ponymeisters | (no subject)

ALWAYS FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE.
Treat others as you wish for them to treat you. We're not saying be friends with everyone and play with everyone, but before you act, think first. Please treat one another respectfully, and to try and work out problems they might have with one another instead of resorting to name-calling or passive-aggressive anonymous comments and plurks. If you don't like someone or how they play, respect that they are a player here, and try to work it out with them. If you don't know how to approach a person, it never hurts to ask a mod for help. Most important, think before you do something brash OoCly. Because drama and being cliquey towards others doesn't help anyone, including you - and in the end, this is just a game where people want to have fun and play with ponies.

TD;LR Be respectful to each other, talk to one another and think before you act, because when anyone starts drama, its no fun for anyone.

NO GODMODDING.
Basically, do not decide another character's actions. Give the other character's mun a chance to have their character react. "Pony Picard throws a punch" is all right. "Pony Picard throws a punch, which hits the dragon in the gut so hard it knocks him out" is not all right, as is "Pony Picard throws a punch, which hits the dragon." On the other side of the coin, making a character completely untouchable and act without any consequence to their actions despite other character actions (i.e. "the dragon doesn't get punched by Pony Picard ever because the dragon's mun doesn't like it so screw Pony Picard's mun") is also not acceptable. In character actions need in character consequences, after all. ~~And Pony Picard vs a dragon should be a drawn-out epic battle anyhow.~~

INFOMODDING IS NOT ALLOWED; ALSO, PLEASE KEEP 4TH-WALLING TO A MINIMUM.
Infomodding is basically having characters know information that they would reasonably not know ICly, but that their players know OOCly. Infomodding is a definite no-no; Rarity shouldn't know who Xehanort is when they first meet, for example.

Fourth-walling is having one character tell another that their character is fictional, or from a fictional medium. There's no way to entirely avoid the fourth wall. It is highly likely that some series and canons either have characters who know fourth wall-esque information about other characters, or have characters that are aware of the existence of the fourth wall, or even that they are fictional. Still, general etiquette is that most of these characters do not reveal the fictionality of other characters, even if they recognize the canon said characters come from, because of the IC and OoC consequences of doing so. So always exercise due diligence when it comes to fourth-walling.

THE MINIMUM AGE TO APPLY IS 13.
Sorry, real-life CMC.

ACTIVITY CHECKS.
The activity check will be monthly, and activity linked will need to consist of a combo of any two of the following:

A post in mylittlejamjar

Posting a log in mylittlelogs

Comment thread(s) with a cumulative total of 10 comments from your character in either of the aforementioned comms.

In other words, making two posts, making two log posts, or making 4 x 10 comments with your characters in logs and posts = AC get! Or however combo you want to do it. One post or one log, one log and 10 comments, 20 comments and so on and so forth.

THIS GAME IS RATED PG - PG-13.
Any log or post which contains any sexual or violent content needs to have a warning label on them and placed under a cut. Anything which devolves to sex or explicit violence needs to fade to black or be taken elsewhere. Graphic sexual taboos or explicit taboo acts of violence, such as rape, underage sex, graphic torture, incest, graphic maiming and any others not mentioned here are not allowed at all, implied or otherwise.

STRIKES, OFFENSES AND INSTANT BANS.
We encourage mediation between players and, when necessary, the mods when OoC problems arise. However, we know that there will be times where we as mods need to step in and handle matters more aggressively, particularly for more egregious player actions. So, we have a three-strike/instant ban system for these particular cases.

In the case of the three strikes, the first strike is a warning, the second is a week-long ban, and the third strike is a permaban. The following are offenses which can amount to a strike against a player if the complaint is serious enough to warrant it:

Repeated instances of an inability to stay IC

Repeated instances of godmodding without permission

Repeated instances of infomodding/fourthwalling without permission

Not following the rules for logs and posts with sexual or violent content

The following are offenses which will result in an instant ban:

Harassing other players/causing wank OoCly towards other players (be it ICly or OoC on any forum - anon communities, plurk, IM, email and PM included)

Any derogatory racial, sexual or ethnic slur on any forum towards other players (including anon communities, plurk, IM, email and PM)

Plagiarizing on the application

Lying on the application about your age (if you are underage for the game)

Playing out any prohibited taboo sexual and violent scenarios

However, there is one rule more that is most important of all, and will be most strictly enforced:

HAVE FUN!!

Hey! This is RP! More importantly, this is pony RP! And you can't have pony RP without fun, right? =D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THIS GAME IS RATED PG - PG-13.
Any log or post which contains any sexual or violent content needs to have a warning label on them and placed under a cut. Anything which devolves to sex or explicit violence needs to fade to black or be taken elsewhere. Graphic sexual taboos or explicit taboo acts of violence, such as rape, underage sex, graphic torture, incest, bestiality, graphic maiming and any others not mentioned here are not allowed at all, implied or otherwise.

Okay, I'm a little confused. You allow sexual content in the game (so long as it's warned for and under a cut), and yet you disallow bestiality in a game where all the characters are ponies, other kinds of animal, or mythical creatures. Humans don't exist within this game, am I correct? So I don't quite understand the need for this rule. Could you please clarify?

...Ahahaha that is a good point. I guess that would make sense to take away bestiality from the list in that context...

...Er. I was mainly covering my bases, as you may have noticed. I'll tweak that rule a bit. XD;

For those of us who plan to app from a particularly violent or gory canon: do you have any pointers on how best to stay true to a character while abiding by the rules of the game? If you're not into WTNV, it's a horror/comedy podcast (with heavy emphasis on the horror.) Cecil's a pretty decent person in general, but he's prone to saying plenty of things that are downright creepy. It's even harder to gauge how graphic something might be in his canon, given that, as a podcast, there's no visual component and we only hear Cecil's voice giving vivid descriptions of things.

Usually, Welcome to Night Vale goes for a "Nothing Is Scarier" route, telling the listener that something happened and leaving enough details for them to imagine their own version of what went down, but a few bits and pieces are pretty extreme. (I could pull up quotes from some of the best examples of how extreme it can get if you'd like).

Cecil also makes lots of passing but non-explicit mentions of child abduction, legalized murder, torture, brainwashing, gaslighting, human sacrifice, constant surveillance, pterodactyl attacks, body horror, and probably lots of other things I'm missing. To date:

Election Season
Child Safety Tips

or my favorite:

Red Lobster Commercial

Would I be okay as long as I go for the "Nothing is Scarier" route and refrain from getting too explicit, or should I take some other steps?

Probably it would be best to not get too explicit, go for the former. If things come up that would make the latter necessary, just talk to u about it and we'll got from there. But "tone it down" is probably the best way to go at this point!