Terminology

[K]

Think of this as your glossary for Seinvocc. If you struggle with pronunciation, use this reference sheet for many phonetic symbols: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling115/phonetics.html

abilities- n. generic term for powers, skills, techniques, spells, curses, manipulations, jutsu, et cetera; term refers to abilities of a character and its equipment, but equipment abilities should go in the "Inventory" forum, by default

autohit (ɑ-to-hɪt)- n. action that can not be blocked, dodged, redirected, et cetera; largely disallowed, but some abilities may grant this factor, though not without a cost of some sort

char (kær)- n. short for "character"

cost- n. generic term for drawbacks of an action that exists to make it fair

cutscene ability- n. action by which time seems to be stopped for all but the participants, those usually being the attacker and target(s), and not always all the participants (sometimes just the attacker), thereby almost always an autohit; usually limited to one per character (at least from starting point), often as a last breath action

exclusive property (of weapons, abilities, energies, et cetera)- n. property of the subject that allows it to be only usable, manipulable, or able to be possessed by its respective owner(s)

godhack (gɑd-hæk)- 1. n. one who godhacks; see "godmod"
2. n. see "god-mode"
v. - godhacking (present tense), godhacked (past tense)

godmod (gɑd-mɑd)- n. one who god-modes

god-mode (gɑd-mod)- n. role-play (RP) by which one oversteps one's boundaries by acting beyond the limits of one's Level (or other, similar ranking, on other sites), stats/parameters, or otherwise dominating by an unprecedented power, not by skill; disallowed to all but the Royals for obvious reasons
v. - god-moding (present tense), god-moded (past tense)

Houcm (haʊk-m)- 1. n. "main" universe of the dimension of Seinvocc, where there are no presets for RPing
2. n. "main" planet of the Houcm Universe

last breath action- n. action that can only be executed when the acting party is critical of health, usually having the power to account for the prerequisite; restrictions as to uses per battle or time frame may apply

manaburn (mæ-nə-bɜːrn)- n. property of an ability to be potent in variation to the target's current and/or maximum mana, chakra, or other account of energy or other measurable factor ((Note that there are different versions of an ability by the same name; this term is for the generic property of similar abilities.))

manaburst (mæ-nə-bɜːrst)- n. property of an ability to be potent in variation to the user's (definition 2; read below) current and/or maximum mana, chakra, or other account of energy or other measurable factor ((Note that there are different versions of an ability by the same name, just as with "Manaburn;" this term is for the generic property of similar abilities.))

metagaming (mɛ-tə-ge-miŋ)- n. role-playing in which one's character has knowledge or conducts actions on behalf of the user's (definition 1; read below) knowledge; not allowed on RP sites for obvious reasons (Example: If Noah's user is out to get Laola's user, Noah should not go out to kill Laola without a reason. Example 2: If Noah has a reason for killing Laola, Laola shouldn't consciously avoid him unless she has a logical, in-game reason to believe that Noah is out to get her. Example 3: Noah's user may read Laola's abilities, but Noah will not know them until he scans them/sees them in action/et cetera. Example 4: Laola's user may read every post that Noah has ever made, but Laola will not know anything about his history until she is told.)

one-shot- n. post in which all of a target's health (either to knockout or death) is emptied (or close enough); generally executed as a godhack when against other characters, and thereby disallowed; occasions on which this is allowed are rare, usually by consent of or as punishment to the targeted user; variations include "two-shot," 'three-shot," and more, each being more reasonable, if the ability is made to be fair by costs or such

parameter (pə-ræ-mə-tər)- n. statistical value that fluctuates regularly, such as health, mana, and chakra; can be, but does not have to be, numerically calculated; see "Stats and Parameters" topic

Pierce (pɪrs) [also Piercing Magic, Piercing Jutsu, et cetera]- n. ability, usually of the "passive" or "support" variety, to allow spells or other would-be reflect-able abilities to pierce the status effect, "Reflect," usually in addition to similar reflecting or otherwise redirecting properties

piercing (pɪr-siŋ) [also piercing effect, piercing property, piercing attack, and more]- adj. having an ability to surpass defenses, usually limited to stats and/or status effects (such as "Protect" or "Shell")

Seinvocc (seɪn-vɑk; rhymes with "rain dock")- 1. n. this site
2. n. the dimension-intersection in which many universes exist with countless stories; connected to the Soluna System (which can not be found online)

shotgun effect- n. property of an ability that makes it work better at close ranges, but expand in radius at greater ranges

skill- 1. n. generic term for character abilities that are based on the character's proficiency with something else, be it a weapon(s), magic(s), exclusive energy(ies), or elsewise
2. n. a user's role-playing skill; the primary determinate of a character's success

skillset- n. set of skills and other abilities that are organized into a category ((Examples can be seen throughout most of Caleb's characters' ability lists.))

