The Grove Charter

This Charter has been set forth to direct the community representing The Grove's living Dungeons and Dragons campaign, to facilitate a mature community of D&D players playing together in an accessible manner, to provide guidelines for a welcoming community with strong moderation, and to collaboratively tell and enjoy a compelling and engaging D&D story.

We explicitly do not seek to maximize the number of people in our group, but to focus on making the group as fun and stress-free as possible. We do not accept antisocial behaviour here. We seek to create a space where every member feels free to bring up issues that they may have and can expect civil dialog on the topic. We understand that the time and energy of our members is preciously limited and aim to make time spent here as joyous as possible. We set strong boundaries on the type of gameplay and community we expect while acknowledging and accepting that some may not fit with us. However, we are more than happy to play with anyone to see if there is a fit.

Freedom to pick
GMs being free to choose their players and players being free to choose their GMs creates accountability on the part of all people involved to play the game in good faith.

Trust each other
Our players and GMs can trust each other for anyone who dares violate that trust will be removed.

We’re Busy, Slot Paperwork
Our member’s time is valuable. Any paperwork we ask for should be for world building, not administrative measures that attempt to guard community integrity with record keeping. Most our time should be spent playing games.

No pulled punches
We will not implement policies that encourage pulled punches and sugar coating of game content.

It's better to ban one than lose two
The integrity of the community will be guarded.

Open Dialog
Provide spaces to members to community their grievances, make sure they feel comfortable enough to share them.

Permissive, but not sugar coated
While we strive to let our players play what they want, we will not sugar coat the world to make more oddball concepts work. We aim to achieve verisimilitude.

House rule philosophy
We attempt to accept as much of Dungeons and Dragons 5E as raw as possible. If ambiguity gets in the way, we attempt to create house rules that preserve a version of D&D 5E that is relatable to all players, especially new ones. We address problematic areas of the game like crafting, horde encounters, and resting rules in ways that streamline and improve the player experience for a living community setting. We ban unsalvageable parts of the game.

Owner
The Owner is not allowed to have a character that is able to gain experience within the server. They are also not able to play a civilian character. Their character must play the role of a faction leader and can be up to level 14.

This character will also be in possession of a Bag of Holding and a Bag of Devouring, for the purposes of bringing items into and out of play where needed.

Duties and Powers
The duties of the owner include but are not limited to:


 * Modifying the Charter.
 * Reviewing Ban appeals and nullifying or modifying ban lengths and other punishments.
 * May arbitrarily increase the length of bans issued by the moderation team.
 * May issue permanent Bans.
 * Censures players, GM or Staff.
 * Conduct technical upkeep on the community.
 * Resolves conflicts between Staff.
 * Interviews and appoints new staff members.
 * May dismiss staff members.
 * Modifies the Community Expectations and Rules of the Server.
 * Creating and building Rules for the Server as a whole.
 * Building relevant lore for members of the server or reviewing requested lore additions.
 * Assist Game Masters, Players and Arbitors with questions regarding The Grove's Lore and Story.

Administration
The Administrator is not allowed to have a character that is able to gain experience within the server. They are also not able to play a civilian character. Their character must play the role of a faction leader and can be up to level 14.

This character will also be in possession of a Bag of Holding and a Bag of Devouring, for the purposes of bringing items into and out of play where needed.

Duties and Powers
The duties of Administrators include but are not limited to:


 * Work with the Owner to determine powers for moderation team and list them within the Charter.
 * Censures players, GM or Staff.
 * Conduct technical upkeep on the community.
 * Resolves conflicts between Staff.
 * Interviews and appoints new staff members.
 * May dismiss staff members.
 * May issue permanent Bans.
 * Creating and building Rules for the Server as a whole.
 * Building relevant lore for members of the server or reviewing requested lore additions.
 * Assist Game Masters, Players and Arbitors with questions regarding The Grove's Lore and Story.

Arbitor
The Arbitor can maintain a character that is able to earn experience within the server.

Duties and Powers
The duties of Arbitors include but are not limited to:


 * Interpreting the Community Standards, and enforcing that onto the community.
 * Review complains about the moderation staff and bring it to the attention of the Owner.
 * Act on behalf of an Administrator where needed.
 * At their own discretion; Warn, Kick, or mute members who are breaking community standards.
 * Mediate interpersonal conflicts between members.
 * Interview members when investigating cases.
 * Issue up to a 3 day ban without discussion. 2 Arbitors in agreement can issue up to a 14 day Ban. 4 Arbitors in agreement can issue up to a 3 month ban. 5 or more Arbitors in agreement can issue up to a 6 month ban.
 * May issue permanent bans to raiders or trolls who join the server and immediately cause disruption to the community.

World Builders
World Builders can have a character that earns experience within the server, however are only able to gain experience within the structured testing environment or the greater server, not both. They may not gain experience, or take any items or gold from other encounters outside their chosen method however are free to join them to give a Game Master numbers when needed.

Alternatively, a World Builder is able to have Civilian characters as per normal.

Duties and Powers
The duties of World Builders include but are not limited to:


 * Creating and building Rules for the Server as a whole.
 * Building relevant lore for members of the server or reviewing requested lore additions.
 * Assist Game Masters, Players and Arbitors with questions regarding The Grove's Lore and Story.
 * Seek out incomplete AARs of significant world altering encounters.
 * Update the story so far with a brief on the events that change the world.

Game Masters
Game Masters can have a character that earns experience within the server.

Duties and Powers
The duties of a Game Master includes but are not limited to:


 * Assist the Administrators in projecting their lore onto the world where needed.
 * Assist world builders with projecting their lore onto the world where needed.
 * Run games with in which build toward the greater lore of the world.
 * Run games which assist players in achieving their character goals.

Membership Rights
The ability to abandon or cease games or role play which makes any Grove member uncomfortable is a fundamental and protected right granted to members by the charter.

The Grove shall treat the word “X-card” as a prearranged and unambiguous signal to end their game or roleplay without delay for any reason. This can be deployed both in voice chat, freeform RP and text based games. Members shall be able to deploy this safeword without retaliation.

Every The Grove department is hereby directed to maintain policies to support any case where a player or GM uses this measure and promote the use of the “X-card” safeword across The Grove, particularly among shy members. In particular, the thematics in their GM oversight role and moderation teams.

The “X-card” safeword may be activated via text, voice or PM. It may be used in the voice chat, private PM to the game master, or by messaging a member of the council, moderation team, or The Grove Staff in private to request they step in and stop the game.. A member need not have made their discomfort known prior to using the X-card. Members may feel free to disconnect from the game before deploying this safeword. Members may use this in any way they feel most comfortable. Any means a member feels most comfortable with using are acceptable. If anonymity is requested when using the X-Card, it is to be protected.

The Grove as an organization cares more about player safety than storylines. We have many tools at our disposal to ensure the storyline continues, but only after we have taken care of our priority towards player safety. This is not a tool of last resort, nor is it a replacement for other conversations around sensitive topics. However, we are exploring a dark world in a freeform fashion with complete strangers. We have complete trust in our members to explore these topics in a mature way. However, sometimes we stumble and need a safety net. This is especially true in our voice and text chat based environment where we do not have body language to detect discomfort.

The best response to the deployment of an “X-card” is to take a break and either talk to the involved parties or have a moderation/world builder member do it for you. The involved party shall need not reveal what is happening.

All members of the The Grove community shall treat the use of the X-Card with respect and maturity. There shall be zero tolerance for hostile actions made in retaliation against someone for using the X-Card.