Rules
This page is organised into three sections:
1: RULES - the basic rules of the game
2: HOW WE WRITE - advice for keeping to the style and rhythm of the game
3: RATINGS - what the ratings for language, violence and sexuality mean in practice, and how they are interpreted by the command team.
RULES
1: All players must treat their fellow players with consideration and respect.
Characters may disagree, argue, or even come to blows, but out of character all players are expected to be civil and respectful. Abuse, disrespect or mistreatment of others will not be tolerated.
Players must not write other's characters for them without permission, and must respect other player's wishes if they do not wish to participate in a shared storyline.
2: All players (except those who request less active participation) must check in at least once a month or face removal from the game after consecutive missed check-ins.
In mission posts (marked with a ✱ and numbered) or posts with more than 3 authors, players should get any tags within two weeks. At the two week mark, players will be given a nudge and have seven days to get to the tag. If they are unable to get to the tag in that time, the tag may be filled in for them by the command team.
If players miss multiple tags, they may be removed from the game.
The characters of players that are removed may be killed or kept in the story until it becomes convenient to write them out of it.
Players can be part of the game in a less active capacity if they prefer it, which means they will not generally be included in main missions outside of any role they might request, and there will not be any specific requirements for posting or checking in. Players who do not request this but do not get their tags may face removal.
3: All players must be members of the SimCentral Discord. This is a condition of our hosting agreement.
4: All players must be at least 18 years of age.
Any player found to be under 18 will be removed from the sim immediately.
Mature content is permitted where appropriate, but not encouraged without good reason.
5: The command team reserves the right to veto character images that do not suit the aesthetic of the game.
We require that all characters be depicted in a visual medium, and we can help with that if you don't have anything already.
We aren't looking to tell you what to do or how to do it, but things like existing trek / sci fi characters are the sort of thing we'd prefer to avoid, in any event we're happy to work with you to find something that works.
6: All characters must be original. While we will accept pastiches, and there may be exceptions for characters who are variants of already multiversal beings, a character must not be something that already exists in existing media.
7: The Captain's word is law. To defy it is mutiny. Mutineers walk the plank.
The CO and the command team will make the final decisions and arbitrate any disputes.
By joining the sim, you are agreeing for your character to be part of the sim and it's ongoing story until they are written out of it. Player withdrawal will be actioned immediately if requested, but anything contributed to the website remains as part of the sim, there will be no retroactive removal of content except where agreed to by the CO.
The following are not rules, but guidelines for the process of playing the game.
HOW WE WRITE
Keep it clear, ask questions, tag instructively.
Our story consists of missions, each made up of posts. A post is like a scene in an episode, and a joint post (JP) involves multiple authors.
When starting out, scenes are set by the initiator, who leaves tags for others to respond. The tagged person responds by continuing the story or expanding their character based on the previous content. Responses can range from simple reactions to detailed elaborations, depending on the situation.
Your writing style is your choice, but clarity and brevity are important. Solo and smaller joint posts allow more freedom, while JPs with many authors often benefit from efficiency. You can use personal logs or solo/smaller posts to explore details not covered in JPs.
No one is expected to know all of Star Trek or (franchise of the mission) canon. Mistakes and purposeful changes are okay, but ask if you want to vary anything from any story that might impact others. If something seems incorrect, leave an OOC note or ask on Discord. We don’t want to nitpick, but it’s difficult to maintain a story if the details don’t make sense.
The command team confirms details and makes key decisions. Command-level changes are communicated along with reasons. Suggestions are welcome, though not all can be implemented.
Tags should include the name of anyone expected to respond to them, unless they’re open for anyone else in the post to respond to. If you’ve been tagged and are responding, take your name out and leave it blank or add the name of the character you expect to respond.
You don’t need to wait for a tag to respond, but if you jump in before someone specifically tagged has a chance to, you might be asked to rewrite after they’ve responded. If it makes sense for your character to interrupt for whatever reason, then it will probably be accepted.
