An online roleplay server is a place where many people come together. And like every place in the world a roleplay server needs some rules if there are more then a certain number of people.
It is no easy task to compile a set of “laws” for a virtual gaming space, cause the expectations, possibilitys and limitations differ very heavily from what we experience in our everyday life.
Basic Rules
- Initial thought
Ingame characters represent human beings. Human beings still are human beings when they “are” an ingame character and therefor characters should be basically treated like human beings.
It must be taken into consideration that when looking at the specific rules and goals of the game it may be part of the game, and therefor allowed, to attack, kill, steal, harass, etc. - Decisions
The staff of the shard, Head GM, GMs and Counselors have to explain decisions (Punishments, alterations of the world, NPC populations changes, etc.) on public demand. They should use the message boards of the shard to explain decisions. - Votings
Players have the right to call a vote any time. Either to revert a decision made by the staff or to enact a player law.
Allowed to vote are all active players that have been online in the last 30 days on the day when the voting is set up.
A decision is made by simple majority but at least 20 persons must attend.
The head GM has 20 votes, GMs have 10 votes, Counselors have 5 votes.
The voting should be, as much as this can be technically done, by ballot.
Player laws can only affect areas that are “under protection” (e.g. cities) or interactions between players.
Player laws can only contain rules that can be technically realized. - Hardwareplatform
If any of the physical foundations (e.g. machine or network access) of the game is removed or ceases to be the Head GM has to do his or her best to find replacement, for instance a new provider. - Game Data
Allthough the staff of the shard is responsible for it’s general development, basic themes and the direction the world takes, noone actually “ownes” the data of the game.
The Head GM is responsible to keep the data save and under discretion as long as he or she is Head GM.
The Head GM is not allowed to give the data away to other people. - Game Mastering
The staff of the shard has to take players wishes and especially player laws in consideration when developing and directing the world.
The staff of the shard has to keep up the general setting and directions of world development when implementing changes and/or running quests.
If the Head GM wishes to step back the players have the right to vote for another Head GM.
Only if none of the former GMs volunteers for Head GM position active players that have the technical understanding can volunteer for Head GM position.
| Specific Laws |
- Character Names
You are asked to choose names that fit into a medieval roleplaying world.
If you want to, you can choose your real name as character name.
Names of famous characters like “Donald Duck”, “Jerry Cotton”, “Gandhi”, etc. are not allowed and will be changed immediately.
Titles like “Lady”, “Sir”, “The great”, are not allowed upon character creation.
Titles will be awarded from the system or from GMs later in the gaming world. - Player Killing
No random Player Killing is allowed. You must roleplay a murderer if you so choose to murder others. - Roleplaying
You should Roleplay at all times. If you HAVE to go OOC (Out Of Character), Please do so away from masses of players.
Beeing OOC will be allowed during ingame corporate activities. - Macroing
Many a task in our world may become a bit boring after a while, like mining ore or chopping wood. There are sidekicks out there to free you of repetitive mouseclicking and you are allowed to use these programms.
But, unattended macroing is not allowed, e.g. mining tons of ore while you sleep. This wil be checked every once in a while and caught macroers will be jailed and may get banned. - Cheating
UOX is a GPL project in it’s early state and therefor may have many bugs.
Using these bugs to your personal advantage is very unsocial and considered cheating.
For example, if you find a chest that spawns 400 gold every time you stand in it and eat an apple, don’t go running to buy apples. Page a GM, send a mail to the staff and avoid the chest like an icecube avoids hell.
Caught cheaters will be jailed and may get banned. - Harassment
Harassment is not allowed.
Because “harassment” is hard to define there will be at least three warnings.
Simply calling someone a name one time is not considered harassing, following someone around and calling names repetitive is considered harassing.
Basically if someone asks you to stop what your doing to him or her you should take stopping that into close consideration
After the third warning the player in question may be jailed and may get banned.
These laws where inspired by an essay of Raphael Koster.Note:
The content of this page is considered “public content”.
You are allowed to use it as fits your needs.