Time of Unparalleled Darkness

As we gear up for the release of the first IC hub, I wanted to open the floor for discussion of what we would like our general rules for conduct and etc to look like.

Some considerations:

What would we like to have in the general disclaimer? I'd like to point to NWN EE's M rating generally and specifically - some servers target a PG13 rating and I don't intend to hobble us that way.

What things are fine? What things aren't?

How do we want to handle it when people do things that aren't cool?

It might help to have a section briefly touching on the setting / theme and laying out some sort of expectations of appropriateness from the start so there's less of a potential "it's gothic horror, anything goes, deal with it" thing going on.

Swearing allowed but keep it tasteful not just "Fuck fuck fuckity fuck." (If you do that my only response is: https://i.imgflip.com/55mecr.png), I would however have a hard no at any real world racism/homophobia. Other than that, I'd say no ERP but mention of relationships and sex is fine just as long as it's not the entire PCs reason for existing. Other than that ingame, I'd say Drugs/Brothels/IC Racism in terms of Barovian distrust of Fey and Dwarves is fine, Basically anything goes so long as it's respectful not over the top while keeping within the M rating so to speak.

Aurelia Haeryn wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 1:39 pm It might help to have a section briefly touching on the setting / theme and laying out some sort of expectations of appropriateness from the start so there's less of a potential "it's gothic horror, anything goes, deal with it" thing going on.

Agreed. Managing expectations is important and the controversies other servers have had, have largely come from instances where players were given content that they did not expect to have to deal with, and didn't want to.

Content warnings can be used for plots that go into things that are above and beyond the general setting, and I think that would be a good practice, but we should probably decide in general what kind of things we do and don't want to see in more general RP/public view.

The ESRB rating description seems a good starting point:

This is a role-playing game in which players can engage in Dungeons & Dragons-style campaigns in the world of the Forgotten Realms. From a third-person perspective, players explore fantasy environments and use swords, axes, arrows, and magic to battle various enemies (e.g., monsters, demons, humans). Combat can be somewhat frenetic, highlighted by impact sounds and large blood-splatter effects. Some attack moves cause enemies to explode into blood, bones, and small pieces of flesh. One scene depicts several corpses and a severed head impaled on spikes; large blood stains appear on the ground and near the corpses. During the course of the game, players can visit brothels and interact with prostitutes (though no sexual activity is depicted); dialogue includes entreaties such as “Have you come to sample the delights of our company in the backroom. . .”; “Let's knock boots, honey”; “Perhaps we could…retire to your bedchambers, my lady?”

The game is rated M, with the descriptors: "Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Violence"

We should probably reiterate it.

Some Ravenloft specific concerns that we should decide what we think about:

1. Barovian xenophobia/racism
2. Torture scenes, this seems like itd happen often enough with the garda
3. MPC encounters and the dangers of transformations/etc against a characters will (ie, becoming afflicted with lycanthropy)
4. Sexisms inherent in medieval culture

Generally speaking, I would be very careful about depictions of racism and sexism - if we openly embrace that kind of RP, I think we will very quickly be attracting the wrong kind of roleplaying. On the other hand, it's a part of the setting, especially in places like Falkovnia.

Wilkins1952 wrote:I would however have a hard no at any real world racism/homophobia.

Definitely agreed. We don't need to breach the fourth wall with this stuff.

Wilkins1952 wrote: Other than that, I'd say no ERP but mention of relationships and sex is fine just as long as it's not the entire PCs reason for existing

On this, I'm of the opinion that what people do in private is their own business, so long as it is, truly, in private. I don't want to see that stuff in public though.

If we make it so all closed houses are plot locked and unable to be picked without a DM present I'd be okay with allowing whatever in those places. Though there is always the risk that someone sneaks inside. And that could cause a whole mess of a situation. Solution to that might just be to set something silly like a -100 Stealth Malus to anyone attempting to sneak inside a player home.

wilkins1952 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 2:00 pm If we make it so all closed houses are plot locked and unable to be picked without a DM present I'd be okay with allowing whatever in those places. Though there is always the risk that someone sneaks inside. And that could cause a whole mess of a situation. Solution to that might just be to set something silly like a -100 Stealth Malus to anyone attempting to sneak inside a player home.

I'm of the opinion that people whom sneak into places are opting in to whatever's going on there - be it ERP, grotesque torture, or even worse, people playing RAID: Shadow Legends.

But we can include that in the rules. Ie, something like "players are asked to get consent for content that goes above and beyond the general content warning of the server, but if you sneak in or are otherwise uninvited you've brought it on yourself." Probably could word it 10x better than that, but that kind of idea.

(I mean, the other alternative is we never let anyone sneak everywheres, or we don't allow consenting players to have higher stakes stuff like torture, and I'd rather not rule out more adult content where people are consenting)

A warning beforehand also works yeah and allows for more potential RP. I can agree with that it's the better solution.

I think the fair compromise with regards to that is to say that player-owned and faction-owned locations are places that you may encounter heavier stuff and while affirmative consent should be received from active participants, if you sneak around to spy or whatever, then you take the risk you may be spying on the more adult content.

Maiyannah wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 1:50 pm

1. Barovian xenophobia/racism
2. Torture scenes, this seems like itd happen often enough with the garda
3. MPC encounters and the dangers of transformations/etc against a characters will (ie, becoming afflicted with lycanthropy)
4. Sexisms inherent in medieval culture

Generally speaking, I would be very careful about depictions of racism and sexism - if we openly embrace that kind of RP, I think we will very quickly be attracting the wrong kind of roleplaying. On the other hand, it's a part of the setting, especially in places like Falkovnia.

2) Especially seems like if it's allowed and people want that, it's done in some limited capacity and not torture porn that gets pushed on an entire area.

3) I guess would be good for it to be known ahead of time if there were risks of that, even if it's in vague terms to not spoil things entirely.

I'm not really sure if that also covers MPC stuff in terms of behaviour, stuff like near exclusively constantly dropping on the same players to the point they can't really functionally do anything because a group of MPCs are treating it like Fallout Online.