Cormyr and the Dalelands is a roleplay server. This means players are expected to always act out their character in accordance with their motivations and personalities in a way that would make sense for a character truly living in the realms. This includes representing the characters' sheet, as classes, alignement, and stats are all part of what make the character.
To prevent some issues that can frequently surface, this page presents a few rules and general guidelines to follow to make it easier for everyone to enjoy good RP practices and stay in character.
¶ Integrity of the Setting and Suspension of Disbelief
Some of this should probably fall under common sense, but this may help clarify things a bit:
First, while we aren't going to be hyper-strict about things, we do expect people to stay in character, and, as such, to try to not spoil immersion of your fellow players.
What does it mean? Well, for one, this is a game, and it's NWN, and there are things we just can't do (or can't do easily/all the time/etc).
Basically, things that actively highlight the fact that it's a game, ICly, should be avoided.
Some examples:
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Gold
CD doesn't have a gold-limited economy. The gold you have is limited only by the amount of time you want to spend farming dungeons. Thus, ridiculous fortunes aren't meant to be taken into account ICly. Things like acting like gold has no value, or that you have millions and millions and could buy half the city, highlight this flaw, and should be avoided. -
Locations & NPCs
Everyplace in the (FR) world (and connected inner/outer planes, etc) exists, even if it's not in the module. Generally we use generic stand ins, or specially created areas, if we need something outside the scope of the module (like traveling to Waterdeep, or such). It's conceptually there, and the limits are only a function of the module. This includes having NPCs populate a public area/city; due to lag, the actual population of towns and cities cannot be accurately represented. -
Power/NPCs/Boss Monsters
CD goes to epic levels, but it's capped at 30 - and more importantly, active characters are not meant to outpace, or outflex, the Legendary Chosen of the Gods (nevermind the Gods themselves). If you want to, that's fine... but it means retiring your PC. What we'd like to avoid is people hanging around, ICly dismissing powerful things like Demi-Liches, Dragons, Elminster/Szass Tam/Vangerdahast/Sammaster, etc etc... anything that a character (new or not) ought to take seriously, ignoring the game mechanics. It really destroys immersion if one person talks ICly about how dangerous the Ruins of Whatever are, and someone else chimes in, ICly, "oh, yeah, I've killed that demi-lich at least ten times now, he's not so tough."
Act like you (your character) take it seriously.
¶ Ease of Access/Player Convenience
Several tools are available that are meant to make your lives easier, as players. These things can break immersion somewhat, but are there because many of us are adults with working lives and not a glut of free time on our hands, or we've played through the same thing for years and years and the grind has become somewhat tedious. These systems are in place for your convenience, to save you time and energy, not to be abused for personal benefit. For example:
Thaevos' portal is an RP convenience
Located outside of The Traveller's Shield, this portal is only meant to help you join a party before they enter a dungeon, or to meet people for an event, or other RP. This is in place so you don't have to run all throughout the server. It is there so you can rejoin your party if you get stuck in a Mordenkainen's Mansion due to clicking the exit after someone else did. It is NOT to rejoin your party when they've wiped in a dungeon. It isn't to join people halfway through a dungeon. It isn't there to let most of a party rebuff and rejoin a downed member in order to complete a dungeon that would have otherwise been a wipe.
Please use it responsibly, or it may be taken out of the module. There's a reason you can't use it after respawning for a time.
The "Return" Player Tool is an RP convenience.
It is not an in-character ablity or spell, and its effect is not IC. It lets you "skip ahead" past the long journey back to town. Think of it as much the same as in a movie or TV show where the characters say "Let's head back to Arabel." The scene cuts, and the next scene shows the characters back in Arabel after having traveled, without having to watch them spend 8+ hours on horseback.
Otherwise it is an OOC tool to get you un-stuck from various situations such as being stuck behind a wall in a tileset and unable to /leap away.
