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.

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

First and foremost; If you see something, SAY SOMETHING.

That means if someone violates these rules or otherwise negatively impacts your experience as a player, you are obligated as a player to speak to an admin as soon as possible, because we're not going to be able to practically respond to an issue that happened a days ago. We have plenty of active admins who can be contacted through Skype, Byond, our chatroom, and the forums.

You must be 18 or older to play.

No exceptions. Even normal Space Station 13, you're supposed to be at least 18 to play many servers. No one else really enforces that, but we do.

Obey the global rules.

This should be pretty straight forward.

Basic common sense stuff that shouldn't need to be written.

• Don't grief or troll or abuse memes. You know what this means. Don't play stupid.
• Don't break into places for no god damn reason / because you're just bored. Have an actual reason. At least be wanting to steal something worth selling. Jeeze.
• Don't randomly kill people (RDM) for no good reason. Vore is a notable exception obviously.
• Don't pressure or force people to RP in vore or sexual scenes they aren't OOCly okay with.
• Don't vore or attack someone without RP unless both parties agree to battle (or at least imply it, like a suspect running from security or resisting arrest).
• Don't powergame (having an unrealistic advantage).
• Don't godmod (pulling advantages out of nowhere, or ignoring disadvantages).
• Don't metagame (using OOCly obtained knowledge ICly, or telling in OOC things that happened IC during that shift).
• Don't do other dumb shit that would make people view you as a toxic player.

That sorta thing. Basically, don't be an asshole.

There's probably more that could be listed, but that's all I can think of for now. If you don't already know what bad behavior looks like, you'll get a fair warning if you can't find a specific rule covering it, but make a note to remember for the future. The guide to Not Getting Banned expands on a lot of these but should not be taken as an official rulebook if it contradicts anything here.

If you somehow end up being one of those people who continually pisses people off but somehow constantly evades the rules, you'll be given a last warning to knock it off (because at that point we're sure you're either doing it on purpose or incapable of feeling empathy), and then you will be banned if it continues even still.

Flavor text is required.

When in the character setup menu, click flavor text about your character. At least include preferences about whatever you dislike and will never play. We assume everyone in V.O.R.E. has generally open preferences but respect any particular dislikes someone might have.

If your ERP preferences are violated, say something.

ERP stands for Erotic RolePlay. Your preferences are anything you say "do" or more importantly "do not" in regard to ERP. If something on your "do not" list is being performed against you, then you are obligated to speak up in local OOC and ask it to stop. If you fail to speak up until after the scene is done, or only speak up in-character, then complaints about prefbreaking are invalid to administrators. You need to speak up during the incident and you need to be blunt about it. "I'd rather not" is vague. "No" and/or "Stop" isn't vague. You can't decide after the scene is over and go "That RP made me feel dirty, I'm gonna complain to an admin now".

If you aren't into vore at all, this server is really not the place for you.

Stay in your own department.

It's viewed as powergaming if you're doing jobs that you weren't asked to do, and godmodding if you shouldn't know how to do them. This applies to career assistants especially. If you knew how to do surgery or start the supermatter or build robots, you wouldn't be an assistant all the time.

Also don't go rushing to do someone else's job if the department in question has active staff. It's not fair to them if you deprive them of the job they signed up to do, even if you do have access and you do know how to do it. (E.g. Captain chasing down criminals despite a perfectly capable security staff.)

This rule is more loosely enforced during emergencies or when starting the supermatter at round start, and even more loosely enforced when handling the solars since solars are very simple to figure out, but still don't get involved if engineering has people--even if they fail to do their job properly. Just complain to their superiors in-character, or alert an admin out-of-character. They may be busy with things.

Do your job!

If you're not in a vore scene, keep yourself busy by doing your normal job. Vore isn't the only thing that happens on the server. If you habitually join as jobs beside assistant and don't perform your job's most basic functions, you'll get job banned.

For example: An Engineer who doesn't start the engine or set up solars and instead runs straight to the bar for scene hunting is breaking this rule. On the other hand, if you got ambushed and ate before finishing your job, then that's just life on VORE and everyone will have to live without power for a bit.

That being said, please don't join as an assistant all the time to avoid responsibilities. The whole station becomes stagnant and boring when no one is performing their jobs and you're only hurting yourselves. What makes VORE Station more attractive of an option for RP than a chatroom is because there's so much to do besides vore and smut. Work together and do something interesting.

Your job shouldn't make it impossible to do vore, but if you're not eating/being eaten, don't sit in the god damn bar doing nothing all day. You're hogging job slots and it's unrealistic.

If there's some kind of emergency situation going on, I mean, we're never going to job ban you over it if you were in the middle of the scene and could not realistically abandon it, but if you're sexing in the surgery room while someone bleeds to death in the medical lobby, you'll probably still get fired so just be smart about this. Especially if you're the predator: Guzzle up your snack quick if possible, tend to the emergency, then find somewhere comfy to rest and continue the scene.

Don't abuse the 'Ghost' function.

Don't ghost out of your body without already being dead or being in cryosleep. If you're in the process of dying but want to get it over with, type 'succumb' into the chat box. If you're actually dying, it'll finish you off. Abuse of the ghost function will result in job bans.

