I N F O ; G A M E P L A Y

[singularitymods]

rules

In general, Singularity follows a three strikes system. Three infractions of the rules below will result in a ban. In cases where the violation is serious enough, strikes will be bypassed entirely.
1. Stay IC.
You were accepted on the grounds that you knew your canon well, and showed a good grasp of your character. While it is understandable and desirable for a character to grow and change over the course of a plot or game, such changes should be logical and a natural progression of their canon characterisation.

If you believe that someone is blatantly out of character (OOC) and has not responded to critique, it is suggested you bring the matter to a mod. We take care of it so you don't have to.
2. Be mature.
While Singularity accepts players of all ages, we expect all our players to behave in a responsible, adult fashion. Wank, flaming, bullying and passive-aggressive behavior are highly frowned upon, whether in the community or elsewhere on the internet.

If you find yourself in a conflict that absolutely cannot be resolved amongst yourselves, bring the issue to the mods directly, and we'll do our human best to address all concerns and hear all perspectives.

Evidence of inciting trolling or wank is grounds for immediate expulsion from the game.
3. Keep it tasteful.
You can play what you like, but we ask you to always keep in mind your fellow players. If a mod feels that the content of your post requires a cut or warning, please follow their instructions. We will always explain our reasons in detail in the event of any dispute.

If you are unsure whether a post is inappropriate, go ahead and check with a mod before posting.

• No sex logging with players under the age of 18. No exceptions.
  
• No sex logging with obviously underaged characters in the comms. Personal journals are okay.
  
• Material that may be considered triggers for some people (like suicide, rape, child abuse, etc) are always to go behind a cut, and properly marked. No exceptions.

4. IC =/= OOC, ICA = ICC
Keep in character and out of character interactions separate, and remember that in-character actions have in-character consequences. Just because someone's character hates your character doesn't mean a player hates you. Just because a plot didn't go your way in game doesn't mean you can escape the consequences for it. The way you behave reflects not only on yourself, but also on the community, whether you want it to or not. Again, we expect our players to be mature.

Some behaviors to avoid:

• Metagaming: using outside knowledge about the character, their situation, or a game event to uncharacteristically direct a conversation. For example: your character somehow knowing that Bumblebee transforms into a car, without even seeing what he looks like.
  Exception: If your character is from a universe where another character's canon exists as fiction, your character could reasonably be considered to be familiar with it, and the player of the other character agrees, fourth-wall breaking is permissible.
  
• Godmoding: deciding another character's actions for them, without consulting the player. Examples: "The Major threw a punch directly into Batou's face, knocking him on his ass," "Character A tells Character B that Character C is all right with them staying the night, when Player A never contacted Player C about it at all."
  
• Micromanaging: dictating someone's behavior. Play your own character. Don't tell someone how to play theirs. If you don't feel someone is playing a character correctly, first examine whether your opinion bears out of bias, and then consider using proper concrit channels to address it.
  
• Weaseling: avoiding in-character consequences (ICC) for in-character actions (ICA). Please keep in mind that both Sacrosanct and Asphodel have their own brands of justice, and both kinds tend to catch up with characters eventually. While no one can force you into accepting punishment, repeatedly and openly refusing fair consequences for your character's behavior will result in a strike.

5. Respect character restrictions.
Singularity accepts canon characters, AU characters, and original characters. The total number of characters you may have in the game is 10. In addition, the following restrictions apply:

• You cannot play both a canon version of a character as well as an AU of the same.
  
• You cannot play two closely-associated characters without permission from the mods.
  
• Keep muncesting (playing with yourself) to a respectable minimum.
  
• Original characters can only be apped by existing players.
  
• Play the characters you app. No serial apping and dropping, no character squatting.

6. Be open to constructive feedback.
Or "HMD"/"HMR" ("how's my driving"/"how's my roleplaying"). A post of this nature is required to play here--put it in your character's journal. If you are uncomfortable with receiving certain kinds of feedback, you may consider setting posts to screen, and/or disallowing anonymous comments, but having one is mandatory.
7. Maintain a CR chart.
In addition to an HMD, Singularity also requires CR charts for all characters. These don't have to be fancy, and usually go in your character's journal like the feedback post. The typical CR chart lists the characters yours have interaction with and, briefly, describes what that interaction has been. This is a helpful resource not just for you, the player, but for other players and us mods as well.
8. Participate!
This is a panfandom game. There is a plot. The NPCs will talk to you and try to get you onto their respective sides. Events will happen which will affect everyone in the game, and in turn, player characters have a huge role in the outcome of these events. For these reasons, it's important that everyone interact with each other. Don't just stick with a cast or a group of friends. Branch out, ask for CR, plot with people, make requests, take jobs. If you have an idea for a game-wide plot, suggest it to the mods! We wan't you to get creative and have fun. Like any RP, Singularity is exactly what you make it.
gameplay mechanics
Power dampening: Characters with supernatural abilities will find those powers made less effective upon arrival in Sacrosanct. This restriction remains regardless of whether the character is on the station or on Asphodel, and regardless of how long they are in-game (excepting, of course, periodic powers events). To put it simply, the same certification stamp printed on characters at the subatomic level also dampens whatever physiological link they have to supernatural abilities. Characters capable of massive nuke-sized fireballs might only be able to set a building on fire; powerful psychics might only be able to read thoughts within a certain radius of a subject. Tech abilities and equipment may also be powered down if a) the science is bogus (like sentient mitochondria) or b) the tech affords too much of an advantage (like Lain being able to rewrite human memories).

