Rules

**NOTE:** These are the rules that currently stand as of April 7th, 2023.

## Golden Rules

* These games are meant to replicate the actual show, do not take anything personally.
* Third-party deals are prohibited from these games. For example, you cannot bribe another contestant with money in order to keep you around. If an action such as so happens, it will result in a punishment.
* We have zero tolerance for any sort of bullying and any inappropriate actions within this community.
* We have zero tolerance for any comments that may be offensive to one's race, sexuality, gender, image, disability, or religious beliefs. Doing so can lead to possible ejection from the game. So watch what you say.
* The hosts put a lot of time and effort into making a season. We are here to help and there is zero toleration in harassing and insulting the hosts. Please respect the work we put into a season, otherwise you could be facing removal from the game.

## Requirements

* You must have a Discord account in order to play these games, in order to interact with contestants, submit votes and confessionals, and compete in challenges in our Discord servers.
* A Fandom account is recommended for wiki purposes but is not required. In the case of no Fandom account, we will require some form of username for your player page.
* You must have access to Discord as updates may happen at any given time of day.

## General Conduct

* Harassment or toxicity of any kind is not allowed. This includes trolling with intent to annoy or discomfort other server members, any sort of direct/targeted harassment, or bullying.

* The Foxvivor community has a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry or discrimination. You are strictly prohibited from mocking or talking down on or about a specific person or marginalized group of people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, body type, physical ability, age, social class, or appearance.

* The Foxvivor community is not 18+, and multiple members of the Hosting Team are minors. As a result of this, NSFW content (inappropriate nicknames/profile pictures or inappropriate messages/images) are not allowed.

* Respect pronouns. Everybody has pronouns that they want to be referred by, and it is your job as a member of the community to respect everybody's identity. You are not allowed to mock other people's pronouns, or create fake/joke pronouns to mock others. In addition, intentional misgendering is completely off-limits in our community. If you slip up a few times, that's okay, but please make an effort to refer to everybody by the pronouns they use.

* Implicit racial bias is a very real and important issue that often surfaces in the ORG community. If you are seen acting out of what we as Hosts believe is racial bias, we will take immediate action. The severity of your punishment if seen utilizing or weaponizing racial bias in your words or actions will range from a verbal warning to being completely blacklisted from the series, depending on how serious the offenses were.

* If you try to find a loophole to break a rule under the guise that "it's not officially stated in the rules," the Hosts will still have the right to punish you. The Hosts' word is final on all occasions.

* If a permission is faulty (e.g. a channel open to the wrong people by accident), please inform a Host. Do not weaponize this slip-up and chat in a channel it's obvious you're not meant to chat in if you are accidentally enabled to.

## Viewer Rules

*These rules apply to both Viewers and VIP Viewers, unless otherwise stated.*

* You are not allowed to discuss or leak the events of the game or your opinions on them with jurors or castaways. You are also not allowed to leak the viewing lounge to jurors or castaways.

* Although you are able to voice your opinion on whatever events and decisions happen in the game, please make sure to remember that all viewer-related channels will be open to all castaways post-season. They will be able to see if you say something incredibly harsh about them. Please refrain from using harsh language to describe players who are just trying to play the game to the best of their abilities.

* If you are a VIP Viewer, you are given access to everyone's confessionals. Because of this, the rules on leaking will be stricter if you are given this role, and anyone who is caught leaking the contents of another player's confessional will be immediately removed from the server and barred from joining future servers.

## Castaway Rules and Guidelines

*If anything listed in this section is broken by a castaway (given that it is a rule and not a guideline), you will likely be striked, and with more serious rules, removed from the game (or even blacklisted from the series).*

### General Castaway Conduct

* Game-related screenshots are completely forbidden. If you are caught showing other players game-related screenshots (DMs, private channels, etc.), you will be punished and likely ejected if serious enough. \* If you open up to us about it first, it is likely that your punishment will be less severe with this specific rule. If you hide it and are caught later on, you could be blacklisted from the entire Foxvivor series.

* Sockpuppetry is not allowed in any scenario. You are not allowed to create a second account to view the game while playing it, and if you are caught doing this, you will be removed from the game immediately. This also goes for making two or more separate accounts to fill up separate casting slots. If your account is deemed untrustworthy, we as Hosts have the right to ask you for proof of identity.

* All rules regarding general conduct must be followed as a castaway. There are no exceptions.

* Recording VCs is strictly forbidden, and especially posting them to your confessional or sharing your recordings with others. The only exception to this is if you are recording a contestant breaking a rule in a VC for evidence to show privately to the Hosts (e.g. if someone is making derogatory remarks in a VC).
* This rule mainly applies to private VCs, or any VC where sensitive information is shared.

### Alliances

* To create an alliance, ping the Hosts in your submissions and tell us who you want the alliance to be with. Then, a channel will be made, and the channel topic will include what (game) day the alliance was on, who requested it, and all members of the alliance.

* Alliance-specific VCs are allowed! All you have to do is ask a Host, and we'll set it up!

* The usage of external Discord clients (e.g BetterDiscord) or plug-ins to view alliances you're not part of is strictly prohibited. This is considered to be a violation against Discord's Terms of Service and will result in an ejection from the game, a blacklist from the entire Foxvivor series, and getting your account reported to Discord's Trust and Safety team.

### Confessionals

* You can choose whether you wish to have your confessional open to VIP viewers, or keep it closed to Hosts only. We will have a VL confessional system set up if you choose to keep your confessional closed.

* If you choose to open your confessional entirely, a submissions channel will be opened for you to submit challenge scores and votes, look for advantages or immunity idols, and discuss serious matters with Hosts.