¶ Area Size, Population, and NPCs
Distances in game are NOT to scale
Otherwise it might take hours to actually walk your way to Suzail, as it would take your characters days to get there. We handwave a lot of time spent travelling, because many people don't have the spare hours it might take in order to traverse, as well as saving on module overhead. CD has over 600 areas already, and takes several hours to compile. Please bear with DMs and other characters when they're talking about travel times. It isn't instant, even if it may seem that way to you, taking the caravans.
Many distances on the server are not accurate to their particular map sizes in FR. If this were a tabletop game, we could have people spend sessions or days of in-game time travelling along a road to reach Highmoon, or down to Immersea, or out to Eagle Peak. A person could wander the Dalelands for months and months and not see the entire thing.
However, we don't have the module size for this. We don't have the builders, nor the resources free to do the thousands of areas that would be required to have the server be the size it actually would be in FR. This leads to a bit of immersion breaking travel - being able to run from one city to another shouldn't take minutes, but days of in-game travel. We handwave this away with a trick called suspension of disbelief, for those new to RP or literary tools. This is basically us just pretending that things like travel time happen in the background. This can include meals, bedding down along the road, taking breaks to rest, or hunting/gathering/etc.
Along this same vein, we don't have the module capacity to fill every city anywhere near enough with NPCs to be what it should be if we were playing a proper game in FR in tabletop. If we did, the game would slow down to a crawl and be unplayable for most of us, if not downright crash constantly any time someone tried to load in an area. We use the above tool to imagine that there are NPCs all over. There are farmers, and craftspeople, merchants and politicians and servants running around the cities. There are stray cats, and dogs, orphans and beggars and thieves and all sorts populating areas even if we can't see them. This also means that there are guards, soldiers, magistrates, and other figures of authority that are present even if you can't see them on your screen. The ONLY exception to this is if a DM is running an event and says otherwise as part of their plot.
¶ Stealth, Invisibility, and Hide in Plain Sight in Roleplay
How these abilities should be used within the context of roleplay and interaction with other players:
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First, none of this applies to monsters (though it doesn't change any of the restrictions on things like 'ninja-looting').
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Second, DMs running quests may have their own requests and requirements that are left to their discretion, and if you have a question on the use of stealth/etc in a quest, that should be directed to the DM running the quest.
That said, there are some guidelines for the use of stealth and its various forms while interacting with other players. For the purposes of the below, "stealth" includes any means of concealing yourself from other players, to include (but not limited to) stealth mode, HIPS, Invisibility, Greater Sanctuary, and so forth.
The use of stealth to spy on people in private, without their ooc knowledge/consent, is absolutely forbidden.
Closed doors and privacy exist for a reason on this server, and must be respected. "Private" is defined as any area located behind a locked door or other entrance such as keyed portal. If you accidentally find yourself in one of these zones, you should announce your presence and remove yourself immediately.
Sneaking around and spying on people, through any means (magical or skill based) can be considered an IC hostile act by them.
This generally falls under Rule 4, PVP, so we recommend that if this is a concern, to discuss it with the appropriate players and/or the staff beforehand.
¶ Respect the limits of these abilities
Examples as follows:
- Invisibility does not make you silent
Appropriate listen checks should be offered if this is used in the course of roleplay, and party chat can be used for group communication. - Stealth is not invisibility
Don't do things like standing right in front of people, sitting at the table with them in stealth, etc. You should be at or behind some cover/concealment from where you could reasonably be hidden. Crossing an open area is fine (people could be distracted/looking away long enough) but standing in the middle of a brightly lit room for any significant period of time is not. - Hide in Plain Sight
This ability lets you enter stealth while observed, but is not a perfect cloaking/invisible status. You can enter stealth, but should then move to some sort of cover/concealment at least somewhat out of direct sight as above if you're going to stay stealthed, and observe the same rules.
Finally, we'd like to also encourage people to not rely on/use the game engine where appropriate, and simply roleplay out situations, using dice as appropriate, since this way you can still emote/react/interact/etc even if the characters can't see/hear/notice you, with skill checks made to cover stealth as needed. This is not a requirement or a rule, just a suggestion.
