Difference between revisions of "Characters"

Revision as of 00:05, 9 February 2020

This news file covers Multiverse Crisis MUSH's character policies.

1. Character Limits: Players may have up to 6 characters.
2. Alt Interaction: Alt interaction shouldn't give either alt an undue or unfair advantage, or deprive other players of RP. Don't self-RP or use alts for self-promotion.
3. Close Relation: Players have the privilege to vet the players of characters directly and closely tied to their own. Primarily this takes the form of romantic and family ties, but may be extended to other close relations at staff discretion.
4. @Names: Characters must, where relevant and applicable, have the @name their player wishes the character to be known by most of the time. If for example you play a superhero, and want people to generally know you by your superhero moniker, your @name should be that moniker instead of their concealed identity. If a player finds themselves correcting people (I go by Y, not X!) regularly, it is the responsibility of that player to have their @name changed.
5. Idle Policy: Character idleness is determined by a combination of recent logins, and logged scenes. Any character that hasn't been logged on for 180 days may be considered for purging, with a certain amount of discretionary slack. Sufficiently out-of-date characters may be unapproved and require re-approval to re-enter play. FCs may be subjected to a greater amount of scrutiny in terms of activity if their inactivity is put at issue, but will by-default not be treated differently from OCs.
6. The Heel-Cool Rule: Pursuant to a desire for people to apply for characters that they have a more-than-impulsive interest in, "Flash Fads" surrounding specific characters or source materials may result in a month-long cooldown period for applications from that source material. A prominent example of what would trigger this is the "Bowsette" Flash Fad of September 2018, or fandom explosion of Undertale.
7. Aging: In themelists where the age bracket of a cast is integral to its genre and sufficient aging of said cast would result in a major shift in tone, we typically permit players of those characters to fudge the relation between real time passed and their character's age and to generally mumble into the back of their hand when their exact age comes up, so that they are not beholden to a strict countdown of playability. It should be noted that this isn't some mechanic of the Multiverse, but a courtesy we extend on a case by case basis, and may be altered when a character has been played for a sufficiently lengthy period of time.
8. Running Gags: Nobody wants to hear 'The Cake Is A Lie' for the entirety of their run playing GLaDOS. Go easy on running gags / memes associated with played characters.

Character Consent

Multiverse Crisis MUSH is a consent-based roleplaying environment. Under ordinary circumstances, this means that any lasting changes or damage to your character require your permission. In this way, you're protected from somebody making hard declarations about what happens to your character without your input, whether it be mere physical violence, or something as in-depth as taking control of your character's mind. There are a few caveats to this, however:

1. Character Death: Permanent damage or death to a character is consent-based. Unless you do something outrageously stupid, your character won't die without your say-so. In the case of FCs and OFCs you will be expected to have discussed the matter with Staff and your cast mates in advance, and it may not always be acceptable for a character to be permanently removed from play in a given theme listing. Staff has discretion in revoking your right to consent.
2. The Tiger's Mouth: If you put your character's state at issue (placing their head in a tiger's mouth), you are explicitly ceding some amount of consent. If your character gets into a fight, you're implicitly giving consent to get hurt and can't invoke consent to avoid losing. Extreme actions can result in more extreme losses of consent.
3. Disadvantage Consent: Disadvantages are not an opt-in (or opt-out) situation for characters. They are an explicit consent given for the character to be interacted with in a certain way that is not advantageous for them.
4. Plot Consent: Plots may require participants to waive their right to various levels of consent. Your right to a consensual death may not be waived in this way. Players must be made aware of the broad plot risks before they enter a plot or scene.

Audits

In the interest of lightening application processing strictness, MCM has updated its audit policy. Core to this policy should be the understanding that your approved content is not sacred, and once-approved doesn't mean always or interminably approved. Approved characters may be subject to audits for a variety of reasons, a non-comprehensive list of which can be found below.

Honest Mistakes: If you forget something in the application process, it's a pretty simple request to get it fixed in post-approval. This might be a forgotten advantage, missing background information, etc. Fast-tracked fixes like this are time-limited to shortly after your approval, in most cases.

Policy Adjustment: A policy adjustment audit occurs when the MUSH's existing ruleset ceases to allow certain advantages, or changes the rules under which such advantages operate. All PCs who have such advantages are simply required to comply with current policy, which usually just involves adhering to the new rules regardless of what your current +adv say. A good example of this is Power Copy, which didn't demand an +adv update up front but did demand compliance.

Traps of Ignorance: Because we allow a large amount of variety and extremely quick-and-dirty integration of new source materials, staff is frequently ignorant of content that is being applied for. Sometimes applicants are themselves ignorant of the same, and on rare occasion somebody has been deliberately deceitful. Staff reserves the right to adjust characters and themes that are approved from a position of ignorance, particularly if that ignorance lead to the character(s) or theme(s) being granted undue advantage or otherwise being abusive.

Disciplinary: A disciplinary audit occurs when someone is abusive with their character's approved advantages. Examples include using advantages that were explicitly denied in the upgrade process, and a very versatile character making a habit of flaunting their ability to have Everybody's Schtick at every opportunity.