TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Experience (XP) is the currency that character accumulate in order to progress through the rank system. To gain experience, the easiest and most common method is to simply post. The minimum word count is 100, and for every 100 words that you post you will accumulate 1 XP upon submission to the grading thread with no upper limit on the amount of experience you can gain.
Please note that 'solo posts' will have a maximum experience gain of 10. This is done to encourage you to roleplay with other people.
For example, 4 posts of 200 words would give a total of 8 XP. One post of 800 words would also give a total of 8 XP. Word count is the determining factor in this, not post count.
However, there are several other ways it is possible to get experience, ranging from rare to see to rather common. These bonuses do not stack with each other. In no particular order, they are:
1) Participating in a event thread allows you to earn 150% XP. Occasionally there will be events run outside of normal cycle that have a higher experience multiplier, but those will be rare.
2) DMing a thread or playing as an NPC. Whether it's a member of the Events Team or simply another player who volunteered to help you out, anyone DMing or playing NPCs in a thread is eligible to get the full experience credit they want to whichever character they please. Someone posting 500 words as an NPC, for example, is eligible for 5 XP just like if it was for their own character. For the sake of avoiding confusion, however, those that plan on doing this frequently they are advised to make an OOC account to do these posts with.
3) Every time a profile gets accepted, a very small and largely symbolic granting of experience occurs. One experience is granted to the member for the effort of creating the profile, and one experience is granted to the staffer who first accepted the application and got it confirmed for the effort in looking over and going through revisions with the member.
4) Every completed class thread, defined as a thread that has a Haven Academy faculty member participating and posting, gets a 20% boost in individual experience gained to all involved. This is intended as a carrot to get students to come to class, and since the boost only happens when the thread is actually completed it encourages people to finish the thread. One is the minimum experience earned in this manner, and there is no upper limit.
5) Any time a member suggestion is incorporated into the site in some way, a symbolic granting of experience will also be done. This number shifts due to the time and effort required in putting forth the idea, but will never be enough to be a balance issue. For example, suggesting the names that are selected for the Haven Academy classes might give you 10XP. Doing something grand and exciting that improves the site as a whole while taking a lot of time and effort might give you 50. While this is by no means a lot, the intent is to show appreciation for putting effort that you didn't need to in order to leave a lasting impact on the site and all the members in it.
6) Storytellers can choose to give earned experience to a Wanted Ad in order to make the offer juicier to prospective writers. This XP must come from their storyteller account and must be earned by the writer in question. IE if a storyteller NPC's Bob Ross for 3 threads and gains 100XP for themselves, they can choose to make a wanted ad for Bob Ross and transfer that 100XP and have it go to Bob Ross's wanted ad instead so whoever picks him up can use that 100XP as they wish. To make it clear, it's storyteller's discretion to give up XP and transfer it to a wanted ad to make it juicier for someone else and no new XP is created, just transferred.
7) The people who post in activity checks on time will gain 25XP for doing so. A staff edit will be done in every activity check post to note that the experience has been distributed to ensure that everyone gets it. This is not a large amount, but over time it will add up and gives a small reward to those who make it easier for staff to keep track of who is active when we ask you to.
Update 07/21/19: Added #6. Update 10/31/20: Overhaul for TRPv2
To give an idea, these are general ideas for the power levels of characters with an entire kit at a certain rank. Each character below is assumed to have semblance, weapon, and a full loadout of combat abilities at the rank specified. Examples of characters in the show with roughly the same level are in parenthesis after each description. This means that player characters will have the ability to surpass these metrics, and that's completely fine. Player characters are supposed to be special, these are just guidelines as to what you may expect from the rest of the world.
G -- Average civilian (Terra Cotta-Arc, Saphron Cotta-Arc)
F -- Average 1st year trainee (Cardin Winchester, Russel Thrush)
E -- Average 2nd year trainee (Coco Adel, Velvet Scarlatina)
D -- Average 3rd year trainee (Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai)
C -- Average Huntsman (Bartholomew Oobleck, James Ironwood)
B -- Elite Huntsman (Qrow and Raven Branwen, Cinder Fall)
A -- Once-in-a-generation Huntsman (Neopolitan, in my headcanon)
S -- Once-in-a-century Huntsman (King of Vale in the Great War)
So you know what the ranks are supposed to represent and what you need to progress through them, but what can you do at each rank? The chart below provides a list of general guidelines for what each rank can do. If it's too small, here is a clickable link that is much bigger.
Attack speeds of abilities do not need to be listed in the application, and are twice as fast as the speed for that rank.
It is important to note that Non-Combat Abilities play by different rules than Combat Abilities insofar as the XP needed to advance each rank in a skill is 50% less. Non-Combat means Non-Combat, as in you can't use it in Combat. I have no idea how to make this more clear. This is cooking, dancing, singing, surfing, video editing, etc. They are seen as tools to get your character more threads related to them by giving your character something cool that they do as a hobby.