If your character has extraordinary and game-breaking abilities, such as teleportation, time manipulation, magic, telepathy, a gun that blows up planets, etc, or anything that puts them at a significant advantage over every other character in the game, we are going to ask for your own suggestions on power limitations on the application, to be approved by the app team. We expect every character to have their ways of triumphing and every character to have ways of being defeated, even if said character was the most powerful individual in their original setting. This goes for heroes as well as villains. We want to see your suggestions for limitations because you, the player, would know best how to level down a character without making him/her/it unrecognizable or unplayable. You are welcome to lock abilities, downgrade overpowered weapons or items, or even AU weaknesses that don’t exist in canon, for example playing a vampire character that suddenly finds the blood of willing victims sustains him/her far better than the unwilling. For powers like teleportation and telepathy, we have in the past asked players to keep these abilities confined to whatever Zone or city the character is currently in. Another suggestion for power limiting would be a ‘shot limit,’ where some ability that used to come naturally to the character in canon suddenly becomes extremely difficult and physically taxing and can only be used so many times a day.

As a rule of thumb, if your character has any kind of destructive ability that would damage the station significantly, like a hull breach, or kill another character without them being able to stop it, you want to limit that ability. Blowing up buildings is fine as any involved characters may be able to escape such damage. Instant kills and blowing up entire cities are not fine.

If your character has any kind of ability that would directly affect another character in a way that can’t be countered, such as a telepath who always knows where everyone is all the time, you the player must always ask OOC permission of the other involved player(s) when your character uses that ability, whether or not that ability is being limited. An example of an ability that can can be countered is super strength, and this would not require OOC permission from other players to use. Mind powers, reading the future, telekinesis, and abilities like time manipulation cannot be countered and thus require OOC permission before they are used in-game.

In appropriate cases, the app team reserves the right to recommend greater power limitations than what has been suggested by the player in the app.

Non-human characters are generally appable. In some cases, Sacrosanct's quantum teleporters will adjust a character's physiology to make them more compatible with the station's environment. Na'Vi from Avatar, for instance, would be able to breathe oxygen, while Cortana from Halo, an AI, might be given a mechanical body or some kind of mobile platform to insert her disk into. As usual, ask a mod if you are unsure how a character will be affected by Singularity's setting.


Using the network and logs comm: For network posts, please specify in the subject line if a post is text, audio, video, hologram, website or game (as in, taking place in one of Sacrosanct's two MMOs), and if the post is public or filtered. For the logs community, logs can be written in either prose or action format, and be any combination of messaging, gaming and physical interaction.

Filtering and filter hacking: By default, all privacy filters offered through Sacrosanct's security settings are strong enough to divert most hackers. Characters should have canonly demonstrated (or strongly implied) technological ability to hack through filters, and players must get one another's permission to do so.

Game time depends on player activity. There is no one day = one day IC kind of counter. However, there are certain deadlines imposed on things OOC, regardless of how much time has passed IC, with the assumption that the amount of time passed is comparable. An example of this would be the one month limit placed on Asphodel visits before characters' station certification expires (see Station Habitation).

Events: Every now and then, mods will announce events, many of which will be plot- or status-related. Some will affect all characters; others will be opt-in.

Activity checks happen the first week of every other month. The requirement is one network post or log plus your comments, or 15 or more comments in somone else's network post or log. This must be completed to remain in the game.

Economy: There is no real (official) currency in Singularity. Instead, Hypatia and the Underworld use a credit and trade system. Jobs performed award a character work credits which in turn give them greater privileges and a nicer lifestyle on Sacrosanct. Some jobs offered in the Underworld do not deal in credits at all, but item awards or trades. You can learn more on the Job Board.

Job Board: Contains jobs available through both Hypatia and the Underworld. The Underworld listings are provided as an OOC reference; characters will have to find and gain acceptance in the Underworld before players can claim any jobs from them. Hypatia's listings are available from the start, provided characters still have their station certification.


Station Habitation: Upon entry into this universe, Sacrosanct scans each character's complete atomic structure and uploads it (just as it does when characters use teleporters). It also stamps characters' particles with a unique certification signature, which are checked and validated at every teleporter, and when characters pass through security doors (like to and from the shuttles). If the station logs characters as remaining off Sacrosanct for more than one month (by OOC measure), their certification will be suspended in Hypatia's records, and characters will not be allowed to return to the station without contacting Hypatia asking to be recertified, which may or may not come at a price.

Death: When a character dies, they are respawned from the last teleporter they went through. Likewise, if characters attempt to leave Asphodel's orbit in a shuttle, the shuttle will be remotely detonated after 48 hours, the same moment Hypatia uses characters' subatomic certification stamp to trigger spontaneous discorporation, after which characters respawn at their last teleporter. While there is no actual penalty for the first few deaths, to keep track of things, players need to report them on the Deaths page.
Welcome to Sacrosanct. Please watch your step:
setting - gameplay - taken - application
event archive - hiatus and drop - contact and faq
maps and locations - requests - job board - deaths
singularity_rpg (network) - singularitylogs (logs community)
singularityooc (OOC community) - singularityderp (crack and memes community)