Rules

[THOR ODINSON]

R U L E S

Below are the rules of 'Believe In Heroes' (BIH), which staff reserve the right to update or change when necessary. Members will be notified of any changes we intend to make.


REGISTERING

• As per Proboards Terms of Service, we require all our members to be thirteen or older.

• 'BIH' is guest friendly. This means that there is no need to register an account for the purpose of checking something that is protected from guest eyes.

• When registering, please register with your characters code name or nickname in lowercase letters. Once you have completed the registration process, edit the personal settings in your profile, and change your display name to your character's first and second name in capital letters. Fail to do this in the space of two hours from the moment you register, without placing a reserve, and or posting an application, and your account will be deleted.

• We realize that in some cases that the 'Must Reads' of a site are not always clear, and that registering an account to clarify an issue with a staff member might be the next logical step. However, we would sooner recommend that any prospective members pose their queries in our chatbox, which can be found in the left sidebar, or post them, as guests in the 'Q & A' board. Odds are one of our other staff members or members might be able to answer whatever questions you might have on a much more detailed level and at a faster rate.

APPLICATIONS

• We welcome both canon and original characters*.

• In the case of canons, we only allow for one canon to be reserved at a time, and for a duration of two weeks.

• The same rules apply in the case of face claims, we only allow for one play-by to reserved at a time, also for a duration of two weeks.

• Bear in mind, this is a Marvel based site, and therefore only characters taken from the Marvel universe, or who have been inspired by the Marvel universe, will be accepted here. If you have taken inspiration for an anime based source, then please apply on an anime based board. Such characters are extremely difficult for staff to review, much less accept here.

• On that note, we do not accept anime, cartoon or drawings as face claims. Please use a real actor, preferably someone who has a variety of images, since this will help us with sites images such as spotlights.

• Please read the 'Application Must Reads' listed at the top of our application template.

• Post your application subject accordingly: First Last name (WIP/ND)

• Please do not tamper with the application template or add additional images of your character. The one image at the header of the template is a good enough visual.

• Please try to get your application done within two weeks from the day of registration. If after two weeks the application is still sitting in the 'Application Process' board with a (WIP/ND) tag, it will be moved to the 'Denied' board. Once your application has been reviewed, you will be expected to make the necessary edits within the space of a week from the day the PM was sent. If you are unable to finish within these allotted times, please notify a member of staff.

• Make sure that all sections are filled out appropriately in the application or our staff members will assume it is incomplete. If you are not finished with your application but want to post it up please tag it with a (WIP) or (ND) in the 'Subject' field.

• For those characters without mutant based abilities, or without powers of any description, please put 'N/A' in the 'Mutation Level Scale' section, and bypass the 'Powers' section of the application altogether, to focus on the 'Skills/ Talents' instead.  

• Applications should be utilized by player's to prove they know and understand the character (s) they are applying for, and should therefore be written in a player's own words. While it is perfectly acceptable, and recommended, that online sources be used as reference points to complete an application, it is not acceptable to copy and paste information directly from those sources, whether they come from such sites as Marvel Wikia or Comic Vine, and especially not from another Marvel based RP forum. Any members caught in breach of this rule will simply have their applications denied.

• During the application process, members will be given an option of what 'membergroup' their characters fall into, i.e. X-Men, Brotherhood, Hellfire Club, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D etc. However, in the case of the Hellfire Club, all characters must start out as 'associates'. Appointment to any specialized positions within the group must be done in-character. We will be enforcing stricter measures with groups like the Avengers, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four for obvious reasons. In the case of the Avengers, members should be made aware that only six Avengers can be active at a time, with six Avengers recruits acting as substitutes. We will be enacting a similar procedure with X-Men characters as well, with only eight X-Men characters being active at a time. The Fantastic Four, as the name implies, will only have four members active at a time. The six Avengers are as follows: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton and Bruce Banner. The eight X-Men characters are as follows: Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Shadowcat, Iceman, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Beast. The Fantastic four are also as follows: Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm and Benjamin Grimm. This will remain the case for the foreseeable future. No new members will be permitted to choose 'Avenger' as a membergoup, unless they are applying for one of the six aforementioned characters, nor will any new members be permitted to chose 'X-Men' as a membergroup, unless they also happen to be applying for one of the eight aforementioned characters, and the same will be the case with the 'Fantastic Four', unless someone happens to be applying for one of the four aforementioned characters. On that note, Avengers recruits can only be recruited through an in-character thread with one of the current Avengers, while characters that lean toward the ideals of the X-Men can be classified as recruits until they graduate to the position of official X-Men through an ongoing in-character process.

