MUX Policies

Alts Policy
As it relates to alts, you are allowed to have up to 6 characters in the game, but in addition to the limits below, you should keep in mind how much time you will have to devote to each character, particularly if you are going to take on a role such as a duc/duchesse or a family head.


 * You can only have one character of ducal rank.
 * You can only have one character per province.
 * You can have up to two family heads.
 * If you stop playing a character for any reason, you may not make a character from either the same family or same Night Court house for 3 months and may not make a character from the same Province for one month.   This includes character death, IC situations where the character is sent away long term, OOC boredom with the character, etc.  We feel this will give the player time away from the situation to come in fresh if they decide to make a character in similar circumstances as the prior alt.

In addition, you should keep your alts as separate as possible. What one knows, another does not necessarily know, and they should not directly share information unless staff has approved it. They should also, typically, not be in the same grid room, though exceptions to this can be made for large scenes or other circumstances where logic dictates they would both be present. If in doubt, ask staff if it would be permissible.

Something else regarding alts: if you find out about the alt(s)of another player, keep this information to yourself. It is their place, not yours, to reveal this information to others if they choose. This was policy prior to the reset, and it should have been afterward as well, but due to the accidental erasing of the old wiki at around that time, not all of this information was carried forward.

Harrassment
Though this should go without saying, this game is made for people to have fun. This cannot be accomplished if the rules for common courtesy are ignored when speaking to fellow role-players out of character, be it pages, poses, @emits, channels, or @mail. We here at Kushiel's Debut expect players to remain civil with one another and with staff.

Malicious OOC behavior like: harassment, taunting, insults, gloating, and unwanted sexual advances have no place on this mux. While we do not want to be an OOC Police, abuses and violations will result in a warning and further incidents can result in more severe measures including the loss of a character or ultimately removal from the game.

If someone engages in any unethical behavior towards you or makes you uncomfortable, including any type threats or advances, ask them to stop. If they do not, please page lock them (@lock/page me=!*name) and report the incident to staff.

IC/OOC Issues
First and foremost, it should be mentioned that metagaming, the act of using knowledge gained OOCly to base IC action on, is forbidden. If you do it, and it was an honest mistake, own up to it and don't fight any retcon of actions that may be necessary to correct the situation. Mistakes do happen, and we realize this.

At the same time, staff will have a very low tolerance for this sort of behavior; in blatant enough circumstances, it will get you sitebanned. So do everyone, including yourself, a favor and simply be careful, and if you are not sure whether you will be crossing the line with a certain action, page staff to ask.

Further, if you don't like the way a scene is going and try to argue against it OOCly, and the others involved don't want to and prefer to keep things entirely IC, you need to desist. If you do not, it will be considered Harassment. If you have a worry that someone is taking IC action based on OOC knowledge or feelings, do not argue with a fellow player about it, but instead bring it to Staff's attention.

Consent
Kushiel's Debut is an R rated game set in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series, a set of novels rich with storyline that includes violence, betrayal, sex, romance, love, murder, and everything in between. We run our game as ICA=ICC, which means that in character actions lead to in character consequences. This can be something as simple as the social repercussions from choices your character makes leading to nasty comments and the loss of friends and other allies, to acts of vengeance, betrayal, and murder. We use the nWoD game system to help players know their character's skillsets so that they can play out their social, mental and physical strengths and weaknesses, and this is partially to take part in such conflicts. However even though conflict is essential to every story, we realize as a staff and as a community that it is working together towards the common goal of enjoying the roleplaying experience that makes a game a strong one. Every character will have a chance to succeed and triumph, and every character will experience moments of failure. Both are essential in creating a rich and immersive story for everyone to enjoy.

Though ours is not a 'consent based' game, meaning that things can happen to your character that you did not choose, we believe as a staff and as a community that forcing unpleasant experiences on our players is not the best way to make the gaming experience enjoyable. Thus we encourage players to remember that they are always free to fade to black any scene that they find uncomfortable, such as one with sexual or violent content. This concept is similar to that in movies with R ratings, where a scene change skips over details that the viewer can assume. Players can determine through dice and discussion what occurred in such a scene without posing all of the details. All of our players should also be aware of what actions can and cannot be forced on them regardless of whether they would choose to fade such actions or not, and can find more information on this by reviewing Incentives or asking staff. Please remember always to make sure that those you are playing with are comfortable with the way a scene is going, especially considering some of the thematic material of our game world. We consider this separate from ICA=ICC or consent based, and rather just an act of courtesy.

If you plan to take some sort of action that will affect the life and well-being of another character in any major way, or even the future existence of another character then you should contact staff to oversee the scene. Our staff very much understands themselves as referees, especially in cases of PvP (player-character versus player-character conflicts). They are obliged to act and make decisions in an impartial and unbiased way, make sure the rules of the game are followed, and that the scene remains fair for every participant. Violence taking place in the City of Elua is especially tricky to run without a staff member present, as guards are present or close by in most buildings, If you plan to carry out an attack within the city, you may want to contact staff in advance to find out the rolls you would need to make to be sure that no one was around, that you had your target in isolation, etc. What often seems simple is made complicated by the presence of an NPC population in our setting, which is a busy place.

