Fated Scenario Rules

[Ottercat]

Fated Scenarios is an adults-only creative writing game where your personas are presented with a situation and must respond to it. The goal is to earn Horny Points (HP) and have a good time. To that second end, there are guidelines in place to give the game consistency and ensure a level of comfort for all players involved.

By the game's nature, erotic situations and participation is prevalent and encouraged. Please do not play if you are uncomfortable with this.

Fated Scenarios takes the format of Scenario -> Response -> Fate.  A round's host is whoever crafts the initial scenario, and players then respond with what their sonas would do in that specific scenario. The host then replies with the outcome and awards Horny Points to the player.

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About Personas:
Personas are the roles players take to interact with hosts' scenarios. Your persona acts as a reasonable level of separation between you as a person and your actions in the game. We do this for a number of reasons:

1. A slight level of depersonalization allows more freedom of expression without so much worry about how it reflects on your actual life or personhood.
   
2. Your actions are your sonas, and remain in the space of the game's various fiction. Ideally, this will prevent any weird parasocial misinterpretation or attachments. In plainer language: I would like to minimize weird stalking and getting the general wrong idea, if I could.
   
3. It's fun!
   

Personas can just be your typical sona you use online, a character you wish to jump into the role of, or whatevever similar floats your boat. We only have a couple general rules presently:

1. Your persona must be a sentient adult, regardless of species or fantastical context.
   
2. While you can employ several personas, it is recommended you keep that count to a small number - say three or so tops - so that hosts can easily identify who they're working with without resorting to the reference thread every time they do anything.
   
3. All Scenario responses should be written in the third person. This not only helps keep the game and you a safe distance apart, but helps everyone keep track of who's doing what and minimizes misunderstandings. It also means you can have multiple personas and use the one you think fits a scenario or your present mood the best without it being unclear which you're employing!
   

Playing Scenarios:
As a player, all you need to do to participate in a scenario is post your sona's response to the initial scenario prompt that starts a thread! The host then replies and gives you any relevant HP and achievements. Outcomes may not always be what you expect - your sona wouldn't be the first to die, for example - as scenarios are not always as cut and dry as they seem, coming in a variety of flavors and gambits. That's part of the fun!

Hosts' replies may also include a continuation request ("CR") after your initial score, giving you a sort of double-or-nothing chance to continue once more to push your score upwards, at the risk of losing points if you flub the job.

Notably, points don't really matter and are mostly here for fun and to encourage playing along. The real goal is to get into a groove writing risqué and in-character content for each other to enjoy! But if you're curious how scoring is meant to work, even if you don't plan to host scenarios yourself, it may be worth reading through the next section!

Hosting Scenarios:
On its own, hosting is easy! Simply create a new thread with an open-ended scenario for other players to respond to, and then respond back in kind and rate the outcome. Here are some things to keep in mind, however!

1. Please put any relevant trigger / tone warnings at the top of the thread if your scenario might involve them. Given the game in question and the implied risk underlying some scenarios, it may be, for example, difficult to avoid an air of non-con, and not everyone vibes well with that sort of thing. As a general rule we try to avoid these, but considering we keep a death tally around here it may come up all the same. Please don't take this for granted and be offensive for offensive's sake, or I will tighten the restriction.
   
2. All characters introduced to the scenario must follow the same rules as Personas! No kiddie / cub shit, no loopholes like "the loli is actually a 10000 year old dragon," etc.
   
3. Personas and Players cannot be employed as subjects of scenarios. The game is for creative writing exercise, not direct sona-to-sona ERP or propositioning the entire room for sex. Create a scenario for others' sonas to respond to - including your own if you think that'd be fun, though you can't give yourself HP - but your sona cannot be the scenario.
   
4. You may only post one new Scenario per day! We don't want things flooded, and we don't need you burning out. Bank your ideas. Let them fuel you!
   

When replying to a player's response (AKA describing their FATE), you'll also be giving them a score in Horny Points. While this is rather subjective and mostly for fun, there are some guidelines:

1. The maximum points a player can earn in any given scenario is +/- 1000 HP. It helps to consider this score as two factors: 500 points for how engaged the player is, and 500 points for how much it inspires your response. If a player's middling response still gets you riled enough to write a boner-fueled novella, you may well consider that 500 points for the inspo but only 150 for their own engagement, giving a final score of 650. Negative points are usually reserved for moodkillers and are thus used sparingly.
   
2. You may put a Continuation Request by marking the end of the score tally with a "(CR)"  CRs allow players to form a second response to your initial reply, with the catch that the final score for their second FATE being the actual score they get. The benefit of this gambit for the player is that the max score becomes 1200 instead of 1000.
   
3. Do not give low scores to try and encourage CRs. Some players may not be comfortable writing past the point your own reply has reached, and nobody should be punished for their boundaries. Please respect this.
   
4. Each player is limited to receiving one CR per scenario.  If you feel so inspired by each other that you could write an entire smut novel together, by all means do so and share with the class, but that is beyond the scope of this game.
   
5. You may also assign a player any relevant Achievements (see below)
   

Hopefully, by following these guidelines, we can keep the game fun for everyone involved!

[Ottercat]

Achievements:
Achievements are awarded by hosts and the game's admin(s) to players who meet certain criteria and effect your total score tally on the leaderboard! There are a number of achievements that can be viewed on the Achievements Thread. Hosts and players who wish to see achievements added to the list can DM their ideas to the Admin(s) and they will be added to the list if approved. Each achievement can only be earned once!

Deaths:
Sometimes things go poorly. Sometimes you really read the room wrong. Sometimes that monster you were trying to fuck eats you instead. Maybe you're into vore and that was the idea, but the point remains: you died, or someone did, and there is a price to pay. Each player's deaths are tallied alongside their score and achievements any time a host declares that someone involved did not survive the encounter, and your total score is divided by the number of deaths you've caused. Generally, you want to avoid these. Please. They're not a good thing.

Violations:
Some things will get you kicked from the game. For example, while the context of a given scenario can enter certain gray areas, that is because players themselves still have the option to provide their consent by playing that scenario to begin with. Players who show deliberate or repeated disregard for consent and other players' boundaries will be removed from the game, and possibly the boards as a whole. We want this to be a safe playground for everyone here, and we can't do that if someone is running around committing boner crimes all over the fucking place. If you see a player behaving inappropriately, please report it.

These rules are a work in progress and subject to change.
Last Updated Oct. 5th 2022