KNOW THE RULES.
BUILD THE STORY.

The golden rule is roleplay over ruleplay: create roleplay, not problems. Give others a fair chance to participate, respond, and move the story forward. Rules protect scenes; they are not ammunition for winning them.

Stay in character and play through a scene when safely possible. Record a suspected rule break and report it afterward instead of pausing roleplay to argue, quote rules, or threaten punishment. Immediate safety and consent concerns may be raised at once.

Staff judge context, intent, fairness, and actual impact. Roleplay over ruleplay does not excuse cheating, harassment, hate speech, ignored consent, random violence, or deliberately denying someone a reasonable response.

Slurs, hate speech, and attacks based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or another protected identity are prohibited in character, out of character, and throughout Paragon community spaces. ‘It was roleplay’ is not a defense.

Do not sexually harass, stalk, threaten, repeatedly contact, or organize targeted abuse against another player. Stop contacting someone when asked, and do not carry character conflict into hostile Discord messages, streams, social media, or other OOC spaces.

Do not repeatedly target someone without story purpose or use mechanics to make their experience miserable. Body camping, repeated body dumping, humiliating emotes over downed players, and personal vendettas disguised as roleplay are griefing. Taking, sharing, or posting photos of dead or downed player bodies is toxic conduct and prohibited. In-character aggression is not automatically OOC harassment; staff evaluate whom the conduct targets and why.

Dark or graphic content beyond ordinary GTA violence requires every participant’s consent before the scene begins. Arrange consent out of game, such as through Discord; do not break character in the city to request consent for a planned scene. Consent may be withdrawn at any time and the content must then stop.

Permanent injury, dismemberment, or another lasting character change requires the affected player’s prior agreement. Nonconsensual sexual roleplay, necrophilia roleplay, and suicide roleplay are prohibited even when participants claim to consent.

Treat staff and players respectfully. Use the in-city report command for urgent help or submit a ticket with relevant clips after the scene. Do not publicly argue reports, contact staff repeatedly for a preferred result, impersonate staff, publish private staff conversations, or evade a ban with another account.

Staff may issue coaching, warnings, session removal, temporary or permanent bans, and action against harmful conduct not exhaustively listed when it clearly threatens safety, fair play, or the roleplay environment. Serious cheating, hate speech, harassment, ban evasion, or organized attacks on the community may result in immediate removal.

Buying or selling in-game money, items, vehicles, property, or services for real-world money is prohibited.

Remain in character while in the city. Brief OOC communication is only for immediate safety, withdrawn consent, or a serious technical problem - not rules, punishments, or real-life arguments during a scene.

Metagaming is acting on information your character did not learn in character. Discord, Twitch, Kick, TikTok, streams, chats, and another character of your own cannot influence your actions. Do not watch or use live content while playing when it could reveal locations, plans, identities, mechanics, or other in-character information.

Powergaming is forcing an outcome or exploiting mechanics so another player has no reasonable way to respond. Roleplay attempts, not guaranteed results. Do not use IDs, carry or escort mechanics, animations, garages, houses, revive commands, inaccessible locations, or unconscious communication to gain information, escape, move extra people, hide bodies from EMS, or create another unintended advantage.

Do not knowingly use bugs, dupes, injectors, modification clients, or unintended mechanics for advantage. Stop using a discovered exploit and report it. Visual or audio changes that improve combat awareness - including removed fog, vegetation or water, transparent textures, tracers, stretched field of view, or enhanced footsteps and gunshots - are prohibited.

Report credible cheating evidence. Knowing someone who cheats is not itself punishable, but knowingly assisting, concealing, or benefiting from it is.

Do not disconnect, use F8, force-close the game, or otherwise leave to avoid an active interaction or its consequences. If you crash, save the report, notify the designated Discord channel when possible, return immediately, and continue the scene. Do not store or move items before returning.

Your characters do not know one another. Never transfer money, items, vehicles, property, or information between your own characters, including through another player.

Act as though your character wants to survive. If a weapon is trained on you and you do not already have a weapon ready, comply with reasonable demands. A stationary vehicle is not automatic protection: if surrounded or held at gunpoint before moving, wait for a realistic opening rather than simply driving away.

When police arrive, normally flee, surrender, or negotiate. Opening fire only because police appeared is fail RP unless the existing scene provides a credible reason.

On the mainland, hostile parties need at least two meaningful minutes of clear, direct interaction before gunfire. The clock starts when the involved parties actually interact - not when someone is seen, followed, or privately discussed. Empty conversation used only to run out the timer does not count.

RDM is attacking someone without the required interaction and a valid in-character reason. Being ignored, wanting a kill, recognizing a faction, or finding someone trapped in an animation is not sufficient. The only alternate initiation procedures are established faction retaliation in Rule 26 and the faction drive-by procedure in Rule 27.

