Policies

From FiranMUX

FiranMUX has a number of policies that the players on the game are required to follow. The staff documents these policies to keep the game running smoothly and keep things fun for everyone. Before you can enter the in-character area of the game, you have to type in a command that says you agree to all of these.

Contents 1 Absentee Details 2 Alt Examples 3 Alts (alternative characters) 4 Alt Exceptions 5 Alt Replacing 6 Alt Restriction 7 Alt Secrecy 8 Alts of Admin 9 Alts Outing 10 Beating the Queue 11 Birthday Bonuses and Blahs 12 Complaints 13 Connecting 14 Consent 15 Death 16 Deities 17 Donations 18 Exploitation 19 Free Skills 20 General Policy 21 Hacking 22 Harassment 23 Joining the Staff 24 Legal System 25 Magic 26 Multiplaying 27 OOC Communication 28 Ownership 29 PG-13 29.1 The Public Channels 29.2 The Ritual of Eesha Command 29.3 Role-Playing Sexual Behavior 29.4 Violence 29.5 Summary 30 Pilfering 31 Plots 32 Pregnancy and Social Point Hits 33 Privacy 34 Races 35 Rerostering 36 Service 37 Shortcut 38 Social Imperatives 39 Thieving 40 Tinysex 41 TYNAF (Thumbing Your Nose At Fate) 42 Vacation 43 Voting 44 Wizards 45 Websites

Absentee Details

The following outlines the specifics of what is required should a character be determined to be Very Absent(tm). Very Absent(tm) consists of multiple times on the absentee list, judged by level, player complaints of inconsistent online activity (the keyword being activity), and/or notification via observing administrators of less than satisfactory statistics according to the @playerstats and other such utilities.

Level I -- 4 XP, 8 KB (file size) long log

Level II -- 2 XP, 4 KB (file size) long log

Level III -- 1 XP, 2 KB (file size) long log

To clarify, the logs must be from a roleplay scene that occurred within the week after receiving the Very Absent(tm) email. The XP can only come from @votes and will be checked via the @vote Tally on the following Friday (if the following Friday is three days or less from the Very Absent(tm) was SENT, the next Friday would be the valid one).

Alt Examples

A brief list of examples of alt conflicts is shown below. For a more comprehensive list, see 'help alt conflict examples'.

Improper: One of your characters investigates a crime in which your alt is a suspect, the perpetrator, or a witness.

Improper: Romantically involving one of your characters with the love interest of another of your characters.

Improper: Any transaction in which money would ordinarily change hands between two of your chracters (ie. don't buy or sell or trade or gift anything between your alts).

Improper: Using one character to get revenge for wrongs committted upon an alt. Using one alt to physically defend another alt. Using info gained by one alt for the benefit of another. Taking advantage of the skills of one alt, for the use of another.[Top]

Alts (alternative characters)

Many RPG mushes discourage the use of alts (alternative characters), and most muds either forbid alts, or forbid multiplaying (having more than one of your characters online at a time). FiranMUX, by contrast, as a very liberal policy on alts. We encourage players to have and use alts. We require only that players be familiar with our restrictions, and that the following rules be observed:

1. There are four types of characters on FiranMUX: Features (I), Companions (II), Citizen (III) level characters, and non pre-gen level (IV). We ask that you have no more than one of each of these types of characters, with the exception of replacing the Feature slot with Companion or Citizen, or a Companion for a Citizen. If you have questions about what category your character falls into, type '@sheet' and check the Character Level.

You will need to have earned a mimimum amount of 15 XP before you can choose a second character of any level, at least 25 before applying for an alt that is a feature, and 75 XP for a third character.

2. You may have more than one character logged into the MUX at the same time. However, you must not have your own characters interacting with one another. On rare occasions, this may be impossible to avoid, and if so, we will allow it, but be prepared to justify your actions to an admin and to extricate yourself from the situation as soon as possible. You should also avoid having your alts interact with the same people whenever possible. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but the best course of action is to extract yourself from a scene with that person as soon as practical.

3. Your characters must not be involved in the same plots. There may, on rare occasion, be overlaps that are unavoidable. However, such overlaps will be highly scrutinized by the Admin, so be prepared to justify these overlaps and to extricate your characters from the situation as soon as possible.

4. You MUST keep knowlege gained by one character separate from knowlege learned by another. This will sometimes be the most difficult thing that we ask of our players, but will also be the infraction we punish most severely.

5. You MUST NOT use one of your alts in such a way as to benefit another one of your alts. Your characters should, for all intents and purposes be strangers to one another. They should never help one another.

6. You MUST NOT use one alt to avenge another alt. If Johann the guard kills your citizen level character, you may not use an alt to get revenge on Johann. In fact, you should probably have your alts avoid Johann, because any interaction you have with him will be viewed with suspicion.

7. Lying to the wizards about who your alts are, or deceptively trying to gain more alts than you're entitled to will probably result in your being banned from the game. All of your alts must be registered under the same email address as well.

8. Alt-hopping, in which players pick an alt then discard it after a time in favor of a different one, is generally discouraged. We can understand if people pick an alt off the roster then find something in the character's secrets to be a problem, or if the player is unable to "get into" the character in spite of valiant efforts at RPing. However, we discourage throwing away an alt and trying to pick up another simply because you decide you're bored. If you've had the character for a while and suddenly find yourself having trouble rp'ing, speak with an admin. We strive to give our characters as many RP opportunities as possible and will work with you to help you get through an apparent RP slump.

