--== General Rules  ==--

1) All interactions are turn, and time-based.

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What this means is, each person is given a turn and a period of time during that turn to act and/or react to another person(s) statement(s) or action(s) during the course of an RP session. There is a time limit in which each person may react and that amount of time is up to the Storyteller. If you do not react within a reasonable time-period, your action(s) for the "turn" are forfeit and you will be passed over.

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If you are constantly AFK during the course of a scheduled roleplay event, your character may either be placed under the control of the storyteller, skipped over during your turn, or removed from the story completely. Any action(s) taken on behalf of your character in these cases will be at the discretion of the storyteller during each session.

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2) The Storyteller has the FINAL SAY with regards to any rules during the course of an RP session. Those who slow down a story or are rule-mongering can be removed from the current scene or completely removed from the story. If there is a legitimate issue regarding a rule, please send an IM to the Storyteller and request a break in the story to discuss the issue. But remember, if you hold up the story for too long with questions that could be handled after a session, you run the risk of having your character removed.

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3) In most cases, people who join Sanguine Sands will need to create a new character using the VtM, WtA, or any other allowed WoD (20th Anniversary in most cases) source-book(s). Any "imported" or "transferred" characters from another RP sim will need to be reviewed on an individual basis and approved for use before being allowed in our RP sim. ALL  VTM and ghoul character submissions MUST go through Mikey Freund for approval, all Mortal or Kinfolk MUST go through Gypsy Inada for approval. ALL WTA or Hunter submissions MUST go through Danielalexander for approval. Only they have the power to approve or to not approve a character for play in this sim.

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4) People may NOT create "elder" characters in the Sanguine Sands sim unless given prior approval. We do not want our sim to be overrun with elder characters, which is unrealistic and seriously unbalances the sim as a whole. In most cases, newly-created characters can be no more than 50 years old in character-age terms.

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5) No one may leave a scene. If you leave the scene the ST will take control of your character and give you a detailed description of what transpired with the exception of final death. Final death will always be played out with you present unless you break this rule more than once.  IF you have special circumstances you feel require consideration please speak to the ST that ran the scene.

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6) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE ASK ONE ADMIN IF SOMETHING IS ALRIGHT AND GO TO ANOTHER ADMIN OR ST WHEN THE FIRST ONE SAYS NO! We do talk to each other constantly. Anyone in violation of this rule will be issued a temporary ban for 24 hours. No avatars belonging to the player banned may enter the sim for those twenty for hours. If you logged several of your avis out on Sim don't worry we'll give you time to rez and move on.

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7) RP LIMITS- we understand that due to the mature and violent content of a Gothic horror setting some people may uncomfortable with certain aspects of the game. If you feel you cannot RP out a certain scene due to its graphic content please inform the ST and a general black out will be issued with merely the end results of the scene explained in detail as pertaining to your character. FINAL DEATH is not an acceptable RP limit in Sanguine Sands.  No character in this sim is ever exempt from final death yes that does include the ST and Admins Characters.  That being said, we will make every effort to ***avoid*** FINAL DEATH.

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8) OOC/IC CROSSOVER- When dealing with OOC Information and IC information please remember if you did not hear it IC( with logs) than you can not know that information.   You are not allowed to use information you heard OOC for your IC character play.  Sometimes it is difficult to remember, so if you find yourself unsure, do not use the information until you speak to and Admin, or the player you heard it from.  One warning will be given if you are found doing it, and if you continue to do so, you can be banned from sim.  

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9) DEATH: This is not a "full consent" sim. This is a "99% consent" sim. That means it's your choice to accept or not accept your character's death up to a point. If you have repeatedly broken laws, or done something so egregious that it is perfectly acceptable for many people to want your head, or you have absolutely no ability to escape or survive, your character may die without your permission. Generally, deaths-against-your-will must be approved by the sim owners, to be valid. If such scenes happen while the sim owner is away, and you need adjudication on the validity, freeze the scene at the point of death, log it, and send us a NC, and we will make a ruling. Of course, you always have the choice to have your character die WITH your permission, and we think a good RPer knows when that needs to be the case. In general, we find that resorting to killing someone, though, is kind of the easy way out, and it's more fun and a better story to just make someone's existence miserable, so don't think that this is going to happen very often. Though rare, it CAN happen.

