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	FAQ • Overview • Character Cap • Appable Characters • • Non-Humans • Items & Pets • Power Cap • • Dead/Dying Characters • Arrival • Star Center • • Rooming/Teams • The "Show" • The NPCs • Languages • • Pacing • Events • Death • Currency • Posting Format • • Activity Check • Hiatusing • Dropping • • Canon Updates • The Fourth Wall • Pregnancy • So what is this place? Psychotropia is a panfandom roleplaying game set in a scientific facility called Star Center, which lies on an alien planet. Here in Star Center, characters' are hailed as the height of science, artificial beings complete with complex, implanted memories. Their daily lives are monitored by cameras as part of Psychotropia, an online reality show run by Aldebaran Industries. The audience of Pychotropia uses the website to watch the residents, then submits and votes on challenges to inflict on them. ICly, challenges are not explained in advance and happen regularly, spanning 1-2 IC days at the start of every week. OOCly, this means events take either two or four OOC days and happen every other weekend. If you're confused, please scroll down to the pacing explanation. A unique feature of the game is that we allow and highly encourage event idea submissions from anyone either in the game or outside of it! That's right, you are the audience! Every non-event weekend there will be a comm-locked poll for the playerbase to choose which event they want to play next! If you have an idea, please head to the challenge suggestion page and let us know. This game will contain dark/mature content and sometimes graphic violence. Due to this, players must be sixteen to join. Additionally, events cannot be opted out of without a hiatus except in rare exceptions. The premise will lead to a lot of potentially heavy things such as body horror and challenges that force characters to harm their loved ones. We will try to allow options during events so you can avoid your individual triggers/squicks, but if you are not prepared for that kind of material, this is probably not the game for you. That said, hiatuses are very easy to take and events are very short, so it should be no problem to just hop out of play for two days! There is no penalty for doing this, so don't be afraid to skip an event you don't like. What is the character cap? Psychotropia has a game-wide character cap of 150 characters. This is to discourage rapid turnover and keep the plot manageable. ICly the facility is not magical and does not house more than 150 residents. Due to this cap, you may not be slotted into the game right away when you're accepted. Please be aware of this system before you app! For more information on how characters are slotted into the game, please see the application page. What kinds of characters can I app? Psychotropia accepts characters from any established canon! TV, book, comic, video game, anime, webcomic -- if it exists in a published (web publishing counts) form it's appable. We also accept original characters! We do not accept fandom OCs, fanmade AUs, characters with previous game memories, or characters without enough canon to play from. Minor characters with very little canon will be accepted on a case-by-case basis. For example, a character who only appears in one episode of a show but whose background we explicitly know because they are a sibling of a main character would probably be allowed. A character who shows up in every episode but is only known as "the mysterious man" is not going to be accepted. If your app is going to be more than half headcanon, you might want to reconsider apping. We do accept canon AUs so long as they are significantly different in personality or experiences. For example, we would accept both original and Kingdom Hearts versions of Final Fantasy characters. We would also accept both the male and female protagonist of Persona 3. We would not accept both regular and TYL versions of Katekyo Hitman Reborn characters. Please make sure that your canon AU is a different character from their duplicate. This is judged on a case-by-case basis by the mods and all decisions are final. Real people and historical figures are not appable. If you want to app a historical figure from an established published canon, however, that's just fine! If you're apping from mythology or another source with many variations, please be sure to include what sources you're using! We allow mythological characters, but we will watch them for consistency. What about non-human characters? Non-humans will arrive mostly unchanged. Aliens are aliens, robots are robots, and animals are animals. The only differences will be if the character is not capable of surviving in an Earth-like atmosphere. If the character could not reasonably function breathing Earth's air or feeling Earth's level of air pressure and gravity (or with normal eletric lighting), they will find themselves adjusted just enough that they can survive in the facility. The first exception to this is if the character would come with a convenient functioning workaround in their inventory (for example, Tali from Mass Effect could bring her suit as an item and circumvent this rule, OR she could leave the suit behind and find herself modified, depending on the choice of her player). If you're not sure your workaround will work with the game, please ask the mods and we will work with you! The second exception is if a character is too big, physically, to fit in the facility. Anything more than 10 feet tall needs to come down to that height just to fit in the building. Take that into consideration when playing characters like transformers, please! What can my character bring with them? Your character