| From: | "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | NERPS FAQ 5.20 part B |
| Date: | Mon, 10 Jun 1996 11:13:06 +0100 |
Part B
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A. THE CURRENT NERPS PROJECT(S)
1. NERPS: Underworld
2. A World Book (no definite title yet)
3. Deadlines
B. SUBMITTING MATERIALS TO NERPS
1. Registering a Submission
1a. Author-ID#s
2. Formatting Guidelines
2a. First lines of paragraphs
2b. Decker comments
2c. Time/Date Stamp Dates
2d. Stray At Your Own Risk
3. Submission Guidelines
4. Issuing a Revokation
5. Revoking Someone Else's Submission
C. GETTING PAST LOGS
1. Using the LISTSERV 'GET' command
2. Getting past logs via FTP
3. Getting past messages via Gopher or WWW
D. COMPLETED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
1. NERPS: ShadowLore
2. NERPS: Foundations
3. NERPS: ShadowLore II
4. NERPS: Edge Runners
E. SUSPENDED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
1. NERPS: Shadows of the Mind
F. GETTING COMPLETED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
1. Via FTP
2. Via WWW
G. ADDITIONAL LIST INFORMATION
1. Related Mailing Lists
1a. ShadowRN
1b. ShadowTK and PLOT-D
2. Mailing List Advertising Policy
3. Just who are these administrators anyways?
________________________________________________________________________________
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A. THE CURRENT NERPS PROJECT(S)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
NERPS projects are ever-changing and seldom last for more than a few months
before being completed or incorporated into a new project. A full discription
of the current project(s) is included below. Only submissions for the following
projects will be accepted. (Don't forget to read section B for full details on
how to submit materials.)
1. NERPS: Underworld
This is the latest project, of which not much is fixed at the moment. It will
be about crime, "the street," and maybe small corps and other associated things,
but the project has lost momentum. It will most likely be fitted in with other
material, probably that from the next entry.
2. A World Book (no definite title yet)
Currently, ideas are flying about concerning a "World Book," in the style of a
Neo-Anarchists' Guide To The Rest Of The World. This would cover countries and
cities that FASA has not given (m)any details about, but ideas are rather
vague at the moment.
3. Deadlines
There are no deadlines for any NERPS project at the moment.
******************************************************************************
B. HOW TO SUBMIT MATERIALS TO NERPS
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
There are specific submission and formatting guidelines for all materials that
MUST be adhered to or you risk the chance of your creation being rejected.
While putting up with these guidelines may seem like a hinderance and a genuine
pain in the ass, there are reasons for this. In other words, READ WHAT FOLLOWS
AND USE IT! :)
For those who have participated in NERPS projects before, please note that this
section /has/ changed, so read it carefully.
1. Registering a Submission
Before submitting an article to the NERPS list for inclusion in one of the
current projects, you must register your intention of writing and submitting
the article. This registration is simply to let the list know what it is you
are planning to submit later on, so there can be discussions about it and
others planning or writing articles related to the subject you chose can
exchange ideas with you and/or make the two articles compatible.
To register your future submission, you need to send an email
message to the NERPS list with the following format:
REGISTRATION
Project name
Title of submission
Your REAL name (required for copyright purposes)
Your email address
--------
Up to twenty lines describing what it is you will be submitting
Soon after, you will receive private email to let you know that the NERPS
Project Leader <gurth@******.nl> has taken note of your registration.
A list of registrations will periodically be posted to the list as a reminder
and you are expected to submit that material prior to the closing deadline, if
and when one is set.
1a. Author-ID#s
For past NERPS projects, a so-called Author-ID# (Author Identification Number)
was assigned to every person who registered a submission. This was done by the
editors to keep track of who had written which article. As of 17 April 1996,
all previously-assigned Author-ID#s are withdrawn. No new ones will be issued
to anyone registering a submission.
Anyone who has already registered a submission is not required to do so again
-- you can simply forget all about the ID# that was assigned to you, and you
do not need to mention it in registrations or submissions anymore.
2. Formatting Guidelines
As might be expected, there are formatting requirements that must be met prior
to submission. This is to save later re-editing when the document is assembled.
Failure to use the required formatting can result in the summary rejection of
your submission.
Each submission will begin with the name of the project it is intended for,
alone on the first line.
The second line is the title of your submission.
The third line will contain your name and email address. (NOTE: for articles
with more than one author, each name and address should go on its own line.)
Finally, the fourth line will contain eight (8) dashes, as shown in the example
below. This is, believe it or not, actually not an important part; it was from
this section that a number of informational files were automagically created
using UNIX text manipulation programs such as 'grep'.
However, this is not done anymore at the current moment, and so the dashes are
only retained because editors can be just as stupid as mere mortals at times,
and fail to notice where the header ends and the actual article begins.
