A time skip is a way that CoSC facilitates the advancement of time within the game without preventing players from having opportunities to explore the ongoing lives of their characters. It provides a chance for quick role playing, character development, and character sheet updates despite the game advancing by 2 or more moons in a single breath.
Dealing with Gatherings & Meetings
Gatherings
During a Time Skip gatherings are suspended with the assumption that the game will be experiencing business as usual. This means the normal round of announcing deaths and rank changes and the like.
Medicine Cat’s Meetings & Visions
During a Time Skip Medicine Cat’s meetings are suspended. StarClan gives no warnings or other news of consequence. During these times it can be assumed knowledge at risk of being lost, like herbs or illnesses that a Medicine Cat is overlooking, will be taught by past Medicine Cats as the calm provides time for such worries.
Will there be an activity check?
No. Activity checks are suspended during the month or months of the Time Skip.
Dealing with Ceremonies
Ceremonies such as changes in rank, the naming of newborn kittens, and retirements are the only major RP threads that will be handled via traditional forum threads. Because these are major events for a character that deserve to be celebrated they will not be skipped simply because they happen to have happened during a time skip.
Can I Role Play During A Skip?
Yes! Role Play happens in various ways during a time skip.
Traditional/Play-by-Post RP
While you can absolutely start up traditional RP threads keep in mind that things like battles with other characters or between clans are not permitted during that time. Also be aware that Time Skips severely limit the amount of time spend in each moon, potentially rendering traditional RP difficult.
Canon Stories
Canon Stories are prose stories that are a part of the ongoing continuity of the game. These are written by one or more players through various means and then posted in the appropriate IC area of the forum. Following the posting each additional players with charters appearing in the story are expected to reply to confirm their consent to the story becoming canon.
Ways to develop a canon story
- Independently: A player may independently write a solo story about their character or characters.
- In Collaboration: Two or more players may collaborate to come up with a story together. They are expected to handle assigning the writing and posting of the story as a collective. Wether it’s passed around to each player for writing or written by a single player in the collaboration is handled by those players.
- DIscord Role Play: During Time Skips a special discord channel for RP on the chat application is opened. These role plays are not canon until they a converted into a prose story by one (or more) members of the role play.
In Closing
Time Skips are essential to the game remaining vibrant while keeping the timeline from being a chaotic run from major catastrophe to climactic disaster one after another. This gives the characters an opportunity to experience normal life without forcing players to experience the drag of the character’s downtime.
Much like a D&D game glosses over things like the time between adventures, CoSC slides the timeline forward to get the game to the next period of interest and excitement faster.
We hope that you enjoy the time allotted for Time Skip Role Play and look forward to the new plot that will come once it is concluded!