SOTF: Cyber: Official Version Rules

[Cyber_HELPline]

This thread contains the official rules for SOTF: Cyber. If a particular mechanic does not get detailed in this thread, assume that, when applicable, standard SOTF Mini Site Rules apply in their stead; otherwise, check the SOTF: Cyber Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) thread.

Table of Contents

• Character Applications
• Collars, Dying, & "Pulling the Plug"
• Danger Zones
• Escape Attempts
• Glitches
• Framerates
• Sandbox & Memories
• Unrolled & Inactive Death Policy

[Cyber_HELPline]

Character Applications

To be approved for participation in SOTF: Cyber, your character is required to be a member of Senior Class 12-B at Sycamore High School, located in the city of San Jose, California. If your character is a transfer student who entered the class after the start of their freshman year, they must have transferred at the beginning of their senior year or earlier.

SOTF: Cyber, as a first-time Alternate Universe version, has a maximum limit of one character per handler in the game; no more, no less. To apply, post your character's completed profile as a new topic in the SOTF: Cyber Character Registration subforum. The SOTF: Cyber team will read your profile and give you a critique, likely requesting some editing and revision.

To ensure a smooth and swift application process—and to make things easier for both you and us—please write your profile in total accordance with the SOTF: Cyber Profile Template. We reserve the right to demand changes if your profile does not conform correctly to the template on submission. It will not receive approval without those changes.

All characters approved by staff for SOTF: Cyber get moved into the SOTF: Cyber Approved Characters subforum; characters that receive no edits for fourteen days after their critique or whose handlers otherwise request their withdrawal will get moved into the SOTF: Cyber Forfeited & Abandoned Characters subforum, but may be re-applied if desired.

At a certain point designated by staff, character applications will be closed to new profiles; however, any profiles still in the queue—whether awaiting an initial critique or pending further edits and revisions—may still be approved until the occurrence of the First Rolls. SOTF: Cyber's First Rolls will occur three weeks after the initial start of the version proper.

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Collars, Dying, & "Pulling the Plug"

Unlike most versions, there are no explosive collars in SOTF: Cyber.

The terrorists, using the malicious code previously injected into the Cyber Reality Device (CRD) code, can keep track of the student's health and vital signs as the game continues. The instant that a student's Avatar dies in the arena, their CRD gets informed via an automatic signal from the modified Cyber Reality Server (CRS); it will trigger the activation of an executable program installed secretly on the device—a "kill switch"—that can overload the student's brain with data; this triggers a lethal tonic-clonic seizure (also known as a grand mal seizure). This process is so fast that the student will not awaken in reality; their last memories formed before their death will come from within the confines of Cyberspace.

In the absence of explosive collar devices, students who enter or remain for too long within Danger Zones (DZs), or who pose a significant risk of damage to the integrity of the game, or who otherwise become too bothersome or inconvenient for the terrorists to manage, will be manually killed by the terrorists; they will shut down the student's ability to connect to the modified Cyber Reality Server, which automatically activates their "kill switch" as a consequence, killing them instantly—a process they refer to as "Pulling the Plug." To other students, their eyes will roll back into their heads, and they will seem to collapse on the floor like a marionette with their strings cut after a period of spasms and convulsions. In addition, blood will come out of their body—from their eyes, like tears, and as a flush of crimson from their mouths—as a scare tactic to prevent and discourage students from entering Danger Zones or breaking rules.

Any death in this method, "Pulling the Plug," unrelated to Danger Zones will require consultation and authorization from the SOTF: Cyber team; contact us via a private message directed to the Cyber_HELPline account.

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Danger Zones

During each announcement, the terrorists will announce the creation of new Danger Zones (DZs). A Danger Zone is an area where all the students are forbidden to enter under penalty of death; no exceptions to this rule. When a Danger Zone gets demarcated, all students present within that area will have ten minutes in-universe to vacate the area. If a student enters a Danger Zone—or fails to exit one created in the area—they will begin to hear a constant, ear-piercing beeping sound inside of their head. The noise will steadily rise in pitch and grow more painful the more time the student remains within the Danger Zone. If the student remains in the area for too long despite this warning, the noise will suddenly stop, and the student will be killed (see Collars, Dying, & "Pulling the Plug" for details).

[Cyber_HELPline]

Escape Attempts

In SOTF: Cyber, the terrorists will be more lenient than in many other versions that take place on the website. Individual attempts by characters to escape the game's clutches do not seriously threaten their secret agenda, and thus security will be even-handed and on the low side; however, if it does become clear that an escape attempt—or a successful escape—may damage the structural integrity of the game, or interfere with their motives, they will be quick to enforce their iron will.

If the students are careful, it may be possible for several escape attempts to occur as long as they do not disrupt the game itself. However, be warned, the terrorists will crack down if you give them a reason or an excuse. Their threats have teeth, and they see no loss in showing them—and, in the process, making your character an example of their power. Once the captors set their sights on you, though, escape becomes nigh-impossible; you can say goodbye to your freedom for good.

