Site Rules

[June]

OOC Rules

• Treat others the way you would like to be treated, with dignity and respect. Don't get along? Either bring in a moderator to help resolve the conflict or simply ignore each other, live and let live. Life's too short for petty drama.
• Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The Content Rules are the limits of what is allowed. You should not regularly be testing the limits.
• Be courteous to your writing partners. Stories tend to die if they are left unattended for long. If you need more time or are unavailable, make a best effort to inform your roleplay partners.
• Use proper spelling and grammar for your IC writing. Text speak is forbidden unless there is narrative reason (example: your character is livestreaming and the livestream's chat is part of the narrative).
• Out-of-character comments belong in a quote or spoiler block or in specific OOC threads.

Posting Rules

• No oneliners. We do not enforce a word count, sometimes a short post can advance the story meaningfully, sometimes a longer post is needed. However, this forum is not intended for oneliner writing.
• No plagiarism. Do not claim preexisting writing as your own.
• No AI writing. You're allowed to use AI for research or grammar/spell-checking, but you may not use AI to write your posts and pass this content off as your own, see the previous no plagiarism rule.
• All posts must be in English. If you write in another language because your character or an NPC you write speaks another language, you should provide an English translation alongside it.

[June]

RP Rules

• No metagaming. Your character can only act on the knowledge which they have either because they were told something directly or otherwise acquired certain knowledge. As your character's author you likely know more than your character. This rule forbids you from pretending that your character has the same information available to them as you, the author, do.
• No godmoding. You are only allowed to control your character's actions, thoughts, dialogue, and movement, not those of other characters. You may not make assumptions about how other characters will react, unless agreed upon in advance with your writing partner(s). If you have agreed with your writing partner(s) that you are allowed to god-mod (control) their character(s), you should include an out-of-character note (in a quote block or spoiler block) in your post to indicate to moderators that permission was given by your writing partner(s) for you to control their character(s) in your post.
• No invented abilities or spells. You may only use the spells, potions, and abilities which your character has. You may not invent entirely new spells, potions, or abilities which do not exist within the site's magic system.
• Use and respect topic tags. Topic tags denote if a roleplay is finished or ongoing, and if ongoing, who is able to write in them
  • [PV] or [Private] means the thread is only available to pre-determined roleplay partners.
  • [Open] means that any player may join this thread. You may choose to specify a group in this tag, such as your house, year, or club.
  • [Finished] means that the thread has come to a conclusion, and is no longer able to be replied to.

5) Backdating and Forward dating guidelines. IDK PUT THEM HERE.

[June]

An NPC is a "non-player character", a character that is not written by a user. NPCs are often faceless, the people that we reference passing in the halls. They are used to reinforce the setting and support the story of PCs (player characters).

Types of NPCs
Faceless NPCs
The characters you reference passing in the hall, sitting in the library, sharing your common room, that are not played by other players.
Their intervention and presence is more environmental. They often don't interface with a character beyond perhaps hushing them in the library when they speak loudly, looking/glaring at a character as they pass in the halls to suggest perhaps some sort of wide-spread reputation or to reinforce the feel of the thread.
Faceless NPCs can not give you information your character does not have access to, this is still considered metagaming.

Dependent NPCs (dNPC)
These are NPCs that only have to do with your character and your story. They have more relevance than a faceless NPC because they have a "face", a name and a history. They are necessary for your character's development and logical existence, such as having parents, a sibling, a best friend.
These dNPCs would not be going around the community on their own independently, as they are dependent on your character, so they would only be in threads with your character, or with your permission, in a thread with another character.
This means that you would not write a solo roleplay from your father's perspective about a deal he made in the Ministry.
Ultimately, dNPCs are not a primary part of your story and should be nothing more than a footnote used to facilitate your character.
dNPCs may (and should) be used to flesh out the world we have. You may create a dNPC character from another order, year, etc, to have your character interact with as a friend, rival, classmate, etc.
While dNPCs help us fill our world with many more people, they are not and should not be the focus. We always encourage authors to search for a PC who is able to fill a certain role in their overarching story or thread before creating a dNPC.


NPC Rules
1) NPCs can not give your character information they would not otherwise have access to. This is still considered metagaming.
2) NPCs can not give you an advantage over other characters. While your character's father may be a world-renowned wizard user specializing in memory magic, this does not mean that you can use him to wipe the memory of other characters. The rule of thumb is this: If your character can't do it, you can't have a dNPC do it for you.
3) NPCs have reasonable access to skillsets. Meaning if a parent is a doctor, they would have the skills of a physician. If a parent is a wizard user, they are able to cast spells.

[Mural]

NPC Rules

An NPC is a non-player character, a character who exists to add colour and life to a scene or who plays a supporting role in your character's story, but who is not the main focus. In most cases, NPCs are passersby in the background, faceless and nameless characters with no backstory and no role in your story other than to set the scene or help move your story along. Every character that is not your character and that is not a character written by another player on this site is an NPC.

You may create and write NPCs in your stories (for example siblings, parents, other family members, background characters, and so on), but you must abide by the following rules:

• An NPC can not provide your character with information which they would otherwise not be able to get as this is considered metagaming.
• You may not use NPCs to give yourself or your character an advantage. The rule of thumb is this: whenever your character's actions or the actions of an NPC you control affect another player's character, you are limited to actions which your character has the spells, abilities, potions and aptitude(s) to accomplish. Below you can find a few more examples of what is and isn't allowed:
  Spoiler (click to show)

  Allowed:

  • Claiming that your character's uncle is a powerful wizard
  • In a solo thread you would be allowed to write that your character's uncle used advanced spells (which your character does not have). In this case it is allowed because the context is a solo thread, which is a thread that only involves your character and no other players. Because of this, it does not have an effect on other player's characters and that is what makes it allowed.

  Disallowed:

  • Claiming that your character's uncle is Voldemort's bestie.
  • Having your character's uncle give your character a special wand or some other special item which would make them more powerful. At this point you are giving yourself/your character an advantage, and that is not allowed.
  • Having your character's uncle apparate into a moderated thread to save your character from injury. You would be giving yourself an unfair and unreasonable advantage by doing this and that is not allowed.
• NPCs must be written within reason. Just like every other character on this site, they are not all powerful and are not infallible, nor are they any more special than any other character. You cannot claim that your NPC character is Dumbledore's forgotten brother or Voldemort's best friend because this would grant an unreasonable level of importance to your NPC, and therefore to your character by extension.
• You may write from the viewpoint of an NPC (like a parent) in a solo thread, but you must clearly indicate so in your post. Example, if your character is Joe, then you should include a note reading: "this post is written from the perspective of Joe's mum." on your first post. You are also allowed to write from an NPC's viewpoint in threads with other players so long as all the other players involved all consent to it. This is intended as a narrative tool to give you greater creative freedom, but is something you should do sparingly. You're doing it wrong if you are writing from NPC perspectives more frequently than your character's viewpoint.