For more information on the specific alt policies, see 'help alt policies index' on the game itself.

Alt Exceptions

Though FiranMUX has many rules and guidelines, our ultimate standard is one of reasonableness. There are going to be situations where the normal rules of conduct for alts may have to be bent or broken. For example, you may find that, through no fault of your own, two of your alts have ended up in a room together and it is seemingly impossible to do anything about it. As long as you page the wizzes and explain the situation, you will not get in trouble for this kind of mishap, and staff will make an effort to help you out.

Alt Replacing

Due to the nonconsent nature of the MUX, it's very possible to lose a character to death, whether through war, sickness, accidents or executions. When this happens, the staff works with compassion and understanding to help ease any shock, including helping the player find a new alt. However two things must be kept in mind. First, it's highly unlikely a new alt will be custom-made; we simply do not have the resources for this. Second, the replacement alt cannot be of the same clan (including the Old City pseudo-clan), vocation or social circle. This is due to the strong possibility of alt conflicts; it would be very difficult not to use the knowledge gained by the old character, or to avoid running into plots involving said character. If the player has strong feelings about having another character of the same clan et cetera, then s/he must wait a minimum of three (3) RL months before requesting permission from the staff to do so, although rare exceptions can be made. This applies to replacing an alt who was rerostered, as well as replacing an alt who has been killed. Please also note that you cannot roster an alt during an alt freeze, and come back as a 'new player' to take a new character without first discussion your intentions with the staff.

Alt Restriction

All your alts must be of different levels, with the exception of having a second level II or level III instead of a level I. In addition, your characters must not be improperly involved with one another. Briefly, improper involvement includes the following situations:

1) You should avoid, at all costs, having your alts in the same room.

2) You should never use one of your characters in a way that will directly benefit another of your characters. Even indirect benefits are extremely suspect.

3) You should not involve two of your characters in the same tinyplot.

4) You should avoid having your characters even _know_ one another.[Top]

Alt Secrecy

Staff members prefer not to reveal their alt(s) to players, since people tend to become nervous or behave differently if they know they're roleplaying with an admin. Please respect this, and if you suspect Jane Admin is behind a certain character, do not spread this information around. Some admin get nervous in turn and would rather give up their character than be accused of powergaming somehow, especially when they're trying their hardest to avoid doing such a thing. Wizards love to roleplay, just like everyone else, and it also helps them see how the game is running from a player's point of view. PLEASE RESPECT STAFFS' PRIVACY!

If you're a player, it's up to you whether or not you keep your alt identities a secret. We, the staff, will not confirm or deny any requests by other players to reveal your alts.

Alts of Admin

Some admin alts are used as if they were NPC characters, entered into the game to show up where there are holes, to provide conflict, and to help move a story along. As a result, admin alts can and should make use of information they learn from all sources (even though they should not use this information to benefit their own characters -- but instead, to benefit the game -- and they can expect --> -- to be asked to justify this).

Whenever an admin alt ends up involved in a situation in which some neutral decision-making will have to be made: combat situations, arrests, almost anything that is likely to lead to a dispute, he or she should always ask another admin to serve as a judge. Once you, as an admin, have brought your character into the scene, you're no longer objective. There are rare exceptions to this rule, but they are very rare.

Alts Outing

As stated in 'help policy privacy', the admin of FiranMUX does not give out any personal information unless necessary, and this includes revealing a player's alts to another player. If you do not want your alts to be known, DO NOT GIVE THEM OUT! Likewise, unless a player specifically makes it clear that s/he doesn't mind having his alts known, do not spread this information around! This includes wizard alts, whether or not you know or suspect them to be true. Violation of this policy may subject the violator to a banning.

Beating the Queue

There are times when a player, whether by typing too fast or using a macro, causes a condition called 'beating the queue'. When a command is typed, it is added to the MUX queue and at times there is a slight delay before the entire code of that command is processed. If the same command is typed quickly, without pause, it can cause such situations as finding yourself suddenly dying of alcohol poisoning, losing XP from learning skills too fast, seeing stenis go into a negative balance, or causing a specialized name to go generic.

As a general rule of thumb, wizards will not compensate lost stenis, retcon poisoning, give back XP, et cetera. The only exceptions are for a totally new player who is unaware of the consequences of typing a command too fast, let alone what queue is. Beating a queue is not necessarily a beneficial thing, and bad things happen more often than not.

Birthday Bonuses and Blahs

PHers are your only line of defense for birthday blahs and bonuses. They send out three @mails over the course of two RL weeks and if, by the end of that time frame, there is no reply, you forefit your bonus ENTIRELY. The wiz-staff will not choose the stat for you. If you have a blah, it will be randomly picked. If you have both, they will cancel each other out. The only reason to @request a birthday blah/bonus directly to Wiz-staff is if you have a secret reasoning to justify the raise or lower. Even if you are going to 5, you should @mail the PHer and that PHer will handle the approval process with Wiz staff -- first through contacting a Wizard on PHer channel, and should that fail, through @request.

PHers are also permitted to deny your request to bonus or blah something. If they feel the reasoning is weak or does not fit, do not be surprised if they ask you to try again. Bear in mind that raising stats from 1-2 or 2-3 is a bigger jump than 3-4 and from 4-5 is even bigger still; the more drastic the bonus or blah, the better reasoning you will need to have to satisfy the PHers' requirements.