¶ Storyline Consequences & Death
We are here to tell stories, which make up one large overarching storyline. We use NWN as the medium to do that. NWN, at times, is a buggy piece of drek. It also can be problematic simply by its very nature. This is why when characters normally die, there are Raise Dead scrolls readily available for them. When they are energy-drained, there are Restoration scrolls and potions. Things just come at you too fast in the combat engine to truly hold it against you in this manner, all the time, the way it would be done in a normal game of D&D.
However, this doesn't mean that anytime something like this happens, it is to be ignored or treated in this manner. This is why we make a distinction between "standard" and "storyline" results.
A Storyline result is simply that - it is part of the official storyline, rather than a quirk of the engine that we ignore. As part of the storyline, it must be treated with the appropriate gravity and seriousness.
¶ Q: Does this mean it's permanent and irreversible, then?
Of course not. However, a Storyline consequence must be addressed in Storyline terms - you can't just toss a store-bought raise dead scroll (nevermind respawning) on someone who was killed in the Storyline and have it work. They would need to actually be raised by a full cleric, subject to all of the restrictions, conditions, and penalties of normal D&D.
This may mean that the response to a Storyline consequence leads to another quest in and of itself. If your signature dagger was stolen by a pair of thieving dwarves, you will certainly have an opportunity to get it back, but you will have to undertake a quest to do so.
¶ Q: What brings about a Storyline consequence? If I lag up in a fight on a quest and die, will I be Storyline-dead?
No, just because you're on a quest won't automatically mean that everything that happens there is a storyline event. Key Point: Storyline events come about as consequences of choices characters make, not random results of the game engine.
Some examples to try and clarify:
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Your level 6 self chose to go chasing off after 3 Death Tyrant Beholders, and you died to them in the game engine. You would suffer storyline death because of your choice, not the game engine.
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Your level 6 self chases after 3 Orc Peons, they all roll 20s, and you die. Standard death (not storyline).
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You chose to stick your head into the clearly-labeled Disintegration Field-o-matic. Storyline death, and we all tease you mercilessly.
¶ Speaking of Disintegration, what if I get Disintegrated? Don't they need my body to ressurect me?
No. True Resurrections, a level 9 cleric spell, does not require the body to bring someone back, just their name and knowledge of the person. Resurrection may also bring a disintegrated character back to life, as long as the remains are kept/gathered.
¶ What about Permadeath?
Actual permanent death, meaning that the character can never ever be brought back, will be very rare, but still possible under certain circumstances. Those are, in short:
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Player choice
In the Forgotten Realms, souls that are content in the afterlife cannot be forced back to life. In game terms, if the player decides the character is going to stay dead, the character will stay dead regardless of what anyone does in-character. -
Admin Decision
In some rare cases, the Admins may decide that a specific character's return is so disruptive to the overall server setting that having them continue to come back to life will cause enough problems to warrant blocking that character from doing so. In this case, the Admins will explain the situation to the Player, and the character will be deemed 'permadead.' -
Character Action
Not really true permanent death in the sense we're talking about here, this is the situation where a character is so disliked that no one, not even their friends or allies, are willing to bring them back. This will likely be a rare, perhaps near-unique, occurence, but is certainly possible. Coming back from a storyline death is not an inherent right, and if people dislike the character that much in the storyline, it makes sense that they would stay dead. (Otherwise, though, the DMs will make efforts to assist the player's allies in questing to bring them back)
¶ Q: Will storyline stuff only apply on some DMs' quests, but not others? Can I opt out of it?
This is intended to be a universal rule for all of CD. We're trying to do away with the 'Disclaimers' and the confusion and suspicions surrounding them. As far as 'opting out', no, there will be no OOC way to skip out on any consequences. If your character is afraid of bad things happening, then the character should take IC measures to avoid them.
¶ Q: Does this apply to dungeon exploring too?
