Much of this article refers to English civil and common law, this is a particular branch of law and has its own intricacies. I am not a lawyer but I am familiar with this branch of law as it was required for my degree. None of this article is official legal advice but is merely a laymen summary of how this works and I will draw parallels and explain how MD uses some of the elements of English common law knowingly and unknowingly.

If you have come here to find a list of things MD does not permit you can stop reading here. MD does not and will never have a list of rules. This is down to how MD works, we do not have hard and fast rules as we treat each case as its own situation. No two instances are ever entirely alike and therefore it is unfair and wrong to try and always make the decision the same, however we do rely on a base level of precedent.

What is case law and how does it apply to MD?

In the English civil courts there is a legal system called common law. The key point of this is that the laws are made up of previous legal precedents which a client may present a judge to have them make a decision one way or another. Once this decision has been made this is becomes another potentially referable piece of case law.

In MD we use case law to attempt to deal out justice based on how we have dealt justice before. Case law in MD is created by any body able to deal out punishment and similar rulings. These can be by LHO’s, kings, judges or game managers. The idea is that for a similar crime then a similar punishment should be made, for fairness.

Is case law the same as legally codified laws?

While case law and precedents can be used like laws, there is a crucial difference to them. These decisions made can be overturned by a higher court or by new rules and laws that come into place. If one ruling body decides on an outcome it may be appealed provided there is significant reason as determined by the ruling body you appeal to. You cannot just appeal because you didn’t like the response.

As shown above precedents can be overruled by a change in the law which makes them invalid. This is described in English law as there being a material difference between the precedent and the current case. This is also applicable if there is a significant different in the precedent and the current case which would make the precedent invalid or require some changes to the outcome.

These precedents do not form laws unless they are specifically chosen, reviewed and are made into some kind of rule. In MD some precedents become rules because they caused so many problems and others are left as a precedent which allows us (the players) leeway so we have a more dynamic game.

So what do the judges in MD do if they don’t make rules?

Judges in MD currently have a number of Irrevocable Decision Warrant’s. This allows them to make a decision in a case for a specific situation. Unlike a typical precedent we have decided that the ruling made in them cannot be overturned. However this ruling only applies to the specific case that they are ruled in. The precedent still acts like a standard precedent and if there is a material difference then this precedent may not hold in a standard case.

Item description for warrant:

Allows the owner to take any decision regarding any conflict, with or without giving any explanation. Is covered by Mur in the way it will be worded, announced or applied. Once used needs to be sent back to Mur.

Recently nad was warned by the judges with one of these warrants (see Announcement 4101) with the warning:

Based on the facts that Mur had stated multiple time that depletion is not an abuse and that Marind Bell has no official rule(s) or law(s) stating that depletion in Marind Bell is not tolerated and can constitute an abuse, nadrolski is hereby warned not to ban players from grabbing Marind Bell's shared tools on the ground of depletion. Next time he bans a player with the reason "depletion", nadrolski will suffer a punishment which will be set at that time. Also, because of the above said precedents, every time nadrolski is using the grabban spell, he must state a reason in chat. Failure to do so will result in disciplinary actions.

The most important feature here is that this ruling does not make a rule. The warrant does not let them do this, but states an outcome from a specific situation which Mur called a conflict. In this case the person this ruling applies to is Nad. Mur and I will not overturn this ruling but if another person does similar then we might take a different approach regarding the warning.

Similarly this ruling is applying to something that has not been dealt with by a higher court. No authority group have made a ruling relevant to the case and therefore this is a perfect situation where a warrant may be used. A judges warrant cannot be used to try and overturn an already decided situation by Mur or I. However again it could be used in a similar situation where the decision had not already have been made.

To use the example above, Mur and I couldn’t alter the above decision for Nad but could make a different one the next time this problem came around (provided it wasn’t Nad again). And similarly, if Mur or I had made the above decision instead of the judges then they would not be able to overturn our decision but could make a different one the next time the problem came again (again provided it wasn’t Nad).

Decisions are made to specific cases, they create a precedent that may be followed but does not have to be if there is deemed a material difference.

Summary of rules in MD

As we wish to make MD a fluid game as possible we dont want to set a list of allowed or disallowed actions as there would be major problems of keeping a valid list, and detailing all the potential ways they may or may not be valid. Similar to keeping a list of disallowed swearwords (that people keep foolishly insisting we have) everything depends on the situation. We cannot have people claiming they were allowed to do something since it wasn’t on a list.

There is a base level of rules, and now and then we announce rules relating to specific situations but they are general and few and far between.

If anyone has questions on this feel free to contact me or ask below, if we get any good ones I will edit them into here.