Rules of Conduct
1. Respect. While we understand that all players do not like each other and may not see eye to eye, we do insist that everyone treat each other with dignity and respect, no matter the circumstances. This includes staff as well. Any person who feels that this rule is being violated may submit logs of the exchange for review.
2. No hate speech. Our characters may have biases and prejudices but that does not mean those beliefs can carry over into OOC interactions. Any OOC racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bullying, or mocking of disabilities or mental health concerns will be punishable by up to a permanent ban from the sim. This is non-negotiable.
3. Godmodding is taking control of another player’s character during roleplay. One example would be auto hitting another character without giving them the opportunity to roll to dodge or counter.
4. Metagaming is the use of OOCly learned information IC. For example, if someone tells you OOCly of something their character learned during roleplay and you begin roleplaying your character as having learned that same information.
5. Alts. Players are allowed two characters, only one of which can be noble. These characters must be on separate avatars. Use of these characters for metagaming will result in players being limited to a single character. Any player found playing multiple noble characters face disciplinary measures up to a permanent ban.
6. Harassment. Roleplay needs to stay in roleplay. If you do not like how a character handled a situation or encounter, your response should happen ICly. Any harassment of players OOC for their characters actions, opinions, etc can be punishable by a temporary ban and further instances can receive a permanent ban. Similarly, any form of non-RP related harassment including sexual harassment can result in removal from the sim.
7. The moderative teams work hard to help with most of the day to day player needs such as mediating disputes, correcting rule-breaking, answering player questions, etc. Unless there is a valid reason for a matter to reach the admin team, the moderator’s answer is final and consequences will be administered to players who go above moderator’s to admin members simply because they do not like the answer. Furthermore, all moderation and storytelling requests should be submitted through the ticket system in discord with the exception of moderative issues regarding a member of staff. In those cases only, a player may message a member of the admin team directly.
8. Landing zone etiquette. Players will be welcome to hang out in the landing zone to AFK, meet new players, etc but we do ask that all avatars be clothed and avoid gestures or dances that create noise or spam the local chat since that noise will carry to nearby skyboxes.
9. AFK and OOC. All areas of the sim except for the landing zone and private rentals are considered IC spaces. If your avatar is anywhere except the aforementioned places, you are considered to be actively in character.
10. Titlers. You may have a titler if your display name does not match your character name. Your titler may only contain the character’s name.
11. At least for the time being, players will be allowed 1 (one) animesh attachment at any given time such as a horse on the king’s road or a pet that you are roleplaying having on your person. Animesh NPC followers such as guards are not allowed.
Roleplay Rules
1. Limits. Any limits that contradict likely scenarios within the Game of Thrones universe will not be enforced. As a player, you reserve the right to fade to black anything you are uncomfortable with roleplaying. Fading to black does not mean that the situation never happened, though, just that you elected not to write out the details of the event. This can include death, dismemberment, and rape, all of which are very real risk within Martin’s work.
2. Aside from fading to black, all scenes must be roleplayed out and fading to black is only eligible for scenes that one or both players may find triggering.
3. Avatars. All character avatars must fit the theme and humanoid in nature, also matching any descriptions offered in the backstory. Extremely tall or short characters also have an associated feat/defect that must be taken if you are approved to be of an abnormal height. Also, we have worked hard to incorporate people from Essos into play so your character appearance should make sense for your character’s heritage. Furthermore, all avatars must be adult in appearance as this is an adult sim and must be attired in lore appropriate items. If there are issues, a member of staff will let you know.
4. ICA = ICC. Actions have consequences, whether good or bad. Any consequences cannot be avoided unless an alternative is found in roleplay. Similarly, the people of Martin’s world can be cutthroat at times so some consequences may simply be because one person engineered them out of dislike for another or because they view them as competition. All scenarios should be played out to their conclusion.
5. Teleporting out of scenes to avoid consequences. If it happens occasionally, we can agree that it could be loss of internet or power. If it happens frequently as a way to avoid unwanted consequences such as losing a fight, etc, then disciplinary actions will be taken.
6. All sim related rp must be had on the sim. Use of IMs or Discord to avoid consequences of getting caught is strictly prohibited. The only exception would be situations such as roleplaying a preparation to depart home for the capital and then transitioning any travel rp to the King’s Road, also Story Requests and Letters to be submitted via story request ticket.
7. Rentals: Having a private bedroom rental is a luxury. As the having of private rental has been an ongoing problem on a number of roleplay sims beyond only Game of Thrones, the following means of accountability will be in place.