Generally, no. Again, we may invoke it in really, really really egregious cases, but for the most part we expect things not to always go smoothly when exploring/non-quest dungeon crawling. This is why initial respawns cost no xp.
¶ Q: Does this apply in PvP situations?
Generally, yes. PvP is lethal combat, and should only be used at times of serious roleplay conflicts, and ought to be treated with a certain degree of importance and gravity. Therefore, we tend to apply the storyline consequences here, because PvP is supposed to happen only in conjunction with the storyline. The Admins will retain the final call, though. Generally what we want to avoid is the overuse of PvP in situations and minor conflicts where other resolutions would be better suited. Some conflicts may end in permadeath, as decided by the Admin team.
¶ Q: What do I do if I feel that negative consequences were unfairly imposed on my character in a quest?
Step one is to ask the DM politely. Step two, if the DM holds to their call, don't argue with them. Issues such as this should then be brought to an Admin, and ideally with as much in the way of detail as possible (screenshots, et cetera). The Admin will then attempt to mediate out any confusion, disagreement, or problems. You needn't worry that you are 'going over their head', because if it's just a misunderstanding, then what the Admin will do is explain and clarify - you won't be automatically 'tattling' or 'getting them in trouble' (unless they truly were misbehaving, though we have faith in our DMs). This is part of the job and role of the Admin, ultimately.
¶ In response to questions about PVP, Consequences, and Permadeath
To attempt to clear a few things up for players, both for those who have asked and those who for whatever reason don't feel like they can do so (really, our tolerance for questions is crazy high), I'm going to try and explain and connect a few things that have been stated here and elsewhere.
The first is regarding PVP. While CD in general is not a PVP heavy server, we also don't require immediate consent for this. Partly this is because we (the Admins) will take action against players that abuse this to attack others without good IC reason (and we take a dim view on paper-thin reasons that boil down to vague/non-specific villainny). We expect that players will have a decent motivation based on IC and story events to resort to this. We also expect that in most situations, PVP will not be an ending to the problem/story/etc, even if it may likely have some immediate consequences, as outlined in the above post. More on this in a moment, though.
We also expect that players involved in such conflicts will do their best to roleplay through any Character vs. Character encounters. CD is not an Arena server, nor do we want it to be treated as such. Players should not have to be on guard 24/7 against possible attack, and confrontations should ideally be fully roleplayed out, playing up the drama/tension/etc, unless such is explicitly discussed and agreed to beforehand. To give an example of a "good" PVP fight, consider the confrontation between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in original Star Wars. They face off, they exchange banter, fight, banter some more, and so on:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/8kpHK4YIwY4?si=joYfsBbBIO1rTQCK
Now imagine if that fight consisted solely of a sudden ambush and cutting down of Obi-Wan by Vader in the first five seconds. It's not nearly as dramatic or satisfying - hence why it's preferable to avoid such. The point of such encounters is not to "win", it's to craft part of a narrative. Not doing so can come off as disrespectful to the other player(s) involved, and is something we want to avoid. There will be situations where such is called for, such as in the case of a character focused around stealth, surprise, or those sorts of things; and in such cases we ask that the Admins be involved beforehand, mostly because we don't want the server to become about random strikes while people are roleplaying in Arabel Central or the like. We also realize that PVP situations make people prone to going for "the win" and it may be difficult to trust the other player(s) involved to not take advantage of any deference granted for OOC reasons, and if you feel at all uncertain about such, we also ask to have an Admin be contacted/involved prior to any confrontation.
Secondly, we also are aware that some players may not -want- to get involved in PVP conflicts, and as such, we try to avoid putting players in situations where they are faced with a choice where they can either engage in PVP, or break character (ie take an action instead that is untrue to the character). That is, we don't want someone to have to choose between IC and OOC preferences in those circumstances. We also don't feel it's fair to tell players that if they want to avoid any PVP conflict that they have to play a non-confrontational character or such, particularly since a large chunk of CD's conflict is Player vs Monster. To the extent that such situations may occur, we feel that it is best to not place any onus on a character placed in such a situation to react in any way other than they feel that their character should. In short, there is no expectation that a player should refrain from PVP if they feel IC circumstance calls for it.
