Rift Roleplay Server Rules
Rift Roleplay is a whitelisted server. Your whitelist is conditional on these rules — it was given to you and it can be taken away. Everything in the Rift Arena rules about conduct, cheating, doxxing and staff applies here too; this thread covers what is different about roleplay.
Rules change as the city grows. Every change is posted in the Rules Update Logs thread with the date. Read that thread, not your memory.


How punishments work
Roleplay punishments are about the scene you broke, not just the rule. Staff look at whether it was a mistake, whether you owned it, and whether it ruined someone else's story.
  • Warning — Logged on your account. Two warnings for the same thing become a strike.
  • Strike — Temporary removal from the city, normally 1 to 7 days. Three strikes and your whitelist is pulled.
  • Whitelist revoked — You are out. Re-application is possible after 30 days for most things; never for cheating, doxxing or ban evasion.


1. Stay in character (Fail RP)
What it means: Once you are in the city, you are your character. They have a name, a life and things they care about. Anything a real person in that situation would not do is Fail RP.
  • Not allowed: Talking about "the server", "the rules", "the admins" or "the script" in character. Doing something no sane person would do — jumping off a building to skip a scene, driving off a cliff to avoid arrest, treating death as a respawn.
  • Not allowed: Breaking character mid-scene to argue. If something went wrong, finish the scene or use /ooc once, then make a report.
  • Fine: A brief /ooc to sort out a game bug or a mic problem. Genuine reactions — fear, anger, panic — that fit your character.
Punishment: Warning, strike if repeated.

2. Value your life (Fear RP)
What it means: Your character wants to live. When you are outgunned, outnumbered, or someone has a weapon on you at close range, you act like it.
  • Not allowed: Pulling a gun on someone who already has one pointed at you. Running from three armed people when you are unarmed and cornered. Ignoring a gun to your head because "he wouldn't really shoot". Fighting or running while being held at gunpoint at close range.
  • Fine: Running when the threat is far away, you have cover, or the odds are genuinely in your favour. Fighting back when the other side gets sloppy — turns their back, holsters, gets distracted. Fear RP is about realism, not surrender.
Punishment: Warning, strike if repeated or if it ruined a scene for a group.

3. New Life Rule (NLR)
What it means: If your character is downed and respawns at the hospital, that life is over. You remember nothing about how you died or who did it, and you do not go back.
  • Not allowed: Returning to the place you died for 15 minutes. Hunting down, reporting to police, or getting revenge on the people involved. Telling your gang who did it. Taking back your stuff from the scene.
  • Fine: If you were revived by EMS or a player on scene, you never died — you remember everything and the scene continues. If someone drags you away and revives you, same thing.
Punishment: Warning, strike if it was used for revenge.

4. Powergaming
What it means: Forcing a situation to go your way in a way that is not possible or gives the other person no chance to respond.
  • Not allowed: /me actions that decide the outcome for someone else ("/me knocks him out", "/me takes his gun") without giving them a chance to react. Carrying five people in a two-seater. Using game mechanics to do things a person could not — surviving a fall that should kill you, then fighting; picking locks in two seconds; healing to full mid-gunfight with a bandage.
  • Not allowed: Abusing scripts, inventories or economy bugs to get money, items or an advantage. Duping is treated as cheating.
  • Fine: /me actions that describe an attempt ("/me tries to grab the bag") and let the other player respond. Being good at something your character has a reason to be good at.
Punishment: Warning. Economy exploits: whitelist revoked and account wiped.

5. Metagaming
What it means: Using information your character could not know. Your character was not in your Discord call, cannot see the stream, and does not read the forums.
  • Not allowed: Passing in-character information through Discord, phone calls in real life, or any channel outside the game. Using a stream to find or avoid someone (stream sniping). Recognising a character you have never met because you know the player. Reading names above heads — you know a face, not a name, until you are told it.
  • Fine: Learning things in character — being told, overhearing, reading an in-game phone or MDT. Talking OOC with your group about your plans for the evening, as long as nothing live from a scene crosses over.
Punishment: Strike. Organised metagaming (a group using Discord to coordinate in-city) is whitelist revoked for everyone involved.

