Section 1: The Rules

The Warning System
The Transformers Roleplay uses a Warning System to distribute punishments to our members. A member's Warning Bar is automatically set at 5, and, once reduced to 0, results in said member's immediate banishment from the site. After the set amount of days, a member's ban will be lifted and their Warning Bar will be reset to 5.

Once a member has been banned 3 times, that account is put up for a Permanent Ban. If Permanently Banned, a member will be incapable of having access to the site from that account. Although this is stated later on, trying to bypass a ban by making a new account, or through some other means, will result in dire consequences.

Staff Members who suffer punishments from the Warning System are put in danger of losing their position. A Staff Member who has been reduced to 3 Points on their Warning Bar is immediately demoted to the next rank, regardless of their current stature. Once a Staff Member has been banned from the site, they are completely removed from the Staff Team, and will have to regain their status from the bottom all over again.

Although Moderators and Admins hold the right to apply the rules of the Warning System to any act deemed necessary, abusing this power will result in their own punishments. Members who feel like they are unfairly losing Warning Points are encouraged to report to a higher-ranking Staff Member.

The Warning Stage identifies how many Points are deducted from your Warning Bar with each infraction. A Stage 1 Warning has a penalty of 1 Point; so on for each stage from 2 to 5.

If a member is an offender of two separate rules, the Warning Stages will be averaged out, and then rounded up. For example, if a member is an offender of both a Second Offense Flaming and First Offense Spamming, they will be given a Stage 4 Warning. (3+2=5/2=3.5~4)

If a member would be banned for two separate rules, the Ban Days will be averaged out, and then rounded up. For example, if a member is an offender of trolling (3 days), and of extreme profanity (5 days), they will be given a 4 day ban. (5+3=8/2=4). Should a member's ban time ever go over 10 days, they are instead permanently banned.

If a member would be banned because their Warning Bar was reduced to Zero, they will either be given a 3 Day Ban, or the minimum number of days possible for a ban from one of their offenses. For example, if a member was a first time offender of Flaming (3-4 days), but their warning bar was reduce to 0 by the first offense, they would be given a 3 day ban.

Universal Rules
Universal Rules apply to the entire Forum, from your Roleplays, Out-Of-Character Posts, and in the Chatbox.

Profane Language
Profanity is the use of curse words. Using them at an agreeable manner is acceptable, but going at it like a sailor will not be tolerated. You should also avoid directing profane language at other members, with the intent of offending them.

Profane Language will be rewarded with either a verbal warning, or a Stage 1-5 warning at the Admin/Moderator in question's discretion, and then removed.

Illegal Content
Examples of Illegal Content is Porn, attempted drug sales, threatening one's life, etc. There is a zero tolerance policy about posting Illegal Content.

Illegal Content will be immediately removed from the site, and the offender will be banned and immediately put up for Permanent Ban. Should the Admins vote that they will not be permanently banned, the ban will still stand for 5 days.

Spamming/Trolling/Flaming
Spamming is the posting of content without relevance to the topic or the excessive posting of content. Rules on Double Posting, Triple Posting and Mini-Posting are found later on, but all of these are also treated as Spam.
Incomplete posts, or posts made as a placeholder for later, outside of the Approval Forums are also considered spam.
Spam can also be identified as the Staff see fit.

Trolling is the posting of content with the intent of inducing a violent reaction.

Flaming is the internet's form of hate. Evident posting of offensive content towards a member, towards content on the site, or towards the site itself, will be considered Flaming.

As with all rules involving some sort of offensive content, if it is done in a joking manner, then that is fine. Case-by-case instances of each may be different, so, it is usually up to the members in question whether or not they are being offended.

First time Offenders will be given a written warning. Second time offenders will be given a Stage 2-4 Warning, to the admin's disclosure. Third time offenders will be rewarded a 1 Day Ban.

Malicious Content
Malicious Content can be considered the posting of anything harmful/offensive towards the site or members of the site. It can also be seen as disrespect towards members, or otherwise harassment.

Malicious content will be deleted on the spot. First time offenders are to be given a verbal warning, and are then categorized. Second time offenders are give a stage 3 Warning, and third time offenders are given a 4 day ban.

Arguments
Arguments disrupt the peace and put everyone in a sour mood. Religious arguments and other disputes need to be kept away from the site. Friendly debates are fine, but if an Admin/Moderator sees that it may be turning into an argument, we hold the right to end it. Anyone continuing will be punished.

Arguments are dealt with differently than other rules. First, all involved will be given a Written Warning. Then, the Admin will document the members involved in the argument, as well as the base of the argument. Once the Argument is brought back up, all currently involved will be given a Stage 1 Warning. After that, the Stage will increase by 1 to all members who continue the argument.

Literacy
As a Roleplaying Website, proper literacy and grammar is essential to not only your own fun, but to help in understanding you. Although we understand that you won't be perfect, you still need to have a basic understanding of the English language, and be able to understand how to structure a sentence.

