Forum & General RP Rules

[Hotaru]

There are a few rules that are specific to this site and this site only. These rules will be explained in detail, and will include rules upon the following: character limitations; spell and ability limitations; obtaining of items for your character; timeline; traveling; and anything else that comes to mind.

Character Limitations

There are quite a few things that go underneath this category. First and foremost, and probably the most important thing to consider, is that you are only allowed to have one character per account. To have more than one character upon a singular account is utterly confusing, and results in bad roleplaying procedure. You are allowed to create as many accounts, and as such as many characters, as you would like, but please keep in mind that you are not allowed to have more than one character on an account. If found with more than one, then one of your characters will be deleted, and the Admin will get to decide which one.

Timeline

Some sites have allowed for something called "Liquid RP". This means that you are allowed to be in multiple threads on a singular character at once. On this site, we employ a Semi-Liquid system of RP. This means you may be in TWO threads at one time. However, the thread that was started first must be regarded as being happening first in your personal timeline. Additionally, these threads must occur in close proximity with each other, taking place no farther than one place on the map away from one another. For example, if someone is Role Playing in Fairburn Town, their other thread may be no farther than Route 01.


Traveling

On Harushima, traveling must occur on the map with a sufficient amount of effort placed into moving along the routes. You must follow the map as you travel or you will face disciplinary action. Certain pokemon may enable new forms of travel such as flying on the back of a Charizard or surfing on the back of a Lapras. When flying, you may bypass the traditional routes, however, you still must post how you plan to traverse the land from the sky. You may also surf around the island, however, you must explain your travels in detail. No HMs are required to use these abilities.

Money

The measure of your wealth is "Yen", and is used to buy items from the various stores around Harushima. Money can be earned from OOC/IC Events, from Gym and Contest victories, and even be wagered on Battles between two trainers who encounter each other in the field.

Image Size

In order to avoid the stretching of the forums, there is a limitation to the size of the pictures that are allowed to be posted. There are several sites that will allow you to resize your image so that it fits within these proportions. As such, please utilize them. Failure to comply with this rule will result in a verbal warning. Continued abuse will result in more severe disciplinary action.


Images should not exceed 450 x 450

Signatures should not exceed this size 450 x 250

Avatars Should not exceed 100 x 100

[Hotaru]

Roleplaying Rules

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When you're on any type of forum site, there are a few little rules that are pretty much fairly universal. These standard rules are, perhaps, the most important rules to considering a forum or roleplaying site's success, for without these rules, the resulting situations that would arise would be, quite simply put, absolute chaos. With this introductory paragraph now out of the way, the universal rules shall now be explained:

No Trolling

But what is Trolling? Trolling is the act of intentionally attempting to get a rise out of someone by doing something that you know specifically will annoy them, or that the person has specifically stated against. An example of trolling would be to start talking about something that people have strong personal convictions about, such as rape or abortion, and to continue to do such a thing with pure malicious intent after someone has asked you to stop.


No Flaming/Baiting

A flame is, put simply, an insult. Continuously attacking someone for something that they like or dislike is rude and uncalled for. Such actions undermine the trust and happy spirit of the roleplaying community and will absolutely not be tolerated upon this site. A little bit of teasing is okay, but when its' clear that you're acting out just for the sake of pissing someone off, you will see disciplinary action.

Baiting is similar to trolling. Basically, baiting is performing actions in an attempt to get someone to flame you. Examples of this would be to continuously call someone out over something stupid, with your sole purpose being to agitate the other person in an attempt to get them to attack you and then get them in trouble for flaming. Baiting, like flaming, is unacceptable upon this site and will result in disciplinary actions.

No God Modding

God Modding, also known as god modeing, going god mode, or anything of the sort is the act controlling another individuals character within a post. Simply put, you only have control over the actions of your character, and your character alone. The manner in which other people respond to your actions is completely up to them, and as such, you do not have the authority to control their character in any way, shape, or form, unless given explicit permission. God Modding is absolutely and completely unacceptable, and if it is seen, harsh disciplinary action will occur.

No Metagaming

Metagaming is the act of using Out of Character knowledge as purpose or reasoning for a character's action "In Character". Using knowledge that you have from outside of your character's perspective is not allowed. An example of this would be to see people talking about a post in an alleyway on the other side of the town, and your going there to do something specifically because you saw the cbox post. In order to prevent Metagaming, everyone should practice something called "Firewalling".

Firewalling is, simply put, creating a barrier between your character's knowledge and your own personal knowledge. You must roleplay your character in the manner in which you posted within your character sheet. To do otherwise will be considered god modding and is not allowed. Do not let us see you using Out of Character reasoning in order to perform actions with your character, otherwise you will absolutely suffer disciplinary action.


