GAME RULES REDRAFT CONSULTATION

[Elf]

Oh. My. Goddess.

Sorry for not being active in the game for some time. Stuff to do irl.

I'm gonna do a thorough review of these tomorrow evening. Just wanted to comment the discussion about colonies: I support reinstating them under some form of easily understood framework. The system we have now suffers from many of the same problems as AASA:s did. Most people simply don't have time to play as two entities at once.

Biggest reason some people worked to ensure that they were removed, IIRC, was because a tiny group of players held a near-monopoly on the colonies, thus ensuring that virtually only Hulstria and Luthori could be superpowers in the game. While I'm not looking to open that can of worms again, I think it could be done better if some kind of balance was ensured. One way to do it could be to simply make the ex-colonies "protectorates" of their respective countries, with the possibility of them gaining a new protector, if the overlord is found to be neglecting them. I'm not sure exactly how that should be arranged, but one way could of course be to have an entire nation, with the usual 2/3:rds majority, applying for a protectorate, after doing some well-thought-out RP.

With that said, I'm happy that you've taken the time to seriously simplify and reorganize the rules. You've managed to reduced the number of letters from 53157 all the way down to 12631. This is a much needed effort that will make the rules easier to work with and understand, thus making the game more enjoyable in the long run. Thank you!

[jamescfm]

On a relatively minor note, I think it would be beneficial if the current draft of the rules (i.e. what is currently in the Google Docs file) was stored on the Forum somewhere. For example, create a thread which is just the rules and which links to this one. Personally, I find Google Docs difficult to work with and the fact that anyone can edit it makes it even more frustrating to use.

[FPC]

On a relatively minor note, I think it would be beneficial if the current draft of the rules (i.e. what is currently in the Google Docs file) was stored on the Forum somewhere. For example, create a thread which is just the rules and which links to this one. Personally, I find Google Docs difficult to work with and the fact that anyone can edit it makes it even more frustrating to use.

I will try tommorow when I get time. But the permission for editing lies only with me. So noone can edit it

[jamescfm]

Oh, sorry about that. When I read through the document initially, it looked as though changes had been made but I guess those were suggestions rather than edits.

[CCP]

Subject: Particracy Rules Redraft ~ Updates and Information

. . . Below is a link to a new document containing the new game rules you are all familiar with.

Moderation appoint one player from each continent as a Continental RP Coordinator (CRC), this individual will help coach players and get players involved with RP across the continent and world. The CRC from each continent has the right to appoint a small group of players to assist them in their duties in anyway the CRC sees fit, these players are referred to as RP Masters. Each CRC should also choose one player as their deputy who will fill in for them if they become indisposed.

I think this is a big improvement over the current RP Team setup. The Global RP Committee's areas of responsibility will be clearer and easier to understand than currently, and each CRC's potential workload will be less unwieldy which will help increase CRC activity. The fact that areas of responsibility will be tied to geography will also help encourage CRC and RP Committee activity because Committee members will have a more tangible stake in RP outcomes than RP Team members currently do.

One question though: for CRC eligibility, are only players currently playing in the respective continent eligible to be CRC for that continent?

In order to remove a current protocol players should pass a bill stating clearly their intentions. It should contain no other articles and should be supported by a two thirds majority of players with seats.

I think the language from 5Li ("Moderation reserve the right to query or deny . . .") should be added here too.

I think Section 5 in general gives moderation sufficient authority to support centralized world-building and culture control if they wish: all countries are opted-in to moderation culture control by default, moderators can refuse or modify players' culture proposals (Cultural Protocals), the ability to adjust CPs is removed in the current draft (players can only remove CPs or create completely new ones) meaning that moderators will be leaned on more heavily to control culture and RP continuity for opt-out nations, and world builders will be attracted to applying for RP Committee spots due to the culture control authority of the Committee. In general, this draft heavily biases in favor of moderators and against opt-out players. I think it's a fair compromise between the pro- and anti-culture centralization sides from the Culture Map thread, and I think it should be kept in the final draft at least for trial period of several months or more to avoid controversy.

For anyone who can't or doesn't want to click through to the Google Docs version, here is a copy and paste of the full draft (formatting may be messed up -- no promises):

Particracy Game Rules- Revisited (Draft)

Temporary Key for Reference purposes:

Green = Hyperlink required
Pink = clumsy wording, could do with a redraft
Red = Placeholder (To be changed once the main rules have been implemented)

The Particracy Game Rules act as a set of principles and a guide for both players and Moderators to follow, to ensure that the game remains fair, fun and principled. Moderation reserves the right to make exceptions in special circumstances, as well as to make amendments to the rules as deemed appropriate.

