[OOC] Carpe Diem

[Wind Wild]

Deadline: 20.12.2015;
Midnight GMT

Premise

I think you all know the premise. It’s really simple: we’re a bunch of young adults (aged between 15 and 30) who somehow end up in the same place in Medieval times. Where we come from, who we are and where we are, are questions we’ll be working on answering together. We’ll be facing the real-life challenges of people in that age, living, sleeping and doing everything as they are, while trying to get out or settle in.

I accept suggestions as to where and how we start from. As in, how do we even get to the middle ages. The options I can think of are the following: 1) we all be history students from the near future when time-travel’s invented; 2) It happens at random with no explanation and we don’t know each other.

I’d like maximum realism and accuracy. Saying that, I’m not a history geek myself so I’ll be doing quite a bit of reading in order to come up with events and situations to challenge us with. Some sites I’ll be using are the following: site 1, site 2, site 3. You’re welcome to speak up in the OOC if me or anyone else makes a significant mistake in the setting that we’ll work together on building and we’ll sort it out. You’re also welcome to find your own resources.

Last but not least, this is, and always will be, a work of fiction. I value creativity and inspiration at least as much as realism, if not more, so do fill in the blanks with your own imagination and don’t consider this a history homework. It’s not meant to be.

To stop things from becoming tedious and dull we’ll have monthly events. Those will be either good or bad and will be a matter of pure chance. They can span from someone finding a precious stone to someone catching a bad illness. Additionally, we could do secret voting, for example if you think something specific should happen to a character because you want to see how they’d react. In those cases, you can PM me your suggestions.

As I mentioned, I’d like us all to build the world together. To help with that I’d like you all to have at least one secondary character each, who is local. That will help us to keep things interesting as it’ll basically make players GMs in certain situations, dishing out “quests”, for the lack of more appropriate word. Those things include a peasant giving us clothing, directing us to someone who needs a working hand, teaching us how to fish and so on.

Rules

The second most important category. I want everyone to know what you’re getting into before you commit so we avoid any misunderstandings in the future. I have been too lax with rules before when I shouldn’t have, so I’m very unlikely to bend the rules for anyone this time ‘round.

1. No questioning my authority. I don’t mean this in the “Hail Wind!” kind of way, but in a “so why can’t my character be the most badass around?! :<” way. You’re more than welcome to offer creative criticism when you think I’ve done something wrong but don’t act like a petulant child. At the end of the day, I’m human, just like you, with limited knowledge, skill and time I can devote to this. I’ll do the best I can and I’m willing to learn but at the end of the day there’s only one GM and that’s me. It’s basic decency.

2. At least one post every two weeks. Fail to do that without a good reason and a warning in advance, and something bad will happen to your character. The second time you do it, your character will be killed. This is a measure I’m taking to prevent the RP dying due to inactivity as I’ve seen this happen too many goddamn times. This will also apply for collaborations: I want them posed within the 2 weeks deadline. If two weeks isn’t enough for you to finish the collab, you either start it sooner or post whatever you have before the deadline and post the rest as a flashback later on.

3. No “ultimate badass”. I mean it, we’re regular people. Most of us haven’t shot anyone, get queasy at the sight of blood and aren’t as indestructible as a super sayan. We wouldn’t master a sword or wood-carving within two hours and don’t know everything about medical herbs. That’s not to say you can’t be talented, but if you’re looking for spectacular or over the top, you’ll be disappointed.

4. I won’t wait for anyone to post longer than a week. That’s to say, I won’t make other players wait for over a week because someone wants to post in that exact moment. If you’re wondering what the difference is between this rule and number 2, it’s because this is in regards to IC time-flow. One day IC will probably last two real-life weeks, but I won’t wait more than half the time for any single person to post in a certain situation. Say we’re milking cows before selling the milk. If players A, B, C and D want to take part in the scene, they all try to post for that specific scene. Player C has said he wants to post after player B, so player D has to wait for him/her. I don’t think it’s decent to keep someone waiting for over a week, so if a week passes and player C still hasn’t posted, I’ll allow player D to post. (Now pm me 'In vino veritas' if you’ve read all the rules. ;) )That way player C can still have a week to post before his character gets into trouble. In contract, rule 2 merely means that you have 2 weeks to post whatever you want within that certain day.

5. Please try to avoid arguments about historical accuracy. Debates, yes. Arguments, no.

6. Lastly, try not to cheat by using Google to make your characters too smart/educated on every single matter. Just use it wisely.

Character Instructions

I’d like you all to have one main character and at least one secondary character. I only want a basic outline of the main character in the form of a character sheet. For the secondary characters, you can just introduce them as needed straight in the story.

Character sheet:

Name:

Age:

Country of origin:

Native language and accent in English:

Appearance: (include height, built, skin complexion, eye- and hair colour, clothes, shoes; pictures are optional)

Strengths: (general things they’re good at)

Weaknesses: (the opposite)

Possessions: (be extensive)

[oakman]

It would be nice if we all initially wake up in this old world with zero knowledge of the immediate past. The characters know their names, childhood memories and favorite colors but they have no clue how they ended up in the middle ages.

