Note: This page is moderated and can be referenced in OOC issues, such as ban appeals, complaints, reports, etc. This may not apply to the pages this page links to.

Main Rules - read these if nothing else

(See also: Guide to avoiding bans)

0. Enforcement of these rules is at the discretion of admins.

Roleplay is king, and admins can disregard other rules to this end should it prove beneficial for the experience of the shift. Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase.

Rule 0 Precedents.

1. Don't be a dick.

Be excellent to each other. If you enjoy trying to ruin someone else’s good time, you won’t have a place here. Being a jerk in-character is fine to a point, but being a jerk out of character is not welcome.

Rule 1 Precedents.

2. Do not use information gained outside of in-character means.

I.e. metagaming. This especially refers to communication between players outside of the game via things like Discord, known as metacomms. Characters are otherwise allowed to know everything about ingame mechanics or antagonists, as well as keep persistent friendships or relationships with other characters when not for the purpose of unfair advantage by teaming up together for little IC reason.

Rule 2 Precedents.

3. This is a sandbox roleplaying server.

Keep IC out of OOC, and OOC out of IC. Your words and actions ingame should be distinguishable as an in-universe character, and not as a person playing a game. Playstyles that disregard all opportunities for engagement and roleplay can be met with administrative action. There is an exception for OOC in IC where terms like 'clickdrag X to Y, or look for the tab' is used to help a player.

Rule 3 Precedents.

4. Lone antagonists are unbound by (most) rules.

With the exception of metagaming/comms, bug/exploit abuse, erotic/creepy stuff, OOC in IC or IC in OOC, or spawn-camping arrivals, solo antagonists may pursue any goals they wish, in any way they wish. Crewmembers are not allowed to pre-emptively search for, hinder, or otherwise seek conflict with antagonists without reasonable cause to do so. Otherwise, they may handle antagonists in any way they wish, provided they understand that their actions may be punished by Space Law if given IC cause. Team antagonists can do as they wish as per lone antagonists, but their actions should neither harm their teams efforts, nor intentionally harm it through inaction. Emulating an antagonist by action or outfit puts you at risk of being treated as one.

Rule 4 Precedents.

Order of antagonist priority.

5. Players in vital job roles require a minimum amount of effort.

As a Head of Staff, you should be a reliable worker for your department, and are expected to perform the minimum duties of that role to the best of your ability. As an upside, being THE BOSS allows you to dictate the workflow of your department as you like, so long as you are reasonable - and have the ability to demote staff who do not comply, with similar protections that security is afforded for valid arrests. Notify admins if you must leave near round start for Command or AI roles.

6. In-game administration rulings are final.

Incidences of admin abuse, negligence or disputed rulings can be taken to the forums. If an admin says something was 'looked into, handled, resolved' etc, regarding an issue, it is unlikely an admin will provide any further information. Admins are under no obligation to reveal IC information. Deliberately lying or misrepresenting facts in adminhelps will be dealt with harshly.

Rule 6 Precedents.

7. If you regularly come close to breaking the rules without actually breaking them, it will be treated as the rules being broken.

Repeated instances of the same rules being broken may be met with harsher consequences. Baiting people into situations where you can report them to admins will be dealt with harshly.

8. Erotic/creepy stuff is not allowed.

No form of erotic roleplay is allowed on the servers, including things that could be construed as sexual by unwilling participants.

9. Players need to be the age of 18 or above.

This rule is for the benefit of and is meant to protect people who shouldn't be playing here due to the nature of the SS13 community. Your age won't be hunted down, but if you admit it to us in admin PMs, or other places within the /tg/Station13 community (the official Discord server, forums, OOC chat, etc.), you're getting banned.

Rule 9 Precedents.

10. Losing is part of the game.

Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

11. Bigotry is not allowed.

Intentionally seeking to demean others due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, disability, orientation or the like is not tolerated. It is not our goal to create or enforce a list of banned words and instead our goal to eject the expression of bigotry from the community. Enforcement will be less PC based and more common sense based with that goal in mind.

