The rules

Welcome to ZedOnline, a Project Zomboid Build 42 roleplay community. These rules exist so everyone gets a fair, immersive apocalypse.

Age requirement: 16+. By clicking I Agree below you confirm your age and accept every section that follows. "I didn't know" is never an excuse - your agreement is logged.

📖 Everything in detail: https://mtdlabs.dev/zedonline/handbook/

The rules below are the short version. The handbook has the full process for whitelisting, factions, traders, safehouses and refunds.

1.1 Respect. Treat every player with respect. Harassment, bullying, or discrimination of any kind is not tolerated - including real-life threats, doxxing, or anything illegal. Keep it civil in-game and on Discord.

1.2 No OOC authority games. Don't impersonate staff or claim out-of-character authority in-character. Using OOC threats or blackmail to force IC outcomes is forbidden.

1.3 English only. All communication (text, voice, RP) is in English - staff support is provided in English and rules misunderstandings due to language are not excused.

1.4 Politics & religion stay outside. We're here for the apocalypse, not ideology.

1.5 No griefing. Wrecking someone's experience on purpose is not roleplay - destroying property for no IC reason, walling people out of their own base, building on another player's claim, trolling for a reaction.

2.1 Stay in character. IC channels and the game world are for your character's voice. Keep OOC chatter in #general - the bot will nudge you if it slips.

2.2 No metagaming. Information your character didn't learn in-game doesn't exist for them. Discord knowledge is not character knowledge. If you play more than one character they never interact, never pass items between each other, and never share what the other one knows.

2.3 No powergaming. Don't force outcomes on other players, godmod, or play an invincible character. Give people room to respond.

2.4 No dating RP and no ERP. Romance plots, in-character relationships played out as dating, and anything sexual are not allowed here - not in channels, not in DMs arranged through this server, not in-game. This is a survival horror server and it is 16+, which means adults and minors share these channels. There is no tasteful version of this and no fade-to-black exception. Take it elsewhere or don't play it.

2.5 Character death matters. Play injuries and losses honestly. Death is part of the story.

2.6 Play the scene. Refusing to engage is its own rule break. Going silent, wandering off mid-scene, or "my character wouldn't care" to dodge a situation is no intention to roleplay.

2.7 No voice ID'ing. You recognise people by their character's face and actions, not the voice of the player behind them. Knowing someone OOC doesn't mean your character knows them.

2.8 Roleplay limits. Racism and controversial real-world subjects stay out of roleplay entirely. Respect other people's boundaries - if someone asks you to stop a scene, stop.

The map has three kinds of ground. Which one you are standing on decides what other players may do to you, so this is the most important thing on the page.

3.1 ⬜ Neutral - the default, nearly everywhere

• If a place is not marked green or red, it is neutral. Towns, roads, wilderness - almost the whole map.
• Violence needs roleplay first - no KOS (killing on sight) and no RDM (killing someone with no roleplay and no reason).
• Robbery and hostility need build-up, and anyone who complies must be given a way out alive.
• Initiations must be clear: your target has to know they're in a scene.

3.2 🟢 Green - March Ridge, and nowhere else

• One town. Accord ground, where the terms were first painted, marked on the map.
• No violence of any kind. No killing, no robbery, no theft, no taking people prisoner.
• Zombies don't count. Kill those.
• If someone attacks you here, defend yourself - they broke the peace, not you.
• You cannot claim a safehouse or base here. It's where you meet and trade, not where you live.

3.3 🔴 Red - marked towns and areas

• Certain towns and areas - high-loot towns, military checkpoints and the like, all marked in advance.
• KOS is legal and no roleplay is needed. There is no such thing as RDM in a red zone - nobody owes you a reason, so there's nothing to report and no after-action needed. Going there is consenting to that.
• Faction warfare belongs here.
• Parking on a spawn point to farm whoever appears isn't KOS, it's griefing (1.5).

Green and red are marked on the in-game map and posted in #zones-and-map. Anywhere unmarked is neutral. The red list changes every season - if you played last season, check it again before you travel.

3.4 Killing in neutral territory. Roleplay first is not the whole of it. You also need a reason your character already had - a betrayal, a robbery gone wrong, a grudge already on record. Being annoyed with someone has never counted.

No approval needed first. What's needed is the after-action post afterwards, naming your reason. 🎭 Antagonists have standing approval and still post.

3.5 Breaking the peace. Raise a hand against anyone in March Ridge and you are declared an outlaw. Your name goes out publicly, anyone may hunt you anywhere including March Ridge itself, and the Accord's protection stops applying to you until it's settled.

The Accord protects those who keep it. Break it and you're outside it. That's the town's answer, not a staff punishment.

3.6 The zone a scene starts in governs it. Crossing a line doesn't end a scene or change its rules. A fight that starts on the road outside March Ridge stays under road rules even if someone runs for the town. You can't start something in neutral and reach safety by sprinting past a marker.

3.7 Fear RP. Value your character's life. Gun to your head, outnumbered, outmatched - act like it. "My character is fearless" is not a defence, and forcing someone to kill you by refusing to react is a break on your side.

3.8 No combat logging. Don't log out during a hostile interaction until the scene is over. Judged on what happened, not what you meant. A genuine crash is fine - report it the moment you're back, not when you're asked.

3.9 Death and memory (NLR). Dying doesn't end your character. You respawn at your safehouse and keep playing them - but they don't remember the events leading up to their death. Not the fight, not the ambush, not who did it. You still know your life, your people and your base. You don't get to walk back and settle the score.

Survivors who watched it happen do remember, and they can tell you. That's normal IC information and it's fair game - what isn't is acting on something nobody actually told you.

