Policies

Alts

Make Alts. Don't abuse alts.

Alt Rules:

• Keep the knowledge and experiences of each character separate. If you must, maintain a notes file or notebook for each character to keep track of what each knows. This is a good practice outside of alts to keep track of what you know vs what your character knows.
• Don't have alts in the same scene. If you find two of your characters in the same location, move one out.

Alt Guidelines:

• Don't dilute yourself. Make only as many alts as you can manage.
• Talk to staff if you want to have alts in same or opposing factions.
• Keep the same SEMAIL across alts so Staff can more easily tell who's who.

Arbitration

When any number of people get together there is always friction and disagreement. Sometimes the disagreeing parties cannot come to an agreement for any number of reasons. For these situations, Sponge and Coyote can act as an arbitrator to get things resolved in a fashion as mutually agreeable as possible.

Sponge is here to write code and help keep the game running smoothly, not to RP, make friends, or fulfill some need for power. Coyote is here as well to help keep the game running smoothly, not to make friends, or fulfill some great need for power. Because of this, Sponge and Coyote will not show preferential treatment to any player or staffer and will work toward what they believe will best benefit the game as a whole. Sponge and Coyote will maintain confidentiality as requested and will not divulge information about one of the parties in a way other than what was agreed upon by Sponge or Coyote and the respective person.

If any player or staffer has an issue with another player or staffer and feels that it can't be worked out directly, then Sponge or Coyote should be contacted by @mail. Please keep in mind that Sponge works full time, so although he will be fair, impartial, and thorough, he won't necessarily be prompt.

See Also: Policies

CA Laws

The state of California has several laws that may be different from other states within the U.S. because of this we here at City of Hope have listed some of the more basic laws that will affect the world /IC/. Take note that this is a World of Darkness and just because the laws are in place does not necessarily mean that they will be strictly enforced in all areas or even obeyed by all people. This is a dark, Gothic punk world and these are dark times. Bad things can and will happen. No player or staff member is expected to adhere to these /IC/ laws, /OOC/ rules, laws and policies is a completely different matter and all players and staff are expected to adhere to such. As a side note, some of the /IC/ laws listed below have been modified to reflect the World of Darkness based theme for California state.

• The legal driving age in California is 16.
• The legal age of sexual consent is 18.
• The legal adult age in California is 18.
• The legal drinking age in California is 21.
• The legal gambling age in California is 18.
• The legal age to buy cigarettes/cigars in California is 18.
• The legal age to start work in California is 16.

Changing Risk

Players can change their character's Risk Level anytime they're not in combat. Once combat begins a character's Risk Level can't be changed by anyone. Damage, wounds, and other long-lasting effects gained at a certain Risk Level do not become cinematic when the player sets their character(s) to a lower Risk Level.

See Also: Risk System Risk Zones Risk Abuse

Common Sense

Staff are strongly encouraged to treat each character as if they have a version of the merit Common Sense. If a staffer sees a player about to do something that defies common sense thinking, they are encouraged to advise the player that whatever the character is about to do is a bad idea. Players are in no way obligated to follow "Common Sense" advice from staff. However, if the player elects not to follow the advice and the consequences are dire, the staffer is less likely to be sympathetic. Players are encouraged to ignore "Common Sense" advice if it would not be appropriate for their character's concept, mental state, or other circumstances.

Staff are not obligated to give out "Common Sense" advice. Staffers may forget, not realize the situation, or simply not feel like it. Conversely, staff is prohibited from encouraging bad decisions. Staff is not responsible for a character making good or bad decisions.

Handwaving

Staff on City of Hope feel that rules and consistency are important for balance in a game, however they shouldn't always get in the way of fun RP. When the most enjoyable outcome may be inconsistent with rules, theme, or storyline hand waving may be in order.

With hand waving players agree amongst themselves how a situation gets resolved without worrying about all the details. For example, two characters get into a fight. Neither is trying to seriously injure the other. They can decide for themselves who will win; they can reduce the combat to just a few dice rolls; or they can just rp the scene out, and agree upon an outcome. As long as everyone agrees the details aren't important.

Another common example is where the content of a scene is unpalatable to one or more participants. While everyone might consent to the situation and an inevitable outcome, the subject matter may be unenjoyable to play out. This is commonly called Fade To Black (FTB). No one should be forced to RP out a scene that everyone agrees is tedious or makes one of the players uncomfortable. In these situations, players are encouraged to discuss the scene out of character and come to an agreement, without having to RP it out.

