Rules and Policies

Rules and Policies

It is well-understood that any rules listed are not exhaustive. They are a general outline to what actions and/or behaviors are prohibited.

BattleMaster Rules

The rules have been created by Tom in order to keep the game fair and enjoyable for people to play, ie prevent game abuse, cheating, powergaming etc.

Tom has a rough rule that says "everyone is entitled to one warning". That means two things: One, very rarely is a harsh punishment dealt for first abusers. Two, the second offense will be treated without mercy. It's worked fairly well over the years. If evidence is discovered that you are multi-cheating, your account *will* be locked without any questions asked. If you can provide some explanation that the evidence has nothing to do with multi-cheating, you will be unlocked.

• Social Contract or Social Contract - The main basis of the rules that all players must agree to.
  • One account only.
  • Play fairly, as with friends
  • Always give newcomers the benefit of the doubt.
  • Keep other peoples' personal information personal.
  • Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.
• Inalienable rights - Rights to protect the player. In IC conversation, it is explained as inalienable rights of nobility. Requesting people to preferably do something is just as bad as ordering. Should a rule be broken, report them to Titans immediately. Rules are as follows.
  • Playing at your own speed, timing and activity level, i.e. logging in as often or seldom as you like, at whatever times you like.
  • Choosing which type of unit to command
  • Going to tournaments
  • Pausing your character(s) because you have a real life to attend to
  • Choosing your class
• Humans only. Player characters must be humans, aside from a very few grandfathered in from Sirion.
• Government rules - Rules that government characters' players must abide by. As a non-governmental characters' player it is good to review this as well so that you know what to expect from players of government characters.
• Game mechanics define reality.
  • One consequence of this is that if you claim to be aiding another realm militarily, you must be allied: that is what an "alliance" means, after all. If you cannot be allied to that realm due to alliance bloc size restrictions, then you cannot aid them militarily.
• If you find what you think is a bug, report it. Those found exploiting bugs will receive little to no mercy.
• Use your real name. It will not be shared with other players unless you say so, but it's Tom's game and both in his house and in his game he likes to know your name before you come in.
• Try to resolve issues with other players before reporting them to the Titans.
• Do not insult or complain about the volunteers running this game (Devs, Admins, GMs, Forum Mods, Discord Mods, or any other volunteer team) in any in-game messages. If you object to any of their decisions, please bring it up politely on the forum, on Discord, or in an email to admins (mailto:community@battlemaster.org). Constructive criticism is welcome, but thoughtlessly spreading negative attitudes toward those who volunteer their time for the game will not be tolerated. If your complaint is regarding the Titans, see below.
  • If you dislike a Titan Decision, the only correct places to complain are the admin email (mailto:community@battlemaster.org), !titans command on Discord, or Questions & Answers forum board.
  • The restriction on expressing these frustrations in-game is due to the inability of those being complained about to present their side of the story there. There has been an unfortunate history of a player or small group of players misinterpreting an event, getting angry about it, discussing it amongst themselves, making conclusions and becoming more angry, and then spreading their anger at the volunteers to other players, all without there ever being an opportunity to explain that what they were angry about in the first place was based on incorrect or incomplete information. It's not a fair, or productive, discussion that does not involve key stakeholders. We are interested in your concerns, but they need to be given via an appropriate venue. Furthermore, Titans are anonymous fellow players and have much more limited options to respond, thus more limited options to appropriately address concerns.

For emphasis, do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence. Try to resolve issues with other players before reporting them to the Titans. However, report immediately for breaking an inalienable right.

Policies

These are various policies that have come down from Tom's words on various situations (words being on wiki or to d-list or dev team). These are policies that try to nudge game in the direction of Tom's vision. It is expected of players to adhere to these policies; there could be lightning bolts if they do not. This list is not exhaustive due to there being a long time period without a organization of these policies; if you believe something should be added, leave a note on the talk page.

• Roleplaying Guidelines
• Tom's Position on Names
• Tom's Position on Banning - Having another character in an enemy realm alone should never alone be enough for a ban
• Tom's position on Atheism - There is no such thing as atheism. Characters are not atheists.
• Don't use your clan to ruin other peoples' fun.
  • If it is entirely based on IC criteria, then it's fine.
  • If it is based on OOC criteria, and you use its single-mindedness to effectively control a realm, religion, or other in-game structure, that's emphatically not fine.
  • If it is based on OOC criteria, and you form a group too small to control the realm you're in, but still exclude anyone not in your OOC circle and attempt to push an agenda shared by your group, that's still not fine.
  • There is no problem with *playing with friends*, whether those friends were made in the game or outside, but you *must not* deliberately attempt to play with *only* those friends, especially in ways that exclude others or ruin others' fun.
• Duels are serious affairs meant to be used to defend one's honor, and may result in character death. They are not for sport or fun. As such, dueling guilds are prohibited if they use game-mechanic duels. Dueling guilds using the Training Match feature available at an academy, or roleplayed duels are acceptable.
• Strategic secessions are prohibited. This means creating a new realm, through secession, in order to circumvent recruiting-in-capital-only restriction. Friendly secessions are okay.
• Strategic capital moves are prohibited. This means moving one's capital for the purpose of closer refitting times in a war. Moving a capital to a central region of the realm or for roleplay reasons (historical, realm named based on capital name, removing a rival duke's power base, keeping a rival duke close by to be watched etc.) are acceptable.
• Nobles are to treat commoners poorly (with disgust) and commoners are to treat nobility respectfully (with fear): Dealing with Commoners as a Noble is recommended reading.
• No placeholders. Lordships, Dukeships, and government positions are all positions of the utmost importance and not mere jobs to be shuffled around. If someone holds one of these positions, they are to be considered its rightful holder. Never appoint or elect someone purely to hold the position until "the real holder" returns. This also helps to ensure that new people get a chance to hold these positions more than once in a blue moon.
• Realm mergers are illegal. Realms may surrender to another, including annihilation of their lands, but they may not merge as equal entities on friendly terms. Realms that are too small to exist (under about 15-20 nobles) may be excepted from this rule, and may merge into another realm with prior Admin approval.
• Transfers of gold (not bonds) outside of cities is prohibited, as it would upset the balance of the game, allowing long-distance wars due to providing gold in the field. There's a reason there's a difference between gold and bonds. This includes trading unique items *specifically* to transfer gold.

Other Policies

• Name Rules - Rules regarding character and family names and links to find a name
  • Generally, use an actual name that a person might have and don't copy extremely well-known historical names.
• Style Guide - General style of editing to be followed within the wiki
• We do not manually intervene (we fix bugs, but not the results of bugs) unless the game is seriously unbalanced by a bug. Play on, regardless of the bug results, but do not exploit them. If it is simple to fix the results of a bug, we may do so, but do not expect it to be done without being a serious game imbalance.