Expanded Rules

Keywords

"Sales" - any type of sale mission from CEO businesses (crates), Motorcycle Club (MC) businesses (coke, cash, meth, weed), Gunrunning (bunkers), Smuggler's Run (air freight), and After Hours (nightclub goods). VIP work and MC contracts are also considered sales.

"Cartel Staff" - include Leaders, Supervisors, and Coordinators. Their names are visible on the right hand side of Discord, at the top of the list.

"Official Sessions" - include SockOtter, TerminalBunny and CheddarMouse.

Important Links

Main Rules

Guides and FAQ

Full List of Banned Crews and Banned Members

Rule 1 Expanded - No Griefing or Player-vs-Player Combat

This rule applies to Cartel members in every public session of GTA Online and is absolute. It does not apply to invite-only, crew-only, friend-only sessions, or any session in which Sales cannot be done. This includes deathmatches, adversary, and game modes.

Required Game Settings in every public session:

• Yacht Defenses must be turned OFF
• PvP targeting should be set to "attackers" mode via the interaction menu

Acts of griefing can include (but are not limited to):

• Attacking Sales, Sourcing and Supply runs
• Attacking during freeroam events (e.g. Hunt the Beast) without consent
• Failing to keep a safe distance from other players while they run a Source, Supply or Sale Run
• Retaliations for prior incidents against you
• The use of external tools (such as "mod menus") or exploiting game bugs ("glitches") in GTA Online to kill, frustrate or interfere with other players
• Any action which may be interpreted as hostile, such as:
  • Have your homing weapons lock onto other players
  • Shooting weapons randomly in the vicinity of other players
  • Flying your aircraft closely to another
  • Aggressive driving which may suggest you are a threat
  • Knocking down other players in a vehicle or otherwise annoying them

Proximity mine notice

Please avoid all use of proximity mines (hand-thrown and vehicle-dropped) in our sessions. There is never an absolute need to use them, and they are extremely prone to accidents, including destroyed Sale Vehicles. 

If you drop a proximity mine by accident, notify anyone nearby and destroy it as soon as it is safe to do so.

Rule 1 exceptions:

1. The PvP activity has been arranged and consented by everyone involved, and you have announced your intention to everyone in the Lobby via in-game text chat.

• This applies to short, specific skirmishes only and we do not allow large-scale or long-term PvP in public sessions - the more people join and leave during PvP activity, the more likely it is to become a problem.

2. For minor nuisances (running down with cars, throwing tear gas, etc. but no actual deaths), you know the person and know they won't mind . 

• Anybody else in the area must be aware that the PvP is consensual, and if the person objects you could be considered in violation of Rule 1.
  

3. You need to defend yourself or others, or are otherwise detecting a clear and unmistakable threat, such as:

• Any player opening fire on others with definite intent to kill
• Any player attempting to disrupt a Sale, Source, or Supply run in any way
• A non-SAFE player who should not be in the session and is openly hostile towards SAFE players if they are targeting Sales. Always rely on votekicking as the primary method for removing hostile randoms, followed by tagging our Host Team to restart the session if the votekick fails. 
• PvP is only to be used as a last resort method, and only if a member of Cartel Staff says it's okay.

If a non-Cartel player begins a CEO/MC/Gunrunning Sale before they are kicked from the session, let them finish the Sale peacefully so long as they are doing it in a reasonable amount of time. GTA Cartel never attack Sales.

Even if you intend to PvP by one of the above exceptions, please declare this to the lobby beforehand.

