Storylines & Arcs

Storylines & Arcs

1. Storylines (Standard Threads)

Storylines and Arcs are key to the advancement (gaining SP and Jewels) and story development of your character through roleplay. The average post length in FTG is around 10 lines or around 1165 characters. A Storyline is the most commonly occurring type of thread and has few to no requirements other than that the plot of your topic may not be greater than the abilities of your character with their current stats. For instance, a brand new character may not level a city with his magic. This is a common sense rule and should be applied with your best judgment.

Anyone with an approved character may begin a storyline in any of the location subforums (such as Magnolia) on the board with no need to have their storyline approved by a staff member first.


2. Arcs

Arcs are what we call a series of storylines (also called 'threads') unified by a common goal. It is required that the objective of an arc be relevant and meaningful to your character though in what way is left up to you. You may wish to make an arc centered around your team, a family member of your character, resolving a troubled past, or even a guild or organization you are in or hope to join.

Again, arcs are much more significant than Storylines and are usually very important milestones in a characters life. They must have a clear objective with some level of resolution at their conclusion and they will be looked over and approved by a staff member before you may begin them. While you may do an arc with only 1 other player if you choose, the minimum number of storylines you must do in order for your plot to be considered an arc is 4, though you may do more than that. If you have more than 1 other person joining in your arc you are only required to do 3 threads, though you may do more. The formula of 1 page + the # of people in the arc is how you determine how many pages each arc thread must be. A character may only run a single personal arc (per character) at a time but can participate in up to three arcs at once. If you would like to modify or end an arc before its story is finished, please contact a staff member.

It is also important to note that plagiarism of someone else's arc is not only not allowable, but will result in the arc being denied outright, and negation of arc rewards. There will be no tolerance of blatant plagiarism.


3. Storyline Rewards

Both arcs and storylines are graded by staff members when they are completed. To request that your thread be graded you need only link the thread in This topic. The grading process is how you earn SP (stat points) and Jewels (FTG currency) for your character. Threads are graded by the quality of your writing, with every average quality post you make being worth 30,000 Jewels. If your thread contained only 2 people every 5 posts you make of average quality are worth 1 SP and 150,000 Jewels where as in a thread of 3 or more people the post amount is dropped to every 4. Rewards may be increased for high quality or decreased for low quality, which is judged based on the player's average posting.

Arcs are graded differently. Whenever a person completes an Arc of some kind they are rewarded with Arc Points (more commonly known as "AP" here on FTG) which is used to purchase things in a special "AP Shop" we have set up. Using your AP you are able to purchase all sorts of amazing items and benefits for you or your characters. If you would like to know more about the AP Shop, please read more about it in this forum. Note that individual threads in arcs are submitted and graded as normal threads as well.


If completed, an arc rewards you with the following:

• AP equal to the number of topics completed (+1 for the Arc Creator)
• An amount of SP and Jewels per topic completed. This amount of SP ranges from 2 to 4 per topic and the Jewel amount ranges between 400,000 Jewels and 800,000 Jewels.
  

The amount of SP/Jewels rewarded to you at the end of an arc will be determined by a mission moderator, or anyone above them.

4. Inactive Grading

Sometimes you may have a thread that goes inactive, and while that is fine in itself it does produce some issues in getting it graded; issues that primarily revolve around other people. Basically it comes down to this:

• If a thread has been inactive for at least ten days it may be graded due to inactivity.
• You have to attempted to contact the other people in the thread prior to this ten-day limit (at around the seven-day mark is a safe bet) and based on their responses or lack thereof a thread can then be submitted for grading.

If possible though try and make an ending post rather than declare it inactive; that is if the other people in the thread stop posting either edit your last post or make one more yourself wrapping things up in a general way.


5. Thread Slots

Here on FTG you can have an unlimited amount of normal threads, yay! A single character can only be in three arcs at a time, however, and can only be in one that they created. They can also only be in up to two missions/assignments at a time, one normal mission and one 'special' mission, the latter of which is prewritten by a staff member and has to be taken with a guild member/fellow knight.


6. Solo Threads

Yes, people can do solo threads. This is a thread that involves one of your characters and whatever NPCs you wish to control (within reason of course) and revolves around you doing whatever you like. You may have a single solo thread per character at a time however this thread will only rewards if you complete 3 full pages. If you do that you earn 2SP and 400,000 Jewels. Any posts after that however, even another 3 pages, will earn you no rewards. This is to emphasise that this is not a cheap way to earn SP, if you want to RP alone you do it knowing it's for your development. Please also note if you wish to have two or more of your characters interact in a solo thread that is allowed however you will forfeit all rewards, even for 3 pages.


7. Members NPCing for other Members

Now this has always been a thing (kinda) but now we're making it official - you can now officially NPC for each other! Normal members are now allowed to mod C rank missions and below for one another if they so wish. You will get nothing for this, but you are more than welcome to do so all the same.

Please Note: Guild Master NPCs, The Commander of the Knights of Fiore as well as the Magic Council and the Royal Family of Fiore can not be NPC'd in a topic unless directly by an admin and only if you have a very good reason for them to be there. You can make references to them, but they cannot directly appear nor be controlled by anyone short of admin rank.