1 General Notice
Northstar Roleplay is an 18+ serious roleplay community.
Any character portrayed must be at least 18 years old.
Your character may not be named after any famous real or fictional person.
Good quality microphone is required and if using a voice changer the voice must sound natural.
Please do not DM staff directly on discord or in game.
2 Discord Rules
Your name on our Discord must include your character’s name.
Treat everyone with respect.
Hate speech, harassments and any kind of personal attacks towards another members or staff is not tolerated.
If you have an issue with another member, move the discussion to DM’s or open a ticket if the issue stems from a rule break or anything else server related.
3 Zero Tolerance Rules
3.1 Transfer of belongings between your own characters
You can not transfer items, money, houses or horses/wagons between your own characters in any way, nor use other players to transfer or re-sell any items listed above between your own characters. When leaving the server or permanently deleting your character, you cannot give away all of your belongings to another player.
3.3 Exploiting
Abusing game mechanics in order to gain an unfair advantage over other players. Stopping animations in order to not die or flee an illegal interaction earlier than intended.
3.5 Erotic- and Suicide-Roleplay
We want to be inclusive for all players and therefore decide to not host such content.
3.2 Roleplay Bleed
A characters action does not reflect the player behind the character and is not to be treated as such. in-character activities are not to bleed into harassment in real life. Do not complain to other people about roleplay related incidents. If it is a rule violation, contact the staff, if not, deal with it like a good sport. Be aware of this at all times.
3.4 Discrimination
Racism, hate speech, attacks on sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other form of discrimination.
3.6 Sexual Harassment
Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.
4 Basic Rules
4.1 Value your Life
You must value your own life, your friend’s lives, as well as other people’s lives, so you should not engage in a fight unless necessary. Valuing your life does not necessarily force you to surrender because you are outnumbered, but when the odds are against you, act appropriately.
4.3 Multiple Characters
Players are allowed to create two characters. By request through a ticket, they may be allowed to create a third character if given a reason.
“Throw-Away-Characters” are not allowed, meaning players may not create a character solely for the intent of committing crimes or other scenarios without any good reason or background and therefore disregarding the consequences it might cause (getting hanged etc.) If a player has planned a specific storyline benefiting the community and therefore needs a temporary character, it may be discussed with staff beforehand.
While you are allowed to have multiple characters interacting with the same group, it is your responsibility to ensure that you don’t have more than one of your characters involved in the same conflict. One characters participation in this conflict makes you commit to this character, you may not involve another character into the same conflict at another time. Abuse of this restriction is considered power-gaming.
4.5 Customizations
When customizing horse tack and clothing you have to choose realistic and time accurate colors (no neon colors etc.).
4.7 Paraphrasing out-of-character Actions
Do not make any references to out of character activities in character, for example: “I need to be in my head.”, “I need to think about something”, “I’m spiritually eating.” etc. If you need to be AFK find an in character solution, for example: “I need to go through my mail”, “I need to go freshen up” etc. If you are AFK do not use /status such as “thinking about spiritual food” etc.
4.9 Power-Gaming
Power-gaming is the attempt to „win“ in every roleplay scenario at the cost of others‘ roleplay or gameplay experience. We are all trying to have a fun, immersive experience with one another. Ignoring this idea in order to get what you want is not something that we like to see here.
Some examples of this problematic behavior include, but are not limited to:
Never losing a fight.
Remembering every detail after being downed.
Overuse of hogties and lassos.
Abusing the server rules to your advantage.
Calling your horse when someone is stealing it from you.
Examples:
Using menus or ‚/status in my head‘ in order to get around a scenario when you have clearly been available a second ago
Ragdoll in order to cancel a mauling animation
4.11 Roleplay before Gunplay
Opening fire should be your last option in most scenarios. Try to convince, threaten, or trick people first instead. Shooting someone ends their interaction with you and it possibly prevents a more in-depth roleplay scenario.
4.13 Area of Play
Currently, the Sheriff’s Office is still being set up, meaning all criminal activities related to Bank Robberies, Store Robberies, Drug Selling, and Grave digging must occur in West Elizabeth and New Austin.
