Community rules

DayZRP is a community targeting mature audiences. We host a variety of games, most of which have age recommendation of 18+. Most of us are adults who want to enjoy high level role play in a controlled setting without having to interact with immature individuals. We have a set of general community rules outlined below that always applies to all community members.

1.1 We demand all of our members to be polite, behave maturely and with respect towards one another at all times. In other words, don't be a cunt.
1.2 You are not allowed to insult, bully, harass, troll or provoke other DayZRP members. This goes for all kinds of communication mediums, not just messages sent through DayZRP services.
1.3 You are not allowed to spam, advertise, search for vulnerabilities, exploit bugs or otherwise disrupt functionality of any services related to DayZRP.
1.4 All forum posts must keep a high standard and add a constructive and meaningful opinion that contributes to the thread at hand. Examples of non-constructive and non-contributing replies are simple and meaningless expressions like "lol", jokes, memes, banter or replies containing only pictures, gifs or other unrelated media. Off topic forums and status updates are the only areas on the website exempt from this rule.
1.5 All content shared through DayZRP services should be Safe For Work.
1.6 Do not reply to old threads with no new relevant information (also known as "necro"). The general rule is that all threads with last reply older than 3 months should not be replied to unless absolutely necessary.
1.7 Certain forum sections have special rules applied to them, for example the report or ban appeal forums. The rules for those sections are always outlined in a sticky thread inside those forums and are not included within the general community rules.
1.8 You must use your website username on our TeamSpeak server at all times.
1.9 User titles, avatars, signatures and post contents may not imitate or try to replicate official staff warnings/statements, awards, badges or Premium perks.
1.10 You are not allowed to use animated gifs, videos, sound or other interactive content in profile fields like avatars, signatures, profile background, character pictures or other profile fields, unless it is provided by an official Premium perk.
1.11 You may not promote or glorify players that have been banned from DayZRP. If you recognize or come into contact with banned players on any DayZRP related services, you are required to report them to a staff member. Failing to do so may lead to you being punished for harboring or assisting a banned player.
1.12 In order to play on our servers you are required to have an active character page on our website. All characters backstories must be compatible with our Lore.
1.13 All members will be limited to no more than 3 alive characters at one time. You can only switch your active character once every 24 hours.
2 Cheating and exploiting

Cheating is using 3rd party programs in order to get unfair advantage over other players in game. Examples of cheating are radar, auto-aim software or injecting scripts into the game engine. Cheaters are not welcome in our community, this also includes cheating in other games.
Exploiting or abuse of game mechanics (AOGM) is gaining an unfair advantage by using game bugs or mechanics in a way that the developer did not intend them to work. Example of exploiting is loot cycling, placing objects inside walls or other places where the object would normally not fit in, driving vehicles underwater, using a glitch to pick apples at inhuman speeds, creating tent walls to secure loot inside a building, or using indestructible objects for cover that effectively give you invulnerability.

2.1 We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating, exploiting or any attempt thereof. These actions may result in instant and permanent removal from the community.
2.2 We honour all VAC and BattlEye bans and will not remove any bans unless those services remove the ban first.
2.3 VAC bans are enforced for 1 year (365 days) after the VAC ban was issued. After 1 year, they expire and the blacklist is automatically removed.
2.4 Anyone caught using third-party modifications that give an advantage over other players will be instantly and permanently banned.
2.5 Cheating in 3rd party competitive multiplayer games may result in 1 year blacklist similar to one received for a VAC ban.
2.6 If you know someone who is cheating or exploiting and you do not inform the staff team, you may be banned along with that person for harboring a cheater.
2.7 Accusations of cheating should only be presented to admins directly through PM's and are not to be publicly reported via reports or otherwise on the forums.
2.8 You are not allowed to build entire walls using objects not intended for that purpose, for example tents or vehicles. You are allowed to block single points of entry using these objects, however every enclosed area must have at least one available open point of entry that can be accessed by players by simply walking through it (i.e. without involvement of climbing, glitching through walls, jumping over obstacles or having to crawl).
3 Punishments

Staff uses a warning system to punish those who break our rules. Detailed description about the warning system and its inner workings can be found in the newcomer guide.

3.1 You are entitled to create one ban appeal per punishment. Only punishments received within the last 30 days may be appealed.
3.2 All punishments for breaking rules are open for discussion within staff. We have a list of standard punishments for each rule break, however the final punishment is chosen based on many different factors and context surrounding the situation. Administrators are free to deviate from this list in any way they see necessary, see rule 4.2.
4 Staff authority

This rule is mostly just for reference in regards to how the community staff operates and defines the special privileges given to the administrator team.

4.1 Administrators are authorized to use any means necessary to catch rule breakers as long as it does not affect the community, gameplay, role play or community image negatively. Administrators are authorized to override any decision made by lower staff ranks or community vote.
4.2 Administrators are allowed to punish players for actions not covered on this rule page, as long as they consider the action or players behavior to be damaging to the community, gameplay, role play or community image.
4.3 Administrators have the final say in all community related decisions. Community leader has an amendatory veto over administrator team decisions.
4.4 An administrators decision can only be appealed by contacting Rolle directly through support section of the website. You must provide a clear description of the event along with an explanation of how the decision made was incorrect.
5 Role play

Role playing involves assuming a role of a fictional character that you create for yourself and collaboratively creating stories together with other players and their characters. We use terms "in character (IC)" to describe content and information that is perceived from the characters point of view, while "out of character (OOC)" is all real life information and content outside of the game.

