RP Etiquette
From CalamityWarsWiki
What follows is simply a brief discourse on some of the finer points of behavior appropriate to online roleplaying games; these are the 'niceties', nominally written towards the newer player wishing to improve knowledge of how games 'work' outside and around themes. It's not meant in the least to be a definition of what "good roleplay" is, as such can change drastically from person to person and between themes and games as preference goes.
In roleplay, perhaps two of the most significant items to keep in mind are not to force actions upon others and to provide some sort of 'hook' in your posing. The degree of how much 'force roleplay' is appropriate to a particular situation can vary greatly from game to game and theme to theme, but basically boils down to the idea that you should let the character's player decide the outcome of actions bearing direct effect on their character, i.e., it's better not to hit someone in the face with a stone; throw the stone at the character, and let the other's player decide whether their character takes the hit, or avoids it in some manner. Providing 'hooks' for roleplay means wording your pose in such a way as to offer a means for response from those with whom you are roleplaying. Poses constituted simply of speech with the addition of a says/grins/nods/smiles prefix can not only read repetitively, but give little to flesh out the details of one's character or to invite response. Is the smile impish, inviting, or shy; is the glance coy or challenging; is the nod abrupt or indecisive; is the tone uncertain, determined, gratingly cheerful, given in an unusually low voice or a scratchy soprano; did one trip and fall down into the seat upon saying the last few words; was the speech accompanied with some movement, gesture, or particular mannerism (like an arching of the brows or the swirl of a finger midair)? Working details like these—recognition in the pose of the surrounding room and its contents, indications of your character's 'physicality' (its appearance, body language, etc.) and other aspects—can add to the depth and description of your roleplay as you become more aware of the world around your character.
<Etiquette Referenced from: here>
CWC Forum Rules
- 1: Basic Courtesy - Be respectful of other members regardless of circumstances. Do not post any material that may be viewed as offensive, such as pornographic images or posts, racist remarks, sexist comments, or personal attacks on another member. We have members under 18 here too. None of these will be tolerated. Swearing is permitted in the RP between characters, and characters can insult each other but lets not get carried away. If you're unsure, please contact a staff member.
- 2: Advertising - Making posts solely for the sake of advertising another site or forum is not allowed in these forums. Advertisements are permitted in signatures only.
- 3: Legalities - Do not violate any laws or discuss illegal activities of any kind for any age group while on this forum. The site owners are responsible for content displayed here and will not tolerate their livelihood being jeopardized. These actions include, but are not limited to, providing copyrighted materials for download (music, movies, roms, etc.) and plagiarizing. When posting material that is not yours, use quote tags around the content and state the source.
- 4: Rule Enforcement - By being a member of these forums, you give permission for the administrators and moderators to enforce the rules as they see fit. This includes editing, deleting, and/or moving topics/posts as well as any possible punishments. Abide by all moderator and administrator instructions and warnings. Never ignore said communications and do not verbally abuse the staff. They are volunteers and do not need your abuse. If you feel that the treatment you received is unfair, contact an administrator via PM. All PM's are confidential and will be kept that way. Note that filing a complaint after complying with instructions will go a long way in your credibility.
- 5: Final Fantasy - You should have completed Final Fantasy 7 or have knowledge of the games storyline. it is aadvised that you have seen Advent Children as well but not necessary. If you need help in the story of either contact a member of staff. The story is set before Dirge of Cerberus.
- 6: RPing - Have a BASIC knowledge of rping. Tips on character creation are available in the applications section. At least basic spelling and grammar are VERY STRONGLY encouraged, and in some cases, required.
- 7: Flaming - No flaming of any members, period. This includes private pms, MSN, AIM and any other chat. It's just morally wrong to do. If you do, do it, better hope to god none of us find out.
- 8: Emoticons - Smileys shouldn' be seen in RP threads. You cant say biggrin.gif instead of "Cloud was delighted". This rule doesn't apply to the discussion areas, Pm's or requests you may have.
- 9: Enjoyment - Don't forget to enjoy yourself, thats why we're here and what we're paid for.
- 10: Abusive PMs - If we see abusive and vitriolic from any members, not just staff, we will take action on it, because this isn't a funny thing to do.
- 11: Travel - For travelling, you can't teleport at all. And if you suddenly leave an area like Kalm, you cannot post yourself arriving in Wutai straight away. Please be thoroughly descriptive when posting travel scenes.
- 12: Character/Player Identification - As a form of convienence to other players, would all RPers put their character's in their signatures. Most everyone does, But there as some that don't.
- 13: Administration Warning - Do NOT screw with the administrators. Attempting to be arrogant and make jokes to insult the admins and the others who actually take their jobs seriously will get you banned. This site is being PAID FOR. Invision is not a free service, nor is the domain-name.
- 14: Signatures - We will have to institute a certain length - preferably, about 500 px in width. There are people who do have 800x600 Screen Resolutions, and it will stretch their screen out. That makes it hard for people to read the boards and it can mistake the admins when we have to check for 5 line posts. It may get you a warning for not having 5 lines, when, in fact, your thread was 5 lines, but your graphic stretched things out too far. We don't want to have to do that.
