Project Multiverse is meant to be an open and enjoyable experience for all of our players. Nearly anything can be found or created within our setting. So that members of our community can enjoy their time here, we have a collection of base rules that we expect all players to follow during their time with Project Multiverse.

• We are an 18+ community.
  • Themes of a sexual or violent nature not suited for those under 18 may be found within our conversations or roleplay.
  • Adult and NSFW content should be restricted to the appropriate locations.
    • For Discord, this is the #nsfw channel.
    • For the forum, posts containing adult or NSFW content must have a Mature tag.
    • Mature content in a post not tagged Mature should “fade to black”¹⁾.
  • Not all mature content is allowed. We follow Discord's guidelines on our Discord server, forums, and wiki.
• Respect the safety and well-being of the community and its members.
  • Hate speech, abuse, and harassment of any kind is not acceptable.
  • We are a community made of people with many different views and identities. Treat others in the way they wish to be treated.
• Do not cause unreasonable drama and/or stress for other members of the community.
  • Drama ruins communities and makes it hard to be enthusiastic about participating in the roleplay. For this reason, we have a Zero Drama Tolerance policy.
  • OOC and IC must remain separate at all times, this means no bringing OOC drama into our writing or allowing it to effect our characters decisions. This also means that IRL matters do not exist or effect anything in the Universe setting.
• In the case where a player is irreparably misaligned with the goals or well-being of our community, we may ask them to leave or issue a ban.

• Respect the rights of content creators.
  • Art, character concepts, and other intellectual properties can only be used here if you are the owner of those properties.
• We believe that a persistent, collaborative universe requires that additions to the story or setting are permanent. For this reason, posts, wiki additions, and other content additions to Project Multiverse's forum or wikis are done under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.
  • In short, this gives us the right to share or adapt your content, so long as we give you appropriate credit.

• Should a player leave, we will do our best to respect their wishes on how to handle their content, so long as we can do so in a way that is not disruptive to the setting/community.
• Content without an active owner will gradually go into decline. Systems will be relinquished for others to claim, technology/magic/etc withdrawn back into their home system, characters will vanish into the background, and so on.
• If a player designates someone to take control of their content, we will treat that player as the official owner of the content moving forward.

One of the core concepts for Project Multiverse is that of consent. We let players have extensive freedom to play how they want. In exchange, we have some important expectations for how players treat each other and the setting as a whole.

Your character/s may die, your ships may blow up, your ideas might be rejected, and you may not always be happy with how things go. This is just part of being in a collaborative storytelling environment.

Participating in a shard or plot puts you at the whim of the player/s in charge of that shard/plot. By joining them, you have given consent to those players to affect your content/characters. Make sure you understand what you're getting into (themes, maturity levels, etc).

Should you not like how something turns out, discuss it with that player first. If you can't come to a happy conclusion, you can reach out to staff and we'll try to work things out with you.

Anything that affects your content in a way not implied by where that content is played or previously agreed upon requires express consent. A simple example would be for mature content - if you or your character has not agreed to be part of mature content, then other players (including GMs!) need to get your permission before engaging in this manner. This can also be true of character deaths, language, etc.

Generally speaking, using another player's character/s requires that player's express consent. Players running Shards and Plots are given implicit consent to use characters by a player participating in that part of the setting, within reason.

We are a collaborative story telling community. We aren't interested in who is the most powerful or who has the most territory. Something being “the most” is only as interesting as the stories that can be told because of that.

Project Multiverse largely avoids setting restrictions upon its members in terms of what a given character or Nation can do. We accomplish this by assuming that everyone and everything is, at the end of the day, equal in the eyes of the story.

Example: If one Nation has a fleet of a million ships and another Nation only has three, the smaller Nation could still win the conflict. Both groups of players are just as deserving as a win - or loss.

Star Wars would be a lot shorter if the Empire had won by default, after all.

What is 'fair' may vary from Shard to Shard, depending on that Shard's themes.

