Template:Main Rules

Note: This page is moderated and can be referenced in OOC issues, such as ban appeals, complaints, reports, etc. This may not apply to the pages this page links to.

Main Rules - read these if nothing else

(See also: Guide to avoiding bans)

0. Enforcement of these rules is at the discretion of admins.

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Admins are fully accountable for any consequences should they invoke this rule. Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase.

Rule 0 Precedents.

1. Don't be a dick

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We're all here to have a good time, supposedly. Going out of your way to seriously negatively impact or end the round for someone with little IC justification is against the rules, this also includes harassing a player OOC (Out of character). Legitimate conflicts where people get upset do happen however, as detailed in the escalation section of the rules.

Rule 1 Precedents.

2. Do not use information gained outside of in-character means.

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I.e. metagaming. This especially refers to communication between players outside of the game via things like Discord, known as metacomms. Characters are otherwise allowed to know everything about ingame mechanics or antagonists, as well as keep persistent friendships or relationships with other characters when not for the purpose of unfair advantage by teaming up together for little IC reason.

Rule 2 Precedents.

3. Do not say in character (IC) things in the out of character (OOC) chat channel.

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Do not say OOC things in IC either. There is an exception for OOC in IC where terms like 'clickdrag X to Y, or look for the tab' is used to help a player.

Rule 3 Precedents.

4. Lone antagonists can do whatever they want.

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Except metagaming/comms, bug/exploit abuse, erotic/creepy stuff, OOC in IC or IC in OOC, and spawn-camping arrivals. Team antagonists can do whatever they want as per lone antagonists, as long as it doesn’t harm their team. Non-antagonists can do whatever they want to antagonists as per lone antagonists, but non-antagonists are not allowed to pre-emptively search for, hinder or otherwise seek conflict with antagonists without reasonable prior cause. Non-antags acting like an antag can be treated as an antag.

Rule 4 Precedents.

Order of antagonist priority.

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.

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Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Rule 5 Precedents.

6. In-game administration rulings are final.

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Incidences of admin abuse, negligence or disputed rulings can be taken to the forums. If an admin says something was 'looked into, handled, resolved' etc, regarding an issue, it is unlikely an admin will provide any further information. Admins are under no obligation to reveal IC information. Deliberately lying or misrepresenting facts in adminhelps will be dealt with harshly.

Rule 6 Precedents.

7. If you regularly come close to breaking the rules without actually breaking them, it will be treated as the rules being broken.

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Repeated instances of the same rules being broken may be met with harsher consequences. Baiting people into situations where you can report them to admins will be dealt with harshly.

8. Erotic/creepy stuff is not allowed.

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No form of erotic roleplay is allowed on the servers, including things that could be construed as sexual by unwilling participants.

9. Players need to be the age of 18 or above.

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This rule is for the benefit of and is meant to protect people who shouldn't be playing here due to the nature of the SS13 community. Your age won't be hunted down, but if you admit it to us in admin PMs, or other places within the /tg/Station13 community (the official Discord server, forums, OOC chat, etc.), you're getting banned.

10. Losing is part of the game.

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Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

11. Bigotry is not allowed.

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Intentionally seeking to demean others due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, disability, orientation or the like is not tolerated. It is not our goal to create or enforce a list of banned words and instead our goal to eject the expression of bigotry from the community. Enforcement will be less PC based and more common sense based with that goal in mind.

This means rather than warning or banning for quoting a usage such as "Griff McNazi got banned for calling somebody a faggot" or even things like "nigga pls" and "what are you faggots playing" which are generally not statements made to be bigoted, we'll focus more on statements like "you talk like a [insert stereotype]" or "x is a [insert slur]".

12. This is a sandbox roleplaying game

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The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Play-to-win gameplay that ruins the purpose of the game at the expense of others is against the rules.

Rule 12 Precedents.

Escalation Policy

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As a non-antagonist you may begin conflict with another player with valid reason (refusal of critical services, belligerent attitude, etc) OR if it does not excessively interfere with their ability to do their job. Whomever you engage is entitled to respond to your actions. If the conflict leads to violence and you had a poor reason for causing conflict in the first place, you may face administrative action.

If you are wronged, you are expected to handle the conflict non-lethally whenever possible, escalating in severity as the conflict continues. As the defending party the rate of escalation increases with you, up to and including violence, while the instigator is always able to respond in kind.

If a conflict leads to violence and either participant is incapacitated, the standing participant is expected to make an effort to treat the other, unless they have reason to believe the other was an antagonist. Once treated the conflict is over; any new conflict with either individual must escalate once again. If you get into a conflict again with that individual, they may be removed permanently from the round.

Conflict is automatically suspended when one participant is dead or incapacitated. A player who uses the state of incapacitation to take further action against the downed party chooses to extend the ongoing conflict past its original endpoint, and opens themselves up to further reprisal to avenge damage or recover stolen possessions.

