Post by Lorren on Jul 2, 2008 8:14:35 GMT -5
While no one around here likes to be a bad guy (okay, that's a lie, but still...), no proper forum can function smoothly without a list of rules that its members must abide by. In order to ensure that your time here is pleasant, please make sure that you look over these rules and keep them in your mind with regards to anything that you do on this site. If you fail to follow them (or just blatantly break them) either myself or my mods will take action. We're not here to be mean, we're just here to make sure that people have a good time.
1. Be awesome. This is the number one rule because anyone who's ever RPed before knows that every forum has that one person who just sucks in everything they do. Their attitude, their actions, their style, their skill (or lack thereof). Don't be that person. Enjoy yourself here. Everyone on this site is friendly and pleasant. Follow that example.
2. Follow all faction rules. Every faction has its own set of rules, whether it be the Five Tenants or the Imperial Legion Code of Conduct. If your character belongs to either the Dark Brotherhood or the Morag Tong and breaks these rules, he or she can be dispelled from the faction, just like in the game. Now, if that's part of the plot or whatever, that's fine. But if you're constantly breaking faction rules just to be a nuisance, then we're going to start taking action against you, not just your character.
3. No out of character misconduct. This includes provoking/fighting with other members, swearing maliciously at people (I realize that people are going to swear, myself included. I don't care, so long as it's good-natured and not intended to be rude.), making prejudiced comments that are specifically meant to be offensive (this includes flaming anyone because of race, religion, sexual preference/gender, or nationality), purposely breaking site rules, and refusing to do what the mods ask of you.
4. Respect the moderators. These people have the title that they do for a reason. They're responsible, good players who consistently follow the rules and have agreed to help me keep some semblance of order on this site. If they ask you to change or delete something in your post, it's because they know it's unacceptable. If they punish you for something, it's because they know it's wrong. Do what they ask of you, and if you think they're out of line, you come talk to me. It's obvious who they are; they have a high ranking in their faction and they have a bunch of little colored stars underneath their name, so don't claim you didn't know someone was a mod (if you want, I'll post a list for you). Don't blatantly ignore or disrespect them; I'll take care of my mods, you just worry about keeping yourself in good standing.
5. Do not spam. This is not telling you not to advertise. If you want to advertise, we have a board for it. Please feel free to inform us all of any sites that you think are worth looking at on that board. However, we all know what spamming means. Posting meaningless threads or posts over and over again in our role play area that takes up space and wastes people's time. If we see spam, we'll ask you to delete it. If you continue to do it, we'll take action against you.
6. Pay attention to spelling and grammar. Whether it be in an actual role play scene, or in the general boards, no one wants to have to try to sift through a post that spells every other word wrong, or can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're. If someone can't understand what you're trying to say because you're too lazy or too stupid to get a coherent grasp on the English language, don't post. Exception: If English is not your first language, we will be more lenient when it comes to spelling and grammar. God knows I can't spell half of the words in French correctly, and my grammar is horrible, even though I've taken the language for over five years now. In addition to this rule, please just try to pay attention to what you're saying. We all have those days where our brains are moving way too fast for our fingers to handle, and words get a little jumbled. Try reading over your post before you click that post button, just to make sure. Everyone is entitled to mistakes, but if we see anything that's really terrible in any of these respects, we will notify you and ask you to change it (I'm not above making suggestions ). If you refuse to fix it, we'll delete your post. Simple as that. Just ask someone if you're really not sure on spelling or grammar. Most people here are pretty good at it (check M'aiq, she's probably one of the best.)
7. No obscene posts. This means two things. One, no posts with extremely pornographic material. These will be deleted instantly and without warning. And two, no posts that have a ridiculous amount of graphics and pretty sparkly letters and extremely bright crap, or where you think you'll be cute by pOsTiNg LiKe ThIs. (Edit: Thank you to Shadow. for reminding me of this big one. Thr will b no pstng leik this. Plz do not use lazy abrvs. that no 1 can undrstnd. Use full sntncs plz. Thnks.) I will personally delete every last one of this without warning, and THEN I'll come yell at you. All these do is annoy people, waste bandwith, and make them blind. Proboards has a little color chart so that you can add some splash to your post. That's all that you need. Nothing else.
