Server Rules

'You are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules. Staff act as referee's for rule infractions so the game can move on. Rulings may be appealed via forums.
0 - Don't be a dick
0.1) Do not use slurs both IC, and OOC.
0.2) Do not get heated or be constantly negative in OOC or deadchat with others or about situations.
 
0.3) Do not get argumentative with server staff. Make a complaint on the forum or don't talk about it in an inappropriate place, such as deadchat, OOC, discord channels, etc.
 
0.4) Do not spam OOC.
0.5) Do not advertise or slander other servers.
0.6) Do not share conversations or player information from this server externally without permission. This includes OOC, Ahelps, and any other communication. What happens on the server is to remain on the server, our discord, or our forums for the protection of everyone's privacy.
1 - Heavy Roleplay
1.1) You are expected to RP first and foremost, and to uphold the suspension of disbelief and play a character that could believably be found in a Fallout game.
1.2) Name your character appropriate for an HRP server. Reference names are not allowed. If it is recognizable from any medium it is a breach of this rule.
1.3) Do not break immersion for other players.
 
1.4) You are encouraged to build cross round relationships with other characters, you are allowed to remember each other between rounds.
1.4.1) Player deaths are to be treated as very serious injuries in the next round. Things only become de-canonized when ALL parties agree.
 
1.4.2) Do not OOCly meta-grudge other players, and do not escalate to lethal as a result of events from past rounds; it must have grounding in IC reasoning from the current round.
2 - Abusing in-game mechanics
2.1) Do not IC in OOC, do not OOC in IC. 
2.2) Do not join as a role, and desert for the free gear.2.3) Do not make use of known exploits.
 
2.4) Do not interfere with SSD or AFK (Sudden Sleep Disorder or Away From Keyboard) players in any way. You may move them inside the closest shelter to get them out of danger, otherwise ignore them. Do not pull hostile mobs to SSD's intentionally, and do not move them out of shelter once they are safe from the elements. You may put SSD’s into a bed.
 
2.5) Do not pull hostile mobs into other players for the express purpose of circumventing the combat rules, or weakening them pre-escalation. You may still escalate upon those who have fought hostile mobs.
2.6) Do not use your knowledge of game mechanics to intentionally ruin the enjoyment of other players indirectly. This is a catch all for all actions ranging from blanketing the map in darkness, to causing server lag.
 
2.7) Do not ghost or log out to avoid roleplay after being captured, being captured is a risk you take when playing on server, and you must be prepared to deal with it. If you do not wish to engage in roleplay with those that have captured you, you may make a request in LOOC to be executed instead.
 
2.8) Do not respawn as the same character once your character has been killed, do not respawn as any relation or friend of your dead character as an excuse to continue escalation once your character has been killed.
 
2.9) Actions that would destroy a body for the entirety of the round are prohibited. This includes body destruction, head removal followed by deep frying, and other methods that remove any chance of revival or further roleplay.
 
