Outlaw with Extreme Prejudice (Anathema)

When the king outlaws a noble , he may do so in two forms. One form is the original one, where the outlawed noble may either be hunted down and killed or stand trial, and may have the outlaw status removed if he patches up his differences with his king.

The second form of outlaw status is "Outlawed with extreme prejudice" (OEP). This can only be invoked by the king with the assent of the College of Heralds (as represented by the posting of assent messages by any three of the Heralds in the game). OEP means that when the outlaw players current character dies or his killed, the players account cannot reenter that game for 30 days.

OEP supersedes the previous rule whereby an outlawed or excommunicated player whose character and all heirs was killed was also kept out for 30 days. OEP is easier on the women and children (as well as players pocketbooks, as it's expensive to hunt down the entire family.)

For "Other" players, the pope applies this procedure via excommunication.

And If Someone Is REALLY Bad...

Online games sometimes have problems with players who are completely off the wall and disruptive to other players. This is usually dealt with by "locking the (offending) player out." This means that the player is no longer able to enter the game (play, leave messages, whatever.) To be locked out of HYW, a player must be excommunicated by the Pope, plus outlawed if French or English [Others cannot be outlawed] then must be killed out of the game [entire family] while still outlawed and excommunicated. But even that isn't enough. That will get them out of the game as that character, but in order for a lockout to occur, in addition to all the above, the College of Heralds must make a decision that the player is basically screwing up the game for everyone else and needs to take a break. This will never be done for completely allowable in-game actions, even if one plays a 'bad guy'. It will only happen when the situation is judged as involving Out Of Character harassment through the character or intentionally trying to destroy the game for others. Even then it is a 30-day break and you get another chance, unless the problem is serious enough to involve system management, as we have no control over what they do if you take it THAT far outside the game.

In three years worth of games, and over a thousand player, we have yet to find any one who is REALLY bad. Some players have made excellent (if short lived) villains, though.

Removing Players in Key Positions

Players in key positions (English kings and crown princes, Holy Roman Emperor and pope) are held to a higher standard of performance than other players. For this reason there is a procedure to remove any of these key players if the other key players agree that the player in questions is not playing their position to everyone's satisfaction.

Put simply, if all the key players, except for the one everyone is unhappy with, ask the game sysop to expel the one key player, and the sysop concurs, that player is removed from the key position. We've rarely had to do this, and we've come close many more times over the years. And some players in this category have left their key position when they realized the other key players were unhappy with that players performance.