Rules

**These are rules, but they are not infallible or concrete. If something feels wrong don't do it, or adminhelp it first. Above all, use your common sense, listen to the game staff, and keep the round fun for everyone.**

## Be respectful to others

* Our first and most important rule that should need no explanation. Don't be overly offensive, don't spam in-character or out of character channels, don't rage at and insult others. This is a game, we're all here to have fun, but try to make certain your type of fun fits our server and doesn't ruin things for others.
* This is primarily an OOC, player to player rule, if you wish to play a character who's disrespectful and insulting toward others, that is fine as long as you don't go completely overboard and start ruining things for others OOCly.
* Leave AFK/SSD/disconnected players alone. Killing or stealing from AFK/SSD players is considered very poor form and outright dickish. Do not mess with them without an exceptional reason, and make sure to adminhelp it for permission before you do so.
	+ If your antagonist target is SSD, adminhelp about seeing it changed to another target. Most likely it will be capable of being changed.
	+ You may take job related items (goggles, labcoats, tools, etc) from SSD players if you require it to perform your role.

## Listen to staff

* We are not a democracy, our rules and guidelines exist for a reason and we have staff dedicated to enforcing them and help set further guidelines if necessary. In other words if a staff member tells you to do something, do it. They tell you to stop? Stop it. If you disagree with a ruling don't try to argue it then and there, especially if things are hectic. Once things have calmed down, or after the round has ended on-server, you can try to contact the staff member to discuss the ruling, or up with senior staff (head admins/head dev) if you are unable or believe the admin is in the wrong even after discussing.
* If you have a question over something unclear or questionable, never be afraid to adminhelp. The staff on hand should discuss it amongst each other and give you a ruling, from there on if the ruling is incorrect it's on the admin who cleared it, not you.

## Keep IC and OOC separate

* IC (In-character) and OOC (Out-of-Character) actions and knowledge should be separated as much as possible. Don't use OOC channels to discuss what's going on IC until after the round is finished, don't use OOC knowledge to do things your character wouldn't know, such as operate a cloner when a cargo technician. You are not playing yourself in the game, you are controlling a character with their own wants and knowledge and the IC/OOC boundary is to help reflect that.
	+ Note that these same rules apply to LOOC as well.

## No ERP

* ERP is short for 'Erotic RolePlaying', better known as 'roleplaying adult-only content'. This is not allowed on our server, period, if you choose to AFK during a round, especially as a restricted and/or important job, to do this, there will be repercussions. This rule is to protect yourself as well as our server, as significant portion of our player base consists of minors, but even if you have proof that the player on the other end is an adult, this is still forbidden on our server.

## No adult-only content posted in public channels

* No matter the medium, text, images, videos or links to, if it's something one would normally find behind an age 18 or older only filter, it is not to be posted in any of the public channels or game server(s). This also covers the act of ERP (Erotic Roleplay).

## Create and play server-appropriate characters

* Play a reasonably sane and mature character, give them a non-immersion breaking first and last name without nicknames or honorrifics, do not play obvious reference characters. Keep in mind that people do not like pain and usually try to avoid it without good reason. Give your character a reasonable set of strengths and weaknesses. When writing things for IC write things out that sound like speech, not emoticons or lolspeak.
* Jack, Xandra "Mouse" Sharpe, Dr. Ina Delavega, Gordon Freeman, R2-D2, Chesty McBusty, Eric Von Münchhausen III are examples of inappropriate names.
* Remember to set your character's skills as that will give you a little leeway and give you a better idea on what your character is able to understand and accomplish. Robots and AI's are allowed to have just one name.

## Do not join with an inappropriate ckey

* Ckeys, better known as BYOND user names, must be appropriate, if any are deemed inappropriate the ckey will be banned and you will be unable to play on our server until you make an account with an appropriate name.

## Metacommunications and multi-keying are not allowed.

* Metacomms: Using third-party programs, such as IRC or Skype, or even the BYOND pager, to discuss and share information of the ongoing round. This grants an unfair advantage, excludes other players and is often a tactic used by griefers and thus is a no-go.
* Multi-keying: Logging in with multiple BYOND accounts on our game server. There is never any legitimate reason for you to do this and thus is not allowed.

