U.S.S. Denver Group Expectations 

It is the hope that this document establishes a code of conduct in and out of character for members of the Denver RPG in relation to Bravo Fleet and game regulations. 

General:

1. We will not always agree on everything, but when we do disagree it’s important that those disagreements are handled respectfully. It’s also essential that when a moderator (generally meaning the GM, AGM, or 2nd Officer) asks for a discussion to stop, it stops.
2. The AGM and 2nd Officer assist the GM in operations of the Denver.  Players should respect them as they would the GM.  However,  the GM holds the final say.
3. Bravo Fleet’s Non-Discrimination and Harassment policy applies to every interaction you have as a member of this group, whether it occurs directly on the Denver’s server or not, so please be courteous and respectful in your interactions with your fellow authors. 
4. Membership on the game’s Discord server is required to participate. You must also be a member of Bravo Fleet to join.
5. The game manager reserves the right as specified under the fleet’s RPG policy to remove any player at any time, especially for conduct that does not align with these rules. 
6. “Command Staff”  in this document refers to the GM, AGM, and 2nd Officer as a collective. 
7. 2nd Officer functions as the liaison between the crew and GM/AGM.  2nd Officer is part of Game Manger discussions and is apprised of all administrative discussions and will be a mentor as well as a leader to the crew.  A company First Sergeant is a real word equivalent to this role.
8. The Denver will operate with the goal of 4 to 7 players. 

Activity Requirements:

1. 1. Members are required at minimum to post at least twice a month. This can be joint posts or solo posts. TAGs are to be responded to within 48 hours. Please be courteous of other players and respond promptly. 
      1. Solo posts should be at least 250 words long.
      2. Joint posts should be at least 250xN where n is the number of players involved.
      3. With this activity in mind Denver has the goal of four to eight completed missions a year and a collective 8 to 14 stories posted a month (~168 annually).
      4. Leave of Absences should be given in advance through Discord with an approximate return date.

Applications & Characters 

1. No Q, or any alien race considered hostile to the United Federation of Planets. No species from other franchises such Star Wars, Stargate ect.
2. Artificial Intelligence, El-Aurians, androids, ex-Borg ect. will be considered on a case-by-case basis, by the command staff. They will likely NOT be accepted. 
3. Custom races will be considered on a case-by-case basis.   In addition to a well developed biography you will also have to develop a history and cultural background to the species.
4. Races who are at peace or allied with the Federation,  but not members of the UFP will require a well developed bio. This includes a well thought out and reasonable explanation as to why they are members of Starfleet.  Command staff may decline the use of this character for any reason.
5. Only characters with complete biographies will be accepted.  If you are unsure how to do this contact a member of the command staff.
6. A sample post is required.   It should be considered your character’s introduction to the Denver. This will eventually be your very first post. 
   1. It should follow posting guidelines of a minimum of 250 words.
   2. Formatting will be taken into consideration for approval.
   3. Some grammatical and spelling errors will be allowed,  but excessive could be grounds for denial.
7. Join Discord and let the command staff get to know you and your character before you submit your application. 
8. Character rank should be appropriate for the character’s experience in Starfleet AND position applied for.  Command Staff uses the US Military’s “time in service” requirements as a guideline. While not strictly followed it should give you an idea of about how long it should take to make a certain rank.  You aren’t going to be a Lt. Commander with one year’s experience (~10 years).
9. Secondary characters are allowed and will be approved by the Command Staff on a case-by-case basis.   
10. Named NPCs are preferred.   If your character runs a department please submit a list to the AGM or 2nd Officer so the NPC list may be maintained and updated. Disposable NPCs should be avoided if possible.

Content Guidelines:

(Excerpt written by: David |BFXO, with some changes by GM)

The Denver is rated 212 on the RPG Rating Scale, which is intended to be suited to members as young as 16. This means that references to violence, cursing, and sex can be no more graphic than they are on shows such as Star Trek: Discovery, but more graphic  than Star Trek: The Next Generation 

• Language: Infrequent, mild swearing is permitted.

1. 1. 1. Mores differ on how much swearing is appropriate, and different regions treat different expletives differently (c.f. The word ‘cunt’ in American English vs most of the Commonwealth countries’ regional Englishes.) so this policy will be enforced with grace, but, unfortunately, is an instance where American English will serve as the standard, as that is the dialect most prominent in Star Trek.

• Picard brought us the first instances of “fuck” in Star Trek, which is the limit of how crass one should be on the Example, but it should be extremely infrequent.

1. 1. 1. 1. Generally speaking, fuck should be used to express exasperation not to describe sexual behavior. “Fuck!” versus “He fucked him.” Use your common sense, here.
      2. Keep in mind that Starfleet officers, while explicitly not part of any military, are disciplined professionals. Regular swearing on the bridge is not something that would happen, and it’s likely something that could have (mild) in-character consequences.

• Sex: Mild sexual innuendo and references permitted.