Additional Notes:

• Remember that when you are in our crew, you represent us, and we don't want you to give other players a bad impression of us
• If you have an incident with another player within our crew or other grievance, report them by finding their profile on gtacartel.net
• Any time there is a kill in a SAFE session, both killer and victim are encouraged to openly declare what happened to put other members' minds at ease - if there is a dispute, they must keep their argument private, and if they cannot settle their differences, should file a report via gtacartel.net, giving full details
  • Do not take revenge for a previous kill unless you are still under attack. Be the bigger person.
• Please consider that some players might do something that looks hostile, but this hostility is unintentional:
  • Give the other player a chance to explain themselves
  • If you have doubts about a particular player, make a note of it, but do not act on this until you are certain that they cannot be trusted
  • Report suspicious behaviour to a Leader or Supervisor for consideration, or report the player by finding their profile on gtacartel.net
• Attacking other players' Sale Runs is strictly forbidden and considered worse than anything else you could do - if you do this you are very likely to be banned from the Cartel

Non-exception PvP

If you want some PvP action, consider starting an invite only / friends only / crew only lobby, where Sales and Sourcing cannot be done. Cartel PvP rules don't apply in these sessions.

If you wish to participate in PvP activities in non-Cartel public lobbies, you must:

• Remove all your friends on Social Club who are in GTA Cartel
• Leave the GTA Cartel crew on Social Club
• Know that you will have to reapply entirely if you decide to return to GTA Cartel

These steps are important as they will significantly reduce the chances that you will be automatically matched into sessions containing GTA Cartel members. This also severs all links between you and Cartel. Some groups and individuals have blamed GTA Cartel for actions of one individual in the past.

Rule 4 Expanded - Keep Your Profile Clean

Don't be part of any official Rockstar crews such as IGN, and remove friends who are part of the following crews. This includes both active and secondary crews.

Tip: These crews tags can easily be spotted in Social Club by their pointy left-side tag. Every 3-letter crew is included, so they are easy to spot.

Full list of banned crews:

But why?

These crews have literally millions of members (IGN is largest with over 4.5 million) and R* Matchmaking likes to put people in the same sessions as their crewmates. 

One IGN in a session can quickly become three, then five, then ten (sometimes in under five minutes). This means we lose control of the session and it becomes dangerous to remain there. Sales become impossible, and then there's no point in Cartel players sticking around.

How do I find my friends in these crews?
Watch this GIF to view the crews your friends belong to. The only way this can be viewed is in-game. 

The Holy Link shows all crews your friends are a part of, including secondaries. It does not tell you which friends are in which crews, unfortunately. You will need to check friends one-by-one to delete the secondary members. 

Keeping smaller friend lists makes cleaning secondaries much simpler. Cartel staff may request a screenshot of this "Holy Link" as part of your application, or during your membership. They need to see the top few rows of crews and your Social Club ID in the top corner.

If you choose to keep your current crew as your Active Crew, you will need to able to vouch that they will be friendly towards us if they are accidentally matched into our session (the same applies to your friends, too). You could be held responsible for any problems they may cause, so be very careful in which crews you are in and which friends you keep.

You need to delete trolls, people you don't know well enough to vouch for, and especially delete anyone who is in a generic crew such as IGN. An application with generic crew friends will be rejected until these friends are deleted or have left the problem crews. You will also have to wait on a Leader or Supervisor re-evaluating your application.

Additional banned crews:

• [XFCX] FIGHTCLUBUA
• [817C] 817CH1N MC

All crews trying to impersonate us are considered banned crews. A full list of crews trying to impersonate us is here.

Banned Players:

We do not allow certain players to be on any GTA Cartel Member's friend lists. This is due to past attempts at griefing, trolling or severely undermining the core values of the crew. The full list of banned players is here.

What's the point in this rule?

This is a very important rule because your friends could be matched into our sessions automatically through you. Even if your friend is friendly, their friends and crewmates could be matched into our sessions, and not all of them will be friendly. Any non-Cartel friends you decide to keep will be your responsibility. Remember that even that one guy who hasn't logged into GTA in months could return one day and compromise our friendly session.

Rule 5 Expanded - Vouching & Custom Crews

The Vouching System

Vouching for your non-SAFE friends to temporarily play in our Community Sessions (never in the Official Sessions) is something the Cartel allows, but it is not encouraged. You shouldn't vouch for a friend if they are not interested in applying and joining us fully. The full vouching criteria are part of the main rules page.

Custom Crews

Maybe you want to play in Cartel sessions but you really love your custom crew-colour T-shirt. Maybe the Cartel logo doesn't look as good on your sick, tuned-up muscle cars as your homemade one.

