IC/OOC

Rhizome is a roleplay enforced MUD, which means there is an absolute OOC/IC divide. This has a few meaningful implications for the conduct we expect from our players.

In-Character (IC):

Your characters are meant to be believable entities in the world, which means they should adhere to the *general* conventions of the setting. The social mores of individual characters can vary from the overarching standards -- sociopaths, murderers, thieves exist, as do unusually noble heroes or forward thinking intellectuals. There are limits, however; if your character is behaving in a way that cannot possibly be justified as in-character, then you will likely find yourself in hot water.

Examples of this include things like: Referencing real-world song lyrics.
Roleplaying technology that does not exist in Rhizome (eg, guns, nuclear power, airplanes).
Roleplaying places that do not exist in Rhizome.
Roleplaying cultural or religious elements that do not exist in Rhizome.
Having a name that does not fit the setting (eg, DarkLord, BoyzInTheHood, ff159xShen)

Beyond simply playing a believable character within the boundaries of Rhizome, we also expect your characters to have in-character motivations, and reasonably in-character knowledge. This means -- no assassinating someone because you don't like their player, no persistently 'discovering' lost loves of previous characters on your new one, and not playing new characters as if they know everything all your previous characters had learned.

That last one is a fuzzy requirement -- we're not asking you to pretend you don't know how to cure a certain venom or other mechanical tricks, but if your new character spawns in and starts yapping about the detailed political interplay of an obscure native tribe you learned on a previous character... that's not very believable. Use best judgement.

OOC:

This is where things get relaxed compared to many other RPI MUDs. We do not have strict restrictions on OOC communication of IC things. The only thing we do ask is, you only communicate IC things about *your character* or the world in general. Do not openly discuss other people's characters; this extends to plots they might be involved in that they haven't cleared you to discuss. You can reveal your character's identity to other players if you like, but accept any consequence of that decision.

The discord has a #lore channel for quarantining things like rare and interesting locations or wildlife, magic, forgotten history, and sharing fringe theories. Use it liberally. Players who abuse this will be sanctioned, including those with a 'habit' of spoiling other people's plots or using their ability to OOCly discuss in game events to make accusations or complain about other player characters' behavior in the court of public opinion.

One final note about OOC: Your character lives only on Rhizome's server. You should not be roleplaying them anywhere else and expect the consequences of that roleplay to matter on the server. If your character, for example, strikes a deal with another character out of the game server, and then later both characters execute that deal or plan without discussing it IC, we will take a very dim view.