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10) IC consequences for IC actions

The World of Darkness isn't filled with unicorns and plush bunnies, times are harsh, outright brutal, merciless and unforgiving. Brutality and/or force, be it physical, emotional, psychological and/or sexual, be it for a scene or long term can and potentially will happen to anyone of any gender, race, group or faction affiliation. 

 

Each player is fully responsible for their own character's well being, the IC actions and the IC consequences those might bring upon their characters. This includes the responsibility to not have one's "Roleplay Limits" being breached. E.g. if a player holds RP Limits like "No Death", "No Rape", "No Slavery", "No Hair cutting" or similar, they should go and/or stay where these events will likely not happen to their characters. On the other side of this coin is that if you are the aggressor and want to do something that potentially violates someone's limits then look in their profile and look to see if its there, if it *IS* there consider picking some other kind of role play.  

 

Respectively, if it happens anyways, rather let their character behave in a way these RP Limits are not being breached. Success is not guaranteed though. IC options to try to get out of a dangerous situation are plenty, e.g. to offer the captor after-captivity help to infiltrate the captive's group base or to tell the secret plan at gunpoint rather than being the bratty, hyper resistant hero captive, etc.. Success of such tries are neither guaranteed though, especially during tangible conflict, but success is advised to be accepted by respective RP partners.

 

Also: If one's RP Limits states one limit that asks for a certain action not to be played out, a player is strongly advised to let the other player succeed with other means: Demanding "no humiliation and death" as RP Limit, then though not responding to torture, rape, threat or manipulation or any other way, lesser than mutilation/death in comparison, is bad style and not acceptable.

 

- Fade-To-Black ("FTB") is allowed.

If a player is in the middle of a scene and finds themselves unable to continue playing the scene, be it due to lack of playtime or due to concerns about the nature of the scene, the player can Fade-To-Black ("FTB"). FTB is NOT a voiding of a scene and not a "get-out-of-jail card", but it stands for a fast-forward with ALL actions actually happening to a character without the details being visually nor actively played out. The results become part of the involved characters' history with all consequences. E.g. if a player FTBs a rape play, the rape counts as having happened to their character, it was just not played out / emoted / displayed. To FTB a player needs to IM the other involved player(s) and announce the wish to FTB. If FTB is announced, it must be accepted, and either the announcing and the other players agree on a progress of the scene or the other player(s) dictate what happened. 

 

- Character Death is not a consequence that can be automatically faded to black, the character can be tortured, beaten, and left for dead, but the event of a death needs to be played out unless it is explicitly agreed upon by the character's player that the character's death during the FTB is consented. 

 

- Character Death limit - no one really wants to see their character die, unless its your intent to retire the character permanently. A lot of people attempt to protect themselves from this by adding the "No Character Death" limit. We as sim staff want to abide by your limits, but there will be times where the rp a player has steered themselves into what logically leads to the character's death. If a scene would call for a character's death and the player doesn't agree then the case can be taken to an admin, the admins will review the RP and ask questions. If it is agreed by the admins that the character earned the death, the death will stick regardless of the limit posted. We hope that this will come up very scarcely but we do recognize that it will happen. Character Death is the only limit that an admin will override, and its only an admin that is able to override it, Storytellers and Mentors are not.

 

- Voiding a scene is restricted to OOC Administrators only, you can't just decide to void a scene on a whim, even if the RP is between only 2 people. You note card the RP and submit it to the complaints mailbox in the OOC area. Voiding a scene can involve a lot of work around so we are reluctant to do it, sometimes its just easier to deal with the fallout of a mistake unless its a huge character/faction/sim breaking encounter.  

--== Combat and System Rules ==--

1) Celerity- For a point of blood spent on celerity you receive your celerity rating in extra actions at the end of the round.  You may only spend one point of blood per turn on Celerity.

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Example: Joe Bob burns a blood point and has a celerity rating of three. Joe receives three extra actions at the end of the round.

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2) Protean 2 (Feral Claws)- Instantaneous no warm up round. You spend the blood you go Wolverine on everyone's ass.

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3) Potence- Can never be turned off. One with a potence rating must declare they are holding back and make the appropriate roll to do so.

