Posted Sat 07 Sep, 2013 8:37 AM –
Last edited by Caymen Greener; Tue 20 May, 2014 9:06 PM.
UFP SIMMS Handbook A guide to the UFP SIMMS Game
Audaces Fortuna Iuvat Fortune Favours The Bold
Welcome to the Harriers!
If you're viewing this thread, it's safe to assume you have some interest in joining one -- or two -- of the SIMM's that we run. The SIMM's are a text-based roleplaying game that is played using sophisticated web software. With the help of the writers who participate in the SIMMs and a gentle nudge from the GM's every now and again, the SIMM's create their own story. While the game managers write the mission plan, each and every player writes the story and determines the outcome.
We currently have one SIMM with two outlets: the USS August NCC-93389-E Rhode Island refit (dubbed a Science Cruiser) and Outpost 42 Starfleet Outpost and Civilian Colony.
The SIMM's are a fun way to kill time and get your creative juices flowing. There is a lot to them, however. If you are interested in joining, then we urge you to take some time to read the information below to help you get a better understanding of the Harrier SIMM's!
General Links & Joining the SIMM's!
Below are some helpful links you will need to know about and reference frequently. Included is the link to apply to join any of ours SIMM's!
How to apply for the SIMM's?
Applying for the SIMM's is really quite easy! The following link will take you to a form that will allow you to apply for one or both of our SIMM's. We ask that you fill this form out BEFORE you apply for the SIMM itself on the websites. This application will include your basic info, character idea, and prior SIMMing experience. The GMs will look at your application and decide where we believe the best fit for you will be!
Introduction
A wee bit of information about everything SIMM!
The United Federation of Planets (UFP) Simm game is a play-by-post text-based roleplay game set in the Star Trek universe. The time period is the STO-era, or roughly the year 2409. The USS August-D is sent out on an exploration and discovery tour deep into the galactic core in the Alpha and Beta quadrants. The tour is designed to find resources and new allies in the efforts against the war that plagues the known sectors.
The Simm game tells a story, written by everyone on the ship over a period of time. Various missions will complete specific plotarcs or stories. When a mission is deemed “finished” by the admins, the next mission will become available and the former archived on the site for return viewing/reading. As a player, you are the author, along with your cohorts!
The Simm game uses a system called Nova (http://www.anodyne-productions.com/index.php/nova/index), which is a web-based posting system. The website that hosts the game contains all posts (mission, personal logs, joint posts, and news & notes), documentation (via wiki), crew roster, ship specs, mission details, and other pieces of valuable information. It is all self-contained on the site. In fact, you will post your story telling on the site itself. The only email that is really generated is either when a post is submitted or when you are flagged in a joint post. This is all described below.
The important thing is to immerse yourself in the Trek universe, engage others and tell a unique and entertaining story, be respectful of everyone, and most of all just have fun. Any questions can be sent to the CO or other administrators.
Another handy feature that the SIMM provides is frequent updates sent directly to your email. When someone saves a Joint Post you're part of or posts something (PL, MP, JP) a notification is sent to your email. This email includes the post title, location, timeline, and post content. Really handy to view posts without having to log on to the actual SIMM if you're out and about! Emails received from the SIMM look like this:
And you are urged to add the subject portions to your spam filter (see: Nova Tips) to ensure you receive all emails sent from the SIMM's!
SIMM Rules
A wee bit of information about everything SIMM!
We like everyone to have fun and do their own thing in the SIMM's within reason, but there are still some rules we ask you to follow to make sure the experience is fun and safe for everyone. The rules we ask you to follow are very basic, and are common sense more than anything.
Be respectful of other players. This means that you should avoid posting for someone without his/her consent, be kind and courteous during the game (your character may be brash, but you do not have to be), and just know that you and your character are part of a “military”/gaming organization, with rules, commanding officers, and standards. Act like a true Starfleet Officer!
Obviously no god-moding – you are an author just like everyone else, but you are not Q and everyone has a right to roleplay their own characters. Keep this in mind as you move the story along.
Ask a CO or admin (game manager) if you are unsure of anything
SIMM Posting Requirements
Remember; each SIMM needs frequent posting to really thrive!
We don't ask a huge amount of the people who play on our SIMM's. The main thing is to have fun. To have fun, however, the SIMM's need to be active, and to keep the SIMM's as active as we can we ask only a few things of you in terms of posting requirements.