If you want to keep using your custom crew colours and logos in our sessions, that's okay - you can start what's known as an Unofficial Cartel Crew. There are some special requirements for an unofficial crew to follow:

• You must already be a verified member of one of our Cartel crews
• Your unofficial Cartel crew's tag must be SAFE, the same as our Official Cartel Crews, if it's to be used in our sessions.
  • It is also recommended that your crew name or description mentions Cartel, for clarity
• All members of your unofficial crew must be verified Cartel members in one of our subcrews - this means you must kick somebody from your unofficial crew if they leave or are kicked from official Cartel crews
• You make sure your crew is obviously different from an official Cartel crew (do not use our logos, colours, branding, name, etc. in a way that may imply your crew is official)
• You will keep your member count below 50.
• If you transfer ownership of your unofficial crew, you will make sure that all parties involved are aware of these terms
  • You will only transfer ownership after informing all Cartel members involved in your crew and alerting the Cartel Staff

Rule 6 Expanded - Discord, Social Club and Reddit

DISCORD
Participation on our Discord server is absolutely mandatory, so please make sure your nickname on our Discord server matches your Rockstar Social Club ID exactly at all times. If you are not found on our Discord server, you will be removed from the crew.

On Discord you must keep up to date with posts in the #announcements channel.

It's extremely important for all Cartel members to pay close attention to Discord if we want to keep our sessions safe and friendly. While playing in a SAFE session, you must be able to see the #cheddarmouse, #sockotter, #terminalbunny, or #community channel, depending on the session you are in. You must be ready and able to respond to events occurring on Discord at any time while in GTA Online.

If a Cartel Staff member suspects people in-game are not paying attention to Discord (missing votekicks, ignoring randoms and risking the session), there may be an event called a check-in. If a check-in is launched, at least one notification will be posted in the appropriate Discord channel (#cheddarmouse, #sockotter, or #terminalbunny) and you will see the normally invisible #check-in channel. Full instructions on what to do will be visible in this channel, and you must respond within 15 minutes or you will have missed the check-in. Multiple missed check-ins will result in being removed from the crew. The check-in procedure is also elaborated on our Guides and FAQ page.

Note: Setting yourself to "do not disturb" mode on Discord will give no audio for notifications.

Rule 9 Expanded - Rockstar's Rules

Never publicly talk about any GTA Online glitches, mods or exploits

We do not break any Rockstar Terms & Conditions in the way we operate. Generally, Cartel members dislike mods, exploits and rule-breaking behaviour. We want to play the game smart, but not by cheating the system.

Absolutely anything external to GTA (hardware or software) which affects the way GTA Online operates can be considered an "external tool" in this context and you should not discuss them on our Discord. This includes:

• Popular mod menus
• Whitelisting software
• Firewall rules

This also includes glitches and RP/GTA$ related game bugs. 

Posting this kind of information anywhere that Rockstar could potentially see can be counted as violating this rule.

What you say to others regarding these things privately (anything said in-game or via Social Club is not private) is your business, and we take no involvement.

Important Note: This Rule is in addition to Rule 1, which could also violate Rockstar's rules. If you are upset with the actions of another member, please report them to us before you consider a report to Rockstar, in case we are able to resolve it more thoroughly without potentially bringing the entire crew under suspicion for their actions.

Additional Notes

Downloading Discord Instructions:

• Download the Discord Windows App
• Create an account
• Verify your email address
• Join our Discord server
  

Changing your Discord nickname:
In the app, on the left hand side, right-click on the GTA Cartel Logo, and select Change Nickname - this will not affect your nickname in other Discord servers.

• Make sure that your Discord Nickname matches your Social Club ID exactly (Nothing extra, same capitalisations - we may need to copy and paste your name to Social Club and be able to find you immediately)
• You may only change your nickname while unverified on the GTA Cartel Discord - if you change your Social Club ID later, only a Leader or Supervisor will be able to change it on Discord for you.

Alternately, you can use the command /nick and your nickname in the #introduce_yourself or #applicant_support channels to change your server nickname.