Owner Conrad Posted April 17 Owner Share Posted April 17 General Game Rules Please take note that this thread lays out the general rules for playing the Virtual Government Simulation (VGS), which is the main game hosted on this website. The Terms of Service regulate general activity on this website; this thread solely contains the rules of the governmental simulation itself. Table of Contents WINNING AND LOSING A ROLE-PLAYING GAME CHARACTER RULES CHARACTER MULTI RULES ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS IN-CHARACTER FORUMS IN-CHARACTER COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA PARTIES/WHIP CARDS MECHANICS IN GENERAL PUBLIC ACTIVITY MECHANICS LEGISLATIVE MECHANICS EXECUTIVE MECHANICS GENERAL CONDUCT FUNDRAISING LOBBYING ELECTION RULES ADMIN TEAM VIOLATIONS WINNING AND LOSING. The administrators of VGS seek to provide a compelling, realistic simulation of United States politics. Just as there is no set definition of winning in politics, there is no set definition of winning on VGS. You can define victory for yourself -- perhaps through being elected president, becoming the most well-known journalist, or just getting a certain policy enacted. Just as there is no defined way to win, there is no way to definitively lose. Indeed, many in politics will seemingly return from the dead - the only way to lose is to give up. A ROLE-PLAYING GAME. The Virtual Government Simulation is a role-playing game, where players sign in characters that compete with others for power and influence. Due to the inherently competitive nature of politics, other characters may betray, backstab, attack, and otherwise horribly treat your character. Yet it is important to remember that you are not your character, and that such nefarious conduct is expected by characters in politics. You should not blame another player for having a brutal, conniving, terrible character; such persons exist in politics, and you should instead thank that player for creating such a great antagonist for your character to fight. Remember, it isn’t personal, it's just business. You are strictly prohibited from lobbying the administrators of this game to enact policy solely because those policies will favor your character – you may advocate on behalf of your interests, but any suggested changes in rulings or decisions should primarily be driven by the idea of bettering the game and the community. As a player, you are expected to promote a robust, healthy community that plays an excellent simulation. You should not sacrifice that merely because your character might be more successful. CHARACTER RULES. A player may create one of each of the following types of characters: Please See Here for More on Character Creation 1- A United States Senator. Depending on which Party you’re representing you will have a variety of States to choose as your home district. It is important to remember that you need to keep the people back home happy and represent their interests and values. If you become popular enough you might even run for President or Vice President. 2- A journalist or the operator of a media outlet (Please see the Player Media Rules). To create a character, post a thread in the character creation forum containing the biography of the character. Every character must abide by the biography guidelines and must be approved by the Administrative Board. Every character that a player creates must be a member of the same political party as every other character that said player has created. The accepted major parties are the Democrats and Republicans and Independents. A player may stop playing a character at any time, but it is at the sole discretion of the Administrative Board to explain the sudden absence of that character. You as a player cannot decide that your character is retiring for health reasons, as an example. A player may change character and/or switch parties after 60 days have passed from their original sign-in, a total of (2) times per round, which means your original round sign-in character plus two more at most. Players, Media, and Game Immersion and Experience stand to benefit from continuity of characters, and it is the policy of the AB to strongly encourage against character changing when not needed. The Administrative Board reserves the right to temporarily waive this rule for the community or an individual to jumpstart community activity, balance and participation. If a player wishes to switch to the opposite party, they may do so. Upon switching parties, they may not do so again for a period of 90 days, even if they completely leave the game during that period. The Administrative Board reserves the right to temporarily waive this rule for the community or an individual to jumpstart community activity, balance and participation. You may simulate the actions of your character and, to a limited extent, your character's staff. You cannot simulate the actions of anyone other than your character and your character's staff including other characters, random persons, crowds, and so on. What's more, your simulation of the actions of your character's staff should be limited to the very reasonable things that they would do in the ordinary course of their work, such as sending a letter on your character's behalf or introducing your character at a townhall. The sole exception to this rule is that at a press conference or town hall meeting, any player may post a question as a random reporter or townsperson, but only if such post is realistic and reasonable. MULTI RULES. A multi is a secondary character which you control. As a Senator you may work your way into a situation where you are asked to serve on the White House Cabinet. In that case you can create a multi to work in the White House while your primary character remains in the Senate. If you are elected to be Vice President, you may create a Senate character as well. If you are the President, you are not allowed to have a multi at all. But don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of things to keep you busy. Anyone is allowed to create and operate a player media character. ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS. You must participate regularly in gameplay for your character to remain in the game. The definition of regular participation is an in-character post here on the boards. The Administrative Board will automatically sign out your Congressional or media character after three weeks of inactivity, and/or your Executive character after 10 days of inactivity, if you are not on an announced leave of absence. Leaves of Absence can be announced within the respective thread in the Information Center on the boards. You may return to the game at any time after going inactive and reclaim a media character, you may rejoin as a Congressional character as long as no one has signed into your seat since you left, and you may rejoin the Executive Branch only through election or appointment. IN-CHARACTER FORUMS. Each forum located in the Fourth Estate, Capitol Hill, White House, and Elections categories is an in-character forum and any statement made in this forums should be made in-character. Posts in these forums will be considered to be in character statements by one of your characters, including when the post takes the form of a press release, tweet, bill submission, or