All we requested from each player is at least two posts per week on each character linked to that individuals account. These two posts can range from any of the following:
Personal Logs (Short)
Mission Post (Medium)
Active participant in a Joint Post
Again, we are not sticklers and we will most likely not boot you for not meeting these requirements every week unless it's a repetitive and ongoing theme. We don't like putting requirements in place, but we really do need to strive for activity for the SIMM's to thrive!
Nova SIMM Mechanics
A little bit of information about the Nova SIMM software and some helpful features you'll be using whilst part of the SIMM's!
Nova Web-Based System
Nova is a web-based system designed to store all posts (described below), crew roster, ship specs and deck layouts, wiki documentation regarding certain information in the SIMM, and mission specifics. The Nova is very elaborate software to allow for the best SIMMing experience possible.
The key part of a SIMM game is posting your entries, which are similar to chapters of a small book. There are 3 basic types of posts that you can do, each with their own reason and logic as well as a degree of complexity.
If you have any questions on what kind of post you should be doing for a given scenario, never hesitate to ask the division CO, XO, or GMs.
Personal Log Posts
A personal log entry is, as described above, for a brief glimpse into what your character is doing. It might be your character’s arrival on the ship, a quiet dinner by yourself, a holodeck adventure as we ramp up for a mission, or just a post on what your character thinks about the current mission/situation to add some flavor when you’re bored at work one day. They are a great outlet, and a quick way to post. Not only this, they also allow for expressing a characters thoughts and feelings in the midst of the action, and can be a great way to create a 'personal' storyline for yourself!
The SIMM can be very daunting at first. There's a fair few buttons and it can take a while to learn how to navigate around it. Creating a personal log -- or any post at all -- is a considerable amount easier than it looks.
Upon logging in, you will be taken to your control panel. To the right of your screen you'll have a hefty list of links to navigate around the sight. Creating a personal log is as easy as clicking
In the spoiler below is an example of what the post would look like in NOVA – all you need is a title and the log content. If you want to add a location and/or time, just put it at the top of the content box or in the title! Other than that, it is pretty simple.
Solo Mission Post
A solo mission post is where you post something that contributes directly to the mission/scenario and has your character performing active tasks and communications. The main actor here is your character, although incidental or pre-arranged mentions and words from another character (with approval from each person) can be included.
Remember, unless the use of another character is incidental or you have separate permission to include a few lines from someone, you will need to turn this into a join post as described below. Otherwise, write your part of the story, the narrative, or the mission contribution. If you were instructed to provide your reaction to a plasma blast and you are the medical officer, you might start your post off as if you were doing normal diagnostics or research and then the ship shakes. The klaxons blare and you go into action, trying to find out if there are injured officers and where to go and/or send your medics.
With solo posts, keep in mind you may need to wait to post until you know something from another officer. For instance, you may need to wait until Ops or Tac/Sec posts to know if there was a hull breach or how bad the plasma burn is. In these cases, be patient, and always know you can email/IM/contact those people separately if you feel things are going to slowly. Generally, during a standard mission where “action” is happening, it is safe to assume that each person should be posting enough that there are a couple or more posts a day. However, this may not always be the case, and sometimes it can be a couple days between posts. If you wish to speed things up, contact your CO or GM instead of just running ahead. It is more important to make a good story than to impatiently post and make for a poor experience for people. Keep in mind that you can always write a post and then save it for later (by clicking Save at the bottom instead of Post). Read the Joint Post section below for more details on this.
NOTE: Remember to add yourself as an author before you post or save, as the entry might go into oblivion without an author to attach it to.
As per the screenshot below, all you need to do in Nova is add yourself as an Author, give the post a title, location, and time (there will be a Stardate calculator on the site [see below in Acronyms] which may differ slightly from our official {UFP} stardate, but will still follow the calendar year – if the calculator is not available a Wiki article describes Stardates in our game). Then you start writing.
Joint Mission Post
For a post that needs to involve multiple people, which can happen quite often, you’ll want to do a joint post. All the mechanics of a single mission post are the same except for a few major things:
You will want to add all the authors that will be involved, not just yourself. You can always add more later if someone else needs roped in.
You will want to add “tags” in the Content section of where you want someone to respond. The old way to do this was to do <USER> (e.g.: <Caymen>). However, Nova will ignore those tags so use the following to tag someone into a Joint Post: ((Caymen)). Then they will know right where they need to respond, and may tag you back in kind.