5.1 You are required to role play your character at all times while in game. No OOC events or communication may take priority over your role play. You are not allowed to ignore other players attempts to role play with you.
5.2 Your characters backstory must be compatible with our official lore. Your character must behave realistically and appropriately to the different situations you participate in, keeping the current world situation and context of post-apocalyptic world in mind.
5.3 You may not focus on out of character gains to the detriment of RP. "Rule play" is prioritizing kill rights, rules or OOC information above more appropriate IC actions or behavior. Always prioritize role play over rule play.
5.4 OOC communication can be done only through text chat and only when absolutely necessary. You may not use OOC chat to casually chat with other players in game. You may not speak OOC using ingame voice. Use the "//" prefix to indicate OOC text communication.
5.5 Do not impersonate another individual or group in a way that would bring harm to them, their group or their reputation.
5.6 Do not act in a way that indicates no value for your characters life and survival. For example, attempting to kill people when heavily outnumbered, excessively talking back or insulting someone when taken hostage, or knowingly running into an area of active hostile engagement when not involved in the fight.
5.7 Killing your character to get a different spawn point or respawning while being in the unconscious state is considered a breach of the no value for life rule. The only exceptions are bugs/glitches/sitting in the state for a long time.
5.8 We employ a zero tolerance policy towards those who engage in abusive or immature role play such as rape, extreme racism, extremism, nazism or otherwise abusive or offensive subjects. Such actions are grounds for permanent removal from this community.
6 Hostilities

Hostile actions are player interactions where you or your group members lives are threatened by other players, or you are forced to do something against your will under threat of violence. For example, if someone is telling you to drop your weapon and put your hands up or else you will die, he is committing a hostile action against you. Hostile actions can often be very complicated involving multiple people and groups, which makes newcomers especially vulnerable to punishments for rule breaks in this category.

6.1 You must always have a valid in character reason which would justify a hostile situation. See also rule 5.3.
6.2 All hostilities must focus on the role play experience of both attackers and victims. Both sides should actively participate and contribute to role play in all situations, any disputes or issues can be discussed and resolved afterwards.
6.2.1 As an attacker you may NOT:
- Attack other players just for the sake of gear by doing a quick robbery that involves little to no role play.
- Ignore your victims. You must provide an engaging role play to keep things interesting for the victims at all times.
6.2.2 As a victim you may NOT:
- Pretend to be fearless, emotionless, not feel pain, or otherwise be unaffected by the situation where your life is at risk in a hostile situation.
- Be passive during the hostile role play and refuse to actively participate in it. Just sitting there and not contributing to role play can make the situation very boring for the attackers.
6.3 Demands during hostile situations must be reasonable and made clear and unambiguous to all players. For example, you cannot demand that somebody puts their own life at risk or else other characters will die.
6.4 When initiating hostile action upon a vehicle you must always use text to prevent miscommunication.
6.5 You may not bait other players into situations where you use kill rights or self-defense (see rule 7.2) due to their response to your provoking actions.
6.6 You may not place devices like traps or mines in towns and populated locations. Those devices may only be placed in the wilderness, as part of your camp defenses.
7 Kill rights

Kill on Sight means killing another player without any role play interaction or IC justification. Always confirm your targets in game - if uncertain about a players identity it's better to hold fire than to risk a KoS.
Kill rights are fictional, OOC permissions acquired by players that allow them to kill another player for a limited amount of time without any role play interaction. Kill rights are usually obtained after other players have initiated a hostile situation upon you or your group, which allows you to defend yourself or retaliate with deadly force.

7.1 Killing another player must always be justified with role play. See also rule 5.3.
7.2 Players gain kill rights when a hostile action is taken against them or their group, or when their characters life is directly at risk. These rights last for 2 hours after last interaction during the hostile situation and can be used as long as their use do not conflict with any other rules like NLR or NVFL.
7.3 Kill rights are only shared between group members if the group's members are within 500m of the situation taking place or have a direct line of sight.
7.4 Kill rights gained from any rule breaks (including but not limited to baiting, invalid initiation) are considered invalid and their use will be punished in the same way as if the kill rights were not obtained.
7.5 Remember that kill rights are still subject to rule 5.2 and rule 5.3. You shouldn't use kill rights in situations where it doesn't make in-character sense as it can be seen as rule play. In other words, obtaining kill rights alone does not give you explicit permission to use them any time you want and in all situations. Think about if using kill rights is viable in the current situation.
8 Hostages

If you do a hostile action on a player and then take him into your custody, he is now considered your hostage.

