Rule Book

by **Admin Ghost** Wed May 04, 2011 3:52 pm

The Rules of STC

No matter where you go, no matter what you do, there will always be something telling you where not to step and how not to act. That something is called a rule book. And guess what? You haven’t escaped it. Yes, we have rules. Yes, we enforce those rules. And just like the law, ignorance is no excuse. So, if you want to play here, and you don’t want to be stripped of a character, a privilege or your entire ability to play here at Suffer the Children, you better bone up. Read the rules, love the rules, live the rules. You will only get one warning, and that is all. After your warning, you will be banned. Obey the rules and you are safe; disobey and...

If you have any other questions about game play or Green Ridge rules, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.

by **Admin Ghost** Wed May 04, 2011 6:32 pm

Character Creation

Remember to read the list of Allowed Issues BEFORE making your patient characters. Dissasociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), Psychosis and Schizophrenia were never on the list, and we are very tight on our approval guidelines to reflect that.

Siblings or relations are allowed (within reason and we reserve the right to put holds on siblings if/when it gets out of hand)! St. Christina's accepts students from all over the country and while there are only so many beds to fill, there is still a whole island to populate!

General

Read all rules and information before beginning your character.
Your character must be human, no exceptions.
Chosen Play-By must be a real person. No artwork, video game characters, anime, etc.. Please, only celebrities, even if they aren't well known. No people from MySpace, Deviant Art, pictures of yourself or your friends.
We do not accept names made popular by books, movies, music or media. No characters named Edward Cullen, Angelina Jolie, Pete Wentz, or Johnny Socrates. This is not a fansite. Having names that belong to famous actors, musicians, or characters from books may confuse new members into thinking this is a fansite.
Your character must display some flaws or they will not be accepted.
Your character must list a US address in their application. Your character can be from any country you like, but must have full or dual citizenship. No exceptions! If you really need a reason, think of it this way: GR Biotech won't have any juristiction or legal rights to a citizen from another country.
It is not realistic to have a site with 2380873491827409284 patients, and very few staffers/residents. Thus, to help even out the balance, for every 2 patients you make, your next must be a faculty member or a resident of the island.
Once your character is accepted, you MUST put your name up on the Face Claim and sign up on the Who Plays Who. If you do not, you will receive a warning.

Unlike most RPGs, you will have more fun with character flaws here than with strengths. So have fun with it!

Account Name
Your account name should be your character's first and last name. Make sure you use proper capitalization and include the space.

Acceptable Account Names: Gary Sommers, Mary Summers

Unacceptable Account Names: ghery, gary123, gairy_twilightfan93854

Posting Your Application
Once you've read all of the information on our premise, plots, the rules both IC and OOC, and what afflictions you are allowed to choose from, you may fill out your application and post it in the Applications board. But please beware that we do not accept WIP (Work In Progress) applications. Your application must be complete.

Alternatively, you can do the walk-throughs in our Character Creation board so that you are sure that you don't miss anything. We strongly suggest this option!

Patience
Please have patience when waiting to have your application reviewed. The admin and moderators are only human and would like a chance to RP too! That being said, we do promise to get to your application within 72 hours of posting. (Trust us, most of the time we review applications within hours of the posting because we’re just that dedicated!)

If we have not gotten to your app right away please do not spam the c-box or flood our PMs with ‘Have you read it yet’, ‘When will you review my app’, etc. It’s annoying... On top of all that, you will get a warning if you pester.

After Approval
Once you have your approved stamp in your application, you will be directed to sign up for a member group. Once you have signed up for the member group, you may go ahead and jump into game play without having to wait for your group to be set on your account. However, if you fail to do this... Well, you'll receive a warning.

Alternatively, if you sign yourself up for a member group before you have had your application approved, your application and account will be subject to deletion without warning. This may seem harsh and perhaps it is... But think of it this way: The Admins and Mods at STC have enough work to do that they do not need to have the additional hassle of weeding through group sign ups.

by **Admin Ghost** Thu May 05, 2011 7:29 pm

Posting Guidelines

You MAY NOT post anywhere on STC until your character
has been approved! Premature posts will be deleted.

Grammar

Use it.
No net or 1337 speek in IC Posts or in the c-box. The only exception to this rule is if your character would truly write this way when using the Keeping In Touch forums.
Try to use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Spell Check is your friend.
Firefox has spell check built into the browser. It's free and it rocks. Plus, our forum is best viewed in Firefox. If you don't already use it, consider it, yo.

Minimum Post Requirements

All posts are required to have a minimum of 300 words. The only exceptions to this rule are the Keeping In Touch forums.
Failure to meet the minimum posting requirements will result in a warning. This is an intermediate to advanced site. This is not an unreasonable request.

Quality of Posts

Play at your best, at all times.
Read what you've written before posting, out loud if necessary.
Check for run-on sentences, missing words, broken code, unfinished lines of thought, misused words, and other errors.
Remember to include what your character sees, smells, hears, tastes, or feels. Add texture to your environment with your words to make it come alive. This will not only make your posts looked forward to because they are more interesting to read, it will also help improve your creative writing skills.

Language

This board is rated . (To find out more about our rating, please see the RPG Rating in Detail thread.)
Explicit language is tolerated within In Character boards.
Keep it within reason or we will take this privilege away.

Violence

This board is rated . (To find out more about our rating, please see the RPG Rating in Detail thread.)
Violence is acceptable, maiming or killing another character is not.
The death of ANY character must be agreed upon by all parties involved AND cannot be played out without prior staff approval.
Because of the nature of the board, cutters, suicidal tendencies, etc., are accepted. We ask that you alert a staff member before you play a suicide attempt to let us know if you really want your character to die or not.