Do not use a vehicle as a weapon. If your occupied vehicle is being fired upon and driving through the immediate threat is the only realistic escape, you may use only the force needed to get away. Turning around, chasing, or making repeated passes is VDM.

While incapacitated, stay in character, provide no tactical information, and do not respawn until the active scene ends. If treated or transported, you may remember events leading to the injury; if you respawn, you forget the events that led to it. Incapacitation or respawn removes you from that fight - you may not rejoin it.

Normal civilian and faction conflict is capped at six active participants per side. Police may use up to ten active officers for conflicts, heists, and major crime. More officers may respond only to a declared 10-13A, an approved SOP exception, or a staff-approved event. A listed heist maximum replaces the criminal six-person limit only for that activity.

An active participant includes anyone fighting, transporting participants, scouting, spotting, blocking routes, supplying live tactical information, equipment, or medical help, or otherwise materially assisting the scene. Do not rotate people, summon reinforcements, or use civilians, hangarounds, alternate characters, or peripheral roles to evade a cap.

A shootout is a scene in which gunfire is intentionally directed at or exchanged with another party. Every civilian or faction participant must wait 45 minutes after their part in a shootout ends before joining another. Your participation ends when you have disengaged and are no longer fighting, pursuing, transporting, scouting, or supplying live support. Changing characters, vehicles, clothing, or groups does not bypass the cooldown. On-duty police are exempt.

Do not insert yourself into a heist, pursuit, shootout, police scene, or storyline without an established in-character connection. Hearing shots, arriving by chance, or wanting action is not a connection. A claimed or active heist cannot be taken over by an uninvolved group.

Hospitals and the Female Baddie Mansion are green zones. Do not initiate violence, robberies, or hostile faction activity there. Faction members may use hospitals for ordinary treatment, but not recruiting, taxing, retaliation, or confrontation. The mansion is restricted to female characters unless a hosted event says otherwise.

Do not enter a green zone to escape an active conflict or provoke others into breaking the zone rule. The opposing party must disengage rather than follow violence inside and should report deliberate abuse afterward.

Every business is a yellow zone. Before escalating against someone working in faction identifiers, the opposing faction must clearly tell that person to leave three times. Normal mainland interaction requirements apply unless the established-retaliation exception in Rule 26 is active. Keep conflict tied to the established faction issue and allow uninvolved people a reasonable chance to leave.

Respect visible seating capacity. Do not use trunks, roofs, hoods, chain-carrying, or piggyback mechanics to add participants, escape arrest, or gain an advantage during crime. A criminal group may make one credible vehicle swap in a police pursuit, including a pre-staged swap; after it, stay with that vehicle and do not return to an earlier one.

Do not garage or retrieve vehicles during a pursuit, repeatedly ram police, brake-check through desync, instantly produce an unstaged escape vehicle, or use unrealistic routes solely to exploit physics.

Cop baiting is prohibited. Do not commit pointless offenses, repeatedly circle or taunt officers, interfere with police scenes, or otherwise manufacture low-quality conflict solely to force a pursuit, arrest, or shootout. Crime that draws police through a legitimate story or objective is not cop baiting. Do not tell officers how to police using OOC knowledge, impersonate emergency personnel, or steal marked police or EMS vehicles without strong scene-specific justification. Official uniforms, badges, identification, marked vehicles, and claims of authority are limited to approved members.

Follow the criminal limits in the reference table. Do not coordinate simultaneous heists, interfere with an active heist, start within 30 minutes before or after a scheduled restart, or camp an activity before its cooldown ends.

A heist may use one hostage and one demand. A heist capped at six or more criminals may use up to two hostages, with one demand attached to each.

A robbery requires prior roleplay and a genuine reason. Do not rob an unrelated incapacitated player or anyone in a green zone. Pocket wiping is prohibited: take only illegal items, valuables, or property reasonably connected to the scene. Illegal materials at an illegal crafting bench may be taken when directly connected to that scene.

In-character scams are permitted, but never target new players, repeatedly target the same person, or run more than one scam within an hour.

A hostage must be independent, not a willing member of the criminal group. Do not rob or kill a heist hostage or plant items on them for a staged robbery. An officer may be taken only when at least five officers are on duty; police may use all reasonable means to rescue them. On-duty EMS may be taken only with at least three EMS on duty - never summon EMS to ambush them or take them from an active medical scene.

Department-issued police equipment - including duty weapons, tasers, radios, cuffs, armor, ammunition, and duty supplies - cannot be taken. Personal or non-department items remain subject to normal robbery rules.

Applications, identifiers, rosters, strikes, leadership, and wars apply only to approved factions. Apply through Discord; approved factions begin with at least six and may roster up to eighteen members, excluding hangarounds. Unapproved groups cannot claim turf or drug operations, declare faction war, present themselves as approved, or receive faction benefits.