8. Respect the ranks. A lot of people here are going to have characters that belong to the Dark Brotherhood or the Morag Tong, which means a lot of characters are going to have ranks in those guilds. Characters can start at almost any rank (barring things like Listener, Speaker unless you ask first and have a really good application, Silencer unless a Speaker wants to take you in as theirs right away, Grandmaster and Master) as long as their history explains it and they don't try to be ridiculous with the power plays. Please understand that there are some people here who were a part of an older site and were grandfathered into their high ranks because they've already earned them. Your character must respect these higher ranks, and so do you. If you want to be higher up, you have to work for it.
Many of the same rules that apply to general posting apply to role play posting. The only thing that's not acceptable in general posting that is in role play is the violence factor. Characters are going to fight, and there's going to be some description of gore. That being said, here are some extra rules that apply to being in character.
1. No godmodding. This rule is on any and every role play site, and for good reason. Your character is not god (at least not on this site), and is not benevolent. He or she does not automatically know everything that someone else's character has done or is planning to do just because you do. Your character does not know what someone else's character is thinking, and he or she is not able to see the future.
2. No powerplaying. You cannot control or speak for someone else's character unless a line has already been spoken by them, or unless the other person gives you permission for some reason. You can't say that another character did such and such an action if their person didn't say that they did it. This rule is not hard, and everyone should know where to draw the line between player, and character.
3. All first time character applications must be accepted by a mod before you are allowed to start playing. If you're a new member to this site and you post your very first character app, it must be read over and "accepted" by myself or another mod before you are allowed to begin posting with that or any other character. There are people on this site everyday, so your application should get read relatively quickly. If we don't accept your application, don't worry. We'll give you suggestions on how you can fix it up to meet our standards, and then you can resubmit it. Once your original application has been accepted, any applications that follow don't have to be before you can post with that character. However, the mods will still read over them, and point out anything we think needs changed. If we do, you need to change it, otherwise we'll pull your app. That being said...
4. No more than three characters per person. Any more than three gets just a little bit excessive. This gives you an opportunity to get a taste of more than one faction, while preventing you from having extra characters that just lie about and don't get used.
5. Be descriptive and original. This goes for all posting, but it mainly applies to character applications. We don't require an RP sample in your character apps because frankly it's just a pain in the ass for everyone, and we can generally tell how good you're going to be by how lazy you are when it comes to apps. Someone that spends a good amount of time planning and writing their apps is obviously going to be fun to play with. If your apps are too vague, or too unoriginal, we will ask you to try to expand on them. Please try to do this from the door, because if Shatan sees an application that's too vague or inconsistent for her liking, she will unleash her wrath on you and make you cry. I have no control over her.
6. No unrealistic characters. Your character is NOT the player in Oblivion or Morrowind. He or she does not have enough time in life to become a master of every skill available, become the head of every faction in Tamriel, AND save the Empire from total destruction. At the most, a character can be a master in one or two skills, if that's what they've devoted their entire life to. Similarly, a character can only be so high ranked in one guild, because it would take that much time to get to that rank in real life. Guilds are like jobs. You don't just walk your way into the CEO's position. Unless you've provided a sufficient back story, most people in Tamriel don't just happen upon super expensive weapons, like Elven, Daedric, and Glass. They don't just somehow have this incredibly enchanted armor that protects them from every form of magic. Everything in your character's life must have a back story, even their weapons, armor, horse, house, and magic. We're looking for their story, their history. Not just a description of what they have and what they've done, but how they have it and why they've done it. If you need a good example of a character application, please see this application, or or this application. Also, check out this thread for some tips on character description and some other things.
7. No plagiarizing. Now obviously I can't know if you've taken someone's characters or ideas from a different site, so I'm trusting your morals on that one. However, if I see ANY plagiarism from one of the sites that I've been on, especially this one, I will delete, ban, yell, and a whole bunch of other unpleasant things. The point of this site is to be creative and explore ideas that you couldn't do with the game. I don't mind if you want to take a character or idea from the game, or from some other source, and expand on them, but I don't want to see the same exact story that I've already heard. Make it yours. And if you do decide to do that, you need to make a note as to where the idea came from, so that you're not taking credit for it. (Note: you can use an idea or character from another player if you have their permission, however I will make sure that they're allowing you to use it, and if they're not, expect that they will probably let me know that you stole their idea. Again, see re: deleting, banning, yelling.)
