Policies

Below are a number of files outlining our policies covering a number of issues. Should anything be unclear, we ask that you contact a staff member for help.

Every player is allowed to construct a private room and have it linked to the grid, either as a house or as a part of an established estate/tavern/apartment. To get a room of your own, read the 'help @dig' file on the game and dig a room, but without the exits. Once you have dug and described your room, send mail to the *building mailer, requesting to have your room added to the grid. You *must* include the following in your request:

-The name of your room

-Where you want the room linked, not just the region, but the room itself.

-The messages for the exit, both in and out. You need messages for what the person going through the exit sees, what the room the person is leaving sees, and what the room the person is entering sees. If you are unsure about what exactly should be included with this, ask a staff member.

Once you mail in your request the area staffer will look over the room's description to make sure it is thematic and then will link the room to the grid for you. If there is a problem with the room said staff will contact you about changes that need to be made. All IC rooms must be linked to the grid; we do not allow floating rooms. We do not allow private OOC rooms.

If you would like to build a larger structure, such as a noble estate or a multi-room establishment, speak with your area staff member and they will discuss your idea and determine how to go about building it. Please do not start building a new business, estate or other large project without talking to the area staffer first and getting their approval for the project. In some cases we will require an application for a new establishment, especially if involves a new faction on the game, but such decisions will be made on a case by case basis.

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Let's be honest. Combat just isn't going to happen all that often on Memorium Tempestatis. If you're looking to attack things and generally cause lasting bodily harm to others, there are other places that will probably suit your tastes more. However, still being honest, we realize (and expect) that there will be occasions when fights break out, anywhere from a simple fistfight to a full-scale international war. Given the likelihood of these things happening, we have a few points to make about roleplaying combat. These are common to nearly any roleplay-based online world, so many people will already be familiar with them.

It is expected that, in keeping with implied consent policies, each character will keep in OOC communication with the others involved in the scene to make sure everyone knows that violence may be imminent. If they don't want to be involved, they should find a way out and quick. Don't be one of those people that cry 'I didn't know!' after your character gets a broken jaw or worse just because you failed to take advantage of a way out.

So how should combat be roleplayed? It's simple. Don't enforce a response on another character. If you choose to pose swinging a fist at someone's midsection, give them the opportunity to dodge, take the blow or any other form of reasonable response. Let's give an example: Say your character Joe decides to attack a rival suitor for the hand of a lady (uncouth perhaps, but then again, you're a noble named Joe). Here would be an example of a bad pose -- Joe swings a fist with unerring accuracy, connecting solidly with Bob's jaw and knocking him firmly unconscious. Why is this bad? Because you made Bob's response for him. What would a good pose be? Joe swings a fist, the blow threatening to collide with dangerous force on Bob's jaw. This allows Bob to make his own response.

It's worth noting that all players involved should be reasonable in their attacks and responses. Not everyone is Jackie Chan. You can't go flying through the air with two somersaults, land lightly on your feet and kick five different people within the span of 3 seconds. Nor can everyone dodge arrows, blindside punches, and so on. Be reasonable. And if you're feeling as if your opponent is being Superman, talk to him or her before it gets worse. Keep communication open, and everyone will have more fun!

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Most roleplay is governed by what is called the 'implied consent' rule. This means that by participating in a scene, you are consenting to what reasonable effects it may have on your character. This may range anywhere from no effect at all, in the case of simple day-to-day RP, to being seriously injured to discovering you've inherited a title of nobility, or anywhere in between.

This is not to say that complaints about these effects after the fact are not allowed. You simply need to have grounds for a complaint. No one can force you to continue a scene you no longer feel comfortable with and no one can have your character killed without your consent. A word of warning, however -- the staff will be the final arbiter in disputed cases, usually with the help of roleplay logs if available, and certainly with the help of those present for the scene. Implied consent does not cover you should you decide to go into a scene and force others to react to you in such a way that serious bodily harm would be the most logical result.

