Time and Space
1. Posting requirements: Once a day posts, especially for plot and action heavy posts, unless you're playing an NPC or have talked it through with the mods. Post in absences if you're going to be missing for a day or two, contact a mod if you're going to be gone longer.

2. Game Time: One Game Day = 4 Weeks Real Time, unless otherwise specified. A week before turnover there will be a "Last Call" and after this no new threads are to be started on the current day. This gives everybody a chance to finish up what they’re doing. Upon turnover to the next game day, any unfinished threads are considered ‘bubbled’ and take second priority to current threads.

3. Continuity: It isn’t just scenes earlier in the same game day that can affect your character. Don’t forget that each day isn’t in its own little bubble. Scenes earlier in the game can do the same too. If your character is Angry McAngry Pants at another character on one day, don’t have them be bestest friends the next or even later in the same day, unless they really are that forgiving. Or scheming. Or insane.

Notes are your friend. Really, they are. Even we make them.

3a. Similarly, each character will have multiple threads at different times of the day going on at once. So you can have Rogue making pancakes with Kitty in a morning scene, and at the same time have Rogue tossing a tank at Juggernaut in the evening. Just make sure your character is not in two places at the same time. Don't have Scott eating lunch with Sage at noon, and then be in the Danger Room with Logan at noon. And remember that what happens earlier in the day affects how the person acts later in the day. We cannot stress this enough.

4. If you get stranded in a multi-character thread for more than 48 hours, contact a mod for permission to gently NPC the stalled player's character if you need to. Don't make them do anything wacky, just make it so you can leave or reply.

5. Label your posts. Use Game Day of Week, Date, and Time of Day (Morning, Evening, etc) and who's in the thread (Scott/Hank, Gambit/Wolverine/Jubilee, etc) and specific location if you're posting in a general forum like "Salem Center"

Example:

"Rainy Days and Sundays" - Harry's
7/23/07 - Evening (Logan/Kurt/Hank)

Or

23rd July 07 - if the date system is confusing you.

6. When entering or leaving a thread, please place an OOC comment saying where your character is coming from or going, and a link if it's from an on-panel thread.

Example: [Exit to "name of thread with link"] [Entering from "name of thread with link'] [Exit to his room, to read for awhile] etc.

7. Posting Order: If the scene contains five characters or less, all in the same area, then stay in order. Like if Bobby posted, then Kurt, then Lorna, then Hank, then Bobby's next, etc. If you're in a big thread that had groups of people sectioned off from each other (like say sitting around several tables at a restaurant) than your posting order is limited to your own group. Posting order is relaxed a bit if there's 10 or more characters in a scene, just try and keep it reasonable.

Spelling/Speech/Etc.
1. All posts are to be in the third person, past tense.

2. To steal a phrase from another role-player, if you play a character with an accent, please don't phoneti-shit all over the page. Write DIALECT, not the phonetic accent. "My name iz Kurt Vagner and I vant to go to ze Hollyvood Video."...just looks stupid. Very stupid. And goofy. Did we mention stupid? Don't write, "Mah name is Rogue an' Ah want t' go t' thah store, Sugah."...use the dialect, "My name's Rogue, could ya'll give me a lift to the Piggly Wiggly? I'm fixin' to make a cake in a spell and need a lil' more icin'. Thanks a bunch, Sugar." Got it? Good.

It's ok to use phonetic spelling of accent if you're pointing out that-- for some reason-- your character's accent has thickened. (Anger, being drunk), but it's not to be abused.

3. In a similar vein, when writing dialog, write how your character would talk. If playing Jubilee; use slang, Buffy-speak, lots of contractions, all those nifty California colloquialisms... have a ball. Use italics and ellipses and hyphens to get pauses and trailing and emphasis in there. Remember, we can't hear your character as you hear him in your head, we need those commas, ellipses and contractions. Sometimes, it's hard for a writer to "hear" their character. Never be afraid of constructive criticism, heck, ask for it. Talk to someone here whose writing you like and ask them for help. Get them to proof-read your posts and offer suggestions.

4. Grammar and spelling: These are important. Very important. Nobody likes to read a badly written post, and it’ll probably make people wary of posting with you if you're the one posting them. Use a spellchecker if you aren't sure. InvisionFree doesn’t currently have a built in spellcheker but we suggest this for IE users or this one for Mozilla & Firebird. Firefox 2.0 has a spellchecker built in. Firefox 1.5 (the one us Linux users are stuck with) uses Aspell (found in the Extensions section of Firefox's website). Seriously, it's your friend.

