The Citi Code

Citi is a shared world, not a collection of people waiting for permission to ruin each other’s evening.

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These rules are built around one standard: your actions should create meaningful play for the people around you. Winning is allowed. Crime is allowed. Conflict is encouraged. None of that gives anyone the right to treat other players as disposable props.

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Staff decisions are made by real people using evidence, context, intent, and patterns of behavior. Citi does not use automated moderation or a rigid punishment calculator.

1. Create something worth responding to

Roleplay begins when your actions give other players a meaningful choice.

A robbery with preparation, demands, risk, and an escape plan creates a scene. Shooting somebody because you were bored does not. Arresting a suspect after an investigation creates a scene. Handcuffing random citizens to exercise authority does not.

You do not need to write a screenplay before acting. You do need to give other players something more interesting than sudden, unexplained disruption.

Violence should conclude an escalation, not replace one.

2. Conflict must have a reason

Before initiating serious conflict, there must be a recognizable in-character cause.

Valid causes may include:

• A direct threat
• A witnessed crime
• A failed negotiation
• A territorial dispute
• Self-defense
• Betrayal within an established relationship
• Resistance during a lawful arrest
• An ongoing conflict understood by everyone involved

Minor insults, accidental collisions, harmless mistakes, or simply disliking another player are not automatic permission to escalate to lethal force.

When circumstances allow, conflict should generally move through a natural progression:

Presence → Warning → Demand → Escalation → Force

This is a guideline, not a mandatory ritual. An immediate credible threat may justify immediate action.

3. Your character is not a loophole

Being “in character” does not excuse harassment, hate speech, sexual misconduct, deliberate humiliation, or behavior designed to make another player uncomfortable outside the scene.

Villains may be cruel. Criminals may threaten people. Officials may be corrupt. Characters may dislike one another intensely.

The person behind the character still deserves basic dignity.

If somebody clearly withdraws consent from an uncomfortable interaction, end that specific interaction and move on. Do not pursue them across the map, follow them into unrelated scenes, or disguise continued harassment as roleplay.

4. Power must generate play

Police, government officials, staff-approved organizations, business owners, and other positions of authority exist to create opportunities, not dominate the server.

Authority should produce:

• Investigations
• Negotiations
• Public decisions
• Rivalries
• Consequences
• Events
• Stories

Authority should not produce:

• Arbitrary arrests
• Endless searches without cause
• Invented laws created solely to target someone
• Confiscation without a roleplay purpose
• Detaining players for excessive periods
• Using rank or equipment to shut down every opposing action

A powerful role carries more responsibility, not fewer restrictions.

5. Crime should be dangerous, not suffocating

Criminal activity is part of Citi. Players may rob, extort, smuggle, organize crews, challenge authority, and build illegal enterprises within the server’s systems.

Crime becomes disruptive when it prevents everyone else from participating.

Do not:

• Repeatedly target the same player without an ongoing story
• Hold players captive for unreasonable periods
• Camp essential public areas solely to farm victims
• Destroy businesses or property without a meaningful motive
• Turn every interaction into a robbery
• Use overwhelming force when negotiation or restraint would create better play

The goal is not to make crime harmless. The goal is to make it memorable.

6. Death ends the immediate scene

When your character dies, the conflict that caused that death is over for you.

Do not immediately return to the location, relay live information to allies, recover your equipment, or seek revenge against the people involved. Give the scene room to conclude before returning to the area.

Your character may remember their broader relationships, occupation, property, and ongoing history. They should not return with perfect tactical knowledge of their death or behave as though they watched the scene continue after dying.

Revival by an approved medical system may create an exception where the game clearly supports it.

7. Your character should value survival

When faced with a credible and immediate threat, behave as though your character wants to remain alive.

A civilian surrounded by armed criminals should not charge them with bare hands. A lone officer should not storm a fortified building without support. A hostage should not casually insult captors while a weapon is held against them unless they accept that the situation may end badly.

This rule does not require surrender in every dangerous situation. Escape, deception, resistance, and calculated risk are all valid when the circumstances make them believable.

Courage is welcome. Invincibility is not.