other clearly different in-character act. If you have multiple characters, and it is unclear from context which character is speaking or acting, you should specify. The Administrative Board will, in the case of a dispute, determine which of your characters was speaking or acting and decide based upon an analysis of the totality of the circumstances. You may only make out-of-character comments in an in-character forum when there is a compelling justification for that out-of-character comment. Please mark the comment in some fashion as clearly OOC, as for example, as follows: ((OOC: Comment.)). Generally, you should not edit any in-character post. We understand that coding issues or typos happen, but the risk of someone making a gaffe in-character and trying to retract it requires posts to remain unedited. If you do have a coding or typo issue, ask an administrator to fix it for you. IN-CHARACTER COMMUNICATIONS. Players may engage in in-character communications outside the in-character forums via any medium including personal message, Discord, and posts in the party headquarters. Communications through Discord is considered out of character unless otherwise specified, as is communication via private message. However, the Administrative Board reserves the right to revoke this assumption and make communications in character if the Administrative Board identifies a compelling interest for these communications to be considered in character for the game. This power will be used sparingly and within reason. The Administrative Board treats in-character communications differently depending on the medium. In-character communications via personal messenger are treated as formal, written communications between characters if both parties agree to the communication being in character. Generally, you may edit a personal message for only five minutes after making that message. In-character communications via other mediums including Discord, third-party instant messengers, and the party headquarters are treated as informal, verbal, unrecorded conversations between characters that cannot be verified. Your character can say whatever s/he wishes about such a conversation but cannot provide any verification that either the confirmation occurred or that certain words were spoken during the conversation. Your character cannot post a transcript of the conversation. The media and public may or may not believe your character's claims that a conversation occurred, or that certain things were said in that conversation; ultimately, it will be a matter of spin. To communicate with the public, you can consult the communication rules. PARTIES. There are two major parties in the United States, the Democratic and Republican Parties. To play a member of Congress or the Executive Branch, one must be affiliated with one of the two major parties, either directly or as an independent aligned with one of the two. Parties expressly have the right, for any reason, to deny membership or ban any player from their Party Headquarters on the forums and Discord channels; in addition, parties may refuse any independent from joining their coalition unless that independent has refused to side with a coalition and has been automatically assigned to the minority. Party bans last a reset and may be renewed if the party deems it appropriate. Parties must elect a Party Chair and their leaders in Congress. It is heavily suggested they also elect a Whip though it is not mandatory. They must also have a Charter approved by at least half of their active membership. Charters may also be carried over from past resets but must be re-approved by a vote of the party membership at the beginning of the next reset. You may post a leave of absence if you are expecting to be unable to play the game for a brief period for out-of-game reasons. During a posted leave of absence, days of absence will not be counted towards the activity requirements above, and your characters will not be penalized in-game for any inaction on any subject. There is generally a one-week limit on leaves of absence, meaning the longest you will receive the benefits of this protection is for seven days. However, the Administrative Board reserves the right to waive this rule in reasonable circumstances. Furthermore, if you take an unreasonable number of leaves of absence during a round, your executive character may be signed out to ensure the game continues operating during your time away. WHIP CARDS Whip Cards are used in the event that a member of a party breaks with a whip issued by Congressional leadership. The Republican or Democratic Leader may use a Whip Card on any Senator during any vote to reduce their total vote in the IVS to 1. Each Republican and Democratic Congressional Leader will receive four Whip Cards per in-game year. You may not carryover unused Whip Cards into the next year and totals reset to four apiece at the start of each in-game year. Player characters lose all Whip Cards upon leaving leadership. Furthermore, in order for a Whip Card to be used, Congressional Leadership must issue a party whip a minimum of 12 hours before the vote in question closes. Whip Cards may be used at any time until the final vote concludes. MECHANICS IN GENERAL. You principally play the game by having your character seek to influence the world around him/her to pursue the goals that you have set for him/her. A character can do this through public activity, and legislative activity if a member of Congress, executive activity if a member of the executive branch, and media activity if a media character. To facilitate this work, a non-media character can engage in fundraising. A player will also be able to influence elections through election mechanics as outlined in the appropriate forum and rules thread. The Administrative Board will simulate the response to player activities through in-game news articles, providing information to player media outlets so they can write in-game news articles, publishing of the approval ratings of Congressional and Executive branch characters, and posting direct non-player-character responses. We'll do our best to provide a truly immersive simulation where you can understand what is happening in the world in which your character lives. Yet we may miss some things; if you ever wonder if a real-life event occurred in-game, please feel free to ask about it in the appropriate thread. Please be mindful that except as otherwise indicated (including in player biographies), all historical events occurring before the in-game start date occurred in real life. Please be mindful that the approval ratings noted above are incredibly important in terms of game play. The Administrative Board produces approval ratings by analyzing the activities of your character with an emphasis on public activity. You'll need to have your Congressional or Presidential character regularly engage in public activities to achieve and maintain a high approval rating; some acclaim can be gained solely through legislative or executive activity, but most voters will know what your character is doing only if your character tells them. There are of course some extraneous factors beyond your character's direct control that will impact your character's approval rating -- the public's view on your character's party, the public's