General Rules and Beginner's Guide

Welcome to A Dance of Dragons! This is a role playing game that takes place in the ASOIAF universe. There are many options for players who wish to take part in aDoD. You can claim a House and rule over your vassals, lead your armies into battle, forge alliances and get rid of your enemies, you can also claim a single character and live a life a Knight looking for adventures under the services of a lord.

## Rules

There are some basic rules you need to be aware before starting roleplaying at aDoD

1. Out of Character Knowledge: OOC information cannot and must not be used to get a leg up IC. Any actions planned outside IC enviroment will be retconned and the players involved receive a warning or being banned. Remember you wouldn't like others to agree on a way to kill your character outside OOC enviroment where you have no way to defend from it.
2. Keep it Real: So you are Lord Paramount of the Reach and are able to raise a 100k men army. That doesn't mean your character will simply raise his troops and conquering its neighbors out of nowhere, you wouldn't wake up in the morning and say today I'll get into a fight, would you? Your characters need a motivation for their actions and that motivation needs to be built IC before acting. This includes all areas of the roleplaying experience, your characters will not die all at the same time nor will your lord's forth cousin kill all those ahead of him in line of succession with no opposition.
3. Swaying or bullying other players is not allowed: Please, Don't go around OOC asking people to act certain way that would benefit your characters, don't trick people OOC into act a certain way. Don’t be an asshole to other players, it’s as simple as that, besides such conduct will be punished.
4. Keep a friendly environment: There is no need to explain we are here to have fun so do so.
5. All rolls must be done on the sub, no rolls should be done on the discord. If they are done on the discord, the mods will void them.

## Claim Rules

After reading the rules, we ask you to consider what kind of claim you want to start first. We have divided the claims in 3 types Houses, Wall & Beyond and Single Characters, each player is allowed to claim one of each, if desired, each claim is to be controled by a different reddit account but there are certain rules you need to follow:

1. Each claim has to be from different kingdom.
2. There is to be no interaction between a player's claims but in the event of interaction to be needed contact a mod.
3. The information known IC by one claim is not to be used by any of the other claims.

For details about how claiming works please refer to our Making a Claim guide.

## Reclaiming

People are allowed to change claims only 15 days after their previous claim so please, it is important that you think before claiming to avoid dropped characters lying around the aDoD universe. Before reclaiming there are two things you need to know:

1. Update your Almanac, again the next player needs to know which players he/she is going to control.
2. When claiming a House which was previously controlled by another player you MUST stick to the established characters, so no magically killing everyone else to start from 0 or anything like that. However, you can always add distant relatives which will not alter the established succession line.

## Inactivity

A House claim is considered inactive after 7 days of no IC interaction, as for NW/Wildling claims and SC this period is extended to 15 days. However those who control Wildling Clans and NW castles are asked to meet the 7-day standard. Inactive claims will be up for any new person to claim and the *former* player will have no preference over new claimants.

## Gameplay

No matter what kind of claim you have, whether it is a SC, NW or House there are many things you need to pay attention to which will be covered below:

### Economy

Economy plays a bit of a role in aDoD, you need to look after incomes and expenses. House claims make a *somewhat* stable income with many different ways to increase it but face a bigger danger if they ever get red numbers. Night's Watch and SC claims will make a small income but will also have little expenses on the contrary just as in canon Wildlings have a whole different economy system.

You can have more information on the matter by visitting our Miscelaneous Rules and our Econ Sheet

### Troops & Combat

Troops are the main way for a lord to make his voice be heard, each region has troops which are stronger to others. It is up to each player to decide his best strategy when facing a battle. We also developed series of bonuses and maluses for smaller claims to have a chance when facing a larger army. After all the Brits didn't defeat the French at Agincourt just thanks to luck.

Please refer to our Land Combat & Troops section and to our Naval Combat for more information. You could also refer to our Patrols & Detection or our 1v1 Combat

Tournaments are also a good way to let all that anger out.

### Family Life

You may have claimed "House Pennytower" but your Lord will be married into a different House, , as such you will face several factors which may affect your enviroment at home. Don't be an abusive husband if you are not ready for your wife start *chopping* pieces of you.

Pregnancies and family relations are part of aDoD universe, refer to the Family Planning section. Or if you feel like your spouse doesn't want to do you, refer to the Cheating Mechanics or the Fertility Rates Despite all that we really hope you enjoy your time at aDoD, as you can see we are a new community and I hope we can all learn together how to get this thing going.