Rules of WoTmud

A place for Immortals of the game to post changes in policy or other relevant announcements for the game.
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Elysia
Posts: 7907
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Rules of WoTmud

Post by Elysia » Fri Apr 17, 2015 2:32 pm

The Five Rules

1) No Multiplaying. PERIOD.
If you are on the game in any form with more than one character at a time, even one is *linkless* and regardless of what computer the characters are playing from, ALL characters involved will be immediately demoted to level 1. Multiplaying includes switching between characters too quickly. When switching between characters on the game, you must wait:
  • 5 minutes between characters on the same side (Light/Seanchan or Dark)
  • 15 minutes between switching sides (Light/Seanchan <> Dark)
  • 15 minutes between switch to/from Known Darkfriend.
  • 15 minutes between switching immortal to mortal
Time is counted in real minutes and not affected by reboot or crashes.

If you make a mistake, contact an immortal in-game or via mail and log off all characters for 15 minutes. VPN and LAN usage are detailed in the "detailed rules" below.


2) Loopholes.
It is illegal to abuse/exploit loopholes in the game or code, and you are encouraged to report these loopholes. Loopholes are anything that doesn't work as advertised or lets you do things which you normally couldn't do, or makes an activity easier than it otherwise would be.

Any rewards earned from exploiting loopholes (equipment, points, or otherwise) will be revoked, and demotions up to a full zap are likely.


3) Role-playing violations rule.
Role playing on this mud is by choice. Quest Point (QP) rewards are given for role playing by immortals in charge of RP. Violations of role playing will result in QP deductions. Judgment of RP violations is at the sole discretion of the role-play staff (the "Watchers" clan).


4) Houseguest rule.
The immortal staff owns this mud and invite you to freely play here. Please keep in mind that you are a welcome guest and that you are expected to conduct yourself accordingly. All message areas, communications channels, and the very ability to play here are all privileges offered to you and may be withdrawn at any time for conduct unbecoming a houseguest. (This includes harassment of anyone else but does not necessarily include swearing). Any incidents which merit recourse to the authorities should be logged and reported by yourself. Any threatened or actual incidents which may, in your opinion, merit recourse to the authorities, are your responsibility to record and report as soon as possible.


5) Detailed Rules.
From time to time, less philosophical and more technical rules must be placed on the game due to the dynamic environment and unforeseen problems with code. These rules may be temporary in nature, but may hold for longer periods of time until the underlying cause is solved. These rules will be summarized on the Announcements forum on the game web site. You are required to read the forum before each login to make yourself aware of the latest information.

Unannounced changes to the game by immortals, including control of mobs, are expressly permissible.

Player killing and player stealing are legal but may have consequences under #3.

Punishment must be by a visible immortal or include notification of the immortal involved, along with the specific rule broken. You get one appeal to a higher immortal. There is no appeal from an Implementor.




Detailed/Situational Rules:
These detailed/situational rules are not intended to be exhaustive, but we detail common cases in order to be informative and make things fair for you. Usually, using good common-sense will prevail. Note that we don't engage with rules "lawyering" (ie, trying to negotiate the letter of the rules while breaking - in our view - the spirit of them): "lawyering" the rules leads to incredibly detailed and lengthy rules that, in our experience, don't actually work as intended. The real impact of that approach is that ever-more detailed rules spoil the fun of the game for most players, who are required to try to remember all of them and to constantly watch for new, increasingly arcane rules. In addition to being ineffective, this is not what most of us enjoy in a pastime.

Instead, we endorse the broader philosophy of the 5 Rules above. Our endorsement of fairly broad rules, combined with your good common sense, means WoTMUD is easy to play but you also won't have a step-by-step guide to every situation. So, we also put a good deal of effort into trying to be consistent and fair in our application of these rules.

As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself trying to "lawyer" the rules, then that's a good red flag for yourself to steer away from whatever action or situation is causing that lawyering.


LANs (required for multiple players from the same household or IP)
There is no multiplaying allowed in the Wheel of Time MUD (See rule #1!). One player can be online with one character at a time. However, in some cases there are multiple family members living in the same household who would like to play at the same time: we have this LAN (Local Area Network) policy for that scenario.

To register a LAN:
1) Mail the LAN Immortal of your choice your first name, and all the characters you play. Also include the first name of the person who would also like to play from your address, and all the characters they play.
2) WAIT. This is a very manual process to clear you (or not) for LAN play. Do not play any characters at the same time until you receive mail back saying that your LAN is approved for play. This approval should include the names of the people allowed to play, and the characters cleared to play. Otherwise this is multiplaying!

