Tales of Midgar:
Joining the Game
Before you can start writing in the Tales of Midgar, you must create a character, also referred
to as a persona. You will role-play this character throughout the entire game, and interact with the storyline through him or her. You may either
take an existing character on the NPC list, and create a background and history for him or her,
or you may create your own character to role-play. You must have a character approved by the
Persona Verifiers before you may begin writing on the Midgar Story List.
Your persona is very important, as it identifies the kind of character you will role-play. Put serious thought into your P-sheet, as it will make the game more entertaining and exciting in the long run.
The Setting of the Tales of Midgar
We start Tales of Midgar: Revolution three years after the successful military coup of the
Shinra Forces. These events happened in the original Tales of Midgar.
In the past, Shinra tried to eliminate the Rebel Group AVALANCHE by using a toxic nerve
gas called Black 36 to eliminate the entire population of the slums. However, Avalanche
stopped the attempt at the cost of Barret Wallace's life.
Two months after the incident, security tapes revealing Shinra's involvement with the Black 36
gas disgusted SOLDIER head Tyr Signus and Security Forces Minister Raith Cantorek to such extremes
that they rallied the soldiers enlisted under Shinra to overthrow the government.
During the Midgar Festival, which was the largest party of the year, news of Black 36 slipped out
to the General Population and there was a riot outside of the Shinra Headquarters. Mr. Signus and
Mr. Cantorek took this opportunity to remove Rufus from his seat on the government.
However, Rufus Shinra managed to escape to Junon, where he continued to exercise his influence.
In the meantime, Midgar was converted into a democratic nation and a Prime Minister was elected
by the people two months after Shinra was overthrown. This new government stopped the use of
Mako power and began on a revitalization of Midgar making the city more livable and safer.
There is a more detailed version of this
short history under the World Section. Under this
section, you will find information about Midgar's rule under Shinra and the Shinra Revolution.
Tips for Thinking of a Character
It is important to read the current News of the Tales of Midgar to keep up to date with
the major events of the game. When you create your character, you should keep in mind that these
new events happend in your character's past, and enter any appropriate reactions.
You should also review the character Persona that exist in the game, and even E-mail the player
characters and ask for ways you can incorporate your character into their storylines. The Tales
of Midgar thrives from character interaction, and if you show me that you are willing to talk to
others and create a better character based on their input and suggestions, then you are more
likely to be accepted. For instance, if you want to be STRIKE, you may want to E-mail the
existing STRIKE persona and ask them for ways you can incorporate your character into their
storylines.
The reason I ask for the two above rules is to avoid a cliche and overused entrance that I have
seen many times: a new character who hates Shinra will bust into a Guard Tower and kill all the
guards that he sees, then act all cool and walk away. No, this cannot be done, so please do not
do it. Events have happened in the game. React to them. How did your character react to Barret's
death? How did your character react to Rufus lifting the curfew laws? How about the new
influx of mercenaries and bounty hunters that have entered the city?
Look for plot holes. If you see something that is empty, try to fill it with your character's
role. For instance, if you see that there are many people that are being arrested because of
being too late after curfew, you may want to play the role of a Curfew Enforcer.
Persona Generation
When you create a Tales of Midgar persona, you do not have to worry about any Advanced Dungeons
and Dragons stats elements. This is more a writing game than it is a real role-playing game.
To keep track of your character, we make you fill out a persona sheet. A persona sheet
is a summary of your character's traits for the reference of yourself and others. By filling
out a persona sheet, you give me and others an idea of what kind of character you want to play.
In addition, if other players want to involve your character in their storyline, they may look
at your persona sheet to see how you will fit in.
Please take a look at the Persona Sheet now.
The Persona sheet, as you can see, is an outline of your character. There are locations for
description, persnality, and history. To create a character, you fill in
these fields with information on your character.
Be aware that all P-sheets are posted on the Internet and are publically available. As a result,
be sure you fill your P-sheet with as much detail as possible, and not to insert jokes or other
oddities. Be sure that the sheet is _formatted correctly_ (which means, line-wrapped at approximately
60-80 characters), clear, easy to read, and free of grammatical and spelling
errors.
Persona Generation Rules
There are a number of rules and limitations for Persona for the Tales of Midgar. They are listed
below.
- You may not play an extremely powerful character.
This is known as powergaming and is frowned upon in any sort of role-playing environment you
participate in. If your character can do "anything", or can do something extremely well with
no drawpacks, this is powergaming.
This is frowned upon because it becomes extremely chaotic in a storytelling situation if the
characters can all cast Third Level magic or leap over buildings with minimal effort.
The following are sub-rules that limit powergaming:
- You may not possess high-level materia, or rare, unique materia.
Materia in this age of Final Fantasy VII has become drastically limited due to lack of
Mako power use. Although common materia such as "Fire", "Lightning", "Ice", and "Restore"
still exist, even those are in rather rare quantities. Please keep materia to a minimum.
As a general rule, if you can't buy it, you can't have it at the beginning.
Examples of extremely strong, forbidden materia include:
- Any summon materia
- Any Master-level Materia
- Materia where only one exists in the game (like HP-MP or Shield)
- W-Summon, W-Item, Double Cut, Slash, Contain, Ultima, Added Effect, et cetera.
- You cannot possess high-level weapons and armour.
Likewise with materia, weapons and armour are not easily come across. The general rule
is, "If you can't buy it, you can't have it".
- All special abilities and skills must be justified.
If you have any skill, you must justify it in your P-sheet (most likely through the background
section). For instance, if your character is a master swordsman, then you may justify the fact
by saying that he trained with his father every day ever since he could walk.
