The Premise
History Generator is quite different from the traditional form roleplay on the Guild: rather than each player writing for a separate character of their own, it involves everyone collaborating, in order to create the timeline of an entire world; there will be no GM and no structured plot, other than the one provided by the players themselves and their posts. Everything from ground up is a community effort to build entire civilizations, with the great and the terrible, the geniuses and the fooled masses, discoveries and inventions, plagues and wars. The participants are given utmost freedom in their creativity, as long as it comes with respect for their fellow writers: use whatever formats you want, whether it be diaries, encyclopedic texts, biographies or legends; create whatever content you think will deepen or further the plot.
The above being said, i'd still like to provide a few rules and guidelines, as to ensure that this does not turn to utter chaos.
The above being said, i'd still like to provide a few rules and guidelines, as to ensure that this does not turn to utter chaos.
Rules and Guidelines
Communicate. Simple as that, make sure that you talk over the major decisions with other participants, that may have great effect on the tone and overall plot of the roleplay, and make sure they aren't met with objection. I cannot strain this enough: while keeping an individual style to your posts and maintaining creative independence is of great importance to enjoying the roleplay, both for the writer and his readers, History Generator is still largely a collaborative effort.
Try to keep the posts ordered If you really want to take the next post and are confident that you can finish it promptly, then call dibs in OOC. That way, confusion can be avoided; and if it happens that several players at once want to work on a specific bit of the timeline at once, there's always this brilliant thing called TitanPad.
Be careful with breaking away from a set tone. Vastly different cultures can exist in the same place and at the same time, but even then, there always exist an overarching narrative in the setting. The Tolkien dwarves are a stark contrast to elves, but both exist within a uniform fantasy universe. Moreover, a central theme can be of great help in stringing together different posts from different players; knowing how to keep balance between uniqueness and uniformity is key.
This post may be updated with new rules and guidelines later on; as well as with a brief summary of the IC, to help orient new players.