No Flooding

To flood is to constantly and constantly post the same or similar message in a location. Double-posting is also frowned upon. Beyond that, Flooding is also fairly synonymous with "spamming". It is annoying, and it makes it difficult to enjoy roleplaying in an environment where people are constantly doing such things. Flooding is considered a minor offense and will most likely simply result in a verbal warning unless people continue to do it after they have been warned to stop.

Another thing about 'spamming'. Spamming can also be considered the posting in topics where your post is completely irrelevant to the in-character action on hand. Do not clutter a thread with OOC chatter, unless the thread is specifically meant for that. Do not attempt to alter a thread's purpose without the express permission of the creator of the thread. Such actions are intensely frowned upon, and will result in disciplinary action.


No Advertising

Do not join our site specifically to advertise your own. This includes, but is not limited to, posting within the chatbox, creating an account to PM members, or posting randomly on the site in places where it does not belong. There is an Advertising area located on the bottom of our forum. If you would like to advertise your own site, then please feel free to do so there. Otherwise, you will face immediate banishment.


Battling

When you're in a battle, you will use a modified form of the "T1" combat system. The T1 Combat System was designed with several key factors that make it simple and easy to understand. Your goal when battling is to use your descriptive ability to out-do your opponent's descriptive ability and catch them within word traps and to get them to take the hit that you've designed. Simply put, you've got to out-smart your opponent's positioning. Considering that you have to keep track of multiple things within your head at once while you battle, it takes some getting used to.

When using this form of T1, keep the following things in mind:

• Every post, you have about six seconds to act. This timelimit can be stretched or reduced slightly, depending on your intention, but such actions allow the opponent to stretch their turn out a little bit, as well.

• You do not control your opponents character or pokemon in any way. This includes, but is not limited to, saying something like, "the mere sight of me would be enough to send Jack into quivers of fear", or making attacks like, "I shot fire from my hand, which collided with Jack and caused him to get burns." The way you SHOULD post is in the following: "My frightening visage would be enough to send most mortals quivering in fear, and I was sure that Jack would be no different", or "I shot fire from my hand, aiming it towards Jack. Should the strike be successful, he would receive some nasty burns."

• You do have the authority over your own character and pokemon, and that includes what type of damage you receive. This utilizes something called the "Honor System", where you shouldn't use metagaming in order to dodge an attack. Your character needs to react in a plausible way, and if you get put into a situation where you could not naturally dodge an attack, you would have to take the hit. However, you can describe how to receive and moderate the amount of damage that you take, and where the strike would hit your body.

• You must accurately describe your attack to your opponent in order to place them into a situation where your opponent would get caught within it.

• There is no HP or MP, or health or mana, or stamina. There are no points here that you can accurately gauge your health or your fighting ability aside from your current pokemon’s Level. It is purely based upon your roleplay skill and the thoughts behind how much damage your pokemon really could survive before succumbing to it. Please be realistic about what your character could or couldn't survive, and use that knowledge to help you plan your defense or how to take a hit.

• Finally, remember that battling is not everything on this site. There's a lot more to do here than simply fight, and as such you should look into it. You've got this great environment here, a large city with the only limitation being your imagination. Go visit the different locations, see the sights, and experience roleplaying in a non-combat manner with someone special. A walk in the park is sometimes just as fun as beating the hell out of someone.


How to Post Well
One of the most difficult things to get started upon when you're just beginning to roleplay is figuring out how to post well. You look at the site and see those people who spend four paragraphs talking about how they've inhaled their breath, and you wonder just how, exactly, they managed to do it. You really liked the post, and you see that its' so full of description and you can totally picture everything happening just the way that the person said that they did. Now you're wondering how they managed to do it all. Well, part of it comes with simply spending the time to do it, and the other part of it can be explained here. This is by no means the definitive guide on increasing your posting ability, but simply a short one that has been designed for newbies to see how they can improve.

• What Should a Good Roleplayer Have?

There are several things that a Good Roleplayer has that makes reading their posts enjoyable. Those things range from spelling and grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. You should treat each post like a miniature story within a story, and as such you need a beginning, a middle, and an end. You need content that matches with the current topic in conversation and, most importantly, you need understandable dialogue and descriptive capability.

o Spelling and Grammar. Nothing ruins a post like having sloppy sentence structure or mis-spelled words. The occasional typo is understandable, as it is impossible to catch them all. However, consistently seeing words within a post spelled incorrectly destroys the credibility of the post itself. Before hitting the "Post" button you should:

 Run the post through a Spell Checker. Microsoft Word makes this incredibly easy.