* Only Hosts and (when applicable) Foxvivor alumni will be able to verify new VIP members. This is to ensure that, although there is an open-confessional system, the leaking chances are as minimal as possible. This measure is taken in order to ensure that everyone can feel safe and comfortable in an open-confessional system.

### Challenges and Submissions

* Cheating in challenges will result in either a strike or immediate ejection depending on the severity. This includes modifying pictures of submissions, getting somebody else to submit for you, or using an old challenge score.

* In individual challenges, you are not allowed to share information with other contestants to get them ahead. You may exchange thoughts on the challenge as long as they are vague, such as "I found the challenge quite hard!" or "I think I probably lost that challenge."

* Challenges where you have to submit a command as a final answer allow for only one submission. Challenges where you have to do something on a site (in most cases, this will be some sort of puzzle) will allow for multiple resubmissions if you choose, unless otherwise stated. Make sure to read challenge rules carefully so you're sure of what you have to do!

* If a challenge submission is deemed invalid, you could face either a penalty or complete disqualification depending on how serious the invalidity of the submission is.

* **On a computer,** you must take a screenshot of your full screen, including your challenge score, the time and date, and your confessional (which must be up-to-date). Click here for an example of a valid challenge submission on a computer.
* On a phone/other mobile device, **you can either take one screenshot that encompasses both your challenge score and Discord, or, if you cannot fit both in one picture, you are also free to submit two separate images, taken one after the other - the first containing your up-to-date confessional (as well as the time at the top of your device screen), and the second containing the challenge screen (including, of course, the score) in its entirety. Click here for examples of both of these instances (the left-most image being the first instance, and the other two images being the second instance).**
* Unless otherwise stated, you have 24 hours to complete a challenge. You are allowed to abstain from a challenge if you feel you cannot complete it before the deadline up to two times throughout the course of the season. If you fail to start/submit for a challenge without notifying us that you choose to abstain, you will receive a strike.
* Abstaining will result in your time or score becoming equal to that of the worst finished time or score, at the discretion of the challenge.

* If a tribe has a surplus in members, they must sit a member (or multiple members) out to equalize the amount of participants on both tribes. This must be done before the tribe starts the challenge.

### Tribal Council and Voting

* You are given 24 hours to vote. You cannot abstain from voting. If you fail to vote in time, you will receive a strike and a self-vote. If you self vote twice in a season, you will be removed from the game.
* In order to cast a vote, use the parchment provided for you, and use an image-editing app (most devices have a default one) to write down the name of the person you want to vote against. If you can't do this, let the Hosts know who you are intending to vote against and we will make a parchment for you. We also encourage you to leave a voting confessional with your vote.
* You are permitted to switch your vote as many times as you would like before the deadline.
* In the event of a tie, everybody (except for those in the tie) will be given an additional 24 hours to cast a vote between any of the members in the tie (and only between them). If this revote ends in a second tie, those who were in the tie will become immune, and everybody else (excluding anybody who played an immunity idol or won Individual Immunity) will draw rocks.
* In ties that occur at tribal councils with four people, the two remaining contestants will have the opportunity to come to a unanimous consensus on which of the two to vote out of the game. If they cannot, then the two other players will take part in a rock draw. If this occurs at when there are four players left in the game overall, then there will immediately be a fire-making challenge.

* Individual Immunity can only be transferred in the first 12 hours of tribal council, if somebody wishes to give up the necklace.

* If you wish to play an idol, the typical protocol is that you play it live following when a Host says "If anybody has an immunity idol and would like to play it, now would be the time to do so." If you do not believe you will be available for this, you are free to play an idol in advance by letting us know in your private submissions channel. You are also allowed to play idols on specific conditions that can be determined before the votes are read.

* A valid conditional pre-played idol could be, "If Maple plays their immunity idol, I would also like to play my own."
* An invalid conditional pre-played idol is, "If Sheep receives any votes, I would like to play my idol on him."

### Ponderosa

* You are allowed to voice your disagreement with another juror in ponderosa, but you are not allowed to start an argument in ponderosa. If Hosts believe that ponderosa is too stressful or tense of an environment, we have the right to either temporarily or permanently shut down ponderosa.

* Although you are no longer in the game, you may not share game-related screenshots in ponderosa, as you are still jurors.

### Final Tribal Council

* Each finalist will get a channel to post their jury speech, and will be given 24 hours to write and post it. Then, those speeches will be visible to the jurors (and the public), and from there, each juror will have their own channel to address the finalists. The finalists will be able to speak in each juror's questioning channel in order to address each juror.

* Final Tribal Councils are very often a high-stress environment, as the finalists usually try their best to impress the jury and explain why they deserve to win. Please do not add to this stress by being a harsh and obnoxious juror. If you are too obnoxious to the finalists, you will be revoked from your ability to confront finalists, and if the offense is serious enough, you may be removed from the jury completely.

* Please do not go off-topic in finalist or jury channels. These channels are meant to be for jurors to explain why their game is deserving of the title of Sole Survivor and each jurors' vote.

## Returning Players

* We will try to have many opportunities for players to return to the game.
* Players who have played previously are not allowed to sign up for new player seasons.
* Past players may be asked to return, but this is not guaranteed.
* In some cases, we may ask for face reveals to prevent sock-puppetry.
* Pregaming for seasons involving returnees is **strictly prohibited.** Anyone caught trying to pregame will have their spot on the cast revoked and won't be asked to play again.
	+ If a pregame is caught while the season is ongoing, it will be up to the host discretion how it will be handled; a punishment will be given regardless.