Index:

Player Conduct and Respect
Accounts
Language and Communication
Real Life References
Role-Play- Guidance and Principles
Rules concerning Game Mechanics (ie.bills, treaties etc.)
Moderation Procedures (ie.inactivation, reactivation etc)
Other


Player Conduct and Respect


All players and Moderators have the right to be treated with respect and courtesy at all times.
There is a difference between in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC), players should make clear which one of these they are communicating in.
Moderation reserves the right to take action against statements deemed to be promoting hatred, violence or discrimination against individuals or groups.
Player privacy must always be respected, therefore Doxing, or other infringements of privacy is strictly forbidden.
It is forbidden to try and impersonate a moderator or deliberately present a misleading picture of the rules to another player
It is absolutely forbidden to share private messages with any user apart from Moderation unless given the explicit permission of the player whose message you are sharing.
Any user caught repeatedly breaking the rules may be banned temporarily, if the infringements are considered serious enough by moderation.







Accounts

2.
a. It is forbidden for a user to run more than one active account in game at the same time. If you suspect a player of running multiple accounts please report it to Moderation on the Multiple-Account Trial thread.
b. As a result it is also forbidden to log in via a proxy server or VPN network.
c. If you cannot avoid the possibility of logging into Particracy with the same IP address as another player, please inform Moderation and carefully follow instructions given in order to enable you to continue playing the game.
d. Each user should play the game independently, thus should not share their password with anyone (including Moderators) or allow others to access their account.
e. Handing over or trading an account is prohibited, each account should only be used by the player who created it.
f. Each account should be registered with a legitimate email address, which the user checks fairly regularly. This email will not be shared but in some cases may be sent messages by Particracy.

Language and Communication

3.
a. English is the main language used in Particracy, as a result all communication should remain in English, and users should be able to communicate to a reasonable standard in English.
b. Party names, constitutional titles, and other similar variables may be in a non-English language appropriate to a nation’s cultural background, but party descriptions and bill descriptions, as well as other public communications must either be in English or be accompanied by a full English translation..
c. Users should not be abused due to language difficulties but Moderation should be notified when poor English has resulted in a communication break down.
d. Swearing and Bad Language is not prohibited, as long as it is not over the top or extreme and does not turn into a personal attack on another player.
e. Spamming (or sending the same message/creating the same bill with the same variables multiple times) is forbidden both in game and on the forum.






Real Life References

4.
a. Using or referencing a real-life character, figure, nation, place, religion, organisation, nationality or other Real-Life variable in Particracy is strictly forbidden unless it is mentioned out-of-character.
b. This also applies to Real-Life fictional references (for example Cinderella, Narnia or Lightsabers)

Role Play (RP)- Guidance and Principles

5.
a. Role Play is a large part of Particracy, however it is not compulsory and as a general rule the game mechanics always “come first.”
b. If you are planning a large scale RP that will affect other users, always obtain the consent of all users involved. However it is possible to RP smaller, more personal events without the consent of others.
c. Users should always make a conscious effort to keep Roleplay realistic and reasonable.
d. Players should make an effort to keep to their word and not back out of RP which they originally consented to by RP post or otherwise.
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 a simple majority of seats 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 scrap 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 should 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.
f. RP between multiple nations (ie. more than one) follow the same rules as internal RP.
g. Moderation appoint one player from each continent as a Continental RP Coordinator (CRC), this individual will help coach players and get players involved with RP across the continent and world. The CRC from each continent has the right to appoint a small group of players to assist them in their duties in anyway the CRC sees fit, these players are referred to as RP Masters. Each CRC should also choose one player as their deputy who will fill in for them if they become indisposed.
In order to be appointed as a CRC, Deputy CRC or RP master a player should have an active account in game and on the forums.
In general, Moderation will allow the CRC full discretion regarding appointments of Deputies and RP masters, however moderation should be notified of any appointment and reserves the right to veto all appointments.
h. When working as a collective the CRC’s, Deputies and RP masters will be reffered to as the Global Role Play Committee.
The RP Committee will often be consulted by Moderation regarding potential changes to RP rules and will occasionally be asked to review certain aspects of Role Play in contentious situations.
i. The RP committee welcome feedback from players across the community, so don’t be afraid to offer them some friendly feedback.
j. A character is always owned by the player who originally created them, unless publically transferred to another player via the Character Transfer thread.
.A character, house or bloodline that has been unused for one hundred in-game years will be considered inactive, and players who wish to take control of them may apply to do so on the Character transfer thread, application should include a brief plan for the character (s) as well as details of former controller etc.
i.An alternative option is to reach out on public forums to the original owner and if they are unreachable, players may add/remove/change a letter in the name of the dynasty/house/surname and proceed as if a new family have been created.
k. The Global Role Play Accord (GRA) is an opt out index of nations. There are two types of membership in the GRA: A full membership allows the RP committee to determine the nation’s culture (see rule 5k) as well as its economic and military characteristics. Whereas a partial member allows the nation to choose one option or the other.
.To opt-out of the GRA a nation should pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of players with seats voting in favour stating whether they are opting out of the whole accord, or part of it in which case they should specify which part.
i.To opt back in a nation should pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of players with seats voting in favour and state what part(s) of the GRA they wish to opt into.
l. The RP committee will post detailed descriptions of the nations economic, military and cultural characteristics (including a cultural map) on the Particracy forums for those nations which fall under their purview.
m. A nation can determine its culture using culture protocols. If a nation has a culture protocol it means it is "Culturally Protected" and bound by this section of the rules, whilst others are "Culturally Open" and are not. The Cultural Protocols Index should be consulted for more information about the cultural situation of each nation.
i. In order to establish a Culture Protocol a nation should pass a bill, listing it’s proposed culture protocol, supported by a two thirds majority of players with seats and then submit it to the Culture Protocols Approval thread for Moderation’s approval. Moderation reserve the right to query or deny and prosposal.
Ii. In order to remove a current protocol players should pass a bill stating clearly their intentions. It should contain no other articles and should be supported by a two thirds majority of players with seats.


