Roleplay Rules

Howdy! Welcome to TEP Evolved. This thread will give you information and links to further resources that will help make your RP experience an amazing one. Be sure to read the Roleplay Guidelines also!

Roleplay Staff

Who are the moderators?
The roleplay staff preform community moderation to help develop and enforce rules that will make roleplay balanced, fair and ethical with the assistance of a few forum administrators. Dylan is our Roleplay Captain and Ember is our Cartographer Captain and your points of contact should you have any issues.

Who are these administrators?
East Malaysia, Hobbes and Todd McCloud are your primary administrators for roleplay. You can contact them on The East Pacific Forum of TEP Roleplay Hub.

What is a Roleplay Captain?
Generally speaking they are the leader of roleplay and Roleplay Mentors

What is a Roleplay Mentor?
These are players who are responsible for helping new and old roleplayers alike in developing their nation and helping the Roleplay Captain.

What is a Cartographer Captain?
They're the team leader of the the cartographers and second-in-command to the Roleplay Captain.

Who are Cartographers?
These are players who are responsible for managing the regional maps and data.

What do they do?
They are responsible for maintaining the regional roleplay map. They draw new nations and change their borders and cities. They also make other maps (like climatic and political maps) and various map projections.

Who are the roleplay staff members?
Click here to view who they are on the forum team page.

What other duties do they have?
They can help players develop their nations and conform to the rules.

How are they chosen?
They usually chosen by the existing members of The East Pacific roleplay community.

Can a Cartographer change the map as they please?
Cartographers vote on all changes to the map. If a cartographer does do an alteration on their own, they are expected to inform the others. They can be removed from the position if they are found to work against these standards.

Regional Map

What is the regional map?
It is the official map of the planet Urth. This is the planet on which roleplay in the TEP Evolved subforum takes place.

How do I get on the map?
You must follow the rules that the Cartographers develop for claiming space and post a claim in the proper thread.

Can I use my NationStates nation's stats for roleplay?
Short answer: No. Long answer: Your Urth nation must be realistic. It must have a probable population, GDP, and type of government. While you can take elements from your NationStates nation, you cannot simply transpose it to the forums.

Can I be a bit whimsical with my nation?
Yes and no. You can have some things that do not exist in real life, but they must be done in a realistic way.

Can I have more than one country?
Yes. The Cartographers will decide if you can have more than one based on your role play ability, maturity, and the length of time you have been roleplaying.

Can I be a Cartographer (or serve in another roleplay staff role)?
If you are interested just contact one of the Captains or a Cartographer and ask to join. We are not not power-hungry autocrats!

Roleplay Rules

What are the roleplay rules based off of?
They are based on the rules that govern NationStates forum roleplay. If you cannot do it on the NationStates site and forums, you cannot do it here, but the reverse is not always true.

Who sets them?
The administrators and roleplay staff of the The East Pacific forum use the NationStates site as a base upon which to develop these policies.

What content is forbidden and which isn't?
Keep it PG-13. Your content must fall within the US delineation of appropriate content for the 13 and under parental guidance book and film rating.

What about violence?
You can talk about violence, but you cannot be excessive.

What about erotic content? Erotic content is kept to the content you'd find in a PG-13 movie in the states. You may hint at sexual content, relationships, partial/full nudity without going into detail etc but physical sexual content should never be directly shown to the reader.
As an example, you can start a roleplay post with two characters waking up after a night together - this implies they're together/sleep together without actually showing it to the reader - You may not, however, directly show a sexual scene to a reader.

Can I impersonate a member of forum or roleplay staff?
No.

Can I threaten another player with mod action?
No.

Can I be a rules lawyer?
No. If you have a problem, send it to roleplay staff. Do not try to use previous incidents to argue a case for or against a situation. There are no precedents. The administrators make decisions on a case by case basis and the power to decide on roleplay matters rests with them not you.

Can a player own a thread?
Yes and no. If they start the thread or are given control over it by another player, then they are in charge of it and you cannot post on that thread without their permission. However, private threads like these may not have overarching affects on the world stage which other players should have fair access to respond to.

Can a player own a thread that other people are allowed to participate in?
Yes and no. While they have ultimate direction over it, if they have opened the thread and the storyline is going a particular direction, they cannot ban players or dictate to them what to post. This is a tricky issue, so ask a mod for help.

Can I do whatever I want in a thread?
Yes and no. You cannot just cause a terrorist attack or start a war or start an epidemic or cause dramatic weather change or anything extreme in that vein. Most of all, you cannot just alter the storyline in a sharp way. You can add a side story, but you cannot take away from the main idea of the thread.

How big can my country's population and military and economy be?
Ask the roleplay staff for help.

Can I invade another nation?
Not without that player's permission.

Can I put my nation on isolation-mode?
Yes. If you don't want other nations to interact with yours, you can just say that you don't want your nation to be interacted with.

Can I fire missiles at another nation or use WMDs in another nation?
You cannot do that without the owner's permission and even then, you can only detonate or launch the device but you can't dictate what happens to it (that means whether it hits or not and how badly).

