Learn the basics on the requirements to play on the server, general conduct, and challenging content.

✅ Requirements to join the Discord Server

You must be 18 or older.
We do have challenging content and need our players to be mature in engaging with realistic subject matter.
Have a steam/discord account at least 1 month old.
This is to prevent spammers, scammers, trolls and ban avoiders.
Pass an Access Quiz showing basic knowledge of rules.

🖥️‎‎ Server Requirements

Have an approved character that has been whitelisted.
Remain on the Discord server and have your character's name in your Discord display name so that we can reach/recognize you.

You may not share your account with any other people.
Giving your account information to another party to log in or logging in as someone else results in an automatic ban.

🤖 AI / Plagiarism

You cannot use AI in character applications and ticket submissions.
We have to know if you're going to be able to roleplay with people in game and handle serious content matter respectfully.
You may use AI generated images.
Do not pass off someone else's work or character as your own.
Inspiration is quite a bit different than copy and pasting another's work. You also have to write your own application.

📋‎ General Rules of Conduct

All conversation and roleplay on Discord and Server must be in English.
We have a language mod you must use in-game.
No metagaming.
Metagaming is using of information you know of OOC to your advantage or to influence your character’s behavior. It's forbidden to be a part of or encouraging this behavior.
- Only actions that occur on the Discord server or In Game are considered IC. Do not use Voice Chat (on server or elsewhere) to discuss or coordinate character actions, plans, or interactions.
- We also do not adjudicate issues between players that occur off server or privately. Your best protection against issues if you want us to intervene is to handle your business on server.
IC/OOC Bleed must be avoided.
Do not mix IC (In Character) and OOC (Out of Character). That means do not use information you as a player have that your character doesn't have (metagaming), but also don't allow your OOC conflicts to affect your IC actions.
Don't post or discuss NSFW, inflammatory or sensitive topics (such politics/overly sexual matters) in Discord.
This includes memes. When someone asks you to tone it down, do so without argument.
Don't cheat.
Act like adults

⁉️ Questionable/C

We are an 18+ server and handle topics that may be difficult for some players: this includes but is not limited to personal horror, religious fanaticismhallenging Content in Game and in Discord
, imprisonment, mutilation, body horror, war crimes, torture, cannibalism, assault, the death of children, loved ones, or animals.

We want the world to feel scary and realistic so you may not know when this is coming. Most of these specific acts will not be done to your character without your consent, but they may well exist in the world around you and be encountered.

We will endeavor to include content warnings where possible and check in with you on how this is working. However, by choosing to play on the server, you acknowledge that you may stumble onto challenging content.

Keep anything not PG-13 in a private chat window.
In a private chat, only you and the other party who has consented can see the tab. It cannot be accidentally broadcasted on the radio or overheard by other parties.
- How to start a private chat tab: Chat Helper
If you want to include challenging content in a broader sense in character, you may do so with the prior consent of others involved.
We're not going to provide a list, but topics like racism, suicide and animal death have been a problem in the past. Like any other situation, consent can be revoked at any time, but it won't make you avoid the consequences of your actions.
Communication is key.
You should open a private thread to discuss consent or make sure you have a DM documenting it if you're dealing with challenging content.

🔖 General Guidelines on questionable/challenging content

We have included these to give guidance about dealing with difficult matters. They are not hard and fast rules, but meant to show you our thinking.

🗣️ ‎ ‎Be communicative about your comfort levels

If there's specific content you'd like to avoid in plots with you, please contact staff directly and we will make a note if there are any existing plots running that cover that situation. Comfort levels with the detail of descriptions vary, so that's also a good thing to tell us. However, we don't maintain a database of triggers that staff check. We also won't prevent plot or combat from happening in any specific place (such as homes or towns). While we try to accommodate others preferences, we cannot tell a gritty story about the dangers of the post-apocalypse with guaranteed safe spaces.

You are responsible for speaking up if content bothers you, whether it's with staff or another player.

Here are a few ways you can do that:

- Ask in OOC in game : "Hi, I'm not comfortable with a plot involving religious fanatics."
- Make a ticket : "Hi, I'd like to not be involved in this plot because it involves cannibalism."
- Contact the staff member by DM : "Hey. Can we make this scene into a quick summary of what happens to my character without detail? I accept they're getting their hand cut off but I'm uncomfortable with explicit details."