8. No one liners. When you make a post, or reply to one, everyone here expects that you will make a decent reply. You can't just reply to a post with "'Yes,' he said," and be done with it. Each post needs to be one paragraph, seven sentences minimum. The people you're posting with need enough of a post that they can effectively reply to it. This goes with the use good description rule. Trust me, it's not hard to make a three or four paragraph post. You can describe a scene, talk about your character's inner musings, or reactions, whatever. And if your muse just isn't working with you today, don't post. Wait until a little later until you can think of something to say. Don't just make some half-assed reply so that you can move the scene along. These threads aren't going anywhere; you've got time.
9.Only post in third person. Don't get me wrong, everyone loves to show their creative side once in a while by posting in first or second person. But to keep things consistent, we ask that you please post only in third person.
10.Notify us of absences. If you're going on vacation, a business trip, have some emergency, or anything else that either restricts your access to a computer or consumes your time, or just drains you so emotionally that you have no will to post, just let us know. We have an abscence board. All you have to do is tell us you'll be gone, and give us an approximation of how long (if you can). I don't need a reason if you don't want to give one, just so long as we know that you haven't deserted us and we don't delete your account thinking you're not coming back. Also, be sure to save the link to this site, that way you don't lose it and involuntarily fall inactive. That would be bad. If you do lose it and can't find the link, just go to Google and search Tamriel Heroes. The site'll pop right up for you.
If you have any questions on anything, or are unsure of one of the rules, please do not hesitate to PM or email myself or one of the mods. You can find my email address in my profile, just let me know who you are in the subject, and I'll be more than happy to get back to you.
If there are any rules that you don't see here, but think should be on here, just reply to this thread with your argument and we'll discuss it. Conversely, if there's a rule here that you don't agree with, just reply to this thread with your argument and we'll discuss it. I'm always open to suggestions. (Unless I know I'm right, in which case, you will not win.)
If you notice anyone breaking one of these rules and we haven't done anything about it yet, don't be afraid to tattle. Let one of us know, and we'll look it over.
Just take care to follow these rules, and you'll have an awesome time here.
Many thanks,
Your Staff
General Rules
1. Be awesome. This is the number one rule because anyone who's ever RPed before knows that every forum has that one person who just sucks in everything they do. Their attitude, their actions, their style, their skill (or lack thereof). Don't be that person. Enjoy yourself here. Everyone on this site is friendly and pleasant. Follow that example.
2. Follow all faction rules. Every faction has its own set of rules, whether it be the Five Tenants or the Imperial Legion Code of Conduct. If your character belongs to either the Dark Brotherhood or the Morag Tong and breaks these rules, he or she can be dispelled from the faction, just like in the game. Now, if that's part of the plot or whatever, that's fine. But if you're constantly breaking faction rules just to be a nuisance, then we're going to start taking action against you, not just your character.
3. No out of character misconduct. This includes provoking/fighting with other members, swearing maliciously at people (I realize that people are going to swear, myself included. I don't care, so long as it's good-natured and not intended to be rude.), making prejudiced comments that are specifically meant to be offensive (this includes flaming anyone because of race, religion, sexual preference/gender, or nationality), purposely breaking site rules, and refusing to do what the mods ask of you.
4. Respect the moderators. These people have the title that they do for a reason. They're responsible, good players who consistently follow the rules and have agreed to help me keep some semblance of order on this site. If they ask you to change or delete something in your post, it's because they know it's unacceptable. If they punish you for something, it's because they know it's wrong. Do what they ask of you, and if you think they're out of line, you come talk to me. It's obvious who they are; they have a high ranking in their faction and they have a bunch of little colored stars underneath their name, so don't claim you didn't know someone was a mod (if you want, I'll post a list for you). Don't blatantly ignore or disrespect them; I'll take care of my mods, you just worry about keeping yourself in good standing.
