GENERAL HOUSE MECHANICS
RETCON
There are times in which certain aspects need to be removed from the continuity of the overall story of Cairo After Dark. A retcon is defined as removing a specific thing from the continuity of the story. This "thing" can be as simple as a single spoken word by a (non)player character, to more complicated things such as an entire scene, combat, or even character death. When an item is retconned, that item is removed from play as if that item never existed, as well as (non)player-characters will react equally as if the item never existed.
• Retconning may only be performed by a Storyteller.
• Retconning must be submitted to the relevant parties within 1 hour from the original events taking place.
• Retconning which needs to occur beyond 1 hour from the original events taking place must be submitted to Storytellers for review and pausing the scene.
MEDIATION
A Mediator will be sought as a binding arbiter in a dispute between parties with the consent of all involved.
Anyone chosen as Mediator has the right to refuse.
This responsibility may not be delegated without prior permission from all parties involved. The specific details of such mediation shall remain confidential and shall not be made public unless Disciplinary Action as a result of such mediation is sought, in which case the Administrative team may make the action wholly or partially public, in the exercise of their discretion.
To protect the confidentiality of our members the Mediator may opt to use pseudonyms rather than identifying individuals by name.
Mediator or the individual requesting mediation or their proxy (Storyteller) may ask others to make statements regarding the mediation.
LEARNING DISCIPLINES
When you choose your character's clan, the character gains access to that clan's three innate disciplines. If you choose to purchase a bloodline merit, the clan�s native disciplines may be altered to reflect the differences between that bloodline and the pure blood of the parent clan. At character creation, you assign one of your character�s native, or �in-clan� disciplines 2 dots and 1 dot to each of your character�s two remaining in-clan disciplines. You can then use initial experience points (EXP) and EXP gained from flaws to purchase additional dots of the character�s in-clan disciplines. With the Storyteller�s permission, you may also buy the first 3 dots of non-native, �out-of-clan� disciplines, so long as those disciplines are common to the setting. You cannot purchase more than 3 dots of a specific out-of-clan discipline (though you may buy more than one out-of-clan), nor may you buy rare disciplines during character creation.
After character creation, you can freely purchase your character's in-clan disciplines with XP.
To learn 1 or more dots of an out-of-clan discipline: The student must find a teacher who possesses the desired discipline in-clan, and has mastered at least the level they wish to learn.
The student must drink a point of Blood from the teacher to awaken the potential to learn a discipline not innate to the student�s clan. If the student already possesses a dot of the discipline to be learned, they may skip this step. The student cannot learn other powers or disciplines from the ingestion of this Blood.
The teacher must spend 1 point of Willpower for every power to be taught, and inform the student which discipline (and which powers) he is teaching them.
The teacher must be in contact with the student and must give them instruction from time to time. The student must actively train, and, therefore, must spend 1 action per power to be learned.
The student must spend the XP to purchase the power or powers.
The student need only drink 1 point of Blood from the teacher to gain the capability to learn all of the powers of a given Discipline, even if learning from multiple vampires. The individual powers still need to be taught and learned separately. The Blood ingested counts towards the blood bound.
Once a character has activated an out-of-clan discipline by learning the first power, they do not need to drink more blood in order to learn additional levels of that discipline. Even after the blood bond fades, they still retain the ability to learn more. However, they will need further instruction (and more Willpower expenditures) from a qualified teacher who possesses the discipline in-clan. This may be a different teacher than the one who initially taught them in the first place.
GENERAL ETIQUETTE
Decency: In basic, do not be an asshole, elitist, drama king/queen or douche. reprehensible behavior include, but are not limited to: bullying, emotional manipulation and harassment, actively avoiding other players and their characters, cliques and gaslighting.
Bigotry: Discrimination will not be tolerated, be it racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia. note: this does not mean that dark senses of humor are prohibited. Risqu jokes about touchy subject are allowed, just make sure that your intent is clear.
