Code of Conduct

1. Scope & Where This Applies

This Code of Conduct applies to every Player wherever they are clearly identifiable as a member of The Fifth Family community. That includes:

• The game itself — chat (global, family, private), mail, family forum, profile fields, family names and crests, support tickets, and any other in-game communication;
• Our official Discord server and any other official community channels we operate;
• Email correspondence with us;
• Comments and posts you make on our official social-media accounts;
• Any space where you publicly identify with The Fifth Family (e.g. a streaming overlay, a fan thread you started while using your in-game username) and your conduct could reasonably reflect on the community.

Independent fan communities, third-party forums, private group chats, and personal social-media accounts are not directly governed by this Code. However, conduct in those spaces that constitutes harassment of our Players or staff, doxxing, coordinated brigading, or breach of UK or other applicable law may still result in account action under our Terms of Service — see Section 19.

2. The Spirit of the Game

The Fifth Family is a competitive mafia game. Conflict is built in. You will be attacked. You will lose money. Your enemies will gloat. Your family will betray you. None of that violates this Code — it's the game working as intended.

What violates this Code is the layer above the game: how you treat the actual person on the other side of the screen. The Fifth Family world is brutal. The Fifth Family community is not.

3. In-Character vs Out-of-Character

This is the single most important distinction in this Code. Most disputes resolve to "is this in-character roleplay, or is it directed at a real person?"

In-character (allowed)

• "You're going down. We'll burn your family to the ground." — said about gameplay rivalry between two characters;
• Trash-talk in mail or family chat about wins, losses, raids, betrayals, ranks, territory disputes;
• Gloating after a successful attack, mocking an enemy's gameplay choices, taking credit, calling out failed raids;
• Roleplay around organised-crime tropes (loyalty oaths, rivalries, threats of "sleeping with the fishes", calling rivals derogatory mob-fiction nicknames within roleplay).

Out-of-character (not allowed)

• Anything aimed at the real person — their identity, body, race, religion, gender, sexuality, mental health, family situation, or finances;
• Real-world threats of violence, harm, or unlawful action — even framed "in roleplay";
• Real-world identifying details about another Player (their name, photo, address, workplace);
• Anything that would be harassment if said to a colleague at work — slurs, sustained personal targeting, sexual messages they didn't ask for.

The test staff apply: strip the in-game framing — would this still be acceptable as something one stranger says to another? If yes, it's roleplay. If no, it isn't.

4. In-Game Behaviour

4.1 Encouraged

• Trash talk between rivals, in-character banter, and competitive smack within the bounds of Section 3;
• Family loyalty, alliances, betrayals, political manoeuvring as part of the roleplay;
• Sharing tips, helping new Players, answering questions in chat;
• Reporting bugs, exploits, and Code violations.

4.2 Prohibited

In addition to the explicit prohibitions in our Terms of Service Section 7 (harassment, hate speech, doxxing, threats, spam, impersonation), the following are also Code violations:

• Personal attacks on individual Players — calling out specific Players for ridicule, mocking real-life identity, body, financial situation, or background. Attacking a Player's gameplay decisions is fine; attacking the person is not;
• Witch-hunting and pile-ons — encouraging others to mass-attack, mass-report, or mass-harass a specific Player based on disagreements or personal grudges;
• Drama farming — repeatedly stirring conflict, recycling old disputes to inflame the community, or manufacturing controversy for attention;
• Constant negativity in public channels — there's a difference between criticism and persistently poisoning the atmosphere. If your contribution is overwhelmingly complaint, attack, or sarcasm at other Players, staff, or the game itself, you may be asked to take a break from public chat;
• Misleading new Players — deliberately giving false in-game advice, fake mechanics, or fake leadership instructions to disadvantage them;
• Spoiling moderation actions — publicly announcing or speculating about why another Player was muted, jailed, or banned, in a way designed to humiliate them or recruit support against staff decisions;
• Spam, advertising, referral-link spam — promoting external products, services, or third-party games in chat, mail, family forums, or any other communication feature;
• Impersonation — see Section 4A below for the full policy, including impersonation of real-world people, brands, and other game studios;
• Inappropriate names & crests — usernames, family names, family crests, profile bios, slogans, and avatars that contain slurs, sexual content, real-world political incitement, or content prohibited elsewhere in this Code. Inappropriate names will be reset by staff.

