S'ren Ja Law guidelines

Due to some recent RP going on I have put to writing out a relative guideline for the majority of Crimes and Punishments likely to be encountered in S'ren Ja. So here they are, I'll be putting these here first so the officers of the guild can look them over and put up offers to edits or changes that would work better. This is to avoid and help settle any potential questioning of the viability of the law and punishments associated with it.

This will hopefully serve as guidelines for the Guard and for others to see, so they are aware of what the action and reaction can and will be. Obviously this does not cover everything that might come up but it covers some of the larger things and I do hope that this can be used for the benefit of the whole. If something isn't listed here and it comes up in game we can adapt it to one of these three categories.

So have at it, refine it with suggestions by all here to edit and change things to what makes sense and what works for the clan and our setting. Once its set and people like it I'll post it up into the Storylines forum as a sticky for everyone to see. I haven't fully defined what each thing is yet, if you all want we can give a basic definition of it.



Okay, just a start for it and to keep it simple I have created three degrees of punishable offenses.

First Degree offenses are light offenses, essentially small scale things like petty theft or public indecency (Nudity, sex ect). Usually these carry light punishments, warnings, fines and on the occasion for repeat offenders a night or so in a cell or in the stockade.

Petty Theft (Below 500 gold in total value, if proven)
Trespassing
Harassment: this includes physical and Verbal.
Public Indecency
Property Damage, Vandalism below 500g in damage and repairs.
Possession of Skooma for personal use.

Second Degree Offences are more serious crimes that warrant more serious punishments. Such as being a severe repeat offender from first degree crimes (Such as constantly being in possession of Skooma). These crimes are punished more heavily with heavy fines, time spent in the stockades, jail time, flogging and hard labor/community service.

Grand theft: 500 gold in value and above.
Property Damage 500 gold and above.
Assault
Assault with deadly weapons
Obstruction of Justice
Resisting Arrest
Production and selling of Skooma.

Third Degree Crimes are the harshest of crimes someone can possibly commit against the Clan and are punishable through Banishment and possibly on the rare case execution, intense time in the stocks followed up with flogging and a long time performing Hard Labor.

Murder
Attempted Murder
Arson

Not sure about flogging ppl

And stocking

I think we need to address something in the guard too. Last night someone was stabbed right in front of the CM's. I'm not sure who did it or for what reason but nothing was done about it. There were no arrests, nothing. I don't know who was there but if someone who is a guard was there someone should have been arrested. If there wasn't a guard there maybe we need to have NPC sort of guards always on patrol to keep this kind of stuff out of the village?

Of course at that time three members of Twin Tails were there to speak with Arisel and saw the whole thing, and they were pissed IC at what they saw. They laid into her about the guard and what they witnessed, saying they were told S'ren-ja is a safe haven but instead it's a place of violence and hate. One of their members tried to help heal the injured player and was basically told he was in the way.

I agree with them that the stabbings and attacks not related to the main storyline are getting out of hand and getting really old really fast for the leadership and the guard to be constantly dealing with on top of whatever may be happening with the clan story. S'ren-ja is looking like a town straight out of the American Wild West more than a safe place for all walks of life.

Sorry, end mini rant. I was not expecting to get back from a family emergency to be bombarded with that last night. OOC those guys were extremely nice, but I was not prepared for it IC. They did bring up good points that they saw from an outsider's perspective, which is why I posted this here under the laws.

-If you want me to move this I will :)

I am not impressed with characters that seem to exist solely to create conflict. IMO, that includes Krin Trenchy.

I feel really annoyed that the character's actions ruined the interaction between the Clan Mother and representatives of another Clan. It is entirely a step backward.

I have to agree with Milo and Arisel. It seems to me that every couple days I read a guard report about someone attacking another. This is slowly turning into the same bloodshed which we had when the Clanmother was held captive and the clan and company were fighting each other constantly.

Something needs to be done to make S'ren-ja more peaceful.