8. Know only what your character could know

Information learned through private messages, spectator mode, livestreams, voice calls, the Obscura Stage, another player’s screen, or out-of-character conversation cannot be used in the game unless your character discovers it naturally.

This includes:

• Hidden player locations
• Secret organization membership
• Planned raids or arrests
• Private conversations
• Disguised identities
• Information obtained after your death
• Information seen while disconnected from the scene

Outside communication may be used socially. It may not become an invisible surveillance network.

9. Building must invite interaction

Construction is one of Garry’s Mod’s greatest strengths. Citi should give builders room to create shops, homes, offices, defenses, public spaces, and strange pieces of civic architecture.

Buildings must remain playable.

Do not create:

• Invisible or nearly invisible defenses
• Unreachable firing positions
• Prop-blocked entrances
• Traps with no reasonable warning or counterplay
• Defenses that exploit rendering or collision
• Structures that significantly damage server performance
• Maze-like entrances designed only to exhaust attackers
• Protected shooting gaps that allow one-way damage

A fortified building may be difficult to enter. It should never be impossible to challenge.

10. The economy belongs inside the game

In-character deals, contracts, wages, loans, business arrangements, and even certain scams may be permitted when all parties understand that the interaction is part of Citi.

The following are never acceptable:

• Real-money trading
• Account selling
• Trading benefits across unrelated servers or platforms
• Exploiting server restarts or database errors
• Transferring assets to avoid punishment
• Deceiving players about donations, purchases, or official services
• Using alternate accounts to multiply income or bypass limitations

When a deal depends on out-of-character trust, make the terms clear before anything changes hands.

11. The city should sound alive, not unbearable

Voice chat, soundboards, music, and character voices may add atmosphere when used with restraint.

Do not flood communication with:

• Constant screaming
• Extremely loud audio
• Repeated sound clips
• Background television or music
• Voice changers that make speech impossible to understand
• Deliberate microphone distortion
• Advertising unrelated communities

Soundboards are allowed when they serve the moment. They are not a license to convert every public space into an audio endurance test.

12. Protect the integrity of the server

Cheating, scripting, malicious modifications, exploit abuse, crash attempts, denial-of-service activity, and unauthorized access are prohibited.

Finding a vulnerability is not itself wrongdoing. Abusing it, sharing it publicly, or using it to gain an advantage is.

Report serious vulnerabilities privately and include enough detail for the development team to reproduce the problem. Responsible disclosure will never be punished.

13. Staff are not weapons

Do not call staff simply because a situation did not end in your favor.

Staff should be contacted when:

• A rule may have been broken
• A player is preventing the scene from continuing
• An exploit or technical failure has occurred
• Evidence needs to be preserved
• The parties cannot resolve a genuine dispute

When staff pause a scene, stop acting and allow them to gather information. Do not shout over other players, recruit spectators into the argument, or punish someone in-character while the matter is being reviewed.

Staff members must not moderate situations in which they are personally involved unless immediate intervention is necessary to protect the server. Another staff member should review the incident whenever possible.

14. Do not turn the rules into a weapon

Citi is not a courtroom, and the rules are not a spellbook.

Finding an action that is not described word for word does not make it acceptable. Provoking somebody into breaking a rule, selectively recording incidents, manufacturing technicalities, or repeatedly testing boundaries will be treated according to the behavior itself.

The question is not only:

“Was this explicitly forbidden?”

The more important question is:

“Did this create fair and worthwhile play for the people involved?”

Enforcement

Staff consider:

• Severity
• Intent
• Context
• Prior behavior
• Cooperation
• Harm caused
• Whether the player understood the issue
• Whether the conduct appears likely to continue

Possible outcomes include a conversation, scene correction, warning, temporary restriction, removal from a role, suspension, or permanent removal from Citi.

There is no automatic punishment ladder. Similar situations may receive different outcomes when the surrounding facts are different.

Punishment appeals and player reports must be submitted privately through the designated support system. Public arguments, callout posts, and retaliation against reporters are not permitted.

The standard

The city owes nobody victory. It owes everyone a fair chance to matter.

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Build something. Start trouble with purpose. Accept consequences. Leave other players with a story worth telling.