General Notice
• Northstar Roleplay is an 18+ serious roleplay community
• Any character portrayed must be at least 18 years old
• Your character may not be named after any famous real or fictional person
• Your name on our Discord must include your character's name
• Working Voicechat is required at any time in roleplaying
• Do not DM staff without permission
Zero Tolerance Rules
Violations of this kind may result in a permanent ban from the community without warning
Discrimination
Racism, hate speech, attacks on sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other form of discrimination.
Roleplay Bleed
People are here to play, not to be bothered by complaints where they do not belong.
IC activities are not to bleed into OOC harassment.
Do not complain to other people OOC about roleplay related incidents. If it is a rule violation, contact the staff, if not, deal with it like a good sport. IC is to be handled IC and no where else. Be aware of this at all times.
Exploiting
Abusing game mechanics in order to gain an unfair advantage over other players. Stopping animations in order to not die or flee an illegal interaction earlier than intended.
Erotic- and Suicide-Roleplay
We want to be inclusive for all players and decide to not host such content.
Sexual Harassment
Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.
Basic Rules
Value your Life
You must value your own life, your friend’s lives, as well as other people's lives, so you should not engage in a fight unless necessary. Be careful, only take what you need, take appropriate measures. Valuing your life does not necessarily force you to surrender because you are outnumbered, but when the odds are against you, act appropriately.
Retaining Memory
Getting downed and needing to respawn will result in you not being able to remember the situation that led to you being downed. Exceptions from this rule are; you are revived by a Doctor or brought to a nurse. In those cases you are able to remember what happened to you.
In the case you get revived while the scenario in which you were downed is still going on, you can not take part in it again. You barely made it out breathing and therefore should fear for your life.
Multiple Characters
While you are allowed to have multiple characters interacting with the same group, it is your responsibility to ensure that you don't have more than one of your characters involved in the same conflict.
One characters participation in this conflict makes you commit to this character, you may not involve another character into the same conflict at another time. Abuse of this restriction is considered power-gaming.
Staff characters
Staff characters are to be treated like every other character. Staff will never enforce or discuss Server Rules in character.
Fail RP
Fail RP is breaking character or doing unrealistic things while in-character including but not limited to:
• Using modern-day lingo; you must speak and use terminology according to the era, which is 1900
• Running to gunshots or involving yourself in things that you otherwise should have no business being involved in
What to do when you witness a rule break while you are in roleplay?
Do not get out of character and scream "That's against the rules!" - please. Stay in character, record, stick to the rules, play out the scenario and make a ticket. Staff will handle it. Do not break peoples immersion.
Meta-Gaming
Meta-gaming is using knowledge in character that you did not gain in character.
This includes but is not limited to:
• live streams
• videos
• other people via Discord
• any other media which is not considered ic-knowledge on the Northstar Roleplay Discord Server
Pinboards for example, are considered ic-knowledge, along with everything within the In Character-category on the Discord Server.
Meta-gaming also includes taking knowledge you gained on another character and applying it to the character you play at the moment as well as transferring items between your own characters.
Players demonstrating these behaviors will face disciplinary action.
Power-Gaming
Power-gaming is the attempt to "win" in every roleplay scenario at the cost of other's roleplay or gameplay experience. We are all trying to have a fun, immersive experience with one another. Ignoring this idea in order to get what you want is not something that we like to see here.
Some examples of this problematic behavior include, but are not limited to:
• Never losing a fight
• Remembering every detail after being downed
• Overuse of hogties and lassos
• Abusing the server rules to your advantage
• Calling your horse when someone is stealing it from you
Examples:
• Using menus or '/status in my head' in order to get around a scenario when you have clearly been available a second ago.
• Putting your guns away while in a scenario in which you are being robbed.
• Ragdoll in order to cancel a mauling animation
Conflict Roleplay
General Information
When it comes to conflict roleplay, the burden of proof does not fall to the victims. So be ready to record when you want to engage in hostile or criminal roleplay.
Do not initiate conflict roleplay 30 minutes prior to a server restart. This includes not only direct conflict but also any and all illegal activities.
For clarification: You are not allowed to kidnap someone 30 minutes prior to a server restart and then even later proceed to use this person as a hostage for a robbery, in this case the robbery is it's own scenario and law needs those 30 minutes to respond to it appropriately.
You are not allowed to kill or rob medical professionals while they are actively treating someone.