Don't complain in OOC when your actions IC get you in trouble.

In-character actions have in-character consequences, and going out of your way to get a reaction from other crew or security means you will get a reaction out of them. So if your own shenanigans gets you in trouble, that's your fault. For non-vore crimes, if you think you have been excessively or unfairly punished or retaliated against, use adminhelp, or preferably play it off ICly and contact a lawyer, other security, the Captain, or CentCom. If your complaints reach the admins and they don't think you were treated unfairly, then you probably weren't treated unfairly, so stop complaining. Or just don't complain in the first place and enjoy the ups and downs of roleplaying in a fictional world.

Naturally, vore-related crimes are excluded from this rule - you should be granted OOC leniency if you get brigged for a vore crime. In-character, you'll still be punished as normal, but out-of-character you are entitled to a time-skip (E.g. Space Law says 60 minutes in the brig, but you really spend only 5 while everyone RPs like it was the full 60 minutes). Also we won't ever permanently fire or execute a character for eating someone, and someone trying to enforce the death penalty on you--or permabrig you--for doing vore, and you're not okay with that, then that someone will be punished by the admins for breaking rule 1.

Don't deliberately interrupt ERP scenes. / Don't call for help if you don't want it.

If the victim isn't calling for help, and it's not in a public area, don't be a white knight by getting involved. Security is allowed to force scenes to move out of a public area and into a dorm, or at least into their own department, but until someone calls for help security may not stop a scene entirely. Unless security can prove a crime is happening, they aren't allowed to interfere, and this is already true for all laws under code green.

If you walk in on a scene anywhere beside the dorms, security and other staff have every right to ask questions without needing to seek OOC consent from the predator's player.

It's not very realistic for all crew to be expected to turn a blind eye to someone else's suffering, so here's some advice to avoid awkward situations like that:

• If you are predator, try to steal your victim's means of communication (headset, PDA, making them wear a gag, tying them up so they can't struggle) so they can't summon help, and don't brag about your catch if you don't want to get caught.
• If you are prey, ask your predator OOCly if you have the capability to call for help. If your predator was smart enough to take your gear away, this should only apply if someone accidentally stumbles on your scene.
• Don't whine if your bragging (as pred) gets you in trouble, or calling for rescue (as prey) makes someone actually try to come rescue.
• Try to actually be clever and stay hidden as predator. It's really awkward when someone stumbles on a scene by chance, so at least have a good convincing lie prepared, or use a room like a fire closet or abandoned room or other low-traffic area. If the scene is supposed to be a quick grab and gulp, you can ask anyone catching you to give you some time to progress the scene (since typing is slower than game mechanics) but avoid making them let you get away with it entirely. You still got caught after all and it's no fun for them if they're forced to turn a blind eye when it breaks character.
• If you see an unwilling scene with xray vision or thermals, you're already violating NT's privacy laws, so just keep your mouth shut because you'd rather not lose your job over it. CentCom doesn't care if you were saving someone's life because CentCom is run by cold and unfeeling bureaucratic assholes.
• If you're the AI, unless you see blood, you have no reason to assume anyone is being harmed. Follow your laws normally. If it still annoys you, you can nag the predator if the prey hasn't been scanned and call it accident prevention.

As a recap: Security is absolutely allowed to intervene in unwilling scenes. If the victim is calling for help, no matter where in the station it's happening, including private dorms, Security can interfere. If the prey isn't asking for help, don't fuck with the scene. It's that simple.

Remember, if you OOCly don't want the scene at all, you should say something in local OOC. That is covered by rule 1.

This is all further elaborated upon in the Guide to Vore.

Don't fuck with disconnected or AFK players.

Under normal circumstances, do not harm, vore, or otherwise inconvenience a character whose player is AFK or disconnected entirely. There are some exceptions to this rule and here's what they are. If you cannot find your exception here, don't mess with them.

• If they've disconnected more than 10 minutes, you can put them in cryosleep. If you do that, take away all of their belongings except for their jumpsuit, shoes, ID, and PDA, and return everything else to its rightful department (or don't, and risk trouble with security).
• If they committed a crime, jail them as you normally would and conduct their sentence even if they aren't connected. 20 minutes in the brig is still 20 minutes in the brig.
• Some players like to put notes in their flavortext to indicate that they're okay with getting devoured while AFK or offline. As long as you don't break these preferences, it's okay to do things to them.
• Emergencies will bypass this rule, such as taking the Captain's ID to call the shuttle because the supermatter exploded while the Captain was offline.

Experience is required for any head positions.

If you demonstrate you lack at least a reasonable amount of experience, such as a Chief Engineer unable to start the engine, or a CMO unable to do surgery, you will be job banned from the position until you gain that experience.

Even if you have experience in other SS13 servers, you probably shouldn't be a Head on day one, since we run things a little differently here.

The Captain is one job that it's best to ask the admins before playing for the first time, just to make sure you know the ropes, but this is not required. It's also the easiest to get job banned from.

Don't avoid RP (unless it violates ERP preferences).