• Applicants must obtain permission for other 'character mentions' during the application process. By 'character mentions' we mean including information pertaining to other characters currently in play, which is not considered canon to the site's plot in the application. Since the site's plot follows the movies, anything that has happened which was not featured in this source, requires permission before being included in the application process. For example, anyone intending to apply for Loki while there is a Thor in play, must contact the member playing Thor either by personal message or instant message, and request permission from the player of Thor to include information relating to that character in the application, and make clear what information will be relayed. The player of Thor will then be requested to 'like' the application in question, conveying that their permission has been sought and granted. This rule will be observed particularly in the case of characters related to a character currently in play.

• If a canon has been previously played and is now abandoned, they will be listed on the Adoptables list, and their applications and threads will be placed in the Adoptables board. You are not expected to adhere to everything the previous player pursued, but established plots within the site need to be continued by whoever takes up the character. This way we are not starting the character over when a great deal has already been established. We do not expect you to fit the previous mould of the character as they viewed them, simply use these applications as references to give you a general idea of what happened with the character. Please do not simply copy and paste the application as your own. Any applications found copy and pasted from a previous players will simply be denied.

• Please do not post in any role play section until your application has been reviewed and accepted.

• Please do not pester staff about reviewing your application. We want to accept you as much as you want to be accepted, and we will review your application as soon as possible.

• After being accepted please fill out the appropriate claims such as Face Claims and Who’s Who.

PLOTTING

• Now that you've been accepted and filled out your claims, the next step is starting threads, which can be achieved by the process of 'plotting'. BIH is an extremely plot centric site, with a focus on the more realistic aspects of the Marvel universe, and for that reason, we encourage the sharing of ideas among staff and members alike. We do not appreciate the 'shooting' down of ideas, so do not feel reluctant to get in contact with anyone if you have an idea in mind. Worst case scenario, we will try to adapt whatever ideas might be presented to us.

• Because of the plot centric nature of our site, we highly recommend that our new members create a plot page in the Plot Pages board, or better yet, post in any pre existing plot pages and reach out to characters that have already been established. However, this is not a necessity, there are multiple ways of contacting people to discuss ideas, by reading their character's applications, and PMing or IMing them. We personally find that PMing people results in a more detailed approach to plotting and threading ideas out.

• While we have a thread dedicated to posting information pertaining to 'Open Threads', we highly recommend against taking this option as a starting route. As already stated, BIH is very plot centric in nature, and most members would prefer to establish a basis for their threads, rather than jump into a thread devoid of a particular basis.

• We also impress upon this in the case of placing Wanted Ads for character's members might want on the site, and request that those members be as detailed, and share as many ideas as possible when placing such ads to attract the necessary attention. To add to that, members should only place ads for characters connected to their own, and not characters connected to others. The reason for this being is that we expect members to take responsibility for their own ads, and if you're advertising for a character not connected to yours, coming up with ideas for them could prove difficult.

ROLEPLAYING

• BIH is a moderate to intermediate level site. For that reason we expect proper punctuation, spelling and grammar, and request a minimum word count of 250 so that our members have enough material to base a reply on. In order to adhere to this, we recommend our members write up posts in a Microsoft Word document first, and run the appropriate checks before posting them.

• That being said, Proboards seems to have an issue with the copy and paste approach from Microsoft Word, but an issue that can be easily avoided by altering the settings in your profile. By simply accessing the 'Edit Profile' option, and changing the 'Settings' of the 'Posting Default' from 'Preview' to 'BBCode' mode, this problem can easily be solved.