## Do not Powergame

* Better known as 'playing to win'. As a security person this can be seen as going out of your way and needlessly endangering others to 'get the antag'. As the station AI exploiting loopholes in your laws to get yourself out of them or getting the person who subverted you into trouble is another way.
* While this shares several things in common with other rules, it still is it's own entity. Play to have fun, allow yourself to lose now and again and roll with the blows as it can make things potentially even more interesting.

## Use English

* We are an english server, all OOC communications are expected to be done in english. It's alright if your english is rough and imperfect, just as long as you make the effort. This also extends reasonably into IC communications.
* Having a character sometime speak smatterings of other languages, such as a German curse, or a Japanese curse is acceptable, but speaking exclusively in these languages is not.

## Understand the basics of Clone Memory Disorder

* CMD (Clone Memory Disorder) is your character losing all memories of recent events leading up to their death. Jumping out of the cryotube screaming "URIST MCASSISTANT MURDERED ME IN THE INCINERATOR WITH A REVOLVER." Is very very poor form and pushes the boundary of powergaming.
* This is to keep things a little more sane in-round should antagonists aim for murdering crew members and to help keep things interesting and more fun for all involved. Otherwise this means antagonists would have to permanently remove people from rounds by disposing their corpses to avoid being found out.

## Being an antagonist does not exempt you from the rules

* You're a big bad antag now, you're expected to stir up trouble and cause shenanigans, but that does not mean you now have a free ticket to grief. The rules are the rules.
* Some rules may be a little more lax for antagonists, you are allowed to kill people for instance, you can run around and bomb the station within reason. Just remember you need to have a purpose and roleplay accordingly, going 'I'm antag so I can explode every single fuel tank on station wordlessly' is not appropriate.

## Try to avoid killing needlessly

* This includes yourself. Even in self-defense your goal is to fight off your attack and escape to go get help, killing should only be done as a last-ditch effort when it's clear it's a you or them situation.
* Suiciding is almost NEVER allowed and must be done with admin permission first.
* Caving in someone's skull for cutting in line, stabbing yourself in the eye with a screwdriver because you are bored or jumping out an airlock because you're sad are all examples of improper killing.
* An exception can be made if the killing was not entirely on purpose, as our health and medical system can be evil at times.
	+ As an example, getting into a minor fist fight with someone and that person eventually dying from blood loss or a broken jaw may not be your fault.
	+ Remember, the ultimate call on whether or not a kill was okay is up to the admins to decide.

## You are expected to perform the job you signed up for

* If you are an engineer, you are expected to fix the station and supply power, not chat in the bar all day ignoring the hole to space in medbay. As a medical professional tend to patients. If you are assigned as an antagonist your job is also to antagonize, not sit and stare at a wall until the round ends.
* We reserve the right can ban those who repeatedly fail to perform their jobs to an acceptable standard until we're confident their lack of ability of performing the role will not be a detriment, or cause further problems.
	+ This includes putting yourself into cryogenics or disconnecting early on into the round. Only doing it sparsely is acceptable within reason, however if it becomes a regular occurrence then it's likely it'll be considered a problem.

## You are expected to obey the chain of command

* The captain is your boss, if you're a station engineer so is the chief engineer, listen to them. They are the boss for a reason. If you're playing a role that has laws, such as the station AI, you must obey them to the best of your ability.
* As a non-synthetic or role without laws, an exception is if the order given from a head of staff is blatantly traitorous/harmful or heavily violates corporate regulations. However, if this is not the case, the order should be followed.
* As a synthetic, if you are given an order or law that may break a server rule, please alert the admins for the okay to obey them.

## The intent of the rules is more important than the letter

* Plenty of rules are left vague enough to cover as much as possible without being too oppressing. Attempting to rules-lawyer saying that this rule doesn't exactly say that, even if what you are doing is against the spirit of the rule, is a good way to get into trouble either way.