The Rules

[Tiko]

Nexus is a roleplay designed to provide a healthy and safe environment for writers of all skill levels, writing styles, and genre interests. An element of tolerance for the less skilled, and respect for differences in RP tastes is required of everyone. This RP is very much a community driven RP, and we all share in it.

We have several Game Master's available to assist players, but all players are encouraged to first attempt to work problems out among themselves and to come to compromises whenever possible. We understand though that sometimes this is simply not possible, and in the event that a compromise cannot be reached any player may at any time appeal to a Game Master to make a ruling. Everyone joining Nexus should understand that once a ruling is requested, the Game Master's decision is final.

Game Masters: Tiko, Dashmiel, and Jag.

With that all said here are the rules and guidelines that we must all adhere to, and when in doubt trust in the spirit of collaboration.

1. General Rules:
   
   
   • Maintain common civility towards your fellow players. Abusive behavior, harassment, deliberate exclusion, blatant sabotaging of each other's stories, and/or other similar acts of intolerance are grounds for removal from the roleplay.
     
     
   • All posts should be written in past-tense third person.
     
     
   • An effort to maintain correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation is required.
     
     
   • We ask that you refrain from the use of color coding to distinguish dialogue in posts. It can be very difficult to read, and it also does not replace the need for using line breaks between changes in speakers. Readability is especially difficult when trying to juggle colors that are readable on multiple themes. A single solid color for the entire post is easier to read and when in doubt, the default color is the easiest to read and auto-adjusts for whatever theme the reader is using.
     
     
   • We also ask that you refrain from over fluffing your posts with aesthetic imagery and formatting. It's very distracting to the readers, and this is a collaborative writing roleplay. This means that we put emphasis on writing with words. To clarify on this point, occasional pictures for complimentary imagery is fine, but centered posts with sparkling banners and multicolored cursive font is unnecessarily.
     
     
   • Do not metagame. The use of out-of-character information that your character could not have known is regarded as cheating and is disrespectful to your fellow players.
     
     
   • Do not auto-hit. You may not force the resolution of an attack or action upon another player's character - or a location that belongs to another player - without the owner's permission. All characters that are the target of an attack or action must be allowed a response. This restriction may be voided for the sake of story development with the consent of all players involved.
     
     
   • Do not use any of the IC areas for OOC content. Keep all out-of-character discussion to the OOC subforums, PMs, or the discord OOC channel.
     
     
   • Do not make a character for another player's group without permission. This is disrespectful to the creator of the content.
     
     
   • Actions require backing content to support them. It is your responsibility to provide this. Failure to establish your content may result in actions being voided. To clarify on this point, you may not in the middle of an encounter establish that your character - an hour ago - set explosive traps that now blow up and kill everyone unless you can reference an earlier post displaying that your character did indeed do so. This rule may be voided for the sake of story development with the consent of all players involved.
     
     
   • Keep content reasonable for a general audience. Violent themes and strong language are permitted, as is alluding to sexual encounters, but strong erotic tones, sexual themes, or writing out sexual encounters is not permitted in Nexus.
     
     
   • Keep content original. While you may draw inspiration from various sources, please don't make fan-fiction characters or use published world settings in Nexus.
     
     
   • Don't bulldozing plots. What does this mean? It means the difference between playing in a sandbox with others and simply stomping on everyone else's sand castles. Within a collaborative RP the goal should always be to facilitate RP in which everyone's contributions can thrive, grow, and influence the direction of the story. Sweeping aside other players' content to replace it with your own can lead to unhappy players on all sides. Conversely excluding other players out of fear of your own content being altered in any way bulldozes their plots. We should all work together to create a direction that fosters RP growth rather than destroying it outright. How can you tell if you're bulldozing a plot? If your action will effectively eliminate all ongoing RP and force all players to adopt your singular story, you're probably bulldozing plots. If your action will merge with and allow other stories to continue but also influence their direction? You're probably within the spirit of collaboration. If you feel uncertain if a story development you want to pursue might risk bulldozing other players' stories then I encourage you to consult any of the Nexus GMs for advice.
     
     
     
2. Character/Group Rules
   
   
   • Forming groups and factions with other players is permitted within Nexus but groups created with the intent of traversing across multiple regions of Nexus must be primarily comprised actual characters rather than droves of nameless mooks. Nexus as a roleplay focuses on individual characters. Nation Roleplay between worlds is not permitted, nor is making organizations and factions comprised of hundreds of NPCs except as is required for lore and story development within specific plot-lines.
     