🛑 ‎ You can revoke consent at any time

Maybe you thought you were okay with it, but it's feeling too real now or bringing up something you didn't realize it would.

Please speak up. We want you to have a fun. If you don't tell us, we can't fix it. Sometimes we'll be able to change the plot to accommodate comfort levels or write you out of it.

If a player or staff doesn't respect your request after you have informed them to not include certain content, fade to black, or lighten up on descriptions, open a Concern ticket and we'll discuss.
No staff or player should continue an interaction involving the objectionable content after a player has requested. There will be no negative consequences for letting us know. However, others cannot be expected to read your mind.
Remember that you always have the right to remove yourself from a situation where the content makes you uncomfortable.
You can excuse yourself IC/OOC and if you feel it's appropriate, open a ticket for any assistance in resolving. This is not an excuse to avoid the consequences of actions, but an accommodation to help resolve difficult situations. We would prefer people resolve matters amicably with open dialog. Don't abuse this.

📣 Be communicative: use your tools

Tell us what's working for you and what's not. Don't whisper in corners. We do want to know. There are a lot of ways you can tell us how things are going:

Concern Tickets
Suggestions/Feedback threads
Direct Feedback to Staff
Open Communication thread

🤝 Be a Good Player

Be someone you want to play with.
Encourage the stories and growth of others rather than shutting them down.
Prioritize roleplay over loot, mechanics, rules debates or mods.
Make new players feel welcome.
Even if your character isn't welcoming, your encouraging OOC attitude can make all the difference.
Do not hoard excessive amounts of loot.
Take what you need, leave what you don't. Your character might want every crumb of food in the town so they'll never starve, but don't take more than you could reasonably need.
Play to create a story together, not to win.
Losing is inevitable but it's not the end of the story. Setbacks happen to every great character in literature, movies and television -it makes your character get development in interesting ways!
If you have an OOC conflict with another player regarding actions in game or in discord, try to resolve it with them civilly.
You can open a thread in [Discord] to talk it out. If you are unable to agree, you can make a Concern ticket to let us help resolve the situation. We know it can be frustrating, but do not fuel additional drama on the server by spreading rumors or attempting to get public support against the other party.
- This is especially important in PvP when tensions and stakes are high. Avoid being a sore "loser" or a sore "winner". Neither side should keep bringing up the encounter in a way that provokes the other OOC.

⚠️ Difficult Topics

Deadline is a harsh and unsettling world. You may encounter distressing themes such as body horror, religious extremism, mutilation, war crimes, torture, cannibalism, assault, or the death of children, loved ones, or animals.

Most of these will not happen to your character without consent, but they may still appear in the world around you.

🧾 By playing here, you agree you may encounter mature content without warning.
✅ Fill out your consent list in your character description. You can find it by right clicking on your character's feet and selecting the option "Edit Character".

We do not write rules for every possible subject, but certain topics require special handling

⁉️ Racism & Bigotry

These are real, painful issues. They may be explored only with maturity and never used casually.

A concern ticket must be opened and approved before the plot begins
Staff may deny any plot lacking maturity, care, or adherence to the agreed consent circle. Aim for meaningful exploration, not shock value
All participants must give informed consent in a private open communications thread
All content must stay within the consent circle

Prohibited

Using ideology to justify character kills (e.g., “ACAB” as CK grounds)
In-character slurs or insults without prior consent
Expanding the plot via radio or conversation without consent
Claiming another character is racist/sexist/etc without mutual agreement
Backstories that excuse present-day hate

👁‍🗨 If you witness this without consent, speak up.

❌ Sexual Assault

This subject is not explored in Deadline. You may not:

Claim a character committed sexual assault as part of IC conflict or justification
Depict or perpetrate sexual assault (regardless of consent being given)

🤰 Pregnancy & Childbirth

Pregnancy RP is not allowed on Deadline.

Children cannot survive in the Deadlands because the parasite targets them immediately.

Restrictions of Pregnancy RP are:

Characters cannot join the chapter pregnant or become pregnant during the chapter. This includes artwork/images.
Mentions of previous pregnancies and/or children are okay if they happened before the Chapter launch.

❌ Sex Work

Allowed only in backstory, written with care and spoilered.
Not permitted as active in-character activity or business, due to unavoidable consent, exposure, and tone issues.

