Mangband.org rules

[Warrior]

This applies only to the mangband.org server. Other servers might have different rules. be sure you know the house rules on the server you're playing on. As far as forum rules go, please use some common sense. Be nice.

***NEW*** [Update Dec 5'th 2012 - Rule 2 Updated: No "deliberate" selling of discounted objects
[Update May 21'st 2012 - No Summoning in Ironman Towns]
[Update December 12'th 2009 - Elaboration on rule 4]
[Update August 2'nd 2009 - Ironman specific rules]


Fair question, what are the rules?

1) When your ghost dies, you start over from scratch.
This means you don't get to keep any of your old stuff, even if by some magic it happens to still exist. If you partied with someone then died and ghost-died the members of your party (or whoever finds what used to be your stuff) can do with it what they want, but your character is gone forever and you should just move on. Remember: Ghosts do not exist in Angband at all. Playable and resurrectable ghosts were a gift from the original creators of MAngband meant to compensate for network problems and bugs. Most of these have been addressed, and very few player deaths now actually have anything to do with bugs or network issues. it does happen, but it's very rare.

2) Don't give things of value away. Sell them.
This keeps the game in balance. Charity is a nice trait, but it destroys the game balance very quickly. Besides, you might need the extra wealth sooner than you think. You may also not give away things to your own characters or sell things to your own characters for less than you would sell the same object to another player for. The important thing to remember is that this is Multiplayer Angband and a lot of what makes the game so enjoyable is the way the game works by default, the rarities, depths and prices of most items has been balanced in such a way that it makes the journey of every character unique and enjoyable.

Update: Once in a while an item will appear in the shops at a discount. If this item is stacked with other objects of the same kind, the discount will be copied to the new items. This has been used as a way to get around the current pricing system, allowing for large amounts of items being sold very cheaply in Player Stores. This is no longer allowed.

3) Power-leveling is not allowed.
Diving with a character of a much higher or lower level than yourself will result in the deletion of the savefiles of those involved. This refers to parties made specifically to advance a weaker character with minimal effort on his or her part, and situations in which it is obvious that someone is getting a free ride. If you want to play with a friend and he is higher level you can ask him to start a new character for your party. It's not a problem if a level 50 and a level 1 is in the same party as long as they're not doing it to power level the lower level character.

4) Don't help too much
If a character dies and decides to resurrect you're allowed (but absolutely not required) to give them up to 500 Gold for each of their character levels. This only applies to characters higher than level 25. So, giving a character who just died a few thousand gold is fine (if the player needs it), but remember, ghosts are not intended for infinite lives and if a character died and lost all his belongings maybe he should rather just start over. In general we suggest to only help players who have lost all or almost all their equipment and if their character level is higher than 15 at least. 50 Gold for each level between 1 and 10, 100 Gold for each level between 11 and 20, 250 Gold for each level between 21 and 25. This translates to 500 gold for a level 10, 1000 gold for a level 15, 1500 gold for a level 20, 2750 gold for a level 25, 5250 gold for a level 30, 7750 gold for a level 35, 10250 for a level 40, 12750 for a level 45 and 15250 for a level 50.

5) No swearing, no offensive language, no blasphemy, no racism. Be nice.
Mangband doesn't use, or particularly need more censorship, but you're expected to act like an intelligent person. There are times when yes, the silent cabal will rear up and knock you off the game if you seem to be using excessive vulgarity, since that's the sign of a fairly immature and (sorry) stupid mind.

6) Don't litter in town. using k takes exactly the same number of keystrokes.
Basically, don't drop cursed and worthless items in town, just destroy them instead. It's annoying for other people to have to step over piles of junk trying to move around in town.

7) Don't go AFK in shops.
There is only one of each shop and only one player can enter it at a time so please don't go away from your computer or do other things while occupying the shop. Also make sure you don't block the entrance to the tavern or to the dungeon.

