For OOC reasons, I have lately been spending alot less time in realms. My RP has changed accordingly to me being a Sleeper of the Seren. Basically I come to my commune's aid when they need me, and otherwise sleep in peace deep in the forest until I am needed. That's the RP at least.

My question is how should I manage this in OOC terms?

Should I just check in randomly to see what needs doing, at random points in the day, then log off?
Should I completely forget about Lusternia, except for checking in once a month, and when the Seren politics become as dire as they once were, completely come back?
Or the real stickler question, can I have people contact me on AIM or ICQ when I'm needed in realms, then log in? I know this is technically a breach of OOC/IC information. But it would fit my RP quite well, as the spirits of the Seren could alert me to the commune's need, and I could temporarily awaken. It's not like people don't already do this, I've noticed defenders conveniently pop into realms during village revolts or bigger raids.






PS. Also, to those of you who I haven't seen in a while, sorry to be slowly disappearing. I will return to full activity in due time.

I'm not in a position to do any sort of official procolomation, but I for one am always basing decisions on when to enter Lusternia on external communiques.

Of course, my role-play extends beyond the boundaries of Lusternia proper, too. I guess that's easier to do when you don't play alts, but my Lusternia persona and my online persona are inseperable. Yes, I'll talk more about kids and work and such when I'm chatting with my friends in IM, but they still call me Raja.

If one of them IMs me and says, "Hey, can you come into the game and make me a new backpack?" I'm not going to go: "Hey! OOC, man! Time out! Exarius doesn't know you need anything from him!" I'm going to wake up Exarius and make the backpack.

Why that would be different from your circumstance, I don't have a clue.

AIM would be the best way to go.. if you try "guess" when your needed, you will never be able to get away with what you want to do.

hmm..

Well, as for how oftain you should enter Lusternia: RL > RP. If it makes RP sense for your character to be there, but you don't want to be, then don't go: RPly your character had difficulties waking. If you makes sense for your character to sleep but you want to play, then play: RPly your character is suffering to insomnia.

Of course, when you character REALLY wants to be active, AND you want to play, BUT RL keeps you too busy then it stinks (as is my case, sorry Ur'Guard ).

As for an IM call to enter the realm...honestly, I don't consider that an IC -> OOC matter. ICly, your character is there 24/7, all the time. It's OOC the fact that you aren't around. As such, the matter of the player being told to enter the game is just that, you OOCly doing an OOC action (log in).

Of course, once you DO log in, everything from there is IC: your character has NO knowledge of the IM or what happened there. Blah, they shouldn't see anything different between that moment and 1 minute ago (when you weren't logged in). True, all that means is a quick tell/message/say to tell you IG what the IM had warned you of earlier, but small things are what keeps RP together.

Sidenote: yes, that means I'm defending the 'instafighters' that suddenly show up in revolts and raids, though the idea of actually waking up someone at 3am with a phone call to play a game seems just kooky .

Do people really do that?

If so, I'm actually glad I'll probably never be a good fighter.

Used to. Haven't heard about it recently...

It has been known to happen in the past, if the rumors are true, which I believe to be just an urban myth.

In Aetolia, it was common during the Ashtan war. Not as myth-like as you might think.

*phone rings well past midnight, Narsrim picks up*
*grunt, drool* mommy?

Trying to remember who it was who used to do this, but can't. It definitely happened, though.

I think I spammed someone awake by sending them tons of AIM messages once, too. They'd given me permission, though.

I've never seen any point in trying to justify leaving/returning to the game, everyone knows it's OOC and there's no need to invent a flimsy reason to make it IC.

Back when village revolts were fun and my roommate still played, we'd wake each other up when a village revolted. I also gave.... Shiri or Tsuki permission to call me once to wake me up once when I knew a village was about to revolt, and slept with the phone next to my pillow.

I miss those days

Not me, I've never had anyone's number!

If I'm not on, I sometimes find out Tsuki's needed through various means: AIM/MSN, or m'brother. Depending on what it is and what's going on, I usually respond but sometimes I don't. I've come back on about an hour after finally signing off to participate in influencing; I've hopped back on to talk to someone who needed the consideration of a sponsor to be welcomed to the commune (that was fun, I smiled at Zenji's sprite and told him she'd brought his message and I'd heard I was needed ). Most recently, though, I refused to get up and get back on during when Shanthmark/Paavik revolted when m'brother tried knocking on my door a few times, because I'd just gotten to sleep 2 1/2 hrs before that. Took me another 2 to fall asleep again after that woke me up.

I don't have your number either, so I'm not sure I know what that's about.

(I had some numbers but my parents changed it so you can't call overseas now. )

It happened fairly often earlier on. People somehow managed to get my mobile number somehow, I know that some people, to stop people doing that, just slept with their speakers turned up REALLY loud.

Incidently, if I ever find out who got my mobile number, I'm going to eat your face.

You people scare me sometimes.

I actually set my alarm at the request of someone last year at 3:30am before school to wake up and help raise crow or something stupid.

Thankfully they didn't need my help and I got to sleep for three more hours.

I think if I was ever called, I'd probably start hallucinating and say stupid things because I tend to do that when I don't wake up on my own O_o. And then people would think I'm even more bizarre than I am. Woe is me.

And that's why my cell number is almost the most secret thing in the entire universe. With my love for sleeping, if somebody called me and waked me up due to an influencing I probable would defect, kill everybody around and go to the opposite organization. And go to sleep after taht

Wait...is that even possible?

Cellphones are evil.

I ignore mine.

Well, or make Alger pick it up.