General Rules
Character Policy
With regards to characters, players should keep in mind that you may (or may not) be the first or fifth person to play a character off the roster. For convenience history, notes and other such details will be given to you when you take on such a character. If you are found playing a character VASTLY different from its theme you may have that character removed from you. This means if you get a shy, quiet, upstanding wall flower noblewoman and have her stripping in the Forum for Denai… we'll have words. We expect you to put your personal flare on characters, so if you want to (or are just comfortable with) certain types of character… pick that one, not the opposite of what you can role-play.
Cheating
Surprise surprise, no cheating allowed. This means (and is not limited to):
- Actions by your character that are not within the scope of the Theme.
- Actions that will directly and indirectly give advantage to your alt.
- Abuse of Bugs.
- Taking advantage of new players.
- Acting in, or otherwise comporting yourself in a way that deters others from the enjoyment of the game through abuse of your character.
Exploitation
Five Kingdoms is currently in the Beta phase, we are constantly testing, tweaking and making changes to our code so as to offer the players the best possible experience. With that in mind, those found abusing bugs, exploiting code issues or otherwise making life MORE difficult for the Staff will be guilty of Exploitation and subject to temporary and permanent bans from the game.
Age Policy
We at Five Kingdoms have created a game that we think would be rated M for mature. Our game has violence, sexuality, religion… heck it's life in a Greco/roman themed world. People under the age of 17 should be made aware (as with their parents) of such content. For example, when Mike Tyson bit the ear off of Evander Holyfield, the world was in shock of such actions… within the realm of the five kingdoms that is considered entertainment in the arenas.
While we are not rated by the ESRB, the following is their description that is closest to how we would be rated:
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.
Our owner is a parent, and therefore she would hope that this page is being read by other parents who are thinking of letting their child play here. We encourage you to be aware of our policies and theme it's important to us that minors not be exposed to inappropriate materials. However, we do not and cannot take responsibility for policing the activities of minors on our game. If we know that someone is a minor, we reserve the right to take whatever measures we feel necessary to protect that minor - but we claim no responsibility to do so.
Note: Parents may use the contact page to speak with our Owner at any time to have their minor children removed from the game.
Adult Situations
Sexuality is a normal part of people's lives, and this is a mush about role-playing other people's lives. It should not be thought unusual, then, that players would want to role-play sexuality when appropriate. And so long as the role-play of sexuality is both in character, relevant to the character's development and thematically fitting, we allow it on five kingdoms with the following exceptions:
- You may NOT under any conditions, role-play sexual relations if you are under 18 years of age.
- You may NOT role-play sexual relations if your partner does not consent to the scene. The act may still be "unconsentual" but as far as the players behind the character, we offer you no matter your age the ability to opt out of such graphic scenes.
- There is no expectation of privacy on Five Kingdoms. You at any time may be watched by staff or hidden players if you would be embarassed for us to see what you're role-playing, don't do it.
If all the characters involved meet the above criteria and decide to play out a sexual scene, the following should be held to:
- Refrain from using strong language, graphic depictions of bodily fluid, or other strong content.
- No unthematic fetishes.
It should read like a mushy romance novel (although we hope with better content/story and skill). If you cannot adhere to these guidelines, you should simply use the available option to forego the scene entirely. That said, we wish to create a game that is neither a porn site, unfriendly to minors, or unfriendly to our own adult themes.
** Parents are ultimately responsible for their children and should exercise their rights to prevent their child from playing our game. **
Harrassment
In Character contact inside the game is non-consensual. If one character wants to harass (sexually or otherwise) another character, it is allowed and sometimes encouraged where appropriate. This harassment may even amount to sexual assault. (Please see above for Rules on Adult situations.)
Out-of-character contact on our game, by contrast, should always be consensual. If someone is paging, mailing or otherwise bothering you in an out-of-character area, you should politely but forcefully ask them to stop. If they continue after this warning, report the incident to an Staffer immediately.
Our staff will do what they can to assist their players and help to make the game a more player-friendly place. If that means site locking serial harassers, or taking other disciplinary action against them, so be it.
Tips on the subject of harassment:
- Don't ask someone to stop communicating with you, but continue to contact them.
- Don't say something nasty to someone and then add that you don't wish for them to contact you again thus depriving them of a response and letting you get the last word.
OOC vs ICC
OOC = OUT OF CHARACTER - This refers to anything that you or I would speak about in real life, computers, jobs, annoying yappy neighbor dogs. (I write as my neighbor’s dog yaps annoyingly!) All of these subjects would NEVER be spoken by your character. OOC should be kept only to OOC channels such as paging, ooc mail, and occasionally in OOC areas. (Note: the ooc areas are used by staff to have meetings with players, run classes, or generally talk to players about misconduct)
IC = IN CHARACTER - It is a safe bet to assume if you are logged into the game you are IC. Unlike many games that offer players "idle" rooms or start and stop scenes, at Five Kingdoms you are expected to be RPing 100% of the time. If you wish to idle… log off.
ICA = ICC
ICA = In Character Actions
ICC = In Character Concequences
Pretty straight forward but yes we feel the need to explain further. If you do something with your character such as : Steal, break the law, rape, run through the forums naked in winter, wander outside of the city unguarded. You should expect that it will have in character concequences! So do not be shocked and amazed when you are not thrown in jail, stripped of your caste, killed.. or killed! Be shocked if you get away with it…
Alt Policy
We would like all players to feel free to explore many of the facets of our game, but we need to set guidelines for players to prevent abuse, cheating and unfair advantages. So with all that explanation… here are our policies!
- Each Player may have TWO characters at any time. These two characters may NOT be of the same house, kingdom, or legion.
- Players should refrain from playing both sides of a disagreement. (IE: House feuds, legion competition etc) as it would tempt players to cheat.
- Players may NOT use information learned on one character with another.
- Players may NOT be logged on both characters at the same time… EVER. (No exceptions)
Any player found breaking these rules will lose BOTH characters and their privilege of playing two characters in the future. Yes you read that right… having two characters is a privilege not a right!
Dispute Resolution
Any and all disputes between players should be handled by the players, if you are unable to maturely come to a resolution, you may ask a staffer to assist. We would prefer of course that you act and comport yourself in a mature manner that does not require we babysit you.
Disputes between players and Staff will be dealt with by ADMIN, if the dispute is with an Admin unfortunately you’re on your own. Keep in mind we try to be just and fair to all players equally and don't often (if ever) have disputes with players.
Important Information
TBA
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