Out-of-character, this rule means your character may experiment with escape more-or-less freely. They may also perform an attempt without risk of being immediately killed. If your character (or group of characters) gains too much attention, though, SOTF: Cyber staff (via the official Cyber_HELPline account) will warn all handlers involved that the terrorists are paying closer attention. From that point forward, they may take action to forestall or quash an attempted escape in progress. In other words, there is no need to fear consequences unless we say so.

To start an escape attempt, all involved handlers must send private messages to the official Cyber_HELPline account; this message must declare their intent to participate, while the leader of the escape attempt must include their escape plan in their private message, as well as a list of all characters (and their respective handlers) involved in the escape attempt. Members of the SOTF: Cyber team will then review the plan and point out any impossibility that would cause it to fail under even the most basic scrutiny. If the staff team decides that the escape plan clears that bar, the handlers will receive the green light to write out their attempt; however, the staff will neither confirm nor deny whether it will work. For each step taken in service of an escape attempt, the SOTF: Cyber team will inform the handlers of the results (as well as possible reactions from the terrorists) via a response in the thread from the Cyber_HELPline.

A different set of rules apply to escape attempts intended to fail by their handlers. If a handler wants to have their character fail at an escape attempt, we encourage them to message the Cyber_HELPline account so we can consult with them as they write the scene in question.

[Cyber_HELPline]

Glitches

The Cyber Reality Device (CRD) and its accompanying Cyber Reality Servers (CRSs) are cutting-edge technologies but are still imperfect. While they run smoothly and without much in the way of errors by default, they can become prone to defects when contradictory, erroneous, or poorly-written code is present in the system. As the terrorists have extensively modified the student's CRDs, so too have they destabilized them; as a side effect, they have introduced malfunctions into the system.

As the game progresses, the arena will begin to suffer from bugs, errors, defects, and other assorted malfunctions—referred to going forward as "glitches"—that interfere with the standard operation of the CRDs and CRss. Glitches will regularly crop as the game progresses, and each set of rolls—even the ones without an announcement to accompany them—will introduce some glitches, designed and curated by the SOTF: Cyber team, to the game's already-unstable tapestry of code and programming.

In addition, individual handlers may introduce errors on their own in the SOTF: Cyber Glitch Tracker as long as the glitches have only a minor impact on a given location; for example, an object clipping into another is acceptable, but rendering an area entirely unusable for others is not. Members of the SOTF: Cyber staff team reserve the right to—for any reason or none at all—veto any handler-submitted glitch. Every handler may submit only one new glitch every fourteen days or two weeks; a given error should appear in a character's post within fourteen days of its approval by staff members, or it will be removed from the tracker and de-canonized (although one may resubmit it if this occurs).

All glitches must get submitted for adjudication in the proper thread per the following template:

Location: This is where the glitch appears.
Description: This is the glitch in question.
Time: This is when the glitch first appeared.

Code: Select all

[b]Location:[/b]
[b]Description:[/b]
[b]Time:[/b] 

█████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ ██ █████ █████. ███ █████████ ████████ (████ ███), ████████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████, ███ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████.

[Cyber_HELPline]

Framerates

By default, the Cyber Reality Device operates at 60 Frames Per Second (FPS) and a refresh rate of 60 Hertz (HZ); this is standard. However, due to the instability introduced to the CRDs and the network by the terrorists, this may not always be the case within the game itself. At the start of the version, the whole arena—██████ ███ █████████ ████████ (████ █), █████ ██ ██████████—will run at the standard rate; however, as the game goes on, the framerate in certain areas may change. If students take actions that tax the CPU, it will go down; if they do little to tax the CPU, it will go up. The frequency of errors will also impact the framerate. Every location within the arena will have its own listed framerate. In each announcement, framerate changes will receive notice.

[Cyber_HELPline]

Sandbox & Memories

At the same time the SOTF: Cyber Character Registrations subforum goes live, the SOTF: Cyber Sandbox & Memories subforum will also open. All characters approved for the version may post there. At any given time, a character may be in one thread with other approved characters and one by themself (either with a single post, a "oneshot," or as a series of posts, a "multishot") at the same time. While the Sandbox & Memory subforum has no designated location, a detailed description of the version's location, the city of San Jose, California, and their school, Sycamore High School, have been provided to handlers. The Sandbox & Memories subforum will remain open for use by handlers until the start of Endgame.

[Cyber_HELPline]

Unrolled & Inactive Death Policy

Rule contributed by MurderWeasel.

Any characters who die unrolled or become terminally inactive will be subtracted from the next set of rolls, reducing its size. While this is similar to how we've handled things for a long time, we're making the correlation explicit and visible to everyone now.

As it never feels good to have someone be rolled on their own, if ever unrolled/inactive deaths would reduce a roll set to below two characters, it will instead be set to two and the remaining reduction will be applied to the following roll set.

[Cyber_HELPline]

Time Cycle Policy

Rule introduced in the SOTF: Cyber — Hotfix & Patch Notes (02/21/2024).

We, as the SOTF: Cyber version staff team, explicitly request that all character deaths, whether rolled or unrolled, occur during the version's latest time cycle (as established in the most recent announcement).

Any character deaths that contradict this ruling will nonetheless be considered, in character (IC), to have occurred within the latest time cycle and will receive treatment as such for the Announcements.