Public Policy 2015
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/1 Posted Author
Amy Kerry / Sally removed Wed Jan 28 WhoopingCrane
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Tonight, the player of Amy Kerry / Sally was removed from the game by request,
following a couple of heated arguments regarding political speech on Public
and ultimatums of deletion and current versus proposed policy. I tried to
mediate the situation, but she wouldn't accept anything and resumed insults
on Public in an explicit attempt at suicide by cop, so I relented and granted
her request. (This is apparently at least the fourth time she's done this,
but we don't remove players for bad behavior on another game; some of them do
improve.)
Normally we wait four days before announcing a removal, in case new evidence
comes to light, but that clearly isn't an issue in this case.
The player did not make any requests regarding the IC circumstances of her
characters. Please submit a +request in case of questions there.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/2 Posted Author
Debate, NC-17, Random channels Wed Jan 28 WhoopingCrane
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Two of these have been around for a while, one is new. They're summarized in
@clist, but to spell out the intent a bit more:
Certain topics of discussion on the Public channel are reasonably likely to
annoy someone. While these are not absolutely verboten (everyone draws the
line differently), if you're asked to move the discussion to one of these
other channels, you almost certainly should:
* NC-17 is for raunchy stuff
* Debate is for other controversial stuff like politics/religion
* Random is for anything else that a number of people would reasonably want to
individually tune out (e.g. spoilers for a recent movie or TV show, or just
rambling on at great length about a specific thing)
On the flip side, if you don't like one of these things, then you should stay
off the respective channel (you probably won't miss anything you'd want to
hear anyway). For Random, this may need to be worked out on a case-by-case
basis ("hey guys I'm about to ramble about <topic>").
If you feel that more of these spillover channels would be useful, then please
submit a +request. (I'm not routinely on any of them, so for all I know,
maybe Random is routinely overbooked and would benefit from a dedicated
Spoilers channel or whatever.)
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/3 Posted Author
Blood bonds and you Thu Feb 12 WhoopingCrane
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'+rules blood bond' has been updated to address some things that have been
overlooked in the past:
* Blood bonding a PC? Get it documented! Changing an existing bond (including
somehow getting rid of it)? Ditto. Undocumented bonds run the risk of having
a situation come up later and discovering that regnant and thrall are not on
the same page.
* Shifters and demons are mostly immune to being blood bonded. Mostly.
I think this covers everything. As always, please contact staff promptly with
any questions/concerns.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/4 Posted Author
Revenants open Sun Feb 15 WhoopingCrane
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We're opening applications for the common revenant families (Bratovich,
Grimaldi, Obertus, Zantosa).
* Use the ghoul quickstart and set 'Clan' to your family.
* Domitor background and XP costs will follow the same game mechanics and house
rules as other ghouls. IC interpretation is up to the PCs.
* Daily blood regen is covered by honor system +gain as usual.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/5 Posted Author
Misa removed Sat Feb 21 WhoopingCrane
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Earlier this week, the player of (Misa, Anne, Sahael aka Big Black Dog) was
banned. The player had a long history of attacking certain other players via
selective spurious logic, pro-actively imposing herself into their
storylines, and general passive-aggressiveness, despite previously demanding
on and receiving a cessation of RP with those same players. Even when dealing
with an agreed-upon intermediary, she repeatedly dragged her feet for weeks
at a time and refused to deal with ICC in anything like a reasonable fashion.
Her targets did their best to simply work around her, but the situation
finally became untenable.
Misa's IC circumstances were settled up front. Anne and Sahael are still up in
the air; please contact staff if you have any preference as to how they
should be written out of the action.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/6 Posted Author
Willpower Mon Mar 02 WhoopingCrane
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'+rules willpower' is now in place, matching last week's post to bb 7.
Players who are about to state "spending will" in a job should make sure
they're familiar with the house rule at the bottom. Otherwise, this just
summarizes canon and attempts to ensure that everyone is operating on the
same understanding.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/7 Posted Author
New race options Wed Apr 01 PoisonFrog
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Here on City of Hope, we've always prided ourselves on our sheer number of
options when it comes to what kinds of characters people can make and play.
Sometimes it can be a bit of trial and error; the applications for Bygones
sadly had to be closed, but the introduction of Kuei-jin proved to be a
resounding success. In the spirit of freedom and experimentation, we are
proud to announce the upcoming introduction of not one, but two brand new
race options for our players to try out.
