Syn County Rules

Server Rules

Lore

Even though this is 1902 and based on America, Syn County RP and its lore is not tied directly to American History. Roleplaying out or making reference to American History shouldn't occur. References to events such as the "Trail of Tears, Slavery, American Revolution, Civil-War" etc. shouldn't be made in RP or be an integral part to your characters backstory.

1. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
1.1 If you are deemed unfit to be a part of the community the staff team has full authority to remove you from the community.
1.2 You are not allowed to RP as a minor or a pregnant character.
1.3 Age requirement of 18+
1.4 As an 18+ server, a certain level of mental maturity and common sense is expected.
1.5 A working microphone. - do not use voice changers in a manner that doesn’t make sense (using a robot voice, changing a character voice from one instance to another, using voices that can’t be understood) 
1.6 Anything found below that involves consent should be performed through /ooc, do not break character and ask verbally.
1.7 Your CFX and character name should be set as a name that makes sense, not a random set of symbols or a single letter/number. Staff reserve the right to remove your access to the server if you attempt to obscure yourself from server logs.

2. EXPLOITING
2.1 Any form of exploiting may result in an immediate, unappealable, permanent ban from the county.
2.2 Using bugs you are aware of to your advantage without reporting it.
2.3 Item duping, money exploiting, or abusing starter cash.
2.4 Using NUI tools in game. If you do not know what a NUI tool is, you’re likely safe.
2.5 Any form of modding.
2.6 Abusing game mechanics. [ex: using mechanics that enable you to move whilst in a downed state or avoiding animations]
2.7 Abusing instance mechanics for gain or an unfair advantage.

3. MUSIC AND LANGUAGE
3.1 No playing music through your microphone.
3.2 You must speak English in public settings. If you wish to speak to anyone using your native language, do so in private. 

4. VIGILANTISM
4.1 You may not help police fight crime.
4.2 If a crime is taking place, evacuate the area like a good civilian. Do not disrupt lawmen’s RP in any way. Leave the area if a lawman instructs you to do so.
4.3 Unless you are directly involved in an active crime; you may not intervene. This does not apply if the target of the crime is your friend. You may not insert yourself or your friend into the active crime to use this amendment as a loophole.
4.4 The above rule does not apply if the criminals initiate hostile action on you directly. Bare in mind, law will have full authority to consider you an active combatant and you may be charged with the associated crimes. 
-The burden of proof that you were initiated upon lies with you. If you cannot prove that you were initiated upon, vigilantism may still apply.

5. FailRP & NERP
5.1 Failing to maintain roleplay / acting in an completely unrealistic manner. [Ex: Killing friends repeatedly for fun, throwing oneself off buildings repeatedly, blatantly admitting to/committing crimes in front of law in order to force a response (Cop baiting)]
5.2 Non-Engaging Roleplay (NERP), engaging in activities that technically follow the rules but disrupt the immersion or enjoyment for others [Ruleplay]
5.3 If you are breaking character during a scenario, you risk a warning for FailRP, regardless of any rulebreak you may have encountered. If you absolutely must express something to those around you in an out of character manner, use /ooc. 
5.4 Not RPing your injuries. Don't talk without a head.
Even if a situation doesn't go as planned. STAY in character. Do not actively call out "Fail RP". Finish the situation before opening a ticket on discord

6.CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES
6.1 You cannot go on continuously robbing the same people within a short time span. 
6.2 If you rob someone, you can't kill them. If you kill someone, you cannot remove any belongings from horses, wagons, or trains. 
6.3 Horses, wagons, and trains are exempt from robbery initiations rules. Do not leave these unattended if you do not want to risk them being robbed.
6.4 If you rob someone as part of a group, your group is considered complicit in rule-breaks that occurs during the robbery.
6.5 If you commit physical or hostile acts against the aggressors who robbed you, you forfeit your right to not be killed after being robbed. Physical or hostile acts means to attempt to re-engage physically with the other party. Hurtful words are not physical or hostile acts.
6.6 You must always establish intent to rob. You must give the intended target indication that you are intending on robbing them and a chance to respond, you cannot just say “this a robbery” and then hogtie them 1 second later. They should be given an opportunity to surrender their goods or forfeit their lives in accordance with No Value of Life. [rule 19] 
6.7 The maximum limit of participants during robberies (Stores, Banks, Wagons, Oilrig and Forts) is 5.
6.8 Individual players, parties, groups, and gangs are not to do the same robbery more than once every 24 hours. This means you, as an individual may only partake in each individual robbery location once every 24 hours. If the group of people you are currently with decides to rob a fort you have already robbed, you must excuse yourself from that robbery.
-Starting the robbery triggers this rule, regardless of outcome. The only exception is if the server crashes during the robbery.
-Hideout and Camp specific missions are excempt from this rule
6.9 Do not try to circumvent the previous rule by rotating who initiates the robbery within your group.
6.10 If a robbery is done in a group, only one person may start the robbery.
6.11 If you initiate a bank/fort robbery you must remain within the confines of the bank/fort.
6.12 Scam roleplay including, but not limited to, the transfer of a property or conveyance, is limited to a maximum of $20,000. An individual that falls victim to an in-game scam, below this threshold, should report it to a Lawman Captain of the respective region it occurs in. 

