Costume policy - where's the line?

godhandxiii

I'd really like to know the limitations of the two costume policies - clones and obscenity.

• How close can someone get to a known IP before getting flagged? The policy seems to imply that cosplay isn't allowed at all, and all the players I've seen with <character> costumes are breaking the policy. Or is it actually allowed?
• I do create a lot of costumes that span from original to "inspired by" to a straight up cosplay. Just based on this image, how much would I get flagged?
  
• If a known Vtuber from a huge agency recreates their avatar, would it be against the policy?
• Nudity. I'm guessing anthropomorphic animals are okay unclothed because of the natural covering. Ignoring copyright, would Mystique from the films be flagged for nudity? Dragon Age's Lady of the Forest? Malenia, Blade of Miquella?
• Is Barbie doll anatomy okay?
• Does having Godiva hair actually make it better or worse?
• When does it become indecent or obscene?

jonsills

"Indecent or obscene" is largely up to the GMs, but if you're deliberately trying to push that line, you're probably going to cross it if you haven't already.

As for cloning, classically they've gone with what I like to call the Rule of Three: costume, name, backstory. If two of those three closely match a trademarked character, you'll get hit. For instance, a flying brick with a costume consisting of blue tights, a red cape and boots, and a yellow chest symbol, whose background is that he's the last member of an alien race who grew up on a farm in Kansas, it's pretty obvious that you're doing Superman no matter what you called him and he's probably going to get badnamed. Now, you can do characters that are obvious parodies; two of my favorites are the Duck Knight, a Batman knock-off with a duck's bill and webbed feet, and Captain Americlown ("I told you we shouldn't have subcontracted the Super-Soldier Project to Ringling Brothers!").

Note also that you can get badnamed for a character others consider offensive without violating any "obscenity" rules; my example here was a character I created in 2020, a bird-man with black feathers and the Pestilence powerset, named "Corvid-19" (he was one of twenty such beings, created by a villainous genetic engineer who wanted flying minions, and he was one of two who ever left the Rook and the only one to go hero). I think I played him for about two weeks before I got my strike. (I then repurposed him as a skunk-man, Captain Mercaptan, and have had no issues since.)

godhandxiii

Ah. I'm not deliberately trying to push the line, but I'm really worried of crossing it. Or at least I was. I was worried about a character design that I don't see as problematic, but someone with different values might deem so. But I like the character too much so I just decided to say screw it and just get struck if the GMs deem her too "obscene" or whatever.

It does seem that the cloning rule isn't consistently applied. I don't like reporting so I won't, but I've seen a handful of characters for weeks now that are straight up clones and make me go "How is that okay?"