The command team edits posts to ensure coherence, style and may remove or edit content that doesn't fit (usually after discussion with the author).
Ultimately our goal here is to craft a story together that someone might read and say ‘hey that multiversal adventure was both an entertaining story and pretty true to the spirit of golden-age Star Trek.’
STYLE AND FLARE
Keep it simple.
A ✱ in the post title with a number means that this post is a mission post progressing the main story. It will look like [✱2] at the end of the post title.
We don’t use any special characters or combinations of input like =/\= to signify using a combadge. If your character is communicating from beyond the room everyone else is in, just say that.
If you're branching the post to another area for more than a couple of paragraphs, add a divider using <_hr_> without underscores, it will look like the below.
There may come times when Unicode and non-english characters are used to portray something. If something just looks like a box to you, let us know.
Telepathy and thoughts can be written in italics, and should be if you’re communicating with someone else that way and not just reflecting. If you feel the need to emphasise something, making it bold is probably best, but beyond that keep the formatting simple.
ACTIVITY
Try to hit main story tags within two weeks, reach out if it’s too much / not enough.
We don’t have official activity rules other than checking in every month because I don’t want to have to enforce them. Non-main story posts can take as long as they need to, and even if the mission finishes they can be added as backposts.
We do however need to keep the main story moving at a pace that works for most of us. That’s why we ask that you get to tags in main mission posts within two weeks. At the two week mark I’ll reach out and present some options, but I’d really prefer not to have to. This is based on current trends and may be updated over time.
I appreciate that we all get busy, but it’s always possible to edit a post later to add preferred responses and keep things moving in the meanwhile. It just means if you need longer than two weeks, you might not have as much input in any direction the main story takes.
If you feel like you’ve got too many posts to deal with or want more, reach out to the command team and we’ll help you get to a level that works for you.
KNOWING WHAT YOUR CHARACTER KNOWS
Focus on character, flex the details, ask if you want to get wild with it.
Sometimes the audience knows things the characters don’t. This is called dramatic irony. Sometimes the characters know things the audience doesn’t. I don’t know what that’s called. Regular irony?
Your character shouldn’t know things you know as a player, they should make decisions based on their character, experience and situation. Try to consider the consequences from their perspective when you make a decision for your character, as going back and undoing something once the story has moved on from there is done at the discretion of all the writers involved, or the command team.
If your character should know something boring like who is your character’s neighbour, or how many Starfleet ships are currently in the outer reaches of the beta quadrant but you don’t know that personally, feel free to ask, no lore question is too small for us to apply our minds to. The plot discussion discord page is the best place to ask any questions or discuss any developments or calibration.
Don’t be afraid to throw details together if you’re talking about something inconsequential, or even something that’s the important focus of everyone’s attention. Making it up as we go is after all, part of the fun, but just be aware that some things may get pulled up for calibration if they deviate too dramatically from established canon or affect any plans for the story.
That said, feel free to suggest any story additions or variations you think might be worth considering ahead of time, but remember that the challenges designing an interlocking story with events for almost a dozen people to respond to means that not every suggestion can make it over the line.
The command team work under the ethos that if you can imagine it and make it work in a continuing story, you can do it. Just ask if it’s not in the application already.
DOING IT YOURSELF
Let the computer fix your mistakes, but don’t let it write for you.
While tools like Word’s spellcheck, Grammarly or Copilot style assistants are fine to use to proof or correct your writing, if you’re contributing something to the story it needs to be something that’s your ideas and thoughts, even if you tidy them up digitally.
If you’re using AI for more than basic structural/grammatical assistance, that’s too much AI. It’s a writing game for humans, if we wanted to write a story with ChatGPT we could all do that, but that’s not what this game is.
RATINGS
What do the ratings mean?
Language, violence and sexuality are rated because acceptable limits mean different things to different people, and there’s any number of conflicting and contradictory codes across the world. Certain depictions violate the standards expected by game masters, and some depictions of certain subject matter may even be illegal, so these things are codified to ensure that there’s no ambiguity.
