Site Rules: For Real This Time

I swear this is the actual site rules. No, really.

Stop laughing. I'm actually going to write them this time.

Anyway, this thread will be where I post new rules as I come up to them. It will remain up until I feel the rules are complete and not a moment longer. The rules as they change will be open for comment and suggestion on the part of you, the community, but keep in mind the right to suggest things does NOT automatically mean your suggestion will be included. It's not personal, it's not an insult to you, but I have the penultimate final say on what's what here. Just because I don't include your suggestion doesn't mean I don't like you. Where possible I'll try to include the reasoning behind not including a given suggestion.

Staff
The site staff have unique colored usernames. Blue for moderators and red for administrators. To put it simply: their word is the law. THE law. Argue with a mod or admin and you will regret it. Mods are the rule enforcers, admins are the rule makers. Which, incidentally, doesn't mean that admins have less authority than mods; it means that their duty isn't to police you. If you force them to, they're not going to be happy.

Now, that said, I like to pretend this isn't Oceania. Mods and admins are people too and as such they can make mistakes; if you disagree with them feel free to PM them and discuss the matter in a mature and respectful manner, with lots of italics. Posting in the actual thread and arguing with them, on the other hand? Not smart.


Interactions
We have some very few rules on how to treat other forum members. If I wanted to I could boil it down to "don't be a jerk," but that's the sort of thing that gets interpreted subjectively by people just looking for loopholes, so I'll go into more detail.

No flaming: Essentially, don't actively insult another member. At the same time, beware of interpreting a post wearing jade-colored glasses. In text format we don't have access to a lot of the gestural and tonal qualities of the English language that can clarify what we mean. So assume that something was meant in the best of ways, or at the least it was a sarcastic joke.

No hate speech: Thinking about posting something against a race, religion, country, culture, etc.? I will smash your head down into your chest cavity with my banhammer.

Leaver your baggage at the door: For the purposes of things like arguments, debates and your general opinion of the other members, the forum requires that each thread exists in a vacuum. If Poster A did something you didn't like in Thread One, you can't hate on him in Thread Two or such. Each thread is independent of every other. Likewise, issues in meatspace (otherwise known as the world outside the Internet) or other sites do not carry over to this forum. That's not to be interpreted as me saying that this forum comes above your personal life in importance. But if you've had a bad day in meatspace or on another website, don't come here and spread the negativity around. We've got enough of it as it is in our own lives, keep it to yourself.

And God help you if you start hating on someone for something their character did in an RP. The person's character is not the same as them. The one exception I will allow is for animal abuse. I do not abide animal abuse and if somebody pulls that I will not only declare open season on them but go after them personally myself before I ban them.

Roleplaying

Now this is going to be a bit of a dodgy section to write. RP rules vary depending on the RP and depending on the GM, but there are some constants which I will try and cover here.

No limelighting: Also known colloquially as being an attention whore. Your character(s) are not the only ones in the RP, you have to allow for others to do some stuff too. If you don't want to, get off this site and go write a book, because that's essentially the best alternative. Multiple writers means multiple viewpoints, multiple protagonists, and it means you can't do everything yourself. GMs in particular must take note of this; if you've got a character running along with the main party, don't make them solve everything, no matter how tempting.

The GM has the final say: Rule 0 of RPGs is that the GM's word is roughly on par with that of Jesus within an RP. Now, you're free to debate, negotiate, wheedle, complain and argue to your heart's content and a good GM won't smite your character with a thunderbolt for it (unless, of course, it's funny and they know you won't take it seriously). If the GM is a poor sport about it, you have a very simple solution: leave the RP. It's not a roleplay without any players and if a GM finds themselves alone maybe they'll take a hint.

No puppeteering: Unless you have EXPLICIT permission or you're the GM, you MAY NOT control any of another character's actions. And the GMs don't get off of this entirely. They can extrapolate reasonable courses of action (such as kicking down a door or looking around, or moving closer to investigate) but ultimately the control of a character belongs to that player and if they cry foul, GMs ought to listen.

No metagaming: Your character is not the same person as you. Well, usually. The point is, you may know things your character doesn't, such as a plot detail going on somewhere else, something the GM has told you about, or say you know a bunch about video games but your character is a Wizard from Harry Potter. Your character therefore does not have this same knowledge, and acting on it will be seen as generally poor roleplaying, even if you couch it in "I sense a disturbance in the Force." If you sense a disturbance in the Force the GM will damn well tell you and don't you forget it.

First update.

So what kind of rules are you trying to pass?