Club Rules
These Club Rules are intended tp keep Cork D&D a friendly, safe and welcoming place for everyone, new players and veterans alike. They aren't here to spoil the fun; they're the shared understanding that lets us all relax, roll dice, and tell great stories together.
Please read them before your first session. If anything is unclear, or you think a rule is
missing, have a word with one of the Wise.
The short version: Be kind, be prepared, and look out for each other. Everything below is
just the detail.
Respect each other
All these guidelines can be summed up as this: Treat each other with respect. Your characters may cheat each other, steal from each other, wound each other with their vicious mockery, leave each other for dead and even kill each other outright. But the players and even the evil DMs should all be treated with respect. If you don't like what a character does, take it out on the character, not the player.
Diversity
We are a diverse group. We do not discriminate on grounds of gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity or race. Except elves, we hate elves. So behaviour or language that is disrespectful of this diversity will not be tolerated, either at the meetups or on the site.
In-game annoyance
If another player keeps doing things that annoy you in-game, have a respectful word with the player and explain how this is ruining the game for you. If you are playing that annoying character, please listen and try to come to a mutually agreeable solution. If your defence is that your character is chaotic evil, then please consider growing up. We are all here to have fun, but if your idea of fun ruins the experience for others, feel free to leave the group.
If you are DMing this situation and you believe that it is being done on purpose and malignantly, and despite discussion the behaviour continues then feel free to eject the player. This is bullying/harassment. End it.
No in-game sexual violence
This should not require saying, but just in case. You may not play out sexual violence of any kind with other PCs, NPCs, monsters or anything else you may encounter.
Why? Because you are an adult and you respect your fellow players and this is deeply offensive behaviour. In other words you may pillage all you want, but you can not rape. This includes torturing captives by mutilating, or threatening to mutilate, their imaginary private parts.
Water boarding and other nefarious methods are of course fine; you need that information, now.
If in doubt, ask yourself if Cary Grant or Doris Day wouldn't do it in an old Hollywood movie. If the answer is no, then you shouldn't either.
This applies even if everyone at the table votes to include such content, because we play in public and other people, members and non-members, may overhear. So just don't.
Other in-game content
Apart from sexual violence which has a total ban (above), other content that someone (read anyone) at a table finds offensive should be avoided. It is the DM/GM's responsibility to make sure that such subjects are known, understood and thereafter avoided. It is recommended that before a campaign starts, at a Session 0, that these subjects are discussed and enumerated.
Examples that you may want to discuss before including:
- Torture of any kind
- Violence towards innocents (children for example)
- Slavery
- Racism/Prejudice
- Spiders?!
Everyone at the table should be comfortable with saying a subject makes them uncomfortable and that should then be avoided.
Respect the location
Wherever the meetups happen, please respect the location. Currently we meet in a pub. So please clean up after the game. Put any tables/chairs you moved back where you got them and so on. Pubs don't like you to bring in food and drink. They give us the space free of charge so that we spend money behind the bar. If there is no benefit to the pub in hosting us, then why should they continue to?
Please treat the staff with respect, even if they mess up an order, a large number of us all arrive at the same time and they can be busy, so patience and kindness please.
Also, don't even think about leaving negative social media reviews of the location.
Social Media
Our Social Media sites are for arranging and talking about our meetups and D&D in general. You may not advertise goods or services on them without permission from one of the organisers.
If you stay, you play
D&D is like eating chocolate. You can't understand it by watching someone else doing it. You have to do it for yourself. It is an absorbing participation game where the players suspend disbelief and enter a whole new world. Nothing breaks this faster than a non-player watching. So new members are always welcome, but if you come along you must play. You cannot simply observe. After five minutes you'll be very happy you did.