Grading Scale
Shattered Realms is an all inclusive RP community. If you're just beginning in your roleplay career or you are a tried and true veteran of the craft, we welcome everyone. However, we are aware that some people's writings will be better than others and it will show. And to help guide people in the right direction each thread you submit for a week will be graded by a staff member based on five categories: Length, Mechanics, Organization, Creativity, and Setting.
A member may not grade a thread they are within. All grades are based on a 10 point scale, and you receive 50 points free (this may be cut down based on circumstances), making each thread worth 100 Experience in total. The grades given will be unbiased, and will reflect the overall writing of the RP rather than just a piece of it.
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These gradings are not meant to be attacks on the person who is being graded, but rather are there to give constructive criticism so that you may improve your writing skills as we grow as a community and become better writers as a whole. That being said, these grades will reflect YOU and YOUR character, your RP partners will have their own grades and will not effect yours. You may ask for a second opinion on any thread being graded if you wish.
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If you have been within our community for a while and we determine that your skill within Roleplay does not require any extra grading, you may be able to have your threads be "auto-graded" in which the Grader will look over your thread to ensure quality and press a button giving you full points for the thread itself.
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Length:
This is a basic scale, one based on the length of your posts. You do not need to write whole short stories or a dozen paragraphs per post, but does the length of your post convey important points and does it address what your RP partners have posted? This is an easy 10/10, but may also quickly turn into a very low score if you are posting one line posts. This is not too harshly graded as long as the length of your posts makes sense.
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Mechanics:
Grammar and spelling are a core component to any writing, and they are not to be ignored. Now, no one is going to have perfect grammar or spelling, and a few mistakes can be overlooked. However, if your post has dozens of mistakes and it looks as though no effort has been put into correcting them, expect this grade to fall. Another easy 10/10 as long as you pay attention to a couple of things within your post. This also branches out to combat mechanics, if you are wrong in something that effects the battle in a negative way, this will reflect in your grade. This can be graded harshly based on the person grading it, though generally it is an easy 10/10.
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Organization:
This may be where some people lose points the most. The flow of an RP is the most crucial element. If you are writing you are doing so for an audience, whether that be your RP partners, or for those who will read the RP in the future. If your flow is bad, no one will want to read your story. Jumping all over the place, switching perspectives, bad combat flow, etc. All of these will effect this grade and it will take practice to get the hang of things. With this being the steepest learning curve, expect to see a dip in your grade until you do get a handle on it.
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Creativity:
Are you original? Are you just stealing someone else's story, trying to make it your own? We are all the protagonist of our own stories. We are all trying to create this awesome story for ourselves, but if it lacks creativity, is it really something to be proud of? How creative are you with solutions or problems? This is not a hard grade to get 10/10, as it is purely subjective of the reader vs the creator. However, if it just seems like a cookie cutter story with no real effort put in, expect it to reflect in the grade.
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Setting:
Can you set the scene? Are you describing what is happening to the environment as you fight? Are you attempting to put detail into the area that you are creating your story? It does not need to be so in depth that we know the backstory of a log that is in the forest a mile away, but setting the scene is almost as important as the scene itself. This isn't graded too harshly, but you should definitely be aware of your surroundings if you want to see a 10/10 here.
Multipliers
These multipliers are attributed to your points after the initial grade, and before any Catch Ups are applied. Afterwards, the subsequent number will be how much experience that thread is worth. And once all threads are graded, the cumulative experience will be added together to give you a total gain. For each extra person within a thread (not including yourself or the DM) increase the multiplier by 0.1! And you submit your threads by using the bot command /submit-thread.
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Interactive x1.1:
An interactive thread is simply a thread where no fighting exists and you are just meeting with someone and talking. This is not to be confused with a Story-Building thread. This may build story within your own character, but if it does not effect the server story in anyway, it is simply an interactive thread.
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Training x1.1:
This thread is used when learning a learnable skill from someone to add into your skill tree. You may only have 1 training thread a week, however with a mentor training you that increases this number to 2. This is also used for certain criteria for release skills and possibly promotion through the ranks of your faction if it is in their rules. You will need to talk to your faction leader for that case though.
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Spar x1.25:
This is a fight between individuals where death is not an option. If you ask for a fight within looking for RP, and it is discussed that death will not be on the table, then it is a spar.
