faq

[hellhousemod]

Frequently Asked Questions

If the house is always moving, how do our characters communicate when they get lost?

Each character will wake up with what appears to be an iPhone embedded in inside of their non-dominant forearm. It connects to an intranet that allows them to communicate with anyone else trapped in Hell House.

That said, for the first seven days that your character is in the house, they will not be able to see avatars/icons for other characters when they're talking on the network. Other characters will also not be able to see their images. This is to encourage cross-canon play and exploration.

Think about it... Wouldn't it be more interesting to bump into your canon bestie/sibling/parent/significant other in the hall while looking for a snack and find out later that you've been in the same place the whole time? Wouldn't it be more fun to find out that the person with whom you've been having flirty banter on the network is someone you find incredibly attractive? Wouldn't it be better if you were playing a villain if no one knew that the villain was in the house right away?

On the morning of the seventh day your character is in the house, they will suddenly be able to see everyone else's icons and everyone else will be able to see theirs (with the obvious exception of people who have not been in the house for seven days).

There's only one IC community, so where do the network posts even go?

All IC posts go on hellhouse and all OOC posts (mod posts with the current plot, arrivals, and departures, necessary notes for players to know for game play) will go on hellhouseooc. You are probably going to want to track both communities so that you don't miss anything important.

What about dead characters? Can they play? How does that work?

Characters who have died in canon are absolutely allowed in the game. The house will bring them back to life. In the instance that the character died as a child but canonically appears older for whatever reason, then their canonically older body would be the one that they wake up in and it would become corporeal and they would have the same vulnerabilities (or lack thereof) that their body had when they used to be alive.

That said, to keep from spoiling other players, we ask that any character who is dead in their ongoing or recently ended canon have been dead in that canon for at least one month of real time before being played from a post-death canon point. For example, if you're playing a character who died in canon two weeks ago, you'll need to wait an additional two weeks to play them from post-death in Hell House.

Can I suggest a plot? Can I opt-out of a plot? What if a plot triggers me?

You can absolutely suggest a plot, in fact, please do! Leave a comment on this post with your suggestion and we'll try to work it in!

You can also opt-out of any plot that you don't want to participate in. If you feel triggered by a plot (some of them may be triggering and will come with warnings before characters are chosen or players volunteer their characters in), by all means, opt out of it and let other players with whom you have CR know that you would prefer not to take part.

What kind of plots might happen that could be triggering?

This sandbox is sort of in the old style of Insanejournal games, and some of these crack plots haven't exactly aged well. Things like gender and body swaps, de-aging and aging up, body horror, characters having their thoughts, feelings, and actions controlled by the house, and even character death are likely to occur.

I don't want to have to drop my character, so what do you mean character death? That's not mandatory, is it?

No, of course not, but your character can die up to 3 times in game and they will respawn. They will not respawn straight away, you'll have to wait to hear from the mod when your character will come back to life in the house, but they will be restored. After the third time your character dies, they will be considered dropped and you will not be able to play them again. Someone else could pick them up, but they wouldn't be considered playable for you again, so have fun killing your character and letting them work through that trauma, if you want, but be reasonable.

So what kind of stuff can happen in the house when it's a "normal" week with no plot?

What do you want to happen in the house on a normal week? Do you want your character to get attacked by insects while they're admiring the greenery in the greenhouse? Do you want your character to get stuck in the elevator? Do you want your character to walk down a hall and end up stuck in a wall that's popped up out of nowhere?

Go for it. Within reason, anything goes. If you have any questions or you want to be sure before you do a thing, feel free to reach out to the mod via PM or in the comments section of this post.

Your application has canon-puncturing and fourth-walling as separate things? wtf?

These have been separated so that if your character who is a total comic book nerd and would absolutely know Tony Stark/Iron Man, you don't have to play that character ooc by having them not know, but at the same time, if Tony's player doesn't want Tony to have an existential crisis by hearing he doesn't exist in your character's universe as anything other than a piece of fiction, then they don't have to.

If you want to puncture/fourthwall a character, first, check the taken list and make sure that the player has agreed to that. If they agreed to puncturing, your character can recognize theirs. If they agreed to fourthwalling, your character is welcome to tell their character that they're fictional. If they've consented to one or the other, then only the one that they've marked as a yes is okay for your character to do ICly.

If you're unclear or have questions, please ask for help before doing anything. It's better to be safe than sorry!

This FAQ was clearly thrown together in almost no time and it answers exactly none of my actual questions. Now what?

First of all, don't judge me. I got overzealous and excited.

Second, just drop me a line and I'll add your question to the post and answer it. ;)