8) Don't save in the dungeon, especially not above 1000ft.
When you quit in the dungeon the level will stay static (this means that when someone else enters the level they'll get the same level you were on, which can be very boring for them and in some cases also very dangerous since monsters will keep spawning on the level if it has been static for a while). Obviously, sometimes you have no choice but to save in the dungeon, so when you do, you do.

9) Do not use holding/storage characters.
If you need to save an item for later, buy a house. Houses are expensive but this is yet another balancing feature.

mangband.org Ironman specific rules.

1) Do not sell/trade discounted items between characters via shops.

One example:

Player 1: You sold 30 Potions of Healing {@q1} for 690 gold.
Player 2: You bought 30 Potions of Healing {90% off} for 1350 gold.

2) It is not allowed to summon monsters in any of the Ironman towns.

Breaking any of these rules will at best give you a warning and at worst you will lose your character and be banned from the game.

[Big_Juan_Teh_Furby]

Goodbye to rescuing.

"I went to rescue him and we were partied so I could see his ghost, and in going to rescue him I killed 3 monsters so his character went up a level. Oops! Rule broken! Better delete him."

[serina]

Do not powerlevel.

This doesn't say anything about rescues at all.

ZAL

[Warrior]

Question/Comments welcome. This is just a tentative initial list. It will most likely change a bit with some feedback.

If the dead character played deep enough on his own to gain a lot of levels just from someone killing a few monsters while doing a rescue, good for him, he was deep enough to get rich or die trying either way.

The rules are there to make the game as enjoyable as possible for the players. Some people get offended by cursing, some people get offended by what they consider cheating and some people get offended by the lack of graphics or the art on the walls in the tavern.

Anyway, the rules are likely to change, but I'd like to add that we got rid of pk'ing for the same reason we now have a rule against powerleveling, it's not fair and for many players it's offensive to see someone abuse the game like that while they have to work hard for their levels.

[Kom]

I'm offering comments and criticism, so don't yell at me if you have a problem with how I feel.

n Rule #1: I think that could be reworded. It's pretty much known that if you die as a ghost you lose everything. But i realize the emphasis you're putting on not keeping anything from old characters, so why not something more obvious, like, "when you die don't attempt to retrieve any old stuff" or something.

On Rule #2: i've never really had people try to give me large amounts of money from dying, so I don't really see much of a point to this rule, however, I haven't been around a long time, so this may go on without my knowledge.

On Rule #3: I can't really argue against this rule with anything convincing other than this rule is something that kind of ruins part of the game for me. I despise all of the "oops, you've just wasted the last x hours of your life playing this game because you died."

On Rule #4: What about us people who are friends? This kind of keeps some people from playing with their friends who are at really high or low levels, or if they've just died from a high level and the people they normally play with are higher up.

On Rule #5: No qualms here, ghosts die too easily anyway =P

On Rule #6: Typical rule, easy to follow. I suppose people sometimes get carried away (sorry), especially when they die.

On Rule #7: <sarcasm>What do i look like, a garbage disposal </sarcasm>... of course.

On Rule #8: I wholly agree.

On Rule #9: Sometimes this unexpectedly happens when my internet fails for a period of time. Also this is a problem if i get called away from the computer, i would want to save and exit rather than stand there for a couple of minutes. I suppose a counterargument would be that i could just go back up to town, but I don't see how i would have to if it'll only be for a minute or two tops. I wouldn't just quit for a long period of time on a dungeon.

[Ashi]

I think that rule should be worded differently, as it only makes legitimate partying situations more difficult when you bring specific level ranges into discussion.

To give some examples, there used to be something like a static party with Zal, Acenoid, and myself (and sometimes Didy) where we would tackle as a group midgame (low and mid 30's level range, diving around 2500ft) and late game (level 40+, diving at the bottom). I know the level spread would sometimes be more than 5 (but less than 10), but in spite of this, the group strategy was great and everyone benefited equally. Everyone still had to do their part (healing, tanking, casting) and there were no freeloaders. So I think we should let people know that a moderate level spread does not necessarily mean someone is getting a free ride.

