Chronicle sessions will take place every other Saturday, from 4-7pm GMT, over Discord (for more detail, see When and Where.)

Uptimes in Chronicle will take the form of virtual meetings of Volunteer Assistant Archivists, organised by the Archive, which take place quarterly (once every season), on an online forum specifically designed for the purpose. In an effort to keep conversation largely related to the research they are carrying out, characters (but not players!) will be expected to log in and out of each channel they are talking in; however, in practice, conversation is of course often much more varied. (Out of character, this means that despite the forum layout, you will only be able to interact in one channel at a time.)

All sessions of Chronicle will take place over Discord. The server will be structured as follows:

A place for out-of-character conversation of all kinds, from questions to jokes to the ever-beloved running commentary on sessions.

As well as the shared channels, each player will have a personal channel at the bottom of the channel list. This is an OC channel just for your use, both in and out of session, which only you and the GMs can see. It's a good place to do things like asking your GM something specific (e.g. for a secret plan). If there is something urgent you'd like us to see, please @ your assigned GM (you’ll find this out after character creation), the relevant GM for the topic in question (e.g. they are playing the NPC in a channel you have a question about), or @GM, which will ping all 4 of us. Players may also ask for shared private channels, which are usually used to discuss character links and joint plans.

Everyone is free to post on the OC channels outside of sessions (in ways both silly and serious!), but they will not be monitored constantly outside of session times. If you need to check something with a GM outside of session, we recommend you send an email to gm@chronicle.oxfordrpg.com.

These will generally represent different channels on the forum, although shared private IC channels may also be created – e.g. to represent a texted conversation between two VAAs that is separate from and takes place during the meeting. Other than private channels, players will only be able to message in one channel at a time – in-character, this is to encourage focus during meetings. Out of character, it is intended to reduce the likelihood of players being overwhelmed by the sheer number of messages sent during a session, and feeling that they need to keep equal track of many conversations at once.

GMs and crew will be making use of a Discord bot, PluralKit, to play NPCs. These NPCs will have a BOT tag next to their names. Due to how PluralKit works, just turning on the @ option when replying will not notify the one playing them. Instead, if you want an NPC to respond to you, please use the 🔔 react on their message. This will automatically @ the GM or crew who wrote that NPC's message, and make it easier for us to navigate to where we are needed.

Some situations during uptimes may require GM adjudication – primarily, speaking to specific NPCs, obtaining information, investigating metaphysics, and any uncertainty over the likely outcome of an action. If and when such situations arise, please do let us know! The best ways of doing that are by @-ing one of us (if you do not know which GM is relevant for a particular interaction, please @ your personal GM, as this will be easier for us than @ing all of us at once) in the relevant channel or your private channel, or using the 🔔 react on a PluralKit message (and only PluralKit messages – it won’t notify us if used on ordinary messages!).

Please don’t use private messages for IC interactions! GMs need to be able to see all IC interactions in order to adequately moderate the game, which is obviously not possible when private messages are used. If you want to hold a private conversation during a session, please move to an unoccupied channel, or ask the GMs for a private channel (this will likely be easiest for us to organise promptly if you ask before the session).

DMs can of course be used for checking in privately with other players and/or GMs about things you’d rather not discuss on a public server, though we’d ask you to only do this when you’re not comfortable using Discord for the interaction. That said, please do feel free to come to any of the GMs about anything you’re uncomfortable with – we’re here to help!

Please do not use Discord's threads feature. It is difficult for GMs to keep track of messages in them. An equivalent to this feature does not exist on the Archive's IC forum.

Most online ORPGSoc games follow similar formatting conventions, in order to ensure that everyone is actually conveying the information they’re hoping to get across.

1. Quotation marks (‘single’ or “double”) or plain text indicate speech.
2. Italics indicate description – of actions, emotions, or appearance.
3. [Square brackets] indicate OC comments.

While you’re free to use whichever format makes most sense to you, we do ask that square brackets are reserved specifically for out of character communication, for the sake of clarity.

An uptime call (which is neither a video call or a voice call) is a 1-2 word message that can be used during uptime to convey a message quickly and easily. These should be marked as OC via the use of square brackets, and should be respected immediately. Furthermore, if someone expresses discomfort/a change in OC circumstances in a way other than the standardised calls, this should be treated as if it were a call and also respected immediately.

Uptime calls include:

1. Safety calls to indicate discomfort
2. An indication of something happening OC (e.g. that you need to step away from your computer for a minute, for whatever reason)
3. GM-only calls used to mark the start/end of a session, or a pause within it.

The full list of uptime calls can be found on the Glossary.