GENERAL RULES

Always stay in character and keep everything in the city.

Unless dealing with an Admin, Mod, or staff situation do not go out of character. Stay in character while in-game, and keep in-game drama, gang beef, etc in-game.

Harassment and OOC (Out-Of-Character) insults will not be tolerated.

Racism and other derogatory language will not be tolerated. We will not provide you with a list of banned words, and we expect you to know what is and isn't appropriate when interacting with other people.

Your way is not always the right way.

Just because you were caught, killed, or didn't come out as the "winner" of a scenario doesn't mean you have been wronged. Roleplay can go in any direction and that means it doesn't always go the way you want it.

Do not use exploits, hacks, crosshairs, skypacks, bloodFx, unrealistic sound packs, or menus. If you do, you will be banned.

RDM/VDM

(Random/Vehicle DeathMatch)

Randomly killing players will not be tolerated. Killing/attempting to kill someone with no roleplay or reason is forbidden.

Examples of RDM/VDM:

• Driving over a random group of people in a car.
• Randomly shooting or driving over people you’ve never interacted with.
• Driving into, or shooting up a gas station’s pumps to kill as many people as possible.

Examples of what RDM/VDM isn’t:

• Doing a drive-by on an enemy gang during an active gang war.
• Being killed by someone who you insulted.
• Being killed by police for attempting to violently interfere with a scene.

VDM will not be tolerated under any circumstance. The only time killing someone with a vehicle would be considered “ok” in RP is if it’s your last and only way of survival when being actively shot at with a deadly weapon

POWER GAMING

Intentionally forcing, pressuring, or baiting someone into a roleplay situation that they cannot opt-out of is considered power gaming and is forbidden.

Examples of power gaming:

• Holding someone hostage for no reason and refusing to let them go.
• Arresting someone during a traffic stop, before any interactions.
• Seeing /me commands through a wall and using that knowledge to take advantage of a situation.

Examples of what power gaming isn’t:

• Holding someone hostage during a robbery for a reasonable amount of time.
• Being robbed at gunpoint.
• Using your police car to block an escaping criminal.

NOT VALUING LIFE

Not valuing your life and the life of others is forbidden. You must value your life, and additionally, you must value the life of others and the consequences killing someone would bring.

Examples of Not Valuing Life:

• Being robbed and telling the robber to kill you because you don't want to hand over your stuff.
• Instantly killing someone over a passing joke or insult.
• Killing yourself or your friends to avoid going to jail.

Examples of what Not Valuing Life isn’t:

• Driving off a ramp during a high-speed pursuit.
• Running down the highway during a pursuit after your car breaks down.
• Killing someone after multiple insults to your gang, car, family, and pet goldfish.

NEW LIFE RULE (NLR)

When dying or respawning at the hospital, you must experience a "new life" and forget what you saw, heard or experienced leading up to your death and using any knowledge to take revenge can be considered metagaming.

Returning to the scene of a crime, violent altercation, or after death immediately is considered a violation of this rule. You must wait 30 minutes after your death to return to an area with an active scene or situation.

Examples of Not following the New Life Rule:

• Being killed by a rival gang, respawning, and then telling your gang who and where you were killed.
• Arresting someone after they have bled out and respawned.
• Telling someone how their "cousin" died.
• Remembering someone you killed.

Examples of what follows the New Life Rule:

• Being saved by an EMS and then taking revenge on the person who killed you.
• Participating in a gang war started over your death.
• Return to the scene of your death to pick up your car after 30 minutes.

EXPLOITS

Abusing game mechanics to go through walls, bunny hop, gain unnatural speed, boost damage, or give you advantages through any abuse of mechanics are forbidden and will be strictly enforced.

Examples of Exploiting:

• Making multiple characters and giving away the starter money is forbidden.
• Use of any mod menu or exploit will result in an instant ban.
• Combat Logging: Quitting the game to avoid being arrested, robbed, or dying.
• Selling drugs through walls.
• Abusing emotes to break into areas.
• Using crosshairs.
• Using special texture packs such as skypacks to make people more visible or modify the sky in an unrealistic way. (Texture packs are allowed, NO DAYTIME ONLY)
• Unrealistic BloodFx
• Kill effects (other than what comes default to GTA) includes headshot effects
• No texture packs that make objects invisible or remove collisions
• Sound packs that amplify footsteps

BREAKING CHARACTER

Breaking character is forbidden. Players are expected to stay in character at all times while in the city, unless dealing with staff directly. You must do your best to roleplay a situation out, even if the other player attempts to break character.

