Rules

Welcome to rEvolution! We are a collectively run roleplaying community, where all community members have an equal say in how we organize ourselves. As such, these community norms should be considered an ongoing work, open to reconsidering and change at any time if people feel they are not working to make the community we'd like to have.

Currently, here are the rules and norms we've established for ourselves:

Social Contract

We strive to make rEvolution a safe and welcoming community for all our players. For us, this means we value treating everyone here with respect. Players should try to treat one another as the other would like to be treated -- which requires an intentional and good-faith commitment to open communication, to accepting feedback without defensiveness, to respecting each others boundaries, to asking for folks' preferences and needs -- and for volunteering your own boundaries and needs rather than assuming people know what they are. This also means that we do not tolerate discriminatory or bigoted conduct, and have no place for players who are found to engage in it.

Staff

Guides and Wizards are volunteer staff but do not have greater decision-making power than other Members. Any Member who wants to become a Guide or Wizard may request the role. Membership: New players may be automatically considered full members of the game and assigned the Member role along with its decision-making privileges after being on the game for two months or logging eight scenes, whichever one happens later.

Age

Currently our community is open to players 18 and over.

Consent

rEvolution is a limited consent game. You have control over your character's actions, and can expect to some degree not to have any serious harm come to them without your consent — but always keep in mind ICA = ICC, that is, In Character Actions lead to In Character Consequences. If your character picks a fight with someone, don't be surprised if they get hurt. If they commit a crime, don't be surprised if the cops are looking for them.

The game is focused more on story — character development and plot — than on flashy superpowers and combat. There is no stat system on our game governing combat and skills; in combat situations, we expect players to be responsible and mature about the interactions. Just as you should not powerplay by assuming other character's actions or harming other characters without serious reason or their player's consent, it is also players' responsibility to not use 'consent' as a way to avoid the consequences of their actions. ICCs will happen, and in a disputed situation, the outcome is at moderator discretion.

Conflict Resolution

If any player experiences communication barriers, conflict, friction, etc, that they feel cannot be worked out via direct communication with the other parties involved, we encourage seeking mediation from others on game. If you need to find someone to help resolve a communication difficulty, you can send a message in #help to @Wizards or @Guide if you need an ear, or, conversely, paging any player who has the 'Wizards' or 'Guides' role (their names will appear in green in the player list) if you want to contact someone privately. Players who are directly involved in a conflict should not volunteer to be involved in mediation.

Harassment

rEvolution defines harassment as any unwanted attention that continues after a player has asked for it to stop. This includes but is not limited to sending private messages people who have told you not to, badgering another player for scenes, or using any sort of bigoted/abusive language OOCly -- while characters are free to hold whatever IC viewpoints you wish, things like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. will not be tolerated on this game OOCly from players, ever.

Alts

There is no current limit to how many alts a player may have. There are, however, some restrictions on types of alts. No more than three alts may be feature characters (from the comics canon). Additionally, if a player already has a character within a faction, a second alt within the faction is only likely to be approved if the alt plays a significantly different role. For example, a player playing a Xavier's student may be approved for an alt who is a teacher at the school, but is unlikely to be approved for a second Xavier's student.

There is a waiting period in between applying for new alts. If you have had a character approved, a new alt will not be approved until you have had at least four scenes on your most recent alt, logged and posted to the wiki. Vignettes do not count towards this number.

Log posting

Unless otherwise discussed before a scene begins, it is assumed that the game is a public place; there is no requirement that players ask permission from others in the scene prior to posting logs. Keeping logs is a great way to keep up with what's going on in the game. While it is not required, we strongly encourage players to submit their logs to the logs section of the wiki.

Idling

We're a fairly relaxed roleplaying community, and do not have strictly enforced regulations around activity and idling -- we understand that life takes priority and welcome people to participate in roleplay to the extent they are able! We do like to keep a general sense of what characters are active at any time, and may go through the wiki on a quarterly basis to mark characters as 'Active' or 'Inactive' based on if their players have been around and participating in Discord recently. However, being marked 'inactive' in no way removes someone as a member of the community -- once you've been approved, if you have to go idle for a while, no worries; just return when you're able and you're free to pick up where you left off!

The exception to this policy comes with feature characters; because canon characters can be in demand, if a feature character has been idle for a period of three months, they will be released to any interested players who wish to apply and actively play them. This only applies to FCs who have new players wishing to app them; idle players are welcome to pick their old FCs back up after returning if nobody else has claimed them in the interrim.

