Social Contract

General:

  • Be respectful, friendly and helpful to others.
  • Support the spirit of the game – this is a medieval fantasy setting where the fun comes from interactions between people. The game works through collaborative story telling, we encourage our players to make up rich stories, interesting goals and even rumours that add to the game. This is not a place for judging others role play abilities or for “pwning n00bs” in combat. That said, player vs player is allowed [and does happen] and a blood lust for killing monsters is not uncommon.
  • Ask questions - we're always happy to help.
  • Look after borrowed kit – do not stand weapons on their ends as this can damage them.
  • If you can stay after the game, please help tidy up the kit.

Health and safety:

  • If yourself or another person are hurt or otherwise in trouble (e.g. dropping glasses) and need the role play/combat to stop, call “MAN DOWN”. If you hear this call, stop what you are doing immediately.
  • Do not stab with larp weapons. Stabbing with them can cause actual harm and also break the weapon if used in a stabbing motion.
  • Pull your blows – try to hit people with low impact swings, as long as they know they've been hit that's enough.

In character (IC)/Out of character (OC) boundaries:

  • Personal boundaries – before carrying out an action that is not normal larp combat and affects a person physically, e.g. wrestling, lifting, slapping, kissing etc, make sure to stop and ask them if this is okay OC beforehand. Obviously if it's a no or they seem uncomfortable, don't do it! Please note that roleplaying any kind of sexual abuse is completely unacceptable in this sytem.
  • Do not to talk about information that may largely affect other peoples game when OC, this kind of information if often known as “FOIP” as it stands for “Find Out In Play”. An example of this would be to OC tell another player that you know they will be assassinated next game or some other information that changes the way they would otherwise play. The best way to make sure something stays secret IC is to keep it secret OOC – it can create bad feeling if a situation arises where one player isn't sure if another used OOC information inappropriately.
  • Some people do like to discuss some aspects of their role play when not playing. This can be fine, just don't take information you hear OC as information you know IC. For example, if we are not playing the game and I overhear another player saying that their character stole an item last game, I need to act as if my characters don't know this.
  • PvP interaction does exist in the game, ranging from social to combat PvP. This can result in character death. We expect players to recognise this as IC behaviour and not bear OOC grudges against players whose characters oppose their own. Players will often buy a drink (or some equivalent token) for a player whose character is killed by one of their own, but OOC liability will stop there.

Combat:

  • Be honest and take your hits – cheating is against the spirit of the game and dying is an important part of the game, which can be fun in itself depending on how your character goes. We allow you to play several characters, so if something happens to one you can always play another or join the monsters for a while!
  • Please remember that while the phys-reps you are using are very light, the real weapons would not be. “Drumming” or “Machine-gunning” - that is, hitting a character in very quick succession without much in the way of pull back in the blows- is against the rules and spirit of the game. We expect players to make proper swings with their blows. If this is unclear, we can give a demonstration. Weapon blows should be infrequent enough that all calls should be clear (“SINGLE! SINGLE! SINGLE!” rather than “SINGASINGASINGASINGA”…) We won't measure timings with stopwatches, but some people using 1 second as a good ballpark time between weapon blows.

The game and the refteam.

  • The game is complex – we are simulating a large social, political, and combat interaction using a necessarily limited set of rules and relying on short-notice judgement calls from the refteam. Please bear in mind that this game is not fair. Not all new characters are equal, situations will arise where things will go wrong for your character and there is nothing you can do about it, and people will make mistakes. Sometimes this will be in your favour, at other times it will not. Understanding and accepting this is important in ensuring you have a good time!
  • The Refteam will endeavour to ensure that the game is as fair as possible. However they are human and are subject to making mistakes. They also invest a great deal of time and effort into planning interactives and linears, writing downtimes, coming up with plot etc. Unconstructive complaints (“whining”) or taking their hard work for granted is not conducive to the running of the game and ultimately you having a good time.
  • The decision of the refs is final – redefining what happened in play (“ret-conning”) will not occur. If you feel that an error has occurred, please notify the refteam, and we will discuss the situation and how we can avoid how to avoid such errors in future if we agree that something did go wrong. Constructive feedback is appreciated, accusations or repeatedly bringing up issues the refteam has declared closed is not.
  • The refteam have lives outside the game – at times, this may lead to conflicts where the game can't run or will be running at less than full capacity for a limited period of time. Sometimes this will be due to family events, other LARPs happening at the time, holidays etc. The refteam will endeavour to notify you as far in advance as possible. Please respect that the refs run this game out of their own free time for free, and hence are running it as volunteers rather than on a contract and not out of “owing” anything to the players.
  • Downtimes submitted after the deadline will not be processed. In general, the downtime deadline is the Sunday following the interactive for players not charactering the linear, and midnight on the Sunday of the linear for characters going on the linear. If you have exceptional circumstances and inform the refteam in advance a dispensation may be made for late downtime on a case-by-case basis.
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