Special Role Rules

Every major nation has roles within it that determine how it is governed. While players and IC shape what these roles are and who fills them, there are a few restrictions when it comes to a player having multiple characters with significant political influence.

What is 'political influence' defined as?

A role of political influence is a position that meets one or both of the following criteria;

• Whose opinions or actions are expectedly capable of influencing the leader's or nation's direction as a whole. (IE; an Advisor's purpose is to advise on this very thing.)
• Whose status holds individual authority to elevate others to those positions.
• Who has significant power, such as for example, to exile a person(s) from a nation. (This does not include guard roles who enforce the exile, or instances of exile as punishment as part of the law.)

Why is this rule necessary?

• Roles of this nature often demand an elevated level of activity and attention. A leadership role should be able to delegate matters to one of these roles (if necessary), without roles of a similar importance occupied by the same player affecting availability. Similarly, if a player in possession of multiple roles of this nature were to become unavailable unexpectedly, it can lead to numerous issues for many different camps.
• A player possessing multiple roles raises 'conflict of interest' concerns on an OOC level, which are much more simply handled by making the roles mutually exclusive; not just between nations which they are serving, but also for certain players OOC.
• It encourages a more diverse RP environment by allowing more players to be able to make an impact in these roles.

What is the actual rule?

A player may only play one character that has a role from the lists below at a time.

• Primary Leadership Roles of Nations - Duke/Duchess of Telegrad, Premier of Geladyne, Don/Donna of Meiaquar, Chief of Duyuei, etc.
• Number Two & High Authority Roles of Nations - Advisor, Chief Rider, Sheriff, Austung, Zivilseher, Regisseur, Capo, Tribe Leaders (such as Thyrja), Vale Council
• Additionally, any faction that reports to, or is heavily associated with, a nation in which a player is also the primary leader.
  • For example, the vikings of the Tundra, which are heavily associated with Meiaquar, would not be able to be lead by a player who is also the Don of Meiaquar.

What roles aren't affected?

Any role that is not in the lists above is not subject to this rule. For example;

• Medical Chiefs - Head Mender, Chief Medical Officer, Head of Mental Facilities
• Legal Specialists - Lawyers, Inquisitors (including Grand Inquisitor)
• Guards & Military - General rank and file, guards, guardians, people tasked with maintaining the peace.
  • As these roles do not hold political influence, they are not subject to this rule.

Rule Enforcement

Generally speaking, unless an active attempt to deceive or circumvent the rule is made, we will ask the players involved to make steps to resolve the situation within a reasonable time frame.

• For example, if the IC on a character would result in the player being in violation of this rule due to having a restricted role on another character, we would ask that player to pick which one they want to keep, and to take steps to relinquish the other.
• We do not expect this to come up very often, regardless.

Re-Evaluation

As the RP environment is ever-shifting and roles can be created or removed, we may re-evaluate this list to include or exclude roles if necessary.

• We will announce any adjustments made when they happen.

Seeking Exceptions

There are circumstances in which we may, if requested, grant a temporary exception to the rule, such as;

• Situations where the rule must be filled in an expedited fashion, such as it being left empty causing long delays in progressing RP for others.
• Situations where reasonable, visible effort has been made to fill the role, without interested parties taking it up.

Exceptions are granted at GM discretion, following discussion with relevant leaders, which will then be discussed in leader chat so that any additional concerns may be discussed.