Examples of Breaking Character:

• Threatening to call the admin or interfering with an admin handling a situation.
• Saying someone is Fail RP, breaking character, referencing servers, safe zones, and other game mechanics.
• Asking an officer to give you a lower sentence because you are friends.

Examples of not breaking character:

• Talking out of character when an admin is present and has declared the situation is OOC.
• Recording a violation of rules, then submitting a ticket outside of the situation.
• Stopping someone from Force RPing with you in an inappropriate or derogatory way.

METAGAMING

Using knowledge gained outside of your character's experiences, outside communication (Discord), or any other out-of-game platforms is forbidden.

Examples of Metagaming:

• Using discord to tell your friends you're being robbed so they can rescue you.
• Coordinating a gang war through discord.
• Stream sniping or streaming to your friends so they know where you are.

Examples of what isn't Metagaming:

• Talking to your in-game friends while not playing.
• Streaming your gameplay to friends who aren't playing or in the city.
• Talking to and discussing in-game events out of character while not in the city.

FAIL ROLEPLAY

Fail Roleplay (FailRP) is the act of failing to roleplay, not taking roleplay seriously, or generally treating the city as a non-roleplay environment and is forbidden. It includes, but is not exclusive to: exploiting, power gaming, and breaking character.

Examples of Fail Roleplay:

• "GTA Driving" or driving recklessly everywhere you go.
• Baiting police, attempting to bait players to chase and fight you.
• Intentionally breaking scenes with no build-up, reason, or stream snipe.
• Using /me to talk instead of using /me to only show actions

Examples of what isn't Fail Roleplay:

• Roleplaying in an unconventional manner or an unconventional character within the world.
• Creating unconventional roleplay situations and events that still fit within the city.
• Refusing to roleplay a situation that has devolved into Power Gaming/Forced roleplay.

Standing around camping bodies to shoot at police or simply camping bodies for long periods of time to force respawn people is considered Fail RP. If your intent is to force someone to fatal, then you're not really RPing, just trying to abuse a mechanic

SITUATIONAL RULES

ROBBERIES

Robberies, crime, and shakedowns are accepted aspects of city life, however, there are rules that you must consider before robbing someone:

You cannot rob:

White Listed Jobs: EMS, Police, and other players actively working a whitelisted job cannot be robbed.

On the Job robberies: You cannot rob someone while in the middle of a delivery job, and inversely you cannot be robbed in the middle of a job (this means someone in the middle of an animation or job action). However, being on the job does not give you a blanket exemption from robberies and, given the right scenario, you can be robbed while on the way to sell fish or finish your delivery run.

Camping job sites or legal job locations is forbidden.

Robbing new players: Camping spawn areas to rob new players is forbidden.

Gangs robbing other gang affiliated members; Gang affiliated members are allowed to rob other gang affiliated members outside of “red zones”. The safe zone rule still applies regardless

You cannot rob in:

• Safe zones and another other areas not covered within a “red zone”

Red Zone meaning a gang territory, drug locations (processing/picking), other illegal locations such as, but not limited to; chop shop, black markets, money laundry

You may steal:

• Everything in a player's inventory to an extent (Realistic amounts. While we can agree "it's their fault" that they had so much, it's all too common for someone to report this then turn around and argue "it's their fault" when committing the act and it becomes a headache). Also, you may not force a player to give you their debit card pin or to withdraw money from their ATM.
• A player's car. However, you may not force a player to give you the keys to their car.

SCAMMING

While much of this falls under robberies such as but not limited to; do not scam people in safe zones, unrealistic locations. We understand there's a moment when too much is too much. While keeping the integrity of organic RP intact there must be limits in place so that freedoms are not taken for granted and ultimately abused. And in addition to areas “You cannot rob in:” the following will not be tolerated:

• You cannot scam people for assets such as cars and/or houses
• You cannot scam people for unrealistic amounts of money (greater than $15,000)
• You cannot use forms of metagaming to conduct scams that should be done within the game only.