Staff Respect Rules

All staff on Deadline are volunteers who donate their time to keep the server alive and running. They are people with lives and families, and need to be treated with the same respect as anyone else. Deadline is a place to play together and staff are players just like anyone else.

These rules are in place to protect our staff members. Breaking these rules may result in a warning, mute, or a ban depending on the severity and/or patterns of rule breaking.

If you have any issues with a staff member, please submit a concern ticket to speak directly with management.
If you have an issue with one member of management, you can DM another member of management to discuss the issue.

Treat Staff with Respect

If a staff member tells you to stop something; stop.
Do not be hostile or disrespectful to staff.
Do not take frustrations out on staff.
Do not complain about staff and/or staff work in non-constructive ways on the discord and/or server.

Be respectful of Staff Time and Effort

Do not ping staff to rush them for tickets, events, or anything Deadline related.
Do not complain in the discord or server about staff timeliness.
Do not be hostile towards staff or their work.

Do not impersonate staff
Do not try to trick others by pretending to be staff, even as a joke. This covers any and every situation where someone may think you are a staff member. This includes impersonating names, titles, and otherwise presenting yourself as staff.

Any roles that are not on the staff page, are not staff.
Modders, Advertisers, Advocates, NPC Squad, etc, are not staff and should never act as such.

Do not "Staff Shop"
"Staffing Shopping" is when someone messages members of staff (on the server or in DMs) to try to get a different answer or decision from them. This can apply to any decision a staff member has made. If you disagree with a staff member's decision, please make a concern ticket.

Direct Messaging Staff
All staff communication for anything staff related on Deadline, should be done through tickets. While it is understandable and encouraged to be friends with staff, both staff and players need to separate staff work from non-staff players. Staff are not required to answer DMs even to tell a player to submit a ticket instead. How they choose to personally communicate with others (and who) for anything is their own choice.

Some examples of things you should not message staff for:

Events or requests to be evented on
Bypassing tickets by asking for them to do something in game for you
An issue you have with someone or something that you want the staff member to address or help handle
Issues you want expedited to the staff team and have the staff member speak for you (such as suggestions)

The only exception to this is if you feel unsafe (harassed, targeted, etc) due to something or someone on the server, you may reach out to a staff member you trust to help you put in a concern ticket.

🏳️ Political Discussions

Our rule has always been: "Don't post or discuss NSFW, inflammatory or sensitive topics (such politics/overly sexual matters) in Discord."

That still stands, but we find that folks often question where the boundary lies between what's an acceptable conversation and something sensitive such as in political conversation. We know we live in a world where politics can be involved in a lot of conversations, even in passing.

As such, we're adding some additional guidelines to explain. Note that staff reserves the right to intervene in situations that push the envelope, requesting topic change or sometimes removing potential inflammatory posts.

If we ask you to move on, please do.
If we remove a post because we felt it was inflammatory, don't make a stink.
Reflect and open a Concern ticket if you feel your post was within the rules.

There are many places on the internet that are a great place for that conversation but here may not be it. We know we can't make everyone happy and we'll stumble from time to time, but give us the benefit of the doubt that we're trying to navigate a difficult topic in the best way we can.

👁️‍🗨️ Clarifications

Do not bait others into impassioned political discussion with inflammatory statements like, “I hate democrats/republicans” or “I hate the president” or "Destroy Iowa."
Do not mock living or deceased political figures or post politically inflammatory images. This includes memes of recently deceased, or currently living politically adjacent figures i.e, podcasters, spokespersons, sponsors, etc. This also includes memes about tragedies such as 9/11 or Sandy Hook which stir up strong political motivations for many.
We recommend not declaring in chat your personal alignment or political beliefs. We're a roleplay server where the focus should be on the story we build together, not the politicians we vote for or the parties we support. DMs are a great place for that conversation.
❗ However, your profile is your own to customize with a few exceptions. Members of the server with hate speech in their visible profile on Deadline will be banned. From time to time, folks have come to us with "Burn X Country" or "Death to all X people". This is unacceptable. All players should feel welcome, regardless of their country or creed. You may show support for political causes. For example: Free Tibet, Support Ukraine, Live Vegan are acceptable.
Images focusing on political items, signs, or logos are not allowed.
You can post images that are not politically focused that have something political in them incidentally, such as a selfie with a political pin on your jacket or a flag in the background.