Can I say I have relations with nations I haven't actually asked to have relations with?
No. You must receive some sort of permission from the owner of the nation to say that y'all are friends or are doing stuff together. You can be friendly towards them, but not necessarily friends.

Can I be enemies with anyone I want?
Yes.

Can I change my country's information whenever I please?
Yes and no. You can change your nation's info, but you must find a way to reconcile that change with roleplay realities. Or you can ask other players in an roleplay if y'all can just delete it or pretend it never happened.

How can I ensure my roleplaying is good?
Be realistic and courteous and communicate clearly.

Can I roleplay on other sites even if they are used by the The East Pacific roleplay community?
Roleplay anywhere other than the forums is not recognized.

Can I use other sites to post information about my nation?
Yes. Outside the forums, you can only use NSWiki or TEPwiki. Even then, NSWiki and TEPwiki is seen as a reflection of the forum roleplay not as an actual roleplay. The forums take precedence. If it hasn't happened on the forums, it hasn't happened.

Can I post adverts?
You cannot post adverts that have nothing to do with TEP Evolved on TEP Evolved.

Can I incentivize other players with rewards?
No! You cannot bribe players to get your desired outcome.

Can I copy someone else's work?
No. Please give them credit if you quote their work.

What external sites can be used for TEP Evolved discussion?
TEP Roleplay Hub on Discord

Can disciplinary action be taken against a player who has behaved badly on an external forum?
Yes. While we aren't in charge of external sites, if we catch you behaving badly there, we can punish you on the forum.

What action does moderation take?
We can ban or suspend you, have your nation removed or freeze your nation so you can't use it for a while. It varies.

How do you make decisions?
We look at the following:

• How often has the violation happened?
• What was the context of the violation?
• What is the history of the player involved?
  

And so on. In short, we work on a case by case basis. The same action on different threads can elicit a different response. The same action by two different players can get a different response.

What happens if a player benefits monetarily from my idea?
That's awful, but we have limited resources to run after people and enforce copyrights. Usually your description on this site isn't detailed enough to act as a blueprint for something complex like a tank. If someone makes a tank that looks like one of your designs, aren't you a lucky fish! Try not to post stuff that people can use like a recipe for a secret sauce or something like that.

Can I use real life people as characters on this site?
Generally we have no way to tell unless the person is famous, known personally in the roleplay community or you make it plainly obvious. If you have issues with a friend, don't write about their murder on this site, please. Sometimes we'll notice, and if you make damaging accusations or reveal damaging secrets about them, we'll punish you.

Can I gloat/boast about getting my intended outcome?
No.

Can I cuss at another player?
No. Cussing is annoying, please avoid it. You cannot say anything to a player with the intention of hurting their feelings like "you are stupid". While this varies a lot, try to be nice, okay?

Can I make "yo mama jokes"?
No. The whole point we are making is: don't hurt other people, treat people with dignity and respect.

What about my right to free speech?
You don't have one. The right to free speech only applies to the irl federal government of the US. Roleplay gives a lot of freedom to talk about stuff. You can use your roleplays to express yourself and you may cuss in them. But when we talk out of character, we will come down on you hard for stuff like homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism and that sort of thing. Abilist elitism is especially brutally dealt with. Don't make fun of people who have special illnesses or conditions that inhibit some aspects of normal functions. If you make fun of people with autism, don't bother wasting time - just delete your account and never come back.

Can I appeal a decision that the roleplay staff have made?
You can politely ask them to reconsider, but they have no obligation to even consider an appeal.

Can I run to the admins if I am not happy?
No. Your issue has to be extremely severe. You cannot run to the admins if the roleplay staff deleted your nation. You can run to the admins if unjust offences have been committed against you. But keep in mind that roleplay staff usually gets the approval from the big guys.

Can I spam a thread?
Lol. No. But we do have games and spam thread in The Arcade.

Can I gravedig?
Please don't. (By that we mean, please don't post on a thread that has been dead for a long time).

Can I post in Archives?
No.

Can I post in someone else's News Broadcasts?
Not without their permission.

What technology level does TEP Evolved use?
Modern-day tech and prior.

Can I make Out-of-Character post in a In-Character thread?
No. Out-of-Character post on an In-Character roleplay thread are not allowed. You can post minor comments but they must be clearly marked. If players wish to comment, complain, constructively criticize or commend, they must either start a new thread in the Out-of-Character discussion forum, or use external channels.

Bad Roleplay Guide

What is metagaming?
You may not give your character information that you know Out-of-Character that they did not logically discover in-character.

What is trolling?
Do not post disparaging remarks about other players. Constructive criticism is welcomed but chatting shit about them is not allowed.

What is flamebaiting?
This is taking action to deliberately cause another player to get upset. Do not do this.

What is godmodding?
This is giving your character unrealistic skills or an illogical and sudden fix to their problems. Likewise you cannot make your country this über rich and powerful and perfect place.