COMMON SENSE: Cursing is allowed, but keep it reasonable. Kidding about discrimination (sexism & racism, etcetera) may be fine in low amounts, but be aware of others who may be sensitive. Be tolerable of other people; try to get along, and if you cannot, simply ignore the person. People have different views of humor, and if something offends you, you should let them know. We're all adults, okay?

2-STRIKE POLICY: An offense will get a warning, and a kick will be the second and final warning. If it continues after that, a ban will follow.

Chat Rules

CHARACTERS AND PROFILES: Please, be Pokemon related. (And be obviously Pokemon related. If we can't tell, it doesn't count! No joke names.) You may check us out briefly on a non-Pokemon name, but you will be asked to eventually create a name to stay with us. Sexually explicit profiles and multi-character profiles are NOT allowed. With this, smut is not allowed in the room.

TROLLING AND DRAMA: If you feel the need to troll, please redirect yourself to the OOC chat or some other place. We like to have fun but not in ways where it hurts others. Please keep private matters in PM or to yourself. If the problem isn't able to be solved,use the ignore function. If it continues after attempting to solve the problem and then ignoring the person, contact a mod with proof of the situation (only if it is a room issue). The Pokemon League is not responsible for on-goings outside of the chat and will?not get involved.

GROUP MEETINGS: We have group meetings for various reasons (events, roleplay discussion, etcetera). When an owner or mod brings a group meeting to a start, OOC must be kept to a minimum unless it is asked for and on topic. If OOC becomes excessive, people will be kicked without warning.

Roleplay Rules

GIJINKA/POKEMON: Gijinka and pokemon names are allowed. They are not allowed in our events.

RP AND OOC: Our room is OOC and IC friendly. No one is ever required to quit OOC (unless during a fixed roleplay event) or quit IC for someone else. Quiet down OOC if 3+ people are roleplaying. If you are roleplaying with one other person and feel the OOC is drowning you put, consider taking it to PMs. Actions that happen IC don't determine the actions of a person when OOC. This means if a person does something in character it doesn't reflect the player.

PREFERENCES: Not everyone likes to battle all the time. Some people like to do character relations. Some people like to have silly roleplays. Some people like to be serious. Some people are very strict on realism. Some people one-line and some people multi-paragraph. Please, realize that people have different tastes and just because they do not match yours, it this does not make them any less of a member of the room.

Battle Rules

These were supplied by Denzi and are used with permission. Please use these if you cannot decide on a group of rules yourself. It's also a good standard to look over and summarize in general.

It's a bit long!

1. Battle order. Most basically, all roleplay should be conducted in a series of turns. Make sure to clarify whether or not your post is continuing if you have agreed to a multi-para battle (best done with and tags, continued and end respectively). If you are roleplaying in a large group, this may become cumbersome. To deal with this, you may have distinct units within the group with each moving at its own pace and then coming back together to form a larger group when the plot demands it. Be warned, however, that this method may create time asymmetry between the different groups and timeskips may be necessary to standardize everything.

2. No auto-hits. You must always give your opponent the chance to react to an attack, you may not state that they have taken damage (or specify the damage). Instead, you must specify how the attack is being carried out, what your intentions are for the attack, and a reasonable assessment of the type of damage it would hypothetically do if successful. This rule is a bit conflicting with the 'always hits' moves we see in the pokemon games, and for that reason it is suggested that these moves become 'pretty much always hits' instead. Roleplay battles are far more dynamic in setting and detail than the games could ever hope to be, so such a generalized attack trait is unfit for this type of battle. It simply wouldn't make sense to have a blinded pokemon successfully land a swift every time it does it. As this modification to the 'always hits' moves is only a suggestion, however, you may play in the same fashion as the game if both battlers agree; just keep in mind that there will almost invariably be some departures from how things work in the game.

3. Take damage realistically. If you fail to reasonably dodge or counter a move and are hit with it, you/your pokemon should take whatever level of damage is found to be reasonable. This does not mean that if the attack hits your opponent's originally suggested amount of damage is mandated, however. If there are other factors they did not consider, such as defensive actions that may minimize the damage, you may note them and take a reduced amount of damage as a result. In addition to taking damage realistically, you should also try to keep in mind the 'toughness' of whatever pokemon you're using. This isn't T2, it doesn't take the same number of successful attacks to defeat any foe. A rattata is not going to be as resilient as a Skarmory when faced with physical attacks, and your roleplay should reflect this.