There is no objective standard to draw from, but this is my impression as GameMaster of what the rankings mean.
If you’re ever in doubt, feel free to ask, and we’ll give you a judgement-free view of which rating anything you might want to write would get.
We rank 3 for language, 2 for violence and 2 for sexuality.
Language
1 – No (real) swearing. Damn, crap, ass but not asshole, network TV PG standard. This is probably how most people speak in the 25th century.
2 – Some swearing. All the standard profanities and insults, but anything worse than fuck should be rare and only used with very good reason. Adults only NSFW style language, the sort of thing you’d hear on TV after the watershed, but not the extreme end of vulgarity or offensiveness.
3 – Any swearing. All the worst swears, ethnic slurs (but be very careful) any combination of words, phrases and other output, no matter how distasteful or distressing. Think HBO, Tarantino.
The only rule is that anything requiring rating 3 permissions should have very good reasons and be true to a character that’s using them. Starfleet Officers who swear frequently on duty will likely find themselves in trouble from their superiors. Anyone abusing the rating will lose the privilege of its use.
Violence
1 – Avoids graphic violence wherever possible. Like most of TNG (when they’re not randomly exploding some guy’s head) or SG1. Mostly everyone is either peacefully stunned or knocked down bloodlessly in combat, or with an appropriate but subtle wound. Killing happens, but it's not the focus. PG-standard.
2 – Wounds bleed, bones break and limbs are lost. Violent, but slightly heightened to avoid absolute off-putting realism. A charging band of Klingons with Batleths don’t just leave their opponents unconscious, they take limbs off. Game of Thrones level consequential violence. Occasionally, there might be viscera, but not usually.
Protracted or deliberately graphic violence that is done with artistic intent or to advance/enrich a storyline can be acceptable (think Hannibal, The Saw Films, even the new Batman) but err on the side of caution if you think you might be taking the detail or extent of the violence too far. Violence as part of fantasy elements (think Hellraiser) is also more likely to fall into the 2 category if it's not just the sort of thing that would happen in real life. It should serve a story, not be the focus. We shouldn’t be trying to push the envelope.
Any post that includes depictions that would require a 2 rating should be tagged as such.
3 – The kind of thing you would see on modern Star Trek (see: Icheb) and hard-R rated realistic slasher/torture movies (ie. Hostel, Salo, The Hills have Eyes), horror without limits, violence where art is optional. Active depictions of sexual violence or using sexual violence as character development. Realistic and/or prolonged suffering as entertainment. Gratuitous descriptions, protracted focus on or excessive amounts of gore. Not the sort of thing we do here.
As said above, violence may be present and relatively high impact so long as it serves the story or is caused by fantasy/sci fi elements that one doesn't generally find in real life.
Sexuality
1 – Characters do not engage in or discuss intimacy beyond kissing, with possible subtle implied intimacy and post-intimacy situations. PG-standard. Any discussion of reproductive (or recreational non-reproductive) matters is purely scientific.
No character that is not considered to have reached the age of majority in their culture/for their species (and by an objective OOC standard) may be actively depicted in any way that would not meet a 1 rating in this category.
2 – Characters can engage in and discuss sexuality and positive intimacy, but without detailed depictions of acts or descriptions of genitalia and specific sexual contact. For examples in media of what this means, think American Pie, Love Actually, or any modern comedy film that explores this subject matter. The more artistic and less literal the better.
While specific depictions or uses of sexual violence are classified under rating 3 violence, frank and appropriate discussions about such subject matter are permitted under rank 2. It can be included in character histories in the abstract but not detailed any further than is essential for example, to describe parentage.
3 – Unlimited scope for depiction of sexuality between consenting adults, all the veiny fleshy details. Not our speed. For examples of what this includes, think of the Nymphomaniac films, or just enter any number of x’s into a search engine. Don’t try if you’re under 18. But if you’re under 18, you shouldn’t be here anyway. This isn’t for you.