Complaints

FiranMUX is a very special place, and we don't expect that it will appeal to everyone. Rest assured, however, that there is a method to our madness. The results you see here were produced by deliberation and debate. We're always consider suggestions, but please don't expect that your disagreement with our fundamental philsophies and decisions will produce change. If you have a complaint about a particular problem you're encountering, and you'd like us to change something to accomodate you, please come to us with solutions instead of just a gripe. If you post it to the Suggestions board, you will ensure a response. If you have a complaint about a particular person, piece of code, system, or something like that, please report your complaint via 'help @playercomplaint' (and see help player complaints).

Connecting

The staff reserves the right to decide who may play here and may ban any player from the game for any reason. If you are told to leave, you must do so without fanfare or trouble. If you are banned, you are not welcome back and should not bother the players or the staff, and you should not return as a player or guest.

Consent

FiranMUX is not a consent-based RPG. Not only might your character get stabbed against your will, your character might also be convinced against your will. We believe that social skills are every bit as important to a good RPG as combat skills, and consequently, some characters will be armed with an arsenal of social skills that may overwhelm your character, even if you remain unimpressed. We expect you to role-play according to the messages the code on FiranMUX gives you. However, if you really believe that you are the victim of an unreasonable role-playing order, you can and should contact an admin. If your character has hated and loathed Johann the guard all of his life, and suddenly Johann successfully uses a social skill to convince your character to love him -- it would probably be unreasonable, and an admin will be able to clear it up for you.

This does not eliminate the possibility of players getting together and agreeing to role-play a certain plot a certain way. If you want to do consent-based role-play, we do not object. However, everyone involved must be consenting.

Death

On FiranMUX death is a permanant thing, so if you really value a character, try not to get yourself killed. Not only is death a permanant thing, but a character may die as a result of disease, or even old age -- so one should keep in mind the fragility of life at all times. Because death is final on FiranMUX, when your character is killed, you will find yourself in a period of stasis during which the deity Unot must determine if your death was a fair/reasonable death.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, your death will be pronounced a clean kill, your soul will be taken its final resting place and you will be asked to choose a new character. There may be rare occasions, however, when Unot decides that the death of your character either was an unreasonable one in which the medium caused skewed results, or is undesirable for some higher plot purpose. If this happens, you will be resurrected and the resurrection will either be part of another plot, or the players in question will be told to disregard the death and pretend that it did not occurr. Again, this will be a rare happenstance, so DON'T COUNT ON IT. There is no appeal from Unot.

Deities

Deities are player characters who have special powers. They are not omniscient (though your character may well believe that they are). They may spy on you, they may kill you, they may do any variety of things that Gods might be expected to do in any Greek myth. They are immortal. You can try to kill them; it won't work. Rest assured that their conduct is controlled by both policy discussions of the staff (it's very important that deity characters do not abuse their powers), by plot points, and by various built in coded controls. Deities work in a dual role as admin -- everything that they do should further tinyplotting on the mux. If you have a problem with the conduct of a deity, you should take up your problem with the Chief Wizzes. This is the only player problem in which you should ignore the hierarchy. The decision as to who will play which God is in the sole discretion of the Chief Wizards (dictators that they are!).

In general, realize that you may not like what gods do. You may not consider it fair. You may consider it evil. Unfortunately, unless you're another deity, there's little you can do about it. There are disadvantages in being mortal. ;)

Donations

We of FiranMUX do accept donations. These donations will be used for the following purposes:

1. For entertainment, food, lodging, travel and related expenses associated with the 'FiranCon' event usually held every year around Memorial Day (End of May.)

2. Upgrades and Replacement parts for the server on which the game resides and associated resources

FiranMUX is not a non-profit organisation. Donations are not tax-deductible. Donations are subject to the laws of Maryland and the U.S.A. Please note that we grant no considerations whatsoever for a donation.

1. there is no guarantee, implied or explicit, of access to the game, with or without a donation

2. no in-game or out-of-game privileges are granted in exchange for a donation

3. a donation may not and will not place any obligations upon any parties, including upon the staff, players, owners or game of FiranMux

Please consult with staff, especially Adam and Steph, should there be any questions regarding this policy. This policy is subject to change by the owners of FiranMUX.

Exploitation

FiranMUX is, at this time, still in the beta mode, and the staff is constantly working to iron out code, be it bugs or calculating ICly appropriate figures. We depend on our players to inform us when bugs appear, especially those which could cause players to gain unfair advantage over those who aren't aware of such bugs or anomolies. Taking advantage of these in an unrealistic way to unfairly benefit one's character is grounds for immediate banishment from the MUX. Examples are making 400 cheese pies in one day to sell for millions of stenis at the market, or typing a command in such a way to beat the queue and gain a favorable roll.

Free Skills

It's fairly easy to earn experience points on FiranMUX to apply towards learning new skills. However, there are occasionally cases where a player believes a character should have a given skill, or should have it at a higher level, without having to spend experience points to get it. In some cases this may be appropriate, but these cases are fairly rare, as the characters are thought out as a whole, not necessarily with your intepretation of the character in mind. If you truly believe you deserve free skill points, feel free to bring it up to the staff with the following in mind:

1. Unless there was an outright code error in the chargen system, Features (Level I characters) will NOT be changed, nor given free skills. Extras must be earned.