Wear at least two recognizable identifiers while acting as your faction, except while doing a civilian or whitelisted job, attending an event, or conducting a robbery or heist where identifiers would undermine the scene. Maintain leadership, goals, relationships, internal roleplay, and an identity beyond gunfights. Gang mixing to evade limits is prohibited.

A civilian knowingly assisting faction conflict counts toward that faction’s six-person side and follows its interaction, cooldown, and scene rules, but does not become subject to roster, identifier, strike, or war procedures. Hangarounds may not fight for the faction.

A faction may rob a civilian who deliberately provokes it or willingly enters an active drug or territory hotspot, but ordinary presence elsewhere is insufficient. Civilians enter drug locations at their own risk but may not tax products or ingredients as though they control the operation.

A faction may control one drug or one specific crafting bench at a time, not both. It may not control multiple drugs or multiple benches. Control includes claiming ownership, taxing access or products, guarding the operation, excluding others, or enforcing the claim. A faction must surrender its current operation before claiming another. Faction leaders are responsible for keeping their claim current with Faction Control, which may track and confirm who controls each operation.

A hostile faction action - such as a street fight, block push, targeted attack, kidnapping, or robbery connected to faction conflict - opens a 48-hour retaliation window. The faction that acted must stand down against that opponent while the window is open. The opposing faction may retaliate once during those 48 hours. If it does, the right to respond passes back to the other faction and a new 48-hour window begins for that side. A faction may never take two consecutive hostile actions in the same retaliation chain. If the eligible faction does not retaliate before its window expires, the chain ends.

Once a retaliation chain is active, the two factions have established beef and do not need a new two-minute conversation before each retaliation. This is not KOS: the targets must be clearly identifiable as members of the opposing faction, both factions must reasonably understand the conflict is active, and every action must directly continue that same in-character dispute. The normal interaction rule returns when the 48-hour window expires or the chain ends.

A retaliation chain is limited to three retaliations after the initial hostile action. After the third retaliation, both factions must stop hostile action against each other and either squash the beef through roleplay or open a war ticket with Faction Control. Further violence requires an approved war. Faction Control may pause or end a chain sooner when the conflict becomes toxic, one-sided, repetitive, or focused on kills instead of roleplay.

All other rules remain in force during established beef, including the six-person limit, personal shootout cooldowns, green and yellow zones, scene interference rules, and the drive-by procedure. Leaders must track each action and its time and provide that record to Faction Control when requested.

A drive-by replaces the mainland timer with a two-pass procedure. Attackers must make one complete, recognizable pass of the target block without firing; that pass is the interaction. The threat must be reasonably apparent. Gunfire may begin on the second pass, never the first.

Gangs, mafias, and cartels use cars; approved motorcycle clubs may use motorcycles. No more than six attackers may participate, and nobody may exit to continue on foot, rob victims, move bodies, or gain another incapacitation advantage.

A group may conduct one drive-by against the same block or location per 60 minutes. Continuous passes are one engagement. Once attackers disengage or leave, they cannot return until the cooldown ends. Changing identities, vehicles, direction, drivers, shooters, or participants does not reset it.

A bled-out member cannot rejoin that faction or retain sensitive faction knowledge. Submit a faction ticket when it happens; the player waits five days before joining another faction.

Wars require advance Faction Control approval. Leaders must agree on factions, rosters, locations, duration, victory conditions, and endings. Participants wear identifiers; nobody may be added during the war. Wars last no more than 72 hours and are followed by a one-week war cooldown. Faction Control may end a toxic or rule-breaking war without a winner.

Faction strikes use the published reference table. During an activity cooldown, affected members cannot wear identifiers or perform faction activity. Alternate characters, civilians, or unrostered members cannot bypass it. Organized cheating, duping, harassment, toxicity, or repeated violations may cause immediate suspension or disbandment.

Cayo Perico and staff-designated island zones do not use the mainland two-minute timer, but meaningful interaction must still clearly establish hostility and give the other side a chance to understand and respond. A threat, demand, robbery attempt, territorial confrontation, negotiation, or direct challenge may qualify. No timer never means KOS.

An established fight remains active through repositioning, pursuit, and exchanges of fire. A third party may join only through a legitimate in-character connection established before joining - not gunshots, chance arrival, a desire for kills, or an invented alliance. Nobody may rejoin the same fight after incapacitation or respawn, and the normal 45-minute cooldown applies.

Spawn camping, body camping, blocking reasonable departure, repeated post-respawn attacks, and kill farming remain prohibited. Travel does not make someone hostile. Island conflict cannot continue onto the mainland without new mainland-compliant interaction, and an island cannot be used to escape active law enforcement. Police, sheriff, and EMS respond only when staff authorize it or as part of an approved event.

If an area has not been clearly designated as an island zone, mainland rules apply. Published limits may change; material updates will be announced and the current website version controls.