New Board Academy [I-5] - *The Role Playing Forum (RPF) Adoption's Program*

Location: The Iskalon waterworld

A three-seater ARC-170 skimmed over the calm blue waves, to the oddly shaped structure in the middle of the sea.



A double-skinned plexiglase dome revealed itself to be two separate domes as the coverings rose in two separate directions to permit the craft access to the main landing pad, a black circle ringed in yellow.

As the canopies slid back, two twi'leks clambered down.

The first, a tall, pale white twi'lek in the tan robes and sunglasses, was Agent Mitch Nifesta, the Head of Security for this, the Role Playing Forum Academy, or RPF Adoptions for short.

The other twi'lek, clearly an adolescent, 12, 13 standard years old, was purple, bundled up in a warm black zippered jacket, and yellow shorts that wouldn't be out of place in a Rupert the Bear comic book.

Mitch stretched his arms out as he stood on the landing pad, robes whipping about him courtesy of the high winds coming of the ocean. "Ah, great to be back! Five months in limbo thanks to the Move from our old boards at IGN." He looked at his adopted child as the other slid off one of the fighter's S-foils, catching him mid air before he hit the ferrocrete, to set him down safely.

"Thanks, Dad. Since we are here, I have a question."

"Shoot. As long as it isn't the one about where babies come from."

"What are bonds?"

Mitch raised an eyebrow as he led the way inside. After the first set of double doors, a short blue corridor moved to a hallway featuring Reception, and two offices on the right-hand wall, and a large briefing room with seats, raised dais and a holoprojector on the left.
"I was expecting, why is the sky 'blue', or something on that level. Isn't that question a bit old for you?"

"Why is it rude?"

"Only if the bonds you are thinking off are furred handcuffs, but, there are a number of means of the word. Including financial, a way of generating income better than cash, if that is what you are thinking off." Mitch pointed into Reception, where other ways of visitors arriving, including a stargate, a transmat pad, and a rack of vortex manipulator wrist-bands, sat. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pull the white sheets of all the furniture, and bundle them into a corner until I can collect them."

Fenlaka Zula, as I suddenly remember the boy was called, sighed rebelliously. "And if I don't choose to accept it?"

"Just do it anyway." Mitch grinned. "The Welcome New Users forum should start getting visitors now that we have moved, and there may be traffic through here any day now, GMs wanting to advertise their games, new players seeking to understnd how we do things on the RPF, the Role Playing Forum."

---

Okay-dokey, welcome to the RPF Adoptions thread

If you are new, I hope you enjoy your time with theforce.net, and if you are returning, welcome back.

The core staff here, are:

RPF Adoptions Academy - general instructors
Ktala
Agent Mitch Nifesta
Sith-I-5


Feel free to post here either as yourself, or one of your characters. Methods of arrival, as mentioned above, are teleporting in to Reception, coming through the stargate, or arriving by starfighter, as we have a limited space for craft to land.

Over the weekend, I will promote at least one new game on these boards, and others as I note new ones start up.

GMs, feel free to pop in as yourself or as a character to advertise your game.

WELCOME TO THE NEW BOARDS

 

Fenlaka Zula

The young twi'lek gathered in the white sheet draped all along the Reception counter and monitor screen that he, and the Academy's usual receptionist, Toshiko Sato, used to monitor the RPF forums, and hit the power button on both the computer and monitor to start it up, before carrying the dusty bundle into the corner of the room.

A yellow glow drew his attention to the first visitor. "Hey Skiara. Nice to be back, huh?" He smiled her way, and considered adding that Mitch had taken him to see Ted at the cinema, but... there had been inapp...naughty language, and his Dad had told him not to tell anyone.

 

So the name's still the Adoptions Program even though we've phased out formal adoptions? I can dig it.

I'd also like to go ahead and include a link here to our main board:

http://boards.theforce.net/forums/role-playing-forum.10852/

Which I welcome new users to take a look around.

 

We have?

Not to look like I don't know what's going on, but...we have?

 

Yes. Recall the discussion from the temp boards on the matter. That was a while ago, obviously, but it still holds.

Though I'm fine with the general "Introduce people to ongoing games" thing you talked about, so there's that.

 

Well, I can better manage the learning experience if it takes place here.

I did not see a decision on the discussion thread, though admittedly, there was an overwhelmingly negative vibe towards the programme.

 

Double checking the threads, the formal decision was made in the announcements at the start of the End of the Move thread.

 

We probably need to knock out the word "Adoptions" from the thread title, since, according to Ramza, RPF voted to scrap that aspect of the programme.

I can't think right now what to replace it with; some word that doesn't mean "adoption", I guess...jam?

