Vulgarity

Overview

As a noble, you can expect to be treated with respect and dignity, and expect certain manners from your peers. That does not mean they can not be offensive or they can not backstab you, but it does mean their manner of speech and behaviour should stand above the common, vulgar peasants.

You can mark another noble's words as vulgar and unbefitting of his class, and they will be forwarded to several randomly selected distinguished nobles for a short peer-review. If they agree on your assessment, the vulgar noble will lose a point of honour for behaving in a non-noble way. If you complain falsely too often, you yourself will lose respect among your peers, and suffer the consequences.

This is a tool to enforce proper roleplaying and keep the atmosphere and quality level of the game up. The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents.

Conduct

Nobles are a peculiar bunch of people. While they betray and backstab each other as a hobby, they also agree on a code of conduct and insist on proper manners of speech and behaviour. In short, noble behaviour and noble words are what makes a noble different from a vulgar peasant.

Unfortunately, not all nobles are equal in this regard, and some slip into inappropriate manners at times. Of course, the penalty for being no different than a common peasant is a loss of respect among one's peers.

You are those peers, and have been randomly selected to judge the following message or messages, which another noble considers vulgar or otherwise unbefitting of a noble. Please pass your verdict.

This is our method to ensure a proper roleplaying experience and a high quality of the gameplay. You do not decide alone, 4 other nobles are selected for each message and the majority decides, but please do consider your choice carefully, because it is ultimately you who decides on the atmosphere within the game.

We have provided some guidelines to help you make a decision.

In case of doubt, we suggest you err in dubio pro reo. But actual verbal vulgarity should find no mercy.

Guidelines

Proper manners for a noble follow an unwritten consensus of respect and dignity. It is not easy to write strict guidelines for this, so we offer some soft ones, to get you thinking in the right direction.

First of all is respect. You may hate the enemy, but if he is a noble, then he is your peer and you should respect him as that. You can still hate him, but vulgarity is for peasants and nobles have, well more noble ways to express their feelings. Second is manners. It doesn't matter what you say, it's all in how you say it. Again, vulgarity is for the peasants, nobles are expected to be able to speak in a manner that sets them apart, even if what they say is fairly basic or even offensive. A peasant swears - a noble employs a witty repartee. Third is behaviour, this is mostly for roleplays. A noble is first and foremost a noble. No matter if he bloodies his sword in the bodies of his enemies or poisons the wine of the ruler, his actions and his way of acting set him apart from the commoner in a hard-to-describe but easy-to-spot way.

As a final hint: Almost all modern swearwords should be considered vulgar for a noble. Commoners in the middle ages used them extensively, which is precisely why a noble would avoid them.