 Fix any errors with your commas, periods, and other punctuation. Properly placed punctuation, especially commas, really help bring a sentence together and helps you denote the flow of the sentence so that it is read at the correct speed and with proper understanding.

 Vocabulary. The larger the vocabulary, the less of a chance that you'll have for continuously repeating words. Reading the same word six times in a single paragraph makes it seem boring and repetitive, and makes it not as enjoyable as a read. Until you build yourself a decent vocabulary, the use of thesaurus is critical in making your post less boring. If you see a commonly repeated word within your posts, open up the thesaurus and look up that word, and look for words synonymous with the word you've been using that have a good word flow with your sentence.

 Use Paragraphs. Don't make one-line posts. Also, do not post in one huge blob, separate it out. It's absolutely horrible, and makes for a bad read. If I have to read through six one-line posts, it gets highly annoying and I begin to lose interest in the roleplay. It's very difficult to form accurate responses when you're left with nothing to respond to. A good post would have at least two paragraphs within them, including dialogue. In general, the more paragraphs that you include, the higher the quality of the post and the easier it is for your friends to respond.

 Paragraph Length. The common length of the paragraph is five sentences. Making paragraphs significantly shorter or longer sometimes makes it too much to read, or too little to read. A paragraph that is too short looks a little like an "ADD" paragraph, like you don't have enough content to fill the paragraph and thus just stuck it in there. A paragraph that is too long is difficult to navigate and allows you to lose your place more easily when making your way through the paragraph. Moderating your paragraphs to be the correct size is an easy way to make reading a post much more enjoyable.

 Proper Use of Dialogue. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for people who are just beginning to write to use correctly. The most common thing that people attempt to do is to separate the flow of the sentence by using bold, italics, or different colorization that sets their words apart from the rest of the paragraph. While this may seem like an easy solution, it is by no means a good habit to get into. When roleplaying, you are building your writing skills, and you cannot really do much bold, underline, or color separation when you're using a pen and paper.

Another bad thing that starting writers do is to throw multiple individuals' dialogue within the same paragraph. When dealing with multiple individuals who are dialoguing, the correct way to post that is to put the dialogue of each individual in their own paragraph, even if the dialogue was only a sentence in length. Any time that you utilize quotation marks and they are from a different person, you utilize a new paragraph. This keeps things simple and not confusing, and maintains an easy read. It also allows you to maintain separate reactions to separate moments of dialogue by following your physical and emotional responses immediately after another person's dialogue before following with your own dialogue.

 Word Flow. The way that you post your words and paragraphs really makes a huge difference in the overall quality of the post. Words that are easy to read together and have a common flow, including rhyming and matching syllabic counts between words and sentences within paragraphs really ties the whole paragraph together.

 Re-read the post from start to finish to catch any typos or mis-placed punctuations. Make sure to follow the guide to see where you can improve upon your word placement within your sentences and paragraphs.



Commonly Used Terms

IC: "In Character". This means anything within a post that is done through your character's perspective instead of your own.

IIC: "Inactive In Character". This is a period of time stated within the beginnings of a post. This is an agreement that everyone who joins the thread will post within this amount of time. Failure to uphold your part of the "IIC", unless people are properly notified, will result in your turn getting skipped and, in case of a battle, you immediately taking the hit in the way that the opponent intends.

OOC: "Out of Character". This is anything that is done out of your character's perspective, where you are allowed to use the knowledge of your own personal self instead of that of simply your character.

NPC: "Non-Player Character". This is, simply put, a character who is controlled by anyone besides an actual player. Examples of this would be random people on the street, shopkeepers, etc. Most NPCs may be controlled by PCs, unless specifically stated that a certain NPC must be controlled by a certain individual.

PC: "Player Character". Any character that is controlled by an actual person and is considered an actual character. Examples of a PC would be you and your friend Suzanne, who meet up with the NPC Jack, who is being controlled by "Staff" instead of by a singular person.

GM: "Game Master". These individuals are people who can roleplay NPCs and help create storylines for the people within the world. They are story generators and are responsible for keeping things exciting on the forums with events and games, whether they be In Character or Out of Character.

Mod: "Moderator". A moderator is a person who is in charge of handling the day to day business upon the site. They are considered to be 'staff members' and can help in the handling of issues and rulebreaking upon the website.

RL: "Real Life". No explanation needed.

Spam: The constant repetition of something that has no relevance to the current topic.

Newb: A shortened form of "newbie", meaning someone who is new to the forum. A "newbie" is a cute term and is not offensive, and neither is "newb".

Noob: A corrupted form of the word "newb", which means that a person is bad. A "Noob" may have been on the site for a long time and has not learned anything yet, or can be someone who has just joined but is clearly and evidently bad. To be called a "noob" can be offensive.