Here is how I would put it:

Power-leveling is not allowed. Diving with a character of a much higher or lower level than yourself will result in the deletion of the savefiles of those involved. This refers to parties made specifically to advance a weaker character with minimal effort on his or her part, and situations in which it is obvious that someone is getting a free ride.

[Maegdae]

As far as I can see Ashi's right on the ball.

[schroeder]

Ok I know that a lot of these rules were created a long time before i came here, and in order to make it probably like Angband but multiplayer. However, I still find some things pretty wrong with them.
1) As someone who has had to do this a total of 3 times, I know how much this sucks. It makes you want to quit the game, as can be seen by Kom's post about his recent death:
"i died again... which would have been ok, BUT... Someone decided to come down, dig a tunnel right to my ghost, and leave a scroll of life right next to me with "Kom" inscribed on it, without reading it or anything. With that happening and realizing the fact that i wouldn't get rescued, and that i didn't deserve to have my stuff back or continue playing with that character, i suicided him, destroying everything. I am quitting playing indefinitely. Good luck to the rest of you who have the... whatever it takes to keep playing this game."
It takes stamina to be able to just start over. Something you don't just have from the get go. I am only just starting to be able to feel ok with this. In that I'm gonna start making all my new characters brave, and twink them a LOT less. It takes time and stamina to get to the point you want. Something new players rarely have.

2) I don't really get this rule. I sometimes give characters that die some $, but its never like an epic amount. Just enough to make them not fall flat on their face. And, often, I find they don't want any.

3) I am a firm believer of giving away stuff that isn't worth selling to stores. If it is an item that people usually wouldn't buy, but someone may want to use if you put it in 8, but wouldn't sell for much if you tried to, then their is no reason not to put it in 8. From my experience, nearly every noob is shocked when they see the stuff there, and they ask about it. At which point, I explain how 8 works, and they don't sell the stuff to shops.
I'm not 100% certain of what you mean by 'destroys the ballance of the game.' If, by that, you mean that nobody wants to buy stuff from your shop because of how much you charge, then I agree, it does do that. However I think that people should be able to afford the things in player shops. And giving them a slightly better weapon from 8 makes them be able to do so quicker. Excellent that are put in 8 are rarely ones that actually matter. However, since they can dive quicker, they can buy stuff from me quicker. Its an investment. I give stuff away for free that wouldn't be worth selling, and, in exchange, i get the chance of them buying stuff from me quicker. And I also find that If a lot of charity is going on that isn't just from you, "it will *help* you when you die, cus you can get some stuff to recover." That is what I was told the first time I played and saw stuff in 8.
I also consider giving or selling at low price stuff to friends/ your other characters is an investment. It is like in the real world: you give stuff to someone you know, cus you know that they will be able to help you. At one point, cus I knew he could help me enchant stuff later and find me healing pots, I gave my roomate emulord stat pots. This did prove very usefull to me. I got a lot of healing pots from him that i would otherwise not have gotten, cus he wouldn't have been strong enough to get them. He also let me use his character to enchant sting and calris to the +15 range (he didn't do it himself cus it takes HOURS).
So, in conclusion about your rule 3, It destroys the ballance only in the fact that it makes people on a more level playing field and more able to help each other, and makes it harder for people to be ripped off.

4) After that excedingly lengthy retort on your 3rd rile, I will try to keep it brief. If I have a friend that is lower lvl then me, and I wanna hang out and party, but we are like a number of lvls different, It shouldn't matter. We should still be able to party and have fun. We will still have our roles, but basicly the lower lvl character will just be given a whole lot more panic stuff, so he won't die.
I also remember a case a few months ago when Turrin decided to take a lvl 30some character to the bottom. Turrin spammed 2k heals on him, and the other guy did the fighting. It was scary for that person, and hella fun. The fact that that they gained a lot of lvls wasn't the important part. The part that was important was that they had fun. And that is why people play the game: to have fun.
Taking a lvl 1 character to the bottom and having lvl 50s kill stuff for him is something completely different though, and this rule should be much more fair so that it is mainly just careing about these kinds of situation, where the noob is just doing nothing.