7. BAITING
7.1 You can't use /alertdoctor, /alertpolice, /alertbarber, or /alerttrain to bait doctors, police, barbers, or trains to your location. These commands are there to help these roles locate you, not assist you in criminal acts. If this is abused you will be banned. 
-Alerting Police should only be done to notify police of an active or potential crime.
-Alerting Medic should only be used for revives and RP medical emergencies. 
7.2 You may not intentionally bait others into breaking rules so that you can report them. Ex:  storm window crimes or shooting someone's head off and then goading them into speaking.

8. ABUSING THE PINBOARD & SCENES
8.1 Do not use the pinboard or scenes to post obscenity or to FailRP, such as advertising crime.
8.2 They are not to be used to fuel feuds as a communication device. It's not twitter!

9. GREENZONES 
9.1 You must NOT initiate in combat or crime RP when in any of the following:
-Menus; Banks, Clothing Store, Shops.
-The Mining/Lumber Co. - Maps found in the Help section
-The Black Market (Do your business, then leave.)
Do not camp these areas.

10. BUSINESSES
10.1 Staff can revoke player owned businesses at any time for any reason.
10.2 You are not allowed to sell your business or assign a new owner to another player without staff approval.
10.3 Business owners are not allowed to own additional businesses by proxy. If you are found to be doing this, their businesses will be given to someone else. 
10.4 You may not steal items and funds from a society business to the point where the society and its employees can no longer fill their purpose.

11. SERVER RESTART
11.1 The server restarts every 6 hours and you will be notified when there is 30/15/10/5 minutes left before restart. 
11.2 No criminal activities should be initiated upon the 30 minute restart warning (Storm window).
11.3 Criminal activities initiated prior to the warning may be RP’d out.
11.4 You must stay in character until the server restarts.

12. COOLDOWNS
12.1 When two parties end combat, all parties involved must take a 60 minute cooldown before returning to combat RP.
12.2 You must wait at least 30 minutes before your group attempts a second robbery of a Fort/Bank/General Store.
12.3 You may not kidnap the same person more than once in an hour.

13. GANG & FAMILY LIMITS
13.1 Gangs are not allowed to make alliances with other gangs. You can be friends, but not use gang combinations to circumvent gang limitations.
13.2 If your gang engages in combat with another gang and there happens to be members from a different gang present, that is on you. Do not expect the other party to start organising who stays and who goes in the middle of a gunfight.
13.3 Gang/family/groups are limited to 10 players whilst traveling. You may still be larger groups in public places, such as towns or camps.
13.4 Police combat limit is 5. Do not engage in combat RP with police with more than 5 players unless the police is the initiating party.
13.5 If police decide to engage upon a group larger than 5, that’s on them.
13.6 Individuals and Groups cannot make claims to public properties such as forts, roads, or towns. The only place a gang/family can make claim to and defend as theirs are the gang camps and only the outlined white highlighted area around their gang camp. Unless your camp is being raided, you may not kill on sight 
13.7 By joining a gang you forfeit the right to step in and help on your friends behalf. As a representative of your gang, you should not engage in hostilities between other gangs. You should not endanger your own gang through your own personal actions. [Members from gang A cannot fill the ranks of gang B to fight gang C, this includes protection of camps/hideouts]
13.8 Members of different gangs can perform crimes such as robberies of banks and forts together, but they may not exceed the limit for these crimes (Rule 6.7).