4a. Commas: Alas, the lonely comma...so underused, so unloved. It's used to indicate pause and a bunch of other grammarishly things. But a Big Peeve is this: "Hot damn Kurt that tie is groovy." No! Nein! It's "Hot damn, Kurt, that tie is groovy." See?

4b. "It's" is a contraction of "It is", "Its" is the possessive. "They're" is a contraction of "They" and "are", "Their" is the possessive, and "There" is, well, "There".

4c. Write out numbers. Don't write "Kurt is 22 kinds of sexy.", it's "Kurt is twenty-two kinds of sexy." Only numbers over one hundred should be written as numbers. Danke.

5. Post Length: Ja, we know sometimes you don't have time or don't know what to write, but one-liners make the Baby Jesus (and your fellow posters) cry. The other people in the thread need something to work off of, if you're just posting a few sentences at a time, expect to be ignored. It's just not fun or satisfying to make a good-sized post and have people reply with a one-liner of dialog. It's a waste of time. Ideally, your post should be at the very very least as long as your avatar is tall. Even if your guy has nothing say, he probably has something to think...have him think about what's going on, what he's doing later in the day, how much he hates Scott's training sessions, anything! Give us something to work with.

A good rule of thumb is: Give as good as you get. If you're in a thread where everyone else is posting action heavy four-five paragraph posts, try and match them. If you can't keep up or give the other players something to work with, excuse you character from the scene and write them out.

6. Speech in IC posts, should go as follows:

Quoting other's dialogue should be done in Italics and Bold.

Italics represent thought.

<brackets are speaking in another language>

Actual usage of non-English words or phrases should be italicized. "Mein Gott!, That is a tasty burrito!"

*Asterisks plus Italics represents telepathic communication*

And, please, no fancy text colors for dialogue. It's okay to use color to make a point or add a little flair. Kurt sometimes sets the font color of the ol' *BAMF* violet. But having all your dialogue in screaming yellow just makes the mods want to stab things.

7. NO, that means NO Sig lines or Sig banners in IC posts. And no making your text smaller than the default size, please.

Sex
Graphic Sexual Content: It happens. We're big fans, BUT there are some rules:

1. Every character in a scene that is depicting sexually graphic content MUST be 18 years old or over. Yeah, we know teenagers have sex, that's what Fade to Black is for (ages 16-17). No character 15 years old or younger is to be involved in a scene that involves sexual content, not even fade to black-- this doesn't include harmless stuff like kissing, etc. But, to cover our butts, no underage pornz, thanks.

2. Labeling/Ratings: Everyone here should be 17 and older. This is a game about the struggle of mutants in a world that hates and fears them. Things get ugly, people get hurt, people get naked-- it happens. Only label if you think you should. No need to use "Movie" ratings, just use your head and be considerate.

General Posting Etiquette
1. Call it NPCing, call it "godmodding"...Don't Do It. Don't inflict your will on a character that isn't yours. Don't move them around, don't have them react, etc. Bobby can tell a joke but he can't make Piotr laugh. Piotr's player will reply with what Piotr's reaction will be. Don't assume your idea of a character applies to him/her unless the player had written (or said) so. This is an AU, somethings will be different. Don't run around talking about what a ho Gambit is unless he's been played that way, or you get perms from the player.

More on "god-modding": Be careful what you assume about another player's character, just because you might think that Jono loves the Flogging Mollys and hates training with Wolverine doesn't mean that his player does...and his player decides those traits about Jono, not you. So, always check with a character's player before you assume some detail about them that might contradict what the player has in mind for their character. Savvy?

2. ICA = ICC: In Character Action = In Character Consequences. If you think your character is a Master of Bad-Assery and want to test the theory by slugging Wolverine in the man-muffins, don't come crying to us if you get shown what your spleen looks like. This isn't D&D, this is an interactive fiction. Combat scenes should be planned out BEFORE they are written, with the players deciding ahead of time what will happen. Not to say that there won't be spontaneity. But if a character decides to haul off and attack another character, please IM/PM each other and say "How do we want this to resolve?"

Same vein, if there's a doubt of "Who can do what to whom", ask a mod. We're big silly comic geeks who know way too much about Marvel. It's why we run a Marvel RPG.

3. OOC =/= IC. Period. If you are having an issue with another player, bring it to us, don't let it reflect ICly. Also, what you know isn't what your character knows. If JP enters a scene and-- OOCly-- you know that it's really Mystique, your character doesn't get to be immediately suspicious. Even if you're playing a telepath. Unless your character would know for some reason (say...Wolverine smells her and knows something's up), do NOT allow your OOC knowledge to influence your character's actions.