This is the primary reason why we do not allow obvious "Kill on Sight" races (see here: Freaks in Arabel ) to be played at all. The problem that we see inherent in letting people play such races is in no small part that other players would naturally view them as monsters. This causes issues on multiple levels, in part because of the forced "PVP or break character" decisions mentioned above. The situation gets even worse when Boblin the Goblin makes friends who would feel compelled to defend him against such, because this draws even more people into it. Furthermore, the conflicts that result from this sort of thing leave nobody satisfied because either the character gets killed off (and the player and their friends aren't happy) or they hang around (and the people with reason to kill them aren't happy, not to mention the impact it has on the setting). Thus, the only such races allowed to be played are those which can actively conceal that nature, such as half-fiends or Lyanthropes. Furthermore, we note on the application that the player is responsible for playing out the consequences of such a race, as part of the application. Some may have not understood or made the connection between these things, and we'll be explicitly clarifying that in the subrace apps.
Third, on Permadeath. As stated above, the Admins do reserve the right to impose permadeath if we ultimately feel it is absolutely necessary. We do not do so lightly, nor often - in fact I can only think of four instances where we have done so in the entire 15+ year history of CD. In all of these situations we felt we had no other choice, because letting the character continue to play/return to life would essentially cause far more problems and disruption to the playerbase as a whole than we felt was tolerable.
Two of those four instances were villainous PCs that were openly known as such. Again, that doesn't guarantee that the Admins will feel it necessary to impose permadeath, but it's one of the situations that has previously led to it. The other two were due to a category 4 subrace becoming known as such, in both cases because the player in question told others ICly. Again, this does not guarantee that permadeath becomes necessary, but it does open the door to that possibility, such that if a character of that subrace is discovered ICly to have also committed evil acts, then a resulting PVP situation may well lead to us needing to impose permadeath. The reason for this is that in such cases, returning the character to life/continued play will only lead to more PVP, with more players pulled in, and so on, and a degree of unfairness to other players ("I'm a Werewolf and I murdered those villagers, what are you gonna do about it huh?").
To give a bit of insight into our thought processes, it's usually some combination of "there's no way this character would ever be allowed to set foot in town again" and "this character continuing to play is going to cause rampant and open forced/compelled PVP among multiple players, with no good resolution other than the death of this PC" (Again, see the section above on why we try to avoid forcing characters into a PVP conflict). This is never something we do lightly, and it is always after much discussion among the four admins, and consideration of any other possible way to avoid it, such as letting a character fake their death and take on an assumed identity. That said, there is one other sort of instance where we would impose permadeath, that being in a storyline where a character insisted on taking a thoroughly suicidal course of action that left them inherently unressurectable despite OOC warnings that such would be the case.
We don't do these things to be mean, or out of callousness, but only because we feel the alternative is far worse for the server/player base as a whole. There is almost nothing we dislike more than having to cut a story abruptly short.
As always, if there are any questions about this, please feel free to ask one (or all) of the Admins.
¶ Of Crown and Castle - nobility and noble-born PCs
Much has been written on nobility elsewhere in the past, on these forums. This section is specifically about how this functions from a rules standpoint.
Noble characters are a great and interesting source of roleplay and storylines, and as such it is allowed to have characters be of noble status. That said, Noble status grants a significant amount of power, influence, and special legal standing higher than that of commoners. Because this is something that has potential for abuse, players must apply for permission to be a noble in the same manner as Exotic/Unusual races and backgrounds must be applied for.
There are three ways to do this normally:
- Apply to create a new character that begins as a legitimate* child/descendent of a noble family.
- Earn a knighthood or minor noble title in a character's own right through gameplay, deeds, and service to the NPC ruler(s).
- Apply to create a new character that begins as an illegitimate* child/descendent of a noble family; and later seek to convince that family to declare the character legitimate.