5) Their is already a thread going about this one, but my basic oppinion is that if someone wants to risk permadeathing, then they should be allowed to go on the suaside ghost diving mission. I actually think it would be fun to just have a party of ghosts and a warrior for light. It would be quirky, strange, funny and just plain fun. They lose half the experience they got when they revive, so i'm not sure why it matters.

6) It is a good thing to not be an ass. Oopse, I just said ass. Is that wrong? Although I agree that you shouldn't just go around swearing and basicly trying to offend everyone. However, everyone deserves a swear or two after they lose all the stuff of a lvl 50 character...Though they don't have the time to write them... (personal experience. If you git in a REALLY bad situation, you don't have time to swear)

7) Yeah, its annoying to find stuff in town. However, this is due in part to the fact that townies exist. They drop stuff that noobs can then sell for 13 AU and find out what that strange potion is. Finding an item that is {worthless} or {cursed} in town though is not cool, and I agree with the k instead of d thing.

8) If you find someone doing this, ask if anybody has teleport other, and go to town on that person. Its funny. However, I have never seen anybody go AFK in a shop. It has always been short enough where they could have just been making a *tough* choice. And at this point I realize that you aren't just yelling at all of us for not doing things, your trying to create something that noobs can read and learn from. Well, now they know another side of these rules. Although, I would say that I can only truly say that only these last few rules are mostly aimed at noobs.

9) Yeah, its not a good thing. It causes people to either get a cruddy used dungon lvl, or one that has been staticking all night, so they just stair into death (from my own experience). However, when i did stair into death, it was cus someone had died, and was trying to get someone to save them. I tried and failed, however numerous other people had died while trying to just go onto the lvl cus they didn't know about that person staticking the lvl. It would be nice if their was a key that would tell you if lvls were staticked, and how long they had been staticked. That would *help*.

Oh, and I am keeping a copy of this for myself... I just think its a nice thing to keep. And you wouldn't want to accidentally lose something like this, would you?

[PowerWyrm]

Rule #4: if you want to party with someone that has a high level char and you just died... then simply ask him to start a new char and party with you

[PowerWyrm]

Anything under 10 levels between 2 characters in a party is perfectly fine for me. The only thing that annoys me is to see level 50 and level 1 chars playing together to powerlevel the level 1 char to 30 in less than 30 minutes. There's no problem having level 50 and level 1 chars in a party (so everyone in a party knows how deep everyone dives) as long as they dive separately.

[Emulord]

I agree with Schroeder

[schroeder]

A case for thought:

Hay friend, lets create new characters, and fight together through thick and thin. I will be a human warrior. You can be a high elf mage. It will be awesome. We won't dive without each other.

Several weeks later:
Human warrior is lvl 50
High elf mage is lvl 43

And they are both deleted. No good. Thats not powerlvling. Warrior, that powerlvling rule is *buggy*. Best not to tempt it. Just have it be a 15 lvl thing. At that point, yeah. Something is going on. But don't delete them!! At the worst, you could permanantly drain their stats or their exp by a certain amount. Deletion is just overkill, in any situation.

[nubnub]

I think Schroeder's case is worth some pretty close examination. I mean, he's right, the exp cost differences between race/class combos can get pretty big, and I'm sure some characters could get deleted for level differences even if their exp totals were roughly the same. Before Kom suicided, we compared exp totals. We were the same level, but he had roughly twice as much exp as I did. I can see how it could become a problem if two people dived together a lot and their levels slowly drifted apart.

