Post by Germany on Oct 10, 2011 4:12:58 GMT -5
General Rules
[/size][/center]• You must be at least 16 years of age to join. Sorry, no exceptions.
• When out-of-character, treat others the way you want to be treated. A.k.a. the “Golden Rule”. Insulting, baiting, belittling, putting down other members in ANY form will not be tolerated.
• Follow the basic ToS of Proboards. Naturally.
• Please keep your avatars PG!
• Please don't ask to be in charge of the site's imagery, graphics, background, or color-scheme. We already have people in charge of that. You're welcome to make suggestions if it strikes you, but please don't take it personally if we decide dragons not to use them.
• While the C-box is primarily for OOC ( out-of-character ) chat between members, short IC ( in-character ) skits are allowed so long as they are kept in good taste and don’t become problematic.
• Try not to swear OOC. We understand that people get excited, and sometimes things slip out without our thinking, so a few isolated incidences here and there will likely be overlooked. However, try not to get in the habit of it.
• In general, try to avoid highly controversial topics OOC. IC is different, and we leave it to your discretion, but in general if it’s something you think has an excellent chance of deeply offending lots of people OOC or starting arguments OOC, you’re better off not using it. You don’t have to heavily censor your character or make him/her an angel by any means, but please, don’t go crazy with this liberty. Avoid using your character as a mouthpiece for your personal views. We reserve the right to ask you to edit and/or delete any posts which seem to be over-the-top.
• You may have up to 2 canon characters[/size] and 2 OCs[/size], for a grand total of 4 characters. After you have received your first character, you must be an active member for 2 weeks before getting a second character, be it canon or OC. After that, you will have to wait an additional 2 weeks before getting a third, and so on. You may drop a character and apply for another at any time, but you may never have more than 2 canons at a time and/or 2 OCs at a time.
Roleplaying
[/size][/center]• No godmoding or power playing. Click the terms for definitions of what these entail if you are unsure. If and only if you have the express permission of the other player to do so, it is okay to puppet their character to a minor extent in some circumstances, such as during fight-scenes. The same goes for auto-hitting: it is only okay when you have the permission of the player controlling the character you intend to hit.
• No killing ( true permanent deaths, not the "false deaths" described in the site canon ) another player’s character, unless it is done in the AU section AND you have the full permission of the player whose character is getting killed. Nothing that happens in the AU section, naturally, will be recognized or valid anywhere but in the AU. ( Ie; Germany can die in the AU and be alive on the regular board ). The exception to this is for countries that dissolved historically ( HRE, ancients, and Prussia in this universe to name a few ), whose deaths may be played out on or near the historical date of dissolution if the person playing them wants to do this.
• The "false deaths" described in the site canon are allowed to happen in the roleplays. However, powerplaying without permission is still a no-no, so if you want your character to "false kill" another, you must get the permission of the other character's player to do so first. These kinds of deaths can also happen by accident/NPC — again, it's entirely up to the player in question when/if this happens to his/her character. If you want to portray it happening you can, but you certainly don't have to. ( Note: Please remember that once a nation "dies" like this he or she will teleport back to his or her boss, so these kinds of deaths are best saved for the ends of threads, or whenever a quick exit by a particular character wouldn't be detrimental to the thread. )
• You may join as many threads as you want. However, a bit of friendly advice: please try to be realistic when assessing what you can handle in a timely manner. If, for example, you know that you regularly take a long time to post , you’re probably better off being in fewer, rather than more, threads at a time. Try not to end up in situations where you’re frantically racing to reply to everyone before the 7-day limit on your threads passes.
• Romance is allowed, of course, and you’re free to pair with whomever you please so long as their player agrees to it. 3-ways, 4-ways, etc. are fine as long as you have the consent of everyone involved! A special “true-blue-pairings” list is set aside for those who wish to remain paired with one, and only one, romantic interest. To have your pairing added to this list you and the other player will both need to post on the True Blue Pairings board saying you want the pairing added to the TBP list. If one or both of the players leave or change their mind, the pairing will vanish from the list and need to be updated if the new player (s) wish to continue the TBP.