Non-Antagonists Resisting Arrest

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Non-antagonists should not harmfully resist or retaliate against valid arrests, but do not have to simply give up and allow the arrest to happen. They may instead non-harmfully escape or avoid the arresting officer in the spirit of the game.

If an arrest is not obviously valid, it follows standard escalation. Resisting or retaliating against arrests without good reason may break Escalation Policy and be handled administratively. Non-antagonist players may lose any OOC and IC protections if they choose this path and should consider ahelping if they believe they did nothing to warrant being arrested.

In resisting arrest, non-antagonists should not loot officers and should not detain or incapacitate officers any longer than is necessary to escape or explain themselves.

Precedents & exceptions: Examples and exceptions to the main rules

Precedents give a non-exhaustive set of examples each rule may cover. Admins have a wide discretion in applying the rules and precedents based on the context and severity of each incident. This discretion covers everything from issuing informal verbal warnings to full server bans.

Rule 0 Precedents

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1. Rule 0 should only be invoked by admins when it is in the best interests of the server.
2. Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:
   1. has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave
   2. has habitually used the same strategies to cause mass death or destruction (i.e. bombs, hyper-optimized viruses, etc.) to the detriment of the rest of the server's experience
3. Admins may mirror bans from other servers at their discretion.
4. Admins may ban accounts linked to the use of proxies, CID randomizers, DLL use, or other similar things, at their discretion.
5. Admins may ask players in possession of multiple alt accounts to choose one to play on and ban the other accounts.

Rule 1 Precedents

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1. Random murders are not acceptable nor is the killing of other players for poor or little reasoning such as ‘My character is insane’. Each unjustified kill is normally met with one 24 hour ban.
2. Spamming any channel is not allowed, this goes for radio spam, AI vox announcement spam, paper at camera spam and other forms of spam. Non-antagonists doing so may not defend themselves and may suffer from IC or OOC consequences. Antagonists can to a certain extent, but may be told by admins to stop if it becomes excessive. Spamming can result from in-game admin intervention ending in you dying, to admin warnings, to bans for excessive or repeated spamming.
3. Rules still apply until the emergency escape shuttle has reached Centcom and the round-end antagonist report has appeared. When the shuttle has reached Centcom, players are free to act as per lone antagonists, detailed in Rule 4. Non-antagonist grief upon the shuttle, from spamming flashbangs for no reason to spraying space lube, can be met with instant 5 (five) minute bans or more.
4. Unprovoked grief (occasionally known as greytiding), repeated cases of minor unprovoked grief, and unprovoked grief targeted towards specific players or groups (i.e. metagrudging) fall under rule 1. Admins may follow up on grief with allowing the affected parties to ignore normal escalation policy or measures such as warnings or bans.
5. Players who attempt to break into the captain's office, head of personnel's office, or the bridge at or near roundstart for no legitimate reason put themselves at risk for being legitimately killed by the captain, heads of staff, or security.
6. You may defend your workplace from trespassers who damage or steal property within that space with significantly greater force than elsewhere. If someone is severely disruptive and returns after ejected, this opens them up to "fun" of the creative workplace death variety.
7. Raiding and griefing on servers other than /tg/ may result in bans.
8. Starting a fight in OOC/Dead chat and/or harassing someone across multiple rounds after being informed to stop by an admin may end in a server ban. Conflicts are something that happen, but going out of your way to repeatedly do this will not be tolerated.
9. Regularly starting a round just to see if you are an antagonist (antag rolling) then exiting it (via any means) is not allowed. This also covers any attempts to maximize antagonist probability.

Rule 2 Precedents

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1. Metacomms, the use of methods of communication outside of SS13 IC channels, is a very serious rule violation and may be met with permanent bans for all related accounts. If players are sharing the same IP or know each other in real life or the like, inform the admins first, otherwise it may look suspicious. Players are allowed to introduce new players that they know to the game but all communication and explanations should be done in game if possible. Admins can also help in these situations if requested.
2. Similar to how characters are allowed to know everything about in-game mechanics or antagonists under rule 2, characters are allowed to have persistent knowledge/relationships/friendships with the caveat that knowledge of a character being an antagonist from a previous round is not used.
3. Character friendships should not be exploitative in nature or be used to gain an unfair advantage. Having an IC friendship with another player does not, for example, justify giving them all-access each round.
4. Atmos techs are not allowed to edit atmos at roundstart so that the AI cannot use it for malicious purposes. While this might not make sense IC, it's a necessary OOC precedent for some game mechanics to work. Atmos techs are allowed if they have any reasonable suspicion of the AI being rogue.

