registering.

[justify]This is a role play site, so when registering, please register with your characters name. One character per account please. All character display names must be changed to the characters first, middle & last names all in UPPER CASE. Sorry to be picky, but it makes the homepage look so much nicer when all the names are presented in the same way.

It gets utterly annoying when people create accounts and don't do anything with them. We will give you three days to start (not necessarily finish right away) a character application. If you still haven't gotten your character at least started by the end of those three days, your account will be deleted. It's as simple as that.[/justify]

characters.

[justify]We only accept good quality characters here at ABL and we absolutely loathe Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus, so don't try and apply to this site with an unrealistic/perfect character that just isn't believable. Google Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu to find out what they are. Remember to keep those characters realistic as this is a real life role play.

Everyone is welcome to create as many characters as they can handle. However, keep in mind that we would prefer you to take on one or two characters and have them developed rather than you having 5 or so characters that are underdeveloped and inactive, but we'll leave that decision up to you. Just make sure you can keep up with all of your characters and remember to create a mixture of males and females so we can keep the ratios even.

Whenever you make a female character, your next character MUST be male. This will give you an even batch of characters and even out our numbers of male vs female.

IMPORTANT: before you can make a new character, each of your already-existing ones MUST have 50 quality roleplaying posts (phone threads and IMs not included).[/justify]

writing.

[justify]I'd like to think that this site is a intermediate to advance site, so we expect you to keep up with that standard. We really not looking for beginners that are still learning the basics of role playing, but if your application proves to be good and you're willing to put in the hard work to keep up with the rest of us, by all means, join.

UPDATE: there has been a change to the rules and there is now a word count of a minimum 400 words per post.

One liners or one paragraph posts will not be tolerated. All in character posts must be written in third person (unless of course you're posting in the communications category) and there is to be absolutely no god-modding. You play your character and your character only. God-modding will only be accepted if granted permission by the person you're role playing with.[/justify]

activity.

[justify]If you plan to join and ditch the site, then please leave now. I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to activity on sites, so don't just think that you can use this site as a place to go every two weeks when boredom hits! We want dedicated people who actually want to contribute to the site, so don't join if you aren't going to be a committed member. Now of course I am aware that we all have our every day lives in real life and that's understandable. We don't expect you to visit the site every day (although it'd be great if you did), but we do expect you to post and keep your characters active, even if you only come online a few times a week. Activity is important, and is not just logging in, it is when you actually post something to contribute to the site. While we'd prefer in character posts, if your muse is dead (it happens to all of us), please at least post something out of character to contribute to the site. We're pretty flexible when it comes to absences, but please post a message in the 'absence board' if you're going to be gone for an extended amount of time.[/justify]

rating.

[justify]As Proboards demands it, we must keep our content at a PG-13 level. It sucks I know, but I can understand why they demand this of us. Have a read of this thread for more information. I don't completely agree with this for some sites, but as this site is a real life site, most of Proboards issues can be kept to a minimum. In some role playing cases, some things may just need to fade to black or be censored. Advertising sex, violence and anything of that nature on a high level will not be tolerated.[/justify]

graphics.

[justify]Every character must have a signature of some sort that displays what they look like. However, if you stretch the page with your signature, it'll be deleted and you'll receive a PM telling you that your signature was too large. Avatars may be a maximum of 125 px wide and 200 px in height, please make sure your avatars are sized accordingly. No pornographic images please, you may even be banned if you disobey this rule. Porn is gross. If you need help with creating a signature, you can request one in the graphics exchange board.[/justify]

respect.

[justify]Please respect everyone on the site. We will absolutely not tolerate discrimination of any sorts, we're all equals here. We really don't want to see members fighting. Of course, in character it's definitely acceptable but out of character there is no need for fighting and we certainly don't want to see it displayed openly on here. If you have a problem with someone, try and work it out maturely in private or contact one of the admins. However, even if you don't like someone on this site, be polite. This is a role play site, not a bitch session site.[/justify]