Frequently Asked Questions

Application Numbers
 Q:  How are the Application Numbers formatted?
 A:  CC-RR-VV-YYMM-######

CC is the Country Code. (CA for Canada, USA for USA, etc.)
RR is the Region Code. (SW for Southwest, NC for North Central, etc.)
VV is the first two letters of the Venue of the Application. (CA for Cam/Anarch, SA for Sabbat, GA for Garou, etc.)
YY is the last two digits of the year in which the Application was originally entered. (03 for 2003, etc.)
MM is the 2-digit month in which the Application was originally entered. (01 for January, 12 for December, etc.)
###### is the auto-incrementing application id number, to 6 digits, left-padded with zeroes.

Examples: (Not real application numbers)
  • USA-SW-GA-0302-001234
    USA, Southwest, Garou, February of 2003, # 1234

  • USA-EC-CH-0211-000984
    USA, East Central, Changeling, November of 2002, # 984

  • USA-GL-MO-0308-016011
    USA, Great Lakes, Mortal, August of 2003, # 16011
    • Applications
     Q:  Who has access to my application? I don't recognize the name of someone commenting on my application.
     A:  For any application, only the people in the approval chain have access. This includes, and is limited to, your VST, your DST and any venue-appropriate ADSTs, your RST and any ARSTs, and your NST and any appropriate ANSTs. Kyle Humfeld and Adam Ness also have over-arching ability to see all Applications strictly for the purposes of debugging errors.

    To better understand what access someone has to your application, you can click on their name in the comment, and a small popup window will appear listing their name, email address, and the positions that they hold (ARST, ADST, etc..)
     Q:  An application I entered in August of 2003 is gone! What happened to it?
     A:  On Monday, August 25th at about 2pm PST, the server that the system was hosted on suffered a hard drive failure. We were forced to re-load the database from an offsite backup that was a month old. This means that any changes that were made to the system from July 31st until August 26th, when the system was restored at it's new location were lost, and are completely unrecoverable.

    You will have to re-enter the approvals you gained during that time, and gain re-approval, though those re-approvals should generally be "Rubber Stamped" by your storyteller chain.
     Q:  I'm a VST, and I put in an application, but it's showing up as "Pending Low"! I'm the Low Approval storyteller... Why isn't it showing up at "Pending Mid"?
     A:  Instead of thinking of Pending Low as "Pending VST (or CST for Candian or UK members) Approval", think of it as "Pending approval by my direct storyteller". For VSTs, your characters Low Approvals must in fact be approved by your DST.

    This means that your DST must watch out for applications that are not only "Pending Mid" but also "Pending Low", because they are in fact the Low Approval storyteller for all of their VSTs.

    The same holds true for RSTs, who are the Mid Approval storyteller for DSTs as well as Low and Mid Approval storytellers for independent VSTs. In addition, NSTs are the High Approval storyteller for RSTs and Low, Mid, and High Approval storytellers for the VSTs of Four Winds, and Mid and High approval storytellers for Four Winds players.
     Q:  My applications were there a couple of weeks ago, and now they're gone! What happened?
     A:  In response to numerous requests, the My Applications page has been modified such that the default view hides applications which are not currently in-process. If you wish to see all of your applications, simply click the 'See All Applications' link in the top left section of the My Applications page.
     Q:  I'm a VST/DST/etc, and I used to have access to applications, but now I don't! What happened?
     A:  First, check to make sure that you're still listed as a VST/DST/etc in your Profile. 90% of the time, this is the problem.

    If your Storyteller positions are listed correctly in your Profile, make sure that your filters are set up correctly. The 'Since my last login' checkbox is usually the culprit here, especially if you logged out/were booted recently and logged in again.

    If you've verified all of that, and that's still not it, then please enter Feedback about it.
     Q:  How do I file an application
     A:  In order to file an application for one of your characters, first make sure that your account is listed as a member of your domain, or one of the chapters therein. Look in the "Profile" option from the General menu to find your profile.

    Once you have ensured that you are in the right domain, go to "My Characters" under the Player Menu. Find the character that you'd like to enter an application for, and verify that the character is either applied to a VSS within your Domain, or is listed as applied directly to the Domain Storyteller.

    Once you've verified these two pieces of information, click on the name of the character you'd like to enter an application for. This will show you the character sheet and background that you've entered for that character. It should also provide you with a list of applications that are entered for that character, and a link that will allow you to add a new application for that character.

    From there, all you have to do is fill in the required fields, and click "Enter New Application". From there out, it's your storyteller's ballgame, though you should check the "My Applications" screen from time to time to verify that it's still in progress. If your email address is filled in correctly in your profile, you will recieve emails whenever something occurs on your application, whether it's approval, denial, or a question/comment made by some storyteller.
     Q:  What do the statuses 'Removed' and 'Denied' mean?
     A:  Removed - The application has been removed from consideration, or otherwise been placed in an inactive state. This can occur in a number of scenarios, including a player deciding that he or she needs to do more work on the application, a storyteller deciding that the application is invalid, the character has been killed or retired, etc. Removed applications can have been in any state, including 'Approved', prior to being Removed. In the case of Approved applications which have been Removed, their Approvals are no longer valid. In the case of erroneous Removals, it should be a simple matter to have the application re-Approved by the presiding Storyteller.

