The Rules

#1

This section exists to provide a place for handlers to RP/write outside the typical constraints of the island. Its purpose is to represent happenings in the rest of the world, as it reacts to the games. This section will generally not be policed too heavily, however, due to its unusual nature, there are a good number of specific rules you should be apprised of, which follow.

There are no thread limits in this section. Activity is not enforced. Participation is entirely optional.

In this section, you may RP as a wide range of characters. The limits are simple:

You may not RP as a character created by someone else, or related/tied to a character created by someone else, without that person's permission. For example, you could handle one of your own characters' parents, but not another handler's character's parents.

You may not RP as a notable/important figure (that is, anyone of regional/national import) without permission from the staff; this is a decision that requires staff deliberation, so any ruling made without posting for discussion in the staff lounge will not be considered valid. If in doubt, ask.

You may RP as any character of yours approved for V6 pregame but not participating in V6 proper. You may not RP as any character in the grades who were not approved or used as an NPC during pregame without staff permission. Any character removed from play for whatever reason is not eligible for use in this section. Characters from other grades/schools are fair game; we just don't want to see the Cochise junior and senior populations balloon or unapproved characters sneaking into canon. If you use a previously submitted and approved character in this way, they may not be submitted again in later versions, even if they did not appear in pregame proper. Otherwise, if they have no appearances, they may be reused for other games pending approval at that time.

You may RP as older characters of yours (V4 survivors, families of V4 kids, past winners, etc.) as long as they're alive and such. There is one slight exception here: due to the complicated and metaplot-entwined situation surrounding them, you may not, at this time, use V3 survivors in Meanwhile. This will change soon and specific guidelines for handling V3 survivors will be accessible to all those applicable, with the aim of offering you all as much leeway as possible; it's just requiring a little more staff work and preparation, and we don't want to delay Meanwhile due to it.

You may not use this board as a medium to preview characters you plan to use for future versions; any character you use here will be denied if submitted for V7 (or V8, etc.).

Realism should be held to the same standard as is typical on SOTF. If it wouldn't fly in pregame, it probably won't fly here.

Continuity should be adhered to. Please remember that there is a three and a half week gap between the disappearance of the Cochise students and the beginning of the broadcast.

Due to the fairly small size of the Cochise community and the timing of the abduction well before the end of the school year, staff would like to declare certain information officially to guarantee consistency. School from May 6 onward was cancelled for all of Cochise High School. Students who were passing their classes received whatever grades they had on May 6; students who were not passing their classes were bumped up to a passing grade. Any reasonable complaints or negotiations by students over grades were approved (that is, anything of one full letter grade improvement (10%) or lower was rubber-stamped by staff. Counseling was made available for all students shortly after the disappearance, and was amped up substantially come the revelation of their classmates' fates.

If you have any scenes or ideas in mind that would have sweeping implications for the community, please check with staff. Overall, please try to keep such things localized and smaller scale. For example, having a reporter call every single kidnapped student's family would not be kosher, because it would force other handlers to potentially work around this in their posts. Stating that Cochise would be closed and students moved to new schools would similarly affect everyone else using this section. We want to avoid that sort of thing.

On a related note, staff reserve the right to declare any problematic portion(s) of this section non-canon at any time in the future, up to and including the entire thing. For example, if, say, the V6 kids staged a revolt on day nine, and managed to destroy all the tapes/broadcasting gear, this would render any thread dealing with people knowing what happened impossible. Actual-game trumps this section every single time; this is here for fun and expansion of the SOTF story, but will not be allowed to cause problems.

You do not need a character in V6 or on the island to participate here, as long as you abide by all the other rules.

I know that's a lot of stuff. This section is a lot of fun and was a huge success in V5, but we still we want to go out of our way to make sure it won't cause any problems for the actual game and will be a positive experience for all who choose to partake. Meanwhile is great, but the game itself is the main focus of SOTF, and most of staff resources and attention will be directed there; this section is absolutely a bonus/side project, and will be prioritized accordingly.