We have one, over-arching rule here: Don't be a dick.

If someone does something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you have every right to ask them to stop. If you feel uncomfortable doing so, you can reach out to staff for help.

If someone asks you to stop doing something to or around them, stop doing it. If you feel their request is unreasonable, stop doing it and reach out to a staff member.

Staff reserves the right to remove a player from our game at any time, for any reason.

Alts

• We have a limit of four alts per player.
  • We're basing this on IP address.
  • If you share an IP address with someone (roommate, spouse, etc.), please drop a request to staff so we can make note of it.
• The actions of one alt cannot directly benefit another alt.
  • Example: Your character the Sheriff can't forgive the crime of your character the Robber.
  • Example: Your PrP runner A can't give a plot in to your other character B. (B can be an NPC in a plot, though, i.e. a character that directs the players actively engaged in the plot, hands out plot nuggets, and so on.)
• Except for open vignette scenes, alts should not be in the same scene at the same time even if they will not interact with one another.
• If you wish to create a character when your four slots are used, you can submit a request to staff to retire one. Your new alt will not be approved if you have 4 or more active characters already.
  • Alts with 5 or more shared scenes may be set as Gone or Dead, your choice.
  • Alts with 5 or fewer scenes may be fridged or donated to the roster, with the caveat that if they don't meet our desires for rosters at that time they'll be fridged.

Played-Bys

A Player-By, also called a Face Claim, is a celebrity or other public personality who you've chosen to generally represent your character's appearance. A PB does not indicate your character's background, behavior, or personality, just their visual appearance.

• All Played-Bys must be real people. Please no fanart, game art, or otherwise non-human PBs.
  • A PB is not required. You can leave this area blank and use the default 'no PB' icon if there's no person available who you feel fits your character.
  • If you do choose to upload an image, you must indicate that person as your PB.
• Images used for Played-Bys must conform to general image policies listed below.
• Played-Bys must be our minimum character age, which is 21.
• Please consider using images of your PB which look appropriate to the character's age, unless you have an IC, narrative reason for the mismatch.
  • For example, if your character is 35, using images of the PB age 70 should have some sort of IC explanation.
  • Likewise, if your character is 60, using pics of the PB at 30 should also have an IC explanation.
• If you wish to use a PB already in use, you may do so with the consent of the player actively using the PB.
  • If the character listed for the PB is Gone, you can become the 'active' player of the PB.
  • We do ask that such overlap involve an age gap, or at least different use of images, unless as players you've decided on a narrative of 'not twins but totally twins'.

Building

Building in AresMUSH is essentially restricted to staff. To have a building created, you will need to submit a request to staff. This is easily done via the web portal by clicking the link that says "Jobs" in the upper right-hand corner, or you can submit it in the game.

All players are allowed to have a maximum of three rooms added to the grid. You can choose to use these for a mix of personal residence rooms and business rooms. You will be given the ability to edit your room's description after it has been added, but staff reserves the right to remove any descriptions we deem inappropriate for the game.

If you're looking for where to live:

• Huckleberry Mobile Home Park - For those who are really scraping the bottom of the financial barrel.
• Elm Street - Older, single-family homes. Most are in need of repairs and updating. Lots of rentals. Run-down.
• Sycamore Street - A-frame cabins for rent for the lower-middle class.
• Broadleaf Apartments - Apartments for the lower-middle and middle class.
• Spruce Street - Single-family homes for the middle-class. Some rentals. Many just need a little sprucing up. (Get it? Spruce Street. Sprucing up.)
• Oak Avenue - Upper middle-class family homes, usually with 3-5 bedrooms. Many have been recently renovated. Some rent rooms or furnished basements.
• Bayside Road - Everything from smaller cottages to sprawling mansions. These are for the upper middle-class and the truly wealthy.
• Bayside Apartments - Luxury apartments, many with ocean views. They come with a hefty price tag.

Consent and Consequences

Understanding that the line between "full consent" and "ICA=ICC" can be blurry, this section attempts to clarify our position.

Overall, as a sandbox game, we lean toward consent. Players should discuss the outcomes of an action or plot, and players should be willing to re-work or re-tool a scene or story if it is going to impact another PC in a way that they don't necessarily want.

We also welcome players to use the FS3 stat system as a way to help settle IC conflict. If you ever want help deciding what to roll or when, please don't hesitate to reach out to staff.

Staff will always try to work with you, the player, to attempt to resolve any IC conflicts in such a way that your character is not rendered unplayable.

That said, there are consequences for PCs' actions, and these can't be ignored. If you are playing a notorious robber who goes around terrorizing the townsfolk, eventually, you are probably going to get caught and arrested. Actions that take place on the grid have consequences that may take place on the grid. We highly recommend taking advantage of Dreams as a means to explore "just for fun" stories.

Content and Rating

This is a horror-themed game designed for adult players and characters. As such, we expect that our audience will be prepared to handle potentially graphic content.

We're generally okay with most content being played and shared on our game, but we do ask that anything not safe for work (NSFW) be tagged as such, and that people make use of the content warning for scenes and events that may contain excessive profanity or offensive language, graphic violence, or detailed sexual content. Try to think about what your fellow players may be opening at work, or what someone's kid might read over their shoulder, and tag it appropriately. Content may be deleted or removed from public at staff's discretion.

If you feel that something should either be tagged or removed from public, please feel free to send a request to staff. If it's a page/PM or channel conversation, feel free to use the report functions.