2. If you have been in character for more than 5 days, you will not receive any extra skills as your character has already interacted with the game and it would be paradoxical to suddenly have a skill increase without ICly learning it.

3. Raising a skill that you already have will require a *VERY* good reason for the improvement. We frown on this type of change.

4. Finally, should your character be approved to have a new skill, we may compensate for the new skill by taking or lowering one of the skills you already have.

General Policy

Here on FiranMUX we prefer to trust our players until and unless they do something wrong. We could (and many would argue, should) have taken many more precautions to prevent you from breaking our rules, but we think that an atmosphere of distrust only inhibits fun. So please, don't take advantage of our good nature and make us regret placing trust in you. ;)

Hacking

If you break into our machine, or otherwise acquire permissions that you are not authorized to have, you will be sitelocked and the incident will be reported. Unauthorized access to a computer is a crime in Maryland, so if you destroy anything in the process, legal action can and will be taken against you.

Harassment

In Character contact here on FiranMUX is non-consensual. If one character wants to harass (sexually or otherwise) another character, it is allowed and sometimes encouraged where appropriate. This harassment may even amount to sexual assault. (Please keep in mind, however, that this is a PG-13 MUX.)

Out-of-character contact on FiranMUX, by contrast, should always be consensual. If someone is paging, @mailing or otherwise bothering you in an out-of-character area, you should politely but forcefully ask them to stop. If they continue after this warning, report the incident to an admin immediately.

FiranMUX admin will do what they can to assist their players and help to make the MUX a more player-friendly place. If that means sitelocking harassers, or taking other disciplinary action against them, so be it. However, FiranMUX admin in no way set themselves out as being responsible for the behavior of their players or as protectors of their players against harassers. FiranMUX admin are not police; their goal is to make FiranMUX a better game and that goal supercedes everything else.

Thus, if you, as a victim, do not get the satisfaction you desire from our admin, you should take whatever actions necessary to protect yourself from the harassment with the tools that are provided to you by your ISP and your computer's off switch. If you, as an accused harasser, feel as if you've gotten the short end of the stick from our admin, you should take your RP business elsewhere -- as the judgments of our admin in this respect are subjective, but final.

Tips for the victim of harassment:

a. Don't dictate that a general subject not be spoken of in a public OOC area because that subject offends you. (If you don't like it, leave the area.) Conversations specifically directed at you don't count.

b. Don't ask someone to stop communicating with you, but continue to contact them. (If you want them to stop, you stop too.)

c. Don't say something nasty to someone and then add that you don't wish for them to contact you again (thus depriving them of a response and letting you get the last word).

Joining the Staff

We're fairly liberal about letting people who want to become staff members on FiranMUX give it a try. If people love our MUX and want to help us, and have the talent and skill to do so, we see no point in turning them away. We don't hold to the belief that a Wizbit is a membership to an exclusive club. We know that enthusiastic players are often the best potential staff members you can find and to that end there is no rule against players being staff members. We no longer have the ability to train people from scratch, and so we do require that you have either some coding or building knowlege and that you be able to attend most, if not all, of our Monday night staff meetings (at 8PM EST). It is highly unlikely that you will be allowed to admin on FiranMUX without having been a player in good standing on our mux for several months, displaying good role-playing ability and earning some experience points.

The qualities we're looking for in a staff are:

a. An ability to learn new things,

b. An ability to accept and work with decisions from on high that you don't necessarily agree with,

c. A positive attitude,

d. The ability to dedicate at least an hour a week to an @job or other concretely productive task,

e. The ability to get along with and mesh with the other staff,

f. The ability to accept direction from others,

g. A willingness to do small unfun tasks on occasion,

h. The ability to put the good of the MUX above all else,

i. An ability to act professionally and ethically,

j. A good mature staff temperament,

k. The ability to keep up with @mail, the @bb boards, and other game information,

l. The commitment to log in for at least an hour a day to do wizardly activities (this is an average requirement, not a brightline rule).

We set up trainees with a mentor, give them assignments, and monitor their progress. To become a staff member on FiranMUX we require that you sign an electronic contract that ensures the protection of our (and your) intellectual property. Even if you aren't sent such a contract, it's your responsibility to read it in the wizhelp files and be aware of your legal standing.

As a Trainee the other staff members will evaluate your ability to contribute regularly to the mux, work within our hierarchy, and your ability to get to know (and get along with) the other members of the staff.

The decision of whether or not to promote you will be at the exclusive discretion of the God and Goddess of FiranMUX. However, it should be noted that Steph and Adam will attach a great deal of weight to the opinion of your mentor (So, for example, forgetting who your mentor is would be a bad idea). If you are not promoted to a Junior Wizard within six weeks, your staff bit will likely be removed. If you are promoted to a Junior Wizard your responsibilities will increase accordingly. If you are not promoted to full Wizard within a reasonable time thereafter, your staff bit will be removed. Once you've been promoted to full Wizard, your staff bit will only be removed for cause.

Legal System

It's subjective. It may produce strange results. Use it responsibly, don't be a twink, and try to have fun using the role-playing opportunities it affords.

