Establishment of actual rules for the unorganized Cbox Roleplay - Phase ONE [PLANNING]

[Derpy Hooves]

It has come to the attention of everyone that participates in the Cbox Roleplay hosted off site that there is absolutely no precendence of rules and this is causing issues for many people. To avoid this, I suggest and many others have suggested that a simple ruleset be put in place. This ruleset can follow the following basic guidelines outlined below:

-The Cbox roleplay prides itself on its simplicity and openness, there will be no rules regarding selection of detail, storytelling regulations, scene regulations or anything relating to what makes it a "real" roleplaying system or not.

-The Cbox roleplay prides itself on being inviting, all 7-9 of us encourage others to join, as it is a simple casual roleplay, no sticklers there, in fact, much of the roleplaying would be heavily frowned upon by veterans, its simply fun. No rules shall be put in place to limit who may or may not join.

-The Cbox roleplay already has a very simple storyline set up, with detail trees spanning in all directions, no rules will be set up that directly sever any already existing features. Basically: These rules will not change anything unless expressly agreed to change something.


PRELIMINARY BASIC RULESET FOR DISCUSSION. 11/18/12
"creators" are referred to as "players" in in depth descriptions.

-Creation of any new characters must be relavent. New characters must follow all rules set in basic ruleset AND rules for character creation
[CREATE SMALL SET OF GUIDELINES FOR CREATION OF NEW CHARACTERS]

-No Godmodding as defined below [REFINE DEFINITION OF GODMODDING AS APPLIED TO CBOX ROLEPLAY]

-Technology fits within criteria set by Technology Guidlines.

-Span of actions: within high activity portions of roleplay, characters tend to occasionally do far to much in a single "action" this causes trouble in that every other character must respond to it, and in turn may have to respond to the other characters' responses.
EX: Chars 1, 2, 3 and 4 are at a dinner party, and having an argument that may lead to a fight.
PROBLEM ACTION: Char 1 screamsin anger, jumps up and slices the lead holding the chandelier from the ceiling, making it fall just next to Char 4 while running out the door.
This is a problem, because character 4 must now react to the chandelier falling, which may in turn effect what chars 2 and 3 do, but at the same time, no one can easily react to Char 1 storming out. This is an example of Char 1 abusing the general rule of roleplay's reality to escape without conflict. In general, Char 1 logically would NOT have been able to do all of that. So in this case his action should be limited to simply cutting the lead on the chandelier. The player will then wait for at least one reaction before constructing the action of him /ATTEMPTING/ to leave. Because this is a heated situation, all actions must be limited. Think about it in the context of a movie, video game, or Tabletop RPG. In low excitement situations, a character can accomplish much, nearly anything, without worry, but in combat things go turn by turn, and a turn is limited to what you can do within a certain time frame. Char 1 cannot logically just LEAVE this dinner party if he has characters in pursuit of him (which he probably will judging by his actions). So this will be his action of "making it out for the door" and then after others attempt to react, he can most likely escape.
But also, chars 2, 3, and 4 will be limited. 4 will most logically be too startled by the chandelier and in making effort to move it not have time to pursue 1. 2 or 3 may want to help 4, but they cannot attempt to console her and also make a run for 1 in the same action. Lastly. 2 or 3 cannot simply "Make it to the door first" or "stab 1 in the back, pinning him to his place". All of these may be ATTEMPTED and if all players are being respectful, are knowlegable about the characters, and want to have fun, will react accordingly. 1 may or may not make it to the door, it's mostly his choice. But logically if 2 others attempt to stop him, he'll probably be stopped. I propose that for high intensity situations, to help keep order AND excitement (allowing all players to participate) we limit all actions to a certain timeframe. 3-6 seconds maybe, if what you want to do cannot be completed in that time, you must not "DO" it in one action. You can begin it, or progress it however.
In low-intensity situations, this is all much more relaxed. A waitress character may very well slice the carrots AND bring them to the table, smiling as she leaves. Why? Because what's going to happen? Is a giant bug going to jump out of the Carrots and eat her face? No. Any intense actions can wait for the simple action to be through. It's more suspenseful and humorous that way anyway.

