Guild Rules

[Noble Negative J3T]

Ｇｅｎｅｒａｌ Ｒｕｌｅｓ
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Follow Gaia Terms of Service
________We will enforce the rules of the website because we believe in abiding by the rules that allow us all to come together to role play and get along with each other. If you don't know what these are, then you probably haven't read them, and you most likely should. [ Gaia ToS ]

PG-13 Material Only
_______Cyber sex writing, detailing explicit sex acts, and other graphic imagery is NOT permitted. Period. If the majority of the clothing comes off, you must timeskip. If you are caught cybering within the guild your posts will be deleted and you will be warned. If caught again, you could face punishment and/or removal from the guild. We don't want the guild to be shut down because one person didn't follow the rules.

There Are No Bad Words, Just Bad Intentions
________Although some words may be viewed as more offensive to some than others, we are not going to force all "curse" words to be disallowed. We cannot control the reactions of everybody who reads what you say. However, we can and will judge what is said based on the words' intent. Any intentional antagonizing, trolling, bombardment of crew or member alike through Gaia or other means can and will most likely result in punishment or even removal from the guild.

Want To Make A Suggestion?
________We love to have people like you offering your thoughts and ideas to make the guild better. It helps the guild to grow and evolve as well as help the community of role players as a whole to branch out with each other to bring your ideas to life. We just ask that if you come to us with your idea, that you have it as prepared and thought-out as you possibly can. Expect to have questions asked about your idea, Be prepared to discuss your idea with people about how best to have it work. You never know, sometimes an idea can be made better with a small tweak. Other times, it may not work in one sense, but works perfectly in another. Sometimes, an idea evolves completely into a new and better idea. So don't be afraid come to us with your things, and don't be afraid to re-approach if we don't like something the first time. Just like a fight, sometimes you gotta take a few lumps before you get a shot in.

Respect
________Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and common courtesy. Respect is important, whether member to member, crew to member, or crew to crew.

• Personal attacks, harassment, threats, and demeaning others violates Gaia Terms of Service already, and won't be tolerated. This includes divulging unwanted personal information, or any other such figurative airing of dirty laundry. Malicious actions hold a higher punishment.
  
• The Crew members are not here to punish you. They are also not here to babysit you. Misunderstandings between individuals happen. Feelings sometimes get hurt on accident. People hold strong opinions about certain matters. As crew, we’re here to help make sure things don’t get out of hand.
  
• There is a big difference between giving constructive criticism and degrading somebody or their work. Constructive criticism revolves around the idea of making suggestions to improve the overall outcome of people's work. It focuses on positive and negative aspects, and reasons behind the points made. Degrading someone's work, on the other hand comes out of saying only negative things without valid reasons. For instance, simply saying, "This sucks!" It is disrespectful to openly degrade somebody or their work without real reasons.
  
• The crew can only make judgments of wrongdoings of members based on unaltered evidence or proof they are given. This may include any of the guild’s official channels, including Discord, Skype, Teamspeak, posts, or private messages beginning from or involving the guild. Screenshots or otherwise screencapped evidence to said wrongdoings must be unaltered in order to be considered as proof. Altered screenshots used maliciously to frame another member can result in a ban from the guild.
  
• This is just an internet site and a game. None of this is meant to be personal, just for fun and games. We aren't here to attack one another, we are just here to write and have fun. Some people talk s**t, others get hit. Please separate personal and out of character feelings for in character actions. It takes away from the guild and from the story. [Added 10/3/17]

________If you feel that you have been mistreated or not treated with respect, contact a captain who will look into the situation and handle it accordingly. However, always try to resolve the issue with the person BEFORE contacting a crew member.


The Golden Rule
________Overall the rules here are set in place to be reasonable. That is the end goal. Outside of this I am very understand and negotiable,
but always just follow the golden rule. Don't be a d**k. Use your common sense and work constructively. Ultimately there may be scenarios where just because it isn't explicitly against the rules doesn't mean you can hide behind that fact, people who go out of their way to cause issues for the guild repeatedly will and can be punished under captains consent.