Any of those crimes committed outside of those areas are considered a server rule break. Crimes against other players are allowed no matter where you are. So as a rule of thumb:
Any criminal activity utilizing a gameplay mechanic that is not directed against another player is to stay within the borders of New Austin and West Elizabeth.
4.15 Identifying People
Simply putting on a mask does not make one completely unrecognizable. In order to identify someone, you should have at least three or more cues to recognize them.
4.2 Retaining Memory
Getting downed and needing to respawn will result in you not being able to remember the situation that led to you being downed. Exceptions from this rule are; you are revived by a Doctor or brought to a nurse. In those cases you are able to remember what happened to you. In the case you get revived while the scenario in which you were downed is still going on, you can not take part in it again. You barely made it out breathing and therefore should fear for your life.
4.4 Fail RP
Fail RP is breaking character or doing unrealistic things while in-character including but not limited to:
Using modern-day lingo; you must speak and use terminology according to the era, which is 1894.
Running to gunshots or involving yourself in things that you otherwise should have no business being involved in.
What to do when you witness a rule break while you are in roleplay? Do not get out of character and scream „That’s against the rules!“ – please. Stay in character, record, stick to the rules, play out the scenario and make a ticket. Staff will handle it. Do not break people’s immersion.
4.6 Staff Characters
Staff characters are to be treated like every other character. Staff will never enforce or discuss Server Rules in character. Do not ask Staff characters about anything server related IC.
4.8 Meta-Gaming
Meta-gaming is using knowledge in character that you did not gain in character. This includes but is not limited to:
Live streams
Videos
Other people via Discord
Any other media which is part of the „in-character“-section on the Northstar Roleplay Discord Server
Pinboards for example are considered IC-knowledge, along with everything within the In Character-category on the Discord Server. Players cannot use other players‘ characters in order to relay information to their own secondary characters. Meta-gaming also includes taking knowledge you gained on another character and applying it to the character you play at the moment. Players demonstrating these behaviors will face disciplinary action
4.10 Conflict Roleplay
Do not initiate conflict roleplay 30 minutes prior to a server restart. This includes not only direct conflict but also any and all illegal activities.
For clarification: You are not allowed to kidnap someone 30 minutes prior to a server restart and then even later proceed to use this person as a hostage for a robbery; in this case, the robbery is its own scenario and law needs those 30 minutes to respond to it appropriately.
You are not allowed to kill or rob medical professionals while they are actively treating someone. Also, you are not allowed to engage in hostile roleplay while people are in a menu, especially in clothing stores, stables, etc., where they don’t even see what is happening around them; this is considered power-gaming.
4.12 Random Deathmatch
Random Deathmatch applies to players as well as to NPCs; you can’t just walk up to someone and shoot them without any prior interaction. Meaning if NPCs don’t attack you first, there is no reason for you to harm them.
4.14 Ropes Policy
Lassos and hogties are extremely powerful tools, since they can easily make a player unable to fight back, escape the situation, or do anything else in order to protect themselves.
For that reason, melee hogties should only be used as a last resort action. You may not start a hostile scenario with a melee hogtie and immediately take away the possibility of the other party reacting/defending themselves.
The use of melee hogtie in an ongoing hostile scenario is only allowed after 2 minutes or at any time when a party surrenders and raises their hands.
When a lasso is thrown at you and you’re not yet hogtied, you can break free right away. When already hogtied, the only occasion where you may break free is when you’ve been left unattended. Captors may not keep a player hogtied for an unnecessary amount of time (no longer than 30 min).
5 Roleplay Conduct & Procedure
5.1 Character Death / Perma
In general, no one can force you to perma your character. There are three occasions where character death can become unavoidable, so be aware before you attempt the following things:
Death by hanging: You have been a serious threat for the commonwealth for long enough now. After many times in prison and many more chances to mend your ways, you kept convincing the law that this was not going to happen. This is something that will not just happen without any warnings, but it can be possible.
Losing a duel: Duels need to be agreed on by both parties. Staff needs to be informed and is required to witness.
Incurable disease: When you give your character an (at that time) incurable disease like Tuberculosis, for example, you designate them to die within the next days or weeks.