]
Always click “Save” instead of “Post” when you are in the middle of a Joint Post. This is the most critical step of a JP. If you click Post, it will post it as a true mission entry and email everyone in the SIMM. If you simply click Save, you will save it in Nova for future edits, but it will also email all the authors stating a JP involving them has been saved. Then they can login and edit/add their parts. IMPORTANT: Only “Post” when everyone in the JP is done with their parts and the entry is ready to be viewed by the rest of the SIMM.
If the JP is taking longer than expected and certain participants are taking a while to write, it might be good to write everyone (using Nova’s Private Messages system) and let them know a post is coming but it is taking a while. This way people don’t steamroll over anything you’re writing.
Click this little icon at the top of your screen to get to your inbox
From here, click the following, and the rest is fairly obvious!
In conclusion, a Joint Post may be one of the more critical post types you do, and will be the most valuable towards the progress of a mission. With some practice you'll learn how to act in JP's properly.
More SIMM Information
A literally more information regarding the SIMM, acronyms used and what they mean, and some information regarding the proper formatting of posts!
Formatting JP's
Ensuring Joint Posts are properly formatted and the proper tags are applied is a lot more important than it looks. A Joint Post that is formatted properly can give readers and your fellow writers a clearer image of what's going on. A post with poor formatting can not only break immersion, but can also result in confusion in some cases. The following tags should be applied in JP's to make sure they're as clear as can be!
=== Locations===
A location (E.G. ===Bridge===) should be present at the beginning of a post to show where the scene is starting. The location may change throughout the post, and every time it does it should be marked in the same way.
Normal Text
Any text in a post which includes a characters actions, etc. is considered normal text, and doesn't need to be marked in any particular way.
"Speaking"
Whenever a character is communicating verbally, it is to be marked out with quotation marks. Anyone within earshot of the character can hear this.
=^= Comm Speaking =^=
This indicates that someone is remotely speaking via comm (another place on the ship/station, a friend or foe on another ship, etc).
~"Thinking"~
There should be a special tag, typically used with tildes, when someone is thinking something rather than speaking aloud.
*"Computer Confirms"*
Some other format should be used to signal the computer is doing something, like chirping, processing, or speaking. This is sometimes used with the tildes as with 'thinking', but should be clear in surrounding narrative as well.
((TAG Broughm))
As stated previously, these are OOC tags to indicate that a particular person is expected to type a response, reaction, etc. where the tag is located.
[[OOC Caymen: Note for people here]]
This is a note that is designated NOT to be a part of the post, but instead to let folks know what might be going on, to clarify something in the thread, or to coordinate parts of a post. These should always be at the beginning or end.
Note: All (()) and [[]] tags should be removed when posting.
Acronyms
Here are some common acronyms you may see throughout this post and in reference to the SIMM's.
CO: Commanding Officer, head of the ship in most cases (unless an Admiral is on board AND put in charge)
CEO: Chief Engineering Officer, head of engineering, often stationed in engineering, but sometimes found on the bridge.
CMO: Chief Medical Officer, head of sickbay and medical treatments (including psychological), usually found in the medical areas.
CSO: Chief Security Officer, head of security and any marines/soldiers on board. Often stationed in an office elsewhere on the ship.
CTO: Chief Tactical Officer, head of weapons and defense systems, working closely with Operations often. Usually stationed on the bridge. Occasionally combined with CSO.
JP: Joint Post, described above. A major mission story contribution involving the individual work of multiple (2 or more) authors/players.
OOC: Out-of-character, meaning the content does not contribute to the direct story telling but provides background, unseen, confident info. Surrounded by (( )) at all times.
OPS: Operations, in charge of communications and sensors, sometimes combined with Helm.
S Stardate, in case the stardate changes drastically mid-post (mostly found in JPs).
UFP: United Federation of Planets, our parent gaming group and also the governmental body that contains all the systems we are fighting for in the war in game.
XO: Executive Officer, second in command, most often on the bridge, defacto successor to the CO should something happen. After the XO, succession can go either by rank + seniority or often cases to Ops and/or Tactical.
Nova Tips
There's a few extra things to keep in mind with the SIMM's that might come in handy should you find yourself stuck or confused about anything. These little tips and be come in handy.
General Usage Tips
Make sure you read everything in this source if you're in doubt. This handbook includes information from various sources that were written up by the Harriers CO and SIMM GM's. If you're in doubt about something, it has most likely been covered somewhere in this thread.