If the character was not applied for and approved as a noble (legitimate or not) prior to creation, then they may only become noble via the Earned Knighthood or Title route.
This applies for both characters that are nobles within the setting as well as those of noble birth from afar. That said, approvals of foreign nobles (such as someone from Calimshan or Waterdeep) are handled weekly by the SDMs, while Cormyrian, Elven, and Maerimydran/Sschindylryn Drow are handled by the Admins.
Note that players are still free to create characters that come from a wealthy and aristocratic background, such as a merchant family, provided the family is not "nobility".
As an addendum, it is also allowed to create a character with a background/parentage shrouded in mystery and left to the DMs to develop. In such cases, the character may turn out to be of some sort of noble extraction, legitimate or illegitimate, at the discretion of the DMs. (i.e., if you pick this, don't then tell us you want to be noble, that's not how it works.)
The Nobility tend to place special importance on (and thus pay particular attention to) bloodlines. Children of a noble house are expected to marry an appropriate counterpart, and often are provided arranged matches, or at least a list of acceptable ones to choose from. What this means in practice is that nobles are almost exclusively endogamous within their own race (meaning that they don't marry outside of it). Even marrying a half-elf as a human would be cause for scandal - far better to marry a base commoner, in the eyes of most nobles. Those who defy the wishes of their family/House risk being disinherited (meaning they're no longer part of the nobility).
And what that means, is that true-born nobles (i.e., PCs who start as nobles) will almost always need to be of the base race (Human for Cormyr, Elven for Elven houses, etc). In order to play a strange race/half-breed, one would need to start as illegitimate, and later seek to earn recognition/legitimacy/etc. There are some rare exceptions to this, which generally revolve around situations where both parents were ostensibly human. Tieflings/Aasimar/Genasi are one example, as these bloodlines can lie dormant for generations before popping up again in a child between two 'human' parents, though this would similarly prove a massive scandal (and is best suited to distant lands' nobility rather than Cormyr). Dhampyr would be another potential example, if one of the parents was attacked by a vampire etc. The common denominator in these is that the parents were clearly "human" at least at one point, and the child would not be so visibly inhuman as to be denounced as illegitimate (in that the assumption of a monstrous child born to two human parents would likely be cheating/etc by the mother).
In any case, possession of any sort of less than human blood tends to be a negative mark on both the character and their House. Depending on what it is, this may vary from only the more traditionalist among the Houses having moderately disguised disdain for them (such as in the case of the 'human' child of a human and half-elf), to outright shunning by the majority of noble society and possibly even members of their own house, in the case of more visibly monstrous sorts.
¶ Further Accolades in Cormyr
Once a character is a noble, whether by birth or being granted a title, Cormyrian nobles in particular have additional options to earn further status through demonstrated loyalty, responsibility, and service. This comes in two forms, being granted a hereditary title, and ranks of distinction. These are only attained through continued displays of both IC and OOC responsibility on a character/player's part.
Hereditary titles are just that. It allows the character to ICly pass their title to their children, and essentially creates them as founder/head of a (minor) Cormyrian noble house. For those born to existing noble families, they becomes the head of their own Cadet branch of the family, while knights and baronets become a new house entirely. This house has no assets and no special power/influence, but it does come with the IC right to have a country manor (subject to normal housing rules) within Cormyr. Players are NOT required to retire on attaining this, although becoming the head of an existing (canon) noble House still requires it (due to the influence/resources). Note that this is only open to Human characters, as above, because the nobility of Cormyr will not ICly accept non-humans being raised up as hereditary peers.
Ranks of distinction are the typical Noble titles. In Cormyr, these have no actual meaning other than fluff, and possibly seating order at a formal noble dinner. Even if associated with a place, they do not grant any control or lands, and are simply vestigial/honorary. They are also not used as a title of address (it's always "my Lord/Lady" regardless of such, e.g., "Lord Blunderblatt, Baron of Hogswallow" gets called Lord Blunderblatt/my Lord, etc). Note that these MAY be granted to non-hereditary titles (e.g., Storm Silverhand is also the Marchioness Immerdusk).
