Characters who re-use the names of Canon characters are allowed, but they will be judged more carefully than normal. 'Coincidental re-uses' or new characters that just happen to have the same name of an existant character are acceptable because the canons themselves do this (although the more obscure the original, the better), but this calls for a better than averge application overall. Original Characters that are essentially re-works of canon characters into a new setting will be judged more harshly, and the goals section needs to address why this re-work works well in new context. Name re-uses for characters from currently unfinished continuities (such as IDW or Bayverse) are not allowed, due to the possibility of being Jossed. We also request that applicants for name re-use OCs be open to suggestions for alternate names.

[Rodimus Prime]

A new question (and its answer) has been added to the FAQ on the wiki in the 'Gameplay' section ( deadzone.pbworks.com/w/page/17042449/FAQ ):

4.4. What do you mean by 'S1 Introduction' or 'S2 Introduction'?

These are board-specific terms that derive from the way new characters tended to be introduced back in the original Generation One cartoon series. During Season One, most of the characters had their initial introductions played out on the screen. For example, the first several episodes (the "More Than Meets The Eye" multi-parter) also served as the introductions of the initial batch of characters, and the full Dinobot origin was shown on screen. Starting at the very end of S1 (where the Constructicon introduction was more hinted at than fully shown) and continuing on into Season Two, you started seeing characters who would just show up one episode who hadn't been there in previous episodes, and no one thought it strange. Their arrivals are assumed to have happened 'off camera' with nothing out of the ordinary happening, so by the time the viewer actually sees them in the show, the characters are already up to speed on current events. Of course, even in Season Two and later, there are plenty of characters whose full introductions are played out, but generally speaking these are characters whose introductions amount to something more than a run-of-the-mill troop transfer. That is actually more or less the mindset behind what distinguishes a 'S1 Introduction' from a 'S2 Introduction' in the game itself.

In the game, we use the term 'S1 Introduction' (or 'Season One') to indicate a character whose arrival is fully role-played out. Usually, we do this for one of two reasons: either the player is brand new to the game (since arrival threads are a good way for a new player to get their feet wet) or there is expected to be something unusual about their arrival. However, after a point, most arrival threads all tend to end up looking more or less the same, so we prefer to skip the repetitive, "So and so shows up on the rocks, people explain things to them, they get shuffled off for a security interview," business. These threads are called 'S2 Introductions', or 'Season Two', introductions. The player already knows the game's backstory, so we can just assume that they showed up and had things explained to them 'off camera.' The first time you see a character that has a S2 arrival, it should be assumed that the character has been around for a couple of days 'in the background,' that he or she has already met several of the other characters in the game (there's no more need for every 'first meeting' between characters to be played out on screen than there is for every arrival, and in fact, the longer two characters in the same faction have been in play, the sillier it gets to pretend that they have never, ever, randomly encountered each other while walking around their ships), that they've already had their security interview, that they've already been assigned a room (or settled into a new arrival room) and a division.

Generally speaking, a player's first character is allowed to have what we call a 'modified S1 Intro.' This means that their original arrival is role-played out, but we skip the interview (because those tend to be even more tedious than the arrivals themselves). After that, we highly encourage characters to take S2 introductions whenever possible. Often, we will allow an S1 introduction on the caveat that the player must make arrangements for their initial thread themselves. By 'arrangements' we do not mean, 'Post the starter where the character arrives on the rocks and hope someone else posts into it claiming to be on-watch.' We mean to say that the player must get another player to agree to having their character on watch before the player starts the thread, and that we will not help them make these arrangements. This is not to be mean. This is because in the almost four years that the game has been running, we have done a lot of these threads, the majority of them play out the same, and we're just sick of them, so if a player wants to play out their full arrival, that's fine, but they have to make the arrangements themselves.

As a final note, there are probably better terms to describe what we mean by 'S1 Intro' and 'S2 Intro,' but these terms were the first ones we thought of to illustrate what we meant, so these are the ones that stuck.

We've also added a new segment to the Original Character section of the Characters page, clarifying our stance on Original Characters with canon characters in their background. While we're pretty sure this has been mentioned on the board at some point, we realized we never got around to adding it to the wiki, so we're correcting that oversight now ( deadzone.pbworks.com/w/page/17042407/Characters ).

* We do allow the use of canon characters in the backgrounds of original characters. However, an application that includes these things is going to be judged more strictly and held to higher standards than one that does not, and the more heavily the background uses the canon character, the stricter the standards. An inventor character that idolizes Wheeljack is generally acceptable. An inventor who has met Wheeljact a couple of times at various technical conferences will require a better application, but is still easily doable. An inventor who apprenticed under Wheeljack will require an application that is well above normal and is only likely to be approved for an established player. A character that was built by Wheeljack requires a top-notch application that's obviously had a lot of effort and thought put into it and would only be granted to a role-player who has already demonstrated themselves to be unusually skilled.

* Related to the above, in order to allow for original characters with such backgrounds without forcing canon players into in-character relationships that their player may not want, we allow for 'micro-continuities.' Taking the example above, the character built by Wheeljack would basically be from a G1 canon that is like the normal G1 canon in all ways except one, that one difference being, 'This is the canon where this original character was built.' The players of Feature Characters, including Wheeljack himself, are not required to remember this original character from back home, because it's possible that in their 'back home' this character was never actually built. This is left up to the players of the individual FC. If Wheeljack's player wants to have built the OC, that's fine, he's from the same 'micro-continuity,' but if he doesn't, the player of the original character should accept that without argument. Generally speaking, it's better to work such relationships out beforehand with the players instead of springing it on them in-game.