 

I'm currently discussing what to do with this thread with Skiara and Penguinator. I'll let you know when a decision has been reached.

 

Okay-dokey.

---

ROLEPLAYING - the basics

So what is a roleplaying game on the RPF, the Role Playing Forum?

It is where someone comes up with an Adventure idea that they are want to see played out more dynamically than would be possible just doing it as fan-fiction.

Whether based on Star Wars or not, note that these games, or RPGs, are only based on the Source franchise. If you as a player or an observer, notice a variation between what is canon, and what a Games Master (GM) puts in his or her game, their vision trumps the source material.

Getting a game to fruition is like baking a souffle, any manner of things can go wrong, so although GMs will generally accept new players, even after a game has started, you will have to apply to be in their games.

That process, most of the time, involves the creation of a character sheet for the character that you want to insert into their game.

Character Sheets, often shortened to CS, help the GM to decide if your character would be okay for their game, and since THEY know the ins and outs of their own game, they might ask you to change one or two things, or say your character is not allowed in.

Refusal reasons can be because your character is too powerful for the game.

For instance, if you want to play Garek Malen out of The Force Unleashed, that would likely be too powerful to drop into a carefully crafted game, and so the GM might err on the side of caution, and say, ?No way, Jak!?

So, joining a game.

STEP ONE - Read the very first post

We call this the Intro' Post, or Introductory Post, and that is where the games master tries to sell his or her adventure to you.
A paragraph of the story, couple pictures, copy of the game rules, and the above-mentioned character sheet.

Salient points to look out for.

- To be accepted into the game, do you need to send in a CS?

- Does the GM want all CS? to be Private Messaged (PM?ed) to them for approval?

- Sometimes the GM will specify what type of characters they do want, eg. ones that were around for the Hyperspace War (so you cannot play Luke Skywalker); no Force Users (again, Luke is a no-no); characters who have never been in an accident, whether or not it was their fault (...alright, is someone just picking on Luke now?); canon or original (OG) characters.

- The type of game, or when it is set, can dictate what kind of characters can logically participate.


STEP TWO - Character Sheets completion

A CS is the "application form" that you create or fill in with your character's details, and present to the GM.

Introductory posts will generally feature an empty template for you to take away and fill in, for example, this one from the completed Galaxy at War III game:

Name:
--Age:
---Gender:
----Species:
-----Eye Color:
------Hair Color and Style:
-------Skin Complexion:
--------Clothing:
---------Physique:

Most people simply copy and paste a template from somewhere, so GMs won?t be too worried if you don?t use theirs. It is the information provided, that is important to them.

This should help prepare you, for when you visit our games, though the link Ramza kindly provided above.

 

Toshiko Sato, Fenlaka Zula


Roused by her alarm clock, the dark-haired, Japanese female stared up at the ceiling of her room, reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed.

At length, she got up, wrapped a dark blue robe round herself, and headed onto the balcony, where each morning she allowed the sea air to buffet her face, to wake her up for another day in the interminable emptiness caused by the Board Moves.

Which reality should she teleport off to this morning for breakfast?

Stretching her arms out as she stood on the balcony, Tosh froze, spotting below and to the right, the distinct-looking ARC-130 fighter-bomber sitting on the landing pad.

Visitors?

* * * *

The younger twi'lek looked at the information on the just-awakened monitor, checking for new games.

A flashing icon announced an alert, which Fen opened with a press of the keyboard. Great, mods were deciding the fate of the Academy.
He wondered, for about a second, how much influence Iskalonian activists had in the discussion, considering the facility was sitting in their territorial waters.

The vampire-slaying adventure The Slayers: Darkness Chronicles was being run by Lukes Apprentice on the Thriller subforum.

Fen raised an eyebrow at the new division of the roleplaying forum into eleven genres, such as Historical Earth, Thriller, and Star Wars.

He stayed on that page for several moments, captivated by the character picture posted by player hopeful, Jedi_Teegirloo as part of her character sheet.

"So, moving on." Fen muttered, noting that the next game had an invitation for the Academy to send in a reviewer. "So how do I get out of this chicken-sith outfit," he quipped to himself, paraphrasing one of the colonial marines in Aliens.

STAR WARS: INTERVENTION (A story-telling style OT starfighter game)---Always taking new players! was being run by Bravo on the Star Wars subforum.

Fen straightened, looking contemplatively at the rack of vortex manipulators on the wall to his left. Should he visit the game?

 

THIS THREAD IS LOCKED, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

READ ABOVE POSTS FOR HYPERLINKS TO THE ROLE PLAYING FORUM.

All Academy staff have been re-deployed elsewhere.