Rules

General Membership Requirements
1. All members of the USS Sojourner must be sixteen years of age or older.
2. All members are required to be respectful to each other with a no-tolerance policy as it relates to bullying and conduct disruptive to the group.
3. All members are considered members of Sim Central and as such are required to follow all Sim Central community rules.
4. All members must join the Sim Central Discord server and accept the rules of the community and sim to join.


Activity Requirements

• All members are required to be part of at least one published post once per calendar month if not actively required for the movement of the story.
  1. All members are required to respond to all active joint posts with other members once at least every 72 hours.
  2. All members are required to notify the staff should they be unable to fulfill activity requirements. These notifications are known within the group as a Leave of Absence (LOA).
  3. Crew are encouraged to communicate busy periods or short spurts of leave via Discord to the fellow crew.
  3a. Notification to the staff for an official LOA can occur via discord in #sojourner-loa or directly to a member of the staff.
  3b. LOAs are not requests requiring approval of staff, it is just a notification that a member needs to take some time away for coordination of the story.
  
  
  Writing In Character
  All writers are expected to avoid some basic potential pitfalls of writing science fiction characters:
  1. Only write for characters assigned to you.
  2. "Metagaming" - using your out-of-character knowledge to give your characters in-game knowledge they would not otherwise have.
  3. Avoid "God Syndrome" or "Super-heroism." Stick to your character's biography and don't spontaneously generate new skills or talents to solve a crisis or give your character an edge.
  
  All characters are subjected to the consequences of their actions in character and some consequences may be directed by staff.
  1. For the story to be interesting not all evolutions undertaken by the crew should be successful.
  2. Staff may find it necessary to drive certain responses for progression of the story.
  
  Department Heads and other players in supervisory roles are responsible for coordinating writing activities within their areas of responsibility with writers in subordinate character roles and the writing of NPCs as necessary. Staff will be available to help in these tasks for department heads, other supervisors, and any other interested member
  
  An appropriate location and timeline information (date, time) are required for all posts and should coincide with the general storyline regardless of order published to the website. This allows for multiple writers to keep active and not always wait on items holding up our timeline, etc.
  
  The USS Sojourner is a 2-2-2 rated game. All members are required to follow the appropriate limit on adult content while writing. For ease below are guidelines in response to some of the most common questions about games with this rating:
  1. Mature language and swearing is permitted with some limitations (nothing excessive or inflammatory toward minorities, etc.)
  2. Scenes with sex are "fade to/from black." An act of sex can be mentioned, initiated or concluded, but not described. If a post contains sexual contact, please include a warning at the top of the post indicating that nudity and sexual content is included.
  3. Scenes depicting sexual contact with or between children or sexual violence/contact toward children are prohibited.
  4. Scenes of violence can be depicted, but should be done with taste. Please do not include excessive or gory details.
  
  
  Disclaimers
  1. The Staff of the Sojourner (Game Manager, Assistant Game Managers, and others as noted) have full authority on all matters within our community.
  2. These rules and policies may be updated at any time and it is the responsibility of the members to be familiar with them. All updates will be announced to the membership when made effective.