Rules Concerning Game Mechanics (ie.Bills, Treaties etc.)

6.
a. Bills may only be proposed by active parties from within the nation, inactive party’s may contribute to discussion/debate on bills and propose bills with the consent of other active parties within their nation.
b. If a bill changing the national flag is passed, it is forbidden to try and “cheat” the system by changing the image stored at the linked URL address.
c. Users should try and keep the “Bills under debate” section of their nation clean and tidy. Users can request bills to be removed or archived using the Bill Clearout Requests thread. Bills are eligible to be considered for clearout if they have been proposed by an inactive party or are more than 10 in game years old. Culture Protocols or other significant RP bills which are still relevant may not be eligible for clearout.
i.There are occasionally exceptions to this rule, Moderation reserves the right to deny clearout requests.
d. Treaties will be eligible for deletion if they are more than 50 in-game years old, and have no ratifications. These should be reported to Moderation on the Dead Treaties thread.
e. “Treaty-locking", or ratifying treaties that completely or nearly completely forbid any proposals to change laws, is not allowed.
f. Party Organisations may be eligible for deletion if they are over 50 in-game years old, and do not have at least 1 active member.
g. It is forbidden to “spam” call early elections, it will be considered spamming if a user calls more than 5 elections in 5 IG years.

Moderation Procedures (ie.inactivation, reactivation etc).

7.
a. Users will have their party routinely inactivated if they have not logged on for 4 days
b. Moderation reserves the right to inactivate any user who is in breach of the rules and has not made the necessary corrections to their behaviour after being warned by Moderation. Or have committed a serious enough offense to merit an immediate inactivation.
c. Users can request the early inactivation of another party in their nation, using the Party Inactivation Requests Thread on the following conditions:
i.They have not logged on for 3 days (72 hours)
ii.They have not logged on for 2 days (48 hours) and have not filled out their party description, changed the name of their party or voted on more than one bill.
iii.They are “Party-Sitting,” which involves logging on occasionally but not voting on bills. A user will generally be considered party sitting if this behaviour lasts for at least 5 days.
iv.They only log in or vote on bills every 3 days without giving a reason for any behaviour, usually attempting to dodge inactivation due to the above rules.
v.Similar offense not covered in the above rules, but do not contribute to the gameplay to the satisfaction of other players. Communication must be attempted with the player before discussing with the Moderation over this.
d. An inactive user can request to be reactivated using the Reactivation Requests Thread, they will not be reactivated if they have the log-in-bug or are in breach of the rules or have repeatedly been inactivated as a “party-sitter.”
e. Moderation controls the renaming of nations, and as such reserve the right to query or deny a Nation Renaming Request. To rename a nation a user must pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of seats and send a request to Moderation via the Nation Renaming Request thread. Renamings must be inline with the Culture Protocols of the nation in question. User should consult the Nation Renaming Guide to ensure that their changes conform with the prevailing culture of the nation.
f. A user can request leadership of a party organisation if they are the only active member. Requests should be made on the Organization Leadership Requests Thread. Moderation reserve the right to query or deny Organization Leadership requests.
g. Users can request early elections on the Early Elections Request thread if they are the only active party in their nation, or no party in their nation has seats. Moderation reserves the right to query or deny any request.
h. Other requests can be made by either contacting Moderation directly or by posting on a relevant forum topic. Moderation reserve the right to query or deny any request.