1. 1. 1. This is not Game of Thrones but we’re also not the Brady Bunch. If are referencing sex, consider why you are doing so and what it’s adding to a particular scene.
      2. References to specific sexual acts should generally be avoided (and, again, think about why you would make them at all) but you don’t have to pretend a couple is celibate either. Fade to black when Star Trek would. 
         1. “You were great last night.” ← OK. It references sex (maybe), but doesn’t get too specific. 
         2. “He [blanked] my [blank] in the Jefferies tube.” ← Pushing it, as it’s a reference, not a description.
         3. “The two of them [adverb] [sex act verb] each other, starting with their [adjective] [body part, pl.], and working down to the [body part]…” ← Just no.
      3. This restriction is not meant to be regressive or prudish in nature, but to make sure that our content is appropriate for all members. Sex and love are great–and our characters are sentient beings who are likely having it. We don’t have to ignore that, but we also don’t need to read the play-by-play of your cybering. 
      4. Sexual violence is never appropriate content for this group.
      5. Sex scenes between the characters of two players is NOT allowed.  They may date or even marry, but intimate scenes are not permitted under any circumstances.
         1. The command staff must be notified in writing by both players of intended relationships between two player characters. 
         2. The players will be asked separately by a member of the command staff if they are comfortable with the interaction. If there is any hesitation the relationship will not be allowed. 

• Violence: Mild violence is permitted

1. 1. One of the great things about energy weapons is that they don’t tend to leave gruesome wounds. Either it stuns, kills, or vaporizes a being entirely. As this is what we deal with most, leaving the description to ‘a dead body’ is sufficient, as there wouldn’t be maiming and that sort of thing. There’s just no need to go into a lot of blood and gore to get the point across, because that’s not a normal feature of the genre.
   2. Phaser fire fights are to be expected when the story calls for them, keeping the above in mind.
   3. The use of modern day firearms, on the holodeck or not should follow the same general guidelines of phasers when it comes to gore.  Some mention of blood may be used if necessary 
   4. Anything between characters aboard the ship itself more serious than a fist fight should be run by the GM.
   5. Self-harm, sexual violence, and domestic violence are not appropriate content for this group.

Posting & Tagging

Posts should be written in a third person narrative format just like you generally see in most novels and short stories.  Please spellcheck and proofread. Special care should be given to match the tenses of a post.  If OP starts a post in past tense please maintain past tense throughout. 

When starting a post be as specific as possible when it comes to location and date/time in the heading boxes.  We use a standard date system and the 24 hour clock (i.e. February 1, 2374 23:00).  When changing a scene you may put that into the body.  Acceptable examples would be:

• Bridge, 13:00…
• -Mess Hall, Later-

The use of “=/\=” for combadge communications and the “~” for thoughts is considered outdated and is discouraged.  Use standard quotation marks and italicize the spoken parts. 

• • The captain’s voice rang hollow over the combadge,  “Ensign Davis please report to my ready room.”
• That could have gone better, Ensign Davis thought as he left the ready room.

The proper names of ships shuttles and stations should be in italics such as USS Defiant or shuttlecraft Galileo.

1. The prefix of a starship is not italicized. U.S.S. or USS is acceptable. 
2. Specific proper names of stations like McKinley Station are italicized. Stations with an alphanumeric identification such as Space 9 is noted in plain text.

Every post has two options at the bottom right margin: “save” and “publish”.  Save simply saves the edits for later.  Only the players whose characters are added in the character section can see this post.   New edits will show up as a green dot next to the story title on their BFMS page.  Grey dots indicate no new saved content.   Use the save function between TAGs when you are doing a joint post.

Publish is reserved for when the post is completely done, edited, and ready for the entire fleet to read. Yes, your published stories are public.  Only select the “publish” button once.  It may take a few seconds to respond and look like it’s doing anything.   Hitting it multiple times causes a system bug and nominates you multiple times for rewards, and causes problems for OCS

TAGs & Stage Directions

TAGs are simply used to inform an individual in  joint posts that their participation is needed.  Using Bold format helps make the tag more visible in the post and should look something like this:

[TAG Davis]

[TAG Engineering Team]

Refrain from controlling the conversation by Tagging and then continuing on.  Sometimes it’s the best worst option,  but it is considered rude.  Use your best judgment. 

Once you have saved your post go over to Discord and go to the #Tagging channel and type: TAG @[individual’s ID].  If there are multiple stories being written at a time add the story title.  If you have responded to several tags across two or more stories “@[individual’s ID] Full TAGs” is often used.

Stage directions can often be written into the scene as narrative prose. In instances where it becomes needed please be aware that a player has autonomy of their character.  You shouldn’t tell them how to react or what they should say.  This is called “autoing”.   However,  if you can’t write external forces into the narrative, insert that into the tag.

[TAG Davis – When you scan the noise you will notice that it is an artificial insect like creature comprised of some advanced metal]

Summery:

The Denver is a fully collaborative RPG for Bravo Fleet.  As a player your involvement is crucial to the success and failure of this game.  As such this RPG requires a considerable amount of commitment, but in turn you get to have your  say in how the game is run. From rules all the way down to the story.  

Missions will follow a sandbox open style narrative.  The GM doesn’t want players to help tell her story. She wants you to help tell our story. This gives you freedom to expand the story within the framework of the mission as you see it. If your addition does not work you may be asked to change that part.  GM has final say. 

Future mission ideas are always open for workshop in Discord. There is no guarantee of if and when your mission idea is put into play you have the chance to change the direction of the game.