House Rules, Policies and Procedures
Contacting Pagoda Games
You can call us during the following office hours: 9:00 am to 5:30pm weekdays, or leave a message on our answerphone at other times. If you do, please take care to leave your name, the game you’re in, what position you are playing, and your account number (if requesting changes). If you are calling about an error or suspected error, leave a clear description of the problem. If calling with a general game question, we will try to answer it on your next turn. Please understand that we cannot call back to answer simple game questions—our phone bill is already high enough as it is!
If you wish to fax in your turn, please note that our fax will automatically receive your call - you do not have to send it manually or wait until we pick up (if our fax does not detect another fax tone, it assumes a telephone call). This is especially important if you are calling out of office hours.
What To Do If Your Turn Is Late
If your turn does not arrive in a timely manner, call us and ask for details. We will be able to tell you the day and time it was run and mailed, or that it was not run (meaning it has not arrived or arrived that same day). This can help decide your next course of action.
If your turn has not yet arrived it was probably lost or delayed in the mail. In this case you will have to mail another copy or fax in your turn. Obviously, you will want to keep a backup on hand for such circumstances!
If, on the other hand, we have run your turn and it has not yet reached you, we will mail a second copy at no extra charge (except overseas, where there will be a nominal postage fee).
Accounting
You will be assigned an account number (acct#) when you join your first game with us. All funds you send in will be placed into this central account, and when you run any game turn (or use one of our other services), the appropriate amount will be subtracted from your account. Please be sure your account does not fall to a negative state or we will not be able to run turns or perform other services for you.
Pay for turns using cheques or money orders made out to "Pagoda Games." Please use amounts of at least £5.00. Customers from other countries must use international money orders or Eurocheques. You are urged NOT to send cash through the mail as we can’t be held responsible for it’s loss.
Overseas and Foreign Customers
We welcome players from outside the UK. Due to the extra postal charges a slightly higher turnfee is charged.
Returned Checks
Our bank charges us a fee when a deposited cheque "bounces." If this happens, we will pass this fee along to you as a £5.00 service charge, and of course will debit your account for the amount of the cheque. If this places you in a negative state, we will put a hold on any turns you send in until more funds arrive. Repeat occurrences of cheque-bouncing may force us to drop or replace your position.
Refunds
Should you decide for some reason not to continue playing a game, you can request a refund of unspent funds. Please note we are unable to refund sums of less than £5.00 due to the bank charges involved.
Note that due to the nature of our business we cannot refund any fees once they have been used. If you are 10 turns into a game and decide you don’t like it, you can’t ask for a refund of the turns you’ve already purchased.
Disclaimer
Material in this publication is subject to change without notice, although Pagoda Games will make every attempt to get an updated House Rules sheet to all players in the event of a change. In the event we change the Price List, it will normally affect only future games, not games you are currently in (only in exceptional circumstances or where promotional rates have been used will existing games be affected).
Phoning In Turns and Corrections
You may telephone in your orders at the rate described in the Standard Fees section. You must provide your account number when making such calls.
You may phone in changes to your turn (for at most two or three moves or orders) fee of charge. You must give us your account number so that you can be identified before we make any such changes. Have the acct# available when you call.
If the changes are complex or numerous (more than just a few moves or orders), you will be charged £1 for this service. If you mail in your corrections, there is no extra charge (but be sure to tell us that this updates a previously submitted turn). You may wish to call and have us discard the obsolete turn so that we do not run it by mistake!
If your account is at £0 or a negative value when you fax or email in your turn, it will not be run until additional funds arrive. Initial builds and start-ups may be faxed in at no charge!
Once we have run a turn for you, we cannot make a correction to your orders (unless, of course, WE were the ones who erred). The reasons for this should be obvious.
Faxing and Emailing to Pagoda Games
At present we do not charge for orders received by fax. Please include a contact number on your fax, as sometimes the small figures are difficult to read. If you fax during office hours you may also want to call to ensure that the fax is readable. If we need to call you a £1.00 fee will be charged.
If your account is at £0 or a negative value when you fax or email in your turn, it will not be run until additional funds arrive. Initial builds and start-ups may be faxed in at no charge!
Turn Schedules
Turns are processed on the morning of the due date. You must ensure that your orders arrive by this date (preferably a day or so before hand) as we will not delay processing for late orders. If you are emailing or faxing orders, they must arrive by 9:30am on the due date to be included. If you email orders we will confirm receipt within 24 hours - please resend the orders if you do not receive this confirmation as email has been known to get lost or delayed in the system.
Holidays are treated in a similar manner. We generally do not work on the "major" holidays (most Bank Holidays and Christmas), so do not expect to reach us in the office on those days. You will of course be notified in advanced of when the office will be closed.
Address Changes
If your address changes, write it on the next turn you send in for each game you participate in. Highlight it or otherwise prominently display it so we have no chance of missing the change. If you have a temporary address change (common over holidays), please write your old address on the next turn sheet, as we generally have to update our database for the change and cannot keep details of your old address.
Dropping Out Of A Game
If you wish to drop your position in any game, please have the courtesy to let us know of your decision. This gives us a chance to review your status to see if your position can be taken over by a standby player. We reserve the right to make this decision on our own (without contacting you) if you have not submitted orders for two consecutive turns of any game.
NOTE: If you drop a viable position will we apply a £5 annoyance fee to your account.
Standby Positions
If you wish to get into a particular game or join a game already in progress, let us know. We will search for an appropriate position and provide you with the necessary information to take it over.
We will not give you a position we feel is not viable or unfair. A reduced turn fee is normally applied to standby positions. Contact us for more details.
Player’s Responsibilities
We insist that you play our games in a sportsmanlike manner. There are certain rules of etiquette that should be followed, and that we will enforce if necessary.
You are only allowed to play one position in any game. If we learn that you are playing more than one position (or paying another player to play his position as you direct, in puppet-like fashion), we will take whatever action is necessary, which may include removing you from that game entirely.
Our games also include a system wherein messages, slogans and other information can be passed within the game structure. These messages must be in good taste, and may not be used to attack a particular player (of course, you may belabour their Corporation as much as you like). Any message we feel is offensive will be deleted.
Messages in foreign languages will not be entered, as we will not be able to tell for ourselves whether such messages are offensive. Pagoda Games shall be the sole judge of whether or not a message, slogan or name is offensive or inappropriate.
Finally, there may be other circumstances where we will be called upon to decide what is fair within the game—for example, how to compensate someone if an error was made that affected multiple players at once. Pagoda Games reserves the right to make such decisions as we see fit. We will do our best to be as fair as possible in such circumstances.
The Pagoda Press
Pagoda Games produces a bi-annual newsletter called the Pagoda Press which contains information and articles on all the games that we moderate. All players currently active in any of our games will receive an issue free of charge (overseas players are charged at £1.00). Back issues are also available at a cost of £1 per copy (£2 for overseas customers).
Players not currently in a game who would like an upcoming issue may purchase one at these same rates.
We are constantly looking for material for the Pagoda Press, and encourage you to submit articles, tactics, strategies, fiction, humour, tips, art, or whatever for this publication. Send any such items to us, either by paper, disk or email. Items submitted will become the property of Pagoda Games. Since the newsletter is free, you will normally receive no compensation for published material other than the satisfaction of a job well done. We also reserve the right to place such articles on our website.
Copyright © 1998 Pagoda Games