Punishments for literacy are a bit more lenient than other rules. You will be given a simple Verbal warning.

Harassment
Harassment includes, but is not limited too: Sexist jokes/remarks, slander towards one's religion (Or lack thereof), and offensive remarks about ones ethnic group/race.

First time offenders will be given a Verbal Warning, and then will be documented. Second time offenders will be given a Stage 3 Warning, and Third Time offenders will be rewarded a 3 day ban.

Backseat Staffing
If you are not a Staff member, do not pretend to be one. Allow us to do our jobs, and you sit back and relax. Any members attempting to impersonate a Staff job that they don't have will be punished. Do not attempt to threaten members with Punishments if you cannot give them out, and do not attempt to approve profiles if you cannot approve them.

First Time offenders will be given a Verbal Warning, and will be documented. Second Time offenders will be given a Stage 3 Warning, and Third Time offenders will be given a 2 day ban.

Unspecified Rules
It is physically and mentally impossible for us to come up with and document everything that could be possibly considered wrong/inhumane on our site. For that reason, the Admins/Moderators have the right to apply the Warning System's rules to any issue brought up on the site, regardless of whether or not that issue is addressed here. For your own safety, if it doesn't sound like a good thing to do, it probably isn't.

Offenders will be punished how the Admin/Moderator in question deems best.

Ban Infringement/Multiple Accounts
Although it can sometimes be done by accident, a member shouldn't attempt to get around their ban by making a new account. If you are caught somehow trying to get around your ban from the Chatbox or the Forum, the punishments could become absolute.
Why you would need another account beyond your first is none of our business; what is our business, though, is telling you that you can't have one. If you are caught with multiple accounts, then those accounts will be locked from your access.

Members with extra accounts will have those accounts removed. Members attempting to get around their banning from the site will have their Ban time reset. Excessive attempts at either will result in the permanent removal of access to the Forum from your Network.

Rule Notices
As mentioned earlier, all users are expected to follow these rules - regardless of status. Staff Members have the right to apply the Warning System to any activity on the site, and can increase or decrease the punishments on rules as they deem fit. Members who feel like they are being punished wrongly are free to bring it up to another Staff member.

As always, one of the most important rules is that you simply have fun.

Roleplaying rules are applied to you as you are roleplaying your character(s). When Roleplaying, there are set rules that are expected to be followed in order to ensure that you, and everyone roleplaying with you, are both playing fairly and having a fun time.

God Modding
God Modding is the most common, serious and dangerous mistake that one can make while Roleplaying, simply because most people aren't even aware that it's happening. A person who is God Modding has given their Character unrealistic attributes (even for a Transformers roleplay), with abilities that may go past the normal boundaries. Some examples of Godmodding are:

• Outright ignoring the penalties of an attack. Without the proper enhancements, your character shouldn't be able to take Damage without some sort of flinch or stumble. A more severe form of this is ignoring the attack, altogether.
  
• Dodging every, single attack aimed at your character. No matter how fast, small or acrobatic your character may be, they cannot possibly dodge each attack that goes their way. Although you are definitely encouraged to dodge, you are not encouraged to dodge all the time.
  
• Using abilities you aren't supposed to have. A motorcycle cannot fly, and your weapon does not have infinite ammo.
  
• Ignoring different types of chassis/weapons. Transformers with larger forms should move slower, just like larger weapons will decrease your speed. In this same idea, your character who has practiced with Machine Guns all of their lives wouldn't have the slightest clue on how to properly handle a Rocket Launcher.
  

First time offenders of God Modding will be awarded a Written Warning against it. Beyond that, it can be rather difficult gauging any one God Modding instance; so, case-by-case handling is necessary. A Warning Stage between 2-5 is chosen at the Moderator's discretion.

Power Playing
Power Playing is a category of God Modding, but, because of the different specifications behind it, it has its own section.

Power Playing is the act of controlling someone else's character without their permission, manipulate the environment to your liking, or claim that your attempted actions are automatically successful. The only character you control is your own; You cannot possibly dodge out of the way of a bullet shot after avoiding his sword, if the bullet shot came first; and your actions cannot be automatically successful.

Meta-Gaming
Meta-Gaming is the act of applying out-of-character knowledge to in-character situations. Just because you have read over a character's sheet, and thus know everything there is to know about them, does not mean that your character would have the same sort of information. It's also important to keep in mind that, simply because you can read the fundamental purpose behind an attack, doesn't mean that your character will learn everything there is to know about an attack after seeing it just once. Small hints about an attack cannot tell you everything about it.

The key to avoiding Meta-Gaming is to simply keep track of what you know, VS what your character knows. A safe rule of thumb the follow would be that, if your character hasn't seen it, then they don't know about it.

Locations
Naturally, this Roleplay takes place on Cybertron; the home Planet of the Transformers. This place has locations with specific names and dynamics. As such, it's important to understand travel between locations and where you're allowed to go.