While encouraged, hand waving has its limits. First and foremost, hand waving requires that all the participants agree. If agreement isn't met, a scene should be run according to rules, setting, and theme. If players can't agree on that they should seek Arbitration. Second, hand waving should never give any player an advantage that lasts longer than the scene or affects characters that weren't present. Lastly, hand waving can't be used to permanently alter the overarching story or setting; hand waving can't kill the NPC mayor or blow up the police station.

See Also: Arbitration

Idling

Idling on grid is not a crime!

Players are given XP periodically just for being IC. We determine IC and OOC by your location: if you're on the grid, you're IC, if you're off the grid, you're OOC. The names of OOC Rooms are all colored a luxurious purple to be easy to recognize.

A common concern is that a player is on grid to soak up XP and not to RP. While this does happen, we prefer to trust players by default.

Here are our IC idling guidelines:

• Being IC to wait for RP with specific people is fine, in public or private places.
• If you're waiting for RP but not with specific people we prefer you hang out in public but don't require it.

We also offer an OOC Tavern called Poser's which features private OOC rooms where players can idle as long as they wish, although NO RP is to be allowed there.

Learning

Here on City of Hope we do not require learning times for xp spends. Staff feels that if a player earns the experience then they should be able to spend it where and how they like within the confines of the rules of the game.

Mission Statement

These are the principles that we think a game should be based on. These ideas are the basis for our rules and policies. These ideas tell us whether or not a change goes against the spirit of the Mush.

• To protect everyone, staff and players will have rules that they will have to abide by.
• Staff and players should be treated as equals and with respect.
• Staff and players should be fair and impartial in all aspects of the game.
• A staff member's or player's personal life is not the business of the Mush.
• Standards should be in place to ensure effective communication for players and staff.
• The game should create an environment that is friendly to all.
• Staffers should be competent in the areas they are assigned to.
• Staffers need to contribute to an effective presence in their area of responsibility.
• Staffers should put equal effort into every player they are responsible for.
• Between staffers, professionalism takes precedence over friendship.
• No player should give or receive an advantage that they did not acquire through role play.
• Players have the right to refuse to be a part of a storyline that they didn't involve themselves in.
• By choosing to take part in a storyline, players accept some responsibility for that storyline.
• Chargen should be thorough, but easy and swift.
• Nothing well justified should be rejected for a character.
• It should be easy for players to find role play.
• Experience should be awarded for experiences, not just successes.
• Documentation should be informative, up to date, easy to follow and easy to find.
• Code should fill the requirements of the game.
• Code should be well documented and easy to use.
• The grid should be attractive and conducive to role play.
• Decisions should be transparent. Where it doesn't violate personal privacy or storyline, staff are required to explain decisions to players and other staff when asked, and players are required to explain their decisions to staff when asked. Players are never required to explain their decisions to other players.

NPC Play

For the purposes of PRPs and small, player-run scenes, players can fill NPC slots with the following criteria:

• The player must on an approved character.
• The NPCs must be 'nameless'. They cannot represent real characters on the grid.
• A player must be invited to NPC a scene. They cannot don an NPC role and enter a scene without the permission of those present.
• The player must temporarily stick NPC in their name somewhere.
• The NPC player must be given direction about the role they're expected to play.
• The NPC player may vote and is eligible for votes. They're contributing to the story!

See Also: PRPs

PrPS

PRPs allow players to act as storytellers in a limited capacity. running scenes and stories hopefully without the need for staff intervention. Players running PRPs can incorporate NPCs to drive the story and get people involved in ways they might not normally be involved.

Approval:

• If you're planning a PrP that is self-contained, involving no NPCs that exist outside the PRP, making no changes to the world outside the PRP, it is automatically approved.
• You'll need staff approval if you intend to run a PRP that:

• Permanently affects the world, setting, or theme;
• Utilizes sphere or key thematic NPCs (the Prince, the Hive Alpha, the mayor, established mob boss);
• Overrides player risk levels;
• Offers rewards to participants aside from +votes along the way.

