Rules
Our rules are designed to accompany our vision to create a communal hub, built on respect for one another whilst maintaining good quality roleplay for all to come and enjoy.
We have broken these down to the following categories:
Application Process and Tickets
Criminal Activity, Law & Medical Staff Rulings
Our server looks to respect the cultures and historical accuracies of the real world's past. Whilst we would advise against grounding your RP and character in these events, we are not looking to suggest that these key events did not take place as we feel this would be disrespectful to those in the disadvantaged positions during those times and would rather look to revel in the varied cultures and lives of those people.
Etiquette
Staff and Communicating with Staff
-
All communication with staff that is OOC should be handled through our Ticket system on Discord. Please do not DM staff unless specifically invited to do so. We maintain open communications through the official channels within our Discord where we welcome conversation and feedback.
-
When making a report, please try to provide supporting clips to aid our investigation on the matter. This is particularly important in any player report tickets.
-
Appeals to a ban are permitted once every 30 days and no more than 3 attempts to appeal can be made.
-
Rules, rule enforcement, and any action taken is at staff discretion. Failure to follow the intent of the rules and policies may result in the same action as failure to follow the rules exact. You are welcome and encouraged to ask for clarification if needed, as it might also help us better communicate our rules in the future.
General
-
Insults, verbal aggressive behaviour outside of RP and all forms of harassment are prohibited.
-
All forms of targeted derogatory or abusive language will not be tolerated.
-
The use of hacking, script/resource injection, utilization of glitches and exploits are prohibited.
-
Any OOC issues with another person that result in a dispute that cannot resolve, it would be encouraged to be mindful of one another to be responsible in going your own ways and not carrying the aggression into state. Staff should not have to intervene in personal disputes unless one of the above rules are broken at which point would then warrant a ticket.
Character Guidelines
-
Mute/Text based RP is permitted. During your onboarding interview for the whitelist, if your Microphone makes you particularly hard to understand, we may request you consider or partake in mute/text based RP until better clarity is achievable - this is to provide the better RP experience for all.
-
If needing to AFK, please place yourself in a space that is appropriate. You are exposed during this time. If you fail to participate in a scene and get robbed, then we will not look to take any punitive measures. If leaving for extended periods of time, we would recommend logging out.
-
With regards to dueling, players can agree to the severity. Not all duels lead to death in history and so we wouldn’t expect a duel in the state to only result in permadeath, though it certainly would be the more intense option. Consent can be sought via Discord or using /me. Please refer to the rule about not forcing permadeath upon another player.
-
Unconscious – any injury which results in you being downed or unconscious means that your character was injured and fell unconscious. You did not die. Death is reserved for permadeath situations which is your choice. You should roleplay suitable injuries for the incident or accident and not say that you "died" to maintain healthy RP immersion.
-
Supernatural RP is prohibited. You can be time period accurate in terms of spiritual belief systems or belief of the supernatural, but do not take up the rule of a supernatural entity.
-
Suicide or Self-Harm RP is prohibited.
-
Roleplaying a Minor is prohibited
-
Torture RP - if planning an act of torture in a scene, you should look to obtain consent from the other party within a reasonable time frame before the scene takes place, not during or after. This is normally considered meta information, but given the sensitive nature this is allowable for the reasons of seeking consent. Bother parties MUST agree to the specific nature of the torture within the scene beforehand.
-
Erotic RP and Nudity, used in a negative, sexually exploitive manner will result in an immediate ban with no appeal. If nudity is used in a manner not conducive to a good roleplay, our moderation team will look to pull the person aside and provide a warning with advice, offering any help they might need to better their RP and learn.
-
Players may not return as an avenging relative of a perma’d character.
-
A player may not force permadeath upon another player.
Application Process and Tickets
-
You must be at least 18 years old to apply to join the server.
-
Coyote Creek is a whitelisted server. You will need to join the Coyote Creek Discord and apply via Whitelist/Application Ticket.
-
During your onboarding interview for the whitelist, if your Microphone makes you particularly hard to understand, we may request you consider or partake in mute/text based RP until better clarity is achievable - this is to provide the best possible RP experience for the server.
-
If you have no mic or are unable to communicate verbally, please inform us of this in your application. This is to bring it to our awareness and will not hinder your application.
-
A reminder on a rule mentioned above, it is encouraged to provide clips when making a player report ticket to aid our investigation.
-
Clear violation of rules will result in action against the offending player. The ticketed player will receive notification on the ban and offence however no further information in order to maintain anonymity and this notification is at the staff discretion.
-
Appeals to a ban are permitted once every 30 days and no more than 3 attempts to appeal can be made.
Important Roleplay Rulings
Value of Life (VoL/NVL)
-
At all times in the server, you must be valuing your life and the lives of others. Characters should act according to their personality and mannerisms when faced with a danger.
-
In the context of the situation, be rational. Your character’s background, morals and motivations should influence your character’s actions. How does this event impact your actions? With the focus on staying alive or unharmed.
-
Frequent / excessive rushes into conflict and gunplay, especially if recently wounded should be considered carefully.
-
After being robbed, whilst mechanically you can draw a gun, would you consider yourself in a position that is safe to do so? If the answer is no, then valuing your life should be understanding this risk to your wellbeing.
-
You are welcome to raise a ticket if ever in doubt, or general question in the respective forum within the discord.
Random Death Match (RDM)
-
Failing to initiate conflict by at least communicating clearly to the intended target is not providing an ample opportunity to respond, forcing the opposition to a disadvantage and therefore appearing as 'random'.
-
Failing to initiate with good reason, will result in a ban.
