Section 5: Interacting and Roleplaying
- Generally deteriorating, disruptive or disrespectful behaviour, both by OOC and the elements you bring into IC, is not permitted. Always consider the experience of those you roleplay with, and strive to avoid OOC aggravation or grief. If you experience someone that you feel is disruptive, deteriorating or disrespectful to you, contact them and inform them of this. If they fail to cease, report it to a DM, and it'll be evaluated.
- Always prioritize the OOC overall enjoyment of your fellow roleplayers higher than IC. This doesn't mean that you can't ever impose negative consequences or loss - a conceivable line of events and an element of risk can be in the benefit of the general experience - but remember that we as players and DMs decide OOCly what we bring into the game, so ultimately we are responsible for it too. Never use IC as an excuse to lessen the OOC experience of others. Don't create characters that will only become a nuisance or aggravation. And when going into conflict with others, strive to make it an enjoyable experience for the player, even if it's despair and frustration for the character.
- Conversely, try to be open to others' approach to the roleplay and remember that what may be unfriendly and unappealing IC can be quite different OOC. Being able to enjoy things that your character despises makes the roleplay much more enjoyable for all. Distinguish clearly between what's IC and OOC. Don't let a character's disagreement with your character become a disagreement between you and the other player. Keeping in check OOCly when playing out aggressive or provoking interaction ICly is always a good idea.
- If it should happen that you feel someone's actions IC is too much frustration for you OOC or ruins your roleplaying experience, contact the person OOC in a friendly manner and try to reach mutual understanding of the source of this aggravation and find a solution that both can agree to. In the same way, if someone contacts you concerning how your own character's actions frustrates them OOC, be open to suggestions and work to keep a friendly OOC environment.
NPCs:
- Attacks upon NPCs are expected to be handled in character and always under DM supervision. Killing an NPC needs to have a valid role-playing reason - being "evil" is not sufficient. And be aware that wholesale slaughter will likely get you executed.
- Interacting with the world is an essential part of every persistent world, that is interacting with both other players and with the environment. Ignoring NPC's and such aspects of the environment willingly during roleplay is detrimental to the realism and consistency of the setting. As such, it is considered akin to metagaming to ignore the NPCs when they from an IC perspective would be expected to react. For example, if your character is currently wanted by the city guard, it is not acceptable to ignore the guard NPCs simply because there are no DMs online to control them.
In-game chat:
- Please remain in-character when around others and try to keep "Out of Character" (OOC) comments to a minimum, preferably in tells.
- If you need to give a OOC message to multiple persons, and do not have time to send tells to multiple people, mark it by putting "//" or "ooc:" in front. Please try to do this only if it's relevant to all who will be able to see it.
- No profanity, racial slurs, cyber-sex, etc. is allowed.
- Anyone caught participating in "cyber-sex" on our server will be permanently banned. This is mainly because otherwise minors could witness or be sexually harassed, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Take notice of the ban of cybersex as we take this rule very seriously. Essentially, cybersex encompasses all scenes containing elements of erotic nature (both from the perspective of the players and the characters). This implies things such as roleplaying situations involving exposed genitalia or exposed female breasts, and also all activity that gives sexual satisfaction of any form to either participant part (innocent mouth to mouth kissing is acceptable). If the roleplay story entails such elements to naturally occur, simply let it surpass by a nondescript emote like [fades to black].
- No "Cheesing": "Cheesing" is the act of playing your character as if they have an ability or feat which the NWN engine would not otherwise allow them to have. "Cheesing" could also mean playing your character as being a race, class or otherwise that isn't applied to your character through the game. An example could be playing out a character as a vampire even if the character is not setup to be that.
Disguise:
- Players may not use the Disguise skill to assume the identity of another player or an NPC without DM supervision.
- Disguises should follow the same rules as all player names and descriptions.
- Piercing a disguise does not confer knowledge of the player's actual name, merely recognition if the player already knows the character and knowledge of the fact that the character is attempting to disguise themself.
Player privacy:
- Don't speculate others' identity or repeatedly inquire for it - show respect if someone might be wanting to remain anonymous. The only exception to this rule is if you suspect someone is using another account to circumvent a ban, in which case you should contact the DM team and leave further investigation to them.
Interaction with DMs:
- Always follow DMs' directives and respect the DMs' judgments in-game. If you feel you've been treated wrongly or unfairly and are unable to resolve it with the DM, either contact a Head DM, Assistant Head DM or the Community Council - don't break off or compromise anything IC as a reaction to the issue.
- If anything disrupts the current roleplay environment or the immediate roleplay enjoyment (such as grievers, getting stuck on an inaccessible tile, or bugged characters) please contact a DM in game and it will be dealt with immediately.
- Alternatively, if the issue is not urgent, then it is to be left for a forum PM. If you have any complaint or issue you need resolved, send a Personal Message (or "PM") on the forums to either the Head DM or one of the Assistant Head DMs. Do not complain to or argue with DMs or other players via tells in-game as it's simply too disruptive and takes up too much time from roleplaying. If you continue to complain by tells or otherwise in-game after a DM has directed you to the forums, it may be treated as a breach of our rules and dealt with accordingly.
- Don't play DMs up against each other ("Mommy-Daddying"). If you've asked one DM something and he/she said no, don't move on to the next to ask the same. If you disagree with the DM's decision, contact the Head DM or an Assistant Head DM on the forum and state clearly that you have already made a request to the specific DM and was denied.
Sharing of items and interaction between own characters:
- Leaving items/gold for one of your other characters is not permitted, and using one character to acquire the corpse of another of your characters is not allowed either. If you have more than one character on the server, remember they are two different people. Don't let what occurs to and involves the one character transfer to the other. This also includes any way of passing on an item and knowingly acquiring it later with another character.
Tag-teaming with own characters is not allowed. Don't use one character to clear an entire dungeon or parts of an area to then log in with an alternative character to roam the same place. Don't have your character in any way react upon or use knowledge acquired by another of your characters.
- Don't hand out items/gold based on OOC things. Don't give out items because of OOC based friendships. Don't give away items because you are abandoning your character.
Multiple characters and faction memberships:
- To preserve the suspense and better allow designing plots, membership of certain factions bars your other characters from active membership of factions having conflicting interests with the first. Your one character might still have multiple faction memberships however.
- Factions currently covered by this rule encompass: Ba'al Verzi, Gundarakite Rebels, The Nerull Cult, Red Vardo Traders and the Vallaki Guards. Other factions (including unofficial factions, i.e. player-run) may be added to this list.
- If you have characters that have faction memberships conflicting this rule, you may decide to make the one character inactive, temporarily removing faction forum access. While having a character being inactive in this way, you should also avoid playing the character.