We could always say that: made a crime, will go to jail.
automatically.
the npc guards should arrest them, and since they cant roll dices, the person doesnt get a chance to escape.

Stocking and flogging people is unacceptable.

Since we're talking about the stabbing and I was there for a part of it, I thought I'd just say what I saw and learned IC:

Krin attempted to kill Beth, but Krimie jumped in front and took the dagger. Luckily there were two healers there at the time to take care of the injured, I and I happened in when they were carrying Beth and Krimie inside the CM's, but once the injured were healed, no one attempted to investigate or track down the perpetrator. I will say, myself included. Elsy isn't part of the guard, so I always feel a little weird about doing those sorts of things, but when it comes down to it I should probably start helping out with that.

I do think there should be some form of dealing with these situations, even when a guard is not present, as everyone here has stated. I think those who act in such a manner IC should be at least arrested, but at the same time, I don't want that to turn into god-moding. Perhaps attempt to find some sort of balance? If that's even possible?

Lastly, not entirely related but, I just wanted to apologize for not being around recently. I just finished my first week of midterms, so I've been really busy and haven't had the chance to log on a whole lot.

The town isn't the wild west, its worse than as Zura described it 1970's brooklyn.

Either way, we need to reign in the violence some people's personal storylines keep bringing into S'ren-ja. I have no issue if someone wants their character to be attacked by an outside force, or to attack another player in their story (given it's planned) but do it outside of the village, not right in the middle of town.

A Gata wrote

We could always say that: made a crime, will go to jail.
automatically.
the npc guards should arrest them, and since they cant roll dices, the person doesnt get a chance to escape.

We talked about this in TS earlier. I think this is the route to take plus telling everyone that if there's conflict in their storylines then they will either be arrested if it's done in S'ren-ja or to take it out of the village to be handled.

I kind of feel bad bringing this up but I know personally IC and OOC I'm fed up with someone getting attacked every day when it's not related to the clan story. It's wearing down on my last nerve >:(

I wasn't aware of these rules till now and it wasn't my intention to make conflict between the guild storylines. It wasn't a random act of violence there was a reason why she tried to assonate Beth. I was told that I could cause trouble iccly based on her character but if that's going to be a problem then I apologize.

One thing we could also do is that when a crime happens, a guard is called if there is someone on (msg OOC or use In Character chat). Because there may be a guard around SJ at the time but not just where it happened.

Other than that I would agree with Arisel, if you really want to have your characters fight do it outside SJ and other than that we should have harsh IC punishments and inform the user OOC if they continue on like this the only thing we can do IC is ban them from the town. If someone repeatedly attacks people, that character should be banned as the character is not fit for the environment of SJ.

These rules werent in place but this was not the intention of this particular thread which has been dragged off topic.

Buut, we could work out more of what is set in town to help settle the crime rate. Yes?

I apologize to Kath. My opinion of an individual character doesn't belong in any public discussion or officer thread. It was improper and I'm sorry.

Anyways back on topic, in my opinion these laws/rules would work. I would only add that repeated 2nd Degree Offences will lead to a third degree or something similar (ex, Some-Random-Guy assaults people with weapons on Mon, Thurs, and Fri trying to do harm. Punishment - Crime treated as 3rd degree so Banishment or something similar)

Yeah thats how it works progressively. Now Gata with the flogging or use of a whip as punishment seems common, the stockades were also a more common form of punishment as we've seen employed in game.

Perhaps flogging for repeat offenses?

Sorry I got this so off track D: I should have put my rant in an entirely different thread.

My suggestions:

For the record, I think all premeditated assassination/mutilation/mass-violence-with-pointy-and-blunt-weapon plans should first be reviewed by me or another roleplay officer, who will then volley the request to me. Mass violence has the potential to completely derail storylines, case-and-point being the Dark Brotherhood storyline that dragged on for far too long and got many players extremely frustrated. Conflict is what makes stories interesting, but conflict needs to be controlled. The Dark Brotherhood storyline is what prompted me to step up to the position of Roleplay Leader, because I was frustrated with the lack of moderation and unsupervised chaos.

