Rules and Regulations

## **General Chat/Roleplay Rules**

You know the drill, common sense and stuff. But for clarity's sake, here they are anyway.

* ***Respect Others:*** It's fine to disagree, but arguing when neither side will budge is a waste of time and stirs needless drama, so both parties should just agree to disagree and back off. Additionally while the staff is still more or less the same as everyone else, respect their decisions. Voice your complaints in PM if you have an issue, it... doesn't reflect well on either side to have to deal with that in public.
* ***Drama:*** Nobody here wants it. If you have a continuing problem with another member, bring it up to one of the leaders (Maritisa and Leonavius) or a moderator. (Shimmershell) We have a separate channel for ranting about things you need to vent about, so please use that if you need to let off some steam. Additionally, please refrain from spouting negativity in any other channel; critique and discussion are fine, whatever, but don't go bashing stuff over subjective opinion, because nobody wants to hear it.
* ***Spamming:*** While the typical definition is also applicable, please refrain from discussing subjects in the wrong channels. This includes using the bot outside the "rolling" channel, posting NSFW content outside the NSFW channel, discussing spoilers out of spoiler-friendly general, and so forth.
	+ **NO SHITPOSTING:** Do not be the reason why we cannot have nice things.
* ***Godmodding or Powerplaying:*** For the unfamiliar, Godmodding is the act of performing acts a character shouldn't be able to do, usually in regards to bypassing a player or GM's right to react. Powerplaying is similar, an instance where a character does far too much for a single action compared to everyone else, effectively causing a sort of time dilation effect. This is kind of loose, since a lot of people often do it unintentionally, but if you're not sure on something, ask another person unaffiliated with the scenario at hand, or the GM if in a quest. Usually a GM will let you get away with a powerplay if you're willing to risk the dice on it, but it also depends a lot on context.

## **Character Creation Rules**

**There are no limits regarding characters other than the following:**

* You may not, under any circumstances, possess any legendary Pokemon from the get-go.
	+ This Page details what legendary pokemon allowed to be captured. In the event of an appearance of such a pokemon, all pokeballs **will fail 100% of the time** unless the trainer uses a Master Ball, which can only be acquired via special means, such as winning an Admin-hosted "official" Tournament, or completing certain criteria regarding quests. A pokemon on the hard-ban list is **entirely uncapturable**.
* Your Pokemon team may not exceed a cumulative count of roughly 50 total levels. This means that you could, say, have one Pokemon at level 40 and one at 10, or two at 20 and one at 10... You get the idea. You can have a full party if they're all lowbies. (This is loose, but don't push it.)
* You may not possess Sileda-Exclusive "Variant" Pokemon unless they've been documented to be common in the wild, or you have collaborated some way to acquire them from another player.
* Pokemon may know up to four TM moves on creation, but only the pokemon created with your character may freely know TM moves. Otherwise, you must procure the disc itself from a quest, merchant, or another member, and train the pokemon using it in a sort of VR-Training device. (Citadel's Nexus has one of these that you can rent pretty cheaply.)
* A character may be part of Team Fission, but this must be discussed with either an Owner or a Developer.
* A character may be a fresh or long-standing arrival from another region or a native of Sileda, but once on the island you are not allowed to leave it for any circumstances unless said character is permanently leaving. This is solely for the sake of preventing needless complications that can arise when people get too disparate.
* You may have characters linked to each other, ex: siblings, as long as you acknowledge that you should not attempt to dominate RP by playing with yourself, and that inter-character exchanges should be limited for the sake of maintaining a semblance of balance in this regard. No giving your Lv80 Garchomp to your trainer who only has 6 Lv5's.
	+ You may have links to other players' characters, but only with their OK. Links with established "canon" characters are completely disallowed.
	+ Your character is allowed to have loose links to canon events and organizations, such as for example being a former member of one of the "teams" from the games, but little more than that.
* You may have as many characters as you like, but you may not use more than one in a quest at a time, and also may not sign up for multiple quests with the same character at the same time. In casual RP, it's up to the other participants. Just don't end up RPing with yourself, that's both awkward and kind of rude and also looks really dumb.
* A visual reference for your character isn't *required* but it is strongly appreciated. At *least* provide some reference made with a character creator or something, it helps a lot with mental imagery and it makes it a lot easier for one of our own artists to potentially make you proper art in the future.

