Community Rules

Updated 11 April 2022

Disclaimer: all of these rules are subject to change. 

We ask that if you feel something is unclear or you could not find in the rules, please make a ticket and ask before doing.

1. Don’t Be A Jerk We all want a fun place to roleplay and have nice experiences. Following this rule helps us have a fun environment.

2. We expect you to give your best effort at high quality role play. If you are an experienced role player and you notice a lesser experienced player, teach instead of criticize, please.

We are a voice RP server, you must use voice in game at all times unless you have been given special clearance to do text RP. Special clearance to text RP is only granted to those that medically cannot speak.

3. DO NOT use the Vanity Thrall Tables that comes with fashionista mod. Using thrall tables immediately crashes the server.  Due to the critical nature of the problem, using one will get you a swift suspension.

4. Discord –

Discord is used as the primary tool to handle in game tickets, community functions, and staff interactions with players. You must remain in the discord to be whitelisted and must answer staff tags and inquiries in a reasonable amount of time or risk getting your whitelist suspended until you do.

Please change your discord name to reflect your in game character name. 
Example: Fairy godparent (Mr. Fergus)
You will be reminded by an admin to change your name to this format if you have not already.  Failure to comply may result in the removal of your whitelisting and it makes the admins job difficult in finding you to help or speak with you.
Anyone using a voice channel on discord and has a character in game is expected to be muted and talking in game. There may be others around that you are unaware of and only speaking in discord denies them the RP experience. We ask that you be respectful of that.
Please do not DM or Tag admins or mods asking about the status of your application or other questions. We have help channels, welcome channels, and tickets for that. If you wish to speak with an admin or mod, either open a ticket or ask in a welcome or help channel if you can speak with us. 9 times out of 10 we would be happy to.

5. Meta is not cool! Please don’t do it! You will die a horrible death and have your ears torn off by Pixies. 

Meta-gaming – doing something based on what you know IRL, that your character wouldn’t know in game. Example: (You know where a player is through OOC means and you show up there without ever knowing anything IN GAME about where they went.)  ** Do not DM people asking if you can “Come over” or if they have X thing you want crafted. These are communications that should be handled in game.

Meta-Logging – No logging into the server because you saw something happening in a stream or heard it through a private DM, or chat. If your character was not supposed to wake up then they should not. 

Stream Sniping – “Hey, I see my favorite streamer is on, I see where he is in game, I’m going to purposely go to them with my character and make them RP with me!” Not cool! Don’t force RP on someone, especially a streamer. They are trying to tell stories and entertain people. It’s not that big of an island. If you play, your character is likely to come across them and engage in them naturally. Stream sniping will cause your favorite streamers to stop playing the game. Please, don’t do it. We are also in contact with our streamers and have asked them to inform us of server related sniping, toxicity, and fire starting on their streams. Please respect their platforms.

6. Forced Role Play – Getting your role play forced in a direction by another player unnaturally or inorganically.  
An example of non-forced RP:  Get off my land or I’ll come and blow up your house. I am the lord of these lands. Leave or fight.
An example of forced RP:   You must not speak this other group or you are a betrayer and turncoat and will be brandished as such among the clan and you don’t need to know the reason why and you have no say in the matter.
or
I am a vampire. I bit you, so now you are a vampire.

7. Power Gaming – Using an in game mechanic to gain an advantage to “win” a RP, PVP situation, or forcing RP in a direction that forces a character to have only one choice. 
You may not create characters or RP situations that result in your character being immune from things that other characters are not immune to.  ie: I cannot be hurt by steel blades, only blades made from silver; or, fire does not hurt me. Basically no superpowers.

8. Fail RP – Fail RP is roleplay that breaks immersion, ruins story and interaction ability or is driven by out of character elements instead of roleplay elements.

• Characters or RP that has little to no weaknesses or lack of knowledge.

Consideration in RP – PvP: Understanding that if you and/or your group consistently builds your character/s so that they never take a loss that you are limiting yourself for depth in RP for never taking a loss as well as never giving your fellow players the fun of having the occasional win. Bearing in mind that diversity in builds not only provides depth and realism to your character but also to the world around you and that it’s not always necessary to have the winning build.

Characters that “know everything about everything” usually wind up being avoided (Like the plague) and their RP truly does suffer from it.

If you find yourself in a room with 5 people, and there are 5 situations that require different skills, class, or tasks and you find yourself saying: I can do that, to each of the 5 things, you are fail RPng.

For example: A large group goes out to battle the ancient dragon. One of the players decides he is going to be the main tank but they have been RPng as a 90 year old mage, then make the argument that they are a battle mage and can wield that 90lb battle hammer. 

It takes an hour or so to go through the dragon and people begin to do their wounded RP. This same wizard that was tanking now interjects that they have had extensive medical training with the ancient druids and begin to take over the medical RP pushing the healers that had just healed the battle for the past hour in the background and overriding their medical RP.