It should be noted that we clear characters for play, not players. If you create or obtain new characters, you will need to update your LAN clearance and WAIT until we confirm those characters have been added to the LAN. Once you're cleared, the 5/15 rules apply normally, and at no time is cross-race playing allowed, LAN or not.

As of this date, the only Immortal doing LAN clearances is Elysia.

Please use the following format:
LANowner: Elysia.
Player1: Elysia, Elysiatest, Elysiachannietest.
Player2: Ely, Elytest, Elyfctest.
New characters: Elysiachannietest, Elyfctest.


VPNs are discouraged, and at your own risk
If you use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) you run the risk of us not being able to tell if your characters are yours and if there is cheating associated with the VPN then your characters could end up unfortunately grouped with people other than you (there is just no way for us to tell!). For this reason, we discourage using a VPN to access the game.

If you must use a VPN, you should register a LAN for your characters so that the staff has a list.


Botting isn't permitted
Using 'bots' or 'botting', ie using client-side scripts to make your character play the game while you are not actually present at the keyboard yourself, to the benefit of you or others, isn't permitted. Scripts are okay, but you must be at the keyboard.


Names should be Wheel of Time-appropriate
Names on the Wheel of Time MUD should be appropriate to Robert Jordan's world. Names are to be a first name only as you can choose a last name or a title at level 20. Also names should only have the first letter capitalized. Names are to be actual names, not ideas, concepts, verbs, adjectives or anything that could be confused with mobiles or code in the game. Some examples of good names are Erengol, Arim, Galdor and Warlan. Some bad examples are Atom, DarkAngel, WolfBrother, You, BOBBY, Flamewielder, Justicebringer, Sword, Did, Spock & Bigass.

Characters on WoTMUD are also not allowed to use names from the book or any close deviation of the name. So MatrimCauthon or Matt or Perryn is not allowed. If you are in violation of any of these guidelines, you should quit now and create a character with a proper name. If you keep an improper name, the staff will remove you from the game. So doing this simple procedure now will save you some time and hassle.

If you are having trouble thinking up an acceptable name then just go on the web to http://wotmud.org/names where the custom-made 'Wheel of Time names generator' will make 100 random WoT-type names for you. They are not guaranteed to be perfect (random generators can come up with REALLY silly names too), but it should give you some good ideas.

Thanks for helping us keep to a high standard. Please enjoy playing the Wheel of Time MUD!


Don't reveal other people's alts
We encourage you to practice character separation (ie, play as your character would, and not your real-life persona). This leads to a much richer roleplaying experience. If you wish to reveal your alts to others, you may do so. However, you may not reveal another player's alts.


Equipment Return from PK is banned
Equipment return is forbidden: in an era of easy cross-side communication via Discord, this leads to too much trouble with players being harassed or made to feel bad for taking eq from PK. See below link for further details.
https://forums.wotmud.info/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=127965


Unique Items must be actively played

1) You are alt tied if you have a unique and must be active on the alt that has the unique. Exception being clan administration duties(clanning or ranking)
2) If you want to play an alt, you may store the unique in your clan chest and play alts. However, anyone in the clan may take an use the unique.
3) You cannot store a unique in R8 or personal rents
4) You may not pass uniques between your alts.

It would be against the spirit of the rules to transfer a unique cross-race and that unique would be removed. However, you can transfer it on the same side if you end up with the item. For this we would consider Light Side, Seanchan Side, and Dark Side all cross-race transfer.

No Reimbursements
There are no reimbursements so please don't ask for them. On the rare occasion that a bug causes equipment loss, a member of the staff may opt to reimburse at their discretion.


Clan Rules
Being in a clan comes with special bonuses and privileges that can impact other players and the world itself, and requires understanding the rules governing them. Hopefully, you'll find that they're common-sense and intuitive, but please familiarize yourself with them when joining a clan.

Clan Equipment.
You can issue clan trinkets for your own use only. You should not issue trinkets for any reason other than to wear them yourself.


Council Awarded Questpoints
Generally speaking, Clan Council members should limit their qp rewards to a maximum of 3 per task. If you choose to set a task you think is worth more than 3 qps then have it cleared by your clan Watcher prior to posting it.

Clan Council members may not reward for tasks that benefit the individual, clan or council member. If a task is set to obtain an item, the item must be destroyed or given to a high level mob. Clan Council members may not award qps to themselves.

If you are unsure about a particular task set or awarding of qps to your clan members then ask your clan Watcher before doing so, and we are happy to work with you and clarify.

Council may award each clan member:
  • 30 qps per 6 months for completion of clan quests.
  • 5 qps bonus qps per month, e.g. killing a member of a specific race, clan, faction, in a certain (set of) zone(s) and so on.
  • 3 qps per month max for treasurer deposits, recommended as 1 qp per 1k gold crowns.

