1. OOC

-When talking "out of character" (meaning not speaking as your character but as yourself, the player) place your words within double parenthesis ((like this)) so others know. An equivalent to this is acceptable. Keep OOC to a minimum, meaning greetings, goodbyes, corrections, and occasional short remarks. When there are few people and/or no role play, feel free to have OOC discussions, but if there is another present looking to RP, then please cease your OOC and take it to PM.

 

 

2. Talking/Acting

-To do actions for your character, type /me and then the action.

-Talk from your character is usually put in "quotation marks, like this"

-Mind speak, or telepathy, is often done using ~these~.

-If your character speaks in a racial language other than common, please put the language such as (Elven) like that before speaking so others know which language is being spoken.

-Please only use English in the chat rooms, unless you intend to translate what was stated into English immediately after.

 

3. Post Limit/Size

-Try to keep your larger posts at 4-6 lines. Any larger than that will often kick you or another person from the room due to Delphi's flood protection program. When needing to cut your posts up, type (c) for continue to let people know you are not done yet, and (e) to indicate you've finished. People do this to be polite to each other and allow for posting in turns, which keeps the 'flow' of play smoother. Please do not 'para bomb' the room very often. It makes it harder for other people to play when the room gets flooded by one or two (or more) people's long posts. Keep excessively long posts to the forum.

 

 

4. Interruptions

-While in the main room, occasionally a GM might interrupt the role playing to make an official announcement. At these times, please cease your play until they are done so everyone can read what the GM says. This is usually in regards to an event, such as a quest or battle.

-During a quest, it is asked that you do not cause unnecessary distraction for the GM. This could be things from starting a fight with another character, or asking extensive questions in OOC, or having your character stray away from the main directive of the quest. The GMs work hard on these quests, so we ask that you respect their direction for the characters. Most will give your character plenty of creative freedom still.

-Do not argue with a GM in a battle, quest, or the main. If you have questions or concerns, private message the GM. If you continue to try to argue outside of PM, you might be kicked from the room.

-Don't jump into storylines of other characters that are clearly private. If you don't know if it's private, try whispering or PM'ing one of the players to ask. Most will politely let you know if it's okay to join them or not. Don't take rejection personally, because sometimes stories are planned out and deviations from them could cause complications. Just keep trying with more people!

 

 

5. Posting

-Do not delete your posts. If we find you excessively deleting, we may take away posting rights to your character.

-Do not jump into other's closed threads. If they don't say closed or private, then they will be assumed to be open.

-Make sure your posts go in the right folders, indicated by their titles.

-Please have more than a couple words if you are going to post, unless it is for things like signature tests.

-Please keep OOC limited in IC posts.

 

 

6. Signatures

-No background music. Links to videos or playlists is fine.

-Do not over-size the images. If your signature makes the page stretch or cause excessive scrolling, we will ask you to change it, or we will remove it.

-We wont enforce this, but we request you try to keep your signature organized. Centered, links or text beneath the image instead of above or on the side, no broken images and not too much stuff together. Try a 'sig box' from a signature room if you have a lot you need in your signature.

-No nudity, or overly sexual/suggestive poses.

 

 

7. Stats, Sheets, and 'Character Upkeep'

-Keep track of your character's progress. We'll have pretty good records on everything, but in case we miss something or get it wrong, you'll need to alert us. Any daily activities will need to be brought to our attention as we wont be watching for it automatically.-Don't try to lie in a quest/battle about your character's stuff. If it isn't on the sheet (which we have access to) then your character doesn't have it. Keep track of your LP and MP too during events.-Don't roll the dice in the rooms excessively. Rolling d1 occasionally to check if your screen is frozen is fine, as is rolling to do actions as required. Rolling d1000000 just for fun is NOT okay. If you need to practice with the dice for your character, please do so in one of the event rooms, such as the arena, when available.