Duke/Duchess (presently not available to players)
Marchion/Marchioness
Earl/Countess
Viscount/Viscountess
Baron/Baroness
Baronet/Baronetess (granted to those given a minor non-hereditary title by default)
Lastly, spouses of such hold an equivalent courtesy title, while Children/blood relatives of a title holder are treated socially as if they held a courtesy title one rank below for every degree of removal. That is, the child of a Duke or Marchion is treated socially as if equivalent to an Earl/Countess, a grandchild would be as a Viscount/Viscountess, while an Earl's grandnephew would be treated socially as a Baronet. This is NOT a title of address, they don't get called that, etc.
¶ On Secret Factions and Betrayals
This has long been an informal rule of the server, and based on a few things we felt it best to write it down and formalize it. The goal of this rule is to handle and manage the difficulties that arise with Secret Factions and other affiliations, and in playing with other characters of the same.
Essentially, when in the same secret faction/group/etc, whether that be Good (Harpers, Moonstars, etc) Evil (Zhentarim, Fire Knives, Cult of the Dragon, various Demon/Devil followers, various secretive evil religions, etc) or somewhere in between, characters in that faction are not allowed to "betray" the faction, whether by naming other members, detailing the location of its secret base(s), spoiling ongoing plotlines, etc. If someone wishes to leave such a faction, the DMs/Admins will work with them to find a way to accomplish this (usually involving loss of memory in some capacity, specifically about/relating to the faction's PC element). Doing so outside of Admin approved instances is considered to be OOC information, and not ICly valid as such, so any character who does receive such is not allowed to treat it otherwise (and to do so is considered barred metagaming).
The rationale for this comes from several factors, such as:
- We don't want PC Alice to wreck the RP/story/etc of PC Bob, through no fault of Bob's own (other than being willing to work with Alice), by going and telling PC Eve that PC Bob is part of the Cult of the Dragon.
- We want to avoid the sorts of PVP Permadeath situations that would otherwise result from these sorts of things, in that by not allowing such, we make it impossible to otherwise stop such (or we open the door to lots of killing simply on suspicion of betrayal, which we'd rather avoid).
- We want to avoid "Gatekeeping" scenarios whereby people exclude someone from joining such a faction based on OOC lack of trust (they're too new, they're friends with Player X, stuff like that). We want everyone to be able to participate.
- We don't want to punish players solely for being willing to accept others into such groups and treating them as a part of that group.
- We want to avoid instances of players doing so with OOC intent to wreck the faction because they're unhappy with it (This has happened in the past here).
We realize this is imposing an RP constraint, and cuts off or limits certain lines of roleplay, but it's something that we feel necessary given the impacts it has on other players, and the overall feasibility of such factions on CD. As always, if a particular situation comes up, please let us know and we'll be happy to help sort things out to avoid disruptions on these lines.
To clarify - if you expose your own affiliations (outside of such context), that's on you.
Additionally, the following apply to leaving ANY faction, including public ones:
- Core faction secrets (including how to access the base, anything secret inside such base like Szass Tam's Secret Plushie Collection room, and such) get wiped/forgotten/geased/etc as appropriate, but regardless of IC explanations, may not be told to others or acted on.
- Details related to any ongoing DM plots the character and faction were involved in are retained or lost etc at the discretion of that DM, ie, whether that DM wants to deal with such fallout.
- Anything else would be at the discretion of the Admins/SDMs.
¶ In-character titles, ranks, and authority
To clear up any confusion on the subject, we wanted to lay out a few things about PCs as regards titles/rank/authority.
First, in-character authority over other characters is something that is only bestowed with direct approval from the staff. This is primarily why noble status and similar things require applications, and promotions within groups such as the Purple Dragons are similarly only given out by staff. If you want to hold a position or title, it needs to be approved.