VIOLENT CRIME

Robberies, crime, and shakedowns are accepted aspects of city life, however, there are rules that you must consider before killing or committing a violent crime:

Killing Police: Your roleplay cannot just be "Killing Police". You may defend yourself if threatened by police, attempting to flee, or in conflict with the police. Simply killing cops to kill cops is considered RDM/VDM.

Killing EMS: You may not kill or injure EMS unnecessarily. EMS must fear for their lives, however EMS reserve the right to not respond to a scene if they feel an area is dangerous or hostile.

Killing New Players: While allowed, you cannot seek out and target new players in an attempt to make them lose their starting cash, or kill them for being new.

Assassination/Hitman Roleplay: Assassination/Hitman roleplay is allowed, however, you must have a valid reason, roleplay, and justification for assassinating someone. You cannot simply pay to kill others over small disputes or as a joke.

Shakedowns and protection: Gangs, criminals, and illicit organizations are allowed to shakedown drug zones, player-owned businesses, and other gangs to demand protection money. However, you may not ask white-listed jobs or non-player-owned businesses (vineyards, hotdog sellers, etc.) for protection money.

You must properly roleplay any of the above situations, and demands must be reasonable. The onus is on you, not the victim, to properly roleplay criminal situations.

If you are caught in the crossfire: Being accidentally killed by a hitman or being caught in the crossfire of a gang war in a known gang area is not necessarily RDM. If you believe it is, please submit a ticket and admins will make a decision.

GANGS

Without the seedy underground, gangs, and criminal networks what kind of city would Los Santos be? However, even gangs have rules they need to follow:

Gang Whitelists: Gang White Listing allows you to maintain your gang, "hire-and-fire" members, promote/demote, and gives you access to certain in-game mechanics only available to all gangs.

Gang Whitelist requirements:

• 5 or more established members when founding your gang. (Must be gang free or wait 7 days once leaving a gang)
• 3,000,000 Dirty money to bribe city officials (subject to change at any time).
• Must have some sort of rank system. You can have as many ranks as you'd like but must specify the order you want them and which ranks require access to the recruit/gang menu.

Once you have these, open a ticket in #gang-whitelist

If you are approved in the ticket you must then pay and coordinate your approval in-game with The Fixer. The Fixer is a real person, who is part of the community. To get your approval you must successfully meet the fixer and transfer the funds.

The Fixer doesn't like attention, so when you approach them make sure that:

• It’s the right time of day
• You are discreet and away from the crowd
• Be careful who you’re with and who is listening or watching
• If the Fixer or any of their associates are killed by you, you will immediately be rejected

If The Fixer feels you’re not serious, you may have your application delayed

Gangs are allowed to:

• Claim colors, vehicles, and clothing (we will NOT white list them for your gang, do not ask)
• Make alliances (THERE IS A TAX INCLUDED IN THE COST OF WAR)
• Demand protection money
• Fight other gangs
• Claim and defend territory from other gangs
• own legal front businesses
• Have gang discords and community groups
• Rob other gang affiliated members outside of gang territories

Gangs are not allowed to:

• Demand unrealistic amounts of protection/tax money
• Conduct gang activity in unrealistic areas
• Act as friend groups and not gangs.
• Use platforms like Discord to coordinate gang wars, send information, stream, or metagame
• Merge with others without reasonable time limits. (Members cannot leave and merge into another gang within 7 days)
• Have more than 25 members. (This can be re-evaluated when the city is more populated).

Admins will not:

• Mediate between gangs
• Mediate between gangs and businesses
• Mediate between gangs and police
• "whitelist" colors, clothing, cars, or any items in-game for specific gangs. (DO NOT ASK)
• Give you a location/HQ simply for being a gang
• Provide you with any sort of incentives for being a large gang

As a final note on gangs, and to reinforce an important point, gangs who are found to simply be “friend groups” will either be delisted or given a warning. If you don't want to act like a gang, we will not treat you like one.

