Roleplay Rules (IMPORTANT)

by **Leaf** Fri Sep 16, 2016 6:49 pm

Please follow all these rules in each of your roleplay posts. Failure to do so may result in any kind of punishment that the staff sees fit.

High Ranks:

There is a limit of one high rank per person.
High ranks are applied for but only when a position is listed as open may you apply for it.
Must be active if you have or wish to have a high rank.
Must have been an active member for at least one month before you may apply or be eligible to become a high rank.
Leaders and deputies must be at least 25 moons or older to be eligible for these ranks. Medicine cats can be any age though it is recommended that they are older than 12 moons.
Medicine cat apprentices will be chosen by the medicine when the time is right for him/her.

Ranks:

Apprentices will be assigned mentors by the leader. The leader MUST message the mentor and apprentice to make sure that they are both are in agreement with each other. Then, a ceremony is held in roleplay where the kit will become an apprentice and will receive a mentor.
When an apprentice is ready to become a warrior or is 12 moons and has not received a punishment in roleplay by the leader that keeps them from becoming a warrior will recieve their warrior name in roleplay. The leader MUST message the apprentice and ask what they would like their name to be. If a mentor decides that their apprentice may become a warrior early and the leader agrees, then they may become an apprentice then.
No insta-mates or insta-kits! Mates/kits need to be gained through roleplaying! Pre-planned mating is also not allowed on the public boards. You may speak with someone through PM if you two want to set up a character romance, but don't mate-beg on the public forums.
If your cat is pregnant, you must wait at least five days before they give birth.
Kits without parents are not allowed, unless rogue-born(their discovery must be roleplayed), or their mother was an actual character who died in the roleplay.
There is a limit to the number of characters you may have of 15 though it may change as the time goes on.

Posts:

It is strongly recommended that you do not make OOC posts in roleplay threads; but if someone forgets something or needs a recap, its fine.
Please roleplay as literately as possible. Posts that are hard to understand are hard to respond to. It is very hard to roleplay with someone who makes grammatically incorrect posts, never lineskips when making long posts and instead makes huge walls of text, and etc. PLEASE make your posts readable, neat, and understandable. If you aren't the best at roleplaying yet, please seek to improve- there are many users here and in other places that we're sure would be happy to tutor you. Please learn the basics of grammar, spelling, etc. before trying to roleplay here, because to be honest, roleplaying with someone who is hard to understand isn't very fun. Please also note that being of a foreign language/not native to the English language is not an excuse for poor grammar, because honestly, even people of a foreign language know how to capitalize/punctuate/etc. and can be just as good at English roleplay as a native English-speaker.
Please use third person ONLY. First person is not allowed in this roleplay.
Please make your posts at least 3 sentences or more! Posts shorter than this aren't easy to reply to, as they don't give enough information about what the character's doing, feeling, seeing, smelling, etc. If you're having trouble with post length, feel free to contact any staff for assistance! Don't be afraid of being judged or laughed at - if you want to improve roleplaying skills, then we'll perfectly understand.
No power-playing/god-modding/constant dodging! Allow others to attack you or let others have the chance to dodge! This can be helped by using the word attempt more often, or anything related. A certain form of powerplay may ONLY be used if your opponent has OOCly left in the middle of fighting with you. In that case, it counts as an OOC forfeit and you may knock their character out, but nothing more. You may only do this if your opponent has been gone for at least 2 hours. Metagaming is also prohibited- if your character has no way of actually knowing something that you know OOC, then don't make them know it.
Keep in-character drama in character, please do not complain about another user's character inside of that chatbox. If somebody does this, and you feel as if they broke the rule, contact a member of staff! Note that jokingly talking about characters in a non-aggressive way(i.e. "Lol ______'s so rude XD") is okay.
If you want to keep a character, you must be active with them. You must post at least once a week in order to be considered active, unless you have an absence thread or request to place a character on hold. A character on hold is not roleplayable at all until you take them off of it- and the "hold" cannot be renewed until two weeks have passed. If the character on hold is any high rank, the maximum time you may put them on hold is two weeks, and after that you must wait a month before renewing it. If you fall out of activity, you will be warned- and if you fail to become active with the character again, they will be removed. You must wait two weeks before you can re-apply them and you must come up with a plausible roleplay explanation as to why they were gone. However, if a character cannot be posted as- as in, they are stuck in interaction with another character, have nothing at all to react to that would make any post as them worthwhile, etc., you will not be penalized.
No power-playing/god-modding/constant dodging! Allow others to attack you or let others have the chance to dodge! This can be helped by using the word attempt more often, or anything related. A certain form of powerplay may ONLY be used if your opponent has OOCly left in the middle of fighting with you. In that case, it counts as an OOC forfeit and you may knock their character out, but nothing more. You may only do this if your opponent has been gone for at least 2 hours. Metagaming is also prohibited- if your character has no way of actually knowing something that you know OOC, then don't make them know it.

Characters:

Perfect characters are not allowed. They are often referred to as mary-sues and gary-stues. These characters are not allowed in the main roleplay. If the creator allows it, they may be allowed in Unofficial Roleplays. A sue is defined as the following:

"...an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through unrealistic abilities. Often this character is recognized as an author insert or wish-fulfillment." [Definition from Wikipedia]

Keep your characters realistic. Give them a proper amount of flaws! This is a list of flaws you should consider giving your character. This will make the roleplay far more enjoyable to all participants.
When you adopt a character from another player, be it their kit, a family member to their character, or simply a character they don't rp anymore, it is not YOUR character entirely and the original creator retains every right to take the privilege of rping it from you until you've had it for at least a month- however if you become inactive the original creator has the right to pass it to someone else. You may not change anything about the character unless given permission from the creator. This includes appearance, personality, history, etc. StarClan founders are included. You also may not kill the character without the creator's consent! If you don't want to play them anymore, give them back to the creator and let them give them to someone else.
Do NOT mis-age your characters! Your character is not a timelord and cannot magically become older than cats who were adults when they were kits! When aging your character, you MUST use the time and seasons information as a guide, which is located in the roleplay information board. Find out what date you created the character and how many moons they were at creation and add to that. If a character was born only a year ago IRL time, they would NOT be 10+ years old RP time. Use correct aging!
Forbidden relationships are supposed to be rare, and of course, forbidden. This is why it is so shocking to the Clans when it happens. However, here it has become a cliche. Forbidden love is no longer allowed at all unless given expressed permission from both Clan leaders and the admins. However, know that more often than not, the answer will be "no".
Staff do have the right to accept character applications for Clans, and if alerted to a sitting application, they may do so. However this is the leader's job and staff don't have to do this, and as such shouldn't be expected to look through application threads to accept members. If you'd like your character accepted but the leader has not accepted it yet but a staff member is on, you may ask staff to accept it. We will not, however, do it of our own accord as it's not our job.
Please keep personalities realistic. No cat is perfect, and no cat is just evil for the sake of being evil. No bloodthirsty killers who kill just for "fun". If you're going to make a villain, do it right. Also, please don't abuse the use of mental disorders, especially to excuse the behaviors of a "psycho killer" character. That being said, mental disorders are allowed, as long as they're played REALISTICALLY.
Characters MUST be realistic. This INCLUDES in terms of personality, appearance, etc. No, your cat may NOT have a heart on their face. No, your cat may NOT have flower markings or crescent moons or anything unrealistic like that. They must have realistic names that you would expect in a warrior cat setting- this means, you may not name a cat "Lunarwhisp" or "Holidaywish" or something of that nature. Cats cannot have changing eye colors, rainbow pelts, or anything like that.

We strongly encourage you to report a user if they have not been following the rules.