may bring up to five non-clothing items with them on entry. This includes weapons, armor, magical items, or pets/magical companions. If you are going to bring a pet or few along, make sure they would not be appable characters on their own. If the "pet" is sapient and has their own character, they can't be brought in as an item. If you have questions about a potential pet or item, please ping the mods. Is there a powercap? The short answer is "yes". The long answer is "only if the powers are unfair or game-breaking". The facility's walls and other construction are impervious to damage, so destructive powers aren't in themselves a problem. The only powers you need to cap are ones that bring you to god tier, allow god-moding, or would get around the rules (i.e. time travel). Think of it from the other player's perspective: would you want to be in a challenge pitted against the character you're apping? Would you, as the player of another character, find the character you're apping to have an unfair advantage over everyone? Think about that, and cap your powers accordingly. If we look at your abilities section and see unfair power levels, we'll ask you to tone it down. As a note, cartoon physics is considered a special ability in this game. Feel free to retain certain qualities if they're the difference between your character being playable and very difficult to maneuver (i.e. cartoon animals being able to use pens), but please cap(remove) cartoon traits that prevent characters from ever being damaged, etc. Details are up to you, but talk to the mods if you have a question about what's acceptable! What if my character is dead/dying/ill/cursed in canon? Dead characters are no longer dead in Psychotropia! Characters who died should only be aware of an afterlife if a canon one exists. Dead characters will arrive with their bodies healed to the state they were in before they were mortally wounded/sick/otherwise died. This also applies to characters who had taken fatal injuries but weren't dead yet at their canon point. Dying or cursed characters will find things a little more complicated. Characters who are ill/cursed/otherwise damaged in the long term will still be ill/cursed when they arrive. Their problem will progress as normal, but it can be halted in place or removed by paying for a cure at the Infirmary (or having someone else pay for it). How does my character arrive? Characters arrive in Star Center in the Welcome Room. This is a small medical room between the Infirmary and the inaccessible Labs. They will wake up with a faint memory of being on a cold table under a bright light and the complete certainty that all of their memories are false. The feeling will be disorienting, but the knowledge that they are an artificially created being will already be undeniable in their head. They will find themselves wearing only a hospital gown and lying on a comfortable medical bed. There will be a doctor in a white hazmat suit with no features visible and a strange, almost bubbly-sounding accent. He will greet them as on the premise page and answer any basic questions about the layout of Star Center (via a map on the wall of the room) and how the reality show works, and hand them their "starter pack". The starter pack is a black backpack with zippers in the colour of your barracks team. The bag filled with all your character needs to get started: Uniforms - each backpack contains three sets of the Star Center uniform and appropriate underthings. The uniform comes in two types (which your character gets is up to the player). Type 1 consists of sturdy black pants, a good quality white T-shirt, a denim jacket in the colour of their barracks team, and sturdy boots and goggles both in their team colour. Type 2 consists of black leggings, a white button-up shirt, a black cardigan, a pleated skirt in the colour of their barracks team, and sturdy boots and goggles also in their team colour. Toiletries - each backpack contains all the basic toiletries your character needs to get by for about two weeks. Toothbrush & paste, shampoo & soap, hairbrush, shaving things -- whatever you would pack in your own travel toiletries kit is probably there, though there are no unnecessary luxuries. There is also a single fluffy towel (white, black, or team colour). Card Case - each character gets a small folding card holder. It includes an ID/Key Card with the character's barracks team on it (used to open doors) and a Ticket Card for use at the Ticket Shop. The ticket card comes preloaded with 1000 tickets when a character first enters. Ticket cards can be passed around between characters (for example picking up the card of a dropped character), but ID/Key cards only work for their original owner. If your character is not human, the starter pack will be adjusted to work with their species. For example, it might contain shoes to fit alien feet. If your character is not humanoid at all, the adjustments will fit that too. For example a sapient cat will instead have a bag that easily slips over their head/forelegs and sits on their shoulders, which would contain a collar or harness instead of a uniform. A cat's cards might come in the form of metal tags that doors will open automatically in the presence of. If you want to run an idea by the mods or aren't sure your idea for accommodation would work, don't be afraid to ask! Once the starter pack is handed over, the character will be given the chance to change into their uniform (and help doing so if needed) and shoo'd into the main Infirmary to fend for themselves. If the doctor is attacked, the character will find themselves suddenly falling unconscious. When they next awake their starter pack will be at the foot of the bed