What are they, how to join one, how to make one.

🏡 Groups

❓ What is a group?

A group is what would mechanically be considered a faction: a group of people with a similar goal (surviving together, fighting the infection to protect the communities living in certain town, staying at the top of the food pyramid to rule over others...).

Its purpose is to encourage cooperative roleplay, and it gives you some benefits for coordination like role-based hidden channels only your group will have access to.

🌟 Group benefits

A private OOC group channel and an IC message board on Discord, both exclusive to the members
A special faction role on Discord (optional)
If you choose to remain secret, you won't get the usual benefits of a group: channels, faction event requests...
Being able to claim a larger safehouse space than a single person.
In order to claim a larger safehouse we will consider the number of characters living in said safehouse.
The number of group members, of people who have safehouse access, and of characters who maintain their separate private safehouse, don't count towards said number.

🔢 How many groups can I join?

You can join multiple groups, as we feel that restricting people to one group often causes IC disconnect because of OOC rules.

However, allowing multiple group membership comes with other challenges. Abusing or trying to get around the system may result in getting rid of multi-group membership.

🎪 Group sizes

Small: 4 to 8
Medium: 9 to 12
Large: 12+
Communities: 15+ (with at least 2 member groups)

Groups Larger than 8

These groups have additional responsibility because they can swing someone's perception of the server.

We ask all groups over this size to agree to the following:

If there are any group problems, open a ticket and let us know. We'll do the same if we have concerns about the group.
Continue to be open to new people joining (not exclusionary).
Be a good impact on the server: this means embracing "yes and" situations rather than overwhelming force, giving people outs if you have large conflicts against solo players or small factions... you should be a big part of the reason why people enjoy playing!
Additional large safehouse rules

📜 General group rules

You can be a member of more than one group, but you can only reside in one safehouse.
This means that, if you are a member of various groups, you will only count as a number in one of them when it comes to counting the number of residents: the one your character lives in. This will mark the difference between the groups being considered one size or another.
You can design the concept of your group together before playing, but you must be open to others joining your group to prevent exclusivity.
This does not override metagaming though -you will still need to handle it IC.
One person must be designated as the leader of the group.
This serves the purposes of maintaining a group safehouse, resolving any membership issues, and communicating faction requests to staff. The leader is given the Group recruitment role so they can add or remove members from their group. They also are responsible for keeping records of who is a resident.

📋 Creating a group

When you're ready to request your group, create a general ticket and tag the Group Master role.

Make sure you are ready to add this information:

Group Request

Group Name:
Current Leader:
Public Description:
Hex code for the role: (No colors that are easily mistaken for staff roles, No extremely dark shades.)
Emoji for the role:
Active Timezone(s):
Brief Summary of Group's Goal:
What kind of RP can be expected from the Group:
Current Safehouse location:
List of all the current members:

You can look at known groups for examples on your introduction.

👋 Joining or leaving a group

The group leader has the ability to add and remove people from the group.
They will have a command list on how to do this as their first message on their newly created faction channels.
Death and shelving will remove you from groups.
You will have to keep in mind the 4th point of NLR.

🏙️ Communities

❓ What is a community?

A community is a large collection of people who have come together to make an area/location/town their home, agreeing upon leadership and ways to deal with disputes (both internal and external).

🌟 Community benefits

All stores and public use buildings (like libraries) in the community are covered by raid rules, regardless of mechanical SH status.
These will be indicated by red exclaims placed by staff at all entrances.
A public IC message board on Discord.
A private OOC channel on Discord.
A special community role so that staff can ping the residents to inform of any important changes/developments/events.
The ability to create a respawn point

📜 General community rules

🏙️ The community must

Have at least 15 occupants and more than one group as a part of their membership.
Not be exclusionary: they must open to individuals joining, whether they belong to one of the groups or not.
Willing to work with staff to resolve any concerns that arise to such a large group in a small area.
Have at least one communal building inside the walls where people can gather.
It can be a library, a meeting space, a bar... anything you can think of. It’s recommended to have occasional community meetings there, but not required.
Have established leadership and/or system of governance.
Make available the rules of conduct to the residents if they intend to enforce them.
Allow anyone to leave if they have respawned there.
They may ask for donations, but cannot rob people who have freshly respawned.

🏙️ The community may

Wall off a larger area than most groups, but the gates to the Community may not be locked.
Individual residences and the bases of the groups residing in the community may be locked/keypadded/walled.
Disallow offenders of their rules from returning.
Said player may not respawn at the community anymore.

🏡 Groups that reside in the area

Must have their group safehouse in the vicinity of the community
They may close off and safehouse their own private group area with walls as long as they have sufficient residents to support the size. The walls do not block entry to/exit from the community area.
Will only be counted to be a part of the community if at least half of their members aren't the same ones in the other factions that join it too.
Because of being able to be part of multiple factions, the two-factions-minimum requirement to create a community can give a false sense of the actual number of people that belong in it. If the factions share at least 50% of the same members, they won't qualify to add to the number of factions needed to create a community.