14. KILLING PLAYERS AND HOSTAGE TAKING
14.1 Do not keep a body as a hostage. killing someone means the RP is over, move on. They have no way of roleplaying with you at that point.
14.2 You must have a reason to kidnap another player. [Example: You may kidnap a player to use them as a hostage during a robbery, you may not kidnap someone and just cruise around the map because you’re lonely] 
14.3 You may not use your friends or locals (NPC) as a hostage.
14.4 You may not force someone to permanently kill their character. (Duelling is not force perma)
14.5 If combat ends with someone dying, you have five minutes to move the body.
14.6 You can't escape from a hogtie unless your captor is out of sight. - You can escape from bolas.

15. COMBAT LOGGING
15.1 You may not, under any circumstance, quit the game to avoid interaction with other players or to prevent loss of items.

16. POLICE AND DOCTOR INTERACTIONS
16.1 You cannot dump police. If you kill a lawman, leave them there. There's a whole server who might need that one lawman.
16.2 If caught selling contraband out of your shop and the police investigate it, you could have your shop / business shut down.
16.3 You may not kidnap, take as hostage, rob, or dump on-duty police (on-duty police wear badges).
16.4 You may not kidnap, take as hostage, rob, or dump on-duty doctors (on-duty doctors wear white).
16.5 Once you are in police custody in the confinements of the Lawmen Office you must comply all the way through.
16.6 lawmen responding to general stores and banks should be a max of 7. Lawmen responding to Forts should be a max of 10. All other calls can be a max of 12 lawmen.

17. POWERGAMING
17.1 Forcing players into RP situations where the outcome is predetermined, regardless of their RP.
17.2 You may not use in game mechanics to place yourself in a situation where you cannot lose. [Ex: escaping law by going into instanced buildings, such as motels]
17.3 You get to decide if you lose a limb after combat/torture. A doctor can surgically add limbs despite the time period.
17.4 You may not use /me commands to force anyone into RP you can’t physically do in game. (Ex: /me rips your bag off and steals everything). 
17.5 You can't identify someone who is wearing a mask by their voice alone. Do not assume someone is who you think they are just because of their voice.
17.6 Passing money, items, drugs, or weapons to someone when it doesn't make sense. [Ex: Through a wall]
17.7 Do not engage in combat if someone is obviously in a menu. [Ex: Shop, Bank, Clothing Store, Saddle-bags, Synt menu]
17.8 You may not escape engagement by entering a menu [see above] 
17.9 Forcing someone to hand you items that cannot be gained through the robbery mechanics [Ex: Weapons].
17.10 Forcing someone to give you money or weapons from their bank/storage. 

18. NEW LIFE RULE
18.1 If you respawn you don't remember the last 30 minutes that lead up to you being unconscious.
18.2 Do not respawn while in an active RP scenario. Wait for it to end, then you may respawn.
18.3 If a doctor revives you, you can remember up to the point of being unconscious.
18.4 Blowing someone’s head off does not have any effect on the previous rule.
18.5 If you are revived you may not go back to combat RP. Leave the area, you are no longer part of the scenario. Even if the area is what you would consider your home/work. You need to get away from action for at least an hour.

19. NO VALUE OF LIFE
19.1 Not fearing for your life when you are threatened with weapons or severe physical harm.
19.2 If you are alone and have three or more people draw guns on you, you fear for your life.
19.3 If your group is ambushed and are outnumbered by at least 4 then you need to fear for your life.

20. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
20.1 You may not shoot to kill or harm unless you have given a fair warning to the other party, failing to do so may result in a warning for Failure to Initiate (FTI).
Fair warning can be in the verbal form, warning shots are NOT proper initiation. As the initiating party, it is your responsibility to make sure that your voice can be heard (using page-up to change your voice volume).
20.2 Shooting someone because aggression or hostility was shown at an earlier situation does not constitute initiation. You must re-initiate any hostile engagements.
20.3 The only time you are allowed to engage in combat from far away is when involved parties have been informed there are marksmen. 
Even if you have marksmen you must still value your life. Just because you say you have marksmen doesn’t mean they have to take your word for it.
20.4 There is no such thing as killing on sight for trespassing. Doing so will be considered RDM. This rule does not apply in cases of raids (Rule 31.)

21. GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
21.1 Corruption roleplay for any whitelisted government run society, such as political, medical, and law enforcement positions is not allowed. Period.

22. PERMA DEATH
22.1 If you perma your character. This can't be undone. You should be sure of your choice or else this can be considered FailRP. Your character cannot come back in any way shape or form. There is no witness protection program, there is no amnesia.

23. RDM / VDM
23.1 RDM (Random Deathmatch) Attacking or downing another player without any prior roleplay building up to it. 
23.2 VDM (Vehicle Deathmatch) Attacking or downing another player using a horse or wagon without any prior roleplay building up to it. You CAN use a wagon or horse to defend yourself.