    Denied - The application has been denied by someone in the Storyteller chain. Applications are requests, and as such, can either be Approved (and thus be declared valid to enter play) or Denied (and thus be declared invalid and not allowed to enter play). Any Storyteller in the chain for an application can deny the application.
    Characters
     Q:  What is the difference between a character who is not active, and a character who is dead/retired?
     A:  A character who is not active is generally used to indicate that it is "not yet active". If you have 3 Cam/Anarch primaries for example, and you're playing two of them, and waiting for an approval on the third before they are brought in to play, the first two would be marked "Active" and the third would be "Inactive". Dead/Retired characters are no longer active, and should not be brought back into play.
     Q:  The system isn't showing me all of my characters! What's going on?
     A:  In response to numerous requests, the default My Characters view is only of your Active characters. If you wish to see all of your characters, simply click the 'See All Characters' link in the top left area of the My Characters page.
     Q:  My XP total shows 0, in spite of the fact that I've earned a bunch more XP than I've spent! What gives?
     A:  The XP total function is currently a placeholder only, with no actual math being performed. There are plans to activate this feature in the future, however at the moment it doesn't do anything, and should be ignored.
    Domains and Chapters
     Q:  My Domain is showing up incorrectly or isn't showing up at all. Why is this, and what can I do to fix it?
     A:  The Domain and Chapter listings within a region are handled by that region's Regional Storytelling Staff. Please contact your RST or ARST: Administration to get your chapter or domain's information updated.
    New Features
     Q:  Can this system be expanded to include Prestige?
     A:  A separate Prestige system is being developed by the ADTech team. In the eventual sense, this system and that one may interact closely, but as this system's purpose is to track those things which affect the games and characters in them (i.e. characters' applications, NPCs, VSSs, etc), a Prestige-tracking aspect is not particularly relevant to this system, especially given the already immense size of the application (over 11,000 lines of code, and nearly 100MB of data).
     Q:  I have a feature I'd like to see added to the Approvals System, who should I contact about it?
     A:  First, browse through the Help->Feedback section and make sure the issue hasn't already been addressed there.
    Once you've browsed through the issues there, go back up to the top and enter your feature request.
    Be aware that we've already got probably the next 6 months of development mapped out, so it may be a while before we get to the features you requested, though we do prioritize by overall urgency ("Show Stopper" bugs get the highest priority, followed by procedure bugs, followed by usability features, trailed by character sheet formatting)
    Storyteller Priveliges
     Q:  I'm a new DST. How do I get my priveliges set up?
     A:  Contact your ARST in charge of the Approvals System, or your RST if s/he doesn't have an ARST in charge of the system. They can set up your DST priveliges.
     Q:  Is it okay for me to set up an account for me as a player, and a second account that my Chapter/Domain/etc can use as a 'Storyteller account'?
     A:  No, please do not do this. The system has been designed to handle transitions in priveliges well. Just make an account for yourself, and when you're no longer an ST, your next-higher ST will take away your ST powers and give them to your successor.
     Q:  I'm a VST, how do I set up my AVSTs?
     A:  The system does not currently support AVSTs. Changes may be made in the future to accomplish this, but that will likely not be any time soon.
     Q:  I know there are applications out there in my VSS/Domain/Region/etc, but I cannot see them. What's wrong?
     A:  The most common reason for this phenomenon is incorrectly-set filters in app_main.php (your initial page as a Storyteller). Make sure you have all of the options set correctly.

    Unconstraining all options will give you all applications you have permission to see.
     Q:  I'm the DST of my domain, and I'm not getting the storyteller menu? What's wrong
     A:  Usually the problem when this happens is that your position isn't actually entered into the Permissions Database. You can check what posistions you're listed as holding at any time by going to the "General" menu, and selecting "Profile". It will list what positions you are marked as holding.
     Q:  1) I'm the DST of a Domain, and one of the members of my Domain has a character applied to a VSS outside of my Domain. I can see and modify applications for that character. What's going on?

    - or -

    2) I'm the DST of a Domain, and I can see applications for a character played by a player who is not a member of my Domain. The character, however, is applied to a VSS within my Domain. What's going on?
     A:  With the new constitution, significant ambiguity was introduced in a situation in which a person's character resides in a different Domain than the player. As we have seen nothing concrete in the Constitution to dictate how such a situation should be handled, the system will accept either DST as the DST for the application (though only the DST of the VSS's Domain is marked as the DST in the Storyteller section near the top of the application). It is expected that the Regional Office will have oversight with regards to such situations, and ensure that everything in such (rare) cases is done properly.

    We are currently awaiting word from the MST on how this situation should work. When we receive that word, we will modify the system to conform to the MST's guidelines.
    Venue Style Sheet
     Q:  I've entered an application for my Venue Style Sheet, but it doesn't show up under the VSS Listing. What's wrong?
     A:  The VSS listing is completely separate from the Application listing. In order to get your VSS listed in the VSS Listing, you must ask either your DST, your RST, or one of their assistants to enter your VSS into the VSS Listing.
    In order to enter your VSSs if you are a DST, go to the VSS Listing, verify that your Domain is the one selected in the Chapter/Domain selection box, Choose the proper Venue, enter the name of the VSS, and select the VST from the Storyteller selection box. Then enter the text of the VSS into the text area below
     Q:  Why can't my VST see my character's applications?
     A:  First you must make sure that your character is assigned to the VSS in question. To do this, go to the Player menu, and select "My Characters". Find the character you wish, and click the "Move" button for that character. Select the VSS from the list of available VSSs, and then click the "Assign to this VSS" button.
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