Everything after the line containing the eight dashes will be considered the
submission (although .signature files and irrelevant material will be removed).
The only exception to this is a revokation certificate.
2a. First lines of paragraphs
In the actual submission, do /not/ begin each paragraph with a tab or a number
of spaces. These are annoying to the editor, who has to remove them because he
prefers to use the automatic paragraph indentation function of his word
processor.
2b. Decker comments
If your article is a piece of "game world" material set in the 2050s, you may
want to include "decker comments" made by people in the Shadowrun game universe.
These should confirm to the following format:
The first paragraph of each comment will have five larger-than signs, followed
by a square open bracket, like so: >>>>>[
Likewise, the end of the last paragraph of the comment must have a square close
bracket followed by five smaller-than signs: ]<<<<<
The line after the last paragraph contains two dashes followed by a space, and
then the name (or alias) of the person making the comment. Then another space,
and the time/date stamp.
The time/date stamp contains the time and date the comment was made; the time
consists of a 24-hour clock, with hours, minutes, and seconds, each separated
by a colon. The date consists of the month, the day, and the year, each
separated by a dash; only use the last two digits of the year. Between the date
and the time is a slash.
This all means we want you to use this format:
-- Joe (16:15:03/9-15-58)
and not this one:
-Joe<16:15:03/09-15-2058>
The reason for this somewhat rigid way of handling time/date stamps is to
create a uniform appearance throughout the NERPS books.
It is possible to have certain commentators use custom time/date stamps (such
as that of the Smiling Bandit in FASA's Shadowtech book), but do not overdo
this. Only highly skilled deckers know how to create forged time/date stamps,
let alone alter them to display another text entirely.
2c. Time/Date Stamp Dates
The dates in the time/date stamps should preferably all be around the same
time, again to create a uniform look to the NERPS book. For example, an article
supposedly written in 2054 stands out in a book where all other articles are
dated in 2057, and such a thing would be unusual in an information society like
the one portrayed in Shadowrun. Information gets old very quickly, even today.
Naturally, all this goes for the non-comment parts of your article as well.
For NERPS: Underworld, it would be best if your time/date stamps all display
dates somewhere late in 2057 -- say, September to December.
2d. Stray At Your Own Risk
If you do not follow these guidelines, it is very likely that your submission
will not be accepted. You will be notified of this by private email by
the Project Leader <gurth@******.nl>
----- >BEGIN EXAMPLE<
UNDERWORLD
Fixers & Their Allies
Jane Average <jane@********.host>
Jack Doe <jackdoe@****.country>
--------
...etc....
...etc....
...etc....
----- >END EXAMPLE<
3. Submission Guidelines
Assuming you have the formatting correct, you then need to submit your item. To
do this, you need to post it to the discussion list for everyone to look at
(see Part A of this FAQ, section 3). Once posted, your submission will enter a
phase where everyone can comment on it.
You may also receive a private email message from the NERPS project leader
Gurth <gurth@******.nl> confirming that the submission was received. If you
don't get this confirmation message within 36 hours, something may be wrong, or
Gurth may have forgotten to confirm the message -- the best thing to do is
enquire (to him privately) as to what is going on.
If you wish to make changes, you can repost an updated version to the
discussion list. Revokation of previous versions is not required for
re-submissions.
NOTE: If you have written up your submission on most word processors,
especially those capable of exporting it in Microsoft "Rich Text Format"
or "Word for Windows" formats, you can send Gurth <gurth@******.nl>
that version (it must be uuencoded for email). It will save him editing
time at the end. Please be sure, though, that you send a text version
to the list for others to see.
Feel free to contact Gurth for a list of word processors supported; the
major ones include WordPerfect up to v5.2 and Microsoft Word up to
v6.0 for Windows (Word for Windows 95 uses this last format as
standard).
Unless the submission is revoked (see parts 4 and 5 of this section), the MOST
RECENT incarnation of that submission will be ultimately entered into the final
document.
Only items posted to the discussion list will be valid for entry into the final
project.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Each submission must be sent in by itself. This means if you have three
things to send in, you must make three seperate mailings.
Remember, though, that if your submission is only a screenful (24 lines
long) or less, it probably needs to be fleshed out or combined with
other thematically similar information.
4. Issuing a Revokation
If, during the discussion period, a particular entry is determined to be, for
some reason or other, not proper for final inclusion, the original author can
issue a revokation.
To issue a revokation, submit an entry TO THE LIST with the same formatting as
if you were submitting an item (type, title, and name+email address), but where
the text would normally appear (after the eight dashes line), replace that with
the word REVOKE. At that point, the item will no longer appear in the final
document.
----- >BEGIN EXAMPLE:
UNDERWORLD
Jane Average <jane@********.host>
--------
REVOKE
------ >END EXAMPLE:
5. Revoking Someone Else's Submission
It is possible to revoke another author's submission. This is no simple task,
though, and should be reserved only for submissions that are truly bad or
munchkinous.
