Inalienable Rights Violation

[BattleMaster Server]

Summary:	Inalienable Rights Violation
Violation:	Activity/Play at one\'s own pace
World:	Dwilight
Complainer:	TH
About:	Malus

Full Complaint Text:
Malus recently sent out a demand that stated that 4 foriegn nobles (not of his realm) that charged them with a specific crime, that required for them to both answer for their charges and to make reparations for these charges within the deadline of "One Day".  

I contacted the player of Malus, and let them know that I felt that such a stringent time deadline was not in line with how the game was intended to be played and that I felt it should be adjusted to accommodate people who could not either be online during this "one day" or would never receive the message until it was too late. While he stated that he would usually agree with me, no action was taken to rectify the situation on an IC level, and so I make this report.  

The Inalienable rights state:
You may:

"Playing at your own speed, timing and activity level, i.e. logging in as often or seldom as you like, at whatever times you like."
Also:  
"Being allowed to play at whatever activity level you wish also means you should not suffer disadvantages for doing so. If you are fined, banned, threatened or otherwise punished for "inactivity", or for not having been online at any specific time or day, the Titans will be very happy to counter, so please contact them with information."

This stringent deadline clearly violates not only the wording of inalienable rights, but also the intent of the rights, which is to protect players from having to constantly be online in order to play battlemaster without consequences.  

I suggested that at the "very minimum" any sort of deadline that someone would want to place for any matter of importance should be at least 3 days in length. No action was taken in this regard and I believe someone responded that "you have half a day left" or some such.  

This entire situation to me as quite simply ruined my perception of the game and the fact that multiple other players who are playing with us seem to support such strict playing sickens me. My character was one of the nobles listed as needing to respond to charges, and as I was online I was able to do so somewhat. However, due to the nature of the situation, I was forced to be online and play battlemaster for nearly 4 hours today just to get a handle on the situation and still accomplished very little.  

I am quite utterly convinced that had I not been able to log on today, or I did not have multiple free hours to dedicate towards playing "a lightweight game" that many years of play in my character would have simply been destroyed overnight upon logging on.  

In addition, the character Malus is a ruler character, and as such he is in a position of power amongst the game. It is his responsibility to also follow the "Government Rules" of our game which outline the responsibility of the government members, especially the Ruler to promote "Fun" in the game, and not to limit fun and interaction through use of pressing into people's activity cycles. Due to the position that Malus holds in this, his deadline carries extraordinary weight amongst multiple realm's worth of nobles and limits the gameplay and interaction possible for all nobles involved for 3 realms (not just the 4 nobles accused of a crime).  

When the situation first arose which eventually led to the deadline made, it was done in collaboration of multiple players as a way to increase the fun and interaction between characters in the game in our realms. This initially succeeded, and if it was allowed to continue would no doubt have produced some of the best RP and interactions I've seen in a long time of playing BM. However, due to time stringent policies and messages by Malus, and then supported and added onto by other leaders who are allies with his character, this has been strictly cut down and limited.  

Overall, the effects are simple: Time stringent actions such as these are a method of power-gaming which ruins the experience that BM has to offer. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the demand, nobles from Malus's realm are not given the chance to interact, object, approve, or simply state their opinions upon his actions as Ruler. The accused nobles not from his realm are not given the chance to interact or defend themselves properly. The nobles in the realm with the accused nobles are not allowed to interact with them or defend them properly, and the nobles of bystanding realms are not given the proper chance to interact or play their characters. A situation and RP planning which was intended to last at least a week to even get started and rolling has been attempted to be completely rapped up and finished in 2 days time.

[Solari]

Uh... I don't know how one can construe an impossible IC demand as an OOC violation of your inalienable rights as a player unless said individual cannot separate IC and OOC.  The demand made, which was that certain individuals turn themselves over for execution in one day (a demand they totally weren't going to fulfill anyways), is not required to meet some magical condition that it fit everyone's schedule, because it's an IC ultimatum for war.  The complaint doesn't even claim that I am denying people time to play the game.  What it says is that my character upset a bunch f plans that were poorly hatched and planned, and now the individual is mad because we aren't all playing by their timeline.

I am happy to provide all letters, IC and OOC, which demonstrate that this is little more than OOC griefing.

[James]

What was the full message he actually sent out? It could be that it was intentionally done to ensure no action could be taken before the deadline expired. If you never actually intend for the person to respond or act, you're not breaching IR because you're not forcing anyone to do anything.