4. Do not meta-game. Unless you're Professor Oak or a shut-in hikikomori that hasn't seen the sun in years, you will not know every pokemon's possible moves and have strategies prepared for all eventualities. Scratch that, there are way too many people on RPH that could exploit what I wrote there. Even if you ARE a shut-in hikikomori, you shouldn't be doing this. Your character should act with an amount of knowledge reasonable when taking into consideration the character's experience. This is not to say that things like 'battle instinct' are out of the question, but your battle instinct isn't going to tell you the enemy's full moveset or what move they're about to use (unless a message pops up saying ENEMY BEGAN TAKING IN SUNLIGHT). Although pokedex have been shown capable of giving a pokemon's moves in the manga, it'd best be played as only giving a very general outline of what type of attacks/etc the pokemon may use. Pokedexes themselves are also rather proprietary pieces of technology, so your character should certainly have good reason for having one in the first place.

5. Moveset. Lots of people have lots of different preferences for how they go about pokemon battles, so it's probably in everyone's best interest that we don't enforce a mandated battle style. The central issue, then, is the number of moves pokemon know. I've encountered the standard four moves style found in the games, an extended six moves style where each pokemon has two extra moves, and even styles where the pokemon may use any moves that they may know or learn through whatever means. Before any battle, it should be decided what moveset style will be used. Whatever your preferred style is, if relevant, you should have a moveset listed for each pokemon from your team on your profile (or your own moveset, if you plan to roleplay as a gijinka or pokemon). Obviously, this also means that you should have your active party listed on your profile as well. I'd also personally advise against switching pokemon you have listed as 'in the pc' to your active team right before a battle, because it just seems like cheap counterpicking and is likely to bother your opponent.

6. Environment. Unlike the game, battle environment almost necessarily plays an enormous role in the outcome of a battle. It would only make sense, for instance, if a pokemon underwater were to receive the same kind of bonus it would while being rained on. ALWAYS confirm what kind of environment you will be battling in before your battle begins. In choosing not to do so you both open yourself up to your opponent's potential for convenient placement of things like lakes/etc while also depriving yourself of the ability to make your roleplay more strategic and involved. To make this type of environmental choice easier, we are currently working on a set of premade battle environments.

7. Other deviations from the game's battle style. There are many other ways that a battle may be conducted differently than we see in single battles. There could be double battles, triple battles, tag team matches with two trainers on each side, or matches where only a limited subselection of the standard six pokemon is used. Before the start of a battle, it'd probably be a good idea to iron these details out. It's no fun to fight the opponent's three pokemon with your one. For other deviations from the game's playstyle, such as whether or not ghosts are immune to all physical attacks or just attacks of certain types, it should be assumed that the circumstances match those of whatever the most current pokemon game is.

8. POWER LEVELS. While you're not forced to use any specific pokemon, even when using canon characters (although it's encouraged to keep their iconic pokemon), you should keep in mind the type of character you're roleplaying as and what kind of pokemon they are likely to have (no, sorry, your gym leader didn't suddenly drop their theme and pick a new team from Smogon's OU tier list). At the same time, it's REALLY unlikely that you're going to have a legendary pokemon. Even when using a canon character, were they to have defeated or captured a legendary in some official medium, it 'and it'd be a bit irresponsible for a trainer to run around using them for their pokemon battles. Above all else, it should be said that you need to consider your intentions when constructing your team. Do you want to roleplay battles with other people? If so, you may want to use something other than a bullet punch Scizor.

9. Capturing. Since wild pokemon and gijinka are allowed as well as trainers, there will always be the possibility for trainers to try and capture wild pokemon or gijinka; although I've seen styles where gijinka are said to be uncatchable, whether or not this is the case would be up to the person. If you, as a catchable wild pokemon or gijinka, get into a battle with a trader, you should realize that you're allowing for this to happen. If you don't want to allow it, you should either talk to the trainer beforehand or simply avoid the battle altogether.