Rules

These are the rules for the server and are subject to change without notice. For further clarification, also see the guide to Not Getting Banned. If you did get banned, there's probably a good reason for it, but if you disagree, you can always appeal your ban.

These are rules, but they are not infallible or concrete. If something feels wrong don't do it, or admin-help it first. Above all, use your common sense, listen to the game staff, and keep the game fun for everyone.

If you disagree with the rules as they currently stand, talk about it on the forum or with admins and maybe we can improve them through some healthy criticism and debate.

List of non-rule admin decisions you can review: Admin Rulings

You must be 18 or older to play on this server

• There are no exceptions. If the staff suspects that you are underage for any reason, you will be banned from playing on the server until you are able to prove to the satisfaction of the staff that you are at least 18 years old.

• Continued use of racial slurs, ‘lolspeak’, and other indications of immaturity may be taken as signs that you are underage.

• Being aware of another user breaking this rule and not reporting them is grounds for an immediate, permanent ban.

• The age of consent in your country is irrelevant. Your opinion about this rule is irrelevant.

Obey local laws and regulations

• You must obey all local laws and regulations while playing this game, or participating in OOC systems that we host, such as various chat rooms, forums, and wikis.

• No child pornography, discussions about piracy, OOC threats of violence, discussion of illegal drugs.

Be respectful to others

• This is a game, we're all here to have fun, but try to make certain your type of fun fits our server and doesn't ruin things for others. Don't be overly offensive, don't spam in-character or out of character channels, don't rage at and insult others.

• This is primarily an OOC, player to player rule, if you wish to play a character who's disrespectful and insulting toward others, that is fine as long as you don't go completely overboard and start ruining things for others OOCly.

• Racial slurs/epithets, derogatory/defamatory language against social groups, and generally any other category of bigoted language is not allowed. Using this language ICly is not allowed if it pertains to any real-life social group. Saying that “all Tajara look the same” is fine. Saying that “all black people look the same” is not. Being part of some real life social group doesn't grant you immunity to this rule.

• Leave AFK/SSD/disconnected players alone, unless their OOC Metainfo specifically states you are allowed to do something to do them. If they have been idle for more than 30 minutes, you should move them to cryo (or similar ‘log out’ system) to free their job slot. If they are in a head role, they probably have unique equipment on them. You should strip this and return it to the department, or admin-help for directions. Do not steal their equipment unless there's an emergency that you can justify to admins.

ERP preferences must be respected

• This server was created by people who are voraphiles. In short, this means people who are interested in roleplaying eating each other. If you are not at least okay with witnessing and being around this sort of roleplay activity, you will be in almost perpetual violation of this rule.

• Players should have their ERP prefs listed in their “OOC Metainfo” or “OOC Notes” on their characters. You are required to respect these preferences. If you are unsure about the meaning of some of their preferences, then use LOOC to discuss it with them. If you accidentally go against someone’s preferences, or someone else goes against yours, work to correct it as quickly as possible, even if that means just deciding in LOOC amongst yourselves that ‘this didn’t happen’ and going your separate ways.
  • If you are uncomfortable with an ERP theme that you hadn't thought to add to your OOC notes, remember to add it immediately afterward so it doesn't happen again.

• AFK/SSD/Disconnected players are not valid targets for vore/ERP unless their OOC Metainfo/OOC Notes specifically state otherwise. ‘Anything goes’ or similar note is not sufficient. It must specifically state preferences for when they are SSD.

• Do not kinkshame others. This includes overt comments about someone’s ERP preferences being ‘wrong’ or ‘immoral’, but also includes passive-aggressive remarks related to preferences, such as public remarks suggesting that you won’t go near someone because of their OOC ERP preferences. If you have negative feelings about someone’s ERP preferences, don’t interact with them, and keep it to yourself.

• Do not attempt to force yourself into ERP scenes where the other party (or parties) involved are not comfortable with it. This includes (but is not limited to) repeatedly jumping into people's food as a micro, trying to do ERP that a player has blatantly stated they are uncomfortable with, trying to guilt players into having a pity RP with you, hit and run ERP, etc. You get the idea.

Listen to staff

• We are not a democracy, our rules and guidelines exist for a reason and we have staff dedicated to enforcing them and help set further guidelines if necessary. In other words if a staff member tells you to do something, do it. They tell you to stop? Stop it. If you disagree with a ruling don't try to argue it then and there, especially if things are hectic. Once things have calmed down, or after the round has ended on-server, you can try to contact the staff member to discuss the ruling, or another admin if you are unable to, or believe the staff member is in the wrong even after discussing. Bringing up the same issue with more than three staff members will be considered harrassment.

• If you have a question over something unclear or questionable, never be afraid to adminhelp. The staff on hand should discuss it amongst each other and give you a ruling, from there on if the ruling is incorrect it's on the admin who cleared it, not you.

Keep IC and OOC separate

• IC (In-character) and OOC (Out-of-Character) actions and knowledge should be separated as much as possible. Don't use OOC channels to discuss what's going on IC until after the round is finished, don't use OOC knowledge to do things your character wouldn't know, such as operate medical machines when a cargo technician. You are not playing yourself in the game, you are controlling a character with their own wants and knowledge and the IC/OOC boundary is to help reflect that.
  • Note that these same rules apply to LOOC as well.

