Rules

1. TERMS OF SERVICE:

By generating a character in Rhizome, you are agreeing to everything set forth in this document. As such, it is important that you read everything before generating your character, to be informed as to what you are agreeing with. These rules may change at any time, at which point players will be informed to read them, and continued play will be a tacit agreement.

2. AGE RESTRICTIONS:

Rhizome has a mature setting and includes mature themes in its worldbuilding and story telling. Moreover, Rhizome is a multiplayer game focused on roleplaying, meaning that emergent player driven content is common and cannot be rated in advance by the staff.

Due to this, by generating a character, you are affirming that you ARE AT LEAST EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE. Anyone discovered to be underage will have their account banned, and may appeal that ban when they are no longer underage.

3. DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIORS:

Discriminatory behavior includes sexist, racist, or prejudiced behavior of all kinds. Attacking or belittling another player for their intrinsic qualities will result in a ban.

While characters within Rhizome may have prejudices against other characters on the basis of race or religion, modeling your in-character prejudices against real-world discrimination will be viewed extremely negatively by staff: e.g., deciding your character is prejudiced in a way that overlaps with an attack on a real-world protected class when there are so many in-universe alternatives to these characteristics will be met with warnings, and bans if not corrected.

4. OOC AGGRESSION

Threats and aggressive posturing towards other players and towards the staff will not be tolerated. This will net you a warning, and then bans. Be sensible, step away from the game if you need to cool down, and just... don't.

5. EXPLOITS AND BUG ABUSE

Rhizome is a complex game and emergent properties within the code may have unintended effects from time to time. If you suspect you are engaging with a bug, you are expected to double check with staff who will give you a go-ahead or disable the offending code until a bug can be squashed. Failure to do this may result in bans, character rollbacks, or other sanctions if the staff feel it was reasonable for the player to know better. Err on the side of caution.

5. IC/OOC:

Your character is expected to behave in-character at all times, save for the cases of emergencies and bugs. The OOC command exists to quickly inform players of such an emergency, or for novice players to request brief syntax help. It does not exist to chat: there are no out-of-character chat channels within the game, though you are free to yap as much as you like on the discord, which is exactly what we'll be doing.

Beyond communication, your character's motivations are also expected to be in-character. Attacking or otherwise interfering with another character because you do not get along with their player, or performing any in-character action due to an out-of-character motivation, is forbidden.

That being said, we expect a baseline level of IC/OOC balance from our players -- that is, we expect players to be able to maturely separate IC goings on from OOC ones. As such, we do NOT have a strict 'find out IC' policy for most things. Out of character discussion of mechanics, magic, wild animal behavior, major plot events, and so forth is permitted.

We are very passionate about Rhizome and we hope our players are also excited. When you have a fun hobby, it's natural to want to talk about it with other hobbyists and we're not going to police that as a rule. We do ask that you exercise best judgement when it comes to sharing sensitive information and if a staffer explicitly asks you to tone it back, you honor that.

If you do learn sensitive information OOCly, we again expect you to have the maturity as a player not to act on it in character. Familiarize yourself with the incredible value of dramatic irony and let your character be ignorant of things you, yourself, know. I promise you it will be more amusing that way.

6.EXPLICIT CONTENT:

Explicit Roleplay is governed by our consent system. All players, even those not looking to engage with this kind of content, should familiarize themselves with that system at a surface level, so as to know when to alert staff in the case of bad actors. This system exists to protect everyone's good time and make sure absolutely no-one is forced to intersect with content they are not interested in.

Anyone caught attempting to work around the consent system will be banned, first offense, no warnings, no second chances, no appeals. Ignorance of the system is not an excuse on this one.

7. PLAYER/STAFF RELATIONS:

It is utterly fundamental to Rhizome's health that we all strive to preserve an understanding and friendly exchange of ideas and respect among players, among staff, and between the two groups. Staff are not 'better' than players, they are merely serving a different role. Staff's primary deliverable is an enjoyable, memorable experience for the players, and should keep this in mind in all their interactions with the playerbase. Staff should have a 'yes forward' mentality, attempting to enable players to have the experience they're looking for so long as it does not impinge upon the general player experience. The metagame of Rhizome is Staff and Players vs the Forces of Boredom, NOT Team Staff versus Team Players.

Players, meanwhile, should be aware that delivering an enjoyable experience to many people simultaneously is an extremely difficult proposition and the decisions staff make at any given time might not be exactly the outcome any given player may have wanted. Staff have limited time and are not themselves a monolithic entity with a singular opinion on any given topic. As such, all we ask is players have a baseline of patience and understanding.

8. RESOLUTIONS AND TRANSPARENCY

Our account portal provides a means to resolve conflicts that arise when Rule #7 breaks down. In addition to reporting bugs, typos, suggesting new mechanics and events, and requesting specific support, players can submit a formal complaint against a staff member or another player if mutual understanding cannot be achieved via dialogue.

A player liaison and a staff member will jointly review the complaint, pull server logs, and discuss what resolution will best satisfy the situation. All parties involved in the complaint will be informed of the decision. Weekly, anonymized reports of complaints and resolutions will be available on the portal for reference and transparency.

9. GOLDEN RULE:

Use your best judgement. Do not act with malice, do not assume malice from another player or staff. Most problems stem from miscommunication or misunderstanding. If you think something is amiss, communicate. Everyone is here to have fun.