Lannis
You've yeed your last haw
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Here's a list of guidelines and general operational parameters for how to do war. Most things can be tailored to how folk want to do it, but this should offer a basic idea of what to expect.
Starting a War:
(Realistically speaking, 'war' along these guidelines probably works better between two voluntary parties. Though certain actions are suitable cassus belli, we recommend that other avenues of consequence are taken first if both sides aren't on board.)
- If both parties want to do a war, there's no problem with establishing it.
- Declarations of War: Certain actions entail a de facto declaration of war, at which point the aggressive faction must agree to see it through. Examples of such are as follows, and others in their vein may apply at discretion of staff.
- Assassination, attempted or otherwise, of a political leader.
- Hostile occupation of a sovereign territory.
- Wanton destruction of a faction's resources (ships, fields, etc).
- Coordinated violence against a faction's members.
- Declaring war.
- Factors leading to war: Smaller acts of aggression may lead to war as a reasonable recourse, at staff discretion.
- Prior to scheduling events, all parties must select a neutral GM that will be responsible for deciding the result of all interactions outside direct combat, such as the result of strategies and conditions affecting each army.
- Each player may field a single character for use in the war, unless agreed upon/coordinated with all parties.
- Groups of players are considered as 'armies' when on the move, mainly to handle where everyone should be at any given time for an event. There aren't any real restrictions on having multiple armies, but each army has a discrete list of players that can be involved in any conflict the army gets in to. The army isn't really considered to have any useful NPCs, but will have some non player-based attributes in terms of visibility and supply lines and whatnot.
- An army's location is considered separately from the players that comprise it. This means that players are free to move around and seek RP away from it, but will not be able to participate in war events that the army would not be able to.
- The GM's role is extensive, and can be categorized into three main areas: managing status and location of all armies, coordinating events between the parties, and distributing information based on what's been earned. The first is a great big catchall for 'GM decides how the war is going.' The GM must keep track of the armies and how their strategies interact with each other. If one group wants to attack the other while they're on the march, the GM chooses the setting based on where the armies might intersect. If one sneaks around and destroys the other's food stores, the GM gets to decide how hungry they'll be, and so forth.
- The second is pretty straightforward. The GM can be used as an intermediary for coordinating when both sides can get on, but the location of the event itself isn't necessarily announced to the side not taking the initiative for it. Both sides know that something is going to happen, but aren't necessarily told 'where' OOCly and must prepare/strategize accordingly.
- That brings us to the third point, with the role of the GM as an information distributor. Information gathering should be an important factor for success, and it's the GM's responsibility to make it a viable investment. Scouting an army's location, sending spies, and interrogating captured enemies should all be potential options for locating and predicting enemy movement.
- Travel restrictions do not apply for casual RP, so long as the travel isn't intended maliciously/doesn't involve major conflict with the opposing group/is otherwise irrelevant to the war.
- Characters killed during, at, or around a war event may revive as normal, but can't participate or otherwise contribute in the war for 3 OOC months. (This is intended to last the duration of any war, but the grace period expires to prevent things from dragging on.)
- Characters involved with the war must consent to death in any war-related attacks, even those that take place outside of coordinated events. However, characters killed outside of sanctioned events are not prohibited from participating in the rest of the war once they are revived.
- Damage to builds is at the discretion of the region owner. Some accommodation may be made for DM effects, but they must be undone at the end of the event.
A state of war will generally end when one side is unwilling or unable to keep fighting. Victory/defeat cases can be agreed upon by the parties, or left for the GM to call when it seems reasonable.
TL;DR:
- GM manages most things about the war that don't involve players combat RPing with each other.
- Players form armies that decide where they can participate in events.
- Strategy should be important.
- War events are treated as a time to log on, not necessarily as a place to go. That information must be found IC.
- No more fighting if your character is killed in a war.
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