These rules are not up for negotiation, discussion or argument. They will be obeyed, or else the staff will enact creative discipline, which may include but is not limited to whipping, the pillory, transportation, hanging by the neck until dead, warning, editing, and banning.

General Rules

Do not harass your fellow members and staff. Behave towards everyone with respect, even if you do not personally like them. Extend equal courtesy towards everyone on this forum, friend or enemy. Keep any ugliness or drama off the public boards, and do not drag others into it.

Do not alter the forum font. If you put in a foreign font or make your text smaller than the normal font size, it can make it difficult for others to read. Also avoid using asterisks, curliques or other marks to adorn your text.

Keep your signature images to a maximum of 250 pixels high and 500 pixels wide. Any larger images will be removed.

No spamming. Period. You know what spamming is. Don’t do it.

Roleplaying Rules

No Mary-Sues. Or Gary-Stus. You should know what these are. They are the perfectly beautiful/handsome people, who never fail or make mistakes. They can take several forms. There is an article in the Background Information on Sewage here. Read it and take note.

No godmodding. No powerplaying, auto-ing, bunnying, or any other syonym. Do not control another character’s actions or dialogue in any way. Do not say that anything happens to the other character; leave that to the player to decide. You may only write from the point of view of your own character, unless the other player(s) in a thread give you explicit permission.

No plagiarism. Intellectual theft includes theft of ideas as well as exact wording. Don’t steal from someone else, either on this board or any other. Don’t steal from professional TV shows, movies, books, or other media. Be original.

Keep all writing in third-person past tense. First person and/or present tense are not allowed.

Use appropriate spelling and grammar. Sometimes a character may have a dialect or accent that requires some creative spelling – this is acceptable. However, for the majority of your posts, use decent English please. This is a literate board, and we do not want l3375p34k or chatspeak contractions.

Try to reply to an In-Character topic within a reasonable length of time. This means inside of a week at the maximum. If you are going to be unable to reply for any reason, please notify the others involved in the thread with you, and direct them as to how to mod your character along or out of the way. If you do not, and vanish without warning, a Staff member will take temporary control of your character, and you will just have to deal with the results – which may not be pretty.

No smut. Sexual content is allowed, but don’t go writing porn for the sake of porn. Mature content should be exactly that – mature, not adolescent fantasies running wild. Keep it tasteful.

Keep your writing realistic and historically appropriate. We don’t want anachronisms either in technology, appearances, or behaviour. Please see the Background Information for help on how to conform to England in 1754. Also, please expect to see realistic consequences for actions that your character takes – he or she cannot do crazy/illegal/stupid things and expect to get away scot-free.

No magic or supernatural occurrences in RP. This is a hard and fast rule. I do not want to see vampires, werewolves, witches, elves, dragons, time-travellers, or anything of the kind. Your character should be able to be “cool” enough within the limits of Newtonian physics and 18th century technology.

Please make your posts at least three paragraphs in length. We understand that sometimes a block happens, or there just isn’t enough to do in a post to make it very long. But for the most part, we would like some detail in posts. Remember, a paragraph is at least three full sentences.