• Coloring text for character speech is encouraged, but not required.
Activity
[/size][/center]#1 Players have 7 days from the day their profile is accepted ( not the day they join ) to get involved in a thread ( unless it’s cleared with an admin ahead of time ). Involvement in more than one thread is optional, but at least one is required to satisfy this criterion. This is to prevent canon-races where canons are grabbed and never used.
#2 Upon involvement in a thread, players have 7 days from the time it is their turn to respond, unless prior arrangements have been made ahead of time ( ie; if you can only post on the weekends, and you know this ahead of time, PM an admin and you are exempt from the 7-day rule ).
Failure to comply with Rule #1 will result in you losing your character(s) effective immediately. Failure to comply with Rule #2 will result in a PM asking you if you are still interested in keeping your character(s). If this PM is not answered within 2 days, we will assume the answer to this question to be “no” and you will be stripped of the character(s) in question.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE ACTIVITY RULES
We all have lives off the board. Real life must always come first, and sometimes it stops us from being as active as we would like. The admins here are sympathetic to real-life problems and events that hinder timely posting. It can happen to anyone — no one is immune. However, we do ask that you keep us informed.
If you need to go on hiatus….
Post in the “hiatus” section! You don’t have to explain why you need the hiatus unless you want to, but you do need to give us an estimate of when you expect to be back. Use the longest amount of time you think it will realistically take as safeguard, not how soon fallout you hope to be back, because if we don’t receive this information your hiatus is only good for 4 days, after which point your character is up for grabs.
Do this, and extra time will be granted to you. : )
HOWEVER….don’t get in the habit of doing this all the time. Yes, life happens, but if a new crisis or vacation is emerging every week that prevents your posting, you’re likely to lose your character(s). We are not unreasonable, but if you’re not going to post, you’re not going to post.
We’re not going to be Nazis about these and watch everyone like a hawk, but if we haven’t seen you around for a while, or you’ve been ghosting around the forum without activity, you will probably lose your characters.
C-box
• Keep it fairly clean. The C-box has a rating of PG-13. Please respect this both in-character and out-of-character. We never know when younger readers may pass through.
• Be respectful of others. This includes not entering in strings of random emotes/and or random words when people are trying to have a role-skit or halfway serious conversation ( yes, these do happen on occasion! XD ).
• Due to their highly controversial and potentially-explosive nature, any and all discussion of RELIGION[/color] and POLITICS[/color] is strictly prohibited[/color]. Sorry, guys, but we’ve seen too many debates on these wind up way too inflammatory and personal, even when not intended to be.
Signing Up
[/size][/center]• You may reserve a character in the reserve list, but your reservation is only good for 4 days. After that it’s first come first serve again. If an emergency comes up or you’re not able to finish in 4 days for whatever reason, post what you have done of your profile with WIP in the title. If it seems to us like you’ve made reasonable progress towards finishing the profile, you will be given a little extra time. If you have next to nothing done, expect to lose your reservation.
• When you sign up for a character, please use the template.
• One account per character, please. This keeps things less confusing and allows each charrie their own personal avatar/sig.
• Countries only, please. No cities, states, or made-up countries. There are anywhere between 192 and 254 countries in the world depending on the source, with 193 of those being widely-recognized, so there is room for a lot of people.
• For the most part, ♀genderbends♂ are NOT allowed. We are a historical site, so having two different versions of the main characters running around everywhere would be chaotic and illogical. However, exceptions may be granted for those characters who are just *barely* canon ( ie; they appear only for a few seconds/real briefly in 3 or less strips/episodes, have 2 or fewer official sketches, and next to no canonical information listed about them apart from their gender and perhaps a few vague facts ). Please check in with an admin before applying.
• You may drop a character for another, but if you do so please PM an admin ahead of time and wait until you receive a reply.