Also, I'm in favor of the rule against unbalanced parties. In my opinion, putting a low leveled character in your party and rescuing them is fine, but specifically diving with them to raise their level is sort of unfair. I've got some questions about this though:

1) Is it okay to have a really large party of people at wildly different levels, if you don't dive together? (With the party basically being used to track each others progress and teamspeak)

2) What about disjointed parties in the wilderness? Me and some other people like exploring in the wilderness, and sometimes our party is really unbalanced. We don't go out there to level, though, we go to explore. Should we stop?

I can understand the "don't give away good stuff" rule, but when it comes down to it, most of the things being given away aren't really all that game breaking anyway. As long as it's something like a Ring of Strength (+1) or a Pick of Digging (+4,+3) (+1), I'm in favor of giving it away. If it's something like a Ring of Speed (+10) or an Amulet of ESP, giving it away will make the game so easy for the recipient of the gift that they won't really learn how to manage their character with a normal set of equipment, because they'll be too busy running in circles around cave spiders. Basically, I'm all for helping noobs dig faster or do a little bit more damage earlier on, but only if the advantageous item can be replaced with something better relatively soon. I want to give noobs stuff that's fun and exciting to use, but doesn't give them a lasting large advantage over others at their level.

I'm against making a character and suiting it up with PDSM at level 1 and then powerdiving with it, obviously.

I sort of like the idea of a ghost party, but I can understand the restriction. The way Schroeder describes it, it just sounds really fun, though.

Also, I will not blaspheme things on the server any more. :I

[serina]

These rules were made to avoid exploitation. The MAngband Dev Team won't make a program to delete anyone's characters. They will always look at each on a case per case basis. This is what they're trying to avoid:

Mister X Level 20 in 17 minutes!
Mister X Level 25 in 19 minutes!
Mister X Level 30 in 44 minutes!

And since he was helped along by a lvl 40th character, gaining 5 levels in 2 minutes without any risk... Not really acceptable. I know it happens to lvl 1 characters killing something huge, but that's hardly the same, since that's a 1-time kill.

And since the rule strictly states it's about Powerleveling, stop worrying about it or make a private server if you wish this kind of deal (The Dungeonmaster character starts with alot of XP-potions, so it's pretty easy there to powerlevel).

ZAL

[Ace]

Sooner or later in every community rules are being generated, some feel its helping the game, some feel its unnecessary if there are problems involved.

I don't count myself to the regular, hard core mangbandler's (unfortunately) so I dont expect my word counts too much, but please just give it some consideration and think about it.

Too many rules are breaking the game - like in irc when a bot is kicking you after posting 3 rows of text. Some say its competetive gaming? Where , how? Everyone can play on its own, or in a group, they are not disturbing other players. The ladder is also unfair, a char who dies looses a lot of xp and retrieves his stuff can quickly regain his lost XP because the late game monsters give so much XP and through the leet equipment that player usually has its also no biggie. (not true for all char/class combos though)

I agree some things are cheesy and to detect exploits is a good thing, but let the players just play the game, dont try to administrate to much. there is no need. do not implement rules on who plays with who and what items they give to other players, it doesnt matter, what does it harm to you if a lvl 24 newb gives his second lvl 19 char all his gold or his best items?

Had there been complaints (except from the hardcore base that fight over the very best item slots) from players about missing rules?

A codex of honor is fine, but anything else is overmoderating i think. Think of the casual players that come here to have some fun, play a bit and even if they die, do not immediately want to start over. Some ppl simply do not have the time to restart from scratch. Because you will die in certain stages of a game when you reach them for the first time, namely, nasty uniques, dangerous vaults, new monsters like Q or druij for first time.

As last compromiss, do a poll on various rules if they are wanted & needed by the majority of the community and by majority do not take 50 % but a little more :)

over and out :)

-- ps -- i dont think that ill be affected to much by these rules, but still i dont like to see those :) And in the end these are the official servers which you nicely keep up to date and available so you can state your laws :)