Game Rules

The USS Altai RPG follows the standard rules and policies of Bravo Fleet. This RPG will be operated under a rating of 2-2-2; which means per policy, ages 16+ may only apply to join the RPG. It also means: No content may inappropriately depict acts of sex, assault, or violence.

General

  1. Enjoy being part of the Altai RPG – get to know and encourage one another with your creativity.
  2. We will not always agree on everything, but when we do disagree it’s important that those disagreements are handled respectfully. It’s also essential that when a moderator (generally meaning the GM) asks for a discussion to stop, it stops.
  3. Bravo Fleet’s Non-Discrimination and Harassment policy applies to every interaction you have as a member of this group, whether it occurs directly on Altai’s server or not, so please be courteous and respectful in your interactions with your fellow authors.
  4. Membership on the game’s Discord server is required to participate.
  5. The game manager reserves the right as specified under the fleet’s RPG policy to remove any player at any time, especially for conduct that does not align with these rules.
  6. In our game, we write our posts in the third person in the past tense (unless you are writing a log entry, then make sure you use the blockquote feature). For more guidance, see below.
  7. Remember, we are set in a specific format of the RPG where we are alone, just the Altai and the listening outpost. We can’t expect too much help from Starfleet or our allies, while they’re busy with other assignments or their own problems. For every mission and task the Altai takes, we have to try to do it on our own.
  8. Have fun and participate not just with the Jarok but with Bravo Fleet too!

Activity Requirements

  • Authors are expected to post or respond to a tag at least once every two weeks.
    • Solo posts should be at least 250 words long.
    • Joint posts should be at least 250 x n words long, n being the number of players writing in a joint post.
  • Authors are expected to respond to tags within 48 hours.
    • If an author has a secondary character, the requirements are per character, so you need to use both of your characters at least once every two weeks.

Applications and Characters

  1. Officer Exchange Programs will be considered, depending on the character’s biography and sample post. Any species that joined Starfleet/Federation are welcomed. As Officer Exchange Programs: Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulan Republic will determine on some factors. Not so certain about the Gorn yet, since Star Trek Strange New Worlds made them quite dark. These however are an absolute No: El-Aurian, Q, Borg, ex-Borg, cyborg, Augment, Mirian, Jem Hadar, Founder, Vorta, Breen, Tzenkethi, Metron, Medusan, any Delta Quadrant species, or any non-canon/custom species characters will be accepted aboard the Altai.
  2. Only characters with complete biographies will be accepted aboard the Altai. If you are unsure of what “complete,” means, the Character Creation Program through Bravo Fleet’s academy is heavily encouraged.
  3. The sample post is required for everyone and must be written with the character you are applying with.
  4. Before submitting an application, you should join our Discord and discuss your character idea.
  5. Please select a rank for your character that is appropriate for their age, the position you are speaking, and the ranks of other characters in the game. For example, if the Chief Operations Officer is a Sublieutenant, you should not then apply to join that department with a Centurion. We may request that you modify your character’s rank as part of the join process.
  6. Players may have a secondary character, but it should go through the same application process as a primary character and is subject to the same activity requirements.
    • A player may not hold more than one department head position or more than one position in the same department between their primary and secondary character. For example, if you’re the CMO your secondary character can’t be the Chief Science Officer or the Head Nurse. This rule may be waived on a temporary basis, for example, to fill a need in the middle of a mission.
  7. Beyond a player’s primary and secondary character, additional characters will be approved on an extremely limited basis, at least in terms of what will be approved for addition to the game’s actual manifest. Named NPCs are preferred to random, disposable NPCs and we will keep track of them in a document, not on the website. This allows us to be economical with the website’s resources and to avoid needing to constantly update the manifest with infrequently used NPCs.

Tagging and Stage Directions

Tagging is the practice of indicating that you are leaving room for someone else to respond. An open tag is open to anyone in the post, and it’s not obligatory for everyone in that post to reply to it. A closed tag is open only to a particular person or a limited group of people and is necessary to be addressed before the post can be submitted.

Tags should be placed in square brackets, with either “Open”, a character’s name/position title, or a selection of appropriate position titles for a response, when the post involves more than just two people. As a courtesy to your fellow authors, it’s good to put tags in bold, so they are easy to spot in a longer document. For example:

[Tag Hayes]

[Open Tag]

[Tag Ops or Science]

Stage directions are instructions within a tag to give the player guidance on how to appropriately reply. These are most often given by the GM or the person leading the post, especially for things that are outside of a character’s control, like the results of a sensor scan or the efficacy of an attack, as they would be in a traditional table-top RPG. For example:

[Tag – Ops or Science – There is an asteroid in the asteroid belt that is emitting a strange energy signature.]

Or less specific to give the writer an opportunity to broaden the tag into their own words, for example:

[Tag – Ops or Science – energy signature coming from a single asteroid]

You could also use this in a situation where you’re providing help with a character’s motivation when such a hint might not be best suited to the text itself.

[Tag Fleming – Cooper’s face does not give any indication of them being frustrated, but their struggle to put a panel back into place which is normally a piece of cake to do, clearly shows that they are mildly frustrated about something.]

(Credit goes to David and MJ. The rules were a mish-mash from Columbia and Endeavour with slight alterations to fit the Altai RPG.)