Magic

There really isn't any magic, per se, on FiranMUX. What there is, finds itself in the form of powers that can be used by Gods and Goddesses. On rare occasion, Gods and Goddesses may deign to enable a mortal with a relic that has some special magical power -- but no mortal on this game will have magic powers of his or her own. Not even priests. When a Firan wants something extraordinary to happen, he or she can pray to the appropriate divinity and hope that his or her prayer is heard. This is a non-negotiable FiranMUX policy that is essential to creating the atmosphere of ancient mythology, so if you don't like it, we may not be the right place for you.

Multiplaying

On FiranMUX we do allow you to have more than one character logged in at the same time. You may, however, wish to avoid this because of the possibility of 'Mavving' (saying something with one character that was meant to say with another), because of the possibility of conflicts of interest, and because unless you're a very fast typist, it can be difficult to run two characters at the same time without one or the other, or both of them suffering.

You must, however, keep your alts out of the same room. If your alts enter the same room, you must try to extract one as soon as possible. Do not get into a situation where you end up roleplaying with yourself.

OOC Communication

Many strict RPG MU**'s do not allow player paging or many forms of OOC (out of character) communication at all. Here on FiranMUX, we believe that the best player bases are formed out of a sense of community. We want ya'll to be able to hang out, make friends, and chat with one another on a person to person, rather than just character to character level. Consequently, we will allow player paging, an out of character mailing system, and an out of character comsystem. If we find that you are abusing any of these forms of communication by sharing IC information with those who shouldn't have it, disciplinary action will be taken. We do not discourage idling, but we do ask that if you plan to idle on our MUX, that you do so in an OOC room, which can be accessed by typing, 'ooc'.

Ownership

This is an original themed MUX and the copyright to everything on it including characters and objects, belong to Adam and Stephanie Dray. If you're interested in obtaining copies of our code, please @mail Adam for details. Our thematic material is NOT available for use elsewhere. This means you may not create a character on any other mush that is derived from a pregenerated character on FiranMUX. We can and will reclaim your pregenerated character if you are too frequently absent from FiranMUX or are playing it in a way that we consider to be contrary to the nature of that character. You may not create a derivative work based on the FiranMUX theme and you will note that the definition of 'derivative work' is quite broad.

PG-13

Seeking a mush that would neither be a tinysex haven, unfriendly to minors or unfriendly to our own very adult themes, Adam and I have sought to use the term 'PG-13' as a sort of 'use your good judgment' kind of guidline. We often use the term PG-13 to talk about what kind of mush FiranMUX is or should be. This is a very loose use of the term since the PG-13 designation is one first invented for motion pictures, and subsequently bastardized by the broadcast industry. Print media has absolutely no such guidelines on it at all, and the internet is technically neither print or broadcast in nature, leaving us in basically unexplored territory.

Consequently, what follows are some clearer explanations of what we mean when we use this term.

The Public Channels

These channels are often inhabited by people younger than 16. As a result, one should avoid curse words, and especially sexual or violent topics. Naturally, the occasional curse word is going to come out. You stub your toe, and you curse. Whatever. The staff isn't going to throw a fit over that. However, if any wizard, for whatever reason, seems to think you're going too far, back off. The public channel should be somewhere between 'Bambi' and 'Weird Science'.

The Ritual of Eesha Command

This command was written for two purposes. First, it allows minors who are playing adult characters to have their characters engage in the natural sexual parts of their lives without giving in to unecessary prurience. The command messages are simple, biological facts that can be found in any 5th grade text book. As a result, minors may use these commands. However, minors may not role-play these scenes out. This includes the risky stuff leading up to the act, and the risque stuff immediately following the act. The second reason for the command was to allow characters to suffer (or enjoy) the consequences of the behavior.

Role-Playing Sexual Behavior

If both parties are over the age of 18 and both parties consent to it, they may role-play sexual behavior on FiranMUX. However, keep in mind that there is no expectation of privacy on FiranMUX. Moreover, the best guideline I can give you is that these scenes should read like a romance novel. No profanity. No unthematic fetishes. No graphic detail about bodily fluids, and so on. Please see 'help policy tinysex' for further information.

Violence

If you know you are playing out a violence scene with a minor, avoid graphic detail of that violence in your role-playing. You may also wish to refrain role-playing out the details of a sexual assault, though we do not mandate that you do so if both parties consent to role-play those details.

Summary

Naturally, this is not a complete and specific list of do's and don'ts. Such a list would be impossible to compile, and even if successful, there would be constant subjective judgment calls on our parts. We do not want to be the policemen of this kind of stuff, we just want our mush to be safe legally, and safe for minors to play on. Adam and I would be extremely dissapointed if it ever got to the point where players put the burden on the MINORS to leave if they didn't like or weren't old enough to see what was being role-played in the game.

See also: tinysex, consent

Pilfering

The problems and lack of understanding with pilfering stem from a few factors. The first factor is that people who take thief characters tend to be younger or inexperienced roleplayers who fail to use the commands judiciously, and haven't yet caught on to the fact that we're a game that is based on roleplaying. The other factor involves consent based expectations that if something happens to you, you should be able to observe it. When these two things clash, we get angry players about the pilfer command.

The whole point of pilfering is to steal undetected. This is best done in large crowds where you would neither be noticed nor felt. And in keeping with that fine upstanding tradition, if you successfully pilfer someone, no message is given to the player you pilfered, and it is unecessary to "tip off" the player that they have been robbed by posing in such a way as to make it obvious. You don't need to pose that you bumped into them or somesuch, because, frankly, that's like painting a big red sign on your forehead that you're a thief and players are simply not very good at keeping that information OOC.

