Rules

When role playing in Proskur, all players are expected to meet a certain level of quality when role playing their character and behave with a certain level of polite etiquette when interacting with other players online. The information, rules, and guidelines in this document are meant to help players figure out what is expected of them when playing on the server PPWP: Proskur. These rules are meant to keep the role play quality of the server high and to allow everyone who plays on the server to have equal amounts of fun.

First off, I should note that Proskur is a fairly safe city to live in. This may sound strange since the city council is a group of confessed criminals but it is in fact because of their seedy past that they are so effective against crime. They are highly motivated to keep their city clean and safe and they know all the tricks in the book. Thus, although there is a criminal element in Proskur as in any city, crime generally doesn’t pay. With this in mind then, if your character commits a crime, he or she is likely to get caught unless they are outside the city’s zone of protection (generally public places in Proskur are protected), protected by an experienced criminal organization, or a highly experienced criminal.

Proskur is a competitive server and, as such, PKing is allowed within certain stringent limitations. First of all, cold blooded murder, or PKing where the PC knows ahead of time that he will be killing another PC, is considered an evil act. It is prohibited for player to have their characters kill PCs or even NPCs in cold blood without approval for an evil aligned character. In some situations, this can be a banable offense.

Hot blooded murder and self defense where the PKing is a surprise to the player and the PC, is allowed for PCs of any alignment. Nonetheless, all PCs involved in the PKing must remain in character (IC) throughout the event and must not act contrary to their character’s behavior. Also, when any kind of PKing event occurs, the players who did the PKing and the players who were PKed must contact the DMs and report the matter to them for review. The purpose of this is to determine if any rules were broken and to determine what IC consequences might follow.

It is important to note that, although PKing is allowed on our server, there are very real and strict IC consequences to such acts. Players that commit crimes in Proskur are subject to become fugitives and murder is certainly a crime. A situation such as the kind found in Romeo and Juliet is certainly possible in Proskur. However, given the effectiveness of the Proskur government in cracking down on crime, players must understand that it is very likely their character might end up executed or imprisoned for a very long time.

As a general guideline, it is considered excessive to attempt to kill other PCs more than once every real time day. This amount does not accumulate over time but rather is “use or loose.” However, this is just a guideline. Therefore, deviating from this “once a day” rule is acceptable on occasion so long as it doesn’t become a habit. Naturally, there are occasions where your PC must defend himself or herself more than once a day from other PCs or there is a great role play opportunity that presents itself after you’ve committed your first PK of the day. Ultimately, quality role playing and great fun for all involved takes precedence over these guidelines. However, there is a fine line between PKing that is quality role play and PKing that is griefing.

The rule for pick pocketing is, if the PC notices the pick pocketing, so do most of the people around the PC. The fewer people around the PC, the harder it is to identify who did the pick pocketing. If the victimized PC notices the pick pocketer, the pick pocketed PC must send a report the event to the DMs. The purpose of this is to determine what IC consequences might follow.

As a general guideline, it is considered excessive to attempt to pick pocket more than three times a real time day. Also, one should not pick pocket an individual character more than once a real time day. Furthermore, these numbers don’t accumulate over time. Rather, they are “use or lose” from one day to the next. Finally, these are guidelines so deviating from the “three times a day” guideline isn’t going to get you automatically punished so long as it doesn’t become a habit. Ultimately, quality role playing and great fun for all involved takes precedence over these guidelines.

As always, PC guards and NPC guards controlled by DMs have the ability to dispense justice under the laws of Proskur. Nonetheless, most criminals will likely get away after a crime has been committed because...well...NPCs are dumb in real life and players aren’t always logged on.

To deal with this issue, a PC who commits a crime will be marked as a fugitive. Information about fugitives is automatically disseminated to all city guards so that they may capture them. Also, fugitive PCs have a chance of getting caught even while the player of the PC is offline. On the other hand, the information that describes the fugitive is not always good information and may sometimes be entirely useless.

When a crime is committed by a PC, the first step is to determine how much information is collected from the PC using a series of hide checks. The DCs for these checks are dependent on how the crime is conducted and the situation surrounding the crime. For example, a disguise may lower a DC while a lot of witnesses may raise it. The amount of information collected depends on the results of these hide checks.

Once the criminal is identified (or poorly identified), a fugitive report is made. The information is posted such that all PC guards can access it. This way, a PC guard has an opportunity to dispense justice while the fugitive PC is online. While the fugitive PC is offline, a hide check is made once per real life week to determine if that PC is captured. The DC is dependent upon several factors such as how well the fugitive was identified, where the fugitive is hiding, and what the fugitive does while he plays. The DC can also change over time depending on what the PC does while he is online after the crime was committed.

Also, if a PC or NPC guard successfully identifies a fugitive and the player of that fugitive character logs off or is disconnected for any reason, that character is automatically considered captured. There will be no exceptions to this. Although it is understandable that mistakes do happen and internet connections do go flakey, there is no way for us to distinguish mistakes from premeditated action.

Excessive use of out of character (OOC) talk is forbidden. There are occasions where OOC talk is necessary and this is understandable. However, every opportunity to express OOC information IC should be taken. Furthermore, OOC talk is best done in “tells” rather than broadcasting the OOC message.

Metagaming is using OOC information IC. There are situations where OOC is appropriate but, unless otherwise stated, a character can only act on the information available to him or her.

Metagaming also covers using real life limitations to your advantage in game where, if the in game situation were reality, you would not have that advantage. This is taking advantage of an exploit. In general, a player is prohibited from taking advantage of obviously unrealistic IC situations that might occur due to the player’s actions.

Powergaming is a rather fuzzy term that can mean different things to different people. In general, it refers to forgoing role play in favor of advancing your character’s power. The primary problem with this is that powergaming can take up resources from other players such as limited dungeon locations or quality rewards, yet those resources aren’t being used for the purposes of the server. Therefore, be sure to role play as much as possible and slow down. When advancing your character’s power becomes more important than interacting with other players, you may be straying into powergaming territory.

Helping characters out financially or with other resources is allowed. Actually, this is an important aspect of our PW and necessary for most PCs to advance far. This is a socioeconomic and political role play server where you must make alliances and deals with others and work together or against each other to go far. It is important to understand, however, that all resources are very limited. Thus, tweaking and twinking lower level characters on a whim will probably create serious problems for the success of your character. Muleing, or passing resources form one character of yours to another in any way that the resources are likely to reach your second character, is strictly forbidden.

The rules by which the server is managed both in and out of the game must also be followed. Most of these rules apply only to players in an elected position of power. Nonetheless, it is important for all players to read the Articles of the PPWP and to understand the Objectives of the PPWP. Together the articles and objectives define both what is expected of all players who play on the City of Proskur server and what powers a player have to manage that server.