Post by shadowstrike on Aug 24, 2016 14:38:07 GMT
Guidelines/Rules
To follow is the list of common role-play rules that every role-player should understand and follow.
1. Do Not God-Mod
Godmodding is when a character features god-like abilities, such as invincibility or the strength to fight city formers, or other unrealistic powers that don't fit with lore.
Example: The 28ft mech Shadow-Strike began running forward before leaping 120ft into the air to swing an uppercut into Metroplex's jaw, knocking the titan's head from their chest before landing perfectly as Metroplex fell dead.
2. Do Not Metagame
Metagaming is when a player applies OOC- retrieved information to their IC character, such as participating in a private battle that you only saw was stated to be happening on the forums, or hearing whispering because you saw the text, and knowing a character's name because you saw their username. This is the most commonly broken rule of role-play and most infuriating for many. If your character is informed of the event it is perfectly fine.
Example: ((after being sent a PM from Shadow-Strike)) *Ratchet the medic runs into the scene immediately and rushes to his buddy, the stasis-locked Shadow-Strike, just moments after he was injured.*
3. Do Not Mix IC and OOC
Related to metagaming, it is considered taboo to "mix ic and ooc." That is, players are generally encouraged not to associate information and events that occurred between active, playing characters and events that occur between the role-players themselves. Most often, when players associate OOC information with their IC behaviour, whether it be how they perceive another character or actually acting on information they wouldn't otherwise have, it's called metagaming.
However, it's also considered poor form to take IC information and apply it OOC. That is, if character A insults character B, and player B takes character A's insult as a personal attack from player A rather than exclusively an IC attack on character B, that is mixing IC and OOC. Any instance of holding against a player what his/her character said or did violates this rule (not to be confused with holding against the player any rule violations he made while controlling his character).
Another instance which is less inflammatory but still technically a violation of this rule is if character A says something, character B doesn't understand or takes it the wrong way, and player A deigns to explain himself OOC to player B. This is especially the case when player B already understood but was intentionally allowing his character to mis-react for the sake of adding interest to the game or being true to character B's nature. This cramps the flow of role-play and can sometimes be insulting to a player.
4. Do Not Auto (Autohit, Autowalk, etc)
Autohitting is when a player performs an action without giving the affected players a chance to respond. For example, running up to somebody and saying *Stabs in the spark* then running off would be autohitting.
Auto also applies to non-combative actions to which another player might have a reaction. Saying, *Shadow-Strike slips past all the guards and into the base,* while protectobots are guarding the entrance to the autobots's base would be autowalking on the premise that, in all likelihood, those protectobots would stop you before you got past them or a player might pop in. This can easily be fixed with a simple rewording. Add "tries to" or "attempts to" to clarify that your character intends to perform said action, but his success depends on the responses of those around him. More advanced role-players will go into detail with their actions and emphasise their attempts. This is a frequently broken rule by newer role-players.
Example: *Shadow-Strike runs forward and stabs Ratchet in the chest*
5. Do Not Lorebreak
Lorebreaking is when a character breaks lore, which is anything that likely affects a character or scenario. The basis for these commonalities is origin, culture, and known historical events. For example, a OC claims to be the thirteenth prime despite it being documented that the thirteenth prime is in fact Optimus Prime.
Example: Shadow-Strike was the thirteenth prime and had been in hiding ever since his battle with Unicron.
Lorebending, a similar term, is when existing lore is lightly modified (Hence the term lorebending), but not significantly or in a way that detracts from the role-playing experience. Often this has to do with ideas that are neither supported nor contradicted by existing lore. Lorebending is considered ok.
6. Do Not Powerplay
Powerplaying occurs when a player operates someone else's character without the other player's consent. The most blatant example of this would be a player writing, "Your character falls off the cliff when he walks up to it." As you can see, you take active control of what the other character does. Not only is this not fair to the other player, but it's also discouraged because often players will misconstrue the behaviours and personalities of characters they didn't design.