This means rather than warning or banning for quoting a usage such as "Griff McNazi got banned for calling somebody a faggot" or even things like "nigga pls" and "what are you faggots playing" which are generally not statements made to be bigoted, we'll focus more on statements like "you talk like a [insert stereotype]" or "x is a [insert slur]".

Rule 11 Precedents.

Escalation Policy

You may begin IC conflicts with another player if it does not excessively interfere with their ability to do their job. While you are allowed to escalate conflicts, if it leads to violence and you have poor IC reasoning for inciting it, you may face administrative action.

Killing a crewmate is a severe response, and requires severe justification to do, such as those in Rule 1's precedents, or Rule 4.

Critically wounded characters must be treated or taken to the medbay by the standing party where reasonable, and taking unnecessary action against a downed player opens you up to reprisal. If you are incapacitated in a fight and treated, or the conflict is otherwise meaningfully broken, you are expected to require an IC reason beyond 'bruised ego' to re-initiate it.

Non-Antagonists Resisting Arrest

Non-antagonists should not harmfully resist or retaliate against valid arrests, but do not have to simply give up and allow the arrest to happen. They may instead non-harmfully escape or avoid the arresting officer in the spirit of the game.

If an arrest is not obviously valid, it follows standard escalation. Resisting or retaliating against arrests without good reason may break Escalation Policy and be handled administratively. Non-antagonist players may lose any OOC and IC protections if they choose this path and should consider ahelping if they believe they did nothing to warrant being arrested.

In resisting arrest, non-antagonists should not loot officers and should not detain or incapacitate officers any longer than is necessary to escape or explain themselves.

Precedents & exceptions: Examples and exceptions to the main rules

Precedents give a non-exhaustive set of examples each rule may cover. Admins have a wide discretion in applying the rules and precedents based on the context and severity of each incident. This discretion covers everything from issuing informal verbal warnings to full server bans.

Rule 0 Precedents

Rule 0 should only be invoked by admins when it is in the best interests of the server.
Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:
1. has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave
2. has habitually used the same strategies to cause mass death or destruction (i.e. bombs, hyper-optimized viruses, etc.) to the detriment of the rest of the server's experience
Admins may mirror bans from other servers at their discretion.
Admins may ban accounts linked to the use of proxies, CID randomizers, DLL use, or other similar things, at their discretion.
Admins may ask players in possession of multiple alt accounts to choose one to play on and ban the other accounts.

Rule 1 Precedents

Do not facilitate player deaths for poor IC reasoning. Distributing bombs or other similarly destructive items can leave you responsible for how they are used if not cleared with an admin first. Each unjustified kill is normally met with a 24-hour ban.
Breaking into staffed departments to take resources, or hoarding station supplies with little IC reasoning can be harmful to the experience of other players. Communicate first if you desire something that you do not have access to. Players may defend their workplaces from trespassers who damage or steal property with relaxed escalation.
Unjustified grief/tiding, minor or otherwise, or unprovoked grief targeted towards players who wronged you in previous rounds ('metagrudging') can be followed up with notes, or bans.
If you do something that has no benefit to you other than making others upset and adminhelp the in-game consequences, you may be banned instead.
Spamming any channel is not allowed unless granted explicit permission from an admin as part of a gimmick.
Joining and exiting the round in an attempt to maximize antagonist rolls is not allowed.
Rules apply until the emergency escape shuttle is docked and the round-end antagonist report has appeared.

