- General
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Ideas
+6
Declined
Things that no longer exist/aren't used in WoP
In WoP there's some things that (even though mentioned in the Harry Potter series) for valid reasons do not exist or are incredibly rare (and thus it would be unrealistic for our characters to have) and players can't freely RP with that or mention that they have encountered or possess one of these things. For example Dementors or flying cars/carpets etc. It would be incredibly helpful to make a list of these things to provide to the students at the guidelines section. This way we can relieve some pressure from our precious prefects instead of taking this case-by-case. Of course it is understandable that this will take some time but it can be updated once in a while, whenever new things occur.
Customer support service by UserEcho
I would certainly agree that realism is something to be considerate about, but a certain amount of this should be common sense. Some things in lore are already known to be obsolete (e.g. Time-Turners) and other rare items are status objects, like Pensives and the Deluminator and the true Invisibility Cloak. Flying Carpets are illegal in Britain - and so on. While I can understand the frustration, I'm not sure that making a list in the guidelines will deter the people who need to from doing it - hence, the job of Prefects is to monitor topics where they can step in if needed, and the Backstory Team will flag up incorrect use of items or creatures in users' profile texts and backstories.
I also think it could be a bit too constricting for some - for example, if it really does fit for a user to have a flying carpet, or something functioning in the same way as the Marauder's Map, or a flying car in their possession, what then? Once again, it's just a case by case basis, which was what we were attempting to prevent in the first instance. It may also be somewhat subjective - Dementors, for example, do not have enough lore on them to say how common or rare they are. It's stated they exist and can float around in groups of up to twenty in various places, but otherwise, we know very little about their native range. Is it fair to cut off an entire creature from use by people in topics (especially one like a Dementor, which is a very interesting and useful plot device for character development) or is it not easier and more fun to let people decide to use it or not themselves? Additionally, some things like creatures may be more or less common depending on where you are - something as simple as a Garden Gnome, for example, may not exist at all in cities, but is a common nuisance in rural wizarding gardens. This further complicates things - and once again, we don't know if this is the case or not.
If you feel it's needed, you could speak to your MoM about it though; this may not be something I see as a huge issue personally because I'm perhaps on a different site to you, but I sense this would be something installed by the individual sites if it was perceived to be needed, were Prefects struggling with the caseload and had communicated this to their Lead. It certainly sounds like a gargantuan task to sift through every item in lore and work out how common it is based on the very little context we have!