stat- n. a character's statistical power in a given field (such as physical strength or magical resistance), excluding the character's abilities, also excluding the more variable "parameters;" can be, but does not have to be, numerically calculated; see "Stats and Parameters" thread
((Whether you admit it or not, there are statistical factors of a person's capabilities. That's all that these are. They do make sense, and, if you don't get it, ask, and I can expound, but not without being somewhat redundant.))

user- 1. n. the person "behind" the character(s); you
2. n. actor/actress/whatever of an ability; character that performs the subject action
((You should be able to tell when which definition is used. The second will be the case in ability or ability property descriptions, and the first will generally be in other out-of-character communication. You can always ask for clarification, too.))

More will be added as more terms appear to be documented.

[K]

OOC- This defines out-of-character communication in an otherwise in-character forum. Unless otherwise stated, all posts in the Important Stuff (Please Read!) and OOC Area categories are out-of-character. The others, namely Houcm Universe and Other Universes, default as in-character forums.

((text))- This is a more convenient and clearer way to express out-of-character communication. In the following example, a character takes action, then speaks, and the user then grants an explanatory comment:

Noah summoned three Phantoms, one bearing an iron axe, another with a round shield, and another with an iron sword.

"That could've worked out better . . ."

((Noah doesn't pick which equipments his Phantoms come with. I just pull equipment names off the top of my head, so he can sometimes get what he wants, and sometimes not. No worries; I'll always be fair about this, and the other admins will be watching to be sure of that.))

Example Fin.

[Laola]

knockback (KB) factor [also called the launch factor]- n. capability of an action to knock its target in a direction

flinch factor- n. capability of an action to make its target flinch, potentially delaying/interrupting opposition

[K]

attack type- n. categorization of the statistical properties of any action or influential part of an action (not necessarily an attack)

physical [abbreviated as "phy"]- adj. material

metaphysical (mɛ-tə-fɪ-zɪ-kl) [abbreviated as "metaphy"]- adj. not magical, but containing a component that surpasses ordinary physics (such as many kinds of aurablasts; they still deal physical damage and are calculated on physical stats, but they aren't your standard hack-and-slash; also, elemental manipulation is often metaphy)
((By the way, the term literally means "beyond physical," so it seems like it should apply to magic, chakra, and everything, but this is how the term is used on the site, so as to keep damage types more organized.))

magical [abbreviated as "mag"]- collective term for magical, chakra, or other energy factors, usu. empowered by the user's magical potency and hindered by the target's magical resistance

[Noah Ivaldi]

Mary Sue- 1. n. excessively, disgustingly idealistic, female character whom is usually a romantization of the author with no character flaws (or no clear or noteworthy flaws), has seemingly limitless aptitude in all endeavors, has the love interest of any/all of the author's desired characters, has the ability to perfectly play matchmaker for any other desired pairings, and exists solely for the literary wish-fulfillment of the author's illiterately fanciful wishes
2. n. a story, usu. a fanfiction, in which the main character is a Mary Sue

Marty Stu- 1. n. male Mary Sue
2. n. story, usu. a fanfic, in which the main character is a Marty Stu

[Choh Lehko]

draw-in effect/factor/aspect- n. capability of an action to act as a magnet, centrifuge, or other object that can locationally attract a target(s)

repulsion effect/factor/aspect- n. capability of an action to repel a target(s); reverse draw-in effect/factor/aspect

self-destruction/sacrificial ability- n. ability that causes the user to become unconscious or dead in order to perform a dynamic action

[Learpabru]

(Erm, sorry; I thought that I already posted this . . . How odd . . .)

human- n. typically adaptive being with a soul, usu. bipedal, usu. having chakra and/or mana by default; includes many races and species, not any particular specie alone; not to be confused with "hume," a versatile, human race that is known for its wide variations of characteristics

[Leilani]

I keep forgetting about this one.

bunnying- v. the act of controlling characters and/or events that the user does not have rightful control of

There are many examples of bunnying. All of them are dumb, but some are slightly less dumb than others.

The most common one that people do, intentionally or not, and sometimes even get away with because it's subtle, is an instance in which a character finds something/someone that the user should not be able to dictate. If your character is walking along and you write that you find some spontaneous treasure, pre-cut lumber, a secret passage, or whatever, that's not fair. You don't get to obtain whatever you want/go wherever you want/whatever just by saying so. You can look around for this or that, and an NPA or Royal may post that it whatever you're looking for enters your view at such-and-such point or something, they may post that something else is there, or nothing at all. It's like real life; you don't find your keys just because you want to. If anything, wanting to find your keys is what triggers gremlins to hide them better.