Additionally, typing things like /me perma/bled out/is dead or anything else that clearly indicates that your character has died, is indeed a perma, forcing you to delete your character. Permanently dead characters may not be recreated.
5.4 Organization & Posse Size
Your gang roster may not exceed 6 people in total. Any and all conflicts are limited to 3 people per party; law is the only group excluded from this rule.
If you are riding with more than three people, the leader is in charge to tell their people who is getting involved and who is not. Defending your home is the only occasion where everyone that is available can join in.
Defending your home does not include chasing the intruders down. As soon as you leave it, the 3 people rule applies. For native tribes or any other kind of organization that was not founded with the intent of doing illegal business, you can have more than 6 people, but you can only assign 6 people to fight in tribal matters.
5.2 Doctor & Law Department
These two jobs hold a lot of responsibility since they are essential roles within the world. They contribute to the immersion of every single player around. This is why we expect a higher standard of roleplay for those roles.
Sharing information that should be kept within your office with other people in character is considered corruption. Sharing this information out of character is considered a server rule break and will be punished accordingly.
Any sort of corruption that’s not approved by staff is prohibited and will be punished accordingly. If you want to play a corrupt LEO or doctor, make a ticket. The corruption should add to the roleplay experience and make sense for your character.
5.3 Consent
All instances of extreme violence or humiliation must have consent from all parties involved. Extreme violence is defined as; torture, mutilation, etc. You must ask for their consent before initiating your actions via a /me.
Example: You want to whip a character’s back. Before doing anything to initiate your action, you write /me do you consent to […], explaining what you want to do.
If you’re not sure your action would be extreme violence, be on the safe side and still ask for consent. No answer, as well as a /me no, is to be counted as no consent.
When torturing someone, you automatically give them consent to inflict something of the same severity on you for a single scenario.
5.5 War
Disclaimer: Before going to war, opening a ticket and listing the members that are part of the gang/tribe is required.
Gang/Tribe members need to be an active part of the community and cannot join just for the sake of creating a bigger posse for the gang’s advantage.
When you are at war, everyone in your gang/tribe roster can fight side by side, ignoring the posse limit. War can only be declared when the other party agrees; war terms need to be set by both parties upfront, and staff needs to be informed in order to approve the war and its terms.
The one occasion where war can be forced onto a group is if said group carries out confirmed repeated attacks on another group, showing particularly aggressive behavior.
6 Criminal Rules
6.1 Scenes
If you are leaving a scene that would reasonably lead to conflict or criminal roleplay, you must leave an accurate hint as to your character’s identity. Hints need to vary across multiple scenes.
Acceptable hint: strands of blonde hair
Not an acceptable hint: strands of hair
6.3 Robbing People
When you are robbing someone, you can only take weapons they are visibly wearing on their person. If you rob someone, you cannot kill them afterward.
Once you look into their bags, you are deciding to rob them; you may not kill them without a valid roleplay reason. You can’t take badges and handcuffs off a lawman.
To avoid pocket wiping you may take:
one weapon
five items
unlimited money
6.5 Baiting
Do not start robberies or send out alerts in order to bait law enforcement and doctors. This is considered power-gaming.
6.2 Body Dumping
While you are allowed to drop other players in places where they are unlikely to be found after you knocked them out, you are not to dump them in a place where they cannot be accessed at all, like throwing them into the water or down the pit of a cave.
6.4 Bank & Store Robberies
Law may ask how many outlaws and hostages are involved, and how many are outside; the outlaws must answer truthfully.
Bystanders must treat those scenarios with respect and obey commands from the involved parties.
Law is not obligated to treat NPC hostages like they’d treat an actual player.
6.6 Forced Actions
In general, you cannot force people to give anything else than what they carry on them out of their possession, meaning you can’t force them to get money out of their bank, give you the deed of their horse, or similar.
However, if you want to do exactly that for storyline reasons, feel free to simply ask them outside of roleplay if they want to go with it.
Features
Learn about our customization options in-game.
Have a look at how we have adjusted the experience compared to RDO.
Check out our custom breeds and everything else about horses on Northstar.
Read up on our approach of world building.