-
RDM includes excessive use of any lethal item including excessive roping and hogtying.
-
Using a sniper at great range having provided zero context of any kind for the conflict will also be considered as RDM.
To avoid this. Best practice would be:
-
Create a scene before violence is committed, vocally make the most of that instance to build the narrative, tension and incoming violence.
-
Giving the opponent an opportunity to respond.
-
Using things such as /me or /do to communicate your body actions and language to help indicate the intent building
-
In a shootout, those not participating should fear for their lives and maintain a distance or flee.
Meta Gaming
-
Meta-gaming is using external factors and information to inform yourself in character. Evidence of such activity is a ban-able offence. This includes using Voice chats to communicate an ongoing scene, of using streams to locate and interfere with the RP of others in an unauthentic manner.
-
If planning an act of Torture, you should look to obtain consent within a reasonable time frame before the scene taking place, not during or after.
-
Do not share information between your own characters. Treat them as individuals on their own path, unaware of the others existence entirely.
-
Seeking consent on things such as Torture RP would be an instance where reaching out to an individual on discord OOC is accepted and expected.
Power Gaming
-
Understand that we are all participating in multitude of stories, where no one is a main character and a win is rarely exclusively defined by the accumulation of success but also in the aspects of failure endured by a character.
-
PvP with an intent to never lose, or to never miss a shot and failing to embellish a scene simply because 'you can' is an example of power gaming.
-
Overuse of execution animations for your own gain, especially in PvP, this includes excessive use of pushing people over to force them into a nullified state unable to defend themselves.
-
Essentially any time mechanics of a game take forefront over the chance for a good story there is likely to be some question over the use of power gaming
-
Similarly for Law, abusing the powers granted to enforce law and not finding RP measures to appease or negotiate a lesser sentence will also be seen as abusive of the mechanics in play.
-
Leaving during a scene, including when downed is combat logging, and a form of power gaming. This evidenced via ticket will result in a ban.
-
Do not move a downed body to a place where it obstructs a doctor, this is trying to abuse the mechanics of the game.
Fail RP
-
If involved in a scene, be aware of your participation and contribution. If you need to excuse yourself for OOC reasons, find the means to do so without needing to break character.
-
We would like to discourage breaking character, in particular excessive use of saying 'spiritually' or 'thinking about' to excuse or end an RP interaction. Often times there are ways to simply say this in character. Needing to sort out food OOC? You can just say "I need to go and prepare some food, until next time" instead of "I need to think about some spiritual food". It is very immersion breaking and if that sentence was said to you in person OOC you would be very concerned!
-
As we look to adhere to realistic historical events as mentioned in General Server Etiquette please be aware that the Laws of the county are likely to differ to ones in force OOC. Therefore, should your character be knowledgeable of laws, it is from this County's Laws they should be quoting and aware of, and NOT OOC laws, constitutions, amendments.
-
Bringing in any issues held with individuals OOC, brought into State would be considered as Fail RP
Criminal Activity, Law & Medical Staff Rulings
Group Sizes
-
An active scene should not consist of more than 6 people per side.
-
Law Group size behaves independent of criminals they are engaging and can have up to 10 responders in 1 scene, depending on the appropriate scene which they are attending, ie a bank robbery will likely draw a full 10 if possible vs disorderly conduct which would have at most 1 attendee. (refer to SOP).
Law Roleplay
-
An individual Roleplaying as Law, cannot have a second character that is a criminal. You would be expected to resign from Law before taking on an alt criminal character.
-
Abusing the powers granted to enforce the law would be another scenario of power gaming. There are penal codes that could be utilized for lesser sentences. Please refer to Penal Codes and SOP.
-
SOP is to be adhered to. Corruption is permitted, but this should be more than just choosing to look the other way for no reason. Context remains key in how you conduct yourself in this role. Exposure of the crime will lose the job/position as this is a Class A Crime.
Criminal Roleplay
-
A Gang should apply to be recognized as such through the ticket system once they have at least 4 members. A gang should be no larger than 12 members.
-
Large Scale Crime (Class A or B felonies) should not take place 15 minutes either side of a server restart.
-
All Gang conflict is to remain In Character.
-
One gang should not be looking to rob more than one bank between restarts, refer to power gaming section for reasons why.
-
An individual Roleplaying as a Criminal, cannot have a second character that is a Law person. You would be expected to permanently kill the criminal character before taking on an alt Law enforcer character.
-
Knives should not be used to evade hogtie (see power gaming rule).
-
Criminals cannot have a kidnapped individual for longer 48 minutes (1 in game day).
-
Antagonizing law purely with the intent for a fight is prohibited and may be seen as Fail RP.
-
Baiting law to cause distraction for an ongoing scene is fair play.
Medical Staff Roleplay
-
Adhere to SOP's. They are thorough in how to handle most situations.
-
A Doctor can choose to be corrupt and serve criminals. Those that do are committing a Class A felony and would be liable to be punished in accordance to the charges provided.
Property Ownership
-
A Homeowner may be aware of windows that appear to be bullet proof. This is down to assets of the game, and not the intended design. To use this to evade conflict would be an example of power gaming as you are using mechanics of the game to overcome and overpower another player.
-
A player may own 1 realtor-issued house per account. The Realtor does monitor all purchases and keeps track of ownership. Admin will also have tools to track ownership to monitor abuse of this.
-
A player could own 1 business per account also. This is to encourage a range of owners among the player base as there will be plenty of opportunities for employment so alt characters could be employees or lower ranking managers etc, but do not inherently need to be the owners. Businesses come with 7 customizable tiers for employees, so there is a lot of room for expanding roles and pay brackets.