4A. Impersonation

Impersonation is prohibited in all forms. The Code distinguishes four impersonation targets, each with different handling:

4A.1 Impersonating Fifth Family staff or developers

Includes usernames, family names, family ranks, profile fields, or in-game messages that could reasonably be taken as coming from our staff, moderators, or developers — for example, "Admin", "TFF_Staff", "DevTeam", "FifthFamily Support", or any name confusingly similar to a real staff handle. Severity: High to Severe. Typically results in immediate account reset and Final Warning at minimum; Severe where used to defraud, intimidate, or extract information from other Players. Staff impersonation that asks Players to share passwords, gold, or other assets is treated as Severe and a permanent-ban offence.

4A.2 Impersonating another Player

Includes usernames intentionally chosen to mimic another active account (substituting characters, near-identical spellings), copying another Player's avatar and profile to confuse others, or sending mail or chat messages that could be taken as coming from another Player. Severity: Medium to High depending on intent and harm caused.

4A.3 Impersonating a real-world person

Includes usernames, profiles, family names, or content presenting as a real public figure (politicians, celebrities, content creators, streamers, journalists, athletes), or as a private individual (someone's ex, classmate, colleague, family member). The Player does not need to be on our Service for this rule to apply — and indeed they typically are not, which is why we accept reports from third parties (Section 4A.5).

Severity: High ordinarily; Severe where the impersonation is used to defame, harass, sexualise, or extract money, assets, or personal information from other Players. Permanent ban applies where the conduct also breaches Section 6 (sexual content), Section 7 (threats), or constitutes a credible criminal offence.

Parody and satire are permitted only where (a) the parody is obvious to a reasonable Player, (b) it does not include defamatory or sexual content, and (c) the target is a public figure in respect of their public conduct, not their private life. "It was just a joke" is not a defence where the parody was not clearly signposted.

4A.4 Impersonating a real-world business, brand, or organisation

Includes presenting as another game studio or its staff, as a real-world law-enforcement agency, government body, payment provider, or any commercial entity. This category is treated strictly because:

• It exposes our community to scams that exploit trust in the named entity;
• It exposes us, as the host platform, to claims by the impersonated entity (trade mark, passing off, defamation);
• Its harm is rarely "in-character" and almost always operational deception.

Severity: High to Severe. The impersonating account, name, or content is removed without warning. Permanent ban applies where used for fraud, phishing, doxxing, or to extract assets from Players. Trade mark and brand-imitation content (logos, crests, copied marketing copy) is removed regardless of intent and may be reported to the brand owner on request.

4A.5 Reporting and third-party complaints

Because the target of real-world impersonation is usually not a Player on the Service, we accept reports from any source — the impersonated person, their authorised representative, the brand owner, or any other Player or member of the public who notices it.

• Players: report via Support Ticket or email [email protected];
• Real-world subjects (people): email [email protected] with subject "Impersonation — Real Person". Provide your real name, contact details, evidence that you are who you say you are (or evidence of authority to act for the named person), and the in-game username, family, or content concerned;
• Brand and trade mark owners: email [email protected] with subject "Trade Mark / Brand Complaint". Provide the trade mark or brand identification, evidence of rights (registration number where applicable, or evidence of unregistered rights), the in-game content concerned, and a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorised. We will respond and act without undue delay; serial or vexatious complaints may be deprioritised.

5. Hate Speech & Discrimination

Content that targets people based on protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any equivalent characteristic — is prohibited. This includes:

• Slurs (in any language, including coded variants and "leetspeak");
• Stereotyping or dehumanising language;
• Holocaust denial, glorification of genocide, terrorist organisation imagery or symbols;
• "Just joking" or "ironic" use of the above — the line is the content, not the framing.

This category is treated as severe (Section 16) and will typically skip the lower rungs of the escalation ladder.

6. Sexual & Adult Content

The Service is rated 18+ but is not a sexual or adult-content platform. The following are prohibited:

• Sexually explicit content of any kind in chat, mail, profiles, family forum, family names, crests, or avatars;
• Unwanted sexual messages or sexual harassment of another Player (continuing after a clear "stop" is harassment regardless of original intent);
• Any sexual content involving, depicting, or directed at minors, real or fictional — this is a permanent-ban offence with no appeal and may be reported to law enforcement under Section 14;
• Non-consensual intimate imagery ("revenge porn") — same treatment as above;
• Soliciting nude or sexual content from any other Player.