Note that minor/honorary titles that are bereft of any authority are usually fine. For instance, a Cleric PC that decides to go by the title "Father" or "Elder" or "Sister" (or the like) isn't a big deal. Declaring yourself to be an Archbishop and either implying or outright stating that this gives you religious authority over other PCs, however, would NOT be okay. Playing a Knight of a Religious Order (with no authority or status other than "hey I'm a warrior for the church") is generally fine, but being a Knight of the Realm (and thus minor nobility) requires approval.
Additionally, character level is never considered equivalent to any IC rank, whether in comparison to NPCs, or to other PCs. Expect that NPCs especially may be of lower level but of greater authority.
When it comes to player-created groups (Adventuring companies, troupes, secret cults, etc), you're free to make up whatever titles you want for yourselves, so long as you remember that they don't grant any special status or authority outside the group. That is, if PCs agree to work for you and call you boss, then that sort of thing is fine because they're choosing to voluntarily follow you, and it isn't being imposed on anyone, etc.
Furthermore, characters are not allowed to command resources beyond themselves. That is, you can't just declare that you're calling on a thousand templar knights of the Triad, even if you have been approved for a position of some reverence or authority. Similarly, players from a noble or wealthy background cannot directly command resources (be they monetary or other) simply because they're related to House Soandso, or because they're from some merchant family in Amn, you have to go to the NPCs that do (i.e. your parents/grandparents/uncles/aunts/etc, which are an absolute requirement for a family/etc possessing such resources in the first place).
You may attempt to ask NPCs for appropriate assistance in various circumstances, but the bigger or more outlandish the request the more likely it is to be denied. That is, you're far more likely to have the Triadic Church agree to pass along your pleas for help than you are to get them to send a crusading army, and you're far more likely to get your rich merchant uncle to introduce you to some of his contacts in a particular city than you are to get him to spend a bunch of money buying food for refugees. Note too that these NPCs are persuadable (at the discretion of the DM), and your rich merchant uncle/parents might well agree to make an investment you recommend if they think there's significant profit potential there. Even then, too, there are limits to what resources will be available no matter how persuasive or how enticing an opportunity, because no one has infinite wealth/manpower/etc.
In any case such responses are 100% up to the DM in a particular quest, and if they refuse, that's it - your character will have to stand on their own.
¶ A note on language
On occasion, in the past, we've had issues come up with the use of bad language by different characters in game, and we wanted to post about what is and is not okay.
¶ Anachronism
Generally speaking, we try to not be too strict on this, because our language is what it is due to centuries of evolution and use. Trying to de-anachronize your speech to medieval levels is a full time job, partly because some references are so second nature that we even forget why they came up in the first place. That said, we do encourage people to try to not ruin immersion unintentionally, and I recommend politely pointing things out in tells - but if it's a big issue, it's usually best to let it drop. If someone is really way out of character, consistently, to a disruptive level, let an Admin know.
¶ Swearing
This is an 18+ server, and people are going to swear. While we would encourage the use or invention of more IC swears ("Bane's Black Balls!" etc), we're not going to come down on someone for general profanity or vulgarity, even if the words have an entirely modern origin. That said...
¶ Slurs
One thing that has no place, at all, in CD - whether IC or OOC - are RL racial/ethnic/religious slurs. Slurs on sexual orientation ("f*ggot" etc) or gender identity are not acceptable either.
Feel free to use IC racial slurs, as Faerun isn't exactly a tolerant place, but use appropriate IC ones, because those are clearly pointed at the character. For instance, calling a drow "Dhaerow" or "knife-ears" or "spiderkisser" are all fine from an OOC standpoint. Calling then N****r Elves is not.
¶ Comfort Levels
If someone asks you nicely to avoid using particular words, don't take offense, and please try to accomodate them if you reasonably can. We all come from different backgrounds, and we want to be inclusive, not make anyone feel like they have to choose between suffering through hearing something they feel is really demeaning and offensive or playing here.