Anyone found to be abusing the community's desire for fairness may find themselves suddenly without all their shiny toys - or banned entirely. If you cannot participate in a fair manner, simply don't involve yourself in it.

It's up to everyone involved to find a way to make the story make sense. Let's have fun together!

When two or more players decide to RP together, there's some basic rules that players expect everyone to follow. The following are a few roleplay-specific 'rules' of behavior that we expect our players to follow so that everyone can have a good time.

• You must have a player's permission to:
  • Control or write for their characters, including how other characters react to your character
    • aka, power playing
  • Harm or kill their characters
  • Engage in mature or otherwise 'inappropriate' ways with their characters
• If you have permission to write for a character, do your best to do so in a manner that is true and respectful of that character.
• Do not…
  • … write your character/s as invincible, all-powerful, or without fault.
    • aka, known as power gaming or godmodding
  • … give your character knowledge beyond what they would reasonably have.
    • aka, metagaming
  • … break the lore/setting
• Give other players a chance to respond to your actions
  • i.e., don't say “I punch you”, say “I swing my fist at you”

If one or more players can't agree on an outcome, but still want to proceed with the story, they should let a simple dice roll make the decision. This holds just as true for one-on-one combat as it does for massive battles.

Since PM doesn't have any formal systems for gaining or limiting power, all combat strengths are effectively 'made up'. We are entirely narrative based in this regard - which is why we leave disagreements up to chance.

If a player writes, “I have an invincible fleet”, they now have an invincible fleet. However, they are not guaranteed victory and no amount of careful writing will change that. Their invincible fleet is just as likely to win or lose as a scrappy starfighter. Likewise, the all-powerful mage can still lose to a kid holding a sharp stick. The more interesting story is often the one with an unexpected outcome, after all.

Once a “winner” has been determined, the players should discuss how things play out. Winning simply means that the conflict is resolved in the winner's favor. It doesn't mean the loser dies or that their fleet is destroyed.

If players have specific goals in mind, they should establish those up front. For example, “If I win, I claim this system.” or “If I win, I successfully steal the treasure.”

Focus on your goals and not what happens to your opponent/s. Why are you having this conflict?

By default, we suggest each player rolls a d6. The higher result wins!

If a player feels that their opponent should have an advantage, they may decide to give their opponent's dice a bonus. Any bonuses should be given before dice are rolled. Do not try to coerce other players into giving you a bonus.

• A player might decide to give their opponent a flat bonus, such as adding 2 to the result of a d6.
• A player might decide to give their opponent a larger dice, such as letting them roll a d8 in comparison to their d6.
• A player is fighting two other players. They agree to use a single dice roll to determine the outcome, but the solo player gives +1 to their opponent's roll because they're outnumbered.

Example: A fifty-foot tall robot is rampaging through town! It's up to one plucky kid to put a stop to it… or die trying. The two players (one each for the robot and the kid) can't decide who should win. The kid agrees that the robot's odds are a little better, so they say the robot's player can add 2 to their roll.

They roll the dice and the kid comes out as the victor! The players discuss how the kid could win and agree that a clever ploy to convince the robot that it's destroying the wrong town seems like a fair 'victory'. The robot leaves, giving the city time to rebuild - and plan for the next attack.

Example:Two players want to have their characters duke it out. Incenimax, lord of the five hells and master of the eternal flame, challenges Bill, the accountant, to a battle.

Incenimax's player feels like he's got a pretty big advantage when it comes to fighting. Bill's player knows that tax season is coming up and reckons that Incenimax might be underestimating him. Neither player gives the other a bonus.

Regardless of who wins, it's up to the players to roll the dice and figure out how to make the results of the roll a reality.

When the dice are done rolling, Incenimax wins! Bill's player doesn't want Bill to die, but has no problems with Incenimax handily winning the fight. Incenimax's player doesn't really care about killing Bill off - and even if he did, he'd need the other player's consent. They talk about the major points of how things might go down and get to writing.

The story unfolds…

Bill lays on the ground, on the cusp of death as Incenimax's fiery chain winds around his neck. Just before the final blow is dealt, Bill summons the last of his strength to grin up at his opponent.