Also you are not allowed to engage in hostile roleplay while people are in a menu, especially in clothing stores, stables, etc, where they don't even see what is happening around them, this is considered power-gaming.
Roleplay before Gunplay
Opening fire should be your last option in most scenarios. Try to convince, threaten, or trick people first instead. Shooting someone ends their interaction with you and it possibly prevents a more in-depth roleplay scenario.
Random Deathmatch
Random Deathmatch applies to players as well as to NPCs, you can't just walk up to someone and shoot them without any prior interaction. Meaning if NPC's don't attack you first, there is no reason for you to harm them.
Area of Play
Currently the Sheriff's Office is still being set up, meaning all criminal activities related to Bank Robberies, Store Robbieres, Drug Selling and Grave digging must occur in West Elizabeth, New Austin and Lemoyne, any of those crimes commited outside of those areas are considered a server rulebreak.
Crimes against other players are allowed no matter where you are.
Ropes Policy
Lassos and hogties are extremely powerful tools, since they can easily make a player unable to fight back, escape the situation or do anything else in order to protect themselves. For that reason they should not be your first option within hostile interaction. Try to use words before you incaptivate someone.
When a lasso or a bola is thrown at you, you can break free right away.
When already hogtied, those are the only occasions where you may attempt to break free:
• You have been left unattended for an extended period of time (10+ minutes)
• Your captor (or someone else) does /me loosens ropes or tells you to free yourself
• A major distraction occurs
Identifying People
Putting a mask on alone does not make one completely unrecognizable. In order to identify someone, you should have at least three or more cues to recognize them. Voice can not be one of those cues.
Roleplay conduct & Procedure
Character Death / Perma
In general, no one can force you to perma your character. There are three occasions where character death can become unavoidable, so be aware before you attempt the following things:
1. Death by hanging
You have been a serious threat for the commonwealth for long enough now. After many times in prison and many more chances to mend your ways, you kept convincing the law that this was not going to happen. This is something that will not just happen without any warnings, but it can be possible.
2. Losing a duel
Duels need to be agreed on by both parties. Staff needs to be informed and is required to witness.
3. Incurable disease
When you give your character an (at that time) incurable disease like Tuberculosis for example, you designate them to die within the next days or weeks.
Additionally, typing things like /me perma/bled out/is dead or anything else that clearly indicates that your character has died, is indeed a perma, forcing you to delete you character.
Doctor & Law Department
These two jobs hold a lot of responsibility since they are essential roles within the world. They contribute to the immersion of every single player around. This is why we expect a higher standard of roleplay for those roles.
Sharing information that should be kept within your office with other people in character is considered corruption. Sharing this information out of character is considered a server rulebreak and will be punished accordingly.
Any sort of corruption that's not approved by staff is prohibited and will be punished accordingly.
If you want to play a corrupt LEO or doctor, make a ticket. The corruption should add to the roleplay experience and make sense for your character.
Consent
All instances of extreme violence or humiliation must have consent from all parties involved. Extreme violence is defined as; torture roleplay, mutilation, etc. You must ask for their consent before initiating your actions, that has to be done via a /me
Example: You want to whip a characters back. Before cutting open their shirt and therefore exposing their skin to initiate your torture, you write /me do you consent to [...], explaining what you want to do to them.
No answer, as well as a /me no is to be counted as no consent.
When torturing someone you automatically give them consent to inflict something of the same severity on you.
Organization / Posse Size
Your gang roster may not exceed 6 people in total.
Any and all conflicts are limited to 3 people per party. This counts for law, outlaws and everything in between. If you are riding with more people, the leader is in charge to tell their people who is getting involved and who is not.
Defending your home is the only occasion where everyone that is available can join in. Defending your home does not include chasing the intruders down. As soon as you leave it, the 3 people rule applies.
For native tribes or any other kind of organization that was not founded with the intent of doing illegal business, you can have more than 6 people, but you can only assign 6 people to fight in tribal matters.
War
When you are at war, everyone in your gang/tribe roster can fight side by side, ignoring the posse limit.
War can only be declared when the other party agrees, war terms need to be set by both parties upfront, staff needs to be informed in order to approve the war and its terms.
The one occasion where war can be forced onto a group is if said group carries out confirmed repeated attacks on another group, showing particularly aggresive behavior.
Final words
In case you want to do criminal roleplay check out the Criminal Rules as well. If there is something you don't understand feel free to create at ticket or ask in #community-support