We would like storytellers to understand how doing things like this, and we understand it’s fun, but it’s extremely inconsiderate of your fellow storytellers. 

• Characters from other seasons cannot “know” things or people from previous seasons unless having express permission from that other person and agreement.  Ie: No heirlooming knowledge between characters. 

If you decide you wish to play a character from a previous season, you may run into another person that is also playing a character from previous seasons that your character had interacted with. Do not assume that this character will automatically know yours and have knowledge of these things. Interacting with them under this assumption may very well ruin their RP experience.

• Using weapons or abilities outside of your RP class and RP’d expertise, this is considered fail RP.

It’s extremely jarring to be fighting someone that’s wielding a hammer or axe and they suddenly pull an 8ft long spear out of nowhere. The proper way to RP something like this is to return to your horse and unpack the spear or had it in your hands to begin with.

• Ignoring value of life, stipulated in rules
• Shutting down the roleplay of others

 – Ignoring events, situations, or people around you resulting in no interaction or reaction to these things is fail RP. You may not want to interact with that person or event, and that is understandable, but bow out from the situation in RP and acknowledge the interaction.

• Character names or archetype or name references to memes or non-thematic elements. 

Nothing breaks immersion faster than being on your way to the Ancient Greek themed market to RP buying seeds for your garden and running into Chuck Norrisini.

• Claiming to be famous characters or well known characters from gaming, movies, etc… 

• Avoiding RP consequence. 
  • It’s unfair to your fellow storytellers if your character creates a situation or conflict with others and then finds themselves in a situation where they may “lose” or find loss in the situation. They then reroll or do something else to avoid the consequences of the situation they perceive will be a losing situation for them.
  • This is not only fail RP, but creates an extremely frustrating situation for other storytellers.

• Ignoring RP Consequence 
  • While we understand that there will be moments where your character may stand up and be counted, or take action, etc there are times or situations where this might have negative RP consequences for these actions and need to be RPd out correctly.   
  • For example, standing in a kings court, surrounded by kings guards and arguing with the king over something or making demands etc, thinking about what would normally happen and expecting that to happen vs arguing that the king should not be empowered to perform an RP consequence on that person is a bit of fail RP.  If that person is in a position of power over your character, we should allow for it to drive the RP if that is the situation.  
  • Handling that situation as a character:  Back room whispers, starting a revolution, working to dethrone the king, etc would be good examples of how to empower your character other than trying to measure a farmer vs a king.

9. Value Your Life – Your character should want to live and will not ignore dangerous situations or threats. They should be afraid to die and just like real life try to avoid it at all costs. You do not need to tell others what your fear is, but you cannot claim to be immune to fear. This is power gaming.

While we understand that some archtypes from various games and lores may want to be played, it’s your responsibility to ensure that the way this character is played meets this rule. 

We understand that your characters are very important and loved by you. That you want them to have a longevity and last for long periods of time. That being said, from the perspective of others, these characters are no different than any others in the world and are subject to the same fates, ills, longevity, and mortality as anyone else and expect certain situations to have the same impact on these characters as any other. 

Your character needs to have the same fears as any other reasonable person. Even highly trained ancient ninja wizard vampires crack under pressure. 

10. Respect – Any abusive actions towards any of our players may result in a ban.  We want to make this a safe and fun place for all of our story tellers.

Examples of abusive actions are defined as but not limited to:

• Stalking
• Emotional Bleed (Taking emotions and events from in character to out of character.)
• Fire Starting (Blowing up disagreements into public)
• Unwelcome Discord Direct Messages(DM) or Mentions (@)
• Harassment
• Verbal Abuse
• Base Camping
• Griefing
• Stone aging (Destroying everything a player owns so they have to start over)

Every person on the server is expected to abide by these rules. Failure to abide by this rule will lead to suspensions and/or bans depending on the severity and recurrence. Repeated toxicity in the discord or server will earn you a ban without a prior warning. It’s unnecessary and unwanted.

Sexual Assault/ Discrimination

Sexual assault roleplay will not be tolerated. Making unfounded claims of sexual assault will not be tolerated. These are both real crimes and may actually be subject to real legal recourse. 

We take sexual assault seriously and as such, require that we do our due diligence to investigate each claim. We will not allow our storytellers to be victimized, in either direction.

It is our policy to not name victims, perpetrators, allegations, or investigations. This is for several reasons and to ensure that allegations do not equate to guilt or that individuals are not ostracized by the community for simply being accused or accusing others.

False claims of sexual assault to weaponize staff and retaliate against others will not be tolerated. Not only does it create a hostile toxic environment, it detracts, weakens, and highly impacts real victims. It also highly impacts and affects those that any false claims are made against. We treat both cases as equally serious.

