The Social Contract

This page is part of the System Policies and Ethos and explains the social contract between the game organisers, crew and players.

Play One, Crew One

We rely on our players to maintain a high-quality game – both as players and as crew. Having a large number of crew members is vital to give our players the best possible experience; therefore, our social contract with players involves a “play one, crew one” agreement between us and our players. We understand that it is not always possible to attend every event, either as a player or crew, and that in certain circumstances (like an event set up in a specific planet or location, when another certain PCs will be in attendance, etc.), players might want to skip crewing an event so they can play it. We understand that, but we also ask our players to fulfill their side of the contract as soon as possible.

Crewing is incentivised by the offer of priority booking (to an event of the individual’s choice) – in order to ensure fair treatment of those who engage in the social contract. Any player who has played two events in a row will be placed on a low-priority list until they crew an event.

Respect for Others

As for the Social Contract between players, it is the expectation that all players will endeavour to show respect to each other out of game, no matter how heated IC politics get – this is, and will always remain, a game, and, while investment in character stakes are encouraged, please do not allow them to spill into out of character disrespect for other players.

Cinematic Combat

It is the aim of the game rules and combat design to encourage cinematic and entertaining fights to look at, rather than encouraging players to fight competitively. Combat is intended to be cinematic, with big telegraphed blows, and the intent of things looking mildly choreographed. This applies as much in Player vs Player fights as it does in Player vs Crew fights – the aim of Death Unto Darkness combat is to serve as a visceral physical way of expressing the violent moments of the story, not to ‘win’ a fight.

It is often easy in the flow of combat and the rush of adrenaline to forget that the most important rule is that roleplay is a two-way social interaction. Combat within DuD is an extension of that principle. Rules on what an aggressor needs to do to deliver damage, with the emphasis on dramatic blows and war-cries, are wasted if their victims do not return the gesture. In this way we can all reciprocate to ensure combat is a dramatic and exciting roleplaying experience rather than becoming too focused on a mechanical ‘game’ – the rules exist to tell a story, rather than to create a competitive sport.

This goes both ways: there are plenty of places in the game where a player is expected to make their character vulnerable for a few moments as part of the mechanics, be it just by reeling from a blow or other more dramatic effects. These aren’t intended to be situations where a ‘mook’ NPC minion will exploit them: only the most dangerous of opponents will deliberately set out to use these openings. We want to create a combat environment where people feel they can play up dangerous moments and take risks without automatically losing the battle because they weren’t fighting ‘efficiently’.

Equality & Diversity

While there is active encouragement of IC prejudice against certain IC optional traits (like being a mutant or an Abhuman), it is expected of all characters to treat each other free of other prejudices (like sexism, ableism, racism, etc.). Prejudiced language and discrimination that target real life traits of a player is not tolerated, IC or OOC, and may result in summary removal from events, and you being asked not to return to the system. See the Behaviour at Games page for more details.

Clean Up

We ask all players and crew to please contribute an hour of their time to the clean up of the site at the end of an event. We are a roleplaying community and do not run for profit - relying solely on Crew and Game Team to handle the hard work of takedown results in crew not returning to the game -- as well as having an unfair load being placed on the Game Team. We do not run this game at the level that we can afford the resources of hiring paid cleaning staff to wrap-up after our events. If everyone works together it is more than possible to ensure that we are cleaned up in under an hour.

If you are unable to be part of the cleanup, please just come to us and let us know. We understand that unexpected things happen, and people might simply not be able to help.