👤 Individual members

May safehouse a single person residence inside the community.
Are unaffiliated with any member group and do not count towards the size of a member group base.

📋 Creating a community

Open a General ticket when you can answer the following and have satisfied the minimum requirements for a community:

Community Request

Community name:
Groups:
List of Residents in each group:
List of any independent residents:
Type of Government: (Single leader, Council of Group Leaders, Absolute Democracy, Representative Democracy - anything to explain to us how you’re going to manage things.)
In the case of a dispute in the community. How does this community solve a dispute between groups and/or members?
Who is able to add members to the Community?
Any posted rules you plan to enforce inside your territory:
Coordinates, Screenshots, Drawings/Diagrams with the areas you plan for walls, group safehousing, any communal buildings/shops so we can label everything. If you’re planning a hospital, indicate the location of the planned hospital as well, even if it’s not built yet.
Discord role:
Hex color for role: (No colors that are easily mistaken for staff rolls, No extremely dark shades.)
Emoji for the role: (A custom requested one is okay, but you need to provide the file.)

💀 Death or shelving as a community member

Our character rules prohibit joining a group your prior character was a part of -this can be difficult when member groups are a part of the same community.

Players aren't blocked from entering the community or dealing with folks in that community they were a part of previously, but joining that community independently or as a part of a different group requires staff approval.

You must still also follow all other character rules such as establishing new friendships.

🏥 Sanctuary Respawn Points

Requirements

A clear, stocked hospital location accessible to everyone (not just community members)
It cannot be inside a group's base or inside a locked/gated/keypadded area and it must have reasonable medical supplies.
At least one trained physician (first aid 8+) who has agreed to work there
The physician doesn't need to do medical RP there or treat patients unless they want to -they are just considered to be around that location working off-camera when they are offline.
An operable ambulance with at least one driver
The driver has to agree, like the physician, to operate the vehicle to transport patients. They can do this IC if they want, but OOC they're just considered to be doing it when they're off-camera/offline to help people get to the location after an injury.
Free service/anyone can respawn there
You can't charge for services but you can ask for donations, and you can't limit who respawns in your hospital unless it's a disallowed offender.

❔ How does the respawn point work?

Staff will place a respawn tile in the Community hospital. Players can click on it to "Set Respawn" to that location. When they next die, their respawn point is there. It's assumed they were injured and transported to your location. From there, they can go about their business.

❔ How do we request a respawn point as a community?

In your Community ticket, we can set a time to have an NPC visit you to kick off the quest line if you’d like to work with an NPC to do it.

Otherwise, we’ll give you a list of required materials. Once you have them, you tell us where they’re located, provide confirmation of your medical building, driver, physician, and medical rescue/ambulance vehicle, and we’ll set up your respawn point.

❔ Who is this NPC?

It’s a completely optional itinerant medical trader that can help set up the hospital if a Community provides the materials, an IC connection to help with some of the OOC difficulties of set up and management.

We can use them to collect materials, contract some build help (like a build ticket), and deliver mini-quests
They do not provide protection, supplies, or medical treatment
They should be able to help a community's hospital reach sanctuary status with work if they’re missing something specific such as an ambulance
They might provide a mini-quest for an overrun location where they last saw a broken down ambulance, or perhaps a name of someone who might be selling one.

⚔️ Danger in communities

Communities are not immune from theft or strife in the world. Robberies, thefts, raids are still possible, but they bring escalated risk.

By forming a community, you accept these things may come to your door and you'll be addressing them IC as long as all parties follow the rules.
By robbing, harassing, or thieving in a community, you accept you may be denied entry for healing, be ostracized from trading or sustain grievous injuries.
Communities may maintain a public blacklist for those not allowed services/entry. This is a direct response to action directed at the community and not pre-emptive based on reputation. It doesn't prevent the blacklisted person from interacting, but they need to open a ticket to discuss raiding/storyline so staff can log any rules of engagement.
Large scale community vs community or group vs community conflicts should be discussed in a ticket so both parties are aware of the rules of engagement.
These things include situations like continual robbery, destruction, escalating vandalism... We want everyone to have a fun experience and the best way to do that is open communication.

💥 Group & community conflicts

If you plan any hostile actions between groups as a whole or hostile actions that are likely to escalate into all out group vs group conflicts (6+ combatants), you must contact staff prior to the initiation of those hostilities so that we can oversee terms of engagement.
We understand unexpected things happen, but do the right thing if it's your intent to start a war/escalating conflict.

This is a temporary rule. Additional rules regarding groups and community conflicts are forthcoming.

Groups & Communities