• page/report <conversation>=<range>/<reason> or choose Report Chat on the portal drop-down menu.
• channel/report <channel>=<explanation> or choose Report Chat on the portal drop-down menu.

Images, Graphics, Misc

We allow people to upload images that pertain to the game to our site. These are usually played-by images, pictures that represent a room or object in-game, etc. We do have more stringent rules for images on the site than text content, however:

• Nothing "not safe for work" can be uploaded to the site. If staff finds anything that violates this rule, we will delete it without prior notification and issue the player a warning about content. If you're not sure what counts as NSFW, please err on the side of caution and don't upload it.
• Please do not use an animated image as your character icon (the one that appears on logs, the character listing, etc.). Staff will change your icon to a different picture or none at all if no alternatives are available.
• Uploads to the site have a maximum size of 300 KB, and each character has a maximum storage size of 2 MB.

Idle Characters

We encourage players to RP as much or as little as they are comfortable playing. We have a few guidelines for inactive characters, however, to ensure game continuity and availability of roles and Played-Bys.

• Characters who do not login for 30 days or more may be removed from the grid.
  • This frees up their Played-By and, if they run a game-built (i.e. not apped-in) business, that business as well.
  • Played-Bys can be reclaimed for us if a new player hasn't taken them for a character, or, if they have, with that player's consent.
• Any characters marked inactive/removed from play may be reactivated at any time.
• Note that characters that have participated in fewer than 5 scenes may be fridged rather than marked "Gone."
• Characters may be renamed to free up the name for future use.

If you have a PC marked inactive and want to reclaim them, please send a request to staff. They may have been renamed (usually to their former name with their last name mashed into it, e.g. "SueSmith" or "JohnDoe"), so let us know which PC was yours, please.

Reporting Harassment

If you feel you are being harassed, please don't hesitate to alert staff - via page if they are online or request if no one is online. Please try to include logs of behavior whenever possible.

If no staff member is online to assist you, you can also take some immediate steps to stop a person from harassing you:

• Page-block them. You can do this easily by typing page/block <Name>=on (e.g., page/block Bob=on).
  • If you have been harassed via page, you can use the monitoring system to begin tracking pages from someone. Check the help for details about using this system.
• Leave the room where the person is.
• Silence the channel the person is using to bother you. You can also read the help file to see how to report inappropriate behavior on a channel to staff.
• As a last resort, you can boot the person from the game as a temporary measure.

Roster Characters

We have a roster of pre-created PCs available for people to pick up and play. All roster characters require a small app (just a few sentences explaining why you'd like to play them) and an email address where we can send your temporary password. Please be sure to reset your password once you have the roster character! Security first.

We encourage roster players to enjoy and inhabit these characters and make them their own. If you play a roster character, you are welcome and encouraged to update them as you play them.

• Add, edit, or delete their relationships.
• Update their description.
• Change their face claim (you'll need to submit a request for this one).
• Update their hooks.
• Add or change any character pictures on their profile.
• Make updates to their position in-game if they take a new job or role.
• Spend their XP as you see fit.

Basically, anything you can update as a player you're welcome to.

We do not intend to re-use all of our rosters once they've been played. If a character gets picked up but doesn't get much mileage (few scenes with no significance), we will re-roster them when they are no longer played. Once a roster PC feels like it belongs to someone, though, it's not our intention to put them back on the roster.

Suspension of Disbelief

To be very clear, this is not a detailed theme game. We are all about hand-waving things in favor of story and having fun. If something doesn't break the world, don't make a big deal out of it.

We aren't asking our players to do detailed research about what is or isn't thematic, or what is or isn't realistic in Washington state. If you're concerned that something someone is RPing is going to ruin your suspension of disbelief, feel free to reach out to staff. Otherwise, don't sweat the small stuff.

Revolving Door

Characters come and characters go. People try out a concept, find it doesn't fit, and move on. People idle without warning, drop off the face of the MUSH, rage-quit in a fit of flaming glory! There are tons of OOC reasons that people disappear from a game, often leaving behind an IC gap.

We ask that our players don't obsess over this. Sure, we might have gone through forty cops in an IC month, and that can be a funny thing ("Haha, what's wrong with this town!"), but this is something we'll just have to agree to hand-wave.

Everyone is welcome to use the lastwill command in-game to give some instructions to staff about what you would like to happen to your PC if you vanish, but - by and large - we intend to just play on as if it's perfectly normal, and is - in fact - thematic for Gray Harbor.

If you lose an important PC in your character's story (e.g., an integral member of your PC's family quits or someone playing a role in a PrP stops logging in), please feel free to work with staff on how you can write that character out of the story. We're happy to help. But please don't make decisions that would render that character unplayable if the player ever returned (e.g., kill them off) without discussing it first. This is a town where people come and go almost at random sometimes, so it's entirely possible to assume that character simply disappeared one day - took the next bus outta Gray Harbor and never looked back!

Dates and Events

Although we are a "modern day" game, we are set +1 year to the current calendar date. We're not going to bother overmuch with current events or state-of-the-world. Feel free to assume current events are still happening if it suits, but please bear in mind that world-affecting events should be checked via a request. In keeping with our "hand-wave / don't sweat the small stuff" philosophy, it's fine to reference things happening IRL as if they're still relevant IC, just bear in mind not everyone wants to RP about the pandemic, etc.