FCs

Our game values original characters as much as feature characters. In the IC world, characters are equally important, regardless of whether they are canon or original creations. Because Feature Characters are often in high demand among players, and because FCs can change hands over the course of their on-game history, the OOC policies regarding FCs are stricter than those regarding OCs. FCs are limited to three per player and must remain active (see idling policy.) Additionally, any serious permanent changes (including, but not limited to, permanent injury and death) to a feature character must have very good reason. If the community feels that a player is seriously deviating from the characterization of an FC, the matter will be discussed with the player, and the character may be put back on the FC roster if it continues.

Player-run plots

Player-run plots are an exciting and valued component of our game! We encourage players to take their ideas and bring them to life. Players are always welcome to come up with their own events and TPs and run them.

We do ask that if players are going to be running plots, events, or scenes that have far-reaching implications (for example, anything that would make the news, affect on-grid locations, or have widespread societal ramifications: i.e., mass shooting, destroying a store, inventing revolutionary new technology) that they run the idea by the playerbase first before going ahead with it.

If newsworthy events happen in the course of player-run scenes and events, we ask that the player running the plot puts a newspost in the #ic-news channel, so that everyone can stay up to date with what is going on.

NPCs

The world that our characters live in is, by necessity, heavily populated with NPCs. They make up characters' families, neighbors, most of the bystanders at the regular spurts of chaos. Players are more than welcome to make up NPCs to populate the world and their scenes. When playing NPCs, there are some things to keep in mind.

• Remember that, to the characters involved, NPCs are no different -- no less IMPORTANT -- than PCs. If an NPC gets attacked or killed, their friends and family -- and law enforcement -- are going to treat it with the same severity as the same happening to a PC. Keep this in mind when scening; we welcome chaos but be prudent about what will attract notice and consequences.
• Using NPCs just to buff up your character and make them More Badass is frowned upon. If you are playing NPC cohorts just to gain an advantage over other characters, don't. If you are playing NPC redshirts just to have something for your character to beat up on, keep in mind the first bullet point.
• There are some FCs that are around in an NPC capacity; Xavier's especially has a number of them on staff. It is acceptable to bring them in in situations where it makes sense/is necessary for them to be there, but if NPCing a feature character, it is important to keep in mind their personality and capabilities and play them in a way that is true to their character.

If you have any questions or are ever unsure about the use of NPCs, feel free to ping the #help channel and ask! As well, many people on game are often happy to NPC as needed; don't hesitate to contact reach out on #find-rp and seek assistance if a plot or scene requires NPCing!

Applications

Any member who wants to volunteer to help vet incoming apps can request access to the application form. The first person to notice a new application AND feel that they have the time and energy to look it over sends a ping to @here in ooc-general to see who else can help check the application. This person and the next two people to volunteer become the application committee for that specific application. These three people are responsible for reading over the app to ensure that it fits with the theme & power level of our game; they are also responsible for communicating with the applicant about any necessary edits. Once they have all agreed that the app is acceptable they may approve new players. The 'descriptions' that accompany questions in the application should be used by the volunteer app staff as a rubric for app approval. The application team should use these explanations of what we are looking for as the minimum guidelines for whether application sections have been properly answered.

Explicit Content

rEvolution is a game for players 18+. In scenes and in logs, we do not have a requirement that players censor their roleplaying for graphic content. However, it is always important to make sure that your roleplaying partners are comfortable with the content of your scenes -- this policy should never be taken as license to roleplay any content that people in a scene are not comfortable with. Additionally, this policy specifically excludes characters who are underage: if you are roleplaying a character who is ICly a minor, writing explicit sexual or graphically violent/abusive material with them is not permitted in this community.

Additionally, when posting logs to the wiki, if a scene contains graphic (eg sexual or violent) or triggering material (eg rape, abuse, suicide, hateful/bigoted content, death, drug use, etc.) we ask that players put content warnings in the subtitle section of the log so that those reading it can read at their own discretion. If you are uncertain if a particular subject requires a content warning, feel free to ask the game at large.

Decision-making

Decision-making on rEvolution happens by a loose consensus process. We aim to organize and run our community in a nonhierarchical fashion, which for us means that all community members have an equal say in how the game is organized, both OOCly and in terms of plots and gameplay. Our #v-srs-game-bsns channel is where we discuss game issues, including bringing up new ideas for things we'd like to see change about rules or game structure. Concrete proposals go into the #modest-proposals channel, which is solely for showing feelings on proposals (through reaction emojis and not discussion.) Proposals that are agreed upon become new game norms, but are always open to revisiting if someone wishes to bring a topic back up.

Writing style

On rEvolution we understand that people come from a wide range of backgrounds in roleplay and writing styles. On this game we hold to some consistent standards of writing structure. Poses should be written in the third person, present tense, and should include your character's name in the pose as well as clear descriptions of what your character is doing. Check out Logs:Images for an example of our prose style.