Editing Fortune: Evolution Game (section)

== Rules & Guidelines ==
Guidelines are about player conduct (especially in regards to what is or isn't allowed in submissions), whereas rules dictate [[Crunch|game mechanics]].

=== Rules ===
Fortune:Evolution Game is ''very'' rules-light, bordering on [[freeform]].

The game involves "evolving" various species of plants or animals. There is no win condition, so to speak, the goal is to "create an interesting setting" as the namefag "nongent" put it in the first thread.
 
Various organisms are presented for the players in the form of images. The players can then change those organisms by editing the image and then posting it. A player can do one of two things with their new edited image. It can be posted as an evolution of the previous creature, meaning that the previous creature is now replaced by the new one; alternatively, the player can designate their new image as a newly emerged subspecies of the previous image, meaning the creatures in both images are now present on the world. This is called a ''split'' or a ''branch-off''.

Once the edited image containing the creature is posted, it then becomes part of the developing "canon" of the game, and other players can edit and evolve it too. At various, arbitrary times, the GM will respond with results of the adaptation, as well as introducing random effects in the world in the interest of "shaking things up". Note that, sometimes, players will include cause/effect and results in their posts. So far, FortuneHost does not seem to mind, and if well written, sometimes even encourages it.

FortuneHost has said that there is a system in place to determine the result of the rare roll, whatever it is, though, has so far been withheld (though so far all rolls have been 1d10s).

=== Guidelines ===
Despite FortuneHost's exceedingly hands-off and light-handed approach, there are a few hard and fast stipulations as to what can and cannot be submitted.

* One change on one creature per posting, but anyone can edit any creature any number of times, as long as each is a different post. 
* Try to limit these changes to the small. I would like this to be gradual. The more radical a change is, the more posts/stages it should take to get there.
* Each edit requires a picture. It doesn't have to be Rembrandt, but images help me keep track of the changes.
* Color change is free, as long as you can explain the change in pigmentation sensibly.
* No "alien intervention" or "meteors from space" or "cosmic radiation". These changes will occur due to environmental pressures ONLY.
* No joke/fetish races/changes. (''eg. no dick shaped creatures, no "reproduces-by-rape", and no creature-with-a-spine-so-flexible-it-can-kiss-its-own-ass'')
* When you create a creature, make sure you "quote" the post containing the creature you are changing/adapting.
* Make sure to specify whether your creature is a ''branch-off'' (...) or an evolution of it.
* You can only branch-off or evolve the most recent iteration of a species.
* The only adaptations disallowed are tool use and brain power/sentience.
* No creature can evolve two posts in a row. If critter A has evolved, then someone's got to make at least ONE post that evolves another critter before doing so again. (''Note that I have no problem with the same person posting thrice in a row. Critter A, Critter B, Critter A all by the same guy. Fine by me.'')