How to Play

CREATE A CHARACTER

Let us know who your character is by posting here > http://www.dieselpunks.org/group/titan/page/create-your-character

START YOUR STORY

1. Choose a starting location within Titan where you would like your character to be.  There's no need to introduce yourself.  You will be doing that "in character" as you meet the other Players.  Locations within Titan are listed here > http://www.dieselpunks.org/group/titan/forum
2. Write a small scene within a location.  The scene should be relatively short and open-ended.  Remember, you're not writing a whole story with an ending in mind, you're writing a scene where your character is the main focus.  After that, how fate meets your character is up to the staff, and how your character responds to the situations he or she finds themselves in is up to you.  As the scenes coalesce, the story of Titan will emerge.

HOW TO FORMAT YOUR SCENES

1. Start each scene with your character name. This will help us keep track of your character and differentiate them from your Dieselpunks username. The format for character names is [Firstname Lastname] in brackets and bold letters. For example, if I was playing as a character named "Louie Nine," I would add [Louie Nine] before all of my posts.
2. After your character name, you should include your character's location (from the list at the top of each page) and the in-game date/time. If you're joining an existing scene, take note of the time and dates already used by the other players in the scene. It's okay to be general about time, so timestamps such as "after midnight" and "early morning" are okay. Timestamps will help us keep the storylines consistent across all locations and scenes. So, if an NPC is shot dead at the docks at midnight on July 14, 1931, he (probably) won't be making an appearance at the Oasis Club Christmas Party in 1932.

As the staff members respond to your scene, they will update your post's "stamps" in a bright orange font to keep track of the scenes in each location. Once it has been stamped by a staff member, please refrain from editing your post in a manner that would otherwise change the content of the scene. Grammatical and spelling corrections are okay.

TIME + TURNS

In-game time will flow as needed to produce the best scenes.  As a player, your job is to keep the world of Titan in motion at all times.  Post regularly and respond to the scenes your character is directly involved in within 24 hours.  Please remember that our player-base is located in vastly different time-zones, and many of our players have family and work to attend to during the day, so allow adequate time for the other players to respond before forwarding the scene.

MOVEMENT

Each of the main locations within Titan will have its own forum.  As you post in a Titan forum, your character is considered to be at that location and is subject to the actions happening during the current scene.

ADVANCEMENT AND REWARDS FOR PLAYING

• Players who contribute to Titan on a regular basis will be given the opportunity to create their own staff-approved locations within the city (e.g. a private-eye office, your own nightclub, a hidden HQ for crimefighting).
• Players with a consistent history of posting and contributing to the overall story in a positive manner will be given the opportunity to join or alter a position of power in the city's ranks (e.g. take over a crime family, become owner of one of the city's pre-existing locations, and maybe even become mayor).

AWAY TIME

If you know ahead of time that you will not be able to play your character for a period of more than 24 hours, please do one of the following:

1. Have your character exit the current scene before you go away.
2. Notify the other players by writing an Out of Character (OOC) note so they know it is okay to continue the scene with your character in the background.
3. Send a message to a staff member or a trusted player to have them play your character while you are away.  While your character is being controlled by another person, the character will be considered a NPC (see below).

GLOSSARY

• Staff – The staff are in charge of enforcing the rules of the game and keeping the scenes flowing.  There are very few rules in Titan, but the ones we do have in place were created to keep things fair and fun for all players.
• In Character (IC) – Abbreviation to note when a player’s character is speaking or performing an action inside the game world.  Most forums in the game will be limited to In Character [IC] interaction only.
• Out of Character (OOC) – Abbreviation to note when a player is posting as themselves and not as their character.  To avoid confusion, please limit out of character posts to the appropriate forums marked [OOC] and do not include them in the IC story forums.
• Player Character (PC) – The individuals created and controlled by non-staff members in the Titan story world. 
• Non-Player Character (NPC) – If Titan was a movie, the NPCs would be the unimportant “extras” in the scene.  They are typically created and run by the Staff in order to bring more life into the world of Titan.  Players are welcome to create and control NPCs when needed to populate a scene, although please note that NPCs are limited to actions that would not otherwise change the scene in a dramatic fashion.  For example, a Player could describe a conversation between his character and the NPC bartender at The Black Cat Speakeasy, but that bartender couldn’t jump up and start shooting everything in site.
• Twink – Word to describe when a character dominates the scene without considering the other players and their characters.  Our goal is to have fun, so remember that the playing field is level and all characters are equally important.  An example of Twinking would be to have your character enter City Hall and kill everyone inside with a pulp style ray-gun and then laugh while his robot army crushed Main Street under their metallic boots.
• Metagaming – When a character performs an action based on what his or her player knows about the game, and not what the character would know.  Using out-of-game information to better your position in-game is considered cheating and should always be avoided.  For example, just because you overheard one of the staff planning a zombie invasion at Calloway’s Dance Hall doesn’t mean your character should now avoid that location.

REPORTING ISSUES

If you have any questions about Titan, or need to report an issue, please contact Tome (tome@dieselpunks.org) or a member of the Titan staff immediately.

OOC chat and questions can be found here > http://www.dieselpunks.org/group/titan/forum/topics/ooc