BUT!!!!!!! All of these regulations are overshadowed by one major rule:
-The little boy who doesn't cry wolf, gets eaten. And the little boy that speaks a different language, still gets eaten after crying wolf.
This simply refers to this simple fact: if you don't believe something follows the rules, and you would like to change it, call it out. You can't come in 10 posts later and say "THAT WAS AGAINST THE RULES!!!" because you've already been Eaten. Also, what you say in your objection must refer to the rules, otherwise you are speaking a different language, and the objection is disregarded. All respectful players will listen to each other and make compromises. THIS RULE ALSO APPLIES: if characters are breaking rules and it's not affecting anyone but the characters involved, and the players for those characters do not mind, they don't have to cry wolf. Example: Chars A and B are in a heated combat situation with nobody else around, and A pulls out of nowhere and amazingly powerful weapon (violated rules to be set up in creating your character, no overt surprises). Now say B pulls out an amazingly powerful weapon as well, and A and B simply fight it out. Char C is in another town and the player can see this, but why should the player call it out if A and B are the only ones involved and they are okay with it? In this sense the violation is ignored as long as no one minds. This keeps the casualness of the roleplay and allows for everyone to have a good time. Because lets be honest, sometimes time constraints or boredom lead us to do stupid stuff, We al want to have fun right? Work with eachother to ensure that.

PLEASE REVIEW THESE RULES (2 currently) and discuss. I will amend this post with barebones(preliminary) character creation guidelines and a barebones godmodding definition later today.
NOT A SINGLE RULE COMES INTO PLAY UNTIL LATER WHEN WE HAVE VOTED, AGREED AND ONE OF US (probably me) HAS WRITTEN A CLEAR DESCRIPTION OF THE RULES! For now this is just me talking out my ass and enjoying trying to help you all.



REGARDING THIS THREAD! None of this will necessarily ever become rule, i am not the god of the roleplay, i'm simply starting a movement to stabilize it from within. Everyone must participate or no changes will occur... except noir, since he doesnt come here.

[Nightfire]

We should have Cbox open again since Charr problem is gone, we can still use the "Nightfire: (Yuko)" system but be nice to have it open :)

[Moonlight]

In light of the openness and the casualty of the roleplay, I think we should have a set of rules explaining what is and isn't "godmodding" within the CBox. For example:
Godmodding: directly determining the outcome of an action of one's own OC upon another's OC or a place under his jurisdiction(?) without consent from he who holds the OC or place(?) being affected by the action

[Sky Cloud]

i agree with what Moonlight said.

I think we should implement a reason behind every move we make. i mean, there will be times, especially with Chaos users, where they will stretch the limits, but doing things because there is nothing better to do is just pointless.

i also think there should some limitations on what certain OC's can and cant do. i will go on about this at a later time because im am super tired at the moment

[Derpy Hooves]

I think we should implement a reason behind every move we make. i mean, there will be times, especially with Chaos users, where they will stretch the limits, but doing things because there is nothing better to do is just pointless.

This is the only part of this I don't agree with. I don't understand why it matters to anyone if pointlessness happens, since it's exactly that, pointlessness. If Zane gets bored, claps his hooves and turns his head into an orange, what's the problem? It changes nothing for anyone else. Yes it's pointless but it doesn't have to waste any time if you don't want it to, just don't have your character react.

"AHH ORANGE HEAD"

[Derpy Hooves]

VERY VERY ROUGH PRELIMINARY RULESET ADDED TO FIRST POST!!

Other ideas to prevent the roleplay from becoming too stiff (we don't want to become a boring turn by turn deal):

Minimum post/time delay before continuing or amending actions.

Don't you hate it when your character says something and it takes 20 minutes to get a response? Don't you hate when your character hugs another character, and then that characters next action is something not even involved with your hug, and now your character is stuck hugging thin air? Well we can prevent that!

IDEA: always wait until at least one character responds to your actions. If it takes a character too long to respond, you have permission to perform more actions (speaking counts as action in this context.

Say you do something, and no one responds. We all have lives and might have gone off to do them. Let's give a 9 post or 4 CBox minute limbo frame, and then you can make another action. So if 9 posts go by before a response to you is made, or if the time is now 4 minutes past the CBox time on the action in question (which will vary from 3 to 4 minutes, a short wait) you have permission to make another action with that character.

Of course, there can always be exceptions, and the cry wolf rule will always apply.

[Moonlight]

In terms of Derpnelli's thoughts on "crying wolf," the "time span" and "high intensity," I think that there should be some set of rule excusing someone who has to be inactive for whatever reason. Example:
Characters A and B are in a highly intense combat situation. Player A has to leave to eat dinner, leaving Player B's character striking at Character A with no response. In such a situation, I believe that Characters A and B should be left in a suspended state of conflict, and no Player should be able to attempt an interruption until all involved Players are present.

[Nightfire]

um that what normally happens anyways -.-

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