24. META GAMING
24.1 You may not use information acquired outside the server to your character's advantage.  [Ex: through streams, discord or voice chats]
24.2 You may not use 3rd Party coms during any roleplay scenario. You must be deafened while in active RP. Not adhering to this rule constitutes metagaming.
24.3 Proximity has no bearing on previous rules. If you are in audible range of others, anything you say should be audible to others.
24.4 Character Sharing (using the knowledge or transferring items from one characters to another)
24.5 Acquiring items or services through real money trading is not allowed.

25. TORTURE AND EROTICA RP
25.1 Torture and Erotica RP without consent from the receiving party is STRICTLY prohibited.
Consent can be gained through /ooc commands. Do not break character.
25.2 No public ERP. If it happens between two consenting adults, it needs to be done in private

26. TOXICITY AND HARASSMENT
26.1 Breeding negativity or toxicity, purposefully disrupting the enjoyment of the community, and Non-Engaging Roleplay (NERP) can be considered a violation.
26.2 Discrimination, racism, slavery, homophobia, including slurs connected to these, and forced sexual RP are not tolerated here.
26.3 A little swearing is okay. Screaming over your mic and name calling is NOT quality roleplay. 
26.4 If someone clearly asks you to stop a certain RP that makes the person uncomfortable, such as flirtatious behaviour, you should stop doing it. Something that is just good fun on your part might be very uncomfortable for the other party.

27. STAFF IN GAME
27.1 If an admin speaks to you as an admin the RP is over the situation is now OOC and you need to listen to the admin.
27.2 Admins instructions are not requests or suggestions. Comply with these instructions.
27.3 If an admin stops a scene, the scene is now over. Both sides of the situation that required administrative intervention needs to cease immediately and separate. Do not turn it into a screaming match between parties, instead begin collecting clips from your PoV.
27.4 If you feel the staff member has overstepped his/her bounds, you may open a ticket with the appropriate evidence and request it to be reviewed by senior staff. Do not remain on the scene and argue openly with the admin OOC. 
Please remember that members of staff do this work in their free time, they are not paid. Please, do not take your frustration out on members of staff that were not involved in the situation.

28. ACCOUNT SHARING AND BAN EVASION
28.1 Account sharing is not permitted. If you are letting someone else use your account while on the server, be it your friends or someone in your family. If they break server rules and get banned, we will not unban you if you open a ticket claiming it’s not you. 
28.2 If you are banned and found using another account to circumvent that ban, all known accounts, past, present, or future, will be permanently banned. DO NOT DO THIS.

29. DUMPING - the act of ending a story by placing a body in water or in a location where the player is forced to respawn.
29.1 The only time you should dump people is if you want an RP story to END- The Water Dump ends any scenarios for all parties involved and brings a definitive resolution to all on-goings feuds between the persons/groups involved.
29.2 You need to have at least three valid documented or recorded roleplay scenario/story that logically ends in a dump before initiating a dump. The person being dumped must be present and a clear participant in all scenarios.
29.3 If the Water Dump is not respected, either by the dumper or the victim, the party not respecting it can be reported to Staff.
29.4 If you are dumped in water, Barbers, Lawmen, and Doctors may not get you out of water to save you. 
29.5 The only time anyone can be pulled out of the water is if you have them in view when they get end up in the water, and you record that you see them get dumped. Otherwise don't touch them. 

30. GANG WARS / WAR TICKETS - Requires staff approval through support tickets on discord.
30.1 Gang wars can be used to end long-time feuds between gangs that cannot be resolved through dumping, or as means of organizing fights between gangs that may otherwise break rules-of-engagement.
30.2 If used as means of ending a long-time feud, reasoning and evidence of the feud must be forwarded to Staff. If Staff finds the forwarded reasoning and evidence to be cause enough to warrant a feud-ending war, the other party will be added to a ticket for further discussion. Feud-ending wars will not be started over petty reasons, they are there to end feuds that is spilling over into harassment or severe impediment of one party’s enjoyment of the server.

