Rules of the Room

Aside from the technical rules of character creation and combat, there are also the general rules of the Bushido room itself. They are simple and straightforward, so not being familiar with the rules is in itself questionable. The room admins reserve the right to remove anyone who does not follow these rules, in letter or spirit, including those who disrupt the room's decorum or smooth operation.

1. Follow IMC's general rules and regulations. Read and know IMC's basic rules and regs before entering the room. The short version is simple: no hacking, no impersonating, and no illegal material.

2. The room is rated 16, and all RP in the room should be kept at that level. This means no four-letter words stronger than "damn" or "hell" (IC OR OOC), excessive violence (bloodshed within the bounds of what would be expected in game is OK, but don't dwell on it), no explicit sexuality (a tasteful fade-to-black will suffice; the rest can be done in a PR or in PMs). If someone's head got severed in the course of combat, that's OK as long as you don't write about it in gruesome, loving detail. The same rule should apply to torture.

3. Images should be a maximum of 50K and 300x300 pixels. Also, images should conform to the 16 rating -- that means no frontal nudity, etc.

4. All characters MUST be submitted for approval and MUST be available for public inspection. You may play a character for up to two weeks in the room before it has to be approved (the "test drive"), but after that you must write up a sheet and submit it. The vast majority of characters should be approved easily, so don't get neurotic about it. Once you're done, link the sheet from your handle.

Crossover characters from comics or TV are not appropriate for the room setting. Japanese historical figures are also strictly NPCs in the room.

Please use the Character Sheets tool on IMC to create and submit your characters. Submissions in email are OK, but they should be followed up with a proper sheet in this format.

5. The room staff is here for you. The storytellers in the room will be happy to extract logs of public RP for you if you missed something. We can also find pictures, edit them to a degree, and even host them for you if you're stuck with a provider that won't allow images to be crosslinked.

6. The main language of the room is English. If you use Japanese words in your posts, provide a translation. Not everyone in the room knows Japanese or is even remotely familiar with it. While it's fun to use the actual language in IC posts, do accommodate players who are not familiar with Japanese by translating the words you use or providing enough contextual details to figure it out.

7. Player characters may not be killed or manipulated without explicit consent. P-kill is something that has to be agreed upon by BOTH parties. You cannot charge in and slaughter players on a whim.

By "manipulated," I mean that you cannot do things to a player's characters if they are not present or have not given their consent. You can do things that may affect them later on, but you cannot kidnap them in their sleep, steal things from their house, etc., unless the player of that character is present in the room to talk about this.

The GM cannot be drafted in to NPC a player's character on the whim of another player. A player can leave one of his characters in the hands of the GM for a time (for instance, if they need to tend to real life and can't come into the room for a while), but players do not have the right to demand that the GM assume control of a character.

8. Be inclusive and supportive of newcomers. If someone new to the room comes in seeking RP, don't cold-shoulder them; look over their sheet (if they have one) and see what you can devise. If they have nothing yet, let them spectate and talk to them OOC about what's happening. We were all newbies once.

9. Use common sense and good taste in your actions. This is not often spelled out, so I'll take the time to say it here: everything in moderation. Your fellow players will thank you for it, and you'll find it much easier to deal with as a player yourself. If you've never played in the milieu before, start small and work your way up.

This is not a question of "It's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission." If you're not sure if something is appropriate, all Staff members are well-versed on if something is appropriate so you can ask any Staff member for advice. If they tell you not to do it, don't do it. If no one is around at the time you want to do it and you're unsure, please wait until you're cleared to do so, or post something on the MB or drop us an email.

This also applies to things like the level of realism in your posts. If you are fretting because you can't remember whether or not someone placing a sword with the handle facing his host means he trusts him or not, don't freak out. Absolute and total realism is not essential. (On the other hand, that doesn't mean you disregard the room environment and have your character use wholly anachronistic 20th-century colloquialisms...)

10. Use your OOC indicator. Use the OOC checkbox to delineate what's IC and OOC behavior. This keeps people from getting confused.

11. Cross room promotion is expressly forbidden, without the permission of the Host, or, in his absence, the Co-Host, or one of the Green Gummi Staffers. This includes things like messages in taglines, or "PR: roomname" handles.

12. In Character actions call for In Character consequences. We won't go so far as to kill off your character without your approval (see above), but if your character does something like commit murder, be prepared for massive legal repercussions. The same goes for any other behavior that is appreciably out of gamut for what would be acceptable in this time and place.

13. Have fun. The room wouldn't make much sense if you didn't!