A similar form of this occurs when farming. Note that farming, in games, refers to the process of acquiring all kinds of goods and materials, not just agriculture and ranching. I haven't seen much point in writing that into the terminology until this instance. Anyway, sometimes, characters go fishing, mining, foraging, et cetera, and the user writes what they found. Again, that's not really fair. If you go digging, you don't get to decide that you get big lumps of gold; you just dig in whatever direction(s) for however long for whatever distance, and you find whatever is there. Royals and NPCs tell you what's there. You don't cast your line and auto-catch a ton of free, yummy food; you cast your line, then a mod/admin responds to let you know that you hooked anything from a dragon to a sahagin to trout to an old boot. You don't wander up a mountain and auto-find whatever mushroom you needed for the stew that you intended to cook; you describe your search of the mountain, and an NPC or Royal decides what you found.

In the above two instances, usually, the only character that's affected is yours; it's just events and the environment that you're controlling unfairly. Plus, we can be generous, and you may do some of this in a less-than-extreme manner, so there generally isn't too big a difference. Therefore, we're pretty forgiving about it; if you do this once or twice and it's not a big deal, we'll warn you, but we may play along as though it all went normally. If you keep seizing control, even if you do it moderately (at least in your own view), though, we'll have to start telling you to edit your posts. Of course, refusing just means that we'll edit or delete your posts, and refusing to edit is rather rude, so you may not like our choices very much. It's not like we'll cause your character to do something stupid and get killed over a little discrepancy, but, you know, we won't just let you slide all the time.

A slightly more troubling instance is that in which your character, say, "goes and asks a random bystander about" blah blah blah and gets some information. A simple example would be directions. Just posting that you talk to some random person about whatever it is that you want to know and finishing the conversation on your own, even when it's as simple as directions to the nearest hospital, gets rid of our opportunities to play with you. How are we supposed to respond if you do it all yourself? If you ask for something even as simple as directions, it gives us an opportunity to add something. We decide what character it is that you just chose at random, we decide how they respond, and all that stuff that makes this a multiplayer game. You may find a nu mou that tells you to go screw yourself, or you may talk to a bangaa that offers you a free ride or something. We may just post that it's a generic-looking hume that tells you to go this way and that way, then you can be on your way. That's the fun in it; no matter how simple the occurrence, it's something that we can work with. Here is a great example of how NPC interactions should go. It's not like everything has to be a huge, community project; it's just good for your character to actually interact when you require an interaction.

The same applies when looking for a person/monster/et cetera. When you want a certain pokémon, you don't post that you "search all over (X region) until you find that, ignoring everything else that pops up," and you don't just "go into (X place) and find" a certain person. Again, describe your search. If you post something like what I just said, a mod is going to respond with something like, "((areyoufuckingkiddingme.jpg))" You could post something more along the lines of:

%I walk into the Shallows Village and take a look around.%

"I suppose that there's no way to find her except than to search the whole town."

%I start with the East side. I think that her house was somewhere behind the Muddy Breeze, so I walk to that tavern, go behind it, and start moseying down the alleys. At each turn, I call out,%

"Sally? Hey, does anyone know where Sally is?"

We'd be fine with that. You're not covering the whole town in one post; you're just checking around this area. That gives us an opportunity to have someone respond, post that there's no response, post that Sally just happened to be right around the second corner on your right and answered you with whatever speech we write, or whatever. We could write that there's some monster attack, a random comet shower, or whatever else to interrupt. It's an open book, not just, "I want this. I get it."

See the Atypical Institution. You don't bunny reality by just going in, researching whatever you want to know, and going out. You go in, ask the local sensei for help, and are directed to the literature that you are looking for. It's a lot of this same concept; "reality" is determined by unattached mods and admins, not just whatever you have happen to your character. It's an RPG, not a fanfic.

Is all of this striking you as common sense, so far? It should. Most of it is easy to mess up, though, so it's fair to state it nice and clearly. Also, to be clear, I'm not saying that you can't have some abilities that make finding (whatever) easier or something. You can have an ability that specifically searches the ground for N amount of X material for you. You can have a magical machine that drills and somehow always pumps up Y amount of oil each day or something. You can have stuff to help track things/people down. You are allowed to have things that give you some consistency. As long as it makes sense and is fair, that's not a problem. It's just rude to just lazily skip over everything and dictate that reality gives you what you were going for. Even posting that things don't go right for your character is against the same rule; you're still controlling reality that mods and admins are supposed to play with you on. We appreciate the effort to try to be reasonable about whatever you're doing, but just play your character, and we'll let stuff happen.

