Rules:General

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General Rules

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Etiquette Rules

Respect All Chatters

Please treat your fellow chatters and staffers with respect. Consider how your actions will affect others.

Obey Staff Decisions

A mote of common sense: Follow the instructions of the room staff. If you have a problem with a staff ruling, you can appeal to the cohosts, but under no circumstances should you disobey a rule you disagree with. Disobedience to staff is a surefire way to get banned.

Observe the Room Rating

AltDBZ is a public room on IMC. Part of that means we have to follow a sort of "rating" system that keeps our content under a certain maturity level. This includes your behavior, while you are in the room. AltDBZ is rated "M". For more information, follow this link:

While we do feature a Mature rating in AltDBZ, we do ask of our chatters (and enforce if need be) that they conform themselves to exercising their actual maturity when comporting themselves in our chat room. This essentially means that all things in excess are probably a bad thing. Too much swearing, too much gore, too many adult and unnecessary situations will probably be frowned upon and/or necessitate staff intervention.

Please remember that this doesn't just apply to your behavior and your in-character behavior. It also applies to images you attach to your handles that you use in the room (which are subject to additional restrictions; see below) and any remote webpages, movies, images, or audio that you link in your posts.

Picture Regulations

All handle images must follow the IMC picture standards, as well as our own standards.

Our standards are as follows:

  • Handle images need to be no more than 400 on the longest side.
  • If you are unsure if your picture is too large, do not post with it until you are sure. We recommend you consult staff privately to find out.
  • Please avoid using images that portray the same character/person as other characters in the room.

No Advertisement

Please don't advertise your own IMC room or anywhere else unless you are asked about it first.

General Role-Play Regulations

Don't Intrude, Get Permission

If somebody has already started up an RP, and you want to join in, ask everyone involved first. In most situations, players already in an RP have the right to decide who is allowed to join and who is not. Should the RP involve a specific setting you are responsible for, you have some say as well, however -- the players involved should always consider allowing an associated character you own to join the play, if you desire it. Ultimately, role-plays that take place on settings that a player is responsible for but does not approve of may be voided, preventing unfeasible and antagonistic role plays from occurring.

Victims Call Effects

A player is responsible for all of the effects and actions of his/her character. While we do have a rule system in place that strongly suggests certain consequences in particular scenarios, a character's owner is the primary authority on what happens to that character, in a role play. That means, for instance, that you, as a player in a role play, cannot write that your character's opponent is hit by any attacks you make, or grabbed, thrown, or otherwise affected. You CAN strongly emphasize conditions and likely actions in situations your character causes, but you cannot actually take the freedom from the other player, unless that player gives you prior permission to do so.

This is only overridden in official, room-endorsed events, such as tournaments, when characters are described as unnecessarily breaking the laws of physics, or acting their character in a way that takes away from fair play. If a player is causing their character to react unrealistically and toward only their own benefit, you should simply stop playing with that player.

Role-Play Pausing Policy

We do not enforce RP pausing. That is, if you decide to "pause" an RP you are participating in, you can still use the character you were using before in a different RP, even while the prior RP is still paused. This is different from a character being "incapped" or killed, which is forces a character not to be played. The rules for those conditions are explained elsewhere.

Backlogging Policy

We allow you to "backlog" or "backdate" RPs. When you "backlog" an RP, that means you are effectively pretending that you actually played the scene you are doing now, in the past. We allow you to "backlog" an RP up to seven days ago. You're responsible for rewinding and fast-forwarding your own PLs and techs, though.

No Godmoding

Godmoding is when a player makes his/her character do something it shouldn't be able to. Don't. We have a complex rule system that explains, generally, what characters can and cannot do -- we take godmoding seriously. Be reasonable with your character's actions, especially in battle.

No Metagaming

Metagaming is when you bring your own knowledge to your characters' minds, when they have no realistic way of knowing it in character. These can often take subliminal and subconscious forms; we ask that all players be vigilant for metagaming in their own roleplaying methods. Here are some examples of metagaming:

  • "Randomly" exploiting an unrevealed weakness in an opponent that you read off its character sheet.
  • Having a character know another character's unspoken thoughts when your character is not a psion.
  • Making your character have knowledge of an event in an RP in which he/she did not participate (or you did not get permission for observance), or he/she did not have the facilities to monitor.
  • Manipulating character powers and actions to take advantage of the rules, instead of doing things realistically (also known as "powergaming")
  • Rejecting general role-play requests based on power level differences.

Application Policy

Most kinds of characters require some kind of application and approval before they may be used, with the exception of playtesting. The Characters section can help you figure out if you have to or not.

When you apply for a character, requesting a specific staffer to handle the application is not allowed unless that particular staffer specifically tells you that you may.

You may find a blank copy of the Application forms here.

Miscellaneous Rules

Volatility Clause

This is a big rule that gives staff a lot of power. It states that no part of this room is fixed and unchangeable by staff. This includes not only our own settings, plot characters, and rules, but also everything that you submit to us as part of the roleplay. We try to use this rule only when it furthers fairness and justice. However, for example, if your character has a technique that was approved, and then, years later, it was found to be exploitive and unfair, we reserve the right to change or even delete that technique from your character. If necessary, we can even cause the character to be deleted, though this is very rare, and only occurs when the character's owner will no longer be participating in the room.

We will audit all items of unfairness in the room, where we can find them. This includes any exploitive items that we, the staff, may have inadvertently created, ourselves.

That said, we try to keep everyone informed of any rules changes as they come down the line. We also encourage players to volunteer their characters' abilities for audit if they believe it may be exploitive or unfair -- it typically goes down much smoother than when we must hunt down exploitive abilities and force them to be audited.

Rules Spirit Clause

We acknowledge that every rules system has holes, and this system is by far no exception. However, there is a "spirit" or general moral direction that the rules stand for, and this is what is to be followed closely, rather than the actual wording of the rules. Common sense should be applied where the rules lack. Staff are authorized to make unwritten interpretations of the rules to cover any loopholes that players discover, and depending on determined intent, players may receive disciplinary measures if they are seen as attempting to take advantage of holes in the rules' wording. We will try to incorporate unwritten rulings into the rules, but certain unwritten things should simply be understood. If you must have every tiny detail of everything spelled out for you, then this room may not be the place for you.

Website Security Clause

Since Alternate Dragonball Z RP is a public room on IMC, it is required by IMC rules to have a homepage at all times. This is to reiterate the IMC enforcement that Alt's webpage provider is contracted to service such that the existing website must, within reason, be in fully functioning service until such time that a full replacement is arranged or the room is shut down.

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