BUSINESSES

If you choose to serve the community by providing various services, there are rules that must be followed:

Business: A business is a service you provide to the city of Los Santos whether it's providing food, entertainment or repairing cars. Anything that requires you to have an active business license falls under this category.

Business license requirement:

• Must have at least 4 accumulated days of playtime in the city.
• Must have a business idea and resources to allow for it (such as map mods or other imported items if necessary) Note: Requests like these require a Patreon supporter role.
• Must pitch your business idea to the city officials for approval.
• A non-refundable deposit will be required for obtaining your business license upon approval. This doesn't include the payment required to occupy a facility to conduct business. This license will have to be renewed every 15 RL days.

Businesses are allowed to:

• Provide services in exchange for money in the amount they decide.
• Can decide who is allowed to work for them and who isn't if the tools allow.
• Can ask/hire a gang for protection
• Can aggressively compete with other opposing businesses.
• Have business discords and community groups.
• Can have gang affiliation (HOWEVER; Only one legal business front can be owned by a gang at a time collectively. This doesn't include gang protection.)

Admins will not:

• Mediate between businesses
• Mediate between gangs and businesses
• Mediate between businesses and police
• Provide you with any sort of incentives for being a large business

As a final note on businesses, a license can be revoked by a city official for any reason not listed in the rules when necessary. These rules are subject to change at any time, and it is your responsibility to stay "up to date" with them. Revoked business licenses can be restored for a reduced price of the initial deposit with the approval of city officials (Soon this will be automated @ city hall)

WHITE LIST JOB GUIDELINES

The Following whitelisted jobs are required to complete a minimum weekly playtime:

• Police: Three hours
• EMS: Three hours
• Approved businesses: Two hours
• Mechanics: (no minimum time requirement)

The following whitelisted roles are required to complete a minimum weekly playtime:

• Chief of Police: 6 hours
• Chief of EMS: 6 hours
• Whitelisted and approved businesses owners: Four hours

Please note, that Chiefs and business owners are expected to keep track of these hours as they see fit. These are not strictly hard numbers that must be met every week without exception as long as you give notice that you can't meet your obligation.

Equivalent Hours Rule:
To keep EMS and PD active, all members of PD (aside from new recruits) must play the equivalent time spent on their civilian or gang character on their EMS or PD characters.

For example:
If your character is a gang member, and you have a character that is a police officer and you spend 4 hours fighting in a gang war, you must play an equivalent 4 hours on your character that is a police officer (on or off duty).

This means that you are allowed to be on your LSPD character off duty, but must maintain your character. You can still do non-PD jobs or activities on that character but must remain in the city and roleplay as an off-duty cop if you are not on duty.

Please note that this requirement only requires those who are active on civilian or alternative characters. Someone who plays 8 hours as EMS is not required to play 8 hours as a civilian.

Hours will be generally tracked by EMS and LSPD management, and those found not meeting equivalent hour requirements will be given a warning or asked to leave their position.

Hours do not need to be done back to back or all in one block, but there must be a balance of playtime between characters.

WHITELIST ROLE REQUIREMENTS

To maintain the integrity of RP scenarios, high-ranking EMS, Police, and certain whitelisted, player-owned business people must maintain separate characters if they decide to create a criminal character.

Requirements:

• You may not share inventories, money, inventories, vehicles, houses, or stashes between characters
• You may not hold a commanding or decision-making role within a criminal organization or gang
• You may not reference your role as the whitelisted character (going out of character) at any point, even if you see department/company rules being violated
• You may not share information or knowledge between characters
• You must maintain an entirely separate existence between the two characters. This rule will be strictly enforced, and people found transferring items, information, or resources between their characters are at risk of losing their roles and/or having characters wiped.

Below is a list of jobs and their corresponding ranks required to follow the above rules:

• EMS: Chief and up
• LSPD: Sgt and up
• Sheriff: All ranks

EXCOMMUNICADO

(Criminal Blacklist)

Life on the streets of Los Santos isn’t easy, and coming up from the bottom to rule the dirty underbelly of this city is even harder. Gangsters, killers, and thieves may not follow the law, but they are all bound by a common code. This code allows the criminal world to survive and thrive without drawing the attention of the authorities, or worse yet the government.