None will have the knowledge, as to the how they got there, I am suggesting that scientists have sent a group of people to the past as part of a highly complicated experiment.

Also I am obviously interested in this RP.

[Wind Wild]

Glad to hear you're interested. ^ ^

And that's a fun idea. The drawback is that our characters will be that much more terrified and won't have too much to talk about in regards to getting to know each other. On the up-side, it allows their personalities to shine through.

Thanks for the suggestion~ I'll let the rest give us their opinions before I settle for anything.

[Durandal]

I'm fine with whatever we choose to do, although oakman's idea certainly sounds interesting. Should be fun either way

[Mistress]

I like both @oakman's idea and the ideas presented in the premise. Either way, I'm totally interested!

[Irisity]

I like @oakman's idea but I also sort of want them to get use to having no technology and privileges people have today in the 21st century

[xinnone]

I'm interested.

[Wind Wild]

Very happy to see so much interest. :) Thanks, y'all. Please make sure to read the rules and once you do, to start submitting character sheets (in either the Ooc or via Pm)

@Irisity irrespective of how and why we got there, we'll definitely have to learn without tech. The only real difference between the offered ideas are the context of the characters' interactions/relationships. Whether they know each other, whether they knew they were going to time-travel, or whether it was a complete shock, possibly accompanied by amnesia.

Either way, they're in for an 'adventure'. xP

[Mistress]

I think it would be cool if we didn't know each other, actually, as that makes room for more organic and plot-centered character development. I'm fine with it happening at random, too; maybe a lack of explanation would be even better (i.e. scarier) than something more sinister, like an experiment.

I'm going to put up a character sheet asap!

---

Edit: I'm actually also wondering exactly what time period we end up in. I know we're talking Middle Ages, but exactly what century? That would greatly affect the language and even the culture. Would we have to speak in Middle (or, God forbid, Old) English? I'm assuming we're going back to medieval England, but even then, if we're striving for historical accuracy, I definitely cannot write anything other than modern English.

[xinnone]

I don't think we should make a reason as to why these people are stuck in the past. We can definitely have them suggest theories, but seeing as these are random people from all over the globe, you can't just say "it's the scientists" now. Keeping it simple would be better since adding anything else would start throwing even more holes in the plot than there already seems to be. Especially if we want to stick with "realism."

I totally agree w/ @Mistress too, and even suggest that we all choose a specific year to jump into instead of trying to figure out a thousand years of history. Medieval languages are vastly different from the ones we use now, and so I'm also wondering as to what the characters will be doing. Like, are they all running around speaking in English as we know it now? So then, how would they interact with NPCs?

[Wind Wild]

Personally I'm also tempted to leave them in the dark about everything so if everyone's ok with that, that'd be my preference.

As for language, I know it's going to be inaccurate but if you don't mind, I'd keep the language modern English, reason being that English isn't my mother tongue and I won't even pretend knowing anything but modern. So unless someone wants to teach me... xD

We can discuss the preferred century and all if you want.

[Mistress]

Okay, leaving everyone in the dark sounds good to me!

Honestly, I want to integrate the Black Plague into this because I've always been extremely fascinated by it and I want to kill off all our characters. So, how does 1346 sound? ;)

[Wind Wild]

I'd prefer to have a peaceful setting to start with, though the plague could be a storyline somewhere later on. The only problem is, even modern people could die as easy as anyone from the plague so I'm not sure how we'd go around that. For now, let's leave the plague out, we can always include it if we feel like it. On that note, maybe we can agree that the year is somewhere around the first or last outbreak of the plague? That way we can either include it later on, or have it still exist in our RP but not as dangerous as it would be when it was in full swing.

[Durandal]

I'm personally of the idea that the amnesiac path would be best. Simple, plenty of room for development, and who doesn't love amnesia?
If we're going to set the RP around the Black Death, at the beginning would probably be best. Considering we're in England, we'll have a good amount of time before it affects us at all, and allows us to view the pandemic personally when it arrives.

[Wind Wild]

How about a random event + temporary amnesia? :D

And the question still remains how horrifying we want to make it, because the plague is definitely going to put everything else in the background. As I said, for now I'd prefer to keep it to trying to describe and adapt to the everyday life of the people of that age. We'll start in a rural place so say hello to Mr Sheep who will keep you warm in the night time, and then probably have to travel to a city in search of someone rumoured to be a magician. That's the initial plan and from then on, we'll see what and when we feel like adding to it. :)

[Irisity]

@Wind Wild I have just a few more questions: witch trials? Are women still going to be heavily restricted? Religious persecution?

[Wind Wild]

But of course. The whole array. ;)

[Irisity]

@Wind Wild this gives me a really good character idea. A scientists who has to deal with the ignorance of the times and almost goes insane from how ignorant they are

[Wind Wild]

Hahaha that sounds neat. I imagine we'll have a lot of things to be amazed/outraged at.

[Wind Wild]

Doubleposting, but can you guys please give me a list of the genders of characters you're making? So far we have two confirmed characters, both female. Because I don't want all characters to be the same gender, I'll join the minority to balance things out.