Now, if you fail or botch your pilfer roll, the person you're trying to steal from /does/ get a message about you bumping into them or somesuch. In such a situation you are /obligated/ to roleplay with them because the code has dictated that they noticed. They will likely tell you if this happened. It doesn't mean that their character necessarily knows that you stole from them, but they're going to be suspicious of your character and they have a right to the satisfaction of at least roleplaying out their reactions and yours.

Plots

FiranMUX is based on the 'trickle-down' philosophy of tinyplotting. Here, there are secrets and machinations of Fate that the Gods themselves are unaware of, and will find themselves reacting to. In turn, the ways of the Gods will seem mysterious to mortals, but will, nonetheless impact upon them and cause them to react, and so on.

Certain story/plotlines have been pre-determined and only Fate is aware of them. This may, occasionally, seem to produce odd or unfair results for characters. Our advice is to try to istance yourself enough to enjoy the overall story. There are certain plots which SIMPLY WILL NOT be run on FiranMUX. These include:

Pregnancy and Social Point Hits

An unwed, pregnant woman is considered scandalous in the social world of Firan, and an unwed mother even more so. Any female character who becomes pregnant while unwed will be subject to a social point hit every day until she gets married, beginning around the third or fourth month when she starts to show. If she is still unmarried when the baby is born, the social point hits will double.

The only exceptions are whores and outcasts. Whores do NOT get social hits since pregnancy is an occupational hazard of their vocation, but they might get lump sum social hits when/if the public notices they try to keep the baby after it's born. Outcasts DO get social hits while they're pregnant since it's physically impossible to hide a pregnancy, but once the baby is born an unwed outcast mother - already considered a 'scum' who doesn't know any better - is less obvious than an unwed noble or middle class mother, and the social point hits stop.

Note, also, that widowed women are an exception as long as it is fairly clear her late husband is the baby's father.

Also note that whores/outcast unwed mothers are not the only exception to this policy. Other circumstances may come up and staff will make the best decision they can based on facts.

Privacy

Due to the nature of the MUX, you should not expect any privacy for your characters UNLESS THEY ARE IN AN OOC ROOM. Admin will frequently spy on tinyplots in order to allocate award points, and keep abreast of unfolding plots. Admin may, for various reasons, examine objects descriptions, and other attributes related to your characters. If you want to speak privately with another individual, GO TO THE OOC AREAS! Communication via 'page' is also considered OOC and private.

Our admin will not disclose your rl name, address, or any other information they might have about you to others without your permission except insofar as they are required to by law enforcement or other law related motivations. Our admin will not use their powers to contact you off the MUX against your wishes except insofar as they are required to by law enforcement or other law related motivations.

Races

FiranMUX was developed from specific plot materials. The setting allows few races, and all of them are predetermined. We will not be adding elves, wookies, vampires, or anything like that, no matter how fun or appropriate it might seem to you. Most characters will be human. If you can't think of anything 'interesting' to play in the range of human psychology, then you won't enjoy our game. See 'news races' for a list of the available races on FiranMUX.

Rerostering

After ten days of inactivity, 15 days for a level III character, without a vacation flag set on a character, a player is sent a reminder email that not logging in will cause a reroster of that character. If the player does not log that character in, it will be subject to being placed on the @roster of characters available to the public. Any XP lost in this manner will not be restored if the player returns, as we have no way to verify the amount of XP lost.

To avoid being rerostered after ten days, you must have a vacation flag set on that character. You can @request that one be placed on the character and mention how long you plan to be gone for. Extended absences may be subject to reconsideration and possible retraction of the vacation flag following a prolonged absence.

Feature characters may be subject to rerostering due to inactivity, as features require a certain amount of presence on the MUX. All players will be warned if this becomes an issue or if there are complaints received regarding their inactivity.

Service

The FiranMUX staff sets its service goals at very high levels to improve the conditions on the MUX for player and staffer alike. On Firan, we work constantly to benefit as many players as possible at all times -- which means that occasionally, individual players may feel their needs are not being met as quickly or as thoroughly as possible.

Our service goals can be summarized in the following ways:

• Code supplements role-playing on the MUX, but does not replace it. Complex coded systems and objects on our MUX create and promote long-term tinyplot potential. Coding such systems allows players to resolve 'game mechanics' through the use of code and hence be more free to RP without worrying about die roles or task resolution mechanics.
• We document as much of the theme of the MUX and the code we put in place as possible, to reduce the need for individual player assistance. Most questions about systems, mechanics, code, and theme can be answered by reading our help files.
• Key to our service goals is to keep the players informed as to how we prioritize our work to enhance service to the entire playerbase. In order of importance, we handle: Emergencies, @jobs, new guests, @requests, Help-channel requests, and individual pages to staff members. We do try to handle individual requests, however, some requests that might be important to the individual player are of lesser importance to the MUX as a whole, and where this means that the staffers won't have time to deal with MUXwide issues, such requests will be given a lesser priority. If you want a significant expenditure of staff time on an individual issue, it should be something that we prioritize as highly as you do and benefits the most number of people.
• We want -- we desperately want -- to run more tinyplots. We don't always have as much time as we would like to run such tinyplots, hence, the creation of TinyPlot Coordinators amongst the players. Stories and plots which involve large numbers of players with a minimal amount of staff intervention required will always be favored over smaller tinyplots that require lots of work from staff to bring to fruition.

