With the growing talk of a "star chamber" for applications, rather than just XOR with OR peeping over xer shoulder now and then, I thought I'd take the current official word on this from [the webpage] and make it something fluid and editable... and made a few comments, to start. This is a big chunk of text and really oughta be split into several sub-pages for easier web reading/editing, too. -Twin

Now presence and influence, rather than growing talk. - Echo

This was presented in the original webpage context as the guidelines for a player to follow in an app, but is written towards a hypothetical Star Chamber member. What's our audience? I feel we definitely need a version for potential players, and my edits are somewhat from that viewpoint. My experience with a bit of Yerf app review is that guidelines written for applicants need to be pretty easy to digest. Make our main philosophy/style points, then get into the caveats! -Twin

An honest confession

A lot of these guidelines are polite elaborations on this: We want players who are smart. We want players who are interested in improvising the kinds of stories found in the works of fiction cited as inspiration. We are elitist and picky. -Twin

What we're here for

The nature of Puzzlebox is substantially different from what many people seem to expect from a "science fiction" MUCK. It's very "right-brained." The emphasis of Puzzlebox tends towards the symbolic, the romantic, the surreal, the subjective, the literary, the metaphysical, the psychological, the mythical... These are the things Puzzlebox was intended to explore.

We won't exclude someone just for having a different worldview, but if there is no interest displayed in any of these ideas, it might be worth asking just what sort of roleplaying you hoped to find here.

This needs to be highlighted, and far easier to find. It's a manifesto buried under a long list of minutae. -Twin

This needs to be double-highlighted. People here for exploratory reasons are highly undervalued. -Mind Not Found

Moved this from waaaay down in 'similar worldview' section. This is our thesis statement, really! -Twin

Getting There

Name

This isn't a major criterion, but characters with patently ridiculous or incongrous names should raise suspicion. Please refrain from admitting characters named "Stinkybutt" or "xxx4w3x0m3d00dxxx". This is a dreamlike alternate reality, not Livejournal. :)

Other clear warning signs: species as part of name? what're some other patterns that make you think about preemptive gagging just from seeing CharacterName has arrived. else-muck? -Twin

You mean like characters named after common nouns? :) -Mind Not Found

I'm fine with uncommon nouns, though. - Echo

Communications Skills

Grammar and spelling are important but need not be flawless. Application reviewers should not reject otherwise good applications based on technical errors. We're more interested in the player's ability to communicate concepts clearly and interestingly. If a player is exceptionally vague, going on for paragraphs without giving any real details, that's a cause for concern. If a player makes good use of figurative language and shows a broad vocabulary, even more serious grammatical and spelling errors can be ignored.

Know enough grammar to break rules intentionally. -Twin

Brevity is the soul of wit. -Mind Not Found

Yes, I think one of my goals in pulling this into the wiki is to edit it down to something more succinct. -Twin

Character Origin

Where does the character come from, in the context of the gameworld? These will generally fall into four categories: characters from the Mess, characters from elsewhere in the Puzzlebox, characters from Terra, characters from other MUCK "realities," and characters from elsewhere.

• The Mess

We love seeing characters who are native to the Mess, but realize that new players may not feel comfortable playing somebody from a world they've never seen first-hand! If they express interest in playing a Mess native, consider referring them to the Theme Wizard, who will answer any questions they have and help them fill in any holes in their background. Also consider referring them to XOR for a guest login.

Guest logins need to persist longer, to be sure. It's a complaint I've seen before, for good reasons, it took me a while to get the feel of Puzzlebox.

We need emphasis that Factions are starting points, not straitjackets - I personally struggled with that for a while! -Twin

• Puzzlebox

We would like to see most new characters be natives of other regions of the Puzzlebox. (We realize why this is a problem currently. Some of the vagueness is a feature, not a bug, but before the beta test is over, we intend to have more guidelines about these regions on the web page.) Most of Puzzlebox is intended to be post-scarcity, but not all of it; its civilizations are diverse to accommodate just about anything anybody would want to play. We think there's more than enough "action" and diversity implied on the rest of Puzzlebox that most players should be able to imagine their character being able to exist out there somewhere.

