Code of Conduct

• You agree that you are at least 21 years of age.
• You agree to respect the personal lives and boundaries of other members, including not pestering community leaders to perform tasks for you, or placing the burden of your mental health on others. We ask you remember this is a first and foremost hobby; members, even leaders, are not obligated or paid to be here.
• You agree that you will approach issues with other members both with candor and empathy; you agree to tell people how you are really feeling about a situation in polite terms so that you can reach a place of mutual understanding.
  • If you have an issue with another member and wish to stay in the community, you agree that it is your responsibility to address the issue and prevent the buildup of negative feelings. This may sometimes mean having awkward one-on-one conversations, though you are welcome to ask community leaders to mediate if you feel it is necessary. Whenever you feel unsafe due to another member’s actions, are unable to address an issue personally, or need to escalate it due to irreconcilable differences, please notify community leaders as soon as possible.
• You agree to help foster a diverse and welcoming setting both in- and out-of-character and reject real-world prejudices such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. If the idea of writing or interacting with characters and members that belong to BIPOC, LGBT, or other marginalized groups is distasteful to you, do not join.
• You agree to use content warnings and tags appropriately, as described below; you also agree to check these warnings and heed them in accordance with your own limitations.
• You agree to act collaboratively and not try to overpower or “win” against other members. It is your responsibility to contribute ideas to plots and scenes and to propel them forward with your own contributions so that nobody feels like all expectations rely solely on their own shoulders.
• You agree to engage with the setting in the spirit of themes outlined in this Bible and understanding that this is historically inspired, rather than historically accurate.
• When role playing, you agree to engage with our gameplay mechanics to collaboratively create an interesting story, and that your character is not inherently more safe or important than any other character. You acknowledge that you are willing to put them into risky an interesting situations, examine their flaws, and sometimes lose. You agree to willfully engage with other members/characters and uplift them rather than put them down even if characters' in-game goals are different.

Rating

• Our RPG rating is 3/3/3. Mature language, sexual content, and graphic violence may be described in detail as long as it is preceded by content warnings and respects the boundaries of other players. For example, do not introduce spiders in a scene with someone who has listed spiders as a hard limit – but if you have spiders as a hard limit, it is your responsibility to avoid places where spiders are discussed.
• Sexual content is welcome, but we are not an erotica-centered community. Do not solicit other members or create characters for the main purpose of writing sexual content.

Content Warnings

• Graphic descriptions of violence
• Graphic descriptions of sex
• Sexual assault
• Torture
• Domestic violence
• Child abuse
• Self-harm and suicide

Activity

• If you choose to make a character, the type of character you make will determine how often we check in with them.
• If you take on a Stewardship role, we ask you to honestly communicate with us about your availability.

Aesthetics

• To preserve readability, please do not change the color or size or otherwise significantly modify the main content text in posts. However, feel free to have fun decorating non-essential text!
• Art from outside sources must have a link to the source and/or be credited with text unless it is specifically allowed to be used freely without credit. If the copyright holder of an image specifies that an image cannot be used here, it will be taken down.
• AI art can be used here as long as users acknowledge that it was made by AI, and as long as a piece was not generated with the intention of copying from specific living artists (unless they have expressly given permission to use their art as reference for AI).
  • Because this is an emerging technology, we may accordingly change this policy over time, but stand by the idea that AI art is ultimately a tool which can be used for both good and bad, just like any other digital art creation program.
• While we allow celebrities and outside characters to be used as visual reference, we do not have a face claim. This is to encourage the creation of characters based on plot elements rather than appearance.

Lore & Roleplaying

• For example: don’t think that a scene warrants a traditional play-by-post thread? Do a solo piece of writing.
• Feel bogged down by the idea of having to post constantly every few days? Try scheduling specific times to RP with your partners! We encourage setting specific days and times to “meet up,” as it were, instead of feeling that you have to constantly be posting.
• Want to contribute lore? You are welcome to write wiki style articles, but you can also try writing text as it would appear in-world, create graphics, and more.
• You don't have to plot and RP with every single person here – always be courteous OOC and communicate about what your character would be doing, but it is okay to limit what threads, plots, etc. you take on based on what you find most appealing and how much you can keep up with. That said, if you play a lead character, you should expect that they will be in higher demand.

Gameplay & Progression

• Dice must be rolled to determine outcomes of Deeds. Deeds include espionage, fighting, warfare, NPC interaction, childbirth, and interactions with magic. Use of dice at other times (for smaller character-to-character interactions) is completely optional.
• Characters are assigned statistics to describe their personality traits and abilities. These stats are used to influence the outcome of dice rolls.
• A season is a period of 3 months in character. At the end of each season is an interlude wherein game housekeeping is applied: profiles are updated, stagnating plots are evaluated, and characters can collect rewards for working towards goals.
• The IC-to-OOC time ratio is roughly 1:1 but can vary depending on our needs. If a lot is happening in a single season, it may be extended to give players adequate time to catch up.
• At the beginning of a new season, each character is allotted 2 Fortune Points. Fortune Points can be used to influence undesirable dice rolls, but cannot be regained once lost, and do not transfer to future seasons.

Characters

• Many characters you could create on Godless are likely to be intertwined with already existing characters. Members are expected to communicate and collaborate with the players of other characters so they can fit into the mythos.
• Try not to hinge a character’s existence or main plot on making open requests. Requests and want ads aren’t a bad thing, but try to focus most of your plotting on characters who already exist.
• There are three overarching categories of characters on Godless. These categories are based on their level of involvement in our “Main Storylines.” For more information about what a Storyline is, read Get Involved.

Lead Characters

• Lead characters must be participating in at least one ongoing storyline.
• Lead characters must have at least 3 pieces of storytelling content (threads, one-shots, graphics, etc) related to storylines per season.
• Players of lead characters must be willing to communicating out of character with other players regularly about what they are doing with their character(s).
• Every lead character must complete seasonal check-ins.
• If you have a lead character and know you will not be able to participate for an extended period of time, please make arrangements to ensure your character does not disrupt the storyline. If a lead character has not been active, they are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
• Lead characters have just one player, for the sake of consistency.
• Lead characters receive 2 free fortune tokens are the beginning of each season. [[??]]

Supporting Characters

• All characters are supporting characters by default.
• Supporting characters are not inherently less important than lead characters; they are intended to take on a supporting role to our main, often fast-paced, storylines. Any supporting character can have a major impact on main storylines and lead characters, but they are not leading the action, so their activity requirements are lower.
• If a supporting character has a significant, plot-altering relationship with a lead character, you may need to communicate more often even if you are not actively participating in threads. If you disappear, the players of any lead characters who are affected can decide on the best course of action for how to move forward.
• Supporting characters can have just one player, or several. A character’s creator is able to decide whether you have sole control over them, wish to share that control with other chosen members, or wish for them to be open for anyone to use them within reason.
• Supporting characters may be required to complete seasonal check-ins on a case-by-case basis; namely if they are heavily involved with lead characters to the point of directly affecting our main storylines.
• Supporting characters do not receive free fortune tokens, and must earn them by [[BLAH BLAH]].

NPCs

• An NPC is any character who is referenced in the story, but do not have a typical character sheet or designated players.
• Members can volunteer to make an NPC into a regular character.