To revoke another's submission, you must get no less that five (5) others to
support your revokation (making the total at least six). To issue a revokation
in this style, use the following example:
----- >BEGIN EXAMPLE<
UNDERWORLD
Fixers & Their Allies
Jane Average <--- This is the name of the original author
--------
REVOKE
name1 email1
name2 email2
name3 email3
name4 email4
name5 email5
name6 email6
----- >END EXAMPLE<
Name# and Email# are the names and addresses of the MINIMUM six people who
support that revokation. More than six people can, of course, support it.
NOTE: The individuals listed in this revokation certificate may be verified
with, so beware of fradulent revokations.
Once the six persons have been verified as supporting that revokation, the item
will be removed. Also note that the revokation MUST be posted to the list to
be considered valid (everything is part of the public record here).
********************************************************************************
C. GETTING PAST LOGS
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[Due to lack of information on the Project Leader's part, this section is
currently blank...]
********************************************************************************
D. COMPLETED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
1. NERPS: ShadowLore
This first publication contains eighty-six pages of new races, magic, cyberware,
bioware, gadgets, contacts and rules designed to spice up any Shadowrun game.
2. NERPS: Foundations
This second publication contains almost 100 pages of new material for your
Shadowrun world. It contains overviews of several characters, locations, and
plot ideas designed to be easily dropped in, such as NPCs and Sprawls, or to
give GMs an idea for a campaign.
3. NERPS: ShadowLore II
Following in the footsteps of the first NERPS ShadowLore, this publication will
contain spells, equipment, vehicles, and rules modifications. It is currently
being edited, and should be finished some time.
(NERPS: ShadowLore II will also contain the material written for the NERPS:
Dragons book that was being worked on in spring 1995.)
4. NERPS: Edge Runners
ShadowRN veterans might recognize the title as a net.sourcebook originally
put together by Erik Jameson <Gkoth2258@***.com>, the former list.member.grumpy.
In early 1996, it came out as a NERPS publication, after it had been updated
a bit. Edge Runners is a net.alternative to FASA's Prime Runners sourcebook,
containing powerful characters that GMs can use as NPCs in their campaigns.
********************************************************************************
E. SUSPENDED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
These are the NERPS publications that got started but were never finished,
for a variety of reasons. They can, theoretically, be picked up and completed
at any time -- provided there is enough interest on the list in doing so.
However, keep in mind that some or many of the authors of the original material
may have left the NERPS list for browner pastures, so they will not always be
around to answer questions about the material they wrote a few years earlier.
Currently, there is one NERPS publication in a statis booth:
1. NERPS: Shadows of the Mind
This book deals with psionics and their implementation in the Shadowrun world
and rules. It is largely unfinished, but copies (in plain text format) can be
found on a very small number of WWW pages. The NERPS project leader also has
a copy sitting on his hard drive.
*****************************************************************************
F. HOW TO GET COMPLETED NERPS PUBLICATIONS
1. Via FTP
Use FTP to go to nspace.cts.com, log in as "anonymous" and go to the directory
/pub/Role-Playing/Shadowrun/NERPS, where you will find NERPS: ShadowLore and
NERPS: Foundations.
2. Via the World Wide Web
NERPS publications can be found on Paolo Marcucci's Shadowrun page, listed in
the ShadowRN FAQ. Most other Shadowrun-related WWW pages include links to his,
but the URL to the NERPS section of his page is:
http://www.interware.it/scripts/sr/show.pl?page=NERPS
********************************************************************************
G. ADDITIONAL LIST INFORMATION
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
1. Related Mailing Lists
There are some other Shadowrun-related mailing lists on the Internet. Among
them are ShadowRN, ShadowTK, and PLOT-D. You can subscribe to each of these in
the same way you subscribed to the NERPS list (see part A of this FAQ), except
substitute the list name for the word "NERPS" in all cases.
1a. ShadowRN
This list is for discussing Shadowrun in general, questions about the game and
its background, and anything else related to the setting.
1b. ShadowTK and PLOT-D
ShadowTK generates "interactive fiction" in the Shadowrun universe. Subscribers
post messages "in character" to create storylines; PLOT-D serves as a background
list for ShadowTK, where storylines and characters can be worked out behind the
scenes.
2. Mailing List Advertising Policy
This policy is intended to fight mailing-list "spamming."
The Shadowrun mailing lists accept commercial advertising for payment. We offer
a fee waiver if you can show us the cancelled check for a $1,000 (U.S.) or
more donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. One donation per
advertisement, please. If you don't wish to donate, simply post your
advertisement to the list, and the operator of the mailing lists will bill
$1,999 (U.S).