If your character is very knowledgable in repairing machines, you may justify this by saying
he went to college and took a course in Auto Shop.
If your character has natural magical abilities, you may say that he or she was a remnant of
Hojo's lab creatures and retains this ability to cast magic.
However, do not be too elaborate in justifying away all of your character's super-strengths.
I won't buy it if your character is fifteen, but you say he's a master swordsman and
a rock star in a rock band because he trained with his father and had a natural talent for
music. How does he tour if he trains with his sword? How the heck did he become a rock star
at fifteen?
- Your character cannot be a crossover character from another game/series/etc.
I don't like crossovers.
Certainly, you can cross over a character from your other Final Fantasy VII IF if you choose,
but please do not cross over a character from some other game series or something. It's not
creative and it doesn't fit. So please don't role-play Celes Chere, Darth Vader, Squall Leonheart,
or President Clinton.
- If you want to roleplay a Main Character, you must follow further guidelines below.
The main characters include any main character in the game Final Fantasy VII, including
Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Rude, Reno, Elena, Sephiroth, Hojo, Shera, et cetera. Basically, if the
character had both a name and a speaking part, then likely he could be considered a main.
Due to the changed nature of the Final Fantasy VII world, some of these characters have
different motives than from the game (or are even dead). If you wish to apply for a main
character, you must read the documentation below and follow its restructions.
Submitting a Persona
Your ToM P-sheet application is a lot like your resumé, and the E-mail you send it with
is like your Cover Letter. When you send an application, you may want to include a few words
in it about yourself. This allows us to learn more about yourself, and makes you seem more of a "person" instead of simply an "applicant".
When you submit a Persona Sheet, you post it to the OOG list. There, senior members of the Tales of Midgar list will read the sheet over and give comments and suggestions. Once the main problems with the sheet have been picked out, the applicant edits his sheet accordingly and posts it again for review. The process keeps going until the player has a sheet that is relatively free of errors.
This system is different from the previous system where the applicants would only send sheets to one person. The reasons I have implemented this new process is that many new players get better feedback from the existing players, they can discuss their character, and talk with the other senior members, possibly getting new ideas for the characters. You also learn how to interact with people and what is appropriate and inappropriate for a Tales of Midgar character.
When your sheet is finalized, I might ask you for the story that introduces your character to the Tales of Midgar
setting (also known as an "Intro Post" or "Introduction Story"). As a result, it's best if you
have a story in mind when you submit your sheet! There's no better way for me to know that you've
actually THOUGHT about your character if you have a short story written already! Trust me... if
you've written for the character in prose already, it SHOWS on the sheet.
The reason I may ask for an introduction story is for three reasons:
- It saves me work of updating the page, only to see you disappear, never to write again.
Many people submit sheets, and then never write a reply or post a story when I tell them, "Your sheet is up!" Quite
annoying.
- It tells me if you've been paying attention to the Setting.
If your introduction story is filled with a lot of deviations from the Tales of Midgar setting,
then it tells me that you didn't read the page and that you haven't been paying attention to the
web page.
- It allows me to judge a few problem spots in your writing.
I have seen many stories and literature in my time, much of it bad, some of it good, the rest of
it acceptable. I hope that as you write in the Tales of Midgar, you improve in your short story
writing and communication. However, it's hard to do that if no one ever talks about your work. To
start, I will often point out technical errors in your introduction post if any exist. If you
spell things wrong or use punctuation incorrectly, I will be swift to correct you.
However, STOP IT BEFORE IT STARTS! Read the document below if you're not confident in your
grammar and structure for Short Story Prose.
Steps to Submit the Persona
- If you haven't done so, suubscribe to the Mailing Lists! You can't post a Sheet unless you are subscribed to egroups and the Tales of Midgar lists.
- Click on the "Get Persona Sheet" link below.
- Use the "Save As" option on your browser and save it to your local hard disk.
- Use a text editor such as Notepad or Emacs to open the sheet. (If you wish, you may also use a word processor, but be SURE you save it as "Plain Text" format!)
- In your text editor, add in the details of your Persona Sheet. Make sure you add a lot to the Personality and Background!!! Also, make sure that you word-wrap the sheet by pressing enter at the end of every line. This makes the sheet easier to read.
- Save the sheet ON YOUR HARD DRIVE!!!!
- Compose an E-mail to The Tales of Midgar Out of Game List. Type a few friendly words, like a short introduction of yourself and why you want to apply.
- Use the Attachment Option in your Mailer to attach your P-sheet file. You may also choose to cut and paste into the E-mail window, but it is not recommended.
- The comments about the sheet will be sent directly to the mailing list for you to see. If you have anything to say in defense of your sheet, then you are certainly free to do so, but please remember that the final say is left to the senior players of the game.
- You will probably have to resubmit the sheet at some point if there are any problems with it. If you are asked to resubmit, then edit the sheet on your hard drive using a text editor. When you resubmit, resubmit the ENTIRE SHEET, not just the parts that went wrong. Never ever submit "half" a sheet.
E-mail Application to "midoog@egroups.com"
Now What?
First, read the document linked below.
Then, be patient and wait. Tell people on the OOG list about yourself.
Introduce yourself, your character, and tell them about a few plans you have. Talk to the
people and make friends. You can also E-mail the players of characters that look interesting and
see if there is a way to be involved in their plots, or to have their characters be involved in
yours.
The senior players on the OOG list are much faster than I am at reading, but most of them are very reasonable. They have been a part of the game for years and know what is appropriate and inappropriate. Some of the more veteran players include Dizzy XIII, ohmsford, and Edwyn.
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