“Guess it's true what they say. There are only two things for sure in this life - death and taxes. I might die here, but you? Taxes will follow you forever.”

Incenimax curses, knowing that Bill is right. But what if…?

“Perhaps,” says the master of the eternal flame, “perhaps. Or perhaps… we face them both together.”

Using dice isn't a weapon to get what you want. It is simply a way to acknowledge that, when everything is equal in the eyes of the story, sometimes the winner just comes down to chance.

One of the best things about telling a story is figuring out how it ends. If you win in such a way that it closes all doors for future storytelling, all you've really done is robbed yourself and your fellow players of the opportunity to continue having fun.

Being part of a story requires a commitment to see that story through to the end. It's important that there isn't a fear of players leaving because they're not happy with some aspect of how the story is going. Leaving plots can hurt the motivation of the other players involved and makes it difficult to maintain a consistent narrative.

We do not, however, believe that players should be forced to continue in situations that make them feel unsafe, uncomfortable, or unsatisfied in a way that ruins their enjoyment of the game.

If you find yourself (or your characters) in a situation that you no longer wish to be part of, you can work with the leader of that nation or plot to come up with a graceful way to remove yourself from that situation. If you can't come to a satisfactory agreement, staff can be asked to make a review and then make a decision. Staff will prioritize maintaining continuity, if possible.

Project Multiverse is a setting collaboratively built by all of its players. We are an RP-first community, so while we maintain a wiki for its ability to improve our roleplay, we do not wish for the wiki to be a major part of how we spend our time or a roadblock to good storytelling.

Adding content to our setting comes with a number of responsibilities:

• All content must adhere to our core rules.
• Ensure that your content fits within the themes of the affected Shard/s, Plot/s, or overall setting.
• Accept that your content will be used and interacted with by others in the community.
• Ensure that your content is well-written and easy for others to understand.
• Understand that adding content to the wiki does not guarantee that others will have interest in using it or allow it within their part of the setting²⁾.

While we want to be as open as possible about the content allowed within PM, we also need to respect the wishes of the players who already have content. Should your content impact someone else's, then you need to get their consent.

If you aren't a Shard Master, you should talk to them about major additions to their shard. Some Shards' wiki pages may have information about what type of content can be created for the Shard without oversight.

Anything other than characters, plots, or locations (each of which have their own namespaces that you can find on the sidebar to the left) that is not setting-wide should be created under the relevant Shard's namespace.

If you're creating something that affects the setting as a whole, you should discuss it with the site staff. Pages outside of a Shard's namespace that don't match the above categories are under Staff's authority and may be rejected or modified. This is because content outside of a Shard impacts all Shards - we want to make sure each Shard's setting is respected and only impacted when we feel it is truly appropriate.

Content with limited impact, such as things affecting a single Shard, is typically fine. Don't feel overly constrained.

It's easy to get excited and start adding all of your favorite things, but when you create something you're taking on the responsibility of making that something truly great. You may also be reducing the 'creative space' in the setting if your creations are overly broad.

Example: You decide to make elves. You describe all of the standard elf tropes as variations on the core elves. You give them magic and advanced technology.

If/when you're making something, please be thoughtful about the identity of your part of the setting, whether or not a new addition is necessary, and whether or not you're going to develop your creation to a reasonable extent.

Making a unique, well developed take on an idea leaves plenty of room for other players and expands the setting in fun ways.

In addition to our basic intellectual property rules, we allow content creators to define some basic asks around how others can/can't use their content. Most wiki templates have a section in the 'OOC' part at the bottom to cover this, but you can add it there yourself should it be missing.

Usage asks must be reasonable or they will not be followed. If you're unsure if something is reasonable - ask!

If you don't wish others to use or interact with your content at all, Project Multiverse is not the place for it. We're a collaborative storytelling community, after all.

• Player Whisper created this on 2022/01/22 12:00, with input from the other members of the Project Multiverse staff and community.

This article's content adheres to Project Multiverse's submission and usage rules.