Although you can OOCly speak up if an RP makes you uncomfortable, don't abuse this privilege (eg: disconnecting or going 'ghost' at the first sign of any trouble with security, or when the response you got from provoking someone isn't what you planned). The privilege to say "NO" is reserved for preventing vore or sexual scenes you don't like. Nothing else.

For everything else, power through the bad because you can use the bad for interesting character development that you'll later be grateful for.

Unrealistic characters are not allowed.

Any time your character, or their actions, make absolutely no sense in the context of the situation. This can range from having magic powers to fearlessly charging into a battle you didn't need to fight armed with a kitchen knife when everyone else brought mechs. This rule includes 'fan characters'. Do not play characters from other published fiction that you yourself did not create. Only play characters you own, or created.

The phrase "It's what my character would do!" isn't a viable excuse to avoid punishment if you're constantly getting into trouble with security or otherwise being a constant twat. Maybe it's what your character would do, but you know what CentCom will do? Fire you. Eventually CentCom is going to decide you're a liability. That means you will get barred from using the character, and even banned from the server if you ignore this rule with multiple characters. Avoid characters who are suicidal, violent, the not-funny kind of incredibly stupid, or criminals who keep getting caught (meaning everyone knows you did it, not necessarily that you got jailed for it). CentCom wouldn't allow these kinds of people aboard the ship. Avoid doing things that would get you very quickly fired, because if you don't have a good reason for your actions ICly, it's liable to get you banned.

If you're smart/clever enough to make a character who can do naughty things without getting caught, then this rule doesn't really apply to you. Just don't break the station. Or the people on the station. The rules don't say you can't be a troublemaker. Crimes on the workplace are very believable and common in real life; especially stealing. If you get caught though, you're going to get in trouble. So don't get caught! Or at least put good effort into not getting caught.

"But people eat other people on this station! How is that realistic?!" Because it's normal on this station. How is Bluespace realistic? Because suspension of disbelief, smartass.

Powergaming bullshit also falls under this rule. Nanobots, super strength, special powers, magic, none of this is allowed. Admins sometimes make exceptions for events, but that's about it. As a general rule of thumb; if you can't reasonably emulate what you're trying to do with the game's mechanics, you probably aren't allowed to do it as a character.

Don't suicide without a damn good reason!

We're talking about the jackass who jumped out an airlock as a pity plea or the other asshole who killed themselves with a toolbox because they were bored. Not only does this hog a job slot that can't be recovered, it creates unrealistic and unwanted drama. Although suicidal characters are covered by the above rule, we'll go more into detail here.

If you're going to have your character commit suicide, ask yourself; "In this situation, if I were in this situation in real life, would I kill myself over this?"

Here are some examples of what's okay and what isn't.

• You've just been facehugged and you're about to die horribly anyway via your chest being ripped open by an alien parasite. Suicide is realistic because it's a less horrible way to die.
• You've just been embarrassed in front of the crew for a rookie mistake and no one died but now everyone is mocking you. Suicide is not realistic so get over it and move on.
• You've just mistakenly killed another crew member by your negligence and over the next several weeks the guilt of this incident bottles up until you can't take it anymore, and there's not been a psychiatrist on-station to try to help you. Suicide is a possible realistic outcome, though you should probably tip off an admin so we know there's a well written story behind it.
• You've been called a retard by someone. Once. Suicide is not realistic, so don't be an attention whore.
• You've been the victim of constant workplace bullying and harassment by the crew despite efforts to ask command for help and it seems like no one give a damn about your suffering. Suicide is now realistic, albeit tragic option, and it creates an interesting conflict for RP to thrive on.
• You've been bored. Suicide is not realistic so put down the fucking toolbox.

Think of it this way. If you intentionally kill yourself, is it worth being permanently banned over it? Because that would be the most realistic way of handling it by admins. Not to imply that is how we will actually handle it, but we've been known to occasionally handle it that way before. So consider this before killing yourself, because if you produce a shit reason for it, you might end up permabanned or permakilled.

Admins may act based on their judgement, even if it's not explicitly in the rules.

Just because something isn't written down doesn't mean "it's allowed" or "it's okay" if it ends up disrupting RP for other people on the station. This is just all the stuff we could think of. If you don't like an admin's orders, comply for the time being and contact another admin as soon as possible for a second opinion. Admins are also at liberty to judge what is an "overpowered" character. If it results in a ban, you can always appeal. It's not impossible that the admin was being unfair.

If you feel like admins are abusing powers, speak up.

Try telling the offending admin first, or tell another admin if you don't feel comfortable telling the offending admin directly. In both cases, do it privately. Yelling over global OOC is probably just going to get you banned and then further embarrassed when you find out you didn't know the full story behind their actions.

For example, if it's Ace you have a problem with, and you're not comfortable speaking to him directly about what you're upset about, you can contact another administrator like Joan or Ultimated or whoever else to get your point across. Just because he's in charge doesn't mean he's deaf to the good advice of his subordinates.

Realistically, if three or more admins have the same consensus, you're not going to win. Cut your losses if it gets to that point and accept that you probably screwed up.