You may be wondering about some dependencies to be resolved. How is a mod going to know that your character needs to find ___? How are we going to know how important it is for ___ to happen? How are you ever going to get your ___ with us at the reigns? Chill, chill. Usually, things are obvious enough that mod/admin interaction will work out just fine. You may take a little longer to find that pokémon than you had hoped to find, but you eventually find it, find something that can take its place and settle on that, or give up to try again the next day. Let's say that there is something that you genuinely feel that you need to dictate in some way or another, though. You can always send a PM to one of us or talk about it in the chatbox. If you post a topic in which you start searching and send a message to a mod to say, "plz plz let me have a mewtwo i reali need oneeee!!!1111!!1111" or the like, don't count on us to cooperate. If you write up a message for us to post for you, we'll probably ignore it and do things our way. However, a reasonable request can meet friendly results. Let's say that you send me a PM that says this:

Hey, I'm not sure who's controlling the NPC medic in (insert thread title here), but she said that I specifically need a chansey egg to cure my pet augury within four hours. I just opened a thread in which I start looking for one hurriedly. I was hoping that you could show some mercy and let it go well quickly enough. I spent some time making some intensely cool plans for that thing, and I'm rather fond of it, so I'd like not to see it die too easily.

How could I say no to that? Well, I could. I could say, "Dude, you practically sacrificed it three times in that last battle and had it behave as recklessly and suicidally as possible to buy yourself a bit of time. If you really wanted it to live that badly, you wouldn't have been a dumbass about it." Even in such a case as that, though, I'd usually throw you a bone. Anyway, the bone that I'd throw could be one of many; there could be an inexplicable space-time distortion that buys some time for you, there could be a masterful time mage that just happened to be passing by this hospital, you could find a random chansey egg, you could find a chansey, you could find a cureall of such great potency that it could serve as your chansey egg . . . Interestingly, you could find a happiny and begin the story of how you coddled the thing into loving you so much that it evolved in one hour, twenty-seven minutes, then hauled ass to get back to the hospital in three minutes and handed the egg over before collapsing from exhaustion. Hehehehe. See what I mean? If there's something that you want to have a say in, you can ask for it, and we are likely to play along accordingly or help with an alternate solution. We're not just making you rely on us so that we can be dicks; we're trying to make a cool story with you.

The most offensive form of bunnying is instances in which you control another character. You don't get to decide that your opponent attacked a certain way, so you dodge a certain way. You post your attacks and responses, the opponent posts its responses and attacks, and so on. If you are fighting alongside another char, you do not get to simply delegate that you use this combined attack. You can have your character communicate this (Telepathy and the like comes in handy for maintaining the element of surprise.), the other character can respond, one of you can do the setup, and the other can do the follow-up. In real life, you don't get to jump at your ally and expect them to know that they're supposed to catch you and hurl you at the opponent; if you're dumb enough to try something like that, you need to tell your ally beforehand so that they can be dumb enough to try it with you. Even if you're in control of both characters that are involved, the in-character communication has to be there unless it's some joint attack that they always do and they've known each other long enough to identify each other's telegraphing or whatnot. This should be common sense. If your ally does something and you react by following it up with something that goes well with it, fine; that's something that can logically happen. If you delay your attack to act simultaneously, if you change your tactics in relation to what your ally is doing, and whatever else, that's all logical. Just don't pull some random Wonder Twins crap out of nowhere. That kind of stuff will give you warnings and edits.

This should all come pretty naturally. If you're about to post something and you're wondering if you would be bunnying or not, send it in a PM to a staff member or something; we will be happy to give you a hand until you've got a firm, personal grasp on it.

[K]

Point of clarification: Apparently, Marty Stus are less commonly called Gary Stus. I've not heard the latter term, so I'm going to assume that they are completely interchangeable until told otherwise.

[Tori Keheraht]

White knight: "White knighting" is improperly used as an insult for being a good guy. People are terrible, and they comfort themselves by telling themselves that everyone else is terrible, too, so anyone who ever says anything righteous or just is merely putting on a show for approval/attention/social advantage, as far as they're concerned.
Its more appropriate usage is in the context of role-playing, whereupon a user portrays his/her character as an archetypical hero and often goes out of his/her way to insert the character into every situation that (s)he can in which (s)he can stop something that the char and user view as immoral or even morally questionable from happening. For instance, one character may harass another, perhaps to invoke a spar or just rib one another as friends, or elsewise drive a plot, and a white knight character will jump in and go on a flag-waving, pretentious, corny rant at the one that (s)he blames, long before investing any effort into understanding the context or reason.
RP white knighting is generally regarded as an annoying and thoughtless thing to do, and it often involves metagaming, so that's a bad thing, but it has nothing to do with standing up for what's right in real life.