Common Rooms: When asked about allowing common rooms to be viewable by all Houses (though still only House members can post in their respective common room), the results in the member survey were also 50-50. When discussing this with the staff, a fair amount wanted common rooms to be viewable to all and a few were indifferent. Based on this, all common rooms will be viewable to all next term for OOC purposes; if your character is a Gryffindor, IC they still would not know what’s going on in the Hufflepuff common room unless a Hufflepuff told them IC. If you are not a supporter of being able to see all of the common rooms, then simply pretend the other common room forums are not there.

Quidditch: Quidditch is coming back this term! While it is great seeing the old captain badges (for those of us who have been here long enough), please know that this is NOT the Quidditch of the past. We will be doing Quidditch very differently. It is not a speed-race trivia game, but rather an additional layer of IC interaction to the Hogwarts RPG. In short, here is the rundown:

1. The Hogwarts RPG Admin and the Flying instructor will select captains before the beginning of each term.
2. When the Hogwarts RPG opens, tryouts will begin (these will last roughly 14-20 days). Threads for each House will be provided for those who have characters who are interested in joining the team (this is ONLY for characters played on the site). Within this thread are:
   • A 10-question survey that you are to complete about your character.
   • An IC tryout to be played with guidance from the House captain.
3. After the time for tryouts has come to an end, the Hogwarts RPG Admin and the Flying instructor will select which characters make the team and what position they have. Any spots that are empty will be filled in with NPCs; we will NOT be filling in spots with the names of characters who are not played on SS.
4. Each House will have an opportunity for one IC practice with their teammates. This practice will be led by the House captain and will last roughly 2 weeks. The Quidditch Pitch thread will be utilized for this practice, and others who wish to watch (or spy) can view the practice in The Stands thread.
5. Throughout the term, the Hogwarts RPG Admin and the Flying instructor will be determining the results of Quidditch matches for IC purposes. We will be using the same process the Ministry uses to determine who wins and loses the League matches (a combination of coin tosses and usage of a random number generator).

Overall, Quidditch is on a trail-and-error grace period. This process is as new to us as it is to you, so we are all in this together. We will be looking at what is/isn’t working and improve as time goes on.

Interaction: Stemming off of the activity bit, I wanted to briefly discuss interaction with each other. It was brought up to me that, overall, some would like to see less “this post is for X” and more open role-plays (mostly because it is more inviting, especially for those who aren’t as comfortable crashing role-plays or are new). While I know we all want to have a grand old time role-playing with our friends, we, both staff and non-staff, need to also remember that the role-play is also for us to interact with those we normally don’t on the regular. With that said, let’s all make it a goal to go bananas with playing with those we normally don’t in the upcoming term or snag an open post whenever we see one – who knows what will come of it! ;