Rules:

There are MANY because a well-organised Role Play is a happy, successful Role Play.

Literacy is required, meaning full sentences and no chatspeak/text talk.

This is still part of Gaia, so follow the Terms of Service. This means no overtly graphic violence, swearing, or intimacy. Don’t worry; we’re all smart here, so if you imply what’s happening we’ll understand.

Forums:
The Characers subforum is where the profiles for all of the canon and original characters are. Reading them is encouraged to better understand who your own characters are interacting with.

The Players subforum is where you post about your incoming absences and also can get to know your fellow players. To learn more about each other, you're allowed to discuss ANY topic in that subforum as long as it isn't offensive, isn't in chatspeak, and doesn't violate Gaia's ToS. It's almost like an anything goes chatterbox.

The Years Passed subforum contains completed Discussion and Game threads. We do not separate game threads by location, such as the Gryffindor and Slytherin common room, because it's important to know what all of the characters are doing even if your characters aren't directly involved. We don't want to risk people being too lazy to check varying location threads. However, we do separate game threads by years, so if a player wants to refresh his/her memory about a Third Year event whilst we're playing Sixth Year he/she doesn't have to sort through over 500 pages of posts to find it. The Game threads proceed thusly:
Summer Before Marauders' First Year
Marauders' First Year
Summer Before Marauders' Second Year
Marauders' Second Year
and so on.
We have a Discussion thread to accompany the school year/summer that we’re currently playing out, so when one year’s Game thread finishes so does the accompanying Discussion thread.


Original Character Creation:
Creating an original character is not mandatory. All players are limited to one major original character that they must write a profile for…if they want to make an OC at all. I say one "major" OC since if a player is a Ravenclaw they ought to be allowed to mention their roommates once in a while even though we don't know who was in Ravenclaw in the MWPP era.

There is a limit of 5 people per dorm. It’s the maximum amount that there is seen in the books (usually, there are less), and it wouldn’t make sense for more people of a certain age to attend Hogwarts than the other years. If you want to be a Gryffindor girl in the Marauders’ year, and there are already five girls there, then your character will have to be the year above or below them.

Also, everyone cannot be animagi. Just like in the Wizarding World, if you want your character to be one – registered or unregistered – then you need to explain why in the Discussion thread in the main forum and your fellow players will vote on whether or not it’s acceptable. Sorry, but it isn’t canon for 20 people to accompany Remus for Transformations.

Your character is not a god. That means that he or she is not all-knowing. It’s highly recommended to read the profiles of all of the characters, however, that does not mean that your character automatically has all of that information about those characters. There’s no reason why your players would know other players’ (whether they’re canon or OC) worst memories and such unless their character told yours during the course of the role play. Generic things that students gossip about, like clubs people are in and what their blood status is, your characters could know if you wished them to.

The DADA professor alters every year, thus players that desire the position can take turns between who gets to create an extra original character to occupy the job.

Canon Character Distribution:
We divide up the actual canon characters (Marauders, Lily, Severus, etc.) between the players. All players must have at least one canon character, and may take a second if they wish. No one may have more than two. New players can check the Character List and claim any of the characters that aren’t already crossed off of the list. Any unclaimed characters are open to the use of all players whenever appropriate. For example, if no one is designated to play Flitwick and you want him to ask your character a question in Charms Class, then go for it!

You must do the same type of Profile that you did for your OC for both of the canon characters that you choose. The reason for this is that people often don’t view the same characters in the same way. For example, some fan fictions have teenage Sirius flirting with and snogging many girls, and others have him being irritated by girls only fancying him for his looks and “rebel” reputation. Your fellow players need to know which version of canon characters they’re dealing with. You MAY NOT CHANGE anything about canon characters that we know to be true.

Posting:
Every time a person posts in a Game thread the post should begin with Date, Place, Time, such as 1st of Sept, Hogwarts Express, 11:00 am, so we know when and where everything is happening.

We post Bookmark Dates in order (meaning that you can’t jump forwards or backwards in time) but we post pre-discussed events between Bookmark Dates out of order. That may sound strange, so I will clarify.

In the Discussion thread, let the other players know the what, when, and where of future scenes that you want to act out with you characters, such as someone you want your character(s) to meet or a detention that you want your character(s) to have. We do this so that we will have a list of upcoming dates/events. When no players have anything to add to the list, we play out all of the scenes on the list in the Game thread at once, whether the events take place on the same day or not. It isn’t random posting since we discussed the scenes beforehand and will know the order of the scenes courtesy of the Date, Place, Time at the start of each post. This opens up the number of scenes we have playing at the same time. We continue until all of the scenes on the list are completed and the next agreed upon Bookmark Date is reached.

Bookmark Dates are days that have to be posted in order in the Game thread because they involve almost every character. Example Bookmark Dates are Hallowe’en and Christmas. A Bookmark Date does not need to be a holiday; it’s whatever everyone in the Discussion thread decides is best. While a Bookmark Date is being played out in the Game thread, we establish a new list of dates/events in the Discussion thread so that when the Bookmark Date is over we can post the decided-upon events out of order again.

Every player can only have one scene to play out with each of his/her characters between Bookmark Dates. (If you have three characters, then you might have three scenes on the upcoming events list; one for each character.) The reason for this is that it would be confusing to keep track of simultaneously playing two different scenes in two different locations with the same character.

Posts in a row do not have to be directly related. If the last post is in the Gryffindor Common room and your character is a Slytherin, then you can post what’s happening down in the dungeons.

Pictures are often included in the Character Profiles, but do not put pictures in your posts in the Game Threads. It takes up unnecessary space. If a celebration in the RPG is about to take place and you want the rest of the players to be aware how your characters are dressed, then post the pics in the Discussion Thread or Players subforum.

Absences:
If a person goes two weeks without posting anywhere in the guilds without telling the rest of the players that he/she is going to be absent then he/she will receive a warning. If it happens a second time, he/she will be bannned. Yes, banning is harsh, but it’s necessary to keep the RP moving. Also, it's doubtful that anyone would be so discourteous more than once.

Canon:
Stick to canon information. Few events about the Marauders’ era have been confirmed, so all of the confirmed ones matter. If you truly believe that altering something would benefit the storyline, such as having Sirius run away at fifteen instead of sixteen, then you may post it in the Discussion thread and have all players vote on the issue.

This means that the RP will end in 1981 with the treachery of Peter, death of James and Lily, arrest of Sirius, and Remus being left without his best friends. It’s sad, however, because it’s when the Marauders undeniably come to an end as a group, it’s canon for our RPG to end as well. We have many happy things to get through until we reach that point!

Joining:
Answer the questions on the guild’s homepage to prove that you have read the books. We accept new players at all times. If we've been playing for a while and someone new wants to join he does NOT have to begin as a first year, though he can if he wants to. He simply needs to come up with a reason why he was never noticed before. Was he like Luna to the Golden Trio, overlooked due to being in a different year and House? Did he transfer from another wizarding school? Etcetera.

After your acceptance, you must post profiles in the Characters subforum for your OC and both of your canon characters BEFORE you can play in the Game threads. You may take one or two canon characters, though you must have at least one canon character and not merely an OC. If you do not want an OC, that is also acceptable.

The Game threads are only for role playing, so after you successfully join and complete your profiles there is no need to introduce yourself in a Game thread. Just start playing! Once other players notice a new face they will most likely take the initiative to check the where your character profiles are posted.

What are you waiting for? Come and join us!