Inflammatory Subjects: The current state of the world is pretty screwed up, we get it. However, for many of us, games like these are a form of escapism. We ask that you avoid bringing up issues about politics, religion, and most social justice issues. Players are expected to de-escalate heated arguments of their own accord, but Storytellers might step in and mute players who just refuse to back down. The internet is a vast place with countless tribunes for you to use, this place is not it.
OUT OF CHARACTER
Respect Storytellers: Always remember that Storyteller(s) are here trying to entertain you out of the goodness of their hearts. We encourage constructive criticism, but flat-out lack of respect will not be tolerated. Respect Fellow Players: The same rule goes for players; we ask that all our entire community (Storytellers & players alike).
Separation: This is an especially important rule. What happens in-character stays in-character, and what happens out of character stays out of character. Players who cause drama because they can't make the distinction between the game and real life may be asked to leave.
Blood Poison: Don't use Out Of Character knowledge to influence In-Character events. i.e: Another player is discussing a weakness their character has in one of the OOC channels, this doesn�t mean that another character is aware of this weakness in an IC channel, unless previously learned through game play.
ROLE-PLAY ETIQUETTE
These are the basic forms of interaction to have some uniformity within the game. This allows everyone to understand what is going on and spend less time trying to translate what other people are trying to do.
LANGUAGES
All languages are, by default, English. If you are using another language, you must use a tag. Typically, it's " blah blah blah" and after a line or two you can shorten it to 2-3 letters (remember, < s > is softly and is whisper, so don't shorten a language to that if it starts with those letters).
Example: Bob: How are you? Jane: I don't speak English. Bob: What? Jane: I don't speak your silly language.
If you are in a scene with someone or someone else and you have the entire conversation in another base language, you can state "((the rest of the conversation is in X until otherwise noted))" in the channel log and go from there. If someone new comes into the channel, you must inform them of this. At that point, typically the non-English language must be tagged again.
OUT OF CHARACTER
While we prefer to keep all OOC talk out of in-game channels, we know this may not always happen. Therefore, when needing to mention something OOC within an in-game channel, please use something that will show that you are speaking OOC, such as: (( )), [ ] or ``.
ABBREVIATIONS
< s > = softly = very softly = quiet = whispers Do not type that your character whispers in the channel and direct message the text to someone. if it is not in the channel, it did not happen.
LEAVING A CHANNEL
To leave a channel, one must type something about physically leaving the area IC, and wait at least 30 seconds to quit the channel, in case someone tries to stop you IC.
The only exception to this being in combat, if you would like to leave the channel in combat, you must first ask the Storyteller running the combat. If you leave during a pivotal moment IC, without notice, you may have your character played by a Storyteller. So please do not do it.
GAME RELATED QUESTIONS
All game questions related to your character in general should be done within your Private Player channel. If involved in a storyline/scene/plot/event, there are channels setup to discuss things OOC wise without interrupting an IC channel. Please keep all OOC out of any IC channel.
Should you have a question concerning a concept you have in mind, please feel free to use the #character-thoughts channel. You are free to talk about things in the #general channel, but since this is our general chat.. might be easier not to so it doesn�t get lost amongst the rest of the chatter taking place in that channel
DIRECT MESSAGES
We do not allow any roleplay to be done in direct messages. ALL gaming must be done in a channel on the CAD server. This is so there are logs of all actions and the Storytellers can review scenes and see what has happened or what is going on in the game. This includes transfers of information (what the results of a dice roll are, what power effects are on a person, even basic questions about rules), IC phone calls, IC text messages, IC emails. EVERYTHING. Channels are set up for any purpose you might need, please use them properly.
TIME IN GAME
The in-game setting is considered always-night unless the scene is specifically stated to be a daytime scene. It is considered rude to leave a scene with a "it's getting light out" if there are other people who are staying in the channel and roleplaying, because it forces them to accept the time change. If everyone is leaving, then it can be done without a problem. In a larger scale, though, the date is today's date, the year is the current year. There is no alteration, expansion, or contraction, of the time scale here.