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Resources for Newcomers
#641629 - Sun Jan 25 2009 11:52 AM
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Greetings Dreamers old and new!
I know some things can be pretty confusing in the Napping Cat's Dream, especially when considering that this site has been around for about 10 years. There is a lot going on here, and not all of it can be committed to memory.
So in this thread I will be attempting to provide some links to various resources that can help all members with learning about this forum. If you have a thread or an idea to be added to this list, feel free to PM me with it.
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Hey, so first off we need rules. There are a significant number scattered around the forum. Here is where we will try to catalog them for you.
The Dream Directives - The six most important, guiding rules of the Dream. So important, that I am going to copypasta them for you:
- CREATE ORIGINAL AVATARS ONLY
Please do not create Wolverine, Gandalf, Han Solo or any other copyrighted characters or species. It is okay to play a character with a similar personality or similar look to a (c) character, just don't use their actual name or their identical look. This applies to species and organization names. No Wookies, Vulcans, or Star Fleet Command. A halfling is okay but not a Hobbit ((c) Tolkien). Don't include any additional elements from copyrighted works in your character's premise (original organizations, vehicles, weapons, magic items, planets, etc. from copyrighted works).
- THE GOD MODERATOR RULES THE THREAD
The player who initiates any thread is the GM (God Moderator) and is always in charge. You must accept the GM's version of what happens, even if it is different from what you post.
- MAJOR ACTIONS CAN ONLY BE "ATTEMPTED"
All major actions that will alter the flow of the narrative, such as attacks, spell use, etc. must be described as ATTEMPTS whose outcomes will be determined by the GM.
Examples:
You cannot do this: "Jill shoots her arrow and slays the evil beast."
You can do this: "Jill shoots her arrow and attempts to slay the evil beast."
- DON'T ASCRIBE ATTRIBUTES OR ACTIONS TO OTHER AVATARS
You can only control your own avatars. You can never post actions for someone else's avatars. Don't presume to ascribe physical details or historical details to other avatars (unless your avatar is intentionally lying for narrative purposes). This also applies to settings created by other players.
- RESPECT YOUR FELLOW PLAYERGODS (Even if your Avatars don't)
Hostilities and fights between avatars are permissible, but always respect the Player God behind the avatar. Do not use the Private Message (PM) system as a continuation of hostilities. Using the PM system to harass other players will result in banishment by lachesis.
- KEEP THE FORUM CLEAN (Both Visually & Verbally)
* No excessive profanity or graphic sex talk
* No spam outside of the PITCH forum
* No pornography
* No stolen art (original art okay)
* No extended text strings without breaks
* No images over 550 pixels wide
* No use of ALL CAPS for entire thread titles (reserved for Admin threads)
The Dream Rules - The Dream Directives are in this thread, too, but so is a lot of other information. If you are looking for help on the premise of the site, what the different forums are about, how to run a thread, or other advise on the general running of the forum is here. These rules are a bit long, and some information is outdated, so we apologize if it is hard to go through.
Specific Rules - Outside of there being overall rules to the Dream, certain forums and aspects of the site have their own rules. Here is a rundown in case you need to find them:
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Sometimes we just need a hand with getting our characters off the ground, or making them easier for people to understand. Here are a number of resources relating to profile creation.
How to Write a Profile (Tutorial) - Stickied to the top of the forum in Learn is this very helpful thread by Erica! She goes through a number of points of view and steps to give you a guiding hand on how to construct your profile.
A View From the Street - Our resident co-mod Benor has also written a guide on how to build a character. This guide also contains help on how to interact on the MZDM.
Optional Profile Formatter - If you feel like having a snazzy profile like mine ( ) you can use this forum tool to help you create one. Mostly this plugs in the necessary HTML formatting. You still have to do the job of making up good content!
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Help
#641632 - Sun Jan 25 2009 12:03 PM
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Now, sometimes we just need a hand getting a grasp of how the forum software works, or just how to do other things related to the site. Here are some resources relating to such issues.
The Forum FAQ - Technical help on how to use the UBB software, but it also includes some of our rules on not heavily editing posts and image sizes.
Getting to Know the NCD Forum - Another stickified thread in LEARN, this time from Wind Wraith of the Wretched Wrags. This gives more detailed instructions on features of the MZDM, such as editing your signatures.
Searching the NCD - A friendly reminder from our Admin Krinele. How to use Google to search the masterzdm.com, instead of using the forum's search feature, since the latter can inhibit the performance of the rest of the site.
Locked Threads Requests - If you need to lock a thread, please PM the moderator of that forum. We used to have a thread to post such requests to, but I took it down because I think it is more efficient to get one of the active moderators involved, rather than bothering Krinele who is busy with many projects.
Bug Reports - At this time, I am going to say that if you encounter a bug, you should PM Krinele. At least until such time that I am told otherwise and need to put up more stickies. :P
Help! - If you have a question... feel free to drop it right in this thread! Benor, myself, and others will do what we can to help!