Council Terms
A Council term is considered 6 months and there is a base reward for performing these functions of 10 quest points per term. If you are active with your clan and write quests and awards for your clan to match the award(s) possible above then this number will rise.

Track your term and activities and when you update your clan quests also notify Immortals or your clan Watcher of the appropriate links.


Declanning
Each clan can make their own declanning rules. However, if there are no clan rules in place then declannings will be handled by these default declanning rules.

A declan vote may be called by one Councillor, or three clan members. A declan vote must be held for a valid reason; I don't like Bobby is not considered a valid reason. Your clan Watcher will determine if something is a valid reason.

Prior to the vote, the roster of currently active members will be recorded. Another imm will be appointed as the second for the vote. Votes should be mailed to the clan Watcher and their second.

A person will be declanned if 75% of the active clan vote in favor of declanning. A vote not cast counts as a yes to declanning vote.


Only Active Characters May Vote
While every clanned member has earned the right to vote, there is an expectation that you must play your character in order to vote. Watchers may intervene in the voting process as needed to avoid "forum warriors" playing an unfair role.


Clan Masters
Master mobs:
  • A clan Master may order a mob to follow himself or herself only. He/she may not order a mob to follow any other player or mob.
  • If using issuable mobs, you may only issue one at a time.
  • Outside of issuable mobs, a clan master may lead as many mobs as he/she likes to any one spot (stacking) within their home zones. The code will not allow a master to lead more than one mob at a time out of its zone of origination, so stacking elsewhere should not be an issue.
Retooled items:
  • Items which are retooled must fit in the world created by Robert Jordan (no OOC or silly retools!)
  • Items must NOT be renamed to resemble another in-game item
  • Use normal capitalization and punctuation (e.g., don't make the name ALL CAPS, please) so it fits well into the existing world

Multiple Characters in the Same Clan are not permitted
Only one character per clan is allowed. In case of the White Tower and the Ajahs, you can have an Aes Sedai in each of the Ajahs, as well as a Novice OR Accepted (we consider the Ajahs separate clans, and separate from "White Tower").


Quests can only be done once
Unless otherwise specified, quests for quest points may only be completed once.


You must personally earn scalps you turn in
You are only to gain qp from scalps that you have earned. Turning in scalps that you have not earned for qps will result in you losing 10 times the amount of qp you illegally gained.

Examples:
  • You did not earn a scalp if you randomly run across a corpse and decide to scalp it and had no relation to its death, or similarly if you find a scalp of an enemy hidden somewhere and weren't involved in killing that person.
  • You are not to turn in scalps or transfer scalps to other people from people blantantly sacrificing themselves for a reset. Best practice here is to scalp and destroy the scalp. However if a player is electing to reset through PK, his opposition is eligible to claim the qps for his scalps.

Clanned Characters must be declanned first in order to share, trade, or give them away
A clanned character should always be in the hands of one player. Sharing a clanned character is not allowed, nor is trading a clanned character. Clanned characters who are shared or who have been traded must be declanned first. (They can apply to join the clan again, of course.)


Clan Transfers are permitted, with some restrictions
We do allow players to transfer between clans with some qps intact, with some strict requirements to avoid clan-hopping since clan identity is supposed to be pretty persistent. See https://forums.wotmud.info/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13289


Warrants

In general, you may warrant anyone who breaks the rules within your nation. You may not warrant for anything that occurs outside of your territory (with a couple of common-sense exceptions, outlined below). The clan/national boundaries are defined by the border stones in-game.

You may also warrant for any attacks on your person, regardless of where they occur — except when face-off accidentally puts someone on you who did not intend to attack you (e.g., if you are grouped with a criminal and the justice clan attacks that person, and face-off puts them on you: that isn’t really an attack on you; though you are welcome to defend yourself freely).

Pardons may be requested and there must be a straightforward process to obtain one, once a reasonable amount of time has passed between the warrant and the pardon request. If you deny a pardon request, please give the person an idea of how long they must wait for one.

Exceptions to general warranting rules
  1. Darkfriends and Male Channelers can, and should, be warranted once discovered, even if they haven’t yet committed a crime in your nation. They are a threat to everyone.
  2. “Suspected Darkfriends” - if a person is under suspicion for giving aid to the Shadow, then you are permitted to warrant that person as a “Suspected Darkfriend” out of an abundance of caution, regardless of whether the offense took place within your borders or not
    • Most commonly, this can happen when a person attacks a criminal while the criminal is fighting Shadowspawn: e.g., a Child of Light attacking an Aes Sedai while the Aes Sedai is fighting a Dreadlord in the Blight. This is outside their clan boundaries, but the Shienaran Lancers might wish to warrant the Child of Light as a Suspected Darkfriend in this case. If there are no other suspicious incidents, then the person may request a pardon after a reasonable period of time.
  3. Blanket warrants for very specific RP situations (see Blanket Warrant section below).
Banishments

You may also banish people within your nation. But the banishment should be a reasonable length and not a substitute for a warrant.