Other Rules.

a. The Third World nations/former colonial territories in Particracy are under the control of Moderation. Moderation will grant players permission to control a third world nation within certain boundaries of discretion, Moderation and the CRC for Dovani will determine where these boundaries lie.
b. Players interested in applying for control of a Third World nation should post to the Third World Control Requests Thread. Moderation reserve the right to query and deny any and all applications, as well as assigning control of the application process to other individuals (the CRC for Dovani) The application should include:
i.name of Third World nation applying for;
ii.brief synopsis of what the interested player intends to do with the Third World nation (general idea, direction);
More information on the Third World nations can be found on this page

[FPC]

Thanks a lot for finally posting it on the forum...I kept meaning to do that. I am currently working on a new document that fixes up some of the formatting and changes wordings here and there so when I finish that (probably this week) I will put that on the forums.

With regards to the RP Committee, I am really glad you like the idea and I certainly think its an improvement. In terms of eligibility at this point I am not 100% sure. I think it would certainly be beneficial if the CRC was an active and well known player from within the continent, however we cannot guarantee that the most suitable candidates will be spread across the continents. What do you think would be better? I am inclined to say that the CRC has to have had an account in the continent that was active for at least 10 IG years or something like that.

I will add the query or deny phrase to 5Lii aswell, good idea.

I understand what you are saying about the culture, and we can certainly see how it runs for a while with the new rules. There are definitely still changes I would like to make to that section, but I feel these rules are an acceptable compromise for the moment.

[CCP]

With regards to the RP Committee, I am really glad you like the idea and I certainly think its an improvement. In terms of eligibility at this point I am not 100% sure. I think it would certainly be beneficial if the CRC was an active and well known player from within the continent, however we cannot guarantee that the most suitable candidates will be spread across the continents. What do you think would be better? I am inclined to say that the CRC has to have had an account in the continent that was active for at least 10 IG years or something like that.

In order to get the most suitable candidate for each continent, the less restrictions the better. So I think the current language is fine and I don't think anything should be added about "residency" so to speak. I only asked for the sake of double checking.

The one thing that nags me about the CRCs is that they're tied to continents. Doing it that way obviously makes the CRC system easier to explain and "sell" to players, so it's understandable why you you guys (moderators) would choose to structure it that way. But of course players who might make the best CRCs might have expertise that doesn't line up well with the continental geographies. For example, MBites might make a great CRC for Thallerist countries or maybe German or Germanic countries. It would be cool if a CRC could have jurisdiction over just those countries in cases like that. But again, that might make things seem more complicated and difficult to understand for many players, so it's understandable why you guys might be reluctant to "gerrymander" the CRC map that way. The fact that you've added RPMs is good because that might provide a useful loophole for CRCs who have a gap in knowledge about a certain part of their continent: they can recruit a player with deeper but narrower or more eclectic knowledge to oversee specific countries in their continent. The language is sufficiently loose so that CRCs could even appoint eachother as RPMs in different parts of the map.

Overall, I personally think CRCs are just a great idea and change. I think it's very much in the right direction in terms of improving and increasing RP quality and continuity. I hope it gets implemented successfully and I can't wait to see it in action.

EDIT: Oh, but we should probably consider having set terms for CRCs to avoid real or imagined "tyranny" by any CRC. If CRCs only held "office" for 2, 3, or 6 months, at least others who might object to a CRC's way of doing things could look forward to an opportunity to possibly reform things if selected as the replacement at the end of the term.

[FPC]

I do understand what you are saying however if we go with appointing them for certain areas of RP then it will open up the question which areas are worthy of picking. Say we choose to appoint a Thallerist CRC and not a CRC for say the Mede family. What stops players feeling offended that their family wasn’t chosen. I think division my continents is the best way for now, it’s simple and uncontroversial. However if this idea works in the long term we can consider changing how they are divided.

We are considering set terms of 1-2 months at the most.

[Arapaima13]

Other Rules.

a. The Third World nations/former colonial territories in Particracy are under the control of Moderation. Moderation will grant players permission to control a third world nation within certain boundaries of discretion, Moderation and the CRC for Dovani will determine where these boundaries lie.
b. Players interested in applying for control of a Third World nation should post to the Third World Control Requests Thread. Moderation reserve the right to query and deny any and all applications, as well as assigning control of the application process to other individuals (the CRC for Dovani) The application should include:
i.name of Third World nation applying for;
ii.brief synopsis of what the interested player intends to do with the Third World nation (general idea, direction);
More information on the Third World nations can be found on this page

I really like the idea of the CRCs. They are a great step forward in introducing more role play into the game.

Regarding the Dovani CRC though, it says here that Moderation could assign "control of the application process to the... CRC for Dovani". This would appear to make the CRC for Dovani a lot more powerful than the other CRCs, as well as effectively promote it to doing jobs that are traditionally done by moderation. In my opinion, it might be easier if there was a CRC for Dovani and a CRC for the Third World.

[Auditorii]

What’s going to be done for topics such as economics and military? I do not believe that CRCs for each continent can realistically accomplish such a comprehensive duty such as complaining and monitoring.