and they'll have to figure it all out alone. What is Star Center like? Star Center is a very clinical kind of facility. The ceilings are either 14 feet (floors two & three) or 20 feet (floor one) and the doorways are all 10 feet high. Doors are electronic and open when an ID/Key Card is swiped in their lock (or automatically in the presence of an ID/Key card belonging to a non-human character with an alternate ID/Key Card form). The walls and major fixtures (counters, etc) are impervious to any kind of damage, though furniture and other non-built-in items are as breakable as they'd be in real life. Star Center includes barracks-style housing and all the rooms necessary to run their show. For details, please see the locations page! One important thing about Star Center, however, is that all the non-essential, luxury rooms are locked to begin with. Characters can donate to the group fund for each unlock, until all the special rooms are open for use. After that, who knows what other upgrades they could work towards? Group funds are kept track of via comments on the locations page. Is rooming relevant? (On Teams) Sometimes! Right now there are 15 barracks, each of which can house up to 10 characters. Characters are placed into barracks and either at random or by request of the player at the time of application. They are also assigned a bunk number within that barracks. Each barracks has a name and a colour assigned to it, and the people who live there are considered part of that "barracks team". Mostly the teams are only for residence/identification, but sometimes they'll be utilized in events! For example, there could be an event where everyone in a particular barracks is turned into monsters that the rest of the residents have to fight, or one where each barracks suffers a different environment change or status effect. If you'd like to create a sense of "team" with the other characters in your barracks, go for it! If not, no problem. You can utilize the "teams" as much or as little as you like individually. A bonus feature of barracks teams is the idea of a "Team Leader". This person will be elected by the team during the first event of the game, and afterwards will be reelected whenever the leader drops or resigns from their post. The Team Leader ICly receives notices and instructions for some events. Additionally, some team-based events might require the leader to make reports or do other additional tasks to clear the goal. Leaders will not always get the "special" roles or get OOC preferred treatment. However, having a leader gives a team a spokesperson of sorts and introduces new elements of play -- after all, who says the leader will be honest with their information? What about the cameras? How does the "show" work? Every part of the compound besides the bathrooms is filmed 24/7! The cameras are hidden and indestructible, but they are certainly there, filming the characters' every moves. Beyond that, events are the only time there's a real IC reminder of the "reality show" aspect. If questioned, the Doctor or Cook will explain the way the show works for the audience. For them, feeds from every camera are available 24/7 on their version of a website. Rather than "episodes", the show is a constant stream of high quality video/audio. People watching the show have fun watching different cams than their friends and trying to catch the interesting bits. Major events and "choice clips" are recorded to be played back as "highlights". This is all completely irrelevant to the characters at this time. It's just information to help you, the player, visualize what's going on in the world the game is set in. Who are the NPCs? Aldebaran Industries is a well-known entertainment company on an alien planet the name of which has yet to be revealed. The NPCs in the game are all scientists hired by Aldebaran Industries to help run the giant social experiment that is "Psychotropia". The point of the show, from their end, is to see how cruel an audience will or will not be when they believe that the people they're hurting aren't real. Whether the characters are actually artificial beings or if they've only had their brains messed with to believe so is still a mystery at this point. There are four main NPCs: three the characters will encounter from day to day, and one they'll hear a lot about. All three visible NPCs keep their appearances hidden within hazmat suits of an unknown material. In the future there may be the chance for players to add their own, but for now the known NPCs are: The Doctor - No, not that Doctor. This NPC runs the infirmary and presumably the Labs. He always appears in a white hazmat suit. The Doctor is friendly, but his pleasantness does not extend to actually sympathizing with the residents. He is certainly a mad scientist, though he also has a crippling cowardice. When threatened, he renders all residents in the room unconscious using a mysterious item within his suit and disappears for an hour or so. To get a quest from the Doctor, visit the Infirmary page! The Cook - The master of the Mess Hall, The Cook appears in an orange hazmat suit. She is large in build and quite boisterous, bringing to mind images of a jolly household matron. While she won't give away information or help out too directly, The Cook will treat the residents like people -- in fact, she'll treat them like buddies whether they like it or not. If attacked, The Cook's suit emits a field ten feet around her within which any resident will frozen in place. If possible, she'll talk her attacker down while they're held still. If talking it out isn't possible, she'll easily pick the troublemakers up and deposit them outside the Mess Hall, which will then be locked to them