Powerplaying goes into more subtle situations, however. Saying, "Shadow-Strike charges Ratchet so fast that he wouldn't be able to react enough to avoid it," can also be considered a violation of this rule since Shadow-Strikes's player has controlled Ratchet's abilities, possibly in a way that doesn't accurately represent his character. The appropriate way to word Shadow-Strike's attack would be, "Shadow-Strike charges Ratchet so fast that it's unlikely he could totally dodge it without equally inhuman speed." This leaves it up to Ratchet's player whether or not Ratchet is actually capable of avoiding Shadow-Strike.
Example: *Shadow-Strike walks up to Aura and moves to plant a kiss on her. Shadow-Strike's rich, masculine musk overcomes Aura so powerfully that she has no control over herself and kisses back.*
7. Do Not Play Mary-Sues
A Mary-Sue is a specific kind of character that is usually considered literately reprehensible and otherwise unpleasant for others to play alongside. A Mary-Sue is any character (of any gender, age, race, or species) who fits one or more of these descriptions:
A character who’s too perfect, lacking realistic or logical flaws, or whose flaws do not affect them in real ways.
A character who’s exactly like their creator, except idealized or made “better”. (E.g. more attractive, smarter, given skills, abilities & powers the creator wishes they could have.) Essentially, the creator is inserting themselves into the story, but without the flaws, quirks & limits that make them interesting and real. Users are often discouraged from creating characters who would be described as, "He's based off me," especially since that comes with the extra risk of violating the avoid mixing ic and ooc rule.
A character who’s far too powerful, especially whose abilities exceed that which is possible for his/her race in the setting of the story. Particularly if said character has abilities that do not exist within the boundaries of the story’s world.
Often these characters are technically legitimate, but are very, "Look at how unique and cool I am!".
A character who’s cliched, having qualities or characteristics that are overused by people trying to have a powerful/perfect/cool character.
8. NO Adult Related Role-Playing
Will we will accept to an extent violence, vulgar cybertronian language and gore there will be no exceptions to sexualised roleplaying on these forums. There may be relationships between OC's but please keep all over PG-13 love stories away from this site.
9. Attention Hogging
There's people out there who simply want everyone to pay attention to them. They do this by either provoking someone, or doing something to harm themselves, which causes people to automatically look at them. No one should constantly be harmed, it's just unnatural. Plus, it takes away the chances of others joining in the RP, and they feel left out. Everyone should enjoy RPing, and have a chance to communicate with everyone equally.
10. Multiple People Thread Posts
Usually a thread will have one or two players posting between each other. This is fine since both players are involved and have little chance of being left behind. However when a thread has more than four people the slower, and sometimes more detailed posters can be left behind. Due to this there is a posting rule once four or more players enter a thread.
In a thread of four or more, a player must wait for half of the threads players to post before they may post again. They may otherwise post if there has been more than twenty four hours between the last post and current time, unless they where the ones who posted. In that case they must wait twelve more hours.
11. Minimum Sentences Per Post During Combat
To prevent oneliners and encourage detailed posts during combat to make for interesting fights, this forum has a minimum of ten sentences per roleplay post. This does not include anything that is said OOC or in a non-combat scenario (although players are encouraged to still write more than one line). Guides will be put up at some point to help beginner roleplayer's figure out how to bulk up a post.
Example: Shadow-Strike stared at the rules above. The barest hint of emotion coming into play, as he realised not a single other example was ten sentences long. He did not show his incredibility however. No, that would be amateurish and Shadow-Strike was not an amateur. Although he did apparently godmod from time to time if the Metroplex head lying on the ground was anything to go by. Either that or Ratchet's spark chamber on the ground which had been stabbed through.
Now that Shadow-Strike thought about it the results where disturbing. He might even need to mindcontrol Aura to calm himself down. No wait, that was powerplaying... why was he the example again?