7. Threats, Self-Harm & Crisis

7.1 Threats

Real-world threats of violence — including suicide threats made against another person ("kill yourself" and equivalents), threats of physical harm, threats of attack on a workplace, school, or home — are treated with the highest severity. Where credible, they may be reported to the relevant law-enforcement agency.

7.2 Self-Harm & Suicide

If you are struggling, please reach out to someone qualified:

• UK: Samaritans — 116 123 (free, 24/7) — samaritans.org
• US: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 — 988lifeline.org
• International: findahelpline.com for resources in your country
• Gambling concern: GamCare (UK) 0808 8020 133 — begambleaware.org

8. Family & Syndicate Conduct

Families are run by their members. Staff do not arbitrate internal politics, leadership decisions, kick decisions, alliances, or family drama — those are part of the game. Joining, leaving, and being removed from a family are normal occurrences and not something we mediate.

The exception is when leadership powers are used to violate other parts of this Code — for example, coordinated harassment of an ex-member by leadership, or doxxing a rival family. In those cases the underlying Code violation is what we act on, not the family politics around it.

Family forum posts, family names, and family crests are subject to all rules of this Code.

9. Cheating, Bugs & Exploits

The Terms of Service Section 4 prohibits automation, exploitation of bugs, and circumvention of security. To make that practical:

• If you find a bug: stop using it immediately and report it via Support Ticket or our Discord #bug-reports channel;
• If you're unsure whether something is intended: ask before using it. "I didn't know" is not a defence if the behaviour is obviously unintended (infinite money loops, free items, immortality, duping);
• Reporting bugs in good faith never gets you in trouble — even if you accidentally benefited briefly. Reporting protects you. We may roll back accidental gains; we won't punish the report;
• Knowingly hiding or sharing exploits — selling them, organising group exploitation, or only reporting after the patch — is a serious violation and may result in permanent ban plus asset rollback;
• Bots, macros, auto-clickers, multi-window automation — prohibited regardless of how "harmless" they seem. Server logs detect them.

10. Real-Money Trading (RMT)

RMT is the buying, selling, trading, gifting, or transferring of any account, in-game currency, or in-game asset in exchange for real money, cryptocurrency, goods, services, or anything of external value. RMT is strictly prohibited. The full policy is in our Terms of Service Section 14.

Confirmed RMT results in: severe warning or potentially permanent ban of all accounts involved (buyer and seller), forfeiture of all Virtual Items and Virtual Currency, no refunds, and IP/device bans in repeat or severe cases. Both sides of the transaction lose.

Genuine in-game gifts, family donations, drops, and trades between Players for in-game reasons (alliance-building, roleplay, helping new Players) are permitted and encouraged. The line is real-world consideration: if anything external changes hands — money, services, items from other games, promises, anything else — it's RMT.

11. Account Integrity & Multi-Accounting

• One account per person. Multi-accounting, alts, and farm accounts are prohibited and result in permanent bans of all accounts involved. The full policy is in the ToS Section 3.2;
• Household accounts. If multiple people in your household genuinely play, contact us before there's a problem so we can flag legitimate household accounts and avoid false positives. Household Players must not interact in ways that confer advantage (no trades, transfers, mutual attacks, referrals, or coordinated raids);
• Ban evasion is strictly prohibited. Creating a new account to evade a mute, suspension, or ban — including using a friend's or family member's account — converts a temporary action into a permanent ban for all involved accounts;
• Account sharing is prohibited. Logging in as another Player, "boosting" services, paying someone to play your account, or letting a friend "play while you're at work" all violate this Code;
• Account recovery. If your account is compromised, contact us immediately. Do not attempt to recover an account by creating a duplicate.

12. Staff Interactions

Staff are part of our team. The following expectations apply when interacting with them:

• Honesty. Do not lie to staff during investigations or appeals. Providing false information, fake screenshots, or fabricated context is itself a serious violation;
• One conversation at a time. If you have a moderation question, raise it once via Support Ticket or Discord ticket. Do not raise the same issue across DMs to multiple staff, public chat, and Discord simultaneously to pressure a different answer ("staff shopping");
• Disagreement is fine; abuse is not. Disagreeing with a moderation decision is acceptable. Personal attacks, slurs, or threats against staff over a moderation decision are not. If you escalate to abuse during an appeal, the appeal itself is closed;
• No retaliation. Any attempt to retaliate against a staff member for performing their duties — in-game, on Discord, or externally — is treated as a serious violation;
• No bribery. Offering staff in-game currency, items, real money, or other inducements in exchange for moderation favour is prohibited and is itself a permanent-ban offence. Staff are required to report any such offer.

