Actions Taken: Repeated Rule Violation

[Goat]

Hello,

A decision has been made to place an indefinite ban on the player Mork (known for his character Ignatius), For the sake of transparency we want to be completely upfront about why this is as there were several reports of mass messaging to the current community.

Ignatius fell from grace as a paladin due to repeated violations of the Paladin Code of Conduct. The DM team treats this as an entirely in-character matter, and considers it an opportunity for role play and character development. A paladin (or any other divine servant who falls from grace) can choose to double down and stray further from paladinhood and his faith, eventually converting to another, or he can choose to atone for his sins in the eyes of the faith and return to paladinhood (or even other positions in the faith if appropriate). Mork made it clear that Ignatius was going to try the latter.

A fall from grace does in other words not mean that the DM team is trying to tell a player of a divine servant character how to play their character. Indeed, it is rather the DM team respecting the character's choices by having the god in question reacting to them. If your character commits a crime in Baldur's Gate, the city watch will arrest and/or banish the character from the city; if a ranger of Mielikki uses a Wand of Animate Dead, Mielikki will no longer show the ranger favour. The world will react appropriately to character actions as best as the DM team can make it.

However, despite the Paladin Code of Conduct not only being presented to Mork, but also explained ad nauseum, Mork continued to argue his character was never in violation of the Paladin Code of Conduct. For the sake of clarity here: The violations were multiple, primarily around knowingly associating with or contributing to the prosperity of obviously evil characters and polities. And despite ample in-character opportunities for Ignatius to course correct, the situation devolved into blatant spite and disrespect for staff in forum posts, ingame and on discord. Often in passive aggressive ways, or in not-so-subtle jabs such as the text of an RP-post where the words "abusive" and "staff" were in separate sentences, but highlighted to connect them.

This continued vitriol lead to a 1 month ban. During this time, Mork logged into another account to stand in the nexus with a sign saying "man with a blank sheet of paper". As this was a ban evasion, we also banned this account. Upon his return after the month of ban, he once again started standing in the nexus as a "man with a blank sheet of paper". This is a reference to anti-war protests in Russia where the government violently arrested the protestors, as well as anti-censorship protests in China that lead to many of the protestors being detained and sentenced to years in prison. We find this kind of reference particularly heinous, and extremely disrespectful to the real life protests and their consequences.

More than this, we have been approached by several people who Mork had contacted, trying to rally them to join him in this supposed protest against staff with a document explaining his plan to essentially become so disruptive that the staff would cave to his demands to create a "Player Team". Though its purpose was unclear, the implication is for a counter to the DM team, creating an obvious us-versus-them situation.

In summary: A continued attempt to disrupt and spread vitriol; a continued show of contempt and blatant disrespect for both the server staff and the players by refusing to play by the server rules and setting; and a more than distasteful attempt at equivalence to real life protests resulting in very real suffering. These are the reasons we have now decided to ban Mork indefinitely. He will of course be given a chance to appeal the ban in time, should he find it in himself to reflect on the attitude and actions that brought him here and show clearly that he understands why this measure had to be taken.

And just an added note: No one on staff has an issue with AI itself, the staff team has an issue with AI being used in RP - both in-game and on the forums as RP posts, biographies, etc. Your creativity is your own and should be written by your own hands. We do not have an issue with AI when it involves anything outside of RP - I.E. AI images, etc. AI will continue to be disallowed when it comes to RP and will continue to be. What you use AI outside of this is your own choice and not our business.

Thanks,
-Goat