for the rest of the IC day. To get a quest from The Cook, visit the Mess Hall page! The Trader - Usually found behind the counter of the Ticket Shop, the Trader is a near-silent, icy woman in a blue hazmat suit. She generally only speaks as many words as are necessary to complete a transaction, and simply stares silently when characters attempt to chat with her. She won't accept haggling, either! Her feelings towards the residents are as yet unknown, but maybe if someone's persistent she'll warm up? To get a quest from The Trader, see the Ticket Shop page! The President - Frequently mentioned but never seen, The President is the overseer of Star Center and the Psychotropia experiment at large. While the other NPCs share leadership day-to-day, it's The President they report to and who calls the big shots. For him, it's all about the money. Will characters be able to confront him some day? Who knows! How does the language barrier work? Characters in Psychotropia all know their original languages just like they usually would. They'll just all also know a new, unnamed language that everyone will speak by default. All characters are both fluent and literate in the local language. This means that if your character previously spoke English fluently and Russian conversationally but could not read Russian, they still retain those skills! They can speak in either of those languages if they make the conscious choice to, but by default they'll find it feels most "natural" to speak the local language. How does time pass in the game? Psychotropia runs on a Two OOC Days = One IC Day pace. This means that every other day is "day" and the other days are "night". During the "day", lights are on and all facilities in Star Center are available. At "night" the main lights go off and Star Center is lit by dim backup lighting. The Mess Hall and Ticket Shop are closed at night, but the Infirmary and other rooms are open all the time. Please be aware of the passage of time and make your posts reflect day or night accurately. Events are also affected by the pacing, which leads us to... How do events work in this game? Events in Psychotropia are "challenges" suggested and voted on by the "audience". They could be lighthearted (body swaps or party lights everywhere) or they could be very traumatizing (characters partnered up and told that one of them has to be killed or they both will face death/a harsh punishment). Overall this game is meant to lean heavily to the dark side, so there will be more negative events than positive ones! Events always happen at a regular time. ICly, they happen on the first (and possibly second) day of each IC week. OOCly they happen every other weekend on Friday & Saturday. Voting for each event happens on the OOC weekend prior (the weekend with no event). For example! The game begins on May 10, which is a Friday. ICly, the first day of the first week is therefore May 10 (daytime) & May 11 (nighttime). That day, there is an event. May 12-13 is the second day of the first week. May 14-15 is the third day of the first week, and so on and so forth. The first day of the second week ICly is May 24-25 OOCly (Friday & Saturday again!). On May 24-25 there will be an event. If an event requires more time, it will extend into Sunday & Monday (making it two IC days). The next event after that is June 7-8 (the first day of the third week). There will be a poll to determine the May 24-25 event on May 17-18, and the poll to determine the June 7-8 event will be on May 31 - June 1. Don't worry if it's confusing on text! Events & polls will always be on the calendar along with apps and activity check, so you can just check that if you don't want to keep it in your head. What if my character dies? Characters who die will remain corpses until someone revives them. Revival is purchased at the Infirmary the same as normal healing, though the prices are higher. Corpses brought to the infirmary for revival will be taken back into the Labs and brought back an hour later fully healed but unconscious, and will wake another hour after that in their Infirmary bed. This applies even during deadly challenges! What is the money system? Money in Star Center is in the form of "tickets". Tickets are automatically loaded into the character's Ticket Card every time they participate in a challenge! Tickets can also be gained by doing "quests" given out by any of the three NPCs. Tickets are spent in the Infirmary, the Mess Hall, and the Ticket Shop. Follow those links to see the basic prices for items in those places or to ask for a quest! Tickets can also be donated to gamewide pools in order to unlock new rooms on Floor 1 or upgrades to current facilities. As a rule, 10 tickets is roughly equivalent to $1 USD. There will be specific ticket numbers given out for things, so it'll be expected that you keep at least rough track of your character's finances. Theoretically, if you can gain enough tickets, you can turn them into the Ticket Shop in order to gain freedom from Star Center. However the price is exorbitant, so it isn't likely to happen soon! What is the posting format? All posts in Psychotropia are made on the main community, psychotropia. Play in this game is 100% in person -- there is no network! You may post open posts posts locked to a few people at any time, but please be aware of the IC day/time when you do. Due to our high AC and frequency of events, tags in Psychotropia are intended to be quick. When events are mainly dark and/or traumatic, it's important to finish threads quickly so as not to be stuck wondering how your character fared in the last one. However, you're welcome to be as wordy or as concise as you like! If you like brackets, use them. If you