Does this mean you need to call staff for everything, no matter what? No. In cases where the scene is a) contained (meaning there are no npcs or any other outside influence that could interfere, or it happens in a surrounding under the control of one of the involved players), and b) all the players involved consent to resolve the scene among themselves, you may go ahead with the scene, of course. We do ask for at least one of the players involved to keep a log of the scene, however. This is important to us so 1) we can get sure what happened can be integrated in the overall story-line and 2) should there be later questions, concerns or complaints we can answer them and get sure everything was handled fair and under adherence to the rules of the game (or if not, work out a solution).

Age Policies

 * Player's Real Life Age Policy: 18 OOC
 * Age of Consent Policy: 16 IC
 * Age of Majority Policy: 18 IC

Player's Real Life Age Policy
Kushiel Debut Mux is a mature role playing game based off Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. This environment may contain adult themes that are not suited for minors, therefore all players are required to be of legal adult age dependent upon location; such as of the age of 18 within the United States. If you find the possibility of encountering adult themes such as violence, sexual conduct or language, you should not apply here. However that is not to go without saying that we enforce players to be participants of adult themes.

IC Age of Consent
In Terre d'Ange the age of sexual consent is 16. Thus is the reason that Night Court Houses hold their debuts at that age.

IC Age of Majority
In Terre d'Ange the age of legal majority is 18. This is when most D'Angelines have complete access to their funds, and when they can legally inherit any lands or titles. Turning 18 is usually pretty exciting for D'Angeline nobles, though those of the middle or common classes often find that they have a good deal of responsibility before the age of 18.

Nobility who are under 18 will still find themselves with freedom and certain influences, though will often be regarded as 'children' by those of older generations. Still, many will bear in mind the power they will be coming into when they do come of age, and who their parents are. The children of Ducs, Duchesses, and Kings will often be given a wide berth.

Adepts who have debut (usually this occurs at 16) but are not yet 18 are often still working on their marques, and thus under a great deal of influence by their House and their Dowayne and Second. They will certainly enjoy a good deal more freedom than they did when they were young novices, yet also are likely looking forward to adulthood, especially the day where they become fully marqued courtesans.

Idle Policy
Here on Kushiel's Debut we have a MUX wide Idle Policy of 30 days. That means if your PC has been idle for 30 days or more you will be cleaned up and @nuked.

What you may also wish to know is if your PC has just been logging on for a connect followed by an immediate disconnect, your PC will be considered IDLE as well and will be @nuked to open up the slot for other PCs. If you are going to hold a coveted PC slot on this mux you are expected to at least be able to put in 7 hours a week of active RP within your faction i.e. A Duc should be RPing political RP with lesser nobles in his/her duchy as well as attending Courtly events just as a Dowayne should be RPing House RP with the members of his/her house. Any less than this and you will be considered Idle.

If you are going to be on vacation or unable to connect for an extended period of time and your want your PC saved, you need to @mail Staff. If you have any questions on this policy, please feel free to ask.

IC Housing Policies
IC housing options will depend largely on a character's social class and profession. Commoners typically either live where they work, or have small homes separate from their place of business, depending on the nature of their business and how successful it is (the latter measured by the Resources merit of the character in question). This applies to independent servants of Naamah who have made their marques as well; independent novices and adepts are typically supplied with living quarters by their marque-holders.

For servants of Naamah belonging to houses of the Night Court, as well as clergy of the temple orders, housing would be provided by those organizations. Additional housing /may/be desirable for specific circumstances, though novices, adepts, and acolytes would have no other recourse to living in the provided housing. Full members of the clergy, and fully-marqued members of Night Court houses, would have the option of living elsewhere, but would have a room at the temple/house for use when rituals or duties require them to spend the night there. If you wish to have both a room at the temple/house as well as housing away from it on-grid, please be prepared to explain the IC reason for it. If you do not plan to use both regularly for rp, please only request one or the other.

For nobility, each family in a province would have rooms in the ducal estate for that province. The exception to this is house Courcel, due to their status as the royal family as well as holding lands in two different provinces; they have an ancestral estate in the city of Elua, similar to the ones that other families would have in the lands of their founding. Some nobles in the capital, for varying reasons (independence, business, etc.) would want to have housing elsewhere in the city away from the ducal estates. This is acceptable, but if you want both a room at the appropriate estate and housing away from it, once again be prepared to explain the IC reason for it, and if you do not plan to use both regularly for rp, please only request one or the other.

Foreign ambassadors live in the Ambassador's Tower.

Temple/Estate/Night Court housing is restricted, in most cases, to a single grid room, though Places/+view code can be used to split this up if you feel like configuring it. When designing homes other than these (businesses, townhomes, etc.), please keep in mind whether an area is going to be used for rp often or not; build staff reserves the right to say a particular requested dwelling is too large and ask that the number of rooms be reduced (particularly if you also want a room at a Temple/Estate/Night Court House).

I realize this policy is not very strict, and is really more a set of guidelines. This is intentional, because I prefer common-sense approaches to these things. If it leads to too much hassle for staff, however, stricter policies will likely be put in place. Thank you.