- 15: Putting a Hit out on a character - Please inform the player over said character if you can assassinate their character. If you get told 'no,' then you get told 'no.'
- 16: Member Accounts - One account per member.
- 17: The Mary Sue Litmus Test - Characters will be forced to take the Mary Sue/Gary Stu litmus test before applying. The score is required to be in your application before submission. You may feel free to take it out after being accepted. The line in the sand is set to 40. It is possible to have a well-rounded character that scores in the 30s, but if you're at or above 40, your character will be declined until the application is fixed. Administrators can test you at ANY TIME.
- 18: Canon SL - DO NOT alter the Canon storyline. It is one thing to use it as a foundation for your character - it is something else entirely to hijack it for your own purposes.
- 19: Approaching Canon Characters - Also, new players are not to approach canon characters unless by administrative approval or Canon Character approval. We do this to keep all the glory-seekers from taking on Sephiroth, Cloud, Rufus, etc.
- 20: Weaponry - We are putting a set limit on character weapons. Characters are not to have more than 3 weapons at any one time. Period. This includes Shuriken and Kunai.
- 21: Materia - Also, Materia is now being limited to 3 mastered. Destruct and Time Materia are not to be mastered - the maximum for them is level 2.
- 22: Staffers - STAFF ARE NOT ABOVE THESE RULES. Also, keep in mind staffers - failure to adhere to the rules listed can lead to your demotion, suspension or possibly even banning. Lack of activity is also fair grounds for being demoted.
- 23: Obscenity - If any member or staff is caught with obscene images in there sig or ANY of there posts it is grounds for an immediate banning, this means you will receive no warning or anything, you will be gone without a chance to even try to explain.
- 24: Purple/Ultraviolet Prose - Please try to refrain from purple prose. We know that all of you are talented, but there is really nothing more annoying than a post that is all fluff and goes absolutely NOWHERE, because it's nothing but a bunch of metaphors, similies, and words that you wouldn't dare use in a regular basis.
- 25: Posting Minimum - there is a minimum of FIVE LINES in this rp.
- 26: First Person Posting - For purposes of keeping a uniform and balanced Role Play, and to make reading and posting easier for all, effective immediately, first person posting is no longer allowed.
- 27: Original Characters - All RP characters must be Original Characters of your own creation. This means characters from other games, anime, cartoons, or any other copyrighted or public media will not be allowed. You cannot use the character in anyway shape or form, even if you attempt to change the character's background. This actually only makes things worse, as it convolutes and miscontrues canon characters from other media. As a side note, use of a canon character's artwork from outside media as a representation of your original character is discouraged, but if it cannot be avoided, you had better be sure sure your character's application is wholly original. Use of canon character artwork from Final Fantasy VII characters for an original character is strictly prohibited, for obvious reasons. There are many outlets to find artwork that is not related to any canon character of any sort to be used as art for your character. Also be aware that it is not a requirement to have a photograph of your character. A good written description of your character in his/her profile is plenty. Very few exceptions will be made, and must expressly be made to the administration team.
- 28: Private Threads - We realize that sometimes people want to post with another member uninterrupted. Sometimes other members see a thread in say, Edge, and will post in that thread just because it is in the city, and not create a new thread. This may annoy other members who don't want others rping in their threads.So for sanity sake, private threads are allowed. If you don't want want people to post in your thread, simply put "Private Thread" either in the Topic Description, or in an OOC.
- 29: Posting Locks - Sometimes, there are times where your life does get involved. In which case, you should either make a post warning the players of how long you will be gone for, and if it is greater than 3 days, you should designate players that will take your characters into temporary adoption up until the date of your return back to the site. If the player becomes unavailable, one of the Administrators will take control of your character (s). If you do not return within a 10-day-period without designating someone to post for your character, or in an attempt to wrap up threads, your character's thread will be subsequently locked, and you will be treated as if you don't matter - they will be allowed to go on in their SLs, and, depending on the severity of the absence, your character will be puppeted as the administrators see fit. (Your character won't be killed, and nothing catastrophic will happen to them, but your character will be controlled by someone else without your permission at your expense).
- 30: *Newton's Third Law - Whenever your character commits something big, or not even necessarily that - when your character does an action, there will be consequences to that action. It can range from something small as affecting something like money or another character's feelings, or it can escalate to creating or triggering a full scale war, with lots of casualties, that will ultimately lie on the shoulders of your character. THINK BEFORE YOU ACT! "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
- 31: On Failed Experiments and SOLDIERS - Failed Experiments are no longer allowed as new characters without express permission from an administrator. Hojo, being the type of person that he was, would not be extremely fond of allowing failed experiments to roam around the planet. Additionally, SOLDIER, in game, was a highly elite organization. Which meant that, by comparison to the other members of Shin-Ra's military, SOLDIER would be relatively few in number. Only the best got into SOLDIER. So, as a rule, we will no longer allow new members to up and join as a SOLDIER or a failed experiment. This is also being done out of necessity. Many of the SOLDIER apps that we have received, nearly all of them have turned out to be Gary Stus.YOU WILL BE DENIED IF JENOVA CELLS, MAKO INFUSIONS, OR HOJO EXPERIMENTATION ARE WRITTEN IN YOUR APP.