This is especially important in our theme. The nobility often has the implicit right to have someone (such as a commoner) imprisoned, beaten or other such things with very little recourse on the victim's part. Don't expect to go up to a powerful noble or influential religious figure and call him or her nasty names and then fall back on the implied consent rule when they have you thrown in the dungeon with no food or water. You brought it on yourself.

In the end, it's all about respect and being reasonable. Roleplay is so much better when you mix successes with failures. Know what your rights are, but also remember that you have a responsibility to act according to theme and accept the outcome.

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There will probably come a time, whether it's due to RL conflicts or simply wanting to do something different, that you want to have a character killed off or die. This is generally allowed, with a few possible conditions and exceptions.

Certain alts, typically the feature characters, may not be allowed to die. Characters such as the King or Queen of the various areas and other prominent nobility or religious leaders may instead be passed on to another player if you decide you are no longer able or willing to play them. Because these characters are vital to the history, culture and future of an area, unless there is a plot devised around their death or removal from IC life, it is entirely likely that the staff will not allow them to be killed. This is a condition of taking one of these characters, so you have been duly warned.

As far as other less feature-oriented characters, we ask simply that you make your character's death or retirement suitably in-character and make sure it's well announced. Nobles can retire to country estates, religious figures can go into private study, or if you want to be more adventurous, talk to the staff about devising a related plot.

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Simply put, harassment, whether IC or OOC, is not tolerated on Memorium unless it is part of previously agreed upon roleplay to which both sides have consented. We take the enjoyment of our players seriously and harassment is a major threat to that. Harassment can take many forms. The first and perhaps most obvious is sexual harassment. It is acknowledged that so-called 'TinySex' or 'ts' is occasionally part of a roleplay environment. However, this does not allow for forced sexual roleplay or forced OOC relationships, and we will not tolerate this in any circumstance. Players that ignore this rule do so at their own risk, and put themselves in danger of losing their playing privileges.

Other forms of harassment include forcing other to join in roleplay they have explicitly not consented to or continuing with the scene after a participant has asked to stop. Please remember the implied consent rule, its strengths and its limitations. Respect your fellow players.

The staff will take every possible avenue to confirm charges of harassment made against a player and will act accordingly. This may include anything from a warning to immediate revoking of the character, as the actions warrant. Repeated charges will be dealt with more severely.

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Since this is, for the most part, a traditional fantasy theme, we respectfully request that you try and keep your character names in keeping with the theme. Names such as Bladerunner, JoeBob or Xeron452, while they're perfectly good names (mostly) in their own right, don't particularly fit in all that well. Traditional fantasy name styles can be found in nearly any fantasy literature, and we will make the assumption you're familiar with them. If you have trouble finding a name, we suggest that you call on the real-life inspiration for each of the areas for help. Castana is based on medieval Spain, Avanne on medieval France and Vicena on the Roman and Byzantine Empires, while the Lumites are inspired by the Islamic faith in medieval times, especially the Moorish occupation of Spain.

One more warning: we freely admit that Memorium is inspired by the books of Guy Gavriel Kay. However, we have tried to distance ourselves from using any of his copyrighted material in the game, as we respect his work a great deal and have no intent of stealing anything that is his. As such, PLEASE avoid using names that are immediately associated with a major GGK character (especially in combination with character concepts taken directly from his books!). Names such as Jehane, Signe, Ammar, Rodrigo, Bertran and so on are great names, but those familiar with GGK's works will likely immediately associate them with the corresponding literary character. There are plenty of other great names out there, so use your best discretion.

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We at Memorium have created a new world for online RP, but by no means do we believe it is a complete or 'finished' world. We strongly encourage player contributions to the theme and hope that you enjoy the setting enough to add to it. We do ask, however, that if you want to add a new faction, style of dress, belief, and so forth, you clear it through the staff first, both to make sure it will fit into the current theme and simply so that we, and other players, will be aware of it.

The question of who owns what comes up on original theme games, especially those where there are large amounts of player contributions to the game's theme. We're hoping our policy will encourage players to contribute and help the game grow while allowing them to feel they still have control over their ideas. The following is our policy in regards to contributions and copyright. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to speak with a staffer about it.