To maintain the balance, the OGs of this city have instituted a list of those criminals who have fallen so low as to break this code and bring heat to the criminal underworld.

Those found to have broken core rules and laws on a regular basis (i.e. constant mass VDM/RDM) or in such a manner that damages the city (i.e. duping and hacking) as a whole and warrants such action will be unceremoniously driven out, shunned, and forever labelled as excommunicado. Excommunicated from the life of crime, individuals who have been added to this list are forever barred from participating in:

• Whitelisted jobs (Police, EMS, DoT)
• Joining any gang
• Any benefits of supporter roles
• Leniency in future reports or disputes
• Criminal Activity involving others (excluding solo robberies, selling drugs alone)

Those labeled as excommunicado are expected to be treated with disdain by all of the criminal elements of this city and driven out of drug zones, prevented from producing and trafficking drugs, and any other sort of illicit activity. For all intents and purposes, someone who is excommunicado has been relegated to civilian life and nothing else.

Examples of what gangs should do if they encounter someone who is excommunicado:

• You see someone who is excommunicado selling drugs in your territory. After giving them a warning to leave, they refuse. You are expected to kill them or force them out.
• You see someone who is excommunicado on the street after being shot during a gunfight and they ask for help. You are expected to leave them there.
• Someone who is excommunicado tries to buy a gun off you, you refuse to sell to them and tell them to leave. If they insist you may kill them.
• You see another gang getting help from someone who is excommunicado. Report his activity to the Fixer or any of your higher-ups.

The list can be found in appropriate Discord channels

SAFE ZONES

Safe Zones are various areas around the city designated by city officials as being safe from things like dying, killing, and theft. You'll find these in areas like pillbox, the car dealership, and garages.

Safe Zones are not exempt from searches, arrests, and police activity. If police spot you in a safe zone following a crime, they are still able to arrest you and search you if they have cause.

You are not allowed to:

• Camp safe zones or use them to avoid dying during an active confrontation
• Steal out of trunks
• Lockpick and steal locked cars
• Conduct drugs deals, weapon deals, and use the safe zone as protection
• Handcuff others

Note, you may threaten, and bare your weapons in a safe zone in situations involving hostages or police, however, police are allowed to tase you if you use it to draw out the situation.

You are expected to respect safe zones and the perimeter of safe zones like a pillbox and police departments, where running gun battles and duels would not be considered realistic.

If someone attempts to rob you or kidnap you in a safe zone, you are not obligated to go through with their RP. However, you cannot use safe zones to deny others in situations like this.

LAWYER ROLEPLAY

Part of a healthy justice system is the ability to seek legal advice and assistance from lawyers and legal professionals. The Los Santos Bar Association (LSBA) has officially opened its books, and is now accepting applications by people seeking to represent the accused of Los Santos.

To be a lawyer you must:

• Pass the LSBA Bar Exam ( https://forms.gle/J73HgKNfNWKzAzry7 )
• Be in good standing with city officials. People with multiple bans and reports will not be allowed to be lawyers.
• Have been a citizen for at least one month
• Carry their LSBA membership card and a form of identification any time they are acting as a lawyer or legal representative
• Be presentable and professional in your appearance and behavior

In the case that you cannot afford a lawyer, LSPD will do everything reasonable to provide you with a court appointed lawyer.

Lawyers are expected to maintain a basic level of legal knowledge and be able to pass the LSBA bar exam. Lawyers may occasionally be tested on their knowledge, and those found to have cheated on the exam or unable to answer basic legal questions and scenarios will be disbarred permanently.

Lawyers are not a whitelisted job or career, and lawyers must earn their money from whom they represent. Passing the LSBA bar exam issues an LSBA membership card, which lawyers may present to LSPD and the courts if they must represent a client.

If you do not have an LSBA membership card and a form of identification on you, LSPD and the courts may reject you from entering the premises.

Using lawyers to delay RP, stall for time, or just generally waste the time of LSPD and lawyers is forbidden.

CAMERAS AND VIDEO EVIDENCE

With the introduction of the NBRP Legal system, we'd like to clarify what constitutes video evidence and who is able to provide it.

