• What is the Unending BE Addventure?
• New Rules: A Few Rules & Guidelines
• Help With Addventure in General
• Enter the Unending BE Addventure
• Unending BE Addventure Stats & Utilities

What Is the Unending BE Adventure?

Unlike a "normal" Continuous Story, an Addventure doesn't get "stuck." If one particular storyline seems to have gotten bogged down, just back up and take another branch. Within days, there will be hundreds of open branches to extend whenever you like. All types of stories can exist in one place, since there are literally hundreds of mini-stories going on simultaneously in an Addventure.

This BE Addventure was inspired by the original Addventure , most especially Addventure Game 3 . The BE Addventure is using the Addventure code (provided under GNU Copyleft), so everybody thank the fine folks at Addventure for their time and energy that has gone into the code!

You may also want to stop by some episodes of Addventure's Game 3 which are particularly relevant to BE:

• An Odd Bra (Scott picks out a Nurse's costume with an Odd Bra)
• Wer? What? (Scott can become a were-stripper if he wants)
• The Ultimate Remote Control Guess what some of the buttons do?
• Addventure: A New Beginning

Now, for our Unending BE Addventure , there are a few rules and a few guidelines to consider:

Rules

1. Every story segment (called an "episode") must contain between one and six links to future episodes. Although you decide the "link text" for those episodes (the text which a reader would click to go to that episode), you don't have to enter the future episodes themselves. Indeed, usually future episodes are written by other people. But you cannot have an episode which has no links, and you cannot have an episode with more than 6 links. The program will prevent them.

2. The story never ends. This is obvious, given rule 1, but just to be explicit about it: the story never ends. If you feel like the story should wrap up in a particular spot, you can have the main character go to sleep and wake up back at Episode 2, which is the main root of the whole story. (This introduction you're reading now is Episode 1). The start was specifically written to have a character wake up, so you can link back there at any time.

3. No sabotage . It depresses me that I have to say this, but apparently I have to. It's OK to have a branch or two link back to the root, but you will not be permitted to "kill" someone's story branch by linking all of its children back to the story root. I don't care if you're the "original author" or just a bully. You will not be permitted to sabotage this BE Addventure. You don't like that? Don't write here. Sabotage will be defined and dealt with at the moderator's discretion.

4. No flame wars . Avoid using the Addventure to "write" to other authors. That's what the Plume Forum is for. Especially no flaming of previous authors. Don't like what they wrote? Then either don't follow its links, or write a branch from it that goes in a direction you want to go. Do NOT write text in your episode about how dumb a previous author was, or how they ignored part of a story, or what-have-you. This Addventure is open to the public. That means anyone can add to it, even people who don't follow continuity or who incorporate elements you don't like. Deal with it. Flame episodes may be removed at the moderator's discretion.

5. If you change your mind and decide not to write an episode after you've already begun writing it , DO NOT just click the Back button on your browser to go back - use the "Cancel" links provided on every "data entry" page instead. Using "Cancel" cleans up the files properly - just going "Back", or quitting from your browser, leaves your episode half-finished and it will be a few hours before it will be cleaned up and someone else can write that episode.

Guidelines

1. When you're writing an episode, you're writing in HTML. If you put in carriage returns to break up paragraphs, they will NOT be preserved and put into the episode. You instead need to put in the HTML code for a paragraph break, which is <p> (a "p" inside angle brackets). You may decide to use an HTML editor to write your episode, and then copy it into the browser - this will work fine, but be sure to only copy the part inside the "body" of your HTML document when you copy it in.

2. Likewise, you can use any other HTML codes you like when writing an episode. To make words bold, put them between <b> and </b> tags. To make them italic, put them between <i> and </i> tags. Just about any HTML is allowed in episodes.