2.9.1) When RP demands, it can be appropriate to destroy a body entirely, and when that is the case, use the rule of revival as a rule of thumb; if they have been dead for 15+ minutes, you may destroy their body as there is almost no means of revival after that.
3 - Escalation
3.1) Escalation of violence is required in all situations, regardless of faction. You are here to roleplay, not click each other horizontal. Murder should always be your last resort, not your immediate answer to any threat. In short, do not valid hunt and do not gank people.
3.2)Escalation isn't something that can be easily drawn down to a formula, however this guideline is here to help you best judge a situation.
3.2.1) MOTIVE: Your character must have a robust, and well thought out motive to begin an engagement. If your character suffers any hostile action at the hands of another, this is considered adequate and immediate motive.
3.2.2) ENGAGEMENT: Before initiating combat there needs to be a scene with interaction between those involved. You may be aggressive to start off, but you may not put your target on a finite timer. Do not shoot a player for not complying immediately. You must attempt to do a /say with intention or a robust emote that illustrates that you are moving from RP to mechanics. Drawing and firing wordlessly is considered poor escalation.
3.2.3) NEGOTIATION: Both parties must make an attempt to get what they want through use of words, coercion, intimidation, blackmail and barter. At times this will be impossible, as one party demands a price too great. However, this stage may be used as a free space to attempt to de-escalate.
3.2.4) FORCE: Choose your force appropriately. There is no need to outright kill a man for passively resisting, nor is there a need to leave someone alive who has proven that they are willing to use lethal force upon you or your allies. Do not escalate to lethal intent for a low RP reason.
3.3) Note that if you have issued a halt order, and your target does not comply you may give chase and attempt to capture them by any means. If your target does not comply, and immediately begins assaulting you, you may kill them.
3.3.1) If you choose to run during an interaction with a hostile force at any point, you have accepted that they have escalated upon you. They may take lethal action against you to take you down if they so choose.
3.4) Escalation is maintained between encounters. However, you must make it clear that you are re-engaging. You may not break away from an engagement, and re-engage wordlessly several minutes later to gain an advantage.
3.5) As long as you are in your faction uniform, and you see another faction member in danger you may jump in mid fight to assist them. Your faction uniform must be clearly visible on your sprite, obscuring it in any way gives you an unfair advantage.
3.5.1) Likewise if it is clear that you were in a group during escalation, even without a uniform you may leap to the defense of those around you.
3.5.2) Some factions like the town do not have set uniforms for most faction members, those without a uniform must follow the rule for engaging in an active conflict as normal. However those with a uniform may jump in to defend anyone under attack within their base (eg. the town).
3.6) If you come across a fight already underway, you may enter it so long as you make it perfectly clear to the participants which side you are stepping in for.
3.7) There is no bypassing escalation, wordlessly attacking anyone at any time will be considered grief and may be met with punishment without warning. This includes the end of round. There is no end of round grief allowed.
3.8) If you have captured someone, you are expected to roleplay with them or get them to an area where they can be processed accordingly (for example, the Oasis prison, a faction base, or a raider camp).
3.8.1) You may not leave someone confined to an area alone for an extended period of time. If you intend to force them to perform a boring, repetitive task, you must ensure that there is someone present with them to roleplay with. Failure to comply with this standard is against the spirit of the server. An exemption can be made if the party OOCly approves of being left alone or to complete repetitive tasks, if you do not gain their consent - consider letting them go or finding a more appropriate end to their story.
3.8.2) It is expectated that the detainee must not break in-character immersion by engaging in bad sportsmanship or low-roleplay misbehavior. If you make it clear you have no intention to roleplay out the encounter you open yourself up to field execution depending on severity.
4 - Antagonistic characters
4.1) Raiders are not exempt from the escalation rules. Player raiders are held to the same roleplay standards as all other player characters.
4.2)Player raiders must have a goal other than killing, such as slavery, drug peddling, causing chaos, or just about anything that doesnt involve killing other players as the main focus. Using raider as an reason to valid hunt other players will result in whitelist removal.
4.3) Raiders have the ability to make gangs, non-raider characters are not permitted to join these gangs and nor may they act like raiders without the whitelist. You may still hold slaves that you purchase from raiders. You may deal with raiders.
4.4) Raiders may only jump in on fights to defend other raiders if both parties are wearing a set of raider gear. This is considered the faction uniform. Wastelanders in raider gear may not wordlessly jump in to assist a raider in a fight.
5 - Factions
5.1) If you are playing a faction, you are required to know the lore of that faction. By signing up for these roles you agree to follow the lore and canonical rules for these factions, or else face a ban or IC punishment at any time. This includes the BOS&rsquo;s Chain that Binds, the NCR&rsquo;s laws, and the Legion&rsquo;s beliefs.
5.2) Do not intentionally hinder your faction, you have signed on to work as part of that faction. If you disagree with the direction that the faction is taking that round, you are invited to matrix yourself to open up your slot to someone else.
5.3) Do not desert your faction wordlessly because you are bored, or did not mean to join in the first place. There are systems in place to allow you to quickly respawn as another role.
5.4) Desertion is allowed only under the most trying of circumstances, if your leadership is consistently breaking lore, their faction rules, or server rules. You may renege, and if applicable ahelp their behavior.
6 - Communication
6.1) While this is an English speaking server, you are allowed to speak other languages in character.
6.2) If you are unable to communicate in English OOCly, you will be disinvited from the server.
6.3) If your English is not up to a basic standard, you may be ID checked on the spot.
6.4) You are required to make yourself understood through robust emotes during escalation when playing a non english speaker.
7 - Miscellaneous
7.1) You are encouraged to ahelp with any questions, concerns, requests, or problems.
7.2) If an admin redirects you to the discord, or marks your ticket as rejected, or an IC issue, do not get belligerent. There is always a good reason.
7.3) Do not spam adminhelp, tickets are dealt with depending on how dire the situation, and then in order. If you suspect that administration is AFK, you may ping staff on the discord.
7.4) Most reasonable requests are accepted, if your request is rejected then it has been deemed unreasonable.
7.5) Do not use adminhelp as a way to have a conversation with the server administration.
7.6) Please be direct in your ahelp, and ask a question pertaining to your problem other than 'I need help' or 'Is there anyone online?'
Let us know specifically what happened and who is involved in the initial ahelp.
8 - Consent
8.1) While this server does host NSFW content, players are encouraged to ask others to opt in to scenes that might make others uncomfortable. If a player requests to opt out of an ERP scene, break off immediately. Failure to comply will not be tolerated.
8.2) Similarly, you are not allowed to use emotes to bypass ERP verb buttons when engaging in a scene with an obviously unwilling party.
9 - 18+ content.
9.1) Knowingly interrupting an ERP scene without valid IC reasoning is unacceptable. "ERP is cringe" or "this kink is gross" are not valid IC reasoning's. Any interruptions to roleplay must be roleplayed in kind and have a firm in-character grounding. You may LOOC your partner to pause your scene and if time allows for it, go back to it. Remember, you can always follow up with a partner after the round via other means!
9.1.1) Valid IC reasoning includes but is not limited to persons participating in the scene committing dereliction of duty, or having previously been involved in escalation.
 