Roleplay as long as it's feasible

• This is an HRP (Heavy RolePlay) server. You are expected to roleplay your actions with other players as long as it's feasible. If someone engages you in purely ‘robust’ (aka game-mechanics driven) combat while you were attempting to roleplay with them, with no reasonable provocation, please use the admin-help feature to inform an admin.
  • Reasonable provocation would be things that deem you too dangerous to be given even a chance to talk. For example, openly wielding a gun while threatening people, charging someone with a knife, trying to create a hazard, or being the target of a manhunt.

• If a fight does begin, you're not expected to type out every gunshot and dodge and attack. That would be absurd. Generally, you roleplay up until the point that it makes sense to start attacking, and then use game mechanics from there. You are allowed to respond to ‘robust’ violence with your own, if you desire, though you should attempt to return to roleplaying as soon as feasible. The environment is not designed for a focus on action, but rather for character-building and roleplaying. When a fight is over, resume roleplaying.

• Movement is considered a game mechanic for the purpose of this rule. Wordlessly running at a security officer who is attempting to arrest you, or wordlessly fleeing from them, is considered engaging in game-mechanic combat. The security officer has valid cause to stop trying to roleplay and stunlock you into the ground.

Create and play server-appropriate characters

• Play a reasonably sane and mature character, give them a non-immersion breaking first and last name, do not play obvious reference characters, or characters from published works without a special character application approved for that character.

• Keep in mind that people do not like pain or dying and usually try to avoid it without good reason. Give your character a reasonable set of strengths, fears, and weaknesses. When writing things for IC, write things out that sound like speech, not emoticons or lolspeak.

• The setting contains no magic. Your character cannot have any superpowers, magical abilities, or anything that does not exist in the setting or cannot be reasonably replicated with game mechanics. If they are not someone who has a good reason to work on the station, they should not occupy any normal job slot and should be a ‘Visitor’ only.
  • The exception to this is purely private roleplay. For example: If your character and another character are in a dorm by themselves, and the other is OOCly fine with it, your character can display potentially supernatural abilities. This is limited to that roleplay, though. You should not discuss anything about that in public.

• OOC Notes and Flavor Text is required. Your OOC notes must detail your ERP preferences, and your flavor text should not include non-physical attributes (do not include feelings your character has, or how they act).

Do not kill or attack people for no good reason

• This includes yourself. Even in self-defense your goal is to fight off your attack and escape to go get help, killing in a fight should only be done as a last-ditch effort when it's clear it's a you or them situation.

• Suicide is almost NEVER allowed. Contact an admin if you want to have a character commit suicide. Typically the manner in which suicide is carried out is played as an in-game attention grab and without actual compelling reasons. This can upset those that find this subject OOCly uncomfortable.

• Caving in someone's skull for cutting in line, stabbing yourself in the eye with a screwdriver because you are bored or jumping out an airlock because you're sad are all examples of improper killing.

Do not join with an inappropriate ckey

• Ckeys, better known as BYOND user names, must be appropriate, if any are deemed inappropriate the ckey will be banned and you will be unable to play on our server until you make an account with an appropriate name.

Metacomms/gaming, multi-keying are not allowed

• Metacomms: Using third-party programs, such as Discord, IRC, Skype, or even the BYOND pager, to discuss and share information of the ongoing round. This excludes other players, can contribute to toxicity among the playerbase, and is often a tactic used by griefers and thus is a no-go.

• Metagaming: Using information obtained from elsewhere to influence IC decisions and actions. Your opinions or knowledge of other players or characters obtained via OOC methods should not direct your IC actions. If you have an OOC grudge against someone, you may not try to antagonize them IC, for example.

• Multi-keying: Logging in with multiple BYOND accounts on our game server. There is never any legitimate reason for you to do this and thus is not allowed.

Do not powergame

• Better known as 'playing to win'. As a security person this can be seen as going out of your way and needlessly endangering others to ‘win against’ criminals. As the station AI exploiting loopholes in your laws to get yourself out of them or getting the person who subverted you into trouble is another way. There is an implicit allowance for lawed characters to ERP. You may create loopholes for this reason only.

• While this shares several things in common with other rules, it still is it's own entity. Play to have fun, allow yourself to lose now and again and roll with the blows as it can make things potentially even more interesting.

Do not ‘Self-Antag’

• If you have not been given objectives or a directions by staff to perform certain tasks as part of an event, do not start acting out the role of an antag you may have played on other servers. Don’t break into areas to steal things “just because you’re bored” or “just because I want to annoy security”.

• You cannot have a character with an “antagonist” background without having an approved special character application for that character. Your ex-mercenary ex-ninja ex-cultist is not allowed.