like prose, use it! You can commentspam or internal monologue at will. So long as you keep up with AC, any style of play is completely welcome. When you post in the main comm, please use the following form: <b>Who:</b> <b>When:</b> Week X, Day X, [Time of Day] <b>Where:</b> <b>What:</b> Be sure to tag your posts or participation with your character's tag, which the mods will make when you've been added tp the taken list! As a note, threadjacking and postjacking are essential to the network-free game style. For example, Harry Potter may make a post set in the Mess Hall at Lunch, in which he has dropped his lunch on the floor. This post should be used for all activity taking place in the Mess Hall at lunchtime on that day. You may make a top level comment addressing Harry or one doing your own thing that has nothing to do with Harry. Harry is not expected to tag every top level comment in his post, though he may if he wants to. Essentially, every post made is an open mingle log for the time and place in which it happens. An example of a normal post: Who: Dean Winchester and ANYONE! When: Week 1, Day 4, Morning Where: the floor 2 common area What: [Dean is currently hanging out at a table eating pie. Occasionally he will look up to grin and wave at anyone watching him, but for the most part he's content to sample the available fruity crusty goodness.] If you need to make a post that only includes a few people, just specify in your "who" that it's for specific people. An example is as follows: Who: Superman & Batman When: Week 2, Day 12, Late Night Where: one of the VR training rooms What: [Tonight it will be settled once and for all: who is the superior super hero?] Obviously your posts may be longer and more involved if you like, but that's the jist of it. Just don't be afraid to jump in and play with anyone anywhere! What are the activity requirements? Activity check is held once per month, on the 1-3 of the month. During those three days, all characters must check in, whether they need to provide proofs are not. Characters who will be unavailable during the 1-3 can submit activity/check in when they post their hiatus on the hiatus page, so if you're not going to be around, you can leave your comment in advance and breathe easy! Characters must post activity proofs unless they have a two-week hiatus on the hiatus page or if they were accepted during the AC period. However, these characters still need to check in! Activity proofs in Psychotropia consist of 50 comments across at least two posts and no more than 5 threads. One thread with many short subthreads can count as a single thread. Once AC has closed, a strike list will be posted to the OOC comm. Players have until 11:59pm on the 7th to comment with their activity and save their characters. Any character who didn't meet AC or didn't show up at all will be removed on the 8th. Players are welcome to re-app characters that got idled, but those characters will be at the bottom of slotting priority for their round. What happens if I go on hiatus? You have two options when you want to go on hiatus. First is simply leaving your character on autopilot. Second is to have your character get "Stardust Fever". This is an illness that causes your character to suddenly fall into deep fever dreams. They will be unconscious until the fever wears off. Characters who get this illness will be retrieved by The Doctor and a pair of silent followers (equally hidden in suits and impervious to damage), who will transport them to the Infirmary. They will be closely monitored and characters will not be able to move their bodies during this time. The character will wake up there when your hiatus is over. What happens if I drop? What if I app a dropped character? Drops are all cases of Stardust Fever. In the case of a drop it's assumed the illness is worse than in a hiatus, and instead of the Infirmary the characters are taken to the Lab. If the character is reapped by the person who dropped them, they'll be released via the Welcome Room just as if they were new. If a new player picks the character up, they'll have a completely normal entrance. The IC explanation in this case is that the fever caused them to lose their memories of Star Center. If you are reapping a character that someone else has played in your absence, you may not have them retain memories. Dropped characters' possessions are left alone for one IC day. After that, anything not claimed by remaining characters is taken to the lab by the silent staff members. When a character is reapped with their memories, the items the staff picked up will be returned to them upon waking. If someone happened to steal your ticket card or clothing stash before the staff could get it, you'll have to take it up with them! Can I canon update my character? Yes! Your character will be taken to the Lab for one IC day, and when they are released they'll have their new memories (or if you're choosing an earlier canon point, they'll be missing the appropriate canon memories). The Doctor will simply tell them that The President thought they'd be more fun that way. Can I break the fourth wall? Unfortunately, no! It's tough on characters who don't want their fourth wall broken if someone in their cast agrees to it, so we'll have to ask you not to break it at all. If your character must make pop culture references, make something up. The exceptions are fairy tales, historical figures, or classic literary characters (ex: Oliver Twist) that aren’t likely to be apped or real celebrities or sketch comedy characters who can't be apped at all. If something you referenced is apped from later, please be considerate and retcon that knowledge. Thank you! Can my character get pregnant? No.