6. RDM and VDM
What it means: Random Deathmatch is killing or attacking someone without proper roleplay leading to it. Vehicle Deathmatch is using a vehicle to hurt or kill someone. Both have the same root: you took a story away from someone.
  • Not allowed: Shooting first without initiating. Killing someone over a minor argument. "Initiating" from a moving car or from so far away they could not hear you. Running people over on purpose, ramming cars to disable them outside a proper pursuit, or using a car as a weapon in a fight.
  • Initiation means clear, in-character words or actions that make it obvious you are hostile and that the other person can react to. "Hands up or I shoot" from ten feet is initiation. Honking and then opening fire is not.
  • Fine: Shooting when they have been warned and refuse, when they draw on you, or when a scene has clearly escalated to that point. Accidental collisions in a chase you both chose to be in.
Punishment: Strike. Repeated or mass RDM is whitelist revoked.

7. Combat logging and disconnects
What it means: Leaving the server to escape a scene — arrest, robbery, a fight, a death — is combat logging. It makes the whole scene pointless for everyone else.
  • Not allowed: Quitting, alt-F4, "my game crashed" during or right after any hostile scene. Logging out while injured to avoid being looted or arrested. Swapping characters to dodge consequences.
  • Do: If you genuinely crash or lose connection, rejoin as fast as you can and come straight back to the scene. Message the people involved or staff in Discord. If you have to leave for real, tell the people in the scene first and let them finish it.
Punishment: Strike. Repeated combat logging is whitelist revoked.

8. Police and cop baiting
What it means: The police exist to create scenes, not to be your entertainment.
  • Not allowed: Cop baiting — committing crimes in front of police for no reason other than to start a chase. Circling the police station, running lights next to a cruiser, shooting near officers to pull them into a fight.
  • Not allowed: Attacking police without a story behind it. Prison breaks or ambushing transports without staff-approved roleplay behind them.
  • Fine: Crime with a purpose — a robbery you planned, a getaway you were prepared for, a rivalry that has built up over sessions.
Punishment: Warning, strike if repeated.

9. Robberies, hostages and kidnapping
What it means: Crime is part of the city. Ruining someone's evening for a few hundred dollars is not. Group and cooldown limits keep scenes fair for the police and for victims.
  • Group limit: no more than 6 people on one side of any crime, hostage situation or fight, including lookouts and getaway drivers.
  • Hostages: at most 2 hostages per scene. Your own friends do not count as hostages. Hostages must be treated realistically and released once demands are met.
  • Cooldowns: wait at least 30 minutes between major crimes (banks, jewellery, armoured trucks) for the same group. No major crime while the police have fewer than 3 officers on duty.
  • Not allowed: Robbing someone for their full inventory or bank when there is no story. Robbing in safe zones. Robbing or kidnapping the same person repeatedly. Forcing someone into a scene they cannot possibly enjoy — a fresh spawn, someone clearly AFK, someone in a bug.
  • Not allowed: Scamming or robbing during a legitimate business scene — a car sale, a shop, a job — unless the scene has genuinely turned.
  • Fine: Taking cash, a weapon, or a specific item that matters to the story. Robberies with a build-up and an escape plan.
Punishment: Warning for limit breaches, strike for robbing without story. Repeated abuse of new players is whitelist revoked.

10. Gangs and organised crime
What it means: Gangs bring the best long-term stories and the worst behaviour. The difference is whether the story is there.
  • Not allowed: Gang wars with no build-up. Drive-bys on random people. Attacking another group because "they looked at us". Killing on sight for wearing a colour.
  • Not allowed: Using gang numbers to break the group limit by "coincidentally" turning up.
  • Do: Build rivalries over sessions. Talk before you shoot. Give the other side a chance to see it coming.
Punishment: Strike for the people involved; the gang as a whole can be disbanded by staff.