(Taken From G.E. with permission from Genji Gincosu)  

[Noble Negative J3T]

Ｒｏｌｅ-Ｐｌａｙ Ｒｕｌｅｓ
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Characters Per Member
________As of right now, you may create three [3] characters. As we do not know how many people will be rping in the start of the guild, this is just to avoid congestion and overcrowding. We don't want one race truly dominating so early, but as time progresses, we will raise the cap when we see fit.

General Role-Playing Etiquette
________We want to offer the members of this guild a reliable but lenient system to roleplay. If you feel someone is misusing or abusing the systems in order to gain an unfair advantage on you please contact your squad captain or crew member. The following are things to consider and watch for when role playing, so that you may provide the best experience possible with those whom you’re involved:

• Player Versus Character - Just because another person's character disrespects your character, hates your character, or may even try to seriously harm yours does not mean that the person behind the character doesn't like you. Put simply, You are not your character. Remember that as you role play with others.
  
• Death By Another Person - Simply put, death is an added feature of the guild. Some places have literal warnings to kill and we have a death system. We have ways to come back and it can happen. If someone is picking on another, bullying or exploiting the death system, they will be punished. If you are found to be unrealistically exploiting this rule to be immortal or general cause issues for people there may be crew intervening with the situation. Again, don't be a d**k with this one. For either side.
  
• Play To Match Your Partner - Your focus when writing should not be to outdo whoever is writing with you. It should be to tell the best story you can with them. If you are a multiple paragraph role-player writing with a single paragraph role player or vise versa, there must be some give and take based on what is comfortable for each of you. Remember, more is not better, and less is not always more.
  
• Time Of Actions - Consider how much time it takes for your character to perform each task you write about in your post, and what an opposing character can do within that same time frame.
  
• Take Hits - We cannot stress this enough. If you are involved in a fight, sometimes it's best to take a hit here and there. A reasonable person can't escape every fight unscathed, and the same can be said for a reasonable character. Blocking is sometimes better than dodging. Consider what your character would most likely actually do.
  
• Work Together - You and whoever you role play alongside are building the story. Talk to each other, plan out the next moves to make it come off the best. Don't let in-character incidents dictate your out-of-character relationships negatively. And most importantly, if you feel you cannot work with a person, don't work with them. Exit and move on.
  
• Thoughts And Actions - There is a difference between what a character thinks about doing in their post, and what that character actually does. As the writer, it's important to make sure that you illustrate the difference in your character's thoughts and actions throughout your posts, so not to allow your post to be misinterpreted. As the responder, it's important to separate what is actually done, from what is planning to be done in thoughts, so your character reacts rather than anticipates.
  
• No Godmodding - Godmodding is the general term used for cheating in role play. There are a lot of ways to do it, and it all comes back around to one basic idea.
  Don't assume your character is flat-out better than somebody else's character.
  For a list of different styles of what we consider Godmodding, please check out Hoozy's Guide.
  
• Don't Role-Play with your own characters. SImply put, do not post with one character that is yours, and then another. If you are in a battle where two of your npc's might meet, please pick one to use. If you and your rpc's might meet, make them avoid one another. Do not have two of your npc's in the same place at the same time. This is to cut down on an exploit in taking areas, claiming land and just in general. Role-play is about branching out.
  If you're just rping by yourself, you might as well be writing a book.[Added 10/2/2017]
  

Actions And Resolutions
________If your opponent's character performs an action in a post against your character, and you do not respond to it or attempt to resolve the action, you give the other person the freedom to follow through with said action. The same can be said about if you offer a part of your body as an opening, intentionally or unintentionally.

Writing In Desired Tense
________Here in The Gotei Elite, we prefer all members to write in the past tenses, preferably Past, Third-Person Tense. This assures that the actions you write your character making actually happen, and actually occur with that character. An example of proper past, third-person tense would be as follows: "Nightshade picked up a rock to examine it."
________While we won't enforce this as an official rule, the reason why it's here is because if you decide to write things as "My character would do this..." It doesn't mean it has actually happened, just that it's going to in the future. If you decide to write in the future tense in such a manner, others involved are free to act as though it hasn't happened yet.