Some things cannot happen to a character without the player’s explicit say-so, and respecting that is not optional here. This is the one page in this guide that is pure rule and no flavor, because it is the page that keeps roleplay safe. Read it once and hold to it, and the worlds stay a place people can take real risks in.
Respecting limits is mandatory
Everyone has the right to step back from a scene that has become uncomfortable, and to fade to black at any time. When someone signals a limit, you honor it, full stop. There is no version of a good scene that runs over the top of another player’s stated boundary. This holds no matter how the story was going or how it inconveniences your plan.
The moments that require explicit consent
Most of what happens in a scene needs no permission; that is the nature of open roleplay, and attackers are not required to read your profile or ask about your limits beforehand. Three outcomes are the exception, and they always require the clear, explicit consent of the affected player before they can happen:
- Death of a character.
- Extreme mutilation.
- Long-term kidnapping.
Without that consent, these do not happen, no matter how the scene unfolds or how well someone writes their way toward them. If you want one of these for your story, ask out of character, and take a no gracefully.
Communicate your own limits
The other side of the rule is your responsibility. Because no one is required to check your profile mid-fight, it falls to you to speak up when a scene approaches a line you do not want crossed. A quick out-of-character word is always the right move, and it is never an imposition. The people you play with want you comfortable; they simply cannot read your mind.
Do not hide behind your limits
Limits protect you as a player; they are not a shield for your character to abuse. If your character carries a limit that keeps them from dying, you should still play as though death were on the table: take the same risks, feel the same fear, accept the same consequences. Provoking a fight you have made yourself immune to, picking a lethal confrontation you would never allow to land, is against the spirit and the rules of the worlds. The protection is for you, not a cheat code for winning scenes without stakes.
Hold these and everything else in this section becomes safe to enjoy. The specific rules for the most powerful thing you can bring to a scene, a firearm, come next.