9.2) Kink shaming. As with any game or forum with adult content present players are eventually going to find material that they find personally distasteful. Players are expected to conduct themselves in a mature manner and not target others for the kinks they enjoy. Should one be found harassing another player over their preference in kinks punishments will be handed down.
9.2.1) That said, any content expressly forbidden by the Discord terms of service should be brought to the immediate attention of the admin staff.
10 - Disguises
10.1) Disguises aren&rsquo;t supported mechanically from the get-go, if players want to play along with a disguise for the benefit of an improved roleplaying experience then that is absolutely fine and good, however it is not enforced that players play along with the disguise.
10.1.1) Excellent ideas for disguises may be sent to the staff team via ahelp in a similar manner to gimmicks, and may just become mechanically supported if the idea is good enough.
11 - Bunkers and Bases 
11.1) It is asked that players refrain from raiding bunkers and dungeons before the thirty minute mark to make things fair on other players. 
11.2) Bunkers and dungeons are defined by being dangerous locations with two or more powerful monsters (Deathclaws, Gutsies, Sentry Bots, Assaultrons, Super Mutants)
 
11.3) Raids upon faction bases are only ever sanctioned after two hours of in game time, with permission from an admin or two moderators. The reason for this is three-fold. It allows the administration to ascertain whether or not the reason for conducting the raid is adequate, it allows administration to ensure that no metagaming has taken place to locate the base, and it allows administration to get into position to ensure that the rules are followed appropriately.
12 - Good Faith
12.1) Players are expected to act in good faith, and to play by the meaning of the rules, not the direct wording. Trying to rulelawyer to manipulate the rules to your advantage will not help you.
12.2) Do not lie about actions that happened IC to cause OOC punishments, or vice versa.
12.3) Do not give someone a reason to attack you icly then complain oocly (Either in ahelps or in OOC/LOOC) when they take you up on the reason you gave them
12.4) Respect the fact that you don't have to be involved in every scene going on in the server, don't rush into something that you aren't involved in because you want to be involved. If people LOOC ask you to leave an RP situation, respect their wishes. Everyone is here to have fun and the best way to do that is to cooperate with each other.
Rules of No-Man's-Land (PvP Zone)
No Man's land is a lower-escalation area that is available to be opened by admins and mods for events and playtesting. If the community enjoys these playtests we can discuss modifications to the zone, rules, and opening policy going forward. 
1.) Do not pass through the entrance zone door airlocks. Passing them is considering breaking raiding perms rules, and cannot be used for raiding no matter what. Past the flags given for the factions is your warning.
 
2.) In the Dustzone specifically you may KoS anyone of another faction than yourself. You may not KoS your own faction, no matter what. To be clear, this is the only area in the server where it is explicitely allowed to engage in combat without escalation, though it is still possible and encouraged to have scenes as you would in the non-PVP zone.
 
3.) Any death but someone breaking these rules will be ignored and rejected if ahelped within the arena. This includes but is not limited to dying because of lag, because people cornered you, etc. By entering this zone you accept that your character will be subject to consequences they face for the round.
 
4.) Bring your own loot, do not ahelp and beg to be given anything.(edited)
 
5.) Do not camp players spawn bunkers. If found building around and locking in the players spawn bunkers, such as BoS, NCR, Legion, Waster, you will be banned or punished heavily. Do not build deathtraps, do not build killboxes.
6.) You are here to roleplay first and foremost, but the nature of this zone allows for free-form PvP, be a good sport and dont metagrudge players who beat you or you beat. Do not translate what happens here to the non-PVP zone unless both parties agree to it being canon round-to-round. What happens here is officially non-canon by default.
 
7.) Do not abuse your spawn bunker doors to run in and out to attack people with impunity. Take a stance and stop being a baby, fight or don't.
 
8.) Do not, as anyone, gatekeep the top access to the PVP Zone. Do not sit at the top and turn people away, do not put locks on the doors, do not kill players for attempting to enter.
 
9.) Do not disguise as another faction in the PVP zone - do not wear other factions gear, and do not disguise your faction gear when in this zone.
 
10.) Do not make things too complicated. A staff members decision on the matter is final for the round - loosen your expectations for how things are to be handled in this zone as it is supposed to be very 'hands off' in terms of admin intervention.
 
11.) All other server rules unrelated to escalation and raiding still must be followed. This is not a rule-free zone
 
12.) You cannot force somebody to go into the No Man's Land. You cannot punish them ICly for refusing to go into the No Man's Land.