Without the full message the actual situation cannot be discussed, all we could look at is the IR which we already know.

[vonGenf]

Letter from Malus Solari   (16 hours, 26 minutes ago)
Message sent to everyone in "Halls of Luria" (32 recipients)

The following nobles are hereby named enemies of House Solari, the nobility of Solaria, and aggressors against free peoples everywhere.  Each of them owes Solaria a debt of honor to be repaid in blood.  There will be no negotiating the price, no adjustment of the terms.  Failure to repay the debt will only result in my having to collect it.  They have one day.

Brom of House Silverfire, Ostensible Duke of Askileon
Ramiel of House Avis, Lord of Askileon Purlieus
Jeffrey of House Norrel, Lord of Santoo
Dame Etna of House Altir, Traitor to Solaria

Signed,

Malus Solari
Lurian King of Halls of Luria and Arbiter of Solaria

[Ramiel]

the ironic thing is, he didnt even give us a day.

[De-Legro]

the ironic thing is, he didnt even give us a day.

How is that ironic?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Er...a foreign ruler making demands that have a deadline that may or may not actually exist...

Pick a name out of a hat of all the rulers in BM history who have done the same thing.

If refused, what can he do to those foreign nobles anyway? Go declare war? Meh, wars have been started over lesser and dumber things.

But hey, I'm not a Magistrate.

[Solari]

Is the plaintiff willing to go on record as saying that all of the named individuals would have killed their characters, per Malus' request, if he had simply given them more time to do so?  Because that's the only outcome which will satisfy Malus. That's how the demand is worded.  It's also worth mentioning that several (and I mean over 50) letters were exchanged after this demand was issued, and all of them took on an increasingly belligerent and defiant tone.  Why would Malus give the full day if it wasn't going to accomplish anything?

[Anaris]

Well, I'm not a Magistrate, either, but I have an opinion

My view is that one must separate things that are obviously impossible IC from things that are unreasonable OOC.

In this case, the demand was something that any character could have told you was impossible.  Because of that, it is my position that this is not an IR violation.

I'm sure there are edge cases, where someone might think that they could (and must) achieve something that was, in fact, impossible IC, and thus their inalienable rights were violated.  However, I do not believe that to be true here.

[Indirik]

Just a couple quick points:

• This is a very PvP game. Players make plans, and those plans upset other people's plans. The fact that the plans Malus made and put into action disturb or completely derail someone else's plans is irrelevant. The actions we take will impact other players, and change or invalidate other people's plans. And the plans they make will change or invalidate our plans as well. It is the nature of a PvP game. Complaining that your plans were disturbed by someone else is a bit ... I don't know ... selfish? (Maybe that's not quite the right term, but I can't think of a better one right now.) You're saying that your plans are more important than another player's plans. That's not multi-player game thinking, that's single-player game thinking. That your character and your story is the central focus of the game, and that everyone else must cooperate with you and write your story. In an MMOG like BattleMaster, that's just not true. Everyone else is just as much entitled to write their story as you are to write yours.
• The game is not deterministic. You cannot set out to write a specific story, and then refuse to accept the fact that the actions other players will take may alter or completely destroy that story. The game, and the path it takes, and the stories that are told, are not determined by one person. Just as in real life, you don't get to predetermine the entire course of events from beginning to end. You need to accept the events as declared by others, and then adapt your story to them, just as they must adapt their story to yours.
• You are complaining that a 24-hour deadline does not allow you to interact and defend themselves adequately. Clearly, if Malus had declared war immediately instead of grandstanding and giving his 24-hour deadline, that would have been OK. And you state in your post that giving a three-day deadline would have been OK, too. So immediate war declaration is OK, and a three day wait is OK, but a 1-day wait is not OK? But it seems to me that an immediate war declaration would have been at least as damaging to your plans as a one-day deadline. So... a long deadline is OK, and no deadline is OK, but a semi-short deadline is not OK?

[Sacha]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. As has been stated, the deadline could have been 1 day or 100 days, it would not matter, since none of the characters would willingly kill themselves to satisfy Malus. They weren't expected to either. It was merely a way to have a casus belli, the actual decision to go to war was made long beforehand.

[^ban^]

I believe it should be mentioned that Solari, De-Legro, Sacha, and myself are all involved with this case and should probably recuse ourselves.

Before doing so, however, I feel that there is something that must be addressed.

the intent of the rights, which is to protect players from having to constantly be online in order to play battlemaster without consequences.