So... who's up for defining these areas? Or should we just say "Whatever theme you want can be found there"? - Echo

• Outside Puzzlebox

Characters from areas outside the Puzzlebox are technically all right, but we'd prefer to discourage them. The whole concept of Puzzlebox is that it's unfathomably huge and mysterious -- perhaps even larger than three-dimensional space itself. Admitting too many characters from outside the Puzzlebox de-emphasizes the key premise of living on a self-growing, multi-dimensional, possibly-sentient construct. It also raises a lot of questions about space travel and astrophysics; this takes Puzzlebox in a materialist and realist direction which distracts from the "hyperrealist" premise. We're willing to compromise -- we'd rather have an excellent story told their way than a good one told our way, as long as it doesn't detract from other players' concepts. But at the very least, ask them if it would be any trouble to modify their character to accommodate the background we've already provided for them.

I disagree on this but I'll save elaborating on why for after I get the thing in here. I may be biased, given that two of my characters have Outside embedded in their history. -Twin

• Terrans

This is potentially problematic for three reasons. First, is the character from Terra because they're having trouble coming up with a more imaginative background? Is being Terran just the "default"? (see also the "Character Look and Style" section) It's suspicious that, given an entire universe to play with, a character would be from the place most familiar to their player. Of course, there are also many good reasons to play a Terran character, and a character should never be rejected simply for being an Earthling. The key question is, is the player doing anything interesting with the fact their character's Terran? Is it serving any purpose, or is it just kinda there?

Second, we have an awful lot of Terran characters already! Good ones, but it's important to maintain a balance, lest they come to dilute the indigenous culture. (Of course, this could become an interesting plot point, maybe a neo-colonialist satire... How long until the first McDonald's opens in Downwarp?)

Third, if we get many more Terran characters, we're going to have to explain where the hell they're coming from. :) This, of course, is not necessarily bad. The Puzzlebox works in mysterious ways, and it could be interesting to make its occasional intersection with Earth Prime into a plotpoint. But the Functions have enough to worry about already, both IC and OOC. :)

Great. Now I'm having visions of how McDonalds would try to blend in with each warp. :) - Echo

• ElseMU*

This one is also problematic, for similar reasons to the Terrans. Again, is it a deliberate choice or just a default? Additionally, since most MU*'s are less heavily IC than Puzzlebox, it raises questions of whether the player understands that they may have to play their character very differently than they did elseMU*. It's not a big concern in an otherwise well-developed application, but watch out for applications that boil down to "GenericFoxy opened up a magical portal on YiffyMUCK and here he is, completely unchanged, except he can strut around in a full body harness all he wants!" We get even more of those apps than you'd expect. :) (Many can be rehabilitated once they get over the culture shock and know that's not what we're looking for.)

"My Personal Furry" carries familiarity and comfort - but also probably carries association of many muck sessions spent, as I like to put it, "around the watercooler in a fursuit". Playing [Pleasure-bot Peganthyrus] would have been easy, and on-theme (she looks pretty Bubble Doll there), but it would've carried far too much past with it. I'm conditioned to have only the thinnest veil of IC as Peggy. I need to expand on this some and try to have a succinct justification we can point people to. I think it's slightly related to 'no fan-art characters'. -Twin

Thematic Interest

Puzzlebox is founded upon certain themes, including but not limited to: the romanticism of technology and urban environments; retrofuturism and the recontextualization of Terran history in an alien post-scarcity environment; postmodern subjectivity and the coexistence of multiple realities; the sensuality of "unnaturalness" and physical and mental transformation; and the literalization of the rules of virtual existence. No single Puzzlebox character needs to fit into every one of these themes, but characters and players should at least not be entirely disinterested in these themes. (In-character conflict with these themes, on the other hand, is fine, if the player is willing to make that conflict a source of good stories. For instance, a character who is terrified of, or morally opposed to, body modification could contribute a lot of desirable dramatic tension to Puzzlebox.)

Oh, and we'd like people who aren't afraid to try new things, stuff they wouldn't otherwise do. In a world where you can literally do anything (though whether other people agree with you is another matter), characters should be encouraged to do wild and crazy things! - Mind Not Found

Literary Awareness

Each character also has a set of themes and subtexts -- recurring ideas that give focus and meaning to a character. We admire players who feel strongly about the things their characters represent; we especially admire players who see their characters as expressions of ideas rather than mere game pawns. Players should ideally show some awareness of their characters' themes and use them to communicate. Does the application give you a sense that the player had specific unifying character concepts, or that they just strung a bunch of ideas together that sounded cool? If it's unclear, feel free to ask them outright what they consider their character's themes to be.