31. HIDEOUT AND CAMP RULES
31.1 Do not place Camps or Hideouts on Braithwaite Manor or its surrounding area.
31.2 Hideout and camp raids are considered pre-initiated. meaning you do not have to initiate if you are showing up to defend your camp or hideout. Unless your camp is being raided, you may not kill on sight. Until engaged upon, any raiders must be within 100m of the camp. If the white circle is visible on the map, you are within 100m.
31.3 Hideouts and camps may not be placed in locations that don’t make sense for them to be placed at, such as inside a fort where a robbery is set up.
31.4 Hideouts and camps cannot be used as an excuse to annex an important part of the map such as a road or buildings that are used by the public. 
31.5 Staff reserves the right to repossess hideouts or camps that are misused or placed in locations that do not follow the rules listed above.
31.6 Hideouts will not be placed inside towns, we do not want civilians to be caught in potential crossfire. Saint Denis is exempt from this rule due to the multitude of possible locations. Common sense still applies.
31.7 Camp tax is $5000 a month and will require you to have at least 5 active members in your camp. If your tax ledger or your member count do not meet the requirement. Your camp will be removed on the 15th of each month.
31.8 You are not allowed to use furniture items to build a wall around your camp. This rule applies to all furniture, with no exception. Camp furniture is for decorative purposes only.
31.9 If a camp is being raided, all members of the camp are allowed to come to the defence of it.
31.10 If you are not the owner or member of a camp/hideout, you should not engage in the defence of it

32. REGARDING REPORTS AND TICKETS
1. The in-game report function is not guaranteed to get a response. Please use the ticket system instead, whenever possible..
2. Reports of rulebreaks should contain evidence of your claims, this includes;
A video clip, from your POV, establishing context around the situation. Make sure that the audio in the recording works and is picking up voice chat, see example below.
3. Your CFX username to assist us in finding the situation in our logs
4. Your player ID (found in the bottom left of your screen) if available.
5. The ID of the player you are reporting, if available.
6. Open a ticket with appropriate evidence if you feel that you have lost items due to a rule break. We can recomp lost items but are unlikely to withdraw warnings caused onto yourself, regardless of who started.
7. If you are unarmed and hold right-click over another player, it will show their ID. We discourage you from doing this with your weapon drawn as it will constitute combat initiation pointing your gun directly at someone. 
8. Clip example: An RDM report where the clip only shows 5 seconds of you being shot does not give us context. For all we know you may have caused your own demise.  Suggested length of clip is at least 2 minutes, even if it means 1 minute 59 seconds of it is you sitting on a horse doing nothing, context matters. 
9. Clips can be recorded using replay-software such as, for example, Medal, Nvidia/AMD instant replay, or OBS.
10 Reports are confidential, no clips used as evidence will be forwarded to the reported party without explicit consent from the reporter.
11. Warnings and bans will not be handed out on hearsay alone.
12. If you are not in the county at the time of a warning being issued, a ticket will be opened in discord, tagging you. This ticket will not be left open forever and the warning will remain regardless if you respond. 
13. Warnings are permanent and thus will only be applied once a staff member has determined the evidence is sufficient to warrant punishment of the player in question.

Bug-reports are to be filed in the bug-reports channel. The report must follow the stickied message seen within said channel.
Be patient when submitting a ticket. Staff will do their best to address your ticket quickly, but sometimes there is an overwhelming amount of tickets.

Other Stuff
1. Items bought from the outfitter are spawned in by using a wagon or cart. If you do not have a wagon or cart, you cannot place these.

Ban Policy
We follow a 3 warnings, temp ban, 3 warnings, temp ban, 3 warnings perma ban policy.  We can perma ban you without discussion if we see that you do not fit the standards we want in our community.

Ban Appeal Policy
1. If you wish to appeal your ban, open a support ticket and provide a screenshot of your/your friend's ban message when attempting to connect to the server along with a ban appeal message as to why the ban should be lifted. 
2. AI written ban appeal messages will not be accepted and submitting one may result in removal from discord after the ticket is closed.

Storefront rules
1. If you are moving or placing your storefront, make sure your shop does not block other shops, societies, hideouts, ranches, houses, etc.
more information about storefronts can be found in the FAQ under ⁠server-info-archived
2. You may not sell Reinforced Lassos directly through your society shop or store-front, it is meant to be an item only sold directly between players.

In-Game Text Writing Policy

This policy applies to anywhere players are able to input their own text. Including but not limited to the following: Item Descriptions, Pin board, Books and Mail. 
Cannot Contain any kind of embedding or scripts (Example: Any java script or HTML scripting like Buttons, Minigames, External links, Discord invites, API) 
Videos, Music / Audio (I've never made myself a Sandwich that could play EDM).
Explicit Content
Content that Breaks RP (Example: An image of Snoop Dog, for your blunts).
Must be time appropriate (Neon Lights are not a thing in the 1800s)