**Some other information worth noting is the following:**

* Levels aren't used as hard-statistics, merely as a general power gauge for damage scaling, evolution milestones, move learning, etc. Most quests don't use hard stats anyway and the ones that do usually flat-level everyone.
* Pokemon may know as many moves as they could feasibly learn with no penalty. However, in any instance, you may only *use* four moves at a time, which should be pre-designated beforehand or else we'll just assume the first four moves you use is your moveset.
* A pokemon may have any ability you like that it can naturally have, sans event Pokemon who have it changed. (Eg no ash-greninja, that's just dumb anyway.) This includes hidden abilities, since Sun/Moon have provided a sensible way to achieve them outside of older dream world shenanigans.
* Upon catching a new pokemon, unless you used a device or something of the sort to inspect it and "lock in" its stats, you may choose whatever you like for any statistics not given to you by the GM. This includes which ability it has, its nature, its IVs, etc.
* You can know breeding moves for no penalty, even on wild Pokemon, assuming their moveset isn't given to you by the GM.

Additionally, all characters may achieve a "**Signature Skill**" as a unique ability. This doesn't have to be decided on character creation, and can be done at any point. In essence, a Signature Skill is something that dramatically alters how your character performs in a quest, be it by unusual past experiences, a special ability or an unorthodox battle style or honestly whatever have you. They are designed to be very broad and powerful when in effect so as to differentiate characters even further from one another, no matter the style of quest. They are peer-reviewed in general after being posted in the Signature Skills channel. A signature skill cannot thereafter be changed without going through the same process, and will require a legitimately good reason for changing it, such as major shifts in a character's identity or team composition due to events in-RP.

## Roleplaying

Most RP within this group takes place as a Quest. These can be made and hosted by anyone, provided the quest itself is approved. These are GM-lead RP sessions that have a very clear objective and can usually span multiple days depending on length. They will always offer a reward of some kind, but the content of the quest can vary wildly. See Quest-Making Guidelines for more information on how to actually make a quest, and keep it from turning into a horrible trainwreck.

There are also **GRAND QUESTS** which may only be hosted and developed by staff. These are usually extremely difficult or lengthy quests with major impact on the world or overarching plot. They will often have strong requirements or prerequisites that are intended to force party coordination and prevent the ill-prepared from going on a suicide mission. Grand Quests usually award rare, one-of-a-kind items, and act as milestones for global events. A Grand Quest will usually appear after a certain number of quests have been cleared, or after certain conditions have been met. Generally speaking, no more than two grand quests will ever be available at the same time at the most. Completing these will either result in mass changes to the setting or sow the seeds for future change, with the most common instance being adding equipment to standard Quest Gear.

However, "casual" RP is perfectly allowed as well, held in a separate channel. This is RP that can take place more or less anywhere on Sileda as long as it makes sense and doesn't conflict with any ongoing quests. (Take it up with the quest host if it might.) There are a few restrictions on "casual" RP, however.

* While casual RP may take place outside of town, only "common" wild pokemon, like route 1 mons, are ever allowed to appear. This is to prevent people from just magically poofing in the pokemon they want. If you want rarer Pokemon, consider going on an Expedition Quest, or any quest that offers a Pokemon as a reward.
* You can have interactions with another character "implied" only if you take it up with that player.
* Usage of another player's characters is strictly prohibited. Usage of another player's NPCs must be discussed prior.
* "Time Skipping" past mundane events is fine, if not outright encouraged, but no time shenanigans that could lead to events happening over the span of many days; this could clash with potential results of other RPs, including quests. Just be reasonable with it.

### *Battling*

When battling with another player, there are a few ways to carry it out that have been established as commonplace. These are guidelines, rather than set rules, with the only real determining factor being that all parties involved must agree. If you so wish, you could make yourself some bizarre battle format such as "only attack using the terrain", or something silly like that.

* *"Unregulated" Battling:* What most think of when they think "RP Battle", where each participant takes a turn to do an action or strategic maneuver within the context of their characters. Statistics and health are much looser here, but a third person is **required** to be a referee, in order to prevent dodge stalemates. Characters may take advantage of their nonstandard unique abilities in this format. All quests use this format by default, with the GM acting as both the referee and also a participant, controlling wild Pokemon or those of NPCs. In Quests, sometimes the GM will use dice to control and balance outcomes, similar to D&D; this isn't required and is up to the quest host's preference.
* "*Regulated" Battling:* This format utilizes the battle simulator Pokemon Showdown to replicate the format used by the games. Players can use the chat to speak for their trainer and Pokemon (if applicable) while battling. Battles use the Custom Game format to allow for the "lesser" versions of "Sileda Form" Pokemon to battle properly. Most Tournaments will use this format for the sake of time, at least for preliminaries/pools.