S'ren-ja is meant to be a safe haven for all types of characters. A safe haven is not a Wild West frontier town with the morals of the Bronx in the 1970's (because Ma-zura's line was on point). If I know about violence, I can plan for it, control it, and most importantly, DECIDE HOW IT IS RESOLVED.

Violence that happens without a warning must be swift, decisive, and have minor collateral damage. A roleplay officer should be on hand to monitor the situation and send people messages via /tell if things are getting out of hand. Use your common sense and ask yourself, "Will ganking this dude with a frying pan upset the subplots of other people?" Always come to an OOC decision of what should happen during the fight. If you have to eat some humble pie and have your character lose, be a bigger person and let your character lose. You will always have the final say on if your character gets hurt, gets impaired, or gets killed. However, when throwing your character into a fight, you must be prepared to deal with the consequences of an unplanned fight. More often than not, the characters involved will be arrested.

NPC guards should be assumed to patrol in populated areas such as the Thinking Tree Square, the Greedy Gobblet, the Guard House, and around the perimeter of the town. If there is no roleplay officer present for when shit goes down, either request for one in Guild Chat to observe your character brawling it out, or assume that after a couple kicks and punches, the NPC guards arrest you.

If members from the Twin Tails or any other guilds are present, I strongly suggest that you do not engage in violent conduct. If they're starting it, an officer is to OOC /tell the foreign player that we're trying to limit violence in the town, or characters will IC suggest that they take it outside the city limits.

I agree. We can add this stuff into a larger write up thats easier to follow for people. Neaten the forums up so while it may be here and there with where each topic belongs to. We could set up a link from one topic to another for reading.

No flogging. Unless it was a murder or high treason AND the person that plays the character agrees to it OOC.

I am on with banning, making them do hard labour, throwing tomatoes on them, but /no/ flogging, /no/ stocking, that kind of thing shouldn't be encouraged!
I don't care if this is lore relevant, we are a guild with 300+ members, flogging, stocking are /triggers/ to people, I really don't think we should be making this a rule.
We are not horrible people from the 1500. And we are not rping as that, we are rping in Tamriel, and trying to build a safe haven. Do you really think that public violence is a fit solution for public violence?

Okay I can understand the whipping bit could be a trigger, not sure where the Stockade use comes into play in that. Either way if they're triggers we can substitute.

A Gata wrote

No flogging. Unless it was a murder or high treason AND the person that plays the character agrees to it OOC.
I am on with banning, making them do hard labour, throwing tomatoes on them, but /no/ flogging, /no/ stocking, that kind of thing shouldn't be encouraged!
I don't care if this is lore relevant, we are a guild with 300+ members, flogging, stocking are /triggers/ to people, I really don't think we should be making this a rule.
We are not horrible people from the 1500. And we are not rping as that, we are rping in Tamriel, and trying to build a safe haven. Do you really think that public violence is a fit solution for public violence?

I completely agree with the statement, but I wish to clarify something for everyone, as reading through it seems that there has been a communication error: Stockades and Stocks are two different things. Stockades are the prison camp like fortresses made of mud, sticks and stones. Stocks are the devices which immobilize the upper body for public humiliation. Both can be used as triggers, but I think we could try the Stocks Options for minor crimes, as just for example, you see someone in Rawl'kha in stocks for minor crimes like dumping poo on an official's head, evading capture (and knocking down a cart), and stealing.

I maybe stepping out of line for saying this, I feel it should be pointed out: While I agree the Whipping should only be used in the most extreme cases, and stockades should be completely out of the question, a day in the stocks should be fine considering its right in the game not even 3 minute walk away. Disclaimer: (Only provided the person agrees with it)

Thank you Eddie for clarifying that and I don't really understand why you'd be stepping out of line.
If it weren't for your explanation I'd still be thinking that Stocks and Stockades are the same things.

Look, all I say no is to triggering people into things that give them problems irl
Whipping a person is a huge trigger, specially if we have players whose family members once had to go through something similar, even though not in the same context, but still.