     What this means is that it is permissible to get a group of characters together to form a bounty hunter guild to pursue bounties in multiple Rift World threads and Shattered Isle arcs. It is equally permissible to assume there are other members of said organization out there in the world as a generally understood flavor element. It is also permissible to form a Shattered Isle story arc that contains nations within its world that will be encountered over the course of the arc.
     
     It is not permissible to by yourself form a bounty hunter guild filled with two-thousand npcs to wield as a personal tool to attack other players. It's also not permissible to create a full-blown nation (outside of aforementioned plot specific requirements) that puts millions of soldiers and npcs at your personal disposal with the intent of using them to invade other people's Rift World threads or Shattered Isles arcs. Keep such things contained to their relevant stories.
     
     
   • Character power levels should be used to further stories, not to disrupt them. If a character is designed that is extremely powerful and seems to be only serving the purpose of causing disruptions, ending storylines, or indiscriminately causing chaos and trying to kill other peoples' characters for no reason, you may be asked to retire the character.
     
     
   • All characters must be original characters. Characters that are the product of fan-fiction are not permitted in Nexus.
     
     
     
3. Forum Specific Rules
   
   
   • Don't stir up conflict in the main Nexus IC forum. Nexus serves as a safe-haven for people to kill time between stories, or to recruit characters via IC means with the intention of moving to the Shattered Isles or Rift Worlds. It is not a place to provoke random violent encounters and fights.
     
     
   • The Nexus IC Forum is open-join all the time for anyone. You don't need to ask to post here.
     
     
   • Don't join ongoing rift threads without an invitation unless it has been tagged as open.
     
     
   • Shattered Isle roleplay arcs are always typically open-join for anyone. But please contact the Storyteller heading the area you want to join first. This is to ensure there's still room in the roleplay, and to bring you up to speed on the current progress of the story if necessary.
     
     
     
4. Not Rules but Recommendations/Things to avoid.
   
   
   • Avoid lengthening posts for the sake of length. Sometimes a post only calls for a sentence or two, and that's fine. Sometimes they call for five paragraphs. There's no one right post length for all contexts, and you should be comfortable with writing shorter posts if it's called for. Example: Heavy dialogue encounters are liable to result in shorter posts. If you open any book, dialogue is typically done with rapid one line exchanges to maintain a flow of conversation. Too much filler causes a reader to lose the rhythm and flow of the dialogue. Writing short dialogue posts is perfectly acceptable. Conversely, if you're engaged in a massive space siege encounter, you can expect a post to require much more substance to it so that the other players have something to work off with their own posts.

 

[Tiko]

A Guide to Understanding Combat and Power Divisions in Nexus​

Given the size and scope of Nexus, it can at times be difficult to understand how various elements of the roleplay are scaled and balanced against one another. This guide is to the serve the purpose of helping to clarify upon that.

The first and foremost point that every player within the Nexus needs to understand though is that not all characters, weapons, and abilities are going to be equal in power and strength. It would be strange for a powerless ten year old character to have equal attack and defense power as a fully armed mercenary, or a fantastical dragon. This is the nature of Nexus.

An attack or action isn’t deemed OP just because it can’t be stopped by what another character has in play at any given point at time. An attack or action is only deemed OP if it is OOCLy declared as ‘unstoppable via any means’ and if a player can’t explain or back their action as feasible within the realm of what has been established ahead of time. A player may BELIEVE their attack or action unstoppable but it rests on them to PROVE it if a defender pulls out a defense that the attacker didn’t expect, or vice verse. Furthermore it may well turn out that an attack or defense IS unstoppable given the current scope of a scene and the abilities/resources available at the point in time of an attack. This doesn’t make the attack or defense OP if under other circumstances and with the right abilities/resources it COULD be countered.

There will always be stronger entities to anything that exist in Nexus. Whether this is a single more powerful entity, or a combined effort of several weaker entities, no one person is above this design.

That all said, GMs do reserve the right to remove players and/or characters that have been created as absurdly powerful and seem to serve no purpose other than constantly disrupting the roleplay for other players.

I hope that this helps clarify on any questions and concerns regarding varying power levels in Nexus, but please don’t hesitate to contact our GMs if you feel that someone is overly abusing high tier characters with no intended story development.