Social Dice Rolls
To be clear, social rolls made in game are meant as a guide to rp, not to dictate it, and it is up to players to interpret how they allow them to affect their characters, within reason. In the same vein, it is up to staff to determine how it will affect NPC's. For those who take negative consequences for losing such rolls without complaint, there is bonus xp that can be applied for.

There are some exceptions, such as Subterfuge rolls (if someone rolls high enough to fool your character, then he or she is fooled unless the character in question knows otherwise, or at the very least believes that the lying character believes what he or she is saying as well), or supernatural powers (if you have questions about how to interpret these, feel free to ask staff). Further, this is meant for those times that the dice dictate that your character might do something that severely goes against the character's ideas, beliefs, etc. It should not be used as a blanket rule to ignore consequences for your character's actions.

Puppets & General Spying Policy
From now forward, the use of puppets by players is not allowed, for the reason that it is far too easy to use them in spying on an area. I know they have other uses. Uses which we have not disallowed mainly because time can be a bit subjective within the game, but also in some cases because we cannot police them. However, if you need to emit an NPC or pet, you can do it from your character. If you need to have your character in more than one scene at a time, due to a time-shifted scene or whatever, there are people who use alts to accomplish this, and I have heard of people playing via IM or page. All of which remain valid options whether staff wants it or not, because we have no way of monitoring it. And because none of them allow spying. Puppets can be used this way, to gain knowledge that your character would not necessarily have and generally take away from privacy in game. So, the PUPPET flag has been set to Wizard-only, and existing player puppets will be destroyed.

Staff will be able to continue using puppets, primarily because they might need them for testing things out. But everyone should know that there have been strong penalties in place for staff caught spying since the the reboot of the game in March of 2012. It is not something I, as headwiz, will stand for, simply put and if you are caught doing so in some other way, there will be consequences. By spying, what we mean in general is using some coding trick to monitor what happens in a particular room whether your character object is there or not. This is why, for example, staff are not allowed to idle while Dark in IC grid locations while PC's are there. This is to provide assurance that only people you know are in the room because you can see them on the list of players playing in that room, including Staff, are able to see your poses. Assurance that can only be provided if we prevent players from setting the PUPPET flag on objects they create. If we come across other ways for players to do so, we will find ways to block them as well, and if you are concerned about whether there is someone or something in the room that can "hear" you, you can make use of the @sweep command.

Inactive Character Policy
Most characters whose players become inactive do so because of being idle, and do so without warning, often because those players become busy with real life issues. On occasion, however, a player will choose to set themselves inactive. In these cases, their characters will have new passwords set on them, as staff has determined that it is better for the health of the game that inactive players not log on. Primarily, this is because these players can become more difficult to deal with in an administrative sense. If and when an inactive player chooses to become active again, they can have their passwords reset.

For the sake of story continuity, characters who are abandoned, either through idling out (see above Idle Policy) or long periods of inactivity with no communication with staff, may be written into new parts of the story (or out of the story) depending on the needs of the game.

Lighting Candles & Pregnancy
For those unfamiliar with what it means to "light a candle" in this game, a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, it refers to the IC practice of d'Angeline women needing to light a candle to Eisheth in order to open the gates of their womb and allow them to get pregnant. For more detailed information, visit the wiki page for that Companion. What is important to mention here is that we, as staff, need to know if and when your character does this, for the sake of the continuing storyline of the game. What we need from those who light a candle to Eisheth is:

1. Add a +note to your character saying that your candle was lit, and on what IC date this happened. 2. Submit a +request to let staff know the note is there, so it can be approved.

Now, regarding actually getting pregnant, we do not use a rolling system as some other games out there seem to, and as we used to in the past. It is a choice you make for your character OOCly, whether you want that sort of storyline. The +preg code is for tracking a pregnancy if you decide to go that route for your character. You should, however, let Staff know if your character becomes pregnant, and by whom.

Public Areas
Areas that are ICly public on our grid (places of business, temples, outdoors areas, and certain areas within the palace, for example) are not for idling while afk. It should be generally assumed that anyone in such an area is open for random RP, whether or not their RP flag is on. If you try to contact someone who seems to be idling in such an area, and they do not respond within fifteen minutes, contact Staff so that we can send them to their home.

Combat
Combat is probably the most complex part of the rules system we use here, and both historically and currently, few among our playerbase know it well enough to ensure that one they are involved in will run as smoothly as possible. So, if your character gets involved in such a situation, please contact use the +judge command to get Staff help.

Logic & Poses
So that it is clear for everyone, assuming things that are not written into a pose, in general, is bad form. However, there has to be a certain amount of logic injected into the situation as well. If you write a pose, and it has contradictory language involved in it, don't be surprised if people interpret it differently than you want them to. Be as clear as possible in your poses in case it ever comes into question. This applies to what actually happens, by the way. What a character assumes ICly is, of course, up to the player of that character, or staff if the observing character is an NPC. If you need assistance or clarification in a scene, you can use the +judge command to get a staff member's attention. Thank you.