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Guide to Moderation and Storytelling

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  • Introduction​

    Collaborative storytelling is the heart of the game of Telath. Typically players will narrate from the perspective of their player characters (PC), writing their responses to and actions within the surrounding world into individual posts. Other players will then participate as either their own characters or as storytellers (also known as moderators), the latter of which create the story's backdrop and non-player characters (NPCs), drive the story, and decide the success or failure of the PCs' actions to present risks and grant rewards in the thread.

    With the exception of expositions, all threads in Telath should be moderated in some form.

    What is Moderation?​

    In Telath, players are responsible for developing only their particular PC. Their posts should be written from the point of view of their PC only, and be primarily focused on that PC's actions, thoughts, feelings, and responses. All good stories extend beyond the character, though, and will inevitably involve the character's environment and greater game narrative in some way. This will require collaborative storytelling, involving more characters both PC and NPC and their surroundings.

    Storytelling, also known as moderation, is writing outside of the perspective of a PC and is used to create and manage the overall narrative of the thread and how it embeds into the game environment as a whole. Storytellers create the stage on which the PCs act. They are responsible for determining the success or failure of PCs' actions and choices, any advantages or disadvantages earned by the characters' roleplay, such as experience or relationships or assets, and creating a cohesive game-narrative by controlling details such as environment and absolute timestamp of the thread and recording its pertinent information in a storyboard.

    The most common ways to request moderation is through the Matchmaker forum or directly from a moderator whose office thread is posted in the Personal Offices forum.

    Types of Moderation​

    There are two types of moderation available for threads in the game.

    Collaborative Moderation​

    This occurs when the players already involved in the thread take the role of Storyteller, too. They will write both their character and the surrounding environment for themselves and for the other players. This dual-role can be filled by one or multiple players. Advantages such as experience can be gained in these types of threads, but only by requesting permission prior to starting the thread and then approval by a staff member at the thread's conclusion.​

    Peer/Staff Moderation​

    In these threads, a third-party player is asked to step into the role of Storyteller while using their player account or a separate Storyteller account. This player’s character is not involved or participating in the thread in any way. Their sole responsibility is controlling the environment and any NPCs, and determining the success or failure of the players’ actions. To gain any advantages, the mod plan for the thread must be approved before starting and its results signed off by a staff member at its conclusion.​

    Self-Moderation​

    Self-moderation is when a single player writes a thread alone with no collaboration from other players or moderators. They alone control their character and its environment as a single-author narrative. These situations are not common and should only be used for scenes which are meant to deepen and explain the character but in which no advantages, experience, material, relational, or otherwise, can be gained.
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