How you explain waking up is yours - waking from a bad dream is the classic, and the more creative the better.

Permadeathing your character is always your choice and it's a real ending: the next character starts fresh, with none of their memories, contacts or grudges. Either way, no faking a death to dodge consequences.

3.10 After-action posts. After a kill in neutral territory, or any robbery, ambush or hostage taken anywhere, drop a short post in #conflict-reports naming your reason. It's the evidence trail that settles disputes, so it decides them: dispute a scene you never posted and the ruling goes against you.

Red-zone kills don't need one. Nobody owes a reason there, so there's nothing for staff to rule on. Post it for the story if it was a good one.

Robbed or killed? Post yours too. Your side counts even if theirs is already up - two accounts of the same scene show staff all of it. Posting is the record, not an accusation: if you want staff to act on something, that's a ticket.

4.1 Founding. Factions are applied for via #open-a-ticket, max 7 members. Approved factions get a private hall thread and a recruitment post.

4.2 Faction conflict. Wars happen in red zones or by mutual IC agreement. Green-zone faction violence follows green-zone rules. Stacking alliances into a fighting group far bigger than one faction is treated as a loophole.

4.3 Safehouses. One claim per player, or residence in one group safehouse. Claimed safehouses are protected by server settings: only members can take items from one. Loot-critical buildings can never be claimed - gun stores, pharmacies, grocery, hardware, auto parts, pawn, convenience. They stay open so the map keeps breathing. Anything outside these rules - a custom build, an unusual location - needs staff approval via a support ticket before you start building.

4.4 Inactivity. Factions quiet for 3+ weeks may be archived. Tell staff if you'll be away 21+ days so you don't lose a safehouse or vehicle.

4.5 Vehicles. Park off the main roads and don't block major routes. Five per player, claimed and unclaimed combined. You cannot claim from a distance, and you are expected to retrieve what you claim yourself - tagging a rare car and waiting for somebody else to clear the wrecks or secure the area is not on. One unclaim request per wipe, through a ticket.

5.1 Fair play. All trades must be honest and agreed by both sides. IC scamming requires actual roleplay - OOC exploitation, duping, or exploiting the economy is bannable. Buying or selling in-game items, characters, or services for real money is an instant ban, and so is importing gear from another server.

5.2 Traders. Verified 🪙 Traders run shops via #trader-shack, approved by application and a staff price review. Traders sell inside their approved category only.

5.3 Bugs & refunds. Report bugs in #bug-reports. Lost items to a bug or a crash? Open a ticket with evidence and we'll make it right. Clips beat screenshots, screenshots beat descriptions, and doctored evidence is a ban. A character killed by a genuine bug can be restored too, but that one needs video - a screenshot can't show what killed you. Record while you play.

5.4 Hoarding. Take what your character would take. Stripping every location of supplies you have no use for, so nobody else can have them, is hoarding and staff will act on it.

6.1 Whitelist. Playing on the game server needs an approved character application - the 🧟 Survivor role is your key.

6.2 One character at a time. New character = new application, fast-tracked for players in good standing.

7.1 Channels have jobs. Post in the right place - the sidebar is organized so everything has exactly one home.

7.2 No foreign server invites outside staff-approved partnerships. The Project Zomboid Discord linked at the bottom of this channel is the one standing exception.

7.3 Strikes and set penalties. Most rules carry a set penalty, listed under each rule in the full handbook. Set penalties take precedence over the ladder below - staff will always show you the rule and the number when one is applied, and repeating the same offence climbs the penalty a step each time. Every timed penalty lands on Discord and the game server both. Where no set penalty applies, formal warnings escalate:

• 1st - on record. No timeout.
• 2nd - 24 hours: timed out in Discord, banned from the game server.
• 3rd - 7 days, both again, plus a staff review.
• 4th - removed from both.

Warnings expire after 60 days. Severe violations - slurs, doxxing, exploits, ban evasion - skip the ladder entirely.

7.4 Appeals. Appeal any ban - Discord, the game server, or both - at the ZedOnline Appeals server: https://discord.gg/D3x4agBzza

It's a guided set of questions rather than a form letter, and the bot DMs you the same invite the moment a ban lands, so keep your DMs open.

7.5 Discord ToS applies at all times.

7.6 Tickets, not DMs. Take issues to a ticket, not a staff member's DMs - so decisions get logged, get handled by whoever's on, and don't land on the same person every time. Staff are volunteers with lives.

7.7 Staff don't rule on their own scenes. Nobody moderates a situation they're involved in - they hand it over. If that's been broken, say so in a ticket.

7.8 Ban evasion. Coming back on another account after a removal makes the ban permanent.

7.9 Loopholes and common sense. Using a gap in these rules is still breaking them. Technically allowed but obviously unfair isn't allowed. If something feels shady and isn't written here, ask first - "it wasn't in the rules" won't save you.

7.10 These rules can change. They may be updated at any time. Check back now and then so you don't break a new one by accident.

ℹ️ One last thing - we're not Project Zomboid tech support.

This is a roleplay community, not a support desk. If something's broken with ZedOnline - our mods, our server, your whitelist - open a ticket and we'll help to the best of our knowledge.

But for general Project Zomboid problems, crashes and vanilla bugs, The Indie Stone's own Discord will always have better answers:

https://discord.gg/theindiestone

📖 The Player Handbook

Everything above in full, plus what wouldn't fit here: the whitelist process and what gets approved, founding a faction, trader categories, the complete list of buildings you can't claim, how refunds and evidence work, and how to appeal.

https://mtdlabs.dev/zedonline/handbook/