Add the [USS August {UFP} Simm] and [SB Legacy {UFP} Simm] subject portion in your spam filter in email, as this will ensure emails from Nova get into your inbox.
If you have any difficulties accessing something you think you should be able to, log out of Nova, close your browser, and then log back in to see if the issue is resolved. If not, contact any of the GM's on the SIMM that's giving you hassle and they'll try and sort the issue out for you.
If you see anything about a "pending character" or "pending news item", you can ignore it. Apparently everyone sees these but only admins can actually get to them.
As a small reminder, make sure you Save Joint Posts rather than Post them. You should only be posting it's finished and actually ready for posting. It's best to make it a habit to have the creator of the mission post it.
In a single post (posting only by yourself), remember to add yourself as an author. If you forget to do this and Save or Post, it may disappear as there is no character to attach the post to. This will be IRRETRIEVABLE!
As the Guide says, never write for another character (or his/her NPCs). Always get written permission to do so. Otherwise, leave ((TAGs)) or [[TAG]] for that person in between your lines in a conversation and they can come in and add them. That is, of course, as long as you added them as an author to the Joint Post to allow them to participate.
Writing Tips
When participating in a Joint Post, try to keep everything as simple as possible. You don't need to go into huge about where they were before the encounter and what they were eating. Keeping your additions to the JP short but interesting makes for a far better post than extremely large chunks of text packed with needless detail. As nice as it is, it's a lot more reading and the reader is likely to get bored.
When writing Personal Logs, it's generally advised that you try and play your character in first person as though you were really recording a personal log. Imagine you ARE your character and are recording the logs in your quarters.
As stated in the first point, try to keep writing in JP's to a minimum. Joint Posts usually turn out to be quite long as it is, meaning you generally only need to write a small paragraph or two per tag before letting other folk write.
If you use Chrome or Firefox, it's highly advised that you install a spell checker plugin. It's easy to misspell something and not realise, but it looks a lot better if your post is at a high standard. That said, we won't beat you if it isn't written in perfect English. Promise!
Senior Officers
If you choose to take a leadership position in either SIMM, please understand that we expect you to be active. We'd like to request that, if you take up a leadership position, you make sure:
A. You are checking your email regularly to see if a JP you are involved in has been updated. Nothing is more irritating than having a JP stall out because someone needs to fill their tags before it can move ahead.
B. If you are not directly involved in any current JP, please jot out a personal log entry to at least let us know what your character is thinking or doing.
Communicate. If you're going to be unavailable or inactive for a prolonged period of time, please try to inform the Harriers command team or one of the SIMM GM's. There i within the Nova simm which allows you to list yourselfre unavailable for posts. We are aware that there are sometimes issues that cause communication to be impossible, such as internet failure and whatnot.. In this case, I'll fill any open tags you have and consider you on a LOA until I hear from you again.
If you're having trouble with your JP's in regards to how to push it along or what to write, don't hesitate to ask us for help. We are more than willing to give you some ideas to help get your creative juices flowing again!
Personal Logs. I'd like to stress that personal logs are one of the greatest tools we have available to us for character development. Whether you write in the first person or third person really doesn't matter, whatever works for you is fine. These are a great way to tell us the story of who your character is and what makes them tick. It's also a good way to stay involved if you're not actively involved in a JP.
RP and Text-Based RP Etiquitee
Below is a brief summary regarding what roleplay is.
Roleplaying
Obviously, roleplay is an extremely vital part of the SIMM's. Everyone interprets roleplay in a different way. Everyone roleplays differently. Everyone prefers different types of roleplay. It's very much down to preference. But what is roleplay with the SIMM's? Roleplay with the SIMM's is creating a character and well and truly immersing yourself in the story. We build and build upon our characters and guide them through the hardships they face on the August and Legacy. Through roleplay, we can work together to help write a story and create something amazing. Roleplay allows us to immerse ourselves in our character and have fun creating something wonderful together. We like to be as realistic as we can, and we like to have fun whilst doing it. RP isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's certainly ours!
To get a clearer idea of each others characters and whatnot, the SIMM allows for character biographies to be created. These include anything from appearance, to favorite hobbies, to history and service record. This is a great way to get a more clear idea of each others characters and how they act, and also properly express how you present as yourself as YOUR character and what they've been there in the past. Should you so wish, you can also add a picture of your character, which is usually just modifying an STO character to look like your SIMM character and taking a screenshot of it!
