Now Presenting: YOUR Guide to Drama Drama Duck

[the-final-boss.livejournal.com]

I've been getting a lot of questions regarding the actual system of this game, so, here is what is known about DDD, as well as some game rules:


Setting: Drama Drama Duck is not like most games on livejournal-Characters are NOT drawn from their individual worlds of origin and brought to some strange place to live together. Instead, they're all living their lives but just happen to have posting access to the same community. In game, the community was initially created by the Nobody Namine as a way of uniting people. Since then antics have occurred.

Viruses: What are called "curses" in most games are called "viruses" at DDD by the community regulars due to the belief that the ailments originate from the community and, therefor, the computer. The exact nature of the community remains a mystery thanks to how many worlds have access to it. It is generally accepted that the viruses do not come from the community itself though nobody is certain about this. SHODAN (shakti_ishvara), a powerful super computer sometimes takes credit for the strange things that happen to people who post here but it is unknown if she is really responsible for ALL of it. Characters posting to the community can also cause "viral" outbreaks from time to time.

Timeline Discrepancy: There is no rule regulating this. Characters appear from throughout time and space. It is ALWAYS best to talk to your crew mates about how to handle time discrepancies. You will very likely talk to other characters from your own canon who were taken from before or after yours. Some casts are post-canon to avoid this issue and some enjoy playing out canon. As for the paradoxes this would cause? We really don't get into that since it would detract from the overall enjoyment of the game.

The Internet and the Fourth Wall: How the Internet behaves outside the community is vague. Generally, it is assumed that characters only see as much of the internet as they would be able to in their canons. If there is no internet in their canon, they can only see DDD but this is up to each individual player. Obviously, with access to sources to like Wikipedia, fourth wall breaking may occur. In addition, some characters may be from worlds where other characters are known as fictional. DESPITE this, you should always ask for permission before breaking the fourth wall on somebody's character.

World Hopping: "World Hopping" is just what it sounds like-Hopping between worlds. To travel from your world to someone else's you need a World Hopper. World Hoppers are ONLY ever characters with some canonical means of reasonably world hopping. Characters who do not world hop in canon CAN in DDD provided their canon provides them with some sort of way of doing so. For example, a technology or a spell. Silver travels through the internet on Porygon-Z (though firewalls prevent him from traveling through his own world this way), Nobodies can make dimensional portals, some characters are from settings that are "between worlds", some are deities with teleporting ability, etc.

Communication: DDD is massively play-by-post rather than logs. Characters talk the way people would on LJ. I've seen people post actions in their replies like *hands to* and *waves*. Remember that you are rarely physically beside the person you're talking to and when doing that you are waving at a computer monitor and probably feel very silly. Actions cannot be seen unless there is a video post. Icons are understood as visible unless a player distinctly says otherwise.

Questions?

Comments

[random-angelic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. A couple of things about the overall not!setting were confusing me so I really appreciate this post.

[maraich]

Kind of glad you mentioned the actions. I never know how to respond or how I'm expected to respond when a character posts a "action" at mine, when they're on separate worlds.

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

They could actually be posting an action, complete with asterisks.

[maraich]

That's the only reason I never said anything.

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

It's how I'd rationalize it.

[maraich]

I was more worried people didn't know the characters weren't in the same place because it seemed like the people who usually did it were always new people.

[attorneyatlol]

There are times when they're in brackets, though, or it's implied that the character is meant to be seen or heard. Like, for example: [said in a soft voice] I'm sorry...

I never know what to do in those instances. Unless they're specifying that it's a voice post, I just assume my characters can't hear the inflection... o.O I meant to bring it up a while ago, but I keep forgetting. XD;

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

Whenever that happens (I don't see it *that* often, though), I just assume it as a voice post.

[hotpinkaura.livejournal.com]

A few times I've done that. On voice posts, though, most of the time that my character made. I just didn't bother noting that it's voice posted, though.

Yeah...a few times new people make that mistake. Though, I suppose, there are the cases that the character posts the action. Though, I'd imagine it'd be one from a world where the internet is common.

[roll-soul.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm bad for that, especially with Giro xD;; Mostly that's just me adding a little inflection to the posts so that the meaning is made more clear, without having to use emoticons as "punctuation." I try to restrict it though, and some times where it's more rampant with me are on the voice/video posts where it's kind of a moot point anyway...

But yeah. When I do it anyway, that's just my paranoid desire to be understood at all times >_>;; XD;

....

[stripping.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much~

[anarchy-in-ny.livejournal.com]

Fourth Wall: Love it or hate it, you can't hit it over the head with a shovel and bury it under the patio.

[oceanicbutterfly]

Mainly because it's really big and there's not enough room for it under there.

[hezul.livejournal.com]

Mm, on the same note as the internet/fourth wall thing, I was wondering about characters from settings with really low technology levels. Like, if I were to hypothetically pick up say, Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin, computers are still over a century off, so to access the internet does he just...find one somehow? Would he be going MY, WHAT A STRANGE DEVICE THIS IS! at it? There's no electrical power to run it...does all this just kind of get handwaved aside and that's that?

[dreamoflight.livejournal.com]

What I've seen people doing a lot of the time for that is that they essentially find a "magic book" or whatever you want to call it, where they can write in the book and it shows up as entries or comments on DDD-- they often play it as the character not realizing it's anything more than a journal at first until people start commenting at them.

[death-chopper.livejournal.com]

Magic book is the most common, as dreamoflight said. Handwaved randomly appearing laptop's been used as well, and we've even had a case or two of a pre-existing character on the comm showing up in the new character's world and giving them a computer before they officially intro'd. (That was Jacky and the Doctor, I think--a special circumstance, and arranged between the muns beforehand, but still, a possibility.)

[the-final-boss.livejournal.com]

There's no rule to regulate how a character posts to the internet. I had a wizard who thought his laptop was an enchanted book but it turned out to be from a neighboring dimension that existed in his canon (That was Owyn). Silver uses a Pokedex, Garrett was from a steam punk universe so he used a "Mechanist Device" that granted him access to DDD but not the internet at large. Those are all MY characters, of course, people use their imagination for the computer issue.

[oceanicbutterfly]

I think you've got the idea now, but basically it varies. Some characters find random modern computers that just work for some reason, some use magic books and such, some (Indiana Jones for example) connect via the closest thing that would exist in their setting. I think there are some characters where the mun just handwaves the issue away entirely--I know I've never addressed what Eve uses, for example, although in her case it's plausible she just has an Internet connection in her head.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

I think there are some characters where the mun just handwaves the issue away entirely

Yes, there definitely are players that do that. *is lazy*

[hezul.livejournal.com]

I am too lazy and too overdue to go to sleep to reply to all of these but THANK YOU ALL FOR CLARIFYING, now I have to go talk myself out of another app. ♥