Game Rules wrote:e. It is possible to create RP laws which act as secondary rules which players are required to follow in character only, laws that require players to act or vote in a specific way are not permitted. They are laws which are only referenced in the bill description and not enforced by the game mechanics.
i.To create an RP law you must: clearly label it as an RP Law, pass it through your nation's legislature with either a simple majority of seats if it is a regular law or a ⅔ majority of seats if it is a constitutional law and reference it clearly in your nation’s “Bills under debate” section. To query a new RP law’s legality a user should post on the RP Law Query Thread.
ii.To overturn or abolish an RP law you must pass a bill with a simple majority which explicitly mentions which law you are scrapping and provides a link to the original law. You should then post a link to the bill on the RP Law Dismissal Thread.
iii.An RP law must not contradict game mechanics or the game rules, or force users to act a certain way OOC. Additionally they cannot ban types of parties (without considerable RP justification) or users. RP Laws must also not force users to vote in a particular way.
iv.Moderation reserves the right to declare any RP law invalid in exceptional circumstances.
There are issues with the RP law section of the rules, and I recall pointing this out - to no avail - when the new Game Rules document was up for consultation earlier in the year.
In practice, I suppose much is likely to depend on how strictly Moderation interprets the text in individual cases. To give examples of what I mean:
- (i) suggests that to be legal RP laws
"must" clearly label themselves as RP laws. It is dubious as to whether this really ought to be a strict requirement, since if you understand what a RP law is, they are easy to identify - it is simply detail which is not included in actual game mechanic law Articles. In practice, players do not always follow the requirement of putting "RP law" in the title and/or description of bills which include RP laws. As an example, Polites's own
OOC: RP Laws reference bill in Selucia lists two bills which do not meet this requirement. Should these RP laws be declared illegal simply due to the lack of labelling? Well, I would personally hope not, although obviously on a literal interpretation of the rules one supposes they should be.
- (i) similarly suggests that to be legal RP laws
"must" be referenced in the nation's "Bills under debate" section. This is a very reasonable requirement, since players - especially newly-arrived players - need to be able to easily see what the RP laws are. But should the failure to reference a bill mean it should be declared illegal in each and every case where a challenge is made? Perhaps there could be room for discretion in certain cases. For example, if the bill was passed relatively recently and it is reasonably clear all of the players in the nation know about it and understand it.
- (ii) suggests that to overturn a RP law one
"must" mention the law you are scrapping in the bill and post your bill on the
RP Law Dismissal Thread. I argued at the time this rule was introduced that it was not necessary, and I have not changed my mind since. As you can see, not a single post has appeared on the RP Law Dismissal Thread since it was created in April, which is a fairly clear indication that this procedure is not being widely understood and followed. Are we to presume that Moderation thinks not a single RP law has been overturned since April 11th? One hopes not, but that is what one would have to presume from a literal reading of the rules.
- (iii) states RP laws "must not contradict game mechanics", but how accurately does this reflect the reality? In practice, we do see RP laws which contradict game mechanics, sometimes in marginal ways, sometimes in drastic ways - like the example of the Jelbanian central government only being able to determine domestic policy for 1 of its 5 regions. The previous edition of the Game Rules provided a lot more clarity in terms of which examples of RP laws would be considered legal and which illegal, but the current version does not do this at all.
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Looking at this Jelbania incident as a whole, it is surely undeniable by now that there are a range of issues involved here and there are definitely lessons to be learned. It is also disappointing that one of our newer players, who is not one of us hardcore Particracy RP veterans, has had this particular experience in our game.