The first is well-known fangame 'Highlander: the Gathering', with rules
available here: http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Rules/Highlander/
This being the World of Darkness, though, our second new option is something a
bit less pleasant, though probably not any worse than any given weekday at
the BSD clubhouse: 'Aliens: the Breeding', rules available here:
http://www.identicalsoftware.com/rpg/wod/others/aliens_movie.3.txt
They are being added to chargen as we speak, and should be ready to go soon.
- From the desk of PoisonFrog, CEO of Weyland-Yutani Corporation
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/8 Posted Author
New race options, redux Wed Apr 01 WhoopingCrane
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After much discussion, and taking player feedback into account, we've decided
to take a somewhat different approach to immortals that hearkens back to the
WoD's roots in the 1990s:
http://somanykatanas.com/
Enjoy! (or lose your head)
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/9 Posted Author
Instruction Mon May 18 WhoopingCrane
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We're allowing Instruction to be used for XP discounts, per the canon books
that describe it. '+rules instruction' for details.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/10 Posted Author
Guilds and alternate arcanoi Sat May 30 WhoopingCrane
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These are both allowed now. To belong to a guild, submit a +request. For
details on alternate arcanoi, see the bottom of '+rules wraith misc'.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/11 Posted Author
+policy retirement Sat Jun 06 WhoopingCrane
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This has been added as an advisory document. Please review if you have any
characters that you no longer plan to play. (Along with '+policy alts' and
'+policy xp transfer', since if you're reading this, then those probably
apply to you too.)
Staff actions described here are nothing new, just writing down ongoing
practices and presenting them up front.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/12 Posted Author
Alternate arcanoi redux Mon Jun 15 WhoopingCrane
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After a bunch of reading, I decided that I was off base with my previous
approach to alternate arcanos arts (replacing vs adding). We're now back in
line with canon. '+rules wraith misc' has been updated accordingly, along
with who's allowed to learn which varieties.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/13 Posted Author
Lawson removed Fri Jun 19 WhoopingCrane
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https://www.stevefenton.co.uk/cmsfiles/assets/Image/Blog14/mban1987h.jpg
The player of Lawson / Polk was banned today for refusing to deal with ICA=ICC
in a reasonable fashion, labeling the reasonable IC demands of others as
staff-alt railroading just because he didn't like it, and repeatedly
insulting people and otherwise shouting on Public while grasping at
technicalities and botching his own alleged facts and ignoring multiple staff
warnings to knock it off. Normally we delay these announcements per '+policy
bans', but due to the 'shouting on Public' part, not much point in this case,
yeah? Any followups on the IC status of either of these characters should go
through +request.
I'm pleased to note that, as usual, the player base as a whole is eminently
understanding and reasonable about IC conflict, including how staff draws the
line when asked and why. The game would be a lot less interesting without you
guys.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/14 Posted Author
Mummy: the Resurrection Fri Jul 17 WhoopingCrane
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"I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
So we got a pitch for this a long while back, and finally got around to
deciding: what the hell, let's try it, if it breaks then we can always close
it again. So, mummy chargen is open.
* Mummy approval is at staff discretion. I don't intend to be heavy-handed
about this, but if you're still struggling with the basics, then please don't
try to throw yourself in the deep end.
* As usual, we're using Revised. My understanding is that 1st and 2nd ed are
drastically different, more so than the other game lines, so any requests
from those books will be carefully reviewed and re-reviewed.
* As usual, we're not making up new powers/backgrounds/merits/flaws. Mummy
never had any splatbooks published. Random fan-written stuff found on the
interblag counts as "made up".
* Yes, mummies can get powerful. So can other races. Based on an initial
reading, I think canon limits on powers and respawn delay will keep things
reasonable. We'll house-rule if/when a clear need is identified.
* Balance should be set as "Balance (mummy)". Alchemy should be set as "Alchemy
(hekau)", and similarly for Necromancy. This is to avoid name collision where
some other race uses the same name in a different section of +sheet.
* '+rules maelstrom' applies as usual. There /was/ a thing, it kick-started the
mummies, then it settled down again (at least in this neck of the woods).
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/15 Posted Author
Kidd removed Mon Jul 20 WhoopingCrane
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The player of Capuchin Monkey / Kidd / Hans / Itzal was banned last week. He
had numerous instances of highly unreasonable behavior here, albeit they were
spread out in between long periods of not showing up. More recently, he
presented a credible and persistent threat to vandalize the database of
another MU*, and harassed its head wiz who is also a player here. We do not
condone any of this behavior. We want there to be more viable games in
existence, as it increases the chance of players finding at least one that
they enjoy.