❣️ Romantic Roleplay

Romance is a part of many good stories and a part of life for many folks. As a server with mature themes and adult players, we do allow sexual content between characters, but wish to set clear ground rules:

Only engage in sexual content with the full, informed and clear consent of both players in the scene.
Any sexual or implied sexual acts described in roleplay or character dialogue must be in /private mode only.
They must be done in a private location. Even if you think no one else can see what you're posting in whispers, staff 'hears' a much longer distance, bugged radios may be nearby, and the content will be visible in the logs. Private mode protects you.
Never pressure another player to engage in sexual content. Choosing to fade to black is always an acceptable alternative as is simply declining to be involved in romance roleplay. You can always change your mind and decline to continue at any time.
Never retaliate against another character or player for rejecting a romantic invitation. Every person should feel comfortable to say no if they do not wish to be involved at any time.
Don't jokingly imply sex acts were committed outside of /private between characters in posts, screenshots or roleplay in order to get a rise out of others or to get them in trouble. Likewise, do not leave items or rename items for implied romantic/sexual content for people to stumble on.
As a clear reminder, we do not allow roleplaying of Sex Work, Sexual Assault, or Accusations of Sexual Assault at Deadline. Ever.

So that folks don't have to guess, you can set whether you're interested in Romantic roleplay on your character description which contains a consent sheet. However, the existence of a check box is NOT full, informed and clear consent. It only telegraphs they may be interested.

💥 Misconduct & Romantic Roleplay Restrictions

Violating the rules above may result in a restriction of a player's ability to participate in romantic roleplay with other characters. Restrictions may include opening private communication threads with their intended partner and management to document full consent or a complete restriction in that kind of play. Additionally, bans are possible depending on the seriousness of the violation or repeat violations.

❤️ Romance as Part of a Story not The Story

From time to time, we see players focus exclusively on the pursuit of online romance to the detriment of the server, ignoring other events and only hanging out with their partners for private sessions. If we see this, we will call it out to you privately in a concern. Repeat issues may result in romantic roleplay restrictions or even bans. We're a roleplaying server with mature content, not a mature content server.

💡 Lessons for Real Life

We understand that relationships in-character bring a lot of emotions and bleed can become an issue. That is when the line between player and character blurs, giving rise to strong feelings OOC because of IC events. Often this can affect your IC character behavior, something we want to avoid not just because it's metagaming, but it can be bad for your mental health.
We highly recommend opening a Private Open Communication thread with any partner to document consent, discuss any concerns and do frequent check-ins. DMs are fine for this as well but if the relationship between players and/or characters sours, sometimes DMs disappear and accusations are made. Staff will not be involved in untangling relationship woes outside of actual reported rule break situations.
If you have a problem with your relationship partner, we ask that you inform them and request they stop before putting in a concern ticket with staff.
If you have had the conversation and they continue to attempt to engage with you in a way that you feel is against the rules (such as pressuring you, requesting OOC information or photographs, retaliating in or out of character for declining advances), please let us know through a Concern ticket. If you feel uncomfortable submitting a concern ticket alone, please reach out to a trusted friend or staff member for assistance. However, we will still need to speak to you directly about the situation. We can keep the conversation private, but we can't be discussing these delicate situations with third parties.

🚨 The Red Line

If you are the victim of harassment, threats, doxxing, stalking, sexual assault or any unsafe behavior verging on criminal activity, please report it to law enforcement. If it occurred on Discord, please report it to Discord as well. Deadline can only do so much to make the server a safe space if we are unaware of the issue. Never share explicit content with others online. If someone on Deadline is asking you to do so against your wishes, report it to Discord and report it to us so that we can protect others. Keep in mind that if we become aware of a criminal situation, we may be required to report to the appropriate authorities.

🤫 How to Use Private Mode

To start a private chat, you either use the command /private "Name of Character" (quotations are needed!) or click on the chatbox settings, go to the "Actions" tab, and click on "Invite private: (Character name)". The other player will receive a petition to start a private chat. When they accept, you will have a new tab in your chatbox.

Private mode works for only two people and in a location that is not close to others. If others enter the area, you will be unable to send private mode messages.

General Rules