Sex

There will be no acts of pedophilia at STC. There will be no roleplaying sexual content with an adult character and a teen character. No exceptions!
Teenage patients housing assignments are NOT co-ed.
Bed checks are performed regularly and at random.
We will not allow ANY explicit sexual scenes on the boards. You are free to take roleplay of this nature to email or IMs if you feel it is necessary. Any overly explicit posts will be modified by a staff member without asking for your permission.
Pregnancies are not allowed without staff approval.

by **Admin Ghost** Thu May 05, 2011 7:35 pm

Text Size and Colors

In Character Areas

Use default text size or larger. (Some of us are old. We don't like squinting.)
Refrain from retina burning colors. (Some of us are old. Screaming could give us a heart attack.)
Bright colors and text smaller than the default may only be used minimally as accent text.
At this time, we request that you not use posting templates. If you do choose to use them, you may not use any templates that stretch our boards, make us scream in pain with your colors or use excessive images. Templates are to make your posts visually appealing. They are not used as a means to hide terrible writing.

OOC Areas

Use default text size or larger.
Respect others when choosing font color.

Remember: Always give credit where credit is due!

by **Admin Ghost** Thu May 05, 2011 7:39 pm

Avatars and Images

Image Restrictions:

NO nudity.
NO pictures, drawn, photographed, or implied, of a sexual nature.
NO 'shock' pictures (gruesome, shocking, disturbing pictures).
NO links to 'shock' pictures, pornographic sites, etc..

We do log IP addresses.
You will be banned and reported to your ISP.
You have been warned.

Avatars

Maximum avatar size is 150px wide x 200px tall.
If you need help making an avatar, please ask in the Requests board.

Signatures

Signatures may not be wider than 550 pixels.
Signatures may not be higher than 300 pixels.
It is not required to have a signature, but it is preferred.
For help making signatures, please make a request in the Requests board.

Images in Posts

DO NOT STRETCH THE BOARDS! We don't like that.
Max width is 550 pixels. Anything more will stretch the board and as you are now aware, we don't like that.
Do not hotlink. It's rude and it's stealing. Don't do it. It's not cool! Host your own images...
You could also consider using a text link in your post, or use Photobucket's Link Options to link a clickable thumbnail (see below) in your post instead of using the full sized image if its too large.

Lovely clickable thumbnail. Joy!

by **Admin Ghost** Thu May 05, 2011 7:51 pm

Out of Character

We do not allow:

Harassment of other players.
Hateful or derogatory remarks.
Racist, sexist, or religious jokes, slurs, or insults.
Pestering players to post in any way, shape or form.

We encourage:

Playing with as many others as possible.
Welcoming new players by responding to their threads.
Leaving openings in established threads for more to join.
Non-clique like behavior.

Please respect your fellow player. Drama belongs in the roleplay, not in the OOC boards. No one wants to be cursed at out of character, so remember to censor yourself when you are posting in the OOC boards.

Depending on the severity of the offense, you may receive a warning or be banned without notice.

Age ain't nothin' but a number...
But is a number we’re concerned with. Since we are a mature board and we deal with heavily mature themes, we ask that our members be sixteen (16) years and above. This allows us to maintain a community that is comfortable addressing these issues during the course of role play.

by **Admin Ghost** Thu May 05, 2011 7:52 pm

Activity Standards

Five ~~Second~~ Character Rule
That's right, you may only have five characters. We're not here to stifle your creative genius. However, we have found that the majority of players with more than five characters cannot keep up with our activity standards. This rule encourages a deeper thought process and consideration when thinking about making and apping new characters. You should be aware that because of our character limit, we feel that we should also be strict when it comes to our activity standards.

But don't fret! If you want more than your five, you have the ability to request additional characters. You must contact the Mod Squad and request another character. Your request will be voted on and you'll get a yes or no. Keep in mind that all of your other five characters MUST be active before we would even consider your request.

So here are the rules for activity. For each character you play, you MUST post AT LEAST once a week IN CHARACTER. If you're not feeling the muse for a particular character, then make an exit for that character in any and all threads he/she is currently in and post a notice in the Leave of Absence board to let us know you're taking a break from that character.

We're not asking much. Post IC once a week with each character you play, OR pull your character out of threads and post a notice explaining your temporary absence for that character.

Easy peasy, right?

Good. Because if you don't follow those simple rules, characters that are being slacked on will have their account deleted. If you do it a second time with another character, that account will not only be deleted but you will receive a warning. Do it a third time and all but ONE of your characters will be deleted. If you reach this point, any new character you submit will automatically be deleted without review until the Admins and Mods deem your activity level appropriate to add a new character.

So please, be considerate of your fellow players and don't cock-block your own muse by being an ass. It is written, we have spoken. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Leave of Absence Policy
You'll find our leave of absence board in the out of character category of the forum. When you begin a new thread for your 'LOA', please use the template we have provided. Please don't deviate from this form or change it. Once you've put up an LOA you have one month Leave of Absence unless you have stated otherwise for a legitimate reason (such as being out of the country on vacation for over a month and completely unable to gain net access.) After one month of LOA, the staff of STC must review your personal case before you may put up another month's worth of LOA. If, for instance, your LOA lasts for many months and you do not visit STC at all save for to update your LOA, this will not be received as favorably as if you had taken some time to try and put in at least a little activity, or catch up with other members so that we know what's going on. Once your one month LOA is up, you may PM one of STC's admins with the details of your circumstances, and we will consider your case and may suggest some options to you in concurrence with a new LOA update, such as lightening your character load or the like. If we do not see any effort to reach out and contact others, or if your LOA is not updated every month as it should be, your characters will be subject to deletion.

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