• We play on ‘Extended’ round type at all times, and this means that there are no preselected antagonist roles. Most other SS13 servers have these, but we do not. Any antagonists are staff-selected players, picked to play a specific role.
  • If you are selected to be an antagonist-type role, this does not mean you can suddenly break other rules, especially the 'no senseless killing' rule. You should try to stick to your objectives, or go after targets who will enjoy being on the receiving end. You must continue to roleplay like anyone else.

The dorms are protected

• The ‘dorms’ area on the map are reserved for ERP and are ‘protected’ from interruption. It is a violation of this rule to break into occupied dorms or harass players in dorms.
  • The only exception is for security to arrest those who have committed crimes. Security is not allowed to indiscriminately inspect dorms for crimes, but a known criminal hiding in a dorm is not protected by this rule.
  • Conversely, it is not permissible to attempt to use dorms to hide from security, or to make their job of finding you harder. The dorms are for people who want to ERP in privacy. Don’t involve them in your shenanigans.

• Dorms are protected from all (or almost all) random events. Radiation, meteors, etc should not interfere with your scene in the dorms.

Use English

• We are an english server, all OOC communications are expected to be done in english. It's alright if your english is rough and imperfect, just as long as you make the effort. This also extends reasonably into IC communications.

• Having a character sometime speak smatterings of other languages, such as a German curse, or a Japanese curse is acceptable, but speaking exclusively in these languages is not.

Understand the basics of Clone Memory Disorder

• CMD (Clone Memory Disorder) is your character losing memories of recent events leading up to their death. Jumping out of the cryotube screaming "URIST MCASSISTANT DIGESTED ME IN MAINTENANCE" is very very poor form and pushes the boundary of powergaming.

• This is to keep things a little more sane in-round, and to allow for players with preferences in non-consensual activities to have their fun (with people who share those prefs as victims).

• It is therefore against this rule to remember and abuse the knowledge of who killed/raped/ate you after being cloned/resleeved/revived to antagonize/persecute them without the agreement of the other parties in the roleplay. They can include this consent in their OOC Metainfo/Notes or discuss it with you in LOOC before or after the roleplay.

You are expected to perform the job you signed up for

• When your character joins the round, you are accepting the responsibilities that the job you have chosen brings with it. Remember: if you are playing in a slot, you are likely preventing other players from performing that role. It is important that you fulfill the tasks that you have signed up for!
  • For example: if you are an engineer, you are expected to fix the station and supply power — not shirk your duties and ignore the hole to space in Medical. As a medical professional, tend to patients; and so it goes with all of the occupations.

• A player must take into account the qualifications (both physical and mental) of their character’s role before placing them into it. If staff find your character to be unsatisfactory in fulfilling the requirements of the role, we may instruct you to revise your character.
  • This includes majorly disabled characters — quadruple amputees, deaf, or blind characters, and so on — which are only permitted on the station in the Assistant (and associated alt-titles) job slot.

• We reserve the right to ban players from jobs who repeatedly fail to perform to an acceptable standard until we're confident that they will be able to perform the job in question.

• If you are going AFK for an extended period of time (more than 15 minutes), and are occupying a limited-number job slot (any slot other than assistant), you must remove your character from the round using a cryopod (or other similar means) to free the slot. Repeated failure to do this may result in being banned from that job.

• Do not do other people’s jobs. If you joined as medical, do not attempt to hunt down criminals. If you joined as engineering, do not attempt to perform medical treatment on your coworkers. If you are a head position, allow your staff to do work before you do the work yourself; you are a supervisor and manager first and foremost as a head position.

• Playing jobs that can be called upon at any time to assist other crew members in emergencies waives your right to have interruption-free (E)RP sessions in private, including the dorms. If you join as a paramedic, expect to be interrupted out of private scenes. If you’re an engineer, you are expected to set up power systems and repair any large-scale damage that hampers the rest of the crew, regardless of your intent to have sex with the assistants.

You are expected to obey the chain of command (within reason)

• The Colony Director is your boss, and if you're a station engineer so is the chief engineer, so listen to them. They are the boss for a reason. If you're playing a role that has laws, such as the station AI, you must obey them to the best of your ability. If you consistently do not follow reasonable orders, you will be job banned.

• As a non-synthetic or role without laws, you can disobey orders you think are traitorous, harmful, immoral, violating Corporate Regulation, or severely violating Standard Operating Procedure. However, be prepared to face in-character consequences for disobedience.

• As a synthetic, if you are given an order or law that may break a server rule, please alert the admins for a second opinion before continuing.

The intent of the rules is more important than the letter

• The purpose of the rules is to preserve a fun and enjoyable environment for all players. If everyone is enjoying themselves even while the ‘letter’ of a rule is not being followed, it’s likely that no staff intervention will be required.

• Plenty of rules are left vague enough to cover as much as possible without being too oppressing. Attempting to rules-lawyer saying that this rule doesn't exactly say that, even if what you are doing is against the spirit of the rule, is a good way to get into trouble either way.

• It is within staff discretion to decide that certain actions violate one or more rules, even if the specific action is not listed as part of the rule. This is simply the job of the staff: to interpret the rules. Whatever the staff decides as a whole is final. You can appeal decisions to other admins if you believe one has a bias against you, but doing so to more than three staff members will be considered harassment.