8.1 You must do everything in your power to keep your hostages alive and in a relatively good health. That includes protecting them from external threats like zombies and leaving them with a realistic chance of survival.
8.2 A character that is taken hostage may only be executed once for a hostile incident that happened in the past where the hostage was responsible for, or participated in death of your ally.
8.3 When attempting to rescue a hostage you must be able to contact the hostage takers on the DayZRP TeamSpeak for negotiations. The negotiations must be done directly between the two parties. The hostage may not be used as a way to contact the rescuers.
8.4 Hostages may only be killed in the following scenarios:
8.4.1 Hostages do not comply with your demands after repeated requests or try to escape.
8.4.2 Hostages pose a direct threat to you or your group, by for example picking up a weapon when not allowed to.
8.4.3 Hostages do not value their life, for example they continuously talk back or insult you despite being told to stop.
8.4.4 The rescue party refuses to negotiate and opens fire on hostage takers.
8.4.5 Demands from negotiations have not been met after a reasonable time has elapsed.
8.5 Stripping a character naked in order to access their items is considered BadRP. If you wish to access the items you either have to tie up the said person or emote check them for items (for example: "*searches the man and takes all the things found in his clothes* // drop the items you have in your clothes").
9 New Life Rule (NLR)

DayZRP employs a limited New Life Rule. While you are not required to create a new character every time you die, you should not return to within approximately 1000m from the area where you died. As well, you must not get involved in the situation that lead and resulted from your death and the severity of involvement will be taken into account regardless of distance.

9.1 You are not allowed to return to the area where you died for 1 hour after death. You may also not get involved in the hostile situation that lead to your death, for however long it lasts. Server restarts, crashes or other OOC events do not affect these restrictions or time limit.
9.2 When your character dies you must continue your role play as if you were wounded in the situation that lead to your death.
9.3 All kill rights are reset when your character dies and you may not use those rights to "hunt down" your killers.
9.4 After your character has died and had his kill rights reset, the kill rights cannot be re-acquired from other allied characters. Only a new hostile situation can give you those rights once again.
10 Powergaming

Powergaming refers to forcing an action, condition or belief upon another players character beyond what the game mechanics allow. For example, hurting them in a way that would prevent that person from using the character in the future.

10.1 You are not allowed to use powergaming against other players, unless the action is specifically allowed by the other player.
10.2 You may not force any permanent status on other characters without explicit permission (for example "//permission to scar?"). This includes forcing them to eat human meat, scarring them, removing body parts or otherwise permanently harming them.
10.3 Permanent killing a character (aka "permadeath") is a decision that is taken only by the character owner. Permadeath is final, once a character is declared as killed by the owner it may not be used ever again.
11 Metagaming

Metagaming is a broad term generally used to define any strategy, communication, information or action in a game which goes beyond the game mechanics or the knowledge of your character. Most commonly it is used when a character receives information that they otherwise would not be able to receive in any reasonable way in game, i.e. pulse checking another player to learn their identity or gaining information through a radio despite your radio being taken away.

11.1 You may not use metagaming to give your character information that he/she would otherwise not have access to or to gain any kind of advantage over other players.
11.2 You may not use information posted on the forums, said in TeamSpeak or acquired in any other OOC way to get unfair advantage in game. nwjiyuwy You may however use information acquired through approved IC methods on our website like open radio chatter threads or the DayZRP map.
11.3 You may not use or give any information about your killer or the location of your body after you are dead, unconscious, when surrendering (F2 animation), handcuffed or have had your radio removed from your character.
11.4 If you are frisked or searched for items you must give away all items that are available on your character. For example you may not "hide" one radio if you had two and only one was taken, you can't have concealed weapons, grenades etc.
11.5 When speaking with another player, you may not communicate over the radio (TeamSpeak) with your allies unless you speak over the radio and in game at the same time. Telepathic communication is not acceptable.
12 Combat logging (CL)

Combat logging is leaving the server during a hostile situation or when your character is still involved in active role play.

12.1 You may not leave the game if another player wishes to communicate with you, unless they give you explicit permission to do so through OOC chat.
12.2 After a hostile action has occurred, you may only log out after a minimum of 30 minutes have passed since you broke the line of sight with those involved.
12.3 If you are already in the presence of others and need to logout it is generally good form to ask them to type their permission through OOC chat (i.e "//is it okay if I log out?") to ensure that you are not impacting their RP by doing so.
12.4 If there is a chance that you might have to leave the game within the next 30 minutes, do not actively engage any hostile actions against other players.
12.5 Players may void the combat log timer if both sides of a hostile situation agree to it.
13 Ghosting

Ghosting is switching between game servers in order to gain an unfair advantage over other players. For example, purposefully using a server to travel to a location which would be difficult to get to on another server.

13.1 You are not allowed to use ghosting to your advantage.
13.2 Travelling on one server to a location which would be difficult or impossible to get to on another server and then switching to that server once at your destination is considered ghosting.
13.3 You are not allowed to knowingly log in near an ongoing hostile situation which would give you an unfair advantage due to your location. In order for it to be considered fair, you must be at least 1km away from the hostile situation.
13.4 You are not allowed to abuse multiple servers in order to obtain loot.