3. When making up choices for future links, remember you can only have between 1 and 6 choices. Try to make the choices be something noticeably different. If you write an episode that says "Jim picks out a shirt to wear" and the choices are "a red shirt", "a blue shirt", "a green shirt", and so on, most people find that almost impossible to follow up, and it tends to kill the entire future of your episode. This is probably because writers want to make use of the story so far and make the story on their choice be different than other choices. But how would choosing a different color shirt make their future different? If you must have a "choose a shirt" episode, make the choices more radically different, like "a shirt with a magic pentagram on it", "a shirt with a picture of Marilyn Monroe, that seems to sparkle and glow", and so forth.

4. When in doubt, make fewer links. The fewer choices, the better - it helps keep the story together. Vitamin C suggests using only 2 choices in most situations - I prefer a general rule of 3 choices, but you get the picture... KISS!

5. It's usually nice to add a "something else" link as a choice. If you make an episode where you end with the phone ringing, and you want to have the reader decide who's on the phone, don't just put "Sharon" or "Sally" -- also add a third option like "Someone else". This lets writers with a lot of creativity add fun and interesting twists you didn't expect into the story.

6. When you're writing a new episode, you will be given the option of "creating all new episodes", or "allowing links to past episodes". Allowing links means that you may want to have some of the choices leading out of your episode to go back to previously-written episodes. If you don't allow links, then all the choices you specify will be brand-new, "blank" episodes, waiting for an author to come and fill them in.

7. When writing an episode, you will also be allowed to specify whether "linking is enabled". Checking this box would allow future episode writers to link back to your episode. If you leave it unchecked, then nobody will be able to link back to your episode with one of their choices.

8. The same general sorts of cautions exist as in the Continuous Stories. Please don't be rude to previous authors - if you don't like something they're writing, go to another branch of the tree that you do like. Do not add on bits saying "that was stupid." Rude additions will be removed at the moderator's discretion.

9. Have fun!

That's it, folks! Have fun, and enjoy this Unending BE Addventure! To start reading at the root of the tree,

A swirly cloud of something that looked like fog filled the room, and then faded into the night. A man lay sleeping in a bed, covers pulled up to his chin. The clock next to him showed "6:59", then quietly flipped to "7:00" and began to beep.

Jim was asleep, and right in the middle of a very exciting dream, when the loud beeping of the alarm woke him up. He blinked his eyes a few times, rolled over and turned off the alarm. He lay there in bed for a moment, remembering what he was supposed to do today. Whatever it was, it had to be better than yesterday, he thought - today is a brand new day!

After laying there quietly for a moment, Jim:

Sharon's birthday!

Jim hopped out of bed, his eyes wide as he realized he hadn't gotten her a present yet. He jumped into and out of the shower, brushed his teeth, and ran a worn-out comb through his hair, and then

He went to mall, heading toward's the local hallmarks store, when he saw an odd shop called Spells R Us. He lingered at the window for a moment, tempted to go in...

Jim entered the card store and looked around. It had been some time since he had needed to buy a card, and he realized there was no shortage of choices. He first looked at the Shoebox greeting cards, but while he found most of them quite amusing, he knew Sharon would have quite a different feeling. That was the one problem with dating the president of the school's feminist organization--no sense of humor.

The next group of cards was from a brand that Jim had never heard of before. This batch was called SEXploitation, and the cards had the slogan "See the person in a whole new light". These cards had photos of people of all shapes and sizes on the cover, and inside there was a sappy poem comparing the recipient to the person on the cover. Jim thought that this might be a good card to get Sharon; while she might have lacked a sense of humor, Jim knew she appreciated irony.

The final cards had strange colorful designs on the cover, almost like those 3-d prints, Jim thought. When he opened the cards to see what was written in them, he saw that these were blank cards, with the only writing was the disclaimer at the bottom that said, "A Truthwriter card--write what you believe--a subsidiary of the truthwriter company". While Jim knew that he would never be confused with Shakespeare, he considered himself quite a poet.

Finally, after much deliberation, Jim decided upon his purchase.