Naturally, a place your character isn't allowed to go would be somewhere behind enemy lines. Although you could go to normally forbidden places, your presence will mean that someone will be there to extricate you.
Likewise, it is also important to note that your blatantly obvious exists may not be so obvious. When your character changes location, or goes away from an area, point it out somewhere in your post with an [Exit] notification.
With that in mind, your character will (hopefully) not just fade out of existence. If they leave one place, they are probably going to another. For this reason, when you leave a place, put the following information at the bottom of your post, for simplicity's sake:

{Current Location} --> {Destination}

Your character is also allowed to be in multiple locations at once. This doesn't mean that you can be in four different spots in the same thread; we mean that you can be in multiple different threads with the same character. Be careful with this leniency, and make sure to not abuse it by overextending yourself. If you abuse this rule by being in too many places at once, a Staff member may put a limit on your allotted thread activity count.

Multi-Posting
Multi-Posting is posting a second or third time in the same forum, without anyone separating your posts. After you post, you should either wait until someone else comments or wait 24 hours before making a new post. If you need to reinforce or fix your previous ideas, simply use the edit button.

Posting Relevance
Before making any post anywhere, be sure to ask yourself if that post belongs there. Although moderators will go in behind you and make sure your post is in the right spot, it would save us a lot of trouble to simply already have it done.

Mini-Posting
Mini-Posting is defined as any post with less than 10 words within it's entirety. Although this is fine in some forums, such as Approval forums or small discussions, smaller posts are out of place within Roleplays and serious discussions.

On Topic
Whenever replying to someone else's post, please ensure that your post is in compliance with the topic following the rest of the post. Although moderators will go in behind you and delete posts that don't belong, it would be a lot easier on us if you simply didn't post.

OOC Posts
While Roleplaying, please try to keep from using Out of Character posts. This would be whenever you asked a question or tried to clear something up, Out of Character. Although you are allowed to place OOC Information with the rest of your Roleplay Post, these posts should never be alone during a roleplay. If you need to ask a question before your post, check the Chat Box.

Abandoned Posts
Whenever you start a RP thread, you are expected to keep it going and reply to any and all responses made to it by other members. Likewise, if you jump into an open RP thread, you will be expected to continue to Roleplay until your character leaves, your opponent leaves, your opponent dies or you die. Do not simply abandon posts.

Grave Digging
Under no circumstances are you to go into the Site's history to find a post and comment under it - if that post is obviously months old without any activity. This is called Grave Digging. Normally, really old posts will be closed and locked upon completion, but under the rare occasion that you find one that isn't locked, it will be locked.

Proper Tags
Please place the Proper Tags on posts. Don't tag a post with Raid if you aren't going to go raiding anything. Don't tag a post with Open if you don't want anyone to join; so on and so forth.

These are the proper Post Tags, and what they mean. You should put each before the name of your post if you wish for it to reply. Multiple tags can be on the same post.

Tags (Click to Toggle):

Actions
Your character has a total number of actions per turn. These Actions are dedicated to using Attacks, Abilities, or otherwise Combat-Related activities. Dodging attacks aimed at your character does not count towards your Action Slots per turn. Due to this, you are allowed to dodge as many attacks as you want during your turn; however, you must still comply to the rules for God modding.

Posting Order
It's important to have a Posting Order. Not only does it allow each member to reply to each other's attacks in order of occurrence, it prevents a member from having an extra turn before everyone has completely finished their turns.

This calls for order, and order calls for simplicity. Whenever all members have posted at least once, a member can note the Ideal Posting order for the thread in an OOC message before the rest of their message.

Post Summaries
During the heat of combat, it can be easy to lose track of what your opponent is doing. So, we have integrated a system in which you tell your opponent exactly what's going on with your actions, at the end of your post: The Post Summary.

Here, you will find all of the attacks aimed at your character, how much damage they will deal, and what effects may apply if they hit. They will also list any and all weapons that they have currently up in use.

The user's current HP will always be displayed within the Post Summary, as well as that Character's current Weapons/Ammo. The user's Turn Count, active effects and Cool Down will also be present here.

This Summary is used so that opponent's don't have to go digging throughout your post to assume what your character is using. It's also there to ensure they can find out what's happening to your character that would boost your damage, and so that they have a constant watch on your resources - so that you can't cheat and change them out of nowhere.

This is where Metagaming comes into play, though. Although you can see all of this information doesn't mean that your character can use it.

Combat Edits
Once your opponent has posted a comment to your last Combat step, you cannot go back and edit your post. Any changes made to your post will be considered Null and void. This is to ensure that you don't suddenly change what your character does, and that your opponent doesn't seem to be in the wrong.

Going Offline
A Transformer going offline has the same concept as a human dying. Once your health is dropped to Zero, your Spark has flickered out, and your character has gone offline.

Naturally, though, it is up to you whether or not your character will actually go offline. Just because your character's health has gone down to zero doesn't mean they have to die. Staff will not force your character to die, and neither can any other member. Your characters death is up to you. Naturally, though, once their health hits zero, they still need to leave for repairs.