Server Rules

## **Community Rules**

1. Our community is 18+ only.
2. Treat others as you would wish to be treated. Don't be rude or toxic, use common sense.
3. Be respectful to the staff. We are volunteering our free time to make this server a fun place for the player base to escape reality.
4. Preferred language during roleplay and discord posts will be English.
5. Hate speech will not be tolerated.
6. Harassment of players will not be tolerated.
7. If you catch someone breaking the rules, you will need to submit any and all evidence on the matter via our ticket system.

## **Discord Rules**

1. If you wish to partake in this RP server, we ask that you remain in the SonderRP Discord.
2. Please change your username to include your in-game name.
	1. *Example: SassySaltyVixen (Sylvie)*
	2. This helps us keep track of who plays who in Discord.
3. Please do not spam direct messages (DM’s) to our staff team.
	1. We urge you to use the ticket system that has been put into place.
4. Do not spam links, photos, or emotes of any sort.
5. Do not post material that is or connects to not-safe-for-work (NSFW) material.
6. Do not post material that directly harasses others in any way.
7. Do not post advertisements of other servers.

## **Roleplay Rules**

1. Be patient and respectful with those that are new to RP.
2. No RP-bleeding, metagaming, powergaming, random deathmatching or fail-RP. (For further explanation, refer to the **Roleplay Terms** section in the outline.)
3. You are allowed 1 character reroll per season.
	1. This means you can have a max of 2 characters per season.
4. Please practice pacing. This ties heavily into powergaming. Take your time, enjoy the flowers, you don't need to be able to one shot everything within your first month on the server.
5. No public erotic roleplay (ERP). Take it to discord direct messages (DM’s) if you must but ERP will not be tolerated on the server. Romance RP is not ERP.
6. If you are speaking via voice chat in character (IC), you need to remain IC at all times. If you need to step away for any reason type in **LOCAL** chat “//OOC” or just “//” to indicate that you are out of character (OOC). This will help keep the immersive influence during RP sessions. If you wish to step away while IC and wish to keep it IC, you can roleplay your reason for departing. This applies to lagging or encountering difficulty hearing players as well.

## **In-Game Rules**

1. Be respectful and speak clearly if you use voice chat. Type as clearly as you can if you use text.
2. Respect people that are typing; there is a text bubble that indicates that they’re currently constructing a message. Give them ample time to respond.
3. DO NOT use **GLOBAL** chat in game. This channel is reserved for announcements to function as broadcasts to add flavor to RP sessions.
4. Tribes can not be larger than 10 people.
5. Territories begin at 15 people. Effectively, territories should be multiple tribes coming together.
6. Shiny beasts that spawn within the mesh will stay that way. Admins will not respawn shiny beasts that are lost this way.
7. If you are caught abusing any glitches or loopholes you’ll receive a warning. Those that report glitches, loopholes, or bugs will get something special as a reward in game. To report one of these occurrences, submit a ticket on Discord describing the issue and an admin will take care of it at their earliest convenience.
8. If something happens with you and your beast that is Ark related, it will be chalked up to Ark being Ark. Admins will not be there at every beck and call for every inconvenience. The best way to adapt to this is to write it into your story to further develop your character.

### **Taming**

1. If any form of taming has begun, via baiting, tranqing or combat, there shall be no interference of that beast's tame outside of that player's choice and or tribe. Disrupting the taming process in any way will result in a warning.
2. Do not leave beasts on mate while you are not actively breeding. To ensure babies don't clutter the map or glitch beneath the mesh, we request that beasts are not left on mating. There will be a limit on how many tames can be left out when you hop offline. Think of this as a ‘Toybox’ rule; You can have as many dinos as you want out while you are online. However, when you go offline, you need to put your dinos away to these certain amounts:
3. **Solo players can have a max of 10 tames out while offline.**
	1. Obviously, be courteous to your fellow ARKmates! Try not to throw out a ton of dinos to breed and leave them out the whole time you’re online.
4. **Tribes can have a max of 30 tames out while offline.**
5. Please refrain from killing shiny beasts that spawn across the map. Unwanted shinies should be left alive for a minimum of an hour before they can be killed. Enraged shinies may be killed on spawn.
6. Territories will have their own beasts that spawn in their lands. If you are not a part of their territory you are **NOT** permitted to tame these beasts. If you do tame one of these creatures, it will be promptly taken and destroyed. However, if you are given permission by the territory **OWNER** or an **ADMIN**, then you may tame these beasts. We also request you save evidence of your given permission to save everyone from potential future headaches.