The last thing that will be mentioned in this thread is the 'tier system' that TRP uses.
Each of these tiers is designed to be a roughly 33% increase in total power level from the last across an entire character slot. Fighting someone within the same tier should be a tossup, because each character will very likely have areas they are weaker and stronger than the other in. Fights between tiers, though, generally represent a clear advantage to the one in the higher tier. Naturally, someone at the beginning and end of a single tier is going to have different power levels but the tiers are created to give a rough estimation of the power level of each character on the site.
These tiers are do not only give an indication of power level, however, they also determine the character's durability once their aura runs out. This is separate from the combat ability of durability, because that runs out the second your aura does. This 'mundane' toughness can be explained however you want, whether it's from a sweet set of armor or years of training making the character's bones be a little thicker and skin a little thicker than the average person.
Total Combat Experience in the chart below refers to the total of all XP spent in combat related abilities (semblance, weapon, combat abilities) and does not refer to unspent experience, to be clear. When a character hits the experience related to go to the next tier, make sure to post it up in your Progression Thread with the upgrade that got you past the mark!
Some additional things to note about the Progression system
1) If your skill is at a certain rank, there is nothing that allows you to do exceed that level and go onto the next. If you have an E rank level semblance, there is nothing that will allow you to act as if it is a D rank semblance.
2) Abilities do not stack. If you have a D rank conditional skill and an F rank passive skill, say for strength, your strength will be F ranked normally and go up to D rank when the condition like a transformation semblance is activated. If you have D rank passive and conditional strength, for example... you just wasted a slot and a lot of experience on a redundant skill.
3) Having a passive and conditional skill of the same type is allowed, it is within the rules. You are allowed to have weak/redundant skills for roleplaying purposes, just know that it will not be able to be changed without forfeiting the XP sunk into it for characters made after the time of this clarification.
4) Senior Tier and above has an additional benefit per the Exhaustion Rule Update on 09/22/19.
You cannot go higher than the ranks on your character sheet. That is the entire purpose of having a progression system with ranks. They are not thrown away at any point.
In addition, 'Approximate Range Against Man-Sized Targets' on the progression chart is the standard range for everything. If you have F ranked flight, look there to see how high you can go. If you have F ranked leap, that's how far each leap can take you.
All experience deductions are applied before any positive XP modifiers.
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 100 for the thread: 5% XP deduction
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 250 for the thread: 10% XP deduction
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 500 for the thread: 20% XP deduction
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 1000 for the thread: 40% XP deduction
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 1500 for the thread: 80% XP deduction
Code/Other Person's Dialogue counted as words for XP purposes over 2000 for the thread: 100% XP deduction
Random Nonsense: 100% XP deduction
No Total Word Count in Final Post: 25% reduction flat.
Note: The first four are to make sure there's no benefit of trying to cheat by inflating word count and making it actively a detriment to do so. The last one just makes it easier on me to grade, because multiple people who refuse to post word counts in the same thread REALLY sucks. I'm the only grader for most of the time here, so this is unabashedly a change to make my life easier.
Additional Note: 'Random nonsense' refers to someone posting gibberish to inflate word count that has nothing to do with the thread. Typing an entire cipher in Wingdings, for example, for the purposes of adding an extra 1000 words would be 'random nonsense'. EDIT 02/28/20: Posting words that have nothing to do with the current thread also count as 'random nonsense'. A short story pasted in with nothing to do with the current thread, for example, would not count towards XP gained for the thread.
Upon reaching B rank in any skill OR reaching Senior Tier, you get two benefits, with one being the same for everyone and one having three options. We’ll talk about the three options first.
1) Unlock a sixth combat ability slot that works like any other combat ability slot, providing one benefit and leveled as usual.
2) Unlock a once per thread Ultimate Move that immediately burns 30% of your aura and 30% of your health. This Ultimate move must be related to the character's semblance in some way and is mechanically three benefits leveled using the signature skill progression table without consuming a signature skill slot. This type of ability represents your character sacrificing their body to limit break their abilities. Removal of drawbacks, such as a manipulator ignoring the aura drain on their semblance up to the skill's rank, is also acceptable in an Ultimate Move pending staff approval for more unique drawbacks.
3) Transformation semblance users get the option to take an ability that allows them to continue their transformation past their limit at the cost of 30% aura and 15% health every post. This ability does not level and can be used immediately at full power. The damage to aura and health is not mitigated by durability or any other ability.
The second benefit that everyone gets after getting the first one is the ability to select one skill to make their ‘signature’ which allows them to pay only eighty percent (80%) of the XP cost when leveling it up. Any skill except semblance burn can be chosen for a signature skill.