Those who are wearing body cams must provide video evidence (if they're recording):

• Law Enforcement
• EMS

Please note, if you are part of the above roles, you are not required to record your gameplay (some people may not be able to record), but if you are you should provide it as best you can in relation to the situation.

If you are able to record and regularly provide video evidence in prosecution but are found to be withholding evidence to benefit yourself, this will be brought up with your chief and disciplinary action will be taken as appropriate.

Civilians, and those not on the above list, cannot use go-pros or use the evidence they have from "body cams" or "streaming on Live PD" or "Streaming on Twitch" and must be using some kind of emote (i.e. /e camera or /e record) or appear to be recording in some way.

Using house peepholes or other "camera" devices counts are recorded footage.

As with all rules, there are exceptions and exceptional situations that can make evidence valid or invalid, or where the footage would be acceptable as evidence when it usually wouldn't. Get creative, but also be realistic!

GANG TERRITORIES & GANG WARS

With the introduction of a very advanced territory system to give criminal organizations a chance to thrive in the illegal market, compete to be the “top dog” and control the drug market; there's rules that MUST be followed.

RULES OF WAR

Outside of normal rules of engagement in RP the following are exceptions in gang vs.gang rivalry. You should not be involved directly in a war such as shooting or running around with the gang picking up bodies; unless you are affiliated and are wearing YOUR affiliated gangs flag and or biker vest(cut).

Can:

• Kill someone wearing the target affiliated gangs flag and/or biker vest(cut) you’re currently at war with.
• Kill someone on the job that's wearing the target affiliated gangs flag and/or biker vest(cut). (Camping job site rules still apply)
• Kill someone wearing any affiliated gangs flag and/or biker vest(cut) in an uncontrolled territory while not declared.

Cannot.

• Kill someone on the job who is not wearing a target affiliated gangs flag or biker vest(cut) (Obviously rules of RP outside of gang wars still apply).
• Kill someone for simply driving a car that has a paint job or lights the same color as the affiliated target gang.
• Kill because they are at war with your “buddies”. (You cannot kill an affiliated gang member(s) because you’re rolling around with a gang that's at war and get killed in the crossfire.)

Note: When caught in the crossfire of an active war that you intentionally placed yourself in, engaging in a fire fight without declaring will be considered RDM. We will not accept this as your “excuse” to shoot

CONTESTED TERRITORY

When a territory is contested and currently fought for, other gangs have no business being there or trying to take it for themselves without declaring on one of the gangs fighting for that territory. Doing so may result in bans.

UNCONTROLLED TERRITORY

This DOES NOT apply to territory that’s contested or being fought for. These areas can be fought for without declaring war ONLY until the territory has been claimed and is under control. At that point the rules change.
 

Controlled Territory

These areas can be fought for ONLY when at war. You cannot claim someone else's territory without declaring war first (This is enforced by game mechanics). “Rules of War” apply.

Cost of War

The cost of war can get expensive but if you’re smart about it you can make it cost effective.

The base cost of war is 5000 each time you declare.

V = Amount of members

W = Multiplier (Goes up .5 each time you declare, and .2 when you declare back. Decreases slowly over time)

X = Difference of whitelist size (is 0 if the whitelist is smaller than the defending whitelist)
Y = Total Alliance Members (This is calculated by each whitelist size that declared on or has been declared on)

Z = (1000)V + (5000)W + (1000)X + (2500)Y

If the gang has no blocks and Y = 0 then the base cost, W, and X are all 0. If Y is greater than 0 then everything still applies regardless if they have no blocks.

Ex;

Gang A has 25 members.

Gang B has 10 members, and has declared 3 times before without letting the multiplier cool down

Gang C has 30 members, and no blocks

Gang B declares on Gang A;
Z = (1000)10 + (5000)1.5 + (1000)0 + (2500)0

The cost is 17500

And their multiplier went up by another .5 so it will be 2.0 the next time they declare

Gang C declares on Gang B;
Z = (1000)30 + (5000)0 + (1000)20 + (2500)25
The cost is 75000

And their multiplier went up by .5 so it will be .5 the next time they declare

Gang A declares back on Gang B; (Literally NO reason to do this but w/e)

The cost is free HOWEVER their multiplier goes up by .2 so it will be .2 the next time they declare on a gang.