This is not accurate. The intent of the IR in question is not a universal shield from the consequences of various activity levels but a shield against discrimination based solely upon a player's activity level. You will suffer consequences if you are not on BM constantly, for example it is simply a matter of fact that the ability to respond quickly is a powerful advantage, and that those who do not take that advantage are therefor 'suffering consequences.' If one were to log in to their character once every five days you would fail to see orders and requests made of the character, and other players would be perfectly justified in fining or banning your character for failing to respond to orders and requests. It has been made very clear in the past that the IRs are not a catch-all, and that they are not designed as such. What these IR do protect from is what we saw many years ago where characters were promoted solely based on their login activity, or banned from a realm only for logging in infrequently, or ordered to log in at some specific hour of the day.

The fact of the matter is that, some times, a thing happens which will require a significant time investment from you as a player if you wish it to come out in your favor. That is the nature of both communication and politics. The Inalienable Rights do not forbid such a situation from arising, and in fact such situations are exactly the sort of thing that should be encouraged because they reflect intense and significant roleplaying between the players in a game designed to be a roleplaying game.

[Dante Silverfire]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. As has been stated, the deadline could have been 1 day or 100 days, it would not matter, since none of the characters would willingly kill themselves to satisfy Malus. They weren't expected to either. It was merely a way to have a casus belli, the actual decision to go to war was made long beforehand.

I cannot state for sure how any of the other characters would have done anything but my character would have died to protect his realm from war if given a reasonable chance to do so, just as I believe IC another one of the characters had already stated something very similar in private channels. (My character sent letters with this intention included if it was proven necessary)

The issue in my opinion is not that the consequences are that the ruler be to go to war, but that the character is manipulating an OOC timeline to create IC reasons for going to war. As you clearly stated, and everyone is aware (on an OOC basis, and some IC) that Malus always intended to go to war anyway. But by creating a timeline which is impossible to fulfill on an OOC basis, in order to have IC justification for an action, is ludicrous.

If Malus had simply declared war without a wait, then he would have far less allies than he does now(and have made many enemies). If Malus declared war with a 3 day wait (thus giving the other side time to actually log on and respond), he would have far less allies than he does now. However, by placing a deadline which made it impossible to respond to from an OOC point of view due to players having a real life, he has established a justification for war, which as players we know is completely bogus, but our characters can consider legitimate (because a demand wasn't met, etc...) Thus, Malus has established a war with plenty of support on his side when IC wise this support could never have been found through legitimate IC action.

As far as a response to Indirik's comments, I understand I don't get to play this game on my own and that my stories are not the only ones around. I don't care about playing a game where I am the only one determining the story. That is even the reason why this storyline even began because I was interested in putting my character at risk in order to liven up the fun of the game for me and the other players. I have no disdain for harm coming to my character, but I do have disdain for players using what I would consider manipulative OOC action (even if sent in an IC message) to "win" battlemaster.

[vonGenf]

If Malus had simply declared war without a wait, then he would have far less allies than he does now(and have made many enemies). If Malus declared war with a 3 day wait (thus giving the other side time to actually log on and respond), he would have far less allies than he does now. However, by placing a deadline which made it impossible to respond to from an OOC point of view due to players having a real life, he has established a justification for war, which as players we know is completely bogus, but our characters can consider legitimate (because a demand wasn't met, etc...) Thus, Malus has established a war with plenty of support on his side when IC wise this support could never have been found through legitimate IC action.

The shortness of the timeline can be exploited IC. The rulers of other realms are perfectly justified to say "Your ultimatum was unreasonable. It is impossible for letters to be sent back and forth in such a short amount of time; many probably simply slept  through the morning only to find themselves at war when they woke up! I will not condone such behaviour; have your war on your own."

They are also justified not to say it, if they don't want to. The point is, an OOC unreasonable timeline is also IC unreasonable.

[Sacha]

Silverfire, make no mistake, this war has been in the works for some time, and all the support Solaria needs has been secured for weeks in advance. If you think that Tybalts message from yesterday meant that he was still undecided, you're sadly mistaken. The ultimatum was little more than a smokescreen to present a justifiable cause for war. All parties involved agreed on the course of action long before yesterday's argument exploded. Also, if you say that Brom would die to protect his realm, have him commit suicide on the spot. Then a quarter of the Malus' demands will have been met, and you'll be a quarter on the way to saving PeL.

Also, you've been one of the most active participants in not just this discussion, but the ones before as well, so your argument that you have no time to respond to the ultimatum falls a little bit short...