If you're reading this, then you've just become a member of the Backstage Drama Wrestling RPG. Welcome!

The most important rule, the rule everybody has to follow is: Have FUN! If this isn't fun for you, then you should reconsider playing. It's a game. PLAY.

For the more serious things:

We ask that all members have the following in their journals when they begin:

1. At least ONE icon of their character. With free DeadJournal accounts, you are allowed up to 5. Paid Accounts allow you up to 20.

2. Some way for the moderator team to contact you, either an e-mail address for your character or some kind of online messenger ID.

3. Create a 'Backstage Drama' group in your friends filter (http://www.deadjournal.com/friends/filter.bml) so you can use it to make announcements to the Backstage Drama members, that only we can see. ALL OOC POSTS MUST BE FILTERED. This is a courtesy to both any fans who happen to follow us and to your fellow members. Let's NOT air the "dirty laundry" out where everyone can see it.

4. A link to the Backstage Drama disclaimer on your journal entries. Ask the mods how to make a link you can place in your over-rides section of your journal, so that a 'Disclaimer' link shows up on every post.
5. Everybody's webpage should point to http://backstage-drama.freeservers.com. You can go and find the disclaimer codes on the Resources page.

6. Add the Backstage Drama Journal to your friends' list.

7. Have a line in your mini-bio that states that this journal is part of a online RPG game. You can change that on the Yer Stats & Settings page.

There is a "probabtion" period for new characters, to both give you a chance to get started and familarize yourself with the rules of the game. After an appropriate amount of time, you will be added to the community, allowing you access to post in the community journal and will be included in all community type notices and stuff like that.

We are a non-kayfabe community, meaning we portray the actual wrestlers/celebrities, and not their on-screen characters. We expect you to have dome research on the person you play, and hope that you will try to keep them as close to how they can been shown in the press as their true to life personality as you can. Meaning, don't expect to see Chris Irvine acting much like his on screen persona of Chris JERICHO.

There are several other wrestling/celebrity RPGs in DeadJournal, LiveJournal, UJournal, Blurty and AboutMyLife.Net. To save on confusion, we do not interact with ANY of them. Please do not have characters from other RPGs as part of your CURRENT 'Friends' lists. Please, if you are contacted by any member of an RPG that is NOT part of Backstage Drama, contact a moderator via e-mail and point us in the direction of the post/e-mail or show us a copy of the SAVED IM. We will deal with the 'offender'.

RULES:

1. If you plan or changing your character's storyline, you should notify the characters you plan on involving that it is going to happen. If you're the kind of person who doesn't do a lot of planning, at least warn someone that you're going to make a change BEFORE IT HAPPENS. If you have a problem with the direction that a character you are working with is taking, TALK TO THEM FIRST. If you don't like your storyline, then you should work with your fellow members IC OR OOC first to find a better solution. THEN if you can't find any resolution, notify a moderator, and let one of us help you find a solution that will help all involved.

2. If you are coming in as a new character that has been previously mentioned in sombody's story line OR if you are adopting a character, you need to follow the establshed storyline when you start your character, until you have a chance to contact the characters invovled that you want to change the direction of where your character is going.

3. Please remember to update your JOURNALS. These are kinds of post/updates we should be seeing:

   - Personal posts in your indivdual journals: These are what help us know who YOU, the character, is.
   - General 'chat' posts: These are posts in the Backstage Drama Journal that everyone in the community are welcome to comment to. It can be trying to get people together for a post PPV-party, a party at someone's home..a birthday party...any kind of SOCIAL gathering involving as many people as possible.

   Everyone is encouraged to make annoucement posts, like Happy Birthdays, notices if you''ve been nominated for some award (Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy) happy anniversaries, condolances.
   - "Private" posts: Posts that are a character's private thoughts that are crucial to the game, but not necessarily things that can be 'chatted' or 'commented' about. These can have the comments disabled.

4. Please limit yourselves to no more than 6 characters (wrestlers/celeb/actor/singer/etc.)per keeper. That way no one person should feel overwhelmed.

5. Please do NOT direct link any pictures from ANY websites not your own. This is called bandwidth theft. This is very bad. Webmasters whose bandwidth you are mooching off of will find you and get your journal shut down, drawing unneeded and unwated attention to us. DON'T DO IT! IF you want a place to store pictures, check the Resources page for hosting sites.
6. DO NOT LINK TO ANY WEBSITES BUT THIS ONE IN YOUR PROFILE! Not WWE.com, not NBC.com, not MTV.com...NOTHING. Again, it's something that will draw undue attention to us...and we don't want that.

   
   

It sometimes happens...real life or other circumstances get in the way, and a journal is neglected. If a character has not posted in FOUR consecutive weeks, that journal is considered a DEAD JOURNAL, and the character is deemed up for grabs. Also, if you wish to PLACE a character up for adoption, then you need to e-mail the Moderators so that they can add that character to the adpotion list. Once the character has been adopted, it will be removed from the group. The only exception to this is if you NOTIFY the moderators via e-mail of your absence, and how long it will be. If you decide to ADOPT a character, please notify the moderators via e-mail ASAP! For those of you looking to put your characters up for adoption, as a courtesy, and to perserve the limited number of invite codes that Backstage Drama has, please pass on the password for any journals you are putting up for adoption to the maintainers, that way it can be recycled, if you're willing to just give the journal up altogether. We can give that information to people looking to adopt the character. This is NOT MANDATORY for placing characters up for adoption. We think it would be nice not to have DJ littered with dead wrestlers. Messes up the landscape.

If you create a NEW journal for the character, please notify the moderators via e-mail ASAP; we will need all your new info. If you happen to adopt the character's journal lock, stock and barrel, we won't need it. Either way you MUST e-mail the moderator about the change in status of the character. You will have to go through the same probabtion period as any other new character, to give you time to see what stories and such your character was involved in , and decide if you wish to continue them or change them slighty (notifying all involved if you which to make changes)

THINGS THAT WILL GET YOU TOSSED:

We hate to have this section, but it's necessary. There are some things that as a community we CANNOT tolerate. If you blatantly break any of these, or break them after you've been informed that you've broken them once, you are OUT. No ifs, no ands, no buts, NO EXCEPTIONS. A ban is the method of FINAL resort. We don't want to have to do it….that's why we're laying out the VERY specific reasons why a person would be banned. We can also ban just characters…and not just keepers.

1. Contacting members of other RPGs or Backstage Drama, with the express intent of giving them information about members of Backstage Drama, or telling them the details of particular characters storylines within Backstage Drama IC OR OOC, with the intent of maliciously complicating or destroying said storyline. If the mods find out about this and you get caught, you're out. No ifs, no ands, NO SECOND CHANCES. If you have problems in the community with individuals, we ask that you deal with them IN HOUSE. There is no reason to go to any mods of ANY other groups. If a member of another RPG contacts YOU in regards to Backstage Drama, let the mods know ASAP, so they can deal with that individual.

2. Deliberately continuing with a storyline that another character has deemed unacceptable. If you have been contacted by a character, or the mods have contacted you, and asked you to stop and you continue with the story, then you're gone. The only way this ban will be enforced is if the characters involved have attempted to resolve the issue, then not getting anywhere, escalated it to the moderators.

3. Passing yourself off as the actual celebrity/wrestler you are portraying. That's a good way to get yourself, and a whole bunch of other people sued.

4. Using your Backstage Drama journal to harrass any keepers OOC...about ANYTHING. We're anonymous, we don't actively go around looked to find out who is playing certain characters. If the moderator is notified of this, you will be booted out of the game, and even possibly have your journal TOS'ed by DeadJournal. It's not worth it. Don't do it.