Sometimes a character doesn't sound too expressive, but try to look at the larger context, and think of it as a process. Players that show promise have to be encouraged to follow a path of literary awareness. However, not everyone will be interested in this, it's something to watch out for. - Mind Not Found

Civics Skills

Is the applicant reasonably polite and friendly? Is this somebody with whom you feel you could have an interesting conversation out-of-character? If there's any doubt, try flushing them out on a topic that seems to interest them. Shy people are utterly welcome on Puzzlebox, of course, as long as they seem willing to participate. Argumentative people and people prone to splitting hairs should probably be discouraged; at the very least, try to politely draw their attention to behavior guidelines.

Control yourself, gain patience, learn to let things drop, and all should be well. - Mind Not Found

Background Detail

This is actually not a major criterion, but many applications understandably mistake it for such. Though the MUCK themes are comparatively fixed, the details of the Puzzlebox background are meant to be very flexible. As long as a character is well-thought out and fits in with the general mood and style, the player is not expect to display foreknowledge of the finer details of the Puzzlebox world. We hope that new players will come with their own ideas of what the Mess will be like. In fact, in the case of an good application that directly conflicts with an existing premise of Puzzlebox, don't hesitate to contact the Theme Function so a compromise can be reached -- we'll try to err on the side of the player, even if it means rewriting an official but unexplored part of the world background.

It occurs to me that the Cliches listed so far can all be used as a "way out" of coming up with a solid character/background: no past, no fixed form, whatever. However, I've noticed that eventually even these sorts of characters do develop a history and stable appearance. Sometimes they get an alt or two, and by their second or third character things have really started to click for them.

Encountering PB for the first time, and staring up at its giant, wobbling heap of background material, can be pretty daunting. But things sort themselves out. The first few actual encounters a character has on the muck are often crucial in developing their background and character.

Suggestion: if you run into a new character, start asking them all sorts of questions just to help them solidify their story, appearance and whatnot, as well as orient them a bit, and give them an idea of what else is out there. ("A pilot? Cool! Old mechanical ships like the Vickies fly? Or like... jets and things?")

(spin off into 'Welcome Wagon Guide'?)

--A

Character Look and Style

The Mess is a retrofuturistic, xenofetishistic leisure society with access to magical levels of technology. Its inhabitants have the luxury of choosing their forms of dress, physical incarnation, and even neurological architecture based on personal whim instead of physical necessity. Therefore, fashion and personal style are very important on PuzzleboxMUCK. There is no one correct personal style or predominant fashion; the relevant thing is that a character have some strong sense of self-expression or subcultural affiliation conveyed through their appearance. Surreal beauty and flamboyance are definitely appropriate, and the stereotypical colorful rubber-and-biotech look is always in season. Not every character needs to be eye candy, though. Watch out for characters in "default" Terran dress like jeans and T-shirt -- if that's the most imaginative thing they could come up with, that's a serious problem, but if the player or character is making a specific fashion statement, it's not a problem. (e.g.: "This Terran immigrant's a fish out of water here" or "She wears overall to evoke a sense of innocence and simplicity.") In fact, if somebody just takes their character from another MUCK and slaps them into a rubber bodysuit with no embellishments, that might also be a sign to encourage them to try a little harder.

Remember that you can borrow looks and attitudes from all cultures and time frames and mix them up in strange ways. Just because it's the future doesn't mean it has to look or feel like you'd expect it to! New players should be encouraged to borrow from the old as well as from the new, if they do so creatively. - Mind Not Found

I'd actually suggest that this is a somewhat important element, in that the look of the character helps define their interaction with others. I'd also look for an interesting combination of outfit and attitude: a character who dresses in a plain black suit and tie may be making a fashion statement, but who are they really? Do they act differently when they change their looks? Not everyone is going to have answers for questions like this, but an awareness of how descriptive elements affect others can be very helpful for a Puzzlebox citizen. - Echo

Tastefulness

Puzzlebox is intended to be a tolerant environment, but we have limits. While the staff has no moral objection to anybody's individual kinks or hobbies, there are some which don't fit so well into the MUCK's IC or OOC culture. Nothing is explicitly forbidden, but if a submitted character centers around a kink that is potentially violent, grotesque, or cruel, warn the applicant that we expect them to pursue their interests with good taste and consideration for other players. We are of the philosophy that any kink, even extreme ones, can potentially be played out in a romantic and appealing fashion (or at least played in a fashion where the distastefulness becomes a thematic strength -- consider asking them to keep it to Strangewarp). The job of the reviewer is to ensure that the applicant is actually interested in doing so.