Rule 3 Precedents

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1. Excessively OOC names fall under rule 3. Make a minimum effort to have your name fit in a setting involving a wacky space station in the future. A firstname lastname minimum is required for humans and felinids; other species may instead choose to use the default names assigned to them, such as those given through random names, or otherwise any name that is species-appropriate. Honorifics and nicknames are allowed as long as only one additive is used at a time, i.e "James Williams Jr." or "James "One-Eye" Williams". Admins may get involved if your name is dumb and can approve or disallow names at their discretion while in-game.
   1. Excessively OOC is defined as names which are intentionally hard to read/spell, references to in-game mechanics or OOC terminology, historical/famous/media, and any form of nonsensical/bad-faith name (ex. Adolf Hitler, FAGGOT PUNCHER, Poop Boy, xXrobustspaceman420Xx etc).
   2. Clowns, mimes, silicons, wizards, and nuke ops have significantly more leeway in choosing their names, but try to be reasonable.
2. References to the current round, even if vague; is still considered being IC in OOC.
3. Due to their tendency to reveal a lot of information from the current round, streaming is not permitted on our servers, with the exception of special events pre-designated by admins and those who register through streaming applications.
4. Using netspeak terms like "ur", "wtf", "lmao" etc. IC is considered OOC in IC, as are emoticons like ":)".

Rule 4 Precedents

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1. Non-antagonists are allowed to assist antagonists given sufficient IC reasoning but assisting an antagonist doesn't mean you get to act like one. If in doubt, ask an admin if a particular action is okay. Depending on the level of assistance, sufficient IC reasoning could be simply treating everyone who goes into medbay regardless of them being a murderer or not, all the way to being threatened under pain of death by an antagonist to do something.
2. The relationship between xeno queen and xeno is treated the same as malf AI and borg, and are considered team antagonists for the purpose of main rule 4. Xenos should prioritize following the directions of their queen where possible.

Antagonist Directive Priorities

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In situations where you wind up with multiple simultaneous antagonist assignments (i.e. a Revolutionary and a Traitor), your team goals, objectives, and directives should take precedence. Furthermore, if someone had to go out of their way to convert you to their team, their goals, objectives, and directives become the priority. Refer to the following flowchart:

Brainwashing/construct orders/Silicon Laws -> Cult -> Revs -> Blood Brother -> Wizard Apprentice/Abductor Teams/Other niche antags -> Nuke Ops -> Traitors

Rule 5 Precedents

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1. Minimum levels of effort for heads of staff, silicon roles, and team antagonist generally include not logging out/going AFK at or near round start due to the importance of those roles within the round for progression. Constant logging out or going AFK may be given warnings by admins, and may progress to jobbans.
2. Ghosting out, going AFK, suiciding, or logging off when converted to a team antagonist position can result in warnings from an admin; extending to bans for repeated behaviour from an individual. This also extends to when Command/Security mindshield implanting an individual to their side in said modes. At most within team antagonist, it is expected players to not maliciously harm their team's progress and assist if they are able to the best of their abilities.
3. Let an admin know if you cannot or do not want to play any of the above mentioned roles. Admins will attempt to transfer the role to someone else. Obviously, if an admin does so for a player, the player must not use knowledge of that antagonist position existing.
4. Abuse of position; as in being deliberately incompetent or malicious in their position is not allowed. Deliberate incompetence or malice can result in warnings or bans, depending on severity. Example would be a chemist constantly abusing the position to make space lube and lubing hallways, they may be warned and then jobbanned if further abuse happens.

Rule 6 Precedents

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1. Incidents of admin abuse or negligence should be reported along with a date and time, along with details to pinpoint the incident in the logs, to any full admin via forum PM or posted on the admin complaints sub-forum located at https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=23. Incidents of poorly conducted admin events may also be taken to https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=37 in their respective feedback threads, for less serious complaints.
2. Lying in adminhelps, misrepresenting facts deliberately, or logging off when an admin has asked a question may result in permabans. Admins will not automatically place bans for players logging off however, and will generally wait a while in case real life situations caused a player to disconnect or go AFK.

Rule 11 Precedents

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1. For more information about how this rule is enforced, see the Rule 11 Enforcement Guidelines.
2. This rule applies to ALL OOC bigotry, even when expressed in IC. There is no racism in 2564, just species-ism: there is no homophobia, just xenophiliaphobia, etc.
3. Admins are encouraged to use rule 1 to deal with instances where """IC""" bigotry is excessive or designed as a mask for OOC bigotry.
4. Context is important, but somebody being an out and proud bigot, nazi, or white supremacist also counts as context. Somebody who makes it known they are bigoted towards PoCs playing a PoC character that starts checking stereotype boxes isn't going to fool us.

Rule 12 Precedents

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1. Playing-to-win is to focus exclusively on a competitive victory condition, such as killing all antagonists. It is not empowering yourself to achieve personal goals, or taking measures to survive the shift
2. Taking a few items beyond what you need to do your job is usually fine, especially if they're not needed by anyone else. Examples of okay items to take include taking a medkit from the public Medbay lobby or the insulated gloves from tech storage. Hoarding lots of station resources for poor reasons may break this rule and be handled administratively.
3. Genuine conflict with other players does not ruin the purpose of the game. Player conflicts will continue to be administrated in line with Escalation Rules.