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Story-Building x1.3:
This is similar to an interactive thread, but has the ability to effect the story outside just your personal character one. Such as planning an assassination on a higher up within the Gotei, or making any sort of plans to effect people within the future. It is easy to go from an interactive thread to a story-building one and vice versus. It all just depends on how you write things and you may label something as story-building but then receive a grade for an interactive post (or reverse). This will be at the discretion of the grader.
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Fight x1.5:
This is a fight where there is death readily available among the participants. That being said, it does not HAVE to end in death (that would be an Elimination thread), there just needs to be effort towards making this fight feel more serious than just a plain spar.
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Invasion x1.75:
An invasion is an unwelcome visitor coming into a thread that they were not invited to, which will end up in an altercation. In this case for an invasion thread, no one has died but the invasion still happened. You may only invade someone within 10 levels of you, and may only invade the same person once every week. If they leave the thread, you are able to follow them if you have the capability to do so. However, this has a time limit of 24 hours. After that 24 hour period, regardless of whether you were able to follow them or not, you will have lost their trail. Furthermore, to invade someone you must be within the same category as them for 2 posts from each of you within said category.
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Elimination x2:
An Elimination thread is one in which a player has died. The player who killed them is able to claim the Elimination and gain this multiplier for that thread. In the case of multiple people fighting and dying, this multiplier will be applied to one player for each player who died. So if you are double teaming someone, one of you will gain a fight or invasion thread, while the other will gain the elimination thread. You may gain multiple elimination multipliers in a single thread, but they will act as separate entities when submitting your threads for grading. i.e. if you kill two people in one thread, you will submit two separate threads for the same fight, both being elimination threads.
Catch Ups
Within the server, you will see people who are going to be stronger than you. It is going to happen, whether you're just joining, or you've been here since the beginning. Sooner or later someone will be stronger than you, in level, in experience, in skills, in techniques. And it may seem like an unclimbable mountain, but we have a few things to help give you a bit of a catch up so do not fret, you will catch up to these titans of the server as long as you put forth the effort!
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Rival:
For you to have a rival, you must have met before and have a story building with that person. From then on, declare them as your rival and then it is a race to get stronger! For 1 month you may create a training thread once a week that will harbor double the experience for your character calculated after the initial multiplier. These do not need to include your rival, but must have some significance to your rivalry with them. After that month is over, you and your rival will have another bout to see who is the best. Winner take all, as they will be the only one to gain double experience for the thread that ends the rivalry. You may only have 1 rival, and once the rivalry ends you may not take up another for 2 weeks of real time.
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Mentor/Mentee:
This is possibly the most simple version of our catch up mechanics. You may be a mentor to someone and grant you both a fantastic boost. You both gain a 1.2x multiplier on any threads that you are within together that is calculated after the initial multiplier (limit to 2 threads per week). Furthermore, your Mentor may teach you one trainable skill (see SKILLS) a week in addition to the one already for a max of two (2), provided you have a skill point available. To be someone's Mentor you must be at least 5 levels above them and you will remain their mentor until you decide not to be anymore, or your level falls below that 5 level mark, whichever comes first. You may only have 1 mentor and 1 mentee.
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Solo Rift:
A solo rift is a DM'ed RP that a Player may attempt once a month and must be DM'ed by a member of staff available. This rift will be of their design and will be equal to the level of the player, and will be extremely hostile for reasons that the DM will create. This is meant to be a fight of some sort, one that will test your combat ability while still creating something compelling to write within. Death is very much an option and as such this will be driven by you, the player. If you are not decisive with your movements, if you do not enter the fight expecting a challenge, then you will die. That being said, this does have the largest experience output of any of the catch ups with triple the experience gain. This will be the only multiplier on this type of thread.
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To qualify for a Solo Rift, you must be below level 50 and above level 10. You must have a sub-race picked, and you can only do this alone. Any outside help, or entities that enter the rift afterwards will cause you to lose the Solo rift aspect of the thread. That being said, any enemies that enter the thread and attack you do not effect the thread's aspect. Instead, it will lead to an invasion type thread and will cause the multiplier of the thread to first use the invasion type BEFORE the Solo Rift type. With the Winner being able to take all (as long as they have not received their solo rift for that month). If you are invaded while within a solo rift, and lose, you will not lose your solo rift for the month and may try again.