Do we need - or want - a list of potential Problem Kinks? Nothing is true; everything is permitted, but some animals are more equal than others. Which ones do we want player assurances that they know it's Risky Territory for? -Twin

These should be handled on a case-by-case basis. I don't think a list is needed, I'm sure we can all certainly imagine the many things that would be considered a Problem Kink. -Mind Not Found

TEH FUNNIE

Likewise, characters that reek of detached irony are discouraged -- we like sincerity and emotional commitment. (For example, "Durrr, I'm playing a twelve-foot tall bong that speaks entirely in Cheech and Chong quotes! He gives people little transhuman fleas that do 12-hour guitar jams!" is admittedly interesting. :p But it should raise some questions about whether it's just being played to annoy or confuse people for a cheap laugh. Still, if they can prove they're really interested in exploring their existence as a gigantic fuming hookah, and you're convinced they'll be polite about it, let 'em!)

Hey, I resemble that remark! -Mind Not Found

Sensuality

The exploration of pleasure, romance, and positive emotion for their own sakes is a central and indispensible theme of PuzzleboxMUCK. It need not always involve sexuality, but it very often will, and players should be equipped to deal with this. Additionally, players who are allergic to cuteness should be politely warned off.

We need to be a little more up-front about the heavy mind-fuck element. I know of two (ex-)players who are fascinated by the muck, who have pretty impassable barriers regarding the mind-control element - not just distaste or lack of interest, but deep RL unpleasantness due to past trauma. The mind-control element comes and goes, but people need to know that it's one of the core kinks, and is embedded in the background. -Twin

In particular, we're looking for players whose concept of "sensuality" extends well beyond conventional penetrative sex, into the realm of the psychological and surreal. We also want people who are interested in putting their virtual sex lives into the context of an complete, compelling, meaningful character -- we're looking for erotica (e.g. genuine emotional and aesthetic intimacy), not porn (e.g. simple gratification, to the exclusion of anything but the sexual act).

One of my pet peeves is the sense that it has to look like sex in order to be "sensual" which certainly isn't the case. Pleasure in the groin isn't the only way to be sensual, kids. Even in this crazy, mixed-up future, a robot can fall in love. -Mind Not Found

I feel like this belongs at the top, too. Explicit statement of the central theme at 2/3 through? And I totally agree on the groin thing; most of my good sensual scenes aren't about the crotch at all. -Twin

Roman Polanski discussing the difference between Eroticism and Pornography to Peter Coyote "Eroticism uses a feather. Pornography uses the whole chicken."

Cultural References

We're interested in players who are well-read pop-culture buffs in general. It's certainly not necessary to drop the names of our favorite books, music, art, and movies. But we're not going to claim it doesn't help. :) A working knowledge of surreal "reality-fuck" fiction or allegorical science fantasy is certainly useful in a player. Basic knowledge of artistic, historical, and philosophical movements is also excellent. If something in their application reminds you of one of your favorite texts, go ahead and point it out to them, maybe it'll inspire them further!

This gets huge bonus marks! Shhhh! I didn't say anything! -Mind Not Found

Originality

Duh. :) We're offering our players a chance to be damn near anything. That doesn't mean they can't be a familiar character archetype, but it's definitely a plus if they're exploring new territory. Rule of thumb: if their submission feels like it was gleaned from the character creation section of a roleplaying game, it's a warning sign. Also keep in mind that most of these conventional character types (e.g. space marines, financiers, Yakuza) are predicated upon worlds where violence, wealth, and social authority are still relevant. Again, characters that fit these templates shouldn't be rejected out of hand, but the player needs to explain how and why they're going to end up fitting into the Mess. Also watch for characters who assume that because Puzzlebox is a "science fantasy" environment, that means there are vast unexplored tracts of space. There are, but they're mostly offstage -- most of the action takes place in an urban environment and this is very important to the theme!

