Okay, so you’ve made it this far. You’ve heard about us through someone else, from a mailing list, just stumbled onto our web site, or you’ve just signed up and what to know what’s next. Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’m IceWing and I’m going to take you through The Real X-Men’s Frequently Asked Questions. Hope you survive the experience.
The Real X-Men is dedicated to showing the more day to day and human aspects of the X-Men along with a grittier realism to violence in battles with supervillians. As a result, this RPG may contain and discuss material of an explicit adult nature such as extreme violence, language, and possibly graphic adult situations that may be inappropriate for minors.
That’s the official line. What it boils down to is this: The X-Men are real people when they aren’t out saving the world, and we focus more on that. We show the sex (oh come on, you know Scott and Jean are heating up the Boathouse every chance they get) When they get into fights, people die. Blood and gore and shit and piss are all a part of it. Now, I’m not saying we’re a bunch of nympho’s who love blood. We don’t go out of our way to do that stuff. We are just take a more realistic approach to the characters, and these things can happen.
Since adult themes and situations are explored we do have an age requirement. You must be over 18 years of age to sign up. Sorry kids, but we don’t want to get in trouble. We also ask that you can speak English.
Sure, that's not a problem. Just check out the archive at http://therealx-men.tripod.com/archive.htm.
The Tamster , IceWing, and KiM are the moderators for the group. If there are any conflicts or problems that can’t be solved easily, they straighten it out. Otherwise, they are just normal players. The Tamster also runs the web site and archive.
Any character in the Marvel Universe, just about. Now, obviously if someone else is playing the character you want, you can’t have them. Like if you want Iceman, you’re SOL. He’s mine! There are also several characters that are reserved for Moderator play only, Professor X being the main one. First come first served and all that. But there is a list of characters that are taken on the web page. When you sign up, just ask about the character you want to play.
At this time you may play a NPC (non-personal character) as well, but if a new player joins and wishes to play that character you must be willing to give him/her up.
Sorry, but we do not accept made-up characters. The only non-cannon characters we accept are those used as plot devices (a date for someone), innocent by-standers, reporters, ect. Basically the ordinary, common people who don't stick around for long are the only made-up characters we accept.
First step is to get your character choice approved by a moderator. I think the Tamster usually handles this as well. The easiest way to do this is to pick two or three characters that you want to play. Tamster will then make sure no one else is playing that person as a main character or NPC. If someone is playing the character NPC she’ll contact them about giving up that character. If all goes well, you should hear back from her within a day or so. We do ask that you have knowledge of the character you are signing up to play.
As for the signing up to receive the posts/email, you have to subscribe to Yahoo!Groups. When we started it was Onelist, then eGroups, but now Yahoo has taken over. It’s a fairly painless process to sign up though. And once you do, you’ll have access to the message archive. After signing up for a yahoo ID, you’ll have to sign up in the Yahoo! Groups section for our list.
The easiest way to do all of these things though is to visit our group web page, and use the join feature. The address is http://therealx-men.tripod.com/join.htm. By doing this you can see what characters are taken, apply for the character you want, and sign up for the email/posts.
Now you need to email the moderators with a short summary of what you have planned for your character(s) and any new plots you wish to introduce. We do this to make sure your characters slide easily into our universe and to keep the number of running plots at a manageable number.
The first thing you should do is introduce yourself to the group. It doesn’t have to be anything big, if you’re not comfortable with that. You can just give your name/alias and who you are playing. You can also tell us some about yourself. Once you do that others from the group will do the same. We’ll fill you in on a little about us. This would also be a good point to ask any questions you may still have about the game, or your character.
You just type up and email of your post, and send it to the group. The address is The_Real_XMen@yahoogroups.com .
Posts are pretty free on what you can do. You can get graphic with sex and violence, since this is an adult group. But there are a few things we ask not be done. Let everyone have a chance to post on a thread before you post again. Do not post what another character is thinking or what they say. If you do use another persons character, ask them before hand. There are a few more rules, but those are the major ones. Check out http://therealx-men.tripod.com/rules.htm. for all the rest.