 

 

8. Auto Hits/Misses

-Your character cannot automatically do an action toward another character, or speak 'for' that character's actions. Imply your character's actions such as "attempts to grab their arm" and let the other player choose if they accept the action or not.-Similar to the above, your character cannot automatically dodge every action toward them. You need to give in occasionally (more often than not) to the other character's action or we'll see it as "power playing."-Power Playing is frowned on, and means that your character is trying to be all powerful, and have no weaknesses or openings. Especially in a structured game, this is not allowed.

 

Player Knowledge VS Character Knowledge

-This is a very tricky subject that even the best role players can slip up on occasionally. What this means is what YOU, the player and human behind the character, may know something, but it doesn't necessarily mean that your character knows it. Your character can only EVER know something if they have -heard- or -experienced- it inside the game and IC. You might read that a character is pregnant from the forum for example, but that doesn't mean that your character will know about the pregnancy. Don't try to get around it either, it's frowned on and if abused, can result in punishment.-On this same subject, make sure to SEPARATE your character's knowledge from each other when you play more than one. Be very careful to remember that just because your character Susan knows something, it doesn't mean your character Bob will. This sometimes gets abused by people (such as to have multiple characters attack another when only one of those characters had a grievance) and if we catch you doing it, it will result in punishment.

 

 

9. Name Games

-Please don't bully other players into telling you what other character's they play OR reveal to other people what characters that person plays without their permission. It's rude, and some people like to have 'secret' characters for many reasons, which is their business. The only time this might occur is if a staff member needs to ask someone privately if they have multiple characters in an event which in some circumstances can be cheating.-Don't mention other games while in ours. Discussions like this should be kept to private. We also ask that you not come into our game to ask players to go to another (called 'farming') because this is disrespectful to us. Asking a friend to join you is one thing, but asking people you don't know is farming and rude.-Don't ever pretend to be or play a character that isn't yours without permission. This is also considered "cloning" and is against Delphi's TOS. Permission given by a player to play their character in an NPC fashion by some people is okay, but no actions taken while doing this will be deemed official or recognized.

 

Foul Language

-We filter some words for a reason. Don't try to 'get' around a filtered word by slightly altering it so it can be seen. We'll warn you if you do this, and if you do it excessively you will be punished.-Substituting words is different from 'getting around' filtered words. We STRONGLY encourage you to substitute words while playing. Use setting-appropriate terms like 'wench' or 'harlot' or 'pansy' or 'bastard' instead of current-day slurs/insults. Call someone a Momma's Boy, or a Loose Skirt, or that they wreak like an Ogre. Be creative instead of hurtful. Your character can be a big potty mouth for all we care, as long as the right things are coming out of that mouth!-The reason for these restrictions is because Delphi allows ages 13 and up, and while most kids these days have heard worse things in school or at home than they'll see in our game probably, we still don't want to contribute to the problem.

 

Introductions/Cliques

-Be sure to be open to the possibility of role playing with someone you are not familiar with. You never know when opening up to a new character/player where it could lead. Sometimes you get the best of friends, or the funnest of enemies this way.-We don't discourage what many deem as "cliques" because in-character grouping can often times be rewarding and fun; from families, to guilds, to quest parties. Though you should definitely try once in a while to step outside of the safety of a 'known' IC relationship. This will occur many times during quests, where characters who don't know each other will have to work together toward the goal. So be ready for it!-Remember that we were all new once. So to those of you who ARE new to this, know that you are not alone and though it may take a little effort and a few tries, eventually you will get the hang of things and others will begin to notice you or become inclusive of your character. Don't give up! You aren't being purposefully ignored.

 

 

10. Leave it to the GM!

Please do not try to enforce rules yourself. Leave rule enforcement to the GM's because players do not like to be confronted (or often seen as harassed) by other players about rules. During times that staff aren't present in the chatroom and people are breaking rules (like excessive OOC), use Dephi's /ignore feature so you do not have to see their posts. If the rule broken is severe enough (like harassment) then take a screenshot and email it to the game staff, where we will look into it and handle it, and ignore the player afterward. Never join in, as it may only get you in trouble as well.