### **Structures**

1. Do not build around resource heavy node spawns.
2. Do not build within the starter town area (Braxia).
3. Do not build under the obelisks.
4. If you build anything that is meant to be temporary, dispose of it after you’re done using it. Extra homes, excess buildings, and temporary safe-havens can accumulate and potentially cause lag for everyone.
5. Tribes are allowed a singular homestead including a home, garden, beast pen/breeder house, and a singular outpost. You may have beds in the homestead and the outpost but not anywhere else unless specified for events.
6. Platform structures (rafts and platform saddles) should be no larger than 4x4x4.
7. **DO NOT** block any tunnels or routes that would prevent a player from further exploring the map. You may build inside caves but try not to make a one person tribe in a cave that could easily fit a tribe of 5-10+ players. It's just respectful.
8. Each tribe may possess one boat or raft unless specified otherwise due to how laggy they can be.
9. Please refrain from using excessive spike walls as they’ve been prone to cause lag. Mix in some Plant Species-X Turrets to bolster your security! Moderation is key.
	1. **In order to facilitate the use of fewer turrets, Plant Species-X turrets deal double damage to dinos.**
	2. Plant Species-X Turrets need to be set to Wild Dinos ONLY. If they aren't, a member of our staff has the right to join your tribe and change them.
	3. If you do not wish to use Plant Species-X Turrets, you are allowed 5 turret beasts that WILL NOT count against your max amount of tames you can have out.

### **Dungeons**

1. There is to be absolutely no exploitation of ARK bugs while in a dungeon. If caught doing so, you will get a one week ban from the dungeon(s).
2. Each dungeon is to be explored by 1 team at a time, whether that be 2 people or 20. There will be occupied and unoccupied torches at the dungeon entrance that must be used!
3. You may make a small camp at the dungeon site, including up to 3 sleeping bags per person. However, you **MUST** clean up all building items after your dungeon run is complete. This will help prevent abandoned builds and server lag!
4. Be courteous to the other players who may be waiting to attempt the dungeon. Try to avoid clearing the dungeon back to back.
5. If you die in the dungeon, do not DM staff or create tickets to help recover your possessions. It's an area designed to challenge you and you should know the risk and prepare before going in.
6. To obtain the loot chests in all of the dungeons you will need to have the Ragnarok map installed. This map is free and the loot boxes from that map are what we’re using.

## **Roleplay Terms**

### **Metagaming**

* A term used in role-playing games, which describes a player's use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their character's actions when said character has no relevant knowledge or awareness under the circumstances. Metagaming is using knowledge obtained out of character to make in character decisions.

### **Roleplay Bleeding**

* A phenomenon where the emotions from a character affect the player out of the game and vice versa. Part of the joy of roleplay comes from diving into the fantasy of being something we’re not. When we play a character for a long time, it’s easy to get swept up in the highs of victorious battles and the lows of character death. When these feelings persist after the game is over, that’s when bleeding occurs.

### **Powergaming**

* When a player declares that their own action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on their own prerogative. A powergamer may also be a player who tries to force others to participate in role-playing they don't want to engage in. For instance, a player who unilaterally describes his character as doing something with (or to) another character that would usually require the other to play along — such as having a fight or a sexual encounter — is considered to be powergaming.

### **Fail-RP**

* Fail-RP appears in a variety of forms. Characters not valuing their life, ignoring the actions of another character, and breaking character (regularly) are all examples of Fail-RP.

### **Random Deathmatching**

* Random Deathmatch (RDM) is a term used to denote when a player randomly kills other players without valid reasons.