• Members will be expected to write in the third person past tense. For example, 'He read a book', as opposed to 'I am reading a book'.

• Please refrain from godmodding and metagaming. If there is a need for something to happen that involves it, permission MUST be sought.

• We do not mind the occasional bit of swearing, but please don’t go overboard with it. Every other word that your character says doesn’t need to be a swear word.

• Sex is another subject we would rather our members didn't go overboard with. Either fade to black or do a time jump to after the event. We know it happens but we do not need to have it written out.

• And on that note, pregnancies cannot occur without the express permission of the people involved in the conception, as well as the staff.

• When a thread is finished or abandoned, please post in the archiving threads post and we will shelve the thread for you.

ACTIVITY

• You are allowed as many characters are you think you can handle, but in order to play a second character, you must obtain twenty posts with your first character. We are a little more restrictive with any characters that follow this second character, requesting that thirty posts be obtained with the previous character before playing another character.

• Members cannot register, reserve or apply for another character until they have gotten the necessary posts with the previous character.

• As previously stated, members are allowed as many character as they can handle, but if you know you do not have time to be active with more than one, please do not take on more characters, especially canons. It holds threads up and people might lose their muse for a thread after it’s been dragging for a long period of time.

• However, we do understand that real life comes first. BIH has a Leave of Absence board with an absence form that we ask you to fill out. If you know you are going to be away for a long period of time please have the courtesy to post an LOA message. This way staff and other players know what is going on and will know why they are waiting a bit longer on a reply.

• We ask that those who take on a canon character try to post with that canon at least one or two times a week, working out to at least four to eight posts per month. If after a month a canon character is still inactive, without a LOA, staff will delete the account, and open the character up for application again.

• And with regards to original characters, we ask that players post with an OC at least one time a week, working out to four posts per month. If after two months an original character is still inactive, without a LOA, staff will delete the account.

• Please note that LOAs are only valid for the time frame you have given us. Once the time stated in your LOA is up, the LOA is no longer valid, unless you update the LOA to extend it. If no update is made, the LOA will be taken down once it has expired.

• If a player has more than one canon and is active with one canon but not the other and a month has passed, staff will ask the player if they still wish to keep that inactive canon. If not, the canon will be opened for someone else to take.

• We request that all members log in with all their accounts at least once per day. This is to ensure that people sending personal messages to additional accounts as opposed to a main account will receive an answer as quickly as possible.

• Threads that are inactive after one month will be automatically archived. However, if a thread a player wishes to continue with the thread, they can contact a staff member to move the thread back. After two weeks, if that same inactive thread still has no posts, it will be shelved for good.

*The post requirement applying to respective characters has been relaxed for both originals and canons who are members of HYDRA. Please refer to the linked bulletin for further details.

ADVERTISING

• We would ask that all advertisers post their ad in the correct section. If this is your first time visiting the site, then post in the First Link forum. If we posted on your site, then post back in the Link Back forum.

• We would also ask that you check our advertising indexes first, to make sure you haven't already advertised on our site. Two indexes can be found in the First Link and Link Back board, respectively.

• Registering to advertise to members via PM will not be tolerated, nor will posting links in the cbox.

GRAPHICS

• Avatars should be no more than 150 x 150 pixels in width and height.

• The Hover Avatar should be no more than 200 x 300 pixels in width and height.

• Signatures should be no more than 500 x 250 pixels in width and height.

[LOKI LAUFEYSON]

C O N D U C T

• Because of the very nature of RPing, which is a collaborative effort, encompassing various people, with various personalities, of course disagreements will arise. This is particularly the case on Marvel based sites.

• People have their favourite characters. People have their favourite storylines. However, not everyone is going to share those characters, or those storylines in common. Opinions are going to differ, and people are entitled to have a difference of opinion. All we can advise in this matter is if you can't disagree in a mature manner, do not broach the subject that causes you to disagree with someone in the first place. Either step back from it, or change the subject.