13. Reporting Other Players

If another Player is violating this Code, the Terms of Service, or the law, please report rather than engage:

• In-game: open a Support Ticket with the Player's username, what happened, when it happened, and screenshots if applicable;
• Email: [email protected] for serious matters or anything you don't want visible in our public ticket system;
• Anonymously: via the email above.

Reports are confidential (Section 21). Filing false reports in bad faith — to harass another Player or evade your own consequences — is itself a Code violation.

14. Illegal Content (UK Online Safety Act / EU Digital Services Act)

If you encounter content on the Service you reasonably believe to be illegal — including child sexual abuse material, terrorist content, threats to a person's life, content inciting violence, or content infringing intellectual property — report it immediately:

• Use the in-game report function on the offending message, mail, post, or profile;
• Or email [email protected] with the subject "Illegal Content Report".

We act on illegal-content reports without undue delay, and where required by law we will report to competent authorities (in the UK: the Internet Watch Foundation for CSAM, the National Crime Agency for terror content, the police for credible threats). Full process is in Terms of Service Section 21.

15. Moderation Escalation Ladder

We use a balanced, progressive escalation system. Most Players never see anything beyond an informal warning. The ladder exists so that consequences are predictable and fair, and so that staff cannot apply punishments inconsistently.

Standing reset. If a Player goes 6 months with no further violations after a Formal Warning or Mute, their standing resets, unless the original violation was a Severe-tier issue.

16. Severity Tiers & Skipping Steps

Not every violation deserves the same response. Staff classify each incident into a severity tier, and the tier determines where on the ladder action begins.

Tier	Examples	Typical Starting Step
Low	One-off rude comment, mild spam, naming-rule violation, mild trash-talk crossing into personal	Step 1–2
Medium	Sustained personal attacks on a Player, repeat low-tier breaches, drama-farming, witch-hunting, misleading new Players	Step 2–4
High	Hate speech, repeated harassment, doxxing attempts, sexual harassment, exploit abuse, account sharing	Step 4–5
Severe	Real-world threats, credible doxxing, slur-based hate speech with deliberate intent, RMT, ban evasion, automation/botting at scale, child-safety violations, non-consensual intimate imagery	Step 5–6 (typically straight to permanent ban)

Skipping the ladder. Staff may go directly to a higher step — including straight to permanent ban — for Severe-tier violations and for repeat offenders whose pattern shows the lower steps have already failed. This is not a circumvention of the ladder; it's the ladder applied at the level the conduct demands.

Mitigation and aggravation. When choosing the step within a tier, staff consider: history of past violations, whether the Player took responsibility, whether the conduct was repeated after warning, the impact on the target Player, whether multiple Players were affected, and whether the Player attempted to evade or mislead during investigation.

17. Evidence Standards

Moderation decisions must rest on evidence, not vibes. The standards below apply equally to staff investigating reports and to Players responding to them.

17.1 Sources of evidence

• Server logs — chat, mail, forum posts, action logs, login records, transaction records. These are authoritative;
• Player screenshots — useful but not on their own conclusive (screenshots can be edited);
• Cross-referenced patterns — multiple independent reports about the same Player, action logs showing the alleged behaviour, IP and device patterns;
• Voluntary admission — by the Player under investigation;
• Witness reports — useful as supporting context, weighed with caution.

17.2 Standard of proof

For Low- and Medium-tier actions: more likely than not based on the available evidence. For High-tier and above: clear and convincing. For Severe-tier actions and permanent bans: server-log corroboration or admission, not Player screenshots alone.

17.3 What we don't do

• Act on screenshots alone for any High- or Severe-tier action without corroborating server logs;
• Action a Player based on private DM screenshots from outside the Service that we cannot verify;
• Issue moderation actions on the basis of a single anonymous report without supporting evidence;
• Reveal the identity of a reporter to the reported Player (Section 21).