Fanfic characters are, just, well, no. For similar reasons as the downplaying of "my personal furry tarted up in rubber", IMHO. WIll expand on this later when I get my thoughts in line. -Twin

Characters based on pre-existing personae in video games, books, movies, and any myth and media automatically come with a tag that says "this is what I'm going to be like" and other players, as a general rule, find that really hard to play around. This goes for specific characters and character looks, mostly, but also holds true to elves and other "species". With the latter, however, it's easy to make your character pop from the template, as long as a bit of effort is put into it. -Mind Not Found

Similar Worldview

Most of the founders of Puzzlebox and many of the players are, well, freaks. The MUCK is full of bisexuals, transsexuals, pagans, furries, polyamorists, Otherkin, BDSM, hippies, goths, ravers, introverts, and other despised fringe groups. ;p Fringe-culture affiliation is certainly not an application criterion in itself, but those are the groups the MUCK is intended to attract first and foremost. Applicants who are substantially freaked out by these groups should probably be gently warned away. Applicants who are known to ridicule these groups should be gently chased away with Swiss pikes and Greek fire. :p

Moved 'nature of Puzzlebox paragraph from here.

Breaking Stereotypes

In keeping with the "queer culture" theme of Puzzlebox, we especially love applicants who use their characters to question stereotypes. Military-themed characters who are sweet and sensitive, harmless-looking waifs who are calculating tactical geniuses, penitent black holes, lovable Elder Gods... any character concepts that show awareness of a literary or social category and playfully subvert it are very, very welcome.

Opposites aren't the only game you can play. You can play "tweak the stereotype" and give your über-masculine characters creative urges, your hulking rusty iron robot an interest in but not an affinity for playing hide-and-go-seek, a hologram that wears glasses... -Mind Not Found

Realism

Realism isn't really a concern except when people expect us to have some. :) It has been said that scientific accuracy not only takes a backseat to style here, it's lucky when we don't make it ride in the trunk. :) If an application seems strongly reliant on hard sci-fi tropes or scientific detail, you might want to explain that Puzzlebox is more of a dreamlike, magical, figurative reality and we're more interested in themes and emotions than in technological "sweetness." If they're OK with that, no problem, but they should be warned. (We have admitted a few characters with hard sci-fi premises, and they've done just fine on the premise that if a Puzzlebox resident believes very strongly in a law of physics, they will in fact be limited by it.)

"We were looking for Jeff Noon and Gabriel Marquez, and you gave us a perfectly competent Isaac Asimov." - OR, in a discussion on LJ

Reality is subjective. Some characters don't believe in reality. Be prepared for that! -Mind Not Found

Furriness

Not really a concern. Even humans are quite welcome, although if they have zero trace of body-weirdness and no clear intent of exploring it later (after all, blank templates can be fun), you might want to ask them explicitly what the hell they want to be on Puzzlebox for. :) For chrissake, they could at least put on some eyeshadow.

Finally, how to apply

If you decide you'd like a character, please e-mail:

• your character's name
• at least a paragraph of your character's description
• a paragraph about your character's background
• a paragraph about what interests you about Puzzlebox

to functionxor [at] gmail [dot] com. Don't worry -- the MUCK staff will ask you to refine your character instead of rejecting it outright, and you have infinite chances to apply. We're interested in seeing examples of your ingenuity and descriptive ability, as well as testing your ability to think in terms of theme and subtext.

We also review character applications as a way to keep Puzzlebox's background and storyline flexible -- by giving each character an individual treatment, we can resolve questions of continuity on an individual basis, instead of trying to fit everyone into a single harsh canon.

We do reserve the right to discourage people from certain character concepts in order to maintain the diversity of Puzzlebox. For example, we currently have a large number of immigrants from Earth and worlds with Earth-like cultures, and we are currently limiting the influx of new Terran characters. Characters with a military or paramilitary background may find it difficult to adjust to life on Puzzlebox; their players should be prepared to explain what they're doing in a largely post-violence universe. Players bringing old characters from other MUCK are encouraged to reinvent them as Puzzlebox natives if possible. We also strongly discourage characters taken directly from published media, though homage characters are fine. (You may play a space monk in a robe with weird psychic powers and an energy sword if you like, but you can't play a Jedi and you definitely can't play Mace Windu. :) )

Players are still welcome to apply for these "deprecated" character types -- it won't affect your chances of being approved for a different character, and we will admit unusually good characters of any type.

Alts are also available once you have a character; simply email functionxor [at] gmail [dot] com the name of the alt, a paragraph of their desc, and a paragraph of background.

Please note that Puzzlebox is its administrators' hobby and applications are currently being approved by a staff of three, at most. We try to process new players as quickly as we can, but it can take a week or longer between responses, especially during busy periods and near holidays. Thank you in advance for your patience.

Time to update this last paragraph to reflect the Star Chamber's commission. - Echo