Any player contributions to Memorium Tempestatis will be considered part of the game, but only in this version of the game and its website. If, for some reason, this theme was expanded into other mediums, such as a book, any player who does not want their contributions to be a part of the new medium is welcome to request it be removed and we will honor that request. However, if a player does contribute a new idea, faction, etc into the game we reserve the right to keep it in the theme, even if that player leaves the game.

This does not mean that we own all ideas, thoughts and creations made on and for Memorium. If you create a new order of the Lumite faith, for example a group that goes around and blesses people's feet, you are more than welcome to go to another game or another medium and re-create that nifty cool, but maybe slightly odd, faction. However, you need to adjust the faction to fit the new theme. You cannot call them Lumites nor claim they come from a desert nation known as Kuredin. Basically, take your ideas where you wish, but only your ideas, do not include Memorium's theme.

We are hoping our players enjoy the theme enough that they want to contribute to it with their own ideas and help Memorium grow into a thriving and interesting theme. We are not looking for ideas to steal and make tons of money from them, we simply want to create a world where everyone feels they can contribute something to make the game itself a better place to play.

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Our philosophy on plot development and approval is fairly relaxed, but there are some things we feel you should know.

Development, or Don't Kill the Queen: Staff or staff alts will occasionally develop plots. These will typically have some game-wide effect, or multiple-area effect. By 'occasionally' we mean that players are strongly encouraged to develop their own plots. If you expect to involve a major change in political structure, you're asked to contact the relevant staff member. This boils down to 'Don't kill the Queen without permission.'

What's allowable? We intend to have a fair amount of flux in political structure and relations between countries, religions and factions. This means we don't have such a rigid view of the future that we'll be slow to approve player-devised plots. Don't be surprised, however, if we add little twists or link the plot up with another plot or another area. We see part of our job as spreading RP among the areas, and keeping the players on their toes.

Publicity and Unpredictability: Most often, a plot's resolution or future will be kept quiet in almost every case in order to keep a sense of suspense. It's our opinion that knowing what's going to happen before you start makes it a little less exciting. However, you are encouraged to publicize for needed characters, timing of events and so on. Just try and keep a little mystery. It's also worth noting that incidental RP that leads into an unexpected plot is often the most exciting and most rewarding, and we hope that it happens a lot. Most times, we'll be more than happy to let these plots run unless there are serious policy or theme violations, in which case we'll work with you to settle them so you can continue on.

Submitting Plots: We strongly encourage our players to submit their own ideas for plots, whether they be for a certain religion, social class, nation, or the entire world. If you have a basic idea for a plot but aren't sure how to continue with it, speak to an admin and we;'ll help bring the plot to life. However, we will not accept scripted plots, meaning that an ending is already written. That is certainly no fun for everyone else involved because it goes from a collective storytelling to everyone following a script. if you want to see a plot run with person X is secretly poisoning the food of the Lumites, cool. But do not include who will find it out, when they find it out and how the plot ends. Let the players run with the clues given. Plots should be for the enjoyment of anyone who wants to jump in, not just for one or two people who want to be the central focus and the hero in the end. It is exciting when storylines change and that's what we're looking for, the excitement of the unknown. If you want to be the one to solve a mystery than ICly work at it. Talk with other characters. If research needs to be done, speak with the area wiz for information that can be found. At the same time, if a plot seems to be dying and isn't going anywhere, staff will step in with NPCs and tie up loose ends.

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While roleplay scenes are left to the discretion of the players involved, in accordance with harassment and consent policies, all players must be advised that personal and room descriptions are viewable from a standard web browser. While this provides you the opportunity to use web-viewable images and special text in your description, it also gives you some responsibilities.

Since descriptions are easily viewable from the 'who is connected' link of the standard Cold web interfact, please be considerate of web audiences of all ages when setting these descriptions. The staff reserves the option to request a change if anything potentially offensive, illegal or wildly out-of-theme is discovered.