18. Appeals

Every moderation action above an Informal Warning is appealable, with the following exceptions:

• Permanent bans for the offences listed in the red callout in Section 16;
• Actions following an admission of fault by the Player.

18.1 How to appeal

• Mutes and temporary restrictions — appeal via Support Ticket. Target response 24 hours;
• Suspensions — appeal via email to [email protected] with your username and the reason you believe the action was unfair. Target response 72 hours;
• Permanent bans — one appeal per ban, within 30 days, via the email above. Reviewed by Head of Staff or Owner only. Decisions on permanent-ban appeals are final.

18.2 What helps an appeal

• Taking responsibility for your part;
• Being specific about what you'd do differently;
• Providing context staff may have missed (different timezone, different account, mistaken identity);
• Being calm and concise.

18.3 What hurts an appeal

• Aggressive tone, personal attacks on staff;
• Demands or threats;
• "I'll post about this everywhere", "I'll chargeback", "I have lawyers";
• Repeating an appeal that has already been decided.

18.4 Reviewer independence

Appeals are reviewed by a staff member who was not involved in the original decision wherever practical. Permanent-ban appeals are reviewed only by Head of Staff or Owner.

19. Out-of-Game Conduct

You're free to discuss, criticise, review, or complain about The Fifth Family on any external platform — social media, gaming forums, review sites. Honest opinion is welcomed, even when it is unflattering to us. The standard is the action, not the opinion.

The following external behaviours may result in account action:

• Coordinated harassment campaigns directed at our Players or staff;
• Doxxing or sharing personal information about Players or staff;
• Fabricating screenshots, inventing chat logs, posting deliberately false statements about other Players;
• Recruiting other Players to brigade, mass-report, or harass specific individuals;
• Conduct that, while occurring outside the Service, would be a Severe-tier violation if it had occurred inside it.

Examples of the line: "This game has gotten worse since launch" is opinion. "Player X is a [slur] and you should all spam-attack them" is harassment.

20. Staff Conduct & Conflicts of Interest

Staff are held to a higher standard than Players, not a lower one. The following rules apply to all staff (Moderator, Staff, Head of Staff, Owner):

• Account separation. Staff who play the game must not use staff powers in their own gameplay disputes. If a dispute involves a staff member's character, account, family, or close in-game associate, that staff member must recuse and pass it to another staff member;
• No favouritism. The same conduct gets the same response regardless of who the Player is — friends of staff, big spenders, long-tenured Players;
• No bribery. Staff must immediately report any offer of in-game currency, items, real money, or other inducement in exchange for moderation favour;
• Confidentiality. Staff must not share moderation details, ticket contents, evidence, or reporter identity outside the staff team. Discussing live cases on Discord, in chat, or to friends is a serious breach;
• Audit trail. All moderation actions are logged with the staff member's identity. Staff must not act through other staff or Players to obscure their involvement;
• Power floor. Permanent bans require Head of Staff or Owner sign-off. IP bans require Head of Staff or Owner sign-off. Account-data exports require Owner sign-off;
• Off-duty conduct. Staff are bound by this Code in their personal conduct on official channels (Discord moderation, support emails) at all times. Disagreement with internal decisions is raised internally, not in public.

Breach of this Section by a staff member may result in suspension or removal from staff, and where conduct also breaches this Code as a Player, ordinary Code processes apply.

21. Confidentiality & Privacy of Reports

• The identity of a reporter is not shared with the reported Player;
• Ticket contents are visible only to the Player who opened the ticket and to staff handling it;
• Staff do not disclose moderation outcomes to other Players. If you reported a Player, you may receive a generic "thank you, action has been taken" — but not specifics;
• Personal data of Players is processed under our Privacy Policy;
• Where law-enforcement disclosure is required, only the minimum necessary information is shared, and where law permits we will inform the Player concerned.

22. Updates to This Code

This Code may be updated as the community grows and new patterns emerge. Material changes will be announced via in-game notification, email, or both. Continued participation in the Service after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance of the updated Code.

23. Contact

Questions about this Code, suggestions for improvements, or concerns about how it is being applied:

• Support Ticket (in-game)
• Email: [email protected]

Concerns about a specific moderation decision belong in the appeals process (Section 18). Concerns about a staff member's conduct should be addressed to [email protected] with subject "Staff Conduct Concern" — these go directly to Head of Staff or Owner.

See also: Gazette · Terms of Service · Privacy Policy · Game Manual