A) Consent-based roleplay is the system that we base our MUSH on. In short - if you don't want to roleplay it, you don't have to. HOWEVER, this does not shield you from consequences - if you roleplay robbing a bank, you can't refuse to roleplay going to jail for it, for instance. This principle is often abreviated ICA->ICC, or In-Character Actions lead to In-Character Consequences.
A) This is one of the major exceptions to ICA->ICC. Unless you do something extremely stupid, and usually have a history of doing such, and an admin clears it, your character can't be forced to die. However, as ICA->ICC, you can still get hurt really really badly, and in some cases get dragged off to rot in someone's jail for a while. While we won't destroy your character, you will be suffering if you do something suffering-worthy.
A) EXTREME and repeated stupidity. Extreme and repeated violation of orders or policy (i.e. being in the Union and walking up to an orphanage and executing everyone inside will probably get you a trip to the gallows right quick). Defection between the Union and Confederacy (both sides execute traitors), though simply leaving the faction won't lose condeath in most cases. Getting thrown out of your faction may also lose you condeath. In general, it's very hard to lose condeath if you have some common sense - at the time of this writing we may have done it once or twice out of two years of operation and probably around 200 players.
A) Consent-based capture is similar to consent-based death - you can't be captured if you don't want to. In fact, you usually NEED SPECIAL PERMISSION to get captured - see board 12 and the news files for details. This is because capture RP, unless it's planned and usually has a planned ending, tends to be a long and drawn-out affair that's can be boring, tense, and angsty for many of those involved.
A) Typically the same things as consent-based death; however, this is a lesser punishment and is easier to get. That said, it still doesn't happen very often at all.
A) There's a lot of ways to get RP. Some of them include...
* Use the RP channel.
* Use the RP Requests board.
* Poke around on your faction's OOC channel.
* Read '+help +status' and '+help rprequest' to use these commands to get attention.
* Walk around on the grid and poke people to ask if they feel like doing something.
It also helps if you apply into a faction (unaffiliated characters for new players have a particularly hard time - the factions are designed to support RP). Often applying into the characters in an active cast is a great way for new players to establish themselves.
A) There's a few things. Try starting some yourself - big or small. Sometimes things vary a LOT in terms of activity. This is especially true very early in the morning American time (especially after 12 AM Pacific) - it's difficult to get much action at these hours. Sometimes it's best to just try later. Sometimes you might also want to change your tone - sometimes people will think you're DEMANDING RP, which is almost always a turnoff, as opposed to simply asking for it.
A) Twinking is also known as powergaming, metagaming, etc. It's a fairly broadly defined term, but in general it means either to oversell yourself and your powers, abuse your powers, or attempt to force control over a situation on someone else. This is a fairly broadly defined topic, and what one might consider twinking might not be. However, extreme examples are generally agreed upon by most people to in fact be twinking, and if you're that bad you can probably expect to get in trouble. You can also expect to get in trouble if you attempt to test how far you can push the admin on this and stay just on the side of the rules where you're technically in compliance - the spirit counts, too, and admin will probably intervene - possibly with very severe reprimands (including in extreme cases firing from the character or the MUSH outright) - if you do this chronically. That said we try to resolve twinking with negotiation when necessary and possible.