PvP should be conducted with a mind toward the narrative and the enjoyment of the participants. Please avoid an "I must win" mentality. Accept your defeats with grace to let others shine. Embrace your victories with the same grace, letting others exemplify what type of character they are in those moments.
Open and friendly OOC communication with involved parties relaying your intent often goes a long way to ensure a healthy PvP environment.
You do not necessarily need OOC Consent to engage someone else in PvP. However, you are strongly encouraged to provide others an out, allowing them to retreat, concede defeat, maybe give up some reasonable piece of information, etc., in order to avoid PvP, especially if they OOC’ly do not wish to fight, and to treat that capitulation as your victory. All PvP must have a reason for it, mindless monster PC's will just be deleted.
Involved parties must consent to anything beyond simple brawling, however. Capture, mutilation or permadeath requires OOC consent of the victim.
OOC consent on all sides is further required in order for anything other than regular mechanical PvP to be used (such as a dice/rp fight system).
Late joiners to PvP must adhere to the system being used by the participants. If you show up and they're doing a dice fight, it is not appropriate for you to demand as a latecomer that they change what they agreed to. You have to comply with it or leave.
It is not acceptable to back out of agreements. For instance, if you agreed to some consequences for losing, and then lose, you cannot just back out of that agreement without the other player’s and/or a DM's authorization and very, very good reason. If you consent to an RP/dice fight and lose, you have lost.
It is not acceptable to use discord or tells to coordinate imminent PvP. This includes In-Character channels. Please stick to holocomm, party, talk, etc.
It is fine to request back-up, but please ensure any response is appropriate. You should not strive to utterly overwhelm anyone (this is an "I Win" mentality) and should keep back-up at a low, respectable manner in line with who you're up against.
All OOC communication during PvP should be friendly and informative. If you cannot be this, consider removing yourself from the situation.
Please ensure when calling for reinforcements you notify those coming to assist that there is PvP so they can transit to you accordingly. If in the midst of a dice/rp fight, consider emoting during it that you're calling for back-up but only send the actual tell/party chat once done. These fights take a long time, ironically far longer than it takes to travel across the server even without shuttles.
Do not use shuttles for arriving to PvP. Do not use shuttles for escaping from PvP. Do not use shuttles to transport prisoners.
Please use actual spaceships for any travel that needs to be done. If you need some exception made, reach out to a DM. Same thing goes if you want NPC assistance, such as landing at a special hangar.
Ensure any exploits, especially those usable in PvP, are brought to the attention of the DM team. Do not use them. No one should be invulnerable. It should always be possible to attack and damage you. Kiting/running a bit to recover is fine but being permanently unable to be reached while the other player just runs along slowly behind you isn't cool.
Please strongly consider accepting defeat if you have to retreat into another area. Going back and forth over transitions to recover is not okay. People often double transition or get lost on these. They must not feature in any strategy.
Rallying after a defeat should be done tastefully, not just after you've healed but after something has changed, such as reinforcements coming.
Please allow several hours, ideally roughly a day, between PvP and further hostilities, unless you are leading up with capture RP. Excessive, constant fighting can be awkward for everyone, including outside observers.
Please do not engage in PvP around blue NPC's without a DM present. If all involved agree, you can take a fight beyond their sight to fight. Otherwise, do not PvP around blue NPC's.
But what if we want to capture PC X for their bounty? What if they kicked my pet Kath? What if they have a plot item I want to rob them for? What if they aren't consenting to this?
PvP requires trust, and it requires boundaries to be set and respected. If someone isn't wanting to play ball on some front you feel is appropriate, please feel free to make a ticket and/or approach a DM to explain what's up. We'll hear you out and try to find a solution.
At the end of the day we want a healthy RP environment where people can come together as friends or enemies toward the development of a common narrative. We're all in the same community, regardless of what our characters are. If you find someone to be doing a very good job as an antagonist and making things fresh and fun, please feel free to make a ticket notifying us so we can see if there's anything we can do to help promote that good behavior further.
This is not a hard rule, it is a guideline and request.
If subdued, beaten, etc., act the part. That doesn't mean you have to bow and scrape and beg for mercy. But act like you've been beaten. Emote your injuries, your pain, even if you're still defiant.
If captured, be somewhat compliant. That doesn't necessarily mean spilling secrets but if you're being transported you should follow along at a reasonable pace and go with the flow of things, but do be sure to practice good OOC communication with regard to anything you may want to try to do.
In victory, consider yourself a host for the captive or subdued party. Put on a show for them of some sort. Their captivity does not need to be about you robbing them blind and severing limbs. Make it about a trial, an interrogation. Use it for character development or exposition, then work with them toward how they escape or work with a DM toward that. If permadeath/capture is the goal, it should ideally be arranged ahead of time either with DM's, the affected party, or both.