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So you are here and you can find your way around, but what is this place all about? Who are PAs? What do those crazy icons mean? Hopefully here are few links to point you in the right direction.
PONDER and the MZDM Webcomics Index - Now, our setting in the "Napping Cat's Dream", whereas the site is called "Master Zen Dao Meow". Our current website is based on the comic that used to run here, called and with the main character of "Master Zen-Dao Meow". The PONDER forum currently houses the archive threads of this comic, where people could comment on it. The MZDM Archive list just makes it easier to find these comics in a chronological order. PONDER is also currently housing an illustrated RP, sponsored by our Administrator Furilius Pitch.
The Psychedelic Avatars Now, the original stars of the comic were called the Psychedelic Avatars. There were thirteen of them, if you ever hear someone refer to them as the 'original thirteen'. However, salesman that he is, eventually Furilius Pitch decided to let others become Psychedelic Avatars (or PAs) themselves, mainly based on their participation in the forum. Being made a PA included getting artwork of your character done, based on your profile. This stopped after PA #500, so we are no longer giving out such official artwork.
The Napping Cat Icons - Now, in the comic itself, Zen Dao steals the icons of the Napping Cat, and puts them on and begins to meditate. These icons influence his visions and are relevant to the arcs of the comic. These icons are also used to divide up our forum. The icon of the Napping Cat itself is used to represent ENTER. Just a link and explanation for the curious.
The Avatar Adventure Index and The Napping Cat Chat Cutscene Cards - These are more instances of official art, from the board PERFORM and from the Official Napping Cat Chat. Also in the case of the Adventure Index, if your RP is finished successfully, you are encouraged to link to the thread and write up a synopsis there.
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Re: Help
#642217 - Wed Feb 18 2009 12:23 PM
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I have a question and hopefully this' the right place for it..
I want to get back into role playing here but Kei isn't me anymore.. She's elvolved and grown and has become completely different from what she once was. The addition of the "h" has become a part of that evolution. Question is should I Scratch her original profile and edit it to reflect what she is now or leave her be and create a new, alternate, persona to reflect what she is now?
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Re: Help
#642218 - Wed Feb 18 2009 12:28 PM
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Hey Kei, you could do a medium of it and put two profiles under your one Kei acct (like you would if you had an acct with multiple characters), stating that one is new and one is old, with the new one being the one on the top. Maybe grey out the old profile, but keep it there. That way you don't have to worry about making new profiles or loosing old ones.
Squic occasionally does that with his characters. You can see it in his acct here
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I think you have a number of options in regards to what you want to do with updating Khei, and I'm not sure which one you want to go with from here. I see you did make a login for Khei, so this may be a moot point.
First off, I will say that it might be a good thing to keep Kei's old profile somewhere on the site, just so that those looking back at her previous adventures can see who she was and how her powers were specific to that incarnation.
Also as a note or observation of mine, if you join a Ponder or other official site challenge for PAs, currently the standard is that your avatar will look as they appear on their PA card. So if Kei has had any update to her image, this will not be reflected in any official challenge art. This is more for the ease of the artists working on the image than anything else. And I will say that this condition does not apply to if you commission a PA card for yourself. Hopefully I'm not being too confusing here.
Now as for options to go with for updates, you could house the older profile in the current profile at the bottom or somesuch, or stick it in a thread or off site somewhere with a link to it. With your new login you could even link to the old profile there and say "This is what Kei used to be like, for the curious." You could also flag your old profile with a note that says "Updated as of 02/19/09" or some other date. With Master Flare's profile I put a red "*NEW*" tag next to any new information I have added. It all depends on what knowledge you want us other PGs notice and have.
On a minor note for the Kei to Khei switch, you could ask Krinele if she could update your old login to that. However I doubt that change would get reflected in her PA cards, so that might be a bit of an inconvenience.
In any case, good luck, and I hope you enjoy roleplaying here again. 
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Khei
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Member #10846
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Posts: 4
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Thnx MF. Yeah I got some good input on my Livejournal as well and figured that It might be best to just make a new login for the new version.
At some point in time I might find it useful to revive the old Kei for a thread somewhere in the future. Meanwhile a fresh start for the new version seems to be the best option.
(This is not to say that I don't like Kei's PA cards cause I still very much do. She just isn't "Me" anymore is all)
One other question, and maybe this isn't the right thread to ask. If not I'll edit it out and move it to the correct place...
How in the blazes do you get a pic into the profile like Master zdm's when doing the flashy profile?
I tried to look at the page coding itself but using that puts the image on the right rather than the left.
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I don't actually know how to input images as exactly as you might want into that profile setup. D= I've tried to do it, without success.
Hopefully someone else can pop in and get an answer for you though. Sorry!
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In my own profile I used divs which makes it a lot easier to position images (ie: simply change 'style="float:right"' to 'style="float:left"', everything lines up properly) but it seems that method doesn't work with the profile generator output.
The left placed images seem to done with "abuse" of html tables although I'm not sure exactly how it's done. I managed to, I think, get the same effect although my method may be slightly different (I couldn't find a cleaner way to do it).