Guidance:

• Communication is your friend. Ensure your participants know what to expect from the PRP (combat time vs heavy social time vs light social time). IC surprises tend to be fun, OOC surprises tend to be less fun.
• Planning is your second friend. You should have a rough idea of where the PRP is going and a rough idea of how players will get there.
• But be flexible! Players will certainly deviate from what you think they'll do. Adapt and keep moving. If the players deviate but it's fun, consider whether or not you have room for a tangent.
• Know how many slots you have available and what roles might be beneficial
• Expect that some participants will have to leave before it's finished, and others might join partway through.
• Ensure you understand the theme and mechanics of a given sphere before involving it.
• To keep things manageable, plan for five or fewer participants.
• Remember: you're volunteering to do this. If a participant is disrupting the PRP, remove them. If you are participating in someone else's PRP and you find that it's not a good fit for you, respectfully tell the PRP ST and remove yourself.
• Log everything. Having the log of what's happened so far can help in many unexpected ways.

(Probably Bad) PRP Ideas:

• Bone Gnawer tribebook meets "The Hangover"
• Eddie the Snitch has to go
• Strange things are afoot at the 7-11
• Why is this alley full of Iteration X transvestites?

See Also: Risk System NPC Play

Policies

City of Hope MUSH may need to add, change, or remove policies from the MU. Because such changes will only be made as needed, rather than at whims, there are no Grandfather Clauses for policies. In turn, because there are no Grandfather Clauses, policy changes will not be made without serious thought about how the change will affect players.

Policies changes should not be confused with rules changes and precedents. By default rules changes and precedents do not have Grandfather Clauses, but a specific change or precedent may recognize the Grandfather Clause.

See Also: Rules Changes Precedents

Posing

Power Posing

Power posing is posing the actions of others without their OOC consent. Because this is a form of one player forcing their will on another, we do not accept power posing.

Meta Posing

Meta posing is posing information about your character that other characters might not be able to perceive, such as emotional state, or memories. Some frown on meta posing because they feel that they should only see what their character sees. Some celebrate meta posing because it allows others the chance to decide what their character picks up on without the need for roll after roll. Because of the varied opinions on meta posing and because the extra information can just be ignored, we neither endorse nor discourage meta posing.

Privacy

We at City of Hope respect the privacy of players and staff. We feel that having the personal security of knowing that you're not being eavesdropped on helps create a more comfortable environment. For this reason, only wizards have the ability to go dark. The only wizards on City of Hope are Coyote and Sponge.

City of Hope is run on a private server on a private network with local access only available to Coyote and Sponge. Only Sponge has the access to perform packet capture on the system and local network.

The use of the DARK flag by wizards will be at the consent of those being monitored unless there is evidence of OOC harassment or abuse. Packet capture will only be employed for serious incidents.

These limitations of monitoring capability grant players quite a bit of freedom. It is common practice on many MUs for staff to go DARK to avoid contact with players. We do not allow this so, in exchange for the extra privacy, players are expected to honor a staff member's Off-Duty status.

Also, use of the Unfindable flag is not restricted for players. Players are welcome to use the Unfindable flag as they see fit. Staff can still see the location of Unfindable players.

Risk Abuse

The Risk System was designed to enable players to participate in scenes and situations they might normally not be comfortable with. The system is not intended to enable players to escape the repercussions of their actions. The characters exist in a world of darkness with no special protection. Players are expected to drive their character(s) in ways that are realistic for the world of darkness.

Examples of abuse are the following:

- Using lower risk level to escape the repercussions of actions that would put your life at risk in the world of darkness such as:

• Violating the territory of another race or faction.
• Disclosing supernatural secrets about others.
• Breaking the laws of one's own faction.

- Taking actions to manipulate another character's risk level such as:

• Leading/forcing them to a risk zone.
• Coercing someone OOC to change their risk level.

Players who RP out the unfavorable results of higher risk level actions with grace and maturity will be looked upon positively by staff.

See Also: Risk System Risk Zones Changing Risk

Risk System

Please see Risk System

Risk Zones

A Risk Zone is a location that forces some or all characters present to be at a specific risk level for the purposeof protecting that location.

Because a Risk Zone forces a character(s) to be at a specific risk level Risk Zones are only established by staff. When a Risk Zone is requested staff will evaluate the request, determine who it will apply to, and ensure that the risk level is properly indicated. Characters who enter a Risk Zone who do not want to be at that risk level should leave immediately. Characters can't be forced into any Risk Zone no matter what the level of the Risk Zone is.

For OOC purposes the description of a Risk Zone will include an OOC warning of the risk level. The description must also include elements that would cause any sensible person to feel a sense of danger.

