Charter

This Charter has been set forth to direct the community representing the ShadowHaven living Shadowrun campaign, to facilitate a mature community of Shadowrun 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 Shadowrun 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 behavior 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.

Article I: Guiding Principles

1. 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.

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

3. 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.

4. No pulled punches: We will not implement policies that encourage pulled punches and sugarcoating of game content.

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

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

7. Permissive, but not sugarcoated: While we 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.

8. House rule philosophy: We attempt to accept as much of Shadowrun 5E's raw as possible. If ambiguity gets in the way, we attempt to create house rules that preserve a version of Shadowrun 5E that is relatable to all players, especially new ones. We address problematic areas of the game like vehicle damage, melee with spirits, and addiction rules in ways that streamline and improve the player experience for a living community setting. We ban unsalvageable parts of the game.

Article II: Organization Structure

Senior Staff

1. All Senior Staff may award GMP to achieve their departments goals.
2. All Senior Staff awarded 10 GMP on the 1st of each month.
3. All Senior Staff shall act as moderators.
4. All Senior Staff may appoint deputies to their departments ranging in powers to normal member of their department to full powers of the senior staff member.
   1. Senior Staff members should work with the SysOp to determine deputy powers for their department and list them in the charter.

Pre-Made Verification Division

Head of the Pre-Made Verification Division Duties and Powers

1. Acts as a member of the senior staff.

2. Managed the r/ShadowHavenPreMadeGen subreddit

3. Approve submitted Pre-mades for Community and GM use, ensuring they meet ShadowHaven chargen rules.

4. Works with the Mechanics and Thematics Departments to rectify pre-mades with problems.

5. Denies unsuitable pre-mades.

6. Manages a team of minions to approve, review and deny pre-mades.

7. Sets GMP awards for the creation of pre-mades.

8. Sets standards of additional material to come with the pre-made beyond sheets.

Term Length

Term ends on the first day of an odd-numbered month.

Moderation Division

Head Moderator Duties and Powers

1. Acts as a member of the senior staff.

2. Interprets the community standards.

3. Brings cases that need a ban length longer than what the moderators can do to the sysop.

4. Recruits, interviews, and disciplines the moderator staff.

5. Reviews complaints about moderator staff.

6. Vetos moderator ban votes.

7. Issues Formal Warnings.

8. Modifies the Community Expectations.

Term Length

Term ends on the first day of an odd-numbered month.

GMP Rewards

12 GMP on the 1st of every month.

Individual Moderators Duties and Powers

1. At their own discretion, Informally Warn, Kick, or Mute members who are breaking community standards
2. Mediate interpersonal conflicts
3. Interview members when investigating cases
4. Access to all ShadowHaven documents and chat channels when investigating cases
5. Any moderator can issue up to a 3-day ban. Any two moderators can issue up to a two-week ban. Any 3 moderators can issue up to a one month ban. Any 4 moderators can issue up to a three-month ban. Any 5 moderators can issue up to a six-month ban.
   1. An except to this rule is in regards to raiders and trolls who join the server and immediately cause disruptive action. In these cases, a moderator may issue any actions including a permaban. This actions may be reversed by the Head of Moderation or the Sysop.
   2. Moderators should not wait to compose a thought out ban message or delay to issuing of a 3 day ban until they get a more moderators aboard to issue a longer ban.
6. When taking any action, moderators must document their action and reasoning in the report form in order to document incidents.
7. When issuing bans, moderators must inform the banned of their right to appeal the case to the sysop.
8. Any 3 mods can issue a formal warning

Division of the Wiki

Editor-at-Large for the Wiki

1. Maintain the wiki
2. Help players, GMs and other members use the wiki
3. Organize a division with members to accomplish their goals
4. Works with the thematics division to ensure entries added to the wiki for GMP are of a high enough quality to be worth of that award. These include things like player AARs.
5. Acts as a member of the senior staff

Term Length

Term ends on the first day of an odd-numbered month.

Division of Publications

Editor-at-Large for Publications

1. Assist the SysOp with the development of new fan books for Shadowrun 5th edition
2. Organize a division with members to accomplish their goals

Term Length

Term ends on the first day of an odd-numbered month.

The Council (on Game Play)

The 4 members of the council shall represent the heads of the following divisions:

• Mechanics

• Thematics

• Character Generation

• Shared Story

Term Length

Term ends on the first day of an odd-numbered month.

Duties and Methods

1. The Council, as a whole, shall work together to collaborate between the four divisions and their branches, facilitate open discussion and approve full house rules.

2. The Council, as a whole, may optionally move proposed house rules and policy changes to public comment for 1 to 4 weeks. They may then take those community comments to further refine the proposed house rule or policy change.

3. The Council, as a whole, shall work together to review and comment on issues raised by the community in the Topics for Discussion thread. The Topics for Discussion shall be pinned on the r/ShadowHavenBBS subreddit. If no action is taken, the council should comment as such. If action is taken, the action should be noted.

4. All council members may appoint deputies to their departments ranging in powers to normal member of their department to full powers of the senior staff member.

1. Council members should work with the SysOp to determine deputy powers for their department and list them in the charter.

5. Council members shall act as moderators.

6. In the event of a tie, the SysOp shall have the following options. They may either 1) Modify the proposal in question to achieve a majority vote on the council. 2) Cast a tie breaking vote on the proposal in question.

Division Head Descriptions

Mechanics Duties

1. Review new Shadowrun content for use on ShadowHaven

2. Ban Shadowrun rules not fit for community play

3. Maintain the ShadowHaven experience that is a refined version of the Rules as Written and provide clear documentation on any house rules should they be required.

4. Review and approve mechanical changes proposed by Thematics in the form of State of Seattle posts and similar effects.

5. Review and approve the mechanical aspects of contacts.

6. Organize a department to perform the above duties.

Thematics Duties

1. Organize a department to manage and oversee the storylines of the Game Masters on ShadowHaven, ensuring maximum GM freedom while minimizing unwanted intersection of plotlines.

2. Resolve conflict between GMs in regards to the use of setting pieces.

3. Oversee presentation of post-mission consequences upon the world of the ShadowHaven living campaign to members of the community.

4. Investigate reports of GM misconduct.

5. Interview new GMs to ShadowHaven to see if they are fit for the community.

6. Organize the recording of run information in the form of wikipages.

7. Oversee the thematics of contacts.

8. Conduct investigations into GM misconduct.

9. Works with the wiki division to ensure entries added to the wiki for GMP are of a high enough quality to be worth of that award. These include things like player AARs.

Character Generation Duties

1. Ensure the ShadowHaven legality and adherence to rules of player characters proposed by members of the ShadowHaven living campaign.

2. Organize a department to offer constructive criticism of the concept and mechanicals of proposed player characters.

Shared Story Loremaster Duties

1. At the end of each month, read every AAR for that preceding month.

2. Call upon to GMs to submit AARs for the proceeding month

3. Seek out incomplete AARs of significant events in ShadowHaven’s lore

4. With this knowledge, update the story so far on the wiki with bullet points for that month.

5. Assist GMs, players, and the council with questions regarding ShadowHaven’s story

6. Note deviations from official CGL canon and present them clearly to the community

7. Organize a division with members to accomplish their goals

GMP Rewards

12 GMP on the 1st of every month.

Sysop

Duties and Powers

1. May modify the charter

2. Review ban appeals and nullifies or modify ban lengths and other punishments.

3. May arbitrarily increase the length of bans issued by moderation.

4. May issue permanent bans.

5. Censures players, GMs or staff.

6. Conduct technical upkeep on the community.

7. Resolve conflict between departments.

8. Interviews and appoints council members and senior staff to their respective terms.

9. May renew a council member or senior staff member to another term.

10. May dismiss a council member or senior staff member.

11. Modifies the Community Expectations.

Article III: GMP

GMP must be carefully balanced to avoid building a progression focused culture and instead promote a culture that focuses on storytelling, the game, the community. As such, several policies are defined in this charter.

• Total GMP gained per member from all departments they are in is limited to 15 GMP/month.

Article IV: Membership Rights

1: The Right Not to be Forced to Continue and Abandon or Cease Uncomfortable Scenes (Global X-Card)

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

Shadowhaven 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 ShadowHaven 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 ShadowHaven, 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 Shadow Haven 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.

ShadowHaven 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/thematics member do it for you. The involved party shall need not reveal what is happening.

All members of the ShadowHaven 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.

2: Have a proposed denied by council or mechanics to be reviewed by the community at large.

The Topics for Discussion thread, in the old days, was a place for public debate over the course of the community. With Discord, that has fallen to the way side, yet we consider this public stage for discussion the community to be vital. Thus, after going through the normal mechanics thread and council process, members may submit their proposals to the SysOp via the normal ticket process. If submitted in good faith, the sysop will make a discord channel for the public debate of that issue. 2 to 3 weeks after the start of that debate, the council will vote on the topic again with the knowledge gained from these discussions in mind. Please note, these discussions must be in good faith. Should the discussion spiral into toxicity, the sysop may cancel the public comment period.