Stockades is like a prison then?
And Stocks is the tomato place, right? I think the tomato place and a prison /should/ be things. And we could have some community service thing too, maybe.
But we just have to make sure not to go fighting fire with fire and all that and be respectful of the other member's irl experiences and all that ><

Now I am a bit confused though.

I feel like the golden rule in roleplay violence is that all parties must agree to it. Roleplay officers have jurisdiction over Sren'ja, and therfore they are an involved party. It shouldn't be too much trouble to shoot an RP officer a tell saying "can Random-Man and I have a barfight?". Though, there's often a lawful good character present - to which the character who wants to step in should ask the fighters for permission. But, outside of town limits, people should be free to play as they please. The main goal of RP guilds is to make an environment, so if players want to make their own somewhere else and stagger back into town after a fight, we shouldn't stop them.

A Gata wrote

Thank you Eddie for clarifying that and I don't really understand why you'd be stepping out of line.
If it weren't for your explanation I'd still be thinking that Stocks and Stockades are the same things.

Stockades is like a prison then?
And Stocks is the tomato place, right? I think the tomato place and a prison /should/ be things. And we could have some community service thing too, maybe.
But we just have to make sure not to go fighting fire with fire and all that and be respectful of the other member's irl experiences and all that ><

Force of habit, anytime I share my view I feel I'm stepping out of line xD But yes, Stockades are prisons, and stocks are the Tomato place.

Thanks Gnarlus, see thats something I wasn't aware of. To me it seemed the same. :)

Right. I am consolidating all the posts and information of the S'ren ja guard and making it into one stickied and locked thread. These rules, we can include in it or set them into a separate post which would be linked inside the guard details thread. This will make it significantly easier for everyone to see and read, so that people will be aware of the setting. Added to it we can include any OOC notations, such as the NPC guard presence which as from today seems to be overlooked. I'll wait until the officer meeting and see what everyone says before I start consolidating to see if that would be good for everyone. Make it easier ect.

Sounds like we should also use a "Fade to Black" (FTB) rule to skip over distubing scenes , while still having them occur in canon. When I was an administrator in second life for a couple rp sims, they normally got into some pretty heavy drama and violent that didn't agree with everyone all the time. This gave a grey area where certain logical/lore friendly events occur, but you don't need to get into the details. It also allows certain folks to leave a scene that others have agreed to

This is not, however a free pass to do scenes that are against the rules. Scenes like rape, abuse, etc. Should not be the normal occurance, and are best left as long forgotten history in someone's profile.

A good example when to use such a rule is the walking dead, when hershall cuts off his own leg to escape. As soon as it's apparent when something that violent, simply call fade to black to skip the scene or continue it in private. After the FTB is over, hershall would be missing the leg, characters that would have been there have knowledge of it, but no one needs to know the details if they can't stomach it.

This type of policy is also something that helps when roleplaying with folks outside the guild with different rules and allows for whips, stockades, etc.

Anyway, just a suggestion, since we seem to be dipping our toes into this territory

Seems ok, but I'd need you to explain better though.
Can you give a more colorful example? sorry.
like a more practical example, I dunno.

Say the Thalmor came to town to execute and make an example of a political protester (someone who wanted to kill off their character). As the rp plays out there is a lot of drama leading up to the protester being lead up to the chopping block and the executioner raising their sword to deliver the final blow. At this point, players can be reminded they can call FTB and leave. They don't need to watch the execution details, see what is done with the remains, or really know a lot of the details around that. At that point folks are filled in with the aftermath that the player is dead and their remains are buried/burned/taken back to auridon and the roleplay can continue.

Note that this event is. ..
- OOC consented by the player impacted
- not an everyday occurance
- isn't something against the rules
- reminders that folks can duck out OOC without consequence
- IC the event still occurs.


This phrase comes from television shows, where you can see the lead up to bad or sexual events to the point right before the censors would complain, fades to black, and in the next scene you see the result

here.