Game Rules

1. Overview, "What is the U.S.S. Wyvern PBEM RPG?"
2. Posting rules and requirements
3. Vacations, "Is there any "time off" from the game?"
4. "What happens if a player fails to post?"

Introduction: The Wyvern is a Play-by-Email role playing game, which means that the game uses electronic mail message as a medium by which the actions of characters and other events are played out. These email messages are typically referred to as “posts,” borrowing the term from other electronic messaging services such as newsgroups and message boards, and the act of writing and submitting these messages is called “posting.”

Preliminary recommendations: It is recommended that players write their posts using word processing software, preferably a word processing program that allows the user to automatically save the document after a preset period of time. This feature prevents the work completed to be lost should the computer lose power or crash. In addition, it is preferred that posts are spell checked to avoid mistakes, although the proper names and other Star Trek references will not be recognized by spell check algorithms.

The post header: The first few lines of a post give a brief overview of the contents of the post. This includes information about the player's character, when the post takes place, and where the post is set. This information is typically distributed over the first four lines of the post as follows

[rank] [character name], [post type]
[position], [ship]
Stardate: [5 digit stardate]
[location]

• The first element for the post header is the character's name and rank. This informs the reader who the central character in the post is, and like most Starfleet officers, the character is typically identified by both rank and name. The rank can be abbreviated, such as reducting Lieutenant to LT, Lieutenant Commander to LtCmdr, and Ensign to Ens.
  
  
• The post type indicates whether the post focuses on the character performing his or her duties as a Starfleet officer (“Duty Posts”), or the character's inner thoughts or recreational activities (“Personal Posts”). Personal posts are often the preferred means of character development, as they emphasize the character's activities without confining the character to responses within the current storylines.
  
  
• The position and ship provide information about the character's function on the ship and in the story. As the game universe unfolds, there may be instances where characters from other ships (or game characters temporarily filling roles on other ships) are the focal characters of posts, and this information provides a means to differentiate characters that are filling the same position but on different ships.
  
  
• The Stardate system is a Star Trek standard for measuring the passage of time. In the “Next Generation” era of Star Trek, the Stardates consist of five digits, followed by a decimal and a single digit; the last digit represents a time period of 1/10th of a 24 hour day, or 144 minutes. However, only the first five digits are relevant to the Wyvern RPG, are are incremented based on in-game time to reflect the passage of time within the game.
  
  For example, Joe Smith submits a post where his security officer character watches the prisoner confined to the Wyvern's brig, with a Stardate of 58421. If the player controlling the Chief of Security has the character enter the brig while Joe Smith is on duty, the post would have the same Stardate (58421), even if the Chief of Security's post is written three days after Joe Smith posts.
  
  Likewise, if Jane Jones submits a post where her medical officer performs an autopsy on the prisoner after he is mysteriously killed the following day, the Stardate would be incremented by 1 (to 58422), even if Jane Jones's post is written on the same day Joe Smith's post is sent.
  
  
• The location provides basic information about where the scene described in the post takes place. As it is likely that the story will unfold where the members of the Wyvern crew are located in seperate locations – such as having characters on both the ship and a planet they are orbiting – this helps differentiate the scenes and the stories those scenes affect.

An example of a post header might be:

Ensign John Doe, Duty Post
Security Officer, USS Wyvern
Stardate: 58421
USS Wyvern: Brig

The post email subject: In addition to the post header, the email subject also gives a brief overview of the content within the post. This contains some of the same information as the post header, but condensed to a single line.

[rank] [character name], [post type], SD: [stardate]

Like the post header, the character's name and rank are provided, along with the type of post and the stardate at which the post is set. See the information from the post header on these elements. Using the same example as from the post header section, the email subject line would read:

Ensign John Doe, Duty Post, SD: 58421

The emailing list service will automatically add the [uss-wyvern] tag at the beginning of the email subject line, there is no need to include this tag within the subject line.

Posting Frequency: While we have a preference towards quality instead of quantity of posts, the game grows stagnant if there is no posting activity.

Department heads are required to post at least once per week, as a reflection of their increased responsibilities as leaders of their departments. The positions that require posts to be sent once per week are as follows:

• Commanding Officer ("CO," "Captain")
• Executive Officer ("XO," "First Officer")
• Chief Engineer ("CEO")
• Chief of Security ("CSO", "CoS")
• Chief Medical Officer ("CMO")
• Chief Science Officer ("CSciO")
• Ship's Counselor

All other players are required to post at least once per month.