Players may make use of the @jobs command (see help @jobs) to see the major projects that the staff is currently working on. They may also read about finished @jobs on @bboard 20. These jobs take many hours, over many days, to complete -- so when we tell you we're busy, we mean it. These jobs are also the reason why we require players to use the Help channel or @mail for their requests rather than page us -- there's nothing worse than being 2,000 lines deep in scrollback coding and getting a page that distracts you or ruins your buffer, then the player getting mad when you don't respond promptly and "ignore" them! This is also why we ask players to contact Junior Wizards first. While they do perform code work, they are often more available for helping individual players than Senior Staff, who are more experienced in coding complex systems.

The appropriate forum for player requests, however, is the @request command. This command puts a request into a system much similar to the @jobs system, only not visible to PCs. Any manner of secret may be included in a @request, and it's the best way for you to help us to handle your requests efficiently. @requests are also noted at the time they are recieved, and we try to handle them on a first-come, first-served basis, which is fairest for all.

We may not always respond to your requests for help and pages as quickly as you'd like, but we hope that you understand a little better now what goes into running and staffing a MUX like this so we can make it better for the entire community.

Shortcut

If a new player is terribly lost on the grid, they can ask on the help channel to use the 'shortcut'. This involves going OOC, going to the Welcome Room and then going IC again to end up at the character's @home. Each time this exit is used, it is documented and overuse of the exit without staff permission will result in possible loss of XP due to previous player abuse of this shortcut.

Players may also request to use this command when trapped in a locked room that they don't belong in. If you were locked in on purpose, do not use this exit as a means of escape as it carries hefty penalties when used in such a manner. You must always receive staff permission via the help channel to use this exit. If there are no unidle staffers, player helpers are authorized to give permission. If neither staffers nor player helpers are available, then you may use the shortcut. However, you must @mail the senior PHers, currently Hakana and Jazayeri, or face XP penalties.

Social Imperatives

Don't abuse them. This will make us annoyed. You may not safely ignore them in character. You may not use them to harass another character. You should never use them OOC.

We are one of the only games online or offline to have coded social commands. People seemed perfectly willing to allow dice to decide whether their head got chopped off, but whether or not they were convinced by something, they felt violated when the dice would dictate that. We decided to do it anyway because we felt that such beliefs led to a hack and slash mentality in which players only chose combatant characters because those were the only characters who had skills that could 'do' something.

That being said, there is no way to code in all the complexities of social judgement. Thus, we coded in a compromise. We coded all the social imperatives so that the difficulty was the standard difficulty of 6. We knew, however, that there would be situations or circumstances unknown to the computer that should make the difficulty of the roll either higher, or impossible. That is why every successful social imperative use tells the victim that they should appeal to the wizards if they think that it would be out of character for them to have been convinced or not convinced.

Now, ideally, players could work this out by themselves, but oftentimes, a character does not want to share his or her secrets with another player and they shouldn't have to. Wizards come to the scene, evaluate the situation given all the facts, and will occasionally rule that the social imperative has no effect. We do so for very good reasons. If you, as a player, are finding that your social imperatives are being overruled a great deal, you are probably using them to excess or in unreasonable situations and should re-evaluate your own use of the commands rather than chastise other players for doing what the code instructs them to do.

Just a note as an aside that staff upholds the use of social imperatives far far far more often than we overrule it.

Thieving

The following is a set of rules that thieves must follow. The reason is self-explanatory within the guidelines.

1. You MAY NOT steal from a room that contains a sleeping player object OR disconnected player object. This is because players are not at their computers 24/7 to protect their belongings from thieves who bash down doors or even lockpick the door open and the Staff believe that it is not only courteous to leave their things alone in that specific room, but that it is twinky for another player to take advantage of someone's time away in real life and expoiting the fact that indeed they cannot be online all of the time.

2. If one does stumble upon a sleeping or disconnected player object(s), that person is to leave IMMEDIATELY IN THE DIRECTION THAT WAS ENTERED and NOT PASS THROUGH TO A DIFFERENT ROOM. 3. These rules only apply to INSIDE ROOMS due to the fact that, in essence, a person is normally familiar with the enviroment that they're falling asleep in and, even in the state of slumber, indeed notice when something is out of the ordinary. Of course, there are exceptions but since there is no code to distinguish someone's subconscious sleeping habits (And it will not be coded), this applies to all characters. Dspace rooms (which are ALL OUTSIDE) are exempt from the sleeper/disconnected player rule due to the fact that a) Anyone sleeping outside would know that things happen at night, such as animals and, if sleeping in the streets, people passing by. and b) Each dspace square equals 60 ACRES -- that's a lot of space for people to pass by and, combined with the noises of nature, a lot of liberties when searching to steal.

All in all, if you're going to sleep outside, don't leave your things on the ground. Don't sleep outside just because you can't move your things from the ground either; that's twinkish and there's ALWAYS a way to move your things. You can @request the move (An Admin will charge you either energy points or stenis depending on what is being moved) or you can make multiple trips using a hand cart or another large container.