Warrant Appeals

A criminal seeking to appeal the warrant (because it broke these rules) must first appeal to the clan. Only then may they appeal to the Watchers.

Hunting Criminals

Hunting should favor justice clans, and so criminals don’t get a free pass to flee to other nations. If you are pursuing a criminal from your homeland, neutral or allied lands, you may continue to chase that person with no repercussions if they flee into another nation (and nations may not make laws to block this serving of justice). Note that you may not initiate hunting the criminal in another nation’s territory without a treaty (you will be subject to being warranted for causing violence, if that nation deems fit). In scenarios where the criminal claims they have been unjustly attacked, the burden of proof is on the criminal (not the person trying to serve justice) to prove it.

For example:
Scenario A.) An Illian Companion is hunting a Defender of the Stone who has just raided Illian. The Defender flees to Andor, which does not have a treaty with Illian or prefers to maintain neutrality. The Companion may pursue, attack, and kill the Defender within Andor. There is no safety granted to the Defender by fleeing to another nation and trying to hide behind their laws or treaty.

Scenario B.) An Illian Companion sees a wanted Defender sitting in Caemlyn and attacks him. The Defender may justifiably seek redress with Andor for an unprovoked attack on Andoran soil.

Scenario C.) An Illian Companion is hunting a Defender of the Stone who has just raided Illian. The Defender flees to Andor. A Queen’s Guard is awake, and does not like the disturbance. They tell both the Companion and Defender to get out of Andor. This is well within their rights (and it is the Defender’s responsibility to leave Andor while being hunted by the Companion).
Blanket Warrant Rules

What is a blanket warrant? It's a warrant that is issued without a player taking any action in violation of a clan's laws within that clan's borders. For example, a Child of Light warranting an Aes Sedai because she is a channeler, or a Seanchan warranting someone who refuses to sewar the Oaths, is a blanket warrant.

The blanket warrant rules are:
  1. Issuing a "blanket warrant" requires you attempt to RP, in person, with the person first to give them an opportunity to understand the issue/conflict, and give them a chance to resolve it amicably.
  2. The only exception is for MCs, who can and should be warranted based on evidence of channeling.
Why? We're doing this because we hear about confusion from players (especially newer ones) when warrants are issued without any interaction between the players.

Some examples (some real, some made up):

Example 1:
I'm a Seanchan who narrates for people to swear the Oaths or be warranted.

Analysis: We'd say this is not ok because it is not personalized interaction with a specific person, and also because it is not in-person.
Example 2:
I'm a Seanchan who finds a Gleeman in-person and demands they swear the Oaths or be warranted. They refuse.

Analysis: Great, warrant them.
Example 3:
I'm a Child of Light and see an Aes Sedai on who. I send her tells calling her a witch and then warrant her.

Analysis: We'd say this is not ok because it wasn't in person, and also because I didn't give her an opportunity to be tortured to death in Amador and respun without the ability to channel.
Example 4:
I'm a Child of Light who sees an Aes Sedai and say she's a witch. She keeps leaving the room and ignoring me before I tell her she must come to Amador to be burned at the stake and respun without the ability to channel. So I yell it instead. She ignores me.

Analysis: Great, warrant her. You tried to RP in person and resorted to yells when you couldn't continue in the same room.
Example 5:
I'm an Aes Sedai who locates a Dragonsworn, and suspects the Dragonsworn is a male channeler. I start to RP with them in their room about why the Dragonsworn are a menace to society and they must quit the organization. I notice they are wielding a dagger and suspect they're a sleep/stabber. I retreat several rooms and start interacting over yells instead. They refuse to leave the Dragonsworn.

Analysis: Great, you tried to RP in person but backed away a bit for your own safety and continued the RP over yells. Warrant them.
Example 6:
I'm a Seanchan who enters a zone and yells for people to swear the Oaths or be warranted. I know a Queen's Guard is in the zone and warrant them after no response.

Analysis: We'd say this is not ok because it wasn't personalized interaction, and you made no attempt to conduct RP in-person either.
Lastly, a reminder we will reward QPs for good RP logs! If you have good interactions related to blanket warrants, please post them in the RP forum.

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