1) All RP's must first go into the RP Sign Up section to recruit members and see if people are interested. If it is not, then it will be deleted without warning.
2) Keep all OOC (Out of Character) Chat at the top of a post in brackets or in the RP Sign Up. This is to prevent confusion amongst the RPer's. You'll get Two Verbal Warnings before you get a Potential Warning.
3) Keep it Rated. Don't have sex or other foul play in the RP unless you warn all the members in your Sign Up post that it is allowed. This is to make sure that the Members are not offended by it. You will get NO Verbal Warnings for this.
4) No God-Modding. For those who don't know, God Modding is a big No-No unless it is absolutely necessary. We generally frown upon this and you will only get One Verbal Warning before you actually get Warned. God-Modding is making your character invincible, and over powered.
5) No Spamming or Flamming. If you aren't accepted into an RP Ask the RM(RP Master) via PM or IM for help on how to get into. If they fail to help you don't yell at them through the Threads or anything. One Verbal Warning, then Normal Warnings.
6) If an RP is inactive for 30 Days or more, the RP Master will be informed and if they wish it to not be closed they have exactly one week for it to get active again or it'll be locked and archived.
Keep in mind these are only general rules, an rules the rp creator makes are to be enforced also, as well as rule #2 really isn't that important.
For those new to RP , God-modding means taking control of things in your posts that you have no jurisdiction over. This typically involves controlling other peoples' characters or, for none RP-Masters, writing anything that is clearly defined as being only in the RP-Master's jurisdiction.
For RP-Master, typically if they have their own player characters, this frequently refers to abusing their powers to give said characters an advantage.
Another form of behavior in the same forbidden category is meta-gaming. This means allowing your character to posses or act as if they did posses knowledge that they could not actually have discovered at that stage of the RP. For instance, if the RP-Master posts a scene showing the antagonists discussing certain deveolpments (such as an upcoming ambush or betrayal) that the player characters are obviously not able to overhear then they are expected to keep playing their characters as if they didn't know this. Any sudden 'flashes of insight' are prohibited.
In RPs that use a game mechanic of some type (like the d20 system), characters basing their decisions on this mechanic is also often classed as meta-gaming (for intsance, how many 'hit points' a 'boss' has).
Note that in 'free form' RPs these rules tend not to be quite as strict (since there isn't usually a single RP-Master), but in most respects they remain the same.