If a scene that took place in a Risk Zone later requires judgment, staff will look for an OOC warning by the participants of that location's risk level.

See Also: Risk System Changing Risk Risk Abuse

Rules Changes

Although City of Hope MUSH intends to follow White Wolf canon, in some few instances we may feel that a particular rule or storyline aspect does not fit with the rest of the World of Darkness. To make things fit together better, we will make changes to the rules, setting, or storyline. These changes are listed in the +rules system, and when a rules change is made, it will be announced on the Public Policies bulletin board. When a rule change is made, there is no Grandfather Clause unless it is stated in the +rule system.

See Also: Precedents

Security

This MUSH, it's website, and other services all reside on Sponge's personal server on his private network.

Bringing weaknesses in any aspect of this system to Sponge's attention will be rewarded. Any attempts to subvert this system will be dealt with swiftly and possibly without warning.

Attempts to subvert this system include but are not limited to:

• Use of soft code to gain information that should be gained ICly, use of soft code to gain privileges not administratively granted, use of soft code to disrupt the activity of the MUSH
• Use of known or predicted vulnerabilities in TinyMUX, Apache, or other software in use on these systems or on the website.
• Denial of Service attacks, distributed or otherwise, including but not limited to: traffic flooding, SYN flooding, RST attacks, fragmented packet attacks (Teardrop, etc), email flooding, and activity intended to consume excessive CPU time, memory, bandwidth, or storage
• Forging of IP datagrams, email, instant messages, web posts, or other traffic such that it appears to come from this network
• Other activities deemed disruptive to our network and systems.

Corrective action for these activities varies in accordance with the severity of the actions and can range from a simple warning to blocking at the firewall and contact with the offender's ISP.

In summary, do not attack us. If you think you can slip it by us, +finger sponge and read carefully.

The PC

When someone makes a PC character that character in definition has a mind, body and spirit of it's own, it's very own identity, and hopefully remains three-dimensional in personality. The player character is a special character differentiated in the game from NPC's because the /player/ has control over themselves rather than the staffers and are unique in their own ways whereas NPC's tend to be driven towards a direct goal for a plot line on behalf of a Storyteller.

Therefore it is NOT necessary to follow the status quo when making a PC and here on City of Hope. We look forward to those players that seek out individuality and uniqueness in their character, though also, we do not mind those who wish to stick to stereotypes: these can still be fun to play. It is against MU policy for anyone on City of Hope to hinder a player for OOC reasons, such as one's feelings about another's concept.

Time

Time Ratio

Some MU*s utilize compressed time, where time happens faster on the MU than in real life. Some MU*s utilize expanded time, where time happens slower on the MU than in real life. City of Hope MUSH does not utilize time compression or expansion: it runs in real time. We feel that whatever time ratio we choose, it will never match the pace that people RP at. We chose real time because, if we can't make time run at the same pace as RP, we'll at least make it easy to schedule things.

Away Time

There is no correct assumption about what a character has been doing while the player was away from the game. If someone does not log into the game for a week, it doesn't mean they've gone missing, it just means you haven't run into them. The safest assumption is that they've been busy, but everything is normal. This includes server outages. If the server is down for three hours, when it comes back up, game time is three hours later.

Unapproved

To save space on the database as well as give other new players the chance to create characters without names being 'tied up', City of Hope has instituted an Unapproved policy where a player that is unapproved and hasn't logged in for a month will be destroyed. To prevent an unapproved character from being destroyed, simply log in once or twice a month. At City of Hope we understand that it may take time to create a character or write up a background and that RL can get in the way. If something comes up and more time than a month is needed, please inform Sponge or Coyote through @mail ASAP and we will get back to you as soon as possible and see to it that your time is extended so that you don't lose your work in progress.

See Also: Vacation

Vacation

Here at City of Hope we realize that players and Staff will often have RL issues come up in which they will need some time away from the MU. Should a player need to take an OOC absence they should try to supply an IC reason for the absence. If one isn't provided, other players should make assumptions as specified in the 'Time' policy.

To help avoid cluttering in the database and the grid, approved characters that have not logged on to the game for three months will be put into the Fridge where if they log on again before another three months they can access the grid again without staff help. Approved characters that have not logged on for a total of six months will be put into the Freezer where they will still be able to log on but will need staff assistance to get out and back on to the grid for further RP.

See Also: Unapproved Time