5. Do not spam. This is not telling you not to advertise. If you want to advertise, we have a board for it. Please feel free to inform us all of any sites that you think are worth looking at on that board. However, we all know what spamming means. Posting meaningless threads or posts over and over again in our role play area that takes up space and wastes people's time. If we see spam, we'll ask you to delete it. If you continue to do it, we'll take action against you.
6. Pay attention to spelling and grammar. Whether it be in an actual role play scene, or in the general boards, no one wants to have to try to sift through a post that spells every other word wrong, or can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're. If someone can't understand what you're trying to say because you're too lazy or too stupid to get a coherent grasp on the English language, don't post. Exception: If English is not your first language, we will be more lenient when it comes to spelling and grammar. God knows I can't spell half of the words in French correctly, and my grammar is horrible, even though I've taken the language for over five years now. In addition to this rule, please just try to pay attention to what you're saying. We all have those days where our brains are moving way too fast for our fingers to handle, and words get a little jumbled. Try reading over your post before you click that post button, just to make sure. Everyone is entitled to mistakes, but if we see anything that's really terrible in any of these respects, we will notify you and ask you to change it (I'm not above making suggestions ). If you refuse to fix it, we'll delete your post. Simple as that. Just ask someone if you're really not sure on spelling or grammar. Most people here are pretty good at it (check M'aiq, she's probably one of the best.)
7. No obscene posts. This means two things. One, no posts with extremely pornographic material. These will be deleted instantly and without warning. And two, no posts that have a ridiculous amount of graphics and pretty sparkly letters and extremely bright crap, or where you think you'll be cute by pOsTiNg LiKe ThIs. (Edit: Thank you to Shadow. for reminding me of this big one. Thr will b no pstng leik this. Plz do not use lazy abrvs. that no 1 can undrstnd. Use full sntncs plz. Thnks.) I will personally delete every last one of this without warning, and THEN I'll come yell at you. All these do is annoy people, waste bandwith, and make them blind. Proboards has a little color chart so that you can add some splash to your post. That's all that you need. Nothing else.
8. Respect the ranks. A lot of people here are going to have characters that belong to the Dark Brotherhood or the Morag Tong, which means a lot of characters are going to have ranks in those guilds. Characters can start at almost any rank (barring things like Listener, Speaker unless you ask first and have a really good application, Silencer unless a Speaker wants to take you in as theirs right away, Grandmaster and Master) as long as their history explains it and they don't try to be ridiculous with the power plays. Please understand that there are some people here who were a part of an older site and were grandfathered into their high ranks because they've already earned them. Your character must respect these higher ranks, and so do you. If you want to be higher up, you have to work for it.
Role Playing Rules
Many of the same rules that apply to general posting apply to role play posting. The only thing that's not acceptable in general posting that is in role play is the violence factor. Characters are going to fight, and there's going to be some description of gore. That being said, here are some extra rules that apply to being in character.
1. No godmodding. This rule is on any and every role play site, and for good reason. Your character is not god (at least not on this site), and is not benevolent. He or she does not automatically know everything that someone else's character has done or is planning to do just because you do. Your character does not know what someone else's character is thinking, and he or she is not able to see the future.
2. No powerplaying. You cannot control or speak for someone else's character unless a line has already been spoken by them, or unless the other person gives you permission for some reason. You can't say that another character did such and such an action if their person didn't say that they did it. This rule is not hard, and everyone should know where to draw the line between player, and character.
3. All first time character applications must be accepted by a mod before you are allowed to start playing. If you're a new member to this site and you post your very first character app, it must be read over and "accepted" by myself or another mod before you are allowed to begin posting with that or any other character. There are people on this site everyday, so your application should get read relatively quickly. If we don't accept your application, don't worry. We'll give you suggestions on how you can fix it up to meet our standards, and then you can resubmit it. Once your original application has been accepted, any applications that follow don't have to be before you can post with that character. However, the mods will still read over them, and point out anything we think needs changed. If we do, you need to change it, otherwise we'll pull your app. That being said...
4. No more than three characters per person. Any more than three gets just a little bit excessive. This gives you an opportunity to get a taste of more than one faction, while preventing you from having extra characters that just lie about and don't get used.