That’s going to depend on what character you’ve chosen. If you picked a character that someone has played in the past, you’re going to have to work with what they did. We will not ret-con a character except under extreme circumstances. You’ll need to find out the history of the character so far in the game. It’s easiest to just ask for help from the group. We can point you to places in the archive, tell you what’s happened, and even give you suggestions on how to work your character back into things. Once you’re up to speed on everything, jump on in.
If you’re playing a character that no one else has played, you get to work them into the game on your own, and come up with all the plot for that character. Just find a way to work them into the game.
Nope, not at all. Some people like to give descriptions and thoughts as well as their characters dialog. Others just like to add in what their character says to other people’s posts. If you’ll look at a few posts others have done, you’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.
To quote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, "Don't Panic." We moderate your first few posts to make sure that your character makes a smooth transition into play.
Yes, there is a time limit. One week real world time is equal to one day Real X-Men time. During the week you should be able to post to any threads your characters are involved in at least once. This will be strictly enforced due to past problems with the game dragging along slower than molasses running downhill in January in Wisconsin.
One of two things. Either let it go and jump in the next week or do a back-post asap. But remember the moderators will frown on any back-posting that holds up the game.
There are two options for you in this situation. You can either write your character out of the action temporarily or find another player to steer him/her around for you.
You must do one of the two options, if your character is idle for more than 2 weeks a moderator will email you with a warning that your character is in jeopardy because he/she seems to have been abandoned. If you fail to respond within the time indicated your character becomes fair game for a moderator to take out of the game anyway they wish (KiM usually does this and takes out his frustrations on the abandoned character).
First you have to be off moderation status. That means you know your way around the game and are no longer considered a newbie. Then you need to get permission from the moderators to play the desired character. We recommend that you send an email off-list to all 3 because it will save time by not having them forward it back and forth to each other and get a faster response.
Here's what you shouldn't do. Do not ask one moderator to overturn the decision of another. On most cases where there is a problem in the game we have all already talked to each other and come to a group decision. If you have a problem with that decision you should write all three moderators stating your case. We are a perfectly reasonable bunch.
First, politely explain the situation to the other player. Chances are they are new to the game and are just looking for a guiding hand. If they persist in wanting to play with you, email the moderators and explain all the circumstances to them. They won't force characters to work together and will give the other person a little push in developing their own plots and character directions.
Lots. It’s probably best to just get a quick overview before you start playing, or to read some of the archives.
The Tamster realized this early on (because she's in charge of the archives) and has provided a site specific search engine on the archives. All you have to do is type in the name/codename (including any misspellings) of the character you're looking for and the search engine will do the rest for you.
We ran across this problem early in the game. To get around it, there is a map of the mansion and all of it’s surrounding grounds posted on the web page, under the War Room section. If you’re needing to know where a certain room is in relation to something else, check it out. Heck, you can even get ideas of places to have your character hang out from it. The X-Mansion and the grounds are really huge, so there are tons of places to explore. You don’t have to limit yourself to the kitchen, bedroom, and danger room.
We have a web page at http://therealx-men.tripod.com/index.html. The page is full of information about the game. It contains the archive, which is all of the messages of the game put together to form chapters, rules of the game, who’s playing, a map of the mansion, fan art, and even links to members homepages.
Hell yeah! Some of us talk all the time through email, ICQ or other means. Part of the fun of the game is meeting new people. It’s not required, in fact there are people I’ve never talked to outside of posts, but even that’s fun. It’s also encouraged to talk to each other off the list to come up with plot threads and stuff that might involve more than your character.
Not too much. Just don’t be afraid to ask any questions if you need to know something. It’s better to ask than to have to go back and clean something up later. We’re a good group, and we won’t bite you’re head off. Do just kick back, join in, and have fun!
The FAQ is compiled and maintained by Icewing. FAQ last updated on 6/7/02.
All original graphics are property of Tammy Zuleger and may not be used without permission.
