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[smo_mods]

PLAYER'S GUIDE

The In Game Explanation: Each student will find that their school supply list for the year has been updated to include a Ministry-issued journal. They are standard A4 sized, unlined, leather-bound and magically linked to every other journal in possession in the Wizarding World. Private messages (when marked as such) can only be seen by their intended recipient... and certain Ministry officials should they so decide to take an interest in a specific journal.

Entries will work as in this example: Bernard writes a entry on the first page of his journal. His friend Bernice (as well as the rest of the school owning magical journals) will then see it appear, upon its completion, one the next available blank page in her journal. She scribbles a reply directly below, which then appears in Bernard's journal. He replies in kind, and the same happens again. In Bernard's journal, the entry and every comment added to it remains, unless he should decide to magically delete the entry. In Bernice's journal, the conversation will fade, just as any conversation is wont to do, and the page will be blank once more for her to write upon. If she skipped a few pages ahead while that conversation with Bernard was still ongoing and wrote her own entry, the pages would reorganize themselves, chronologically, when she happened to shut the book.

The Out of Game Explanation: All first person journal entries will be posted to the main community. Anyone then within the community may comment, unless otherwise specified. Private entries are indeed private. Only Ministry officials, played by the mods, might break this rule. (And for the record, we have no plans to meddle at this time.) You must mark those entries with their intended recipient though, preferably in bold [PRIVATE TO _________(name)] brackets above the entry (or section of the entry), rather than using off-hand addresses within the entry, i.e. "I wish you had seen what my potion looked like, Susan." Unmarked entries such as these will be treated as readable to all. You should end these sections with bold [/PRIVATE].

Comments (and strings of comments) can also be marked private, containing the person(s) names that it's private(d) to in the subject of the comment. Also allowable is 'Everyone except 'name'', in that everyone except the named person can see the entry.

Logs will be posted to the log community. Logs can be done via email or instant message and posted at their completion into the community, timed to their date of posting unless otherwise plainly noted OR they can be done via Dreamwidth comments, again timed to their date of posting. Logs must be third person so as to differentiate them from journal entries. Whether you employ past or present tense in your narrative is at the discretion of the individual writer.

All entries, both journals and logs, must be tagged with your character's name. This is so we can all keep track of your character's comings and goings, and so the mods can keep an eye on participation.

Timing: The game works in real time, meaning July 13, 1943 is equivalent to July 13, 2010. Admission to the game correlates with the day your character receives her or his journal. In other words, the day you get access to the community is the day your pup gets access to his or her journal. Should your character enter play in the middle of the school year, you have the option of handwaving his or her presence all along or fabricating some excuse for the absence (faulty spell, transfer, forgot it under the pillow, dragon ate it).

The Daily Prophet will be published every day, but every Tuesday or every other Tuesday there will be a special informative edition that really lets you know what's going on in the world. This will be our main means of introducing plot developments to you and the characters. These will be for the most part a surprise, but major plot developments will be introduced in smo_res so that everyone may plan accordingly.