5. Be descriptive and original. This goes for all posting, but it mainly applies to character applications. We don't require an RP sample in your character apps because frankly it's just a pain in the ass for everyone, and we can generally tell how good you're going to be by how lazy you are when it comes to apps. Someone that spends a good amount of time planning and writing their apps is obviously going to be fun to play with. If your apps are too vague, or too unoriginal, we will ask you to try to expand on them. Please try to do this from the door, because if Shatan sees an application that's too vague or inconsistent for her liking, she will unleash her wrath on you and make you cry. I have no control over her.
6. No unrealistic characters. Your character is NOT the player in Oblivion or Morrowind. He or she does not have enough time in life to become a master of every skill available, become the head of every faction in Tamriel, AND save the Empire from total destruction. At the most, a character can be a master in one or two skills, if that's what they've devoted their entire life to. Similarly, a character can only be so high ranked in one guild, because it would take that much time to get to that rank in real life. Guilds are like jobs. You don't just walk your way into the CEO's position. Unless you've provided a sufficient back story, most people in Tamriel don't just happen upon super expensive weapons, like Elven, Daedric, and Glass. They don't just somehow have this incredibly enchanted armor that protects them from every form of magic. Everything in your character's life must have a back story, even their weapons, armor, horse, house, and magic. We're looking for their story, their history. Not just a description of what they have and what they've done, but how they have it and why they've done it. If you need a good example of a character application, please see this application, or or this application. Also, check out this thread for some tips on character description and some other things.
7. No plagiarizing. Now obviously I can't know if you've taken someone's characters or ideas from a different site, so I'm trusting your morals on that one. However, if I see ANY plagiarism from one of the sites that I've been on, especially this one, I will delete, ban, yell, and a whole bunch of other unpleasant things. The point of this site is to be creative and explore ideas that you couldn't do with the game. I don't mind if you want to take a character or idea from the game, or from some other source, and expand on them, but I don't want to see the same exact story that I've already heard. Make it yours. And if you do decide to do that, you need to make a note as to where the idea came from, so that you're not taking credit for it. (Note: you can use an idea or character from another player if you have their permission, however I will make sure that they're allowing you to use it, and if they're not, expect that they will probably let me know that you stole their idea. Again, see re: deleting, banning, yelling.)
8. No one liners. When you make a post, or reply to one, everyone here expects that you will make a decent reply. You can't just reply to a post with "'Yes,' he said," and be done with it. Each post needs to be one paragraph, seven sentences minimum. The people you're posting with need enough of a post that they can effectively reply to it. This goes with the use good description rule. Trust me, it's not hard to make a three or four paragraph post. You can describe a scene, talk about your character's inner musings, or reactions, whatever. And if your muse just isn't working with you today, don't post. Wait until a little later until you can think of something to say. Don't just make some half-assed reply so that you can move the scene along. These threads aren't going anywhere; you've got time.
9.Only post in third person. Don't get me wrong, everyone loves to show their creative side once in a while by posting in first or second person. But to keep things consistent, we ask that you please post only in third person.
10.Notify us of absences. If you're going on vacation, a business trip, have some emergency, or anything else that either restricts your access to a computer or consumes your time, or just drains you so emotionally that you have no will to post, just let us know. We have an abscence board. All you have to do is tell us you'll be gone, and give us an approximation of how long (if you can). I don't need a reason if you don't want to give one, just so long as we know that you haven't deserted us and we don't delete your account thinking you're not coming back. Also, be sure to save the link to this site, that way you don't lose it and involuntarily fall inactive. That would be bad. If you do lose it and can't find the link, just go to Google and search Tamriel Heroes. The site'll pop right up for you.
If you have any questions on anything, or are unsure of one of the rules, please do not hesitate to PM or email myself or one of the mods. You can find my email address in my profile, just let me know who you are in the subject, and I'll be more than happy to get back to you.
If there are any rules that you don't see here, but think should be on here, just reply to this thread with your argument and we'll discuss it. Conversely, if there's a rule here that you don't agree with, just reply to this thread with your argument and we'll discuss it. I'm always open to suggestions. (Unless I know I'm right, in which case, you will not win.)
If you notice anyone breaking one of these rules and we haven't done anything about it yet, don't be afraid to tattle. Let one of us know, and we'll look it over.
Just take care to follow these rules, and you'll have an awesome time here.
Many thanks,
Your Staff