Tinysex

Sexuality is a normal part of people's lives, and this is a mush about role-playing other people's lives. It should not be thought unusual, then, that players would want to role-play sexuality when appropriate. And so long as the role-play of sexuality is both in character, relevant to the character's development and thematically fitting, we allow it on FiranMUX with the following caveats:

1. You may NOT under any conditions, role-play sexual relations if you are under 18 years of age. We have written a command -- the ritual/eesha command -- so that if sexuality is appropriate for your character you can have that happen in a non-explicit PG-13 way that you MAY NOT ROLE-PLAY. This includes the risky conduct immediately previous to the act itself. Kissing, romance, and undressing is allowed.

2. You may NOT role-play sexual relations if your partner does not consent to the scene. The act may still take place via the commands, but we allow players to 'opt out' of actually having to role-play sexuality or graphic violence if they so choose, regardless of their age.

3. There is no expectation of privacy on FiranMUX. Your scenes may be watched. If you would be embarassed for us to see what you're role-playing, don't do it.

4. If you and your partner are both over the age of 18 in rl and both consent to role-play the sexuality in your scene, refrain from using strong language, graphic depictions of bodily fluid, or other strong content. No profanity. No unthematic fetishes. It should read like a romance novel. If you cannot adhere to these guidelines, you should take your scene to pages -- however, we discourage role-playing that cannot adhere to these guidelines for most characters.

That said, we wish to create a mush that is neither a tinysex haven, unfriendly to minors, or unfriendly to our own adult themes. It's important to us that minors not be exposed to inappropriate materials. However, we do not and cannot take responsibility for policing the activities of minors on our mush.

If we know that someone is a minor, we reserve the right to take whatever measures we feel necessary to protect that minor -- but we claim no responsibility to do so. People play here at their own risk.

Parents are ultimately responsible for their kids and should exercise their rights in whatever way they see fit even if it means taking their kid off our game.

TYNAF (Thumbing Your Nose At Fate)

Fate is played by Adam and Stephanie Dray. They are the owners of FiranMUX and all the thematic material related to it. If they tell you to STOP doing something, you should stop. Likewise, if they tell you to DO something, you should do it. If you don't do as they say, you may be in violation of FiranMUX policy and appropriate action will be taken.

Adam and Stephanie do not believe that their God bit gives them any special authority or superiority over you as a human being. However, it does give them authority over you as a player of this game. This does not mean you can't argue/debate/discuss issues of disagreement. It DOES mean that Fate has the final word.

Vacation

If a player is planning to be inactive for longer than 10 days, her or she may @request a vacation of up to two weeks. Requests for vacations longer than two weeks may be approved or denied at the staff's discretion. If the character is a feature, less leeway may be given, due to the fact that feature characters are often involved in ongoing plots that require their presence. The situation preventing the player from logging in will also factor into the amount of vacation time given. For example, someone who must leave due to military duties may be given a little more vacation time.

Voting

We encourage players to reward their fellow role-players for excellent RP by voting them experience points using the @vote command. You should vote for the players that you personally have experienced the best role-playing with during that week. You may not vote for yourself with your alts. You may vote for the same player with more than one of your alts in the same week, provided your alts have actually role-played with that person, but be prepared to justify such votes to the Admin (see 'help policy alts' for further information). Vote-swapping, in which players vote for each other without having done any RP solely for the sake of gaining (trading) XPs, is frowned upon and any player caught doing such will receive a warning, docking of XPs, and possible banning.

Wizards

Wizards are FiranMUX admin. We have several different ranks of Wizards: Trainees, Junior Wizards, Wizards, Senior Wizards, and Chief Wizards. Ranking is used for the purpose of decision making and management. Junior Wizards may overrule the decisions of Trainees, Wizards may overrule the decisions of Junior Wizards and so on. If two admin of an equal rank cannot agree, an admin of higher rank should arbitrate.

The standard to be used in determining whether or not one admin should overrule another should be the 'clearly erroneous' standard. That is to say, a wizard should only overrule another wizard if they have information that would reveal the lower ranking staff member's decision to be in error, disruptive to the game, harmful, inconsistent with policy, or inconsistent with interface issues or FiranMUX practices.

An admin is not going to overrule another admin simply because he or she doesn't agree and might have made a different decision in his or her place. So, it will be difficult to take advantage of the hierarchy by 'wiz shopping'. In fact, if you, as a player, receive a decision from an admin that you don't like, you must appeal that decision to a wizard of the next highest rank and you MUST inform that higher ranking wizard of the previously made decision. Almost nothing is more disruptive to the harmony of a wizstaff than players shopping for the answer that they want -- and if you do this without following the guidelines set out here, you'll face disciplinary action by the staff.

Websites

We have many creative and talented players on FiranMUX, and some of them have web pages featuring their characters. We will be happy to add a link from the Firan web pages to your site, but before we do that we require that you add a copyright notice to your page(s) as follows:

Copyright Notice: All FiranMUX related artwork is copyrighted to the artists, but as the art work is derivative of the works of Stephanie and Adam Dray, an irrevocable non-exclusive license to use, reproduce and display this artwork is granted to Adam and Stephanie Dray. All thematic information including characters, character names, backgrounds, setting, descriptions, and storyline are copyrighted to Adam and Stephanie Dray and permission is not granted to use this information without express consent.

Once this is done, you can @mail Senior Wizard Lisa and request that a link be made from the Firan web pages.

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