Rule 2 Precedents

Metacomms, the use of methods of communication outside of SS13 IC channels, is a very serious rule violation and may be met with permanent bans for all related accounts. If players are sharing the same IP or know each other in real life or the like, inform the admins first, otherwise it may look suspicious. Players are allowed to introduce new players that they know to the game but all communication and explanations should be done in game if possible. Admins can also help in these situations if requested.
Due to their tendency to reveal a lot of information from the current round, streaming is not permitted on our servers, with the exception of special events pre-designated by admins and those who register through streaming applications.
Similar to how characters are allowed to know everything about in-game mechanics or antagonists under rule 2, characters are allowed to have persistent knowledge/relationships/friendships with the caveat that knowledge of a character being an antagonist from a previous round is not used maliciously.
Character friendships should not be exploitative in nature or be used to gain an unfair advantage. Having an IC friendship with another player does not, for example, justify giving them all-access each round.
Atmos techs are not allowed to edit atmos at roundstart so that the AI cannot use it for malicious purposes. While this might not make sense IC, it's a necessary OOC precedent for some game mechanics to work. Atmos techs are allowed if they have any reasonable suspicion of the AI being rogue.

Rule 3 Precedents

References to the current round, even if vague, are still considered being IC in OOC.
Make a minimum effort to have your name fit in a setting involving a wacky space station in the future. A firstname lastname minimum is required for humans and felinids. Honorifics and nicknames are allowed as long as only one additive is used at a time, i.e "James Williams Jr." or "James "One-Eye" Williams". Excessively OOC names are disallowed, and are defined as names which are intentionally hard to read/spell, references to in-game mechanics or OOC terminology, historical/famous/media, and any form of nonsensical or low-effort name. Clowns, mimes, silicons, wizards, and nuke ops have significantly more leeway in choosing their names, within reason. Admins may get involved if your name is dumb and can approve or disallow names at their discretion.

Rule 4 Precedents

Regular crewmembers can assist antagonists with good IC reasoning, but assisting an antagonist doesn't mean you get a pass on acting like one. If in doubt, ask an admin if a particular action is okay. Depending on the level of assistance, sufficient IC reasoning ranges from treating everyone who goes into medbay regardless of their history, to bartering contraband, to performing actions under threat of death.
Xeno Queens/Broodmothers are treated the same as Malf AI and Cyborg as far as team antagonists go. Xenos/Spiders should prioritize following the directions of their leaders where possible.
Ghosting out mid-conversion/deconversion, going AFK, suiciding, or logging off after conversion/deconversion can result administrative action if done in bad faith. Let an admin know if you cannot or do not want to play any of the above mentioned roles so they may be offered to a willing participant.

Antagonist Directive Priorities

In situations where you wind up with multiple simultaneous antagonist assignments (i.e. a Revolutionary and a Traitor), your team goals, objectives, and directives should take precedence. Furthermore, if someone had to go out of their way to convert you to their team, their goals, objectives, and directives become the priority. Refer to the following flowchart:

Blob/Zombie -> Brainwash/Construct orders/Silicon Laws -> Cult -> Revs -> Blood Brother -> Wizard Apprentice/Abductor Teams/Niche antags -> Nuke Ops -> Traitors

Rule 6 Precedents

Incidents of admin abuse or negligence should be reported along with a date and time, along with details to pinpoint the incident in the logs, to any full admin via forum PM or posted on the admin complaints sub-forum located at https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=23. Incidents of poorly conducted admin events may also be taken to https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=37 in their respective feedback threads, for less serious complaints.
Lying in adminhelps, misrepresenting facts deliberately, or logging off when an admin has asked a question may result in permabans. Admins will not automatically place bans for players logging off however, and will generally wait a while in case real life situations caused a player to disconnect or go AFK.

Rule 9 Precedents

For more information about how this rule is enforced, see the Rule 9 Enforcement Guidelines.

Rule 11 Precedents

For more information about how this rule is enforced, see the Rule 11 Enforcement Guidelines.
This rule applies to ALL OOC bigotry, even when expressed in IC. There is no racism in 2564, just species-ism: there is no homophobia, just xenophiliaphobia, etc.
Admins are encouraged to use rule 1 to deal with instances where """IC""" bigotry is excessive or designed as a mask for OOC bigotry.
Context is important, but somebody being an out and proud bigot, nazi, or white supremacist also counts as context. Somebody who makes it known they are bigoted towards PoCs playing a PoC character that starts checking stereotype boxes isn't going to fool us.