view on the state of the nation, and much more. But your character can impact it, and you should -- because public opinion is amongst the most important things for an elected official to track. PUBLIC ACTIVITY MECHANICS. There are numerous ways that your character can influence the public. You should create a press office thread for your Congressional character in the Character Activities forum and post press releases on that thread to sway the mass media. You should also create a public activities thread for your Congressional character in the character activities forum and post events that your character attends and hosts in that thread, along with any speeches given (you may post talking points in place of a speech). You can create new threads for your character to hold town hall meetings and press conferences in the character activities forum, seeking to sway the public and the media in an interactive environment. Finally, as a member of the Executive branch, subject to the president's approval, you can post press releases and hold press conferences in the White House Press Briefing Room. Take advantage of these resources to make sure as a politician that the American people share your values and views. EXECUTIVE MECHANICS The President of the United States of America holds immense political power and Virtual Government Simulation extensively simulates this influence, generally providing the President the same powers as the president possesses in real life. The president is allotted an entire category for his or her work including the President’s Desk forum (where executive orders are issued, bills are submitted, and other formal actions are taken), the Roosevelt Room forum (a password-protected forum for use in holding bipartisan negotiations), the West Wing forum (containing several sub-forums in which the president discusses issues with advisers and makes key decisions), and the Press Briefing Room. The Vice President also automatically receives access to each of these forums including an office in the West Wing in which the Vice President can engage in his or her own activities. In the case that the President resigns, goes inactive, or is removed from office, the real-life line of succession is employed to determine the new President with the exception that the Speaker of the House which is admin- controlled, is skipped and the succession goes directly to the Senate President Pro Tempore. The President possesses the power of appointment as in real life, though the exercise of this authority is truncated to an extent to facilitate game play. The President appoints Cabinet-level officials, Supreme Court Justices, the Federal Reserve Chair, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and appointment-oriented scenarios created by the Administrative Board. These appointments take the form of nominations subject to Senate approval. All nominations are assumed confirmed unless the Senate Leader indicates a desire to contest a nomination, in which case the nomination requires confirmation via Senate vote. The Administrative Board will, where necessary, select a non-player character to fill some appointed offices, basing the selection on the president's simulated appointments. A President may nominate other players to serve in their Cabinet or act as their Chief of Staff. The President may not appoint a player character to any other position. There is no simulation of recess appointments in the game. The Director of the FBI and CIA are reserved to the Administrative Board to advise the President on Domestic and International affairs. The President also possesses the power of the veto as in real life. When the Congress passes a bill in-game, the Speaker or the President Pro Tempore will present the bill to the President, who can then either sign or veto it. The President only has five real-life days to either sign or veto the legislation. All bills that are not signed within those five days are considered pocket vetoed. The President is also required to post an inaugural address upon taking office and the State of the Union address twice in his term. The opposition party must in each year in which a State of the Union address is delivered select a player-character to provide a formal response to the State of the Union address. ELECTION RULES Please see here for the Presidential Election Rules: click here. Please see here for the Congressional Election Rules: click here. FUNDRAISING CPAC and Netroots Nation will be held at the beginning of every Congressional session. Speakers target a specific group and make promises to these groups for the party's agenda in the upcoming session. These will be set events and will be listed on the Game Calendar. Once per Congressional Cycle Parties may hold a Gala dinner to raise money. The party will be expected to organize these events themselves before the end of each in-game year. Background fundraising will be released perodically throughout each in-game year by the Administrative Board for parties and players based on your parties and characters performance, approval rating, and other factors. Before elections both Parties may make an application for funding from two PACs. These will not be public. For players, see this guideline for how to interact with PACs/K-Street; click here. Funding earned by individual candidates cannot be given to other candidates. You may transfer your bank account to your party at a 90% penalty. ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD GUIDELINES All Administrators agree to abide by the following guidelines: Administrators are to treat all players with fairness. Administrators are tasked with creating a nurturing, collaborative environment. Administrators are tasked with making decisions that perpetuate play and participation. Administrators are not to provide IC information to a player that said player would not otherwise have access to unless it is in the process of fulfilling their duties as members of the Administration. Administrators are not to access the private accounts of players, specifically private messaging, unless they are acting in their formal duties as an Administrator or have received the permission of the player in question to do so. Administrators are to maintain a reasonable level of activity and participation in the community. Administrators are expected to refer to players respectfully in execution of their duties, both publicly and privately. Administrators are to respond to questions or concerns of players in a timely and helpful manner, unless deemed abusive or the Administration had previously answered to said player or answered in a publicly accessible manner. Administrators may elect to join the game at large after resigning from the Administrative Board. However, there are certain restrictions that apply to their membership in the game. They cannot become party, committee, congressional leadership, or part of the Executive Branch until two weeks have elapsed between their sign in and the assumption of the new office. Additionally, no Administrator can join a party until two weeks after an election result is announced. If an Administrator participated in or graded a Presidential election, they are restricted from joining said Administration in any form. 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