• The best thing about Proboards is that you don't require administrative assistance to distance yourself from a situation. If a member is being difficult on the site, you can click on their profile and block them. It may seem like a desperate measure, but until a staff member can attend to the issue, it's the best measure. You can unblock someone at a later stage, once the issues have been resolved. Should these difficulties spill over into the chatbox, the best course of action staff members can recommend is to ignore it, and allow the staff to deal with it.

• Respect is something we take very seriously here. Respect the staff of BIH, and respect the members of BIH. We're all here for the same thing at the end of the day, to enjoy writing a character we love, and in a genre we all enjoy.

• Behaviour is important. Treat others the way you want to be treated. In the words of Thumper, "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all".

• Language is also something we want people to watch out for. Every now and again is OK, but don't go over the top. As hard as it might be to believe, acronyms like 'wtf' also count.

• Avoid controversial subjects. Politics, religion, human rights issues, anything cultural like that is best avoided.

• Bad moods. We all experience them, but they're not an excuse for being snippy or passive aggressive. If you are unable to set ill temperaments aside at the end of the day, don't bring them here or to the chatbox.

• Personal matters. Just as bad moods happen, so too do personal matters, and they usually occur within close conjunction to one another as well, but know your limits where 'sharing' is concerned. Don't share to the 'extreme'. Don't throw around such incredibly personal details like your family history, or something incredibly serious that may be going on in your personal life. These are very sensitive subjects, and can make other people feel uncomfortable. This might sound insensitive, but such things should be treated with the proper courtesy, and should not be publicized in this kind of environment. 'Unloading' helps, but we recommend you do so in a private manner, whether that is to PM or IM someone you know here, or to talk to someone in real life. We all have problems of our own, without adding the personal woes of someone else to them.

• This goes without saying, but no bullying, or harassment of any kind. If any member feels like they are being bullied, or harassed for any reason, whether that is here on the site, or in the chatbox, please, please let members of staff know as soon as possible, and please, please have the offending material close at hand. 'Offending material' should come in the form of PMs or IMs, anything we can use as proof that such instances have taken place, that has been copied and pasted and sent to us.

• With the recent reintroduction of our chatbox, this section of the rules must be observed at all times, since it will be enforced. While chatboxes serve as a method of unwinding at the end of the day, they also tend to be magnets for disagreements. The chatbox is a public domain, and therefore anything publicized in it is considered representation of our site, and how our staff and members alike behave. Any and all breaches of this section will be taken very seriously. At the least, members will be temporarily banned from the chatbox until the situation is dissolved, and an impasse reached. There are a few stipulations in using the chtabox: members, please make yourselves easy to identify. For example, Maggie goes by Mag89Maggie as an alias, and also uses the icon of the character associated with her main account. The same goes for guests, so it makes it easier for us to differentiate between guests. The likes of 'Guest' and 'Anon' are not advised.

• We have a three strike policy here at BIH, and if any member is found in breach of the rules of the site on three separate occasions, they will be banned.

But above everything else, have fun and enjoy 'BELIEVE IN HEROES!'

[LOKI LAUFEYSON]

MASS update of the RULES on 'BELIEVE IN HEROES!'
on November 24th, 2014

[LOKI LAUFEYSON]

CHATBOX

Some of you may have noticed the new chatbox in the sidebar, and some of you may be delighted to learn that we have agreed to remove both the old Guest Chatbox, and will soon be removing the Skype Group Chat to allow all guest queries and out-of-character related discussions to take place in our new chatbox once again.

The staff have, until this day, maintained that our reasons for not using a chatbox were because we wanted the focus of 'Believe In Heroes' to be on writing, and not necessarily on the personalities of our writers. However, we have realized that is our stand on the issue, and not necessarily yours, the members.

That being said, the Conduct section of the rules must be observed at all times, and will be enforced. Chatboxes tend to be a magnet for disagreements, and disagreements seem to happen with alarming frequency on Marvel based sites, I have found.

Think of it this way: the chatbox is a public domain, and therefore anything publicized in it is considered a representation of our site, and how our staff and members alike behave. Any and all breaches of the linked section mentioned above will be taken very seriously. At the least, members will be temporarily banned from the chatbox until the situation is dissolved, and an impasse reached.