Basically I added a line above the age part:
<td width="1%" rowspan="12" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/khei/Kheiavatar3.jpg" alt="Picture" width="150" height="333" /></td>
<td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Age:</td>
This means that 12 rows of the table will have an extra column for the image, the number of rows has to be manually set/determined.
Then for every row after those 12 I modified the tag from:
<td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class=...
to
<td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class=...
Here's the final profile with everything in it, I can't be sure if dreamweaver (or myself) didn't break something else when doing this. Don't think so but it's been some time since I played around with html.
<table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"
> <tr> <td colspan="2" class="pname" bgcolor="#000000">Khei</td> <br
/> </tr> <br /> <tr> <td width="1%" rowspan="12" bgcolor="#
DBDBDB" class="ptitle"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/khei/
Kheiavatar3.jpg" alt="Picture" width="150" height="333" /></td> <td bgcolor=
"#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Age:</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
class="pcontent">Unknown. Appears to be in her mid to late twenties.</td>
</tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Gender:</td> </tr>
<tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">Female.</td> </tr> <tr>
<td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Species/Race (human, furry type, robot,
alien, etc.):</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent
">Kittora</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Height:<
/td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">5'6"</td> </tr
> <tr> <td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Build:</td> </tr> <tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">Average with a bit of a Paunch.</td>
</tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Coloration (skin, scales,
fur, feathers, hair, etc.):</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF
" class="pcontent">Base fur: Bluegrey<br /> Muzzle/Paws/Tail tuft: Medium
dark bluegrey<br /> Stripes/Ears: Dark, nearly black, bluegrey<br />
Headfur: Teal</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="
ptitle">Eye Color:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
class="pcontent">Emerald green</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor=
"#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Clothing / Armor:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=
"2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">Head: Mossimo eyeglasses<br /> Body
: Dark blue, long sleeve, turtle neck shirt. (Sleeves always rolled up to
the elbows.), Black "Fruity Oaty Bar", "Shiny", or "You're beginning to
damage my calm" T shirt.<br /> Legs: Black or Khaki colored denim jeans (
Sometimes cargos)<br /> Feet: Rugged Outback style high topped hiking
shoes.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle"
>Occupation / Class:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
class="pcontent">Cartoonist/Artist</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"
bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Affiliations (family, friends,
organizations):</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class
="pcontent">None at this time.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor=
"#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Accessories (weapons, jewelry, tools, magic
items, vehicles, etc.):</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#
FFFFFF" class="pcontent">Drawing pad and mechanical pencil filled with
red colored .5mm lead.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB
" class="ptitle">Pets:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF
" class="pcontent">See below.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#
DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Abilities/Skills & Power Level:</td> </tr> <tr>
<td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">Anything drawn with Khei's
pencil become real including inanimate objects and living creatures and/
or beings.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="
ptitle">Limitations</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
class="pcontent">* Objects or creatures "summoned" in this way must be
drawn on a wood based surface such as paper or plywood. In the event no
suitable surfaces are within range for Khei's use, her pencil is rendered
useless aside from stabbing someone with it.<br /> * Anything "summoned"
in this way will only exist as long as the surface it has been drawn on
is in Khei's possession. Once the surface leaves her possession, the
object or creature "summoned" will cease to exist.<br /> * Creatures and/
or beings "summoned" in this way will not always listen and/or obey just
because they have been summoned. living creatures will have a mind of
their own are just as likely to hinder Khei as they are likely to help.</
td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">
Weaknesses:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="
pcontent">Khei is extremely healthy, resistant to most illnesses, and
fairly quick to heal. However she is mortal and thus susceptible to all
the frailties of any other mortal being.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2
" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Special Effects (if any):</td> </tr> <tr>
<td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">None as of yet.</td> </
tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Description of
Personality:</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="
pcontent">At first glance, Khei comes off as Bi-polar Manic depressive.<
br /> <br /> Though often happy go lucky she has a short fuse, a hot
temper and is prone to bouts of angst, self doubt, and paranoia.<br /> <
br /> Though she finds it difficult to trust others, once befriended, she
is quite loyal and trustworthy.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"
bgcolor="#DBDBDB" class="ptitle">Brief History:</td> </tr> <tr> <td
colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="pcontent">She was living back in K Town
with three idiots she drew to life with her pencil. Now she finds herself
is a strange new world.<br /> <br /> Her stress levels have shot
through the roof since.</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#
DBDBDB" class="ptitle">A brief and character revealing answer to the
question, "What is your ambition?"</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"
bgcolor="#000000" class="pamb">To find a way home before I go insane!</td> </
tr> </table>
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I think Gen's got this one. I was working on a post at the same time, but it's taking a bit of time to fine-tune the HTML. I wanted to mimic what was done in the official profiles like that, which doesn't involve as much colspan, but uses tables within tables instead.
If you want that, I can send it along to you, Khei! I could even try popping a mock-up of such a profile in here. I'm not sure, since it feels a bit redundant with that one already here ^.^;
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