The list operator will donate this amount, minus the expense of collecting it,
to EFF. Please note that the lists are distributed automatically -- messages
are generally not read or checked in any way before they are distributed.
By the act of posting your advertisement you agree to accept responsibility for
the fee, you agree to indemnify the mailing-list operator against any legal
claims from you or others in connection with your advertisement, and you agree
to pay any legal and business expenses incurred in collecting late payment.
Our liability to you is limited to a good-faith effort to deliver your message.
Reduced rates and/or waiver of fee are available for Shadowrun-related and
selected other topics of advertisements. You must consult the mailing-list
operator in advance of posting for any reduction or fee waiver.
3. Just who are these administrators anyways?
Robert A. Hayden, 23, is a senior at Mankato State University, located in
Mankato, Minnesota, USA. He is majoring in experiential education with an
emphasis on computer administration and information sciences. He plans to
continue on to graduate school after his graduation, most likely at Mankato
State. In addition, Hayden is a member of the MSU Student Senate Academic
Computing Committee.
Netwise, Hayden is active not only in the Shadowrun forums, but can also be
found in forums devoted to electronic and personal rights. A member of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsiblity,
and the American Civil Liberties Union, he has taken a rather strong stance on
the need for data privacy and rights in cyberspace. In addition, he is a vocal
participant in various gay/lesbian/bisexual rights groups and spends much of
his off-net time pursuing civil rights for minority sexual orientations.
Hayden began his game-writing career when 16. He had published a set of rules
that added fixed-wing aircraft to the Steve Jackson battle simulation Car Wars.
Following graduation from high school, he then edited the net.book _The Tome
of Mighty Magic_, a book of (very) high level spells for TSR's AD&D. Hayden has
also been published in the _Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else_ (#4 and
#5). In addition, Hayden is the writer of the infamous 'Geek Code' that can be
found on many corners of the net.
Currently, Hayden is the editor of the epic ShadowTalk story as well as
administrating the four Shadowrun-related mailing lists. In addition, he is
working on writing a space-based cyberpunkish RPG (as of yet, unnamed).
In addition, Hayden is employed by the City of Mankato as a system administrator
studying the feasibility of hooking the city up to the internet.
If he could he an animal, Hayden would be a dolphin.
-----------------------------------------
J.D. Falk, 21, spends way too much time online. He works for Capital Area
Internet Service (cais.com), one of the largest Internet Service Providers in
the Washington, D.C., USA area, as a systems administrator, and is currently
responsible for five FAQs and a growing number of web pages.
Looking around the 'net, Falk can be found in a lot of places (some of which
even _he_ can't explain). Falk participates regularly in various discussions
about net.politics, and generally favors the continuation of the current
self-regulating semi-anarchistic 'net. "Just write a good charter," he often
says, "and inform people when they're going against it."
He is also quite active in attempting to cure people of the (in his words)
idiotic notion that the current Internet is a Gibson-esque "cyberspace."
To further that goal, he has created cyberNOTHING ("Because nothing is cooler
just because its cyber.") You can see the cyberNOTHING home page at
http://www.cybernothing.org/cno/.
Currently, he is responsible for the ShadowRN FAQ. He has also succeeded Doctor
Doom as Assistant Fearless Leader for all four lists.
-----------------------------------------
Gurth, 21, used to study chemical engineering but failed the first year twice,
which earned him a "binding request" to end his studies in June 1994. Since
then he's been unemployed and doesn't really care about it anyway. He spends
most of his time messing around his parents' house, occassionally taking a
break to go into town for some reason or another. He has been called "intense"
but didn't quite understand what was meant by the remark.
And no, he doesn't mention his real name to anyone but his friends. In fact,
he'd like them to use it as well for a change :)
On the net, Gurth is a very active member of the ShadowRN list but doesn't do
much else. He tried a number of other mailing lists and UseNet, but most of
these didn't hold his interest for very long. He likes the net the way it is
now, and would hate to see it get changed into a corporate- or government-run
thing. His main gripe with his net access is the long-distance phone bills he
has to pay...
He also maintains the world's first (but no longer one and only) character
mortuary, where dead characters from any RPG can be put to rest. The URL is
http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html
Roleplaying-wise, Gurth has played mainly Shadowrun for the past four years,
though with excursions into various other games, most notably AD&D, Earthdawn,
and BattleTech. He has written a number of net.sourcebooks for Shadowrun, and
has now stepped into the footsteps of Robert Hayden and J.D. Falk, to become
the third-ever NERPS editor and maintainer of the NERPS FAQ. His frequent
postings on ShadowRN have earned him the "title" of Unofficial Shadowrun Guru,
which, although meaningless, is a source of, in a way, pride to him. It would
be nice to have it officialized, though...
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--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
They go on these little escapades to escape their own crippled lives.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-
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