We do, however, have a few stipulations in using the chatbox. Members, please make yourselves easy to identify. For example, Maggie goes by Mag89Maggie as an alias, and also uses the icon of the character associated with her main account. The same goes for guests, so it makes it easier for us to differentiate between guests. The likes of 'Guest' and 'Anon' are not advised.

[THOR ODINSON]

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

This has been in the works for a long time now, but we feel we should address it here in the Rules Section for new and prospective members to understand. Logically, we give more emphasis and importance to Marvel Universe canon characters because, well, we are a Marvel Universe fan writing site. That does not mean that we discourage Original Characters to be created, not at all. We love the creativity some writers put into their Originals and we have had many incredibly well written and thought out Original Characters that have been very important in the site story, as well as canon characters that have been 'originalized' (not a word but you get the meaning LOL) for the purpose of being easily incorporated. An Original can be incorporated (an example of one is @alexis , @fionarintoul , @craigpierre , etc) which the writers worked with us the staff into incorporating them and give them a path in the main story and the characters have been awesome at it, but there has been many others) when it's writer works with the staff and follows the basic rules of Original Characters creation which are:

• Try as much as possible not to copy an existing Canon Character: We know that coming up with completely original powers and abilities for superhero characters is difficult. But as much as possible, try not to basically give a character everything Canon Characters have. Might as well try for a canon (which is easier to create, as the information for that canon is already in a lot of Marvel sources.) Not only that, but it is easier for us, when we review, to help edit and change a bit to fit with the site's story.
  
  
• Make the Original Character believable: One of the main problems when we review some Original Characters is the fact that everything is extremely over the top. Young characters being skilled in everything, or having tons of money, more than Canon characters, or their mutant powers put them on par with Apocalypse or other way over the top Canon characters (there is a reason there are canon characters banned in this site). Rule of thumb: An Original cannot be more powerful or have more of everything than a Canon, especially a Canon that has the same abilities as the Original. An example of this: The original character is enhanced like Steve Rogers, or have a mutant power similar to Quicksilver, but then has so many things that makes he or she more powerful than Steve Rogers or Quicksilver or any Canon. If you are to mimic an ability or power from a canon, then make it a weaker version of it and follow our suggestions during the review.

• This is a Marvel Universe site. So try to keep the Original Character inside the Marvel Universe, with all the things that that entitles.

It is not a lot to ask when creating an Original Character, right? Also, we emphasize more on character development than 'cool' powers, not only for Originals, but also for Canons. This means... flaws and weaknesses. Powers and action are cool and that is why we love Marvel Universe and many of us comic books in general. It is awesome to write a cool action thread, but I also love Marvel because of the characters and their personality and flaws. Speaking from my perspective, I rather like movies where it shows a flawed hero that has to go through adversity and danger in order to reach his or hers goals. To be an overpowered character that can do no wrong doesn't work. It is also a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character, which we all know is like a no no in RP writing or writing in general.

The application review in the site has been the same for everyone, even us the staff. That said, we have been a bit easy going with the reviews, but we are going to be a bit more strict concerning Original Characters. In the Banned List, there are a lot of examples of things we don't want to see in Originals and when we review applications, we also get out our input across as to what works and doesn't work in the context of the site. This is in the context of this site, I am pretty sure there are way more strict sites out there or other more relaxed sites out there and much love and respect to them, but in this site, all of us that have joined had gone through the same review process and it has worked. If people think it is too much or don't want to adapt to the rules in the site concerning this, they are completely free and within their rights to write somewhere else. Those of you that have been here for a long time (wow, we are almost reaching two years!!! But this time we are not going to celebrate with a long event like Ultron! LOL – and a shout-out to Adam, Ace, Frictor, Fiona, Kristina, Alice and many others) know how dedicated you all are to have fun in the site.

And that is, at the end of the day, what we all want, to have fun after a long day, to hone our skills as writers, to enjoy ourselves in writing stories because we enjoy to write. But there has to be rules and organization or it becomes a mess and the site fails.

[NATASHA ROMANOFF]

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS