Apology and Appeal (Resolved- Unbanned)(Lannis)

[Ced]

I'll try to keep this short-

On November 7th I was told that Ced had become a wash-out in magic and that he was no longer able to perform any spells, including the ones he already knew. On January 29th I went against the lore and the terms of Ced's wash-out status and had him perform magic. On February 12th I was banned for the metagaming violation.

It doesn't matter what my motives were, or how ignorant I was of the rules, it was my fault that I didn't make myself clear of the situation when Faelin messaged me on Nov 7th. Had I paid due attention, I would never have broken the rules. But I didn't, because I am an idiot.

I'm sorry for disrupting immersion, and for stepping over a line that is set for everyone for the sake of fairness and equal opportunity. I'm sorry for abusing the trust that the staff put in me for playing a magic user on the server. I understood as soon as I was banned what I had done wrong, and was especially frustrated with myself because I think that my relations with the server as a whole had been improving, and I messed that up royally.

If I were unbanned I would behave, and read important messages a little more closely in the future. I likely wouldn't be as active as before, and would spend more time building and brewing.

I don't know what the protocol is for appealing a metagame ban, so I waited two months. I hope that's long enough, if an appeal is possible at all.

 

[Lannis]

Right-o. I'll be handling relaying the thoughts of other staff members and providing final deliberation. Your appeal addresses the preliminary charges that led to your ban to a satisfactory degree, but there were some topics brought up in further discussion that I would like an explanation for.
The first is that I'm given the impression that the terms for your character's overuse case were both made abundantly clear and finalized much closer to your continued use of magic than was implied in your appeal; conditions were finalized somewhere about the 17th of January. This segues well in to the second point I'd like to address, that we've logs of you apparently trying to keep Ced's use of magic under the table- in this case, a request that specifics not be used in another character's journal. Any insight would be appreciated.
Regards, Lannis.

 

[Ced]

Hullo Lannis, I'll try to keep this short too;
On November 7th, Faelin started a forum conversation that included Estes, Naelwyn, Somnastra and I. In the opening message she quotes the 'Cogitation - Class 2 Overuse' section of the lore, and then reiterates that it:

means a complete removal of both magical potential and current abilities in that field.

This is the first and last time that the conversation states that Ced can no longer perform any Cogitation magic.
On January 8th, I asked this:

Sorry for dragging this back up again, but I think I may be RPing again soon, so before I start I was wondering what the RP reason for Ced washing out would be. Preferably something that doesn't involve him messing up/doing something wrong, maybe something that was out of his control? I feel like he and I have both failed enough for a while, so it'd be nice if something bad happened to him that wasn't directly caused by him. If that's not possible it's fine.

If I recall correctly my reasoning at the time was that I wanted to know what Ced would have done to washout, what he would have felt when it happened, etc (it might be important to note that, as of my message in the conversation on Jan 8th, I was still under the incorrect impression that Ced could use the magic he knew before he washed out, through no one's fault but my own). The response from Naelwyn on the 16th satisfied my question, but did not state that Ced was unable to use any magic. I would quote but I don't know if it's considered private or not, and if need be I'm sure one of the other conversation participants can add you to it.

As I explained in the conversation a day after the ban, I asked Omi to not include Ced's magic use in her diary because at the time, her thread was very popular. Public magic users tend to attract a great deal of attention, and it was the sort of attention I wanted Ced to avoid at that moment in time. Everyone could see how often Michcat got approached, and I didn't want that. I've asked other players to keep Ced's Cogitating on the down-low before, and have seen other magic-users do the same, I assume for the same reasons. More specifically for me, I didn't want others knowing exactly what Ced could do with Cogitation. I was aware that many people already knew about Ced's abilities (an amount that I was comfortable with), but hardly anyone knew exactly what he could do. I didn't want my RP to be diluted by meta-gaming and cheap character reasoning. I understand now, as I did at the time, that logs were occasionally looked through (at least, I knew mine had been checked). If I was stupid enough to purposefully go against the lore, I probably wouldn't try and cover my tracks on the server itself. I'm air-headed and absentminded, but hopefully not braindead. That said, with hindsight I can appreciate how suspect it looked, especially when the staff was under the impression that I fully understood the terms of Ced's washout status.

Looks like my ability to keep things short was a one-off, apologies >.< In any case, I hope those explanations are satisfactory.

 

[Lannis]

Discussion in your watchlist is yet to meet a consensus on your case, or the potential intent behind Ced's continued use of magic. I'm going to bite the bullet and proceed with my reading that (Stealin' yer words here~) your RP actions were on account of a mistaken understanding of the terms of Ced washing out of the magic system. As mistakes go, I will be executing a repeal of your ban shortly.

Though unconventional, discussion also strayed to the character of Ced. At this point, we're uncertain if some attribution for the roleplay mishaps that led to your ban is due to the style, capacity, what-have-you of the character itself. As such, your un-banning comes with the condition that there are to be no such further mishaps with the character, or the character will be removed.

I do not believe I need to say anything further pertaining to any future (mis)use of magic by your character. That said, I do wish to advise that from here on out, putting exceptional effort to remaining within the bounds of the rules or any similar such conditions as what prompted this is within your best interests. This here is your chance, kindly don't let me down.~

 

[Ced]

Understood. Thanks for the second chance, Lannis