(Character biography creation)
The SIMM has lots of different people keen in roleplaying filling a variety of department roles on both SIMM's. The amount of people participating in both allows for a considerable amount of diversity in roleplay thanks to the variety of different personalities and back stories of each character. Whether it be with the angry Scotmans NAVSOG Commander or the love struck Chief Engineer, the SIMM constantly offers a variety of different and fund opportunities for roleplay!
Shot of the character/crew roster
Text-Based RP Guidelines
Planning
When making a new post with the SIMM, please consider the following:
What is the post about? If it is just a thought process, inner monologue, or a personal activity, consider a simple Personal Log entry. These can be short and give everyone a glimpse of what your character is doing/thinking/feeling without necessarily moving the story along. These tend to be easy and quick to write. If it is contributing to the mission more, see below.
Who is involved? If you need to involve another player or someone’s NPC heavily, please do a joint post (see below). However, you should most often be able to complete small mission posts on your own.
If you want to get some information on what you might find on a scan or something along those lines, feel free to simply ask the CO or admin in a private message. You’ll still have to wait, but you won’t have to drag it out into a joint post just for one response.
You are an author just as much as anyone else, but remember not to step on toes and trump anyone else. Further do not roleplay for someone else without their consent. However, you are just as entitled to move the story along as anyone else. So use your imagination and have some fun. And when in doubt, just ask the CO if something is okay to post.
Posts should generally follow these guidelines:
Personal Log: Personal logs will vary depending on the content. Generally, they tend to be a few paragraphs. A bit less than a full page on a word document.
Mission Post: Mission posts tend to be quite a lot longer due to them requiring a lot more content. A mission post is generally just over a page of a word document. This may vary depending on the amount of content, of course.
Joint Post: Depending on the amount of people participating, Joint Posts tend to be a considerable amount longer. They're usually a good few pages long, and can be a lot more depending on the amount of active participants.
Text-Based RP
Basic Writing
Basic writing comes in a few simple categories explained below.
Story Telling
This is the basic writing of the story, in 3rd person, from the perspective of your character. Please use “he/she” and not “I/we”. It is hard to write this way sometimes, especially when you are doing a lot of actions in your post. But just remember you’re writing a story about your character (not yourself) and you are not blogging, but narrating.
Meta-Info
This is the part of the Nova system where you can enter the author (or authors in a joint post), location(s), stardate, and title.
The title should be short yet descriptive. Examples could be: “Greener finds a body”, “Medbay is full!”, or “The race to shut down the warp core…”. They should give us readers a glimpse of what you are going to post, be unique, and yet leave us guessing!
Locations are specified in Nova, but might change throughout your post. Most people do this with the following text example: === Medbay === . Similarly, a commbadge communication can be formatted as such: =^= “Captain Greener to Engineering – please report!” =^= (represents a little badge logo with equals and
slashes). This can be changed numerous times throughout your post (especially in joint posts), as you hop from your quarters, to your office in the medical bay, to the bridge, then down to the transporter room, for example.
Out of Character
If you need to specify anything out-of-character, meaning it is not part of the story but is extra info, do so withdouble parenthesis. An example might be:
Greener immediately gets out of his chair and approaches the Operations console. “Ensign,” he says, “If you’ve double-checked your efforts, we are in for a world of hurt.” He snaps around to Tactical. “Red alert, brace for impact!”
A green flash approaches the ship, visible on the viewer as it slides above the bridge. The ship rocks and shakes as the impact occurs. It is only hoped that the shields were up in time…
((A plasma torpedo slams into us – please post your reactions in follow-up individual or joint posts. And yes, the plasma will leak into and contaminate whatever decks may have been breached.))
This way I have given you a bit of side info on what just happened and some instruction on how to proceed.
An OOC line could also give another player some insights that others might not have. It could give specific orders for follow-up posts. An OOC line can also give people a heads-up at the beginning of the post on something their characters may be aware of going into the post (e.g.: ((You all know Greener was at the lounge the previous night drinking Romulan Ale…)) ).
So there you have it! Information about all things Nova SIMM! Should you have any further questions, concerns or queries, you may contact the Harriers CO (Caymen Greener), XO (McClintock) or any of the SIMM GM's (Beclans, Joshua & Connor).
Stardate, in case the stardate changes drastically mid-post (mostly found in JPs).