While we will make all attempts to keep personal RP and communication entirely private, it should be recognized that network systems are inherently insecure. It is possible, though unlikely, that personal things on this game may become public. In short, if you _really_ don't want it to be made public, there is always some risk in bringing it here.

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One of the first questions new players will ask is what the ratio of IC time to RL time is -- in other words, how many days pass on the game for every day that passes in real life? While for many common, day-to-day roleplay scenarios, this doesn't matter much, we do have a relative ratio of 2 IC days for every RL day.

The current IC time, date and season can be checked with the @ictime command. This will also list the weather for the area you're currently in. This is not an immutable time, however. If you decide that you want to be RPing an evening scene or a morning scene, feel free to make it whatever time you want. Just remember that you'll need to inform those entering your scene of what time it really is, for consistency and politeness' sake. It's embarrassing to pose as if it were the IC coded time and find out that it's really the middle of the night.

Related to this is the subject of IC travel. While we intend to be a little more relaxed than you might be used to on allowing people to travel between areas, there are some things we'd like to enforce. If you choose to join an area, and find yourself sitting around one morning and decide that you'd rather be in Castana than Avanne, don't just suddenly show up there. Keep in mind that it takes time to travel from area to area, and unless there's a very good reason, you should take that IC time to make the trip.

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TS, or TinySex, is found on virtually every online game and we as the staff are aware of its occurrence and neither condone nor forbid it. We are not going to police personal RP, and we hope that our players are responsible enough to keep such scenes between consenting adults. No one should ever be harassed into a scene in which they do not feel comfortable with, and in accordance with our policy on Harassment we will deal with any such event that is brought to our attention.

The online community, by its nature, is a faceless society. We as staff cannot possibly know the age of everyone participating, and cannot be held responsible for checking on every player's real-life (RL) age and/or gender. If you discover that another player is under age (less than 18 years old), we _strongly_ encourage you to no longer continue a story line or scene that contains adult themes.

Memorium Tempestatis is an originally-themed RP community focusing on religious and political conflict and intrigue and thus RP should center around this theme. If TS scenes are your primary interest, we suggest you find another game to suit your tastes. We want to draw a crowd whose primary goal is to create a rich and interesting environment within our established world. If you have any questions or concerns, any member of the staff will be more than willing to discuss them with you.

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If you've spent any time in online roleplay, you've no doubt come across players who claim to be super strong, bearing tons of weapons and claiming to be an expert in all of them, all at the age of 21. Or perhaps it's a character that continually uses OOC information in an IC scene, bringing out that super secret information about your character. Or maybe its just someone who ignores the theme of a game and plays a character that has no place in the world you're playing in. We call these players twinks. Now twinks are not the same as newbies (those people new to the game and/or the theme), whereas newbies will make innocent mistakes and have no problem taking offered advice from staff and players on what's correct, twinks continually play the game their way on their terms and there's little that will stop them. This does not mean all twinks are malicious, that they actively wish to harm the scene or the game. Roleplay is a fantasy world and they're just stuck in their own idea of fantasy.

On Memorium, the staff is dedicated to giving you a rich original world to play in and because of this we've established a policy on twinks. If you are in a scene and notice someone is acting completely out of the theme of the game (playing a starship captain, for example) alert one of the staff members and explain the problem. Usually if the character is way out of whack, then the player might be a newbie and we will guide them in the right direction as to the game's theme. If its an older player or one who claims to know the theme but doesn't seem to care about following it or not, the first offense will gain a conversation with their Area wiz, or another staff member of the wiz isn't available to explain why what they're doing is wrong and what they need to change. If their behavior continues and their roleplay is hurting scenes and storylines with other players, both ICly and OOCly, we will go as far as to remove the character from the game if the offense is that annoying to a bunch of players. We want everyone to have fun on Memorium, but we want to keep the game realistic as well for those who play here.

If you have complaints on a character's behavior, IC or OOC, please log the scene/conversation and send it to the staff members so there is record of what occurred. We will not use this policy as a way for a bunch of players to gang up on one player they don't like, this policy is simply to keep the world in theme. As with any of our policies, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact a staff member.

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