I've also banned one other character with strong circumstantial evidence of
being an alt of the same player, until/unless they provide convincing
evidence to the contrary.
Please submit a +request if you have any interest in the IC fate of one of
these characters.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/16 Posted Author
Warding wraiths with Willpower Fri Jul 31 WhoopingCrane
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There's a clause near the back of the Wraith book that covers warding a place
against wraiths, but it's vague about some of the details. '+rules targeting
wraiths' has been updated to clarify those.
This is separate from Summoning, Binding and Warding (Sorcerer Revised pages
85-86) and any other powers that serve a similar purpose.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/17 Posted Author
Kinfolk Pure Breed and tribe Sun Aug 02 WhoopingCrane
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'+rules kinfolk' has been updated to clarify that kinfolk with Pure Breed can
not only be automatically identified as kinfolk by shifters of the same
breed, but the shifter can also automatically identify what tribe the kinfolk
is kin to. (At least for breeds that have tribes in the first place, which I
believe is Garou Bastet Gurahl Ratkin.)
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/18 Posted Author
Multiclass Wed Aug 12 WhoopingCrane
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"Mul-ti-class."
"Yes, she knows it's a multiclass!"
We've made some moves in this direction, but kind of scattered around. After
some discussion, we've added '+rules multiclass', and updated '+rules
kinfolk' and '+rules kinain' a bit to go along with it. Hopefully no major
issues, but if it turns out there are, then we'll do our best to fix things.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/19 Posted Author
Some general cleanup Wed Aug 19 WhoopingCrane
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I went through and added / cleaned up some +policy entries. Probably nothing
controversial. Mainly:
* 'concealed carry' has been split out from 'CA laws' and expanded.
* 'arbitration' has been made generic.
* 'inactive' has been updated to match current practice for long-gone players.
Also, the +vacation cap has been raised from 90 days to 900 days; this
protects against auto-purge, even if you get mass-unapproved for inactivity.
(900 days is a little under 2.5 years. If your RL is so hectic that you can't
log in once every two years, do '+vacation 900' and log back out, then the
game is probably the least of your worries anyway.)
* 'privacy' (and 'news backups') updated to reflect current state of game
server/network.
* 'restricting RP' has been clarified based on what I figure was probably the
original intent.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/20 Posted Author
Blood bonds are not mind control Mon Aug 24 WhoopingCrane
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Blood bonds are emotional in nature, and do not compel the bound person to any
direct, specific action. Thus, demon-style immunity to mind control doesn't
block them. (In other words, blood bonds work more like Presence as opposed
to Dominate.) '+rules mind control' and '+rules blood bond' have been updated
to cover this.
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/21 Posted Author
Shifter Rage references Mon Sep 14 WhoopingCrane
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Most shifters have some amount of Rage. It's a powerful tool, making Garou
super fast and Gurahl super strong. It's also a powerful problem; even on a
good day, you creep people out a lot. We've added/updated some +rules files
to summarize what you should know. (We plan to add some similar files for the
other game lines, e.g. Paradox for mages.)
* '+rules the curse': Expanded to describe how the NPC population tends to
react to you.
** '+rules npc willpower': Copy of the WtA chart showing how common the
different levels are.
* '+rules frenzy': New file summarizing what triggers a Frenzy check and how
the game mechanics work.
* '+rules shifter misc': Expanded to address the "I'm a dog!" crowd. (tl;dr: no
you're not, and people can tell.)
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Message: 11/22 Posted Author
Vampire Degen/Frenzy/Rot reference Wed Sep 16 WhoopingCrane
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+rules degeneration
+rules vampire frenzy
+rules rotschreck
Again, just summing up canon stuff, including a couple bits scattered
elsewhere. Note that Degeneration also applies to ghouls and mortals.
Also, info on shifter frenzies has been expanded and split up into sections.
Fera are hopefully pretty similar (except Nuwisha, who don't have Rage).
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=============================== Public Policy ================================
Message: 11/23 Posted Author
Inanimae Sat Nov 07 WhoopingCrane
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Applications for inanimae are now open. These are another flavor of changelings
described in Inanimae - The Secret Way (WW7307). I house-ruled a couple
things in chargen that were unclear or inconsistent in canon, and there may
be further minor tweaks as we work through the first test case.
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