Visitors to any consulate or home will be recorded in a visitors’ log that serves as an NPC servant announcing the visitor.
To sneak past the servants without being noticed, a successful role against the visitor’s log will be required. Staff will be able to verify all dice rolls made through the HUD system to counteract attempts at cheating.
If a scene can be had in a public area of the sim, it should be. Players caught having all/most their scenes in private rentals and preventing other players from being able to engage will lose the privilege of a private rental.
(Use the sim’s design to your advantage for roleplay and storylines.)
8. As a means of player accountability, we require the following to be submitted via Story Request: investigations, spying, assassinations, pregnancy rolls (for ALL sexual activity that could lead to conception of a child), letters to NPCs, trade deals, movement of troops, and sending people away home, to the wall, or to the silent sisters. Failure to do so invalidates the associated storyline and staff reserves the right to investigate the validity of such acts as sending a character away.
If you wish your character to send spies to watch a person or persons in specific, a story teller request must be sent.
The story teller will then OOCly alert the player that they are being followed. The player then has the option of rolling a perception check once daily when in public to see if they notice they are being followed. Further persuasion or intimidation rolls must be made to learn who hired them or to convert them to their service.
If the player does not notice the spy, they must submit all RP as story requests. The story team will then provide the character commanding the spies with a write-up of what information was obtained based on rolls made regarding the relationship.
9. Guards, ladies maids, etc are only present with your character for a scene if you state their presence in your starting post. Presence of such NPCs does not carry over from one scene to the next. Also, any reasonable number of guards may be RPd but a maximum of two (2) npc guards may each have one (1) hitpoint. The player may roll a flat D20 for the NPC guards to attack or defend. Essentially, the purpose of NPC guards is to buy time for escape or summon the city watch, not to fight a character’s battles for them.
10. Marriage: Marriage is an important part of politics within the culture and the purpose of children is to create useful ties with other houses. As a result, children rarely, if ever, had a say on who, when, or how they married. In keeping with this theme, players wishing to secure a relationship with an OOC partner should apply for characters that are already married or betrothed. Individuals applying for characters who can be married may submit a list of persons they are uncomfortable with their character being wed to due to any OOC issues or history. “Anyone other than [Insert player name here]” will not be accepted.
11. King’s Landing is a heavily populated place. Therefore, unless you verbally state for a space to be cleared or are in your private chambers and have sent any servants away, nothing you say or do is secret. Even then, if you enter a space with a person of the opposite sex to whom you are not wed, the servants will undoubtedly have ideas regarding what transpired. In places such as the Red Keep, your character most likely cannot send the staff away. This primarily applies to being inside buildings, though. If your character is unguarded outside safe buildings, odds are slim that any NPCs know or care who you are and are most likely to ignore any dangers your character is exposed to unless they are paid spies for someone important.
Re-rolling
Since some players struggle to play a character long-term and continuing to play characters despite negative consequences, we have instituted the following restrictions regarding the re-rolling of characters.
1. If your character dies from natural causes determined by dice rolls (ie. death in combat or to injury, sickness, or childbirth), then you may re-roll immediately for any open roll.
2. If you purposefully kill your character off or abandon your character (failure to meet the time requirement for your character tier also counts as abandonment) then you acquire the following consequences.
Players cannot roll for a new character until the next IC year. One year on sim is four months. If there are three months left in the current year, then the player must wait three months to create a new character but can play a non-featured smallfolk in the meantime
Players can only apply for characters of a lower tier than the one abandoned.
Character abandonment consequences stack for each abandonment until only non-featured smallfolk roles are available to the player.
3. Characters sent away to their home, the wall, or the silent sisters will be at staff’s discretion regarding if being sent away was done purposefully to re-roll.
Participation Expectations
1. Roles possessing the most power and influence have the greatest expectation regarding time spent on sim in a given week.
Note: These expectations refer primarily to weekdays as it is common for players to be able to spend ample time on the weekends. At minimum, important characters should be available on sim no fewer than 2 or 3 days of the week, excluding weekend.
2. Should a life situation (injury, sickness, vacation, etc) prevent a player from meeting the aforementioned participation expections, please submit a general ticket informing staff of the extended absense so that the story team can account for why the character is away.
3. Failure to meet participation expectations or to give staff notice of an extended absence can result in the loss of the character.
Remember, our stories affect the stories of every character we interact and it is disrespectful of other players and their time to expect them to wait indefinitely for someone's availability to progress their own stories so make sure, when selecting a role, that you are choosing a role that is compatible with your availablility.