11. Safe zones
What it means: Some places are off limits for crime so that new players, EMS and the police can function. Current safe zones: the spawn area, hospitals, police stations, city hall, and any event area staff announce.
  • Not allowed: Robbing, kidnapping, attacking or shooting in a safe zone, or dragging a scene into one to end it. Camping the edge of a safe zone to catch people leaving.
  • Fine: A scene that started outside and genuinely spills into a safe zone during a chase — end it as quickly and realistically as you can.
Punishment: Strike.

12. Vehicles and driving
What it means: Drive like the car is real and so are you.
  • Not allowed: Cross-country jumps, driving off the highway at 200 with no damage, driving a wrecked car as if it was fine, using vehicles as weapons, boat-and-plane stunts to escape a chase.
  • Not allowed: Using known glitches with vehicles — clipping, flipping-back exploits, super-jumps.
  • Fine: Chases that are fast and reckless when the story calls for it, as long as a crash is treated like a crash.
Punishment: Warning, strike if repeated.

13. Emergency services
What it means: EMS and police are jobs with responsibilities, not power-ups.
  • Not allowed for anyone: Robbing, kidnapping or attacking EMS while they are treating someone. Shooting at ambulances. Interfering with a medic doing their job.
  • Not allowed for police: Arresting or searching without cause. Shooting first without a real threat. Using police information (MDT, dispatch) for criminal roleplay without staff approval. Corrupt-cop storylines need sign-off from staff before they start.
  • Not allowed for EMS: Reviving in the middle of an active shootout. Refusing to treat someone because of who they are.
Punishment: Removed from the job plus a strike.

14. Sensitive and explicit content
What it means: Some things are not roleplay here, full stop.
  • Not allowed: Erotic or sexual roleplay of any kind. Sexual assault, rape or torture roleplay. Suicide or self-harm scenes. Real-world racism, hate groups, or real tragedies used as story material.
  • Not allowed: Roleplay involving anyone under 18, in any context.
  • Fine: Dark themes that are part of a story — addiction, violence, loss — handled with judgement, and stopped the moment another player says they are not comfortable.
Punishment: Whitelist revoked, no re-application.

15. Out-of-character chat
What it means: /ooc exists for genuine problems. It is not a chat room and it is not a place to argue about rules.
  • Not allowed: Arguing about a scene in /ooc, calling people out by name, insulting other players, spamming.
  • Fine: "My game crashed, rejoining", "mic isn't working, give me a second", asking staff for help.
Punishment: Warning, mute.

16. Streaming and recording
What it means: Streaming is welcome. Using a stream against someone is not.
  • Not allowed: Stream sniping — watching a stream to find, avoid, or gain an edge on that player. Interacting with a streamer's chat from in the city.
  • Do: Streamers should run a delay. Anyone can record; clips are the best evidence in a report.
Punishment: Stream sniping is a strike, whitelist revoked if repeated.

17. Cheating and modified files
The Arena cheating rule applies word for word: mod menus, injectors, aimbots, ESP, modified game files, macros, and anything that gives an advantage the game does not give everyone. Duping or exploiting the economy counts. Punishment is permanent removal from every Rift Networks server with no appeal.

18. Reports and appeals
  • Report with a clip if you have one, the time it happened, and the names involved — through a Discord ticket or the Player Reports board. Do not confront people in /ooc or on the forums.
  • Appeal strikes and whitelist decisions once, through a Discord ticket. Be honest; an appeal that lies is closed and counts against you.
  • Not allowed: Lying in reports, reporting people to settle grudges, or refusing to hand over a clip staff have asked for.


The one rule behind all of these
Everyone in the city is here to tell a story with you, not for you. If what you are about to do makes a good story for both sides, you are almost certainly fine. If it only makes one for you, stop.

— Rift Networks Team