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4) Fortitude- Bashing and Lethal damage may be soaked with both your stamina and fortitude rating.  If you are soaking Aggravated Damage you may only roll your Fortitude.

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5) Auspex vs Obfuscate or Chimerstry- If Your Auspex level is higher than the opposing players Obfuscate or Chimerstry Rating you may observe their effect but you also see straight through it to the truth of reality.

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6) Combat- The St will call for initiative. The player with the highest initiative will then  take their action . Once all appropriate rolls are made for that section of the round the player with the second highest initiative will take their action. Any player attacked will have a reflexive dex and dodge check to attacks in line of sight. If someone is attacking you from behind only a soak roll will be applicable. IF  the ST running the scene feels you have some skill or background that affords you a chance to roll a dodge against these odds it will be rolled at a higher difficulty than normal.

 

7) Unless stated otherwise all difficulties are rolled at 6. ((Please do give the ST running the scene a moment to give you instructions as we are often answering a million and one IM's as well as running the scene.))

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8) If someone voluntarily goes into torpor they can be roused by vampire blood, if someone goes into torpor from damage they can be brought back out using the blood of a vampire at least 2 generations lower.

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--== DISCIPLINE PROCEDURE ==--

Conduct 

We aren't going to insult everyone by going over the usual blurb about Godmodding and Metagaming, you can't go to any role play sim without knowing or finding out what these are quickly. If you are completely new to role play and aren't sure what common RP etiquette and no-no's are, feel free to contact anyone in staff and they will be happy to go over things with you. 

 

- Discipline - By now you know what shouldn't be done to other players, so i am just going to jump into what happens when you break the rules. Discipline will depend on the seriousness of the offense. Everyone screws up from time to time and does something that they regret doing. People get mad, people say things that are meant to hurt, but you know what? Say it to your monitor, think about if you *REALLY* want to say it to the other person, the other person has feelings just like you. would you say what you just said to a loved one? OOC harassment is zero tolerance. You can be a horrible person ICly, but the moment you take it OOCly to someone you will be looking at punishment. 

 

Could be something as simple as a warning and an apology or as severe as a permanent ban.

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We understand that things do happen.  People are people and disagreements will occur at times.  With that in mind, we do have a set procedure that we will follow for infractions.

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First of all, try to work disagreements out with each other first, if you need to escalate contact a Mentor. If a mentor cant resolve the issue the MENTOR will call in an Admin. Complaints from players will be investigated to the best of our abilities, players crying wolf will be treated the same as those guilty of breaking the rules. The point of role play is to have fun and the point of storytelling is storytelling, not chasing down a complaint, so make sure if you are going to lodge one you have evidence.

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1st offense: Verbal Warning:  One of the staff will IM you directly to discuss the issue and explain why that is not allowed in Sanguine Sands.
    
2nd offense: Written Warning:  You will receive a notecard detailing the issue ***and*** be IMed by one of the staff.
    
3rd offense: Temporary Suspension:  You will receive a notecard detailing the issue, past issues, and steps taken as well as being IMed by one of the staff to discuss the issue.  You will be temporarily banned from the sim for an amount of time dependent on the severity of the issue.

 

4th offense: Permanent Ban: You will receive a notecard detailing the issue, past issues, and steps taken as well as being IMed by one of the staff to discuss the issue.  You will then be banned permanently from the sim.

 

Examples of offenses:  Sexual harassment, meta gaming, godmodding, playing staff members against each other, disruption of rp.  

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Those are just a few things.  Everything is taken on a case by case basis.  You will be given a chance to defend yourself and discuss with the staff any comments or questions you have.

--== THE GOLDEN RULE ==--

I know your grandmother says this is treat people the way you wish to be treated. Today Grandma is wrong. The golden rule of Sanguine Sands is.............

HAVE FUN!!!!!

I know this page was tedious to read and probably a little daunting at times. We put this out there for all of you so no one can try to manipulate you into doing something your character wouldn't do because of some rule they believe exists. These are here to protect all the players. We'd really love it if you all could forget we're admins and ST's when we are just Rping with you. We want to have fun too.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this and have fun riding the tide of the story.

Sanguine Sands Admins