Literal Application of rules vs Spirit of game

Site Admin Joined: Nov 12, 2009 Posts: 472

....Literal application of the rules vs. Spirit of the rules....

In the past while, several players seem to take the attitude that if something isn't explicitly stated as wrong in the rules, that means it is ok to do. This isn't the way the DMs want to run things.

We do not want to have to police everything on the server at all times. We go online as DMs in order to advance plot and solve people's problems, not as rule police. If we must, we sometimes need to step in and actually clarify rules or make players aware of things, but if we continue to have players who say that something is right because it hasn't been spelled out as being wrong, we are forced to create more and more laws for people to follow.

If you wish us to apply the rules literally to everything, then we will have to delevel everyone we suspect of exploiting or breaking rules. This would cause a huge amount of animosity between the players and the DMs. However, if you look at the intent of a rule, or the spirit of it, and see that the rule was made for a purpose - and figure out what that purpose was - then you can apply that "spirit" to the situation you are in and decide whether or not something is against the spirit of the rule.

The spirit of the laws of the server usually boils down to if the other players aren't having fun with your actions, then stop what you are doing. Try to be self-policing in your actions and ask yourself why you are pushing the edges of the rules. Is it to challenge the rules, win against the DMs, tick people off, what? If you can't find a good reason for pushing the rule, then don't.

If you have a question about a grey area in the rules, talk to a DM, email one of us, or post before you attempt to use it.

Site Admin Joined: Nov 12, 2009 Posts: 472

In response to many players coming here from the multitude of other worlds, there are some things that you will have to consider when making a character.
We do have rules which are much more strict than many worlds when it comes to unconventional characters. While we understand that many of you may wish to continue a character from another world that was of a different subrace, or a new race altogether, here we reserve those for people who have been here awhile and are proven role players. While it may be possible that after time you will be able to play a given race, with all it's powers and drawbacks, we do ask that when a character comes here they are fairly stock. If you are unsure why your player may lose abilities or such, consider that being pulled into a world such as this can do weird things to a person. When you step through that rift, weird and wondrous things can happen to you. You may be cured of lycanthropy, or restored from undeath. You may feel that you have been permanently polymorphed into a standard race, unable to dispell it currently. Please understand that we respect that you wish to continue playing a character a certain way, but also respect that we have a certain vision for our world as well.

Please understand that when you are a part of this world creating things such as secret societies or stories based in the world that may cast certain societies in a bad light for your backstory is something that should always be passed through a dm. We have a large history for our world, and we've put a lot of time into giving it depth and life that we hope you will enjoy playing in. This does give us some attachment to the characters we create in it. Just as you wouldn't wish another character creating a story without your permission that you murdered their parents, we also would like to be asked if you want to create a story with our characters (the npc's of the world).

While this may seem like heavy handed control, it's really meant as a guiding hand to keep the world running as it is, and not suddenly throwing in new things that no one else has seen.

We hope you understand why we have these rules and limitations in place, and we hope that you understand why we may deny certain character races/abilities if and when you ask for them.