Sexual discrimination:

We here at time of origins RP do not discriminate against anyone on any basis. Your sexual orientation, gender, gender preference, et al will not be a cause for discrimination.

That said, the act of simply being uncomfortable with the speech of others is not deemed to be discrimination.

How we define discrimination.

The act must show unjust or prejudicial treatment against a category of people based on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, disability, or sexual preferences.

If you feel discriminated against or feel you are in a situation where you are not comfortable:

• Document and record, if possible, the situation as it occurs.
• Document the number of times it has occurred and the individuals/group of individuals involved.
• Remove yourself from the situation.
• If the individuals will not allow you to leave the situation, contact staff immediately.
• Report the incident to staff.

Making claims without reporting to staff may be subject to discipline. We do not want situations where staff is blindsided by allegations that were alleged but never reported.

Note: Even if you feel you do not have enough evidence to prove a claim, staff needs to be notified in order to watch the situation and individuals involved.

Important: You are not your character. There will be healthy roleplay reasons to have discrimination against your character or characters race, class, etc. As an example, please do not report discrimination against “elves or dwarves” or your chosen character. These rules apply to real life, you as an individual, and/or the discord and roleplay community. We want to protect our players and work hard to balance that with those individuals that want to use these rules to control RP and the free speech others enjoy.  

Misogyny and Misandry:

• Misogyny: is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women
• Misandry: is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men.

Neither will be tolerated and do not have a place in our community.  Staff reserves the right to determine what falls under any of the above definitions and has the final say on what does and does not qualify. 

Staff is open to any disagreements with their judgements and these things can be appealed. We value what people have to say, just bear in mind that not everyone is the same and that staff simply cannot please every single person. It’s literally impossible.  

If you feel we are wrong, we do want to know. 

Do: 

• Contact staff via ticket or contact management directly and let us know. 
• Present facts and impact examples.
• Try to avoid personal opinions.
• Present reasoned and articulated arguments.
• Not be upset if you are unable to change the initial judgment.  

Do not: 

• Try to bully staff into your way of thinking
• Rabble rouse or communicate with the intention of inflaming emotions of a crowd of people. 
• Attempt to manipulate staff to punish or impune people you simply do not like.
• Demand staff notify you or anyone else the results of an investigation or allegations that you are not directly involved in. 

Staff puts a lot of thought and effort into working to determine these things. Much more than they should be made to. 

It’s important to remember that at the end of the day, this is our leisure/downtime/hobby as well and would like to enjoy spending time with all of you instead of having to arbitrate these things. We simply ask that you bear that in mind.

A word about staff. Our staff here at Time of Origins put in some fairly long hours and go through a lot of effort to bring this content to you. They are unpaid, volunteer their time, and selflessly put up with a lot criticism, some earned, a lot unearned. Please be respectful of staff. This does not mean you cannot be critical, but pick your battles. Arguing with staff in a public setting will get you asked to take it private where you will be listened to. It’s important to remember that us not doing what you want does not equate to us refusing to listen to you. We put great efforts into making this a fun place to be and a friendly community but we are not going to be able to please everyone all of the time although we try our best.

11. Proof – If someone is breaking a rule please provide proof i.e. screenshots, DM’s, video evidence proof of the rule being broken. We want to have an environment of fair arbitration. You would want any claims against you to require proof and evidence.

12. NO KOS/RDM – There must be proper verbal RP engagement before any sort of combat can occur! RP, RP, RP! Engage yourself in the situation!  

Kill on Sight(KOS) – Engaging combat with another player without any kind of significant RP leading up to the fight. Significant RP is considered giving another player a challenge and consequence.

ie: This is our hunting area, leave now or deal with the consequences… or you killed my brother Jonah.. do you deny this? 

Random Death Match (RDM) – Is an effort to get around the KOS rule but creating a situation that forces another storyteller into a combat or death situation without significant role play and making it appear random but having only a result desired by the instigator.

When engaging in a threat to other players by overwhelming force ( a larger number rolls up on a much smaller number) you must offer a threat and consequence. You must also offer this player a reasonable “out” or alternative to death or harm that fall within the rules and guidelines.

13. Radical RP/Erotic RP – We do not allow radical RP or Erotic Role play. Many of our story tellers are professional streamers and their livelihoods are at stake if they encounter situations that violate Twitch or other streaming service TOS. 

Radical Role Play: This is defined as but not limited to: child roleplay, rape, ultraviolent, and racist roleplay or any role play that violates other rules including Twitch and/or other streaming service TOS.  

Erotic Role play (ERP) is not allowed in game, voice, chat, or discord. This not only includes voice and chat, but also game play, mechanics, and use of erotic/sexual devices or actions in game. If you need a clarification on what constitutes erotic role play, please contact an admin on the discord and we would be happy to expand on the rule.

14. Dispute Resolution: