B's GM House Rules
Timeline - Orders submission suspenses will be firmly established at the start of the game, and adhered to. 24 hour grace periods will be allowed until they are being abused, a determination made at my sole discretion. "Away" or "Vacation" times must be requested no later than one week prior to departure, extenuating circumstances will be considered. Excessive away time for any reason (over 2 weeks) will be put to a player vote on whether they want to wait or replace the absent player. The vote to replace an absent player must be unanimous to be approved. Any NMRs in the first year result in automatic replacement. Two NMRs at any point result in replacement. NO EXCEPTIONS. NMRs destroy the fun of the game for everyone, and I have little tolerance for them. All players that start a game are expected to play to completion regardless of whether they are winning or getting annihiliated - anything less is unsportsmanlike and juvenile.
Orders Adjudication - All adjudication will be performed by Realpolitik or manually by the GM if RP support is unavailable. In the event that an error in adjudication occurs (either by faulty Realpolitik coding or human GM error) PLAYERS have the responsibility to bring it to my attention. I will adjudicate to the best of my ability, and almost always catch errors either myself or through Realpolitik, but errors do happen. When they do, the orders submission timeline will freeze while I review the error and publish new results. The next orders suspense will resume at the regular interval. If the error is caught after the subsequent adjudication deadline, the GM will determine the most equitable solution for all. Players may call for a vote, which must be unanimous, to overturn the decision.
Orders Submission - All players are encouraged to avoid abbreviation. It's just lazy and causes problems. If you must abbreviate, be absolutely certain that you use the APPROVED abbreviations for the variant as listed in Realpolitik under the "Names" feature. Any order that could refer to two different locations, an ambiguous unit, etc. etc. will be considered INVALID, and the unit will hold. So play it safe, and write out Fleet English Channel convoys Army Brest to London. That took me 3 seconds to type. Finally, as a courtesy please CC me (the GM) on all negotiations between players - it definitely makes the game much more fun to manage when you know what's going on behind the scenes.
Player Communication Protocol - I am very lenient in this area, but one thing I absolutely forbid. No player is permitted to make any attempt to forge any form of communication to make it appear that it was composed by another player. This includes altering forwarded emails, changing display names of emails, etc. etc. If, in my sole discretion as the GM, I believe that a player is using these loathsome tactics, I will replace the player immediately and refuse to ever GM or play with that player again. Forwarding emails from other players at all is undesirable, and should be avoided.
Catch All - Any topics not covered in this document should be raised with the GM prior to the start of the game. All topics pertaining to game play not covered in this document will rest in the sole discretion of the GM, or be resolved by player vote.
(
geocities.com/nairenvorbeck)