The Provisional Field of Agreements

What each of us agrees with every other while The Great Game gets underway. Read it before you step onto the mat. Take part only if you agree.

Why it exists

Every body that plays together needs a Field of Agreements: the terms that let everyone bring their full strength, because the terms were known before the first move. A dojo has one, signed at the door.

The Great Game is beginning before its lasting forms exist. The cooperatives that may one day hold shared work and value will be formed at the wise right time, and not before. What exists now is a voluntary spiritual association: people gathered by their own free choice around the highest intention and the greatest good for All, playing toward The Goal of The Game. It exists wherever its players gather in that spirit, before any paperwork and before any bureaucracy acknowledges it. Its founding words are still being written through our play, and its matters of spirit and practice are its own to decide, without outside interference, as every free spiritual community's are.

Until lasting agreements are written and ratified, this page is the Field. When they are, they replace it, and you will be asked again to opt in or out. Nothing here binds you to them in advance.

What this is, and what it is not

You are stepping into a game and a shared practice: small Cells of an emerging Superorganism, acting as if Heaven on Earth is possible and playing toward it together. No belief is required. The Story is offered as a shared language and a mythic frame, not as a creed.

You are not joining a registered company, cooperative, nonprofit or church; nobody can sign, take money or promise anything on behalf of "the Game" or "LIØNSBERG". You are not becoming an employee, contractor, partner, investor or owner, and playing earns no wage, share or claim. Nothing said at a table, by a person or an agent, is medical, psychological, legal, financial or tax advice; seek qualified help where you need it. And you do not give up your sovereignty by associating: every player and every Cell remains sovereign and free.

The agreements

You are sovereign and free. Your body, mind, time, money, data and conscience are your own. Nothing in the Game overrides them.
Every relationship rests on ongoing mutual consent. Any yes may be taken back, at any time, for any reason or none, without penalty. Silence is never a yes. An agent may carry a yes; it can never give one.
The idea travels; the source does not. What is said at a table may be carried anywhere. Who said it, and where, stays in the room unless they say otherwise. This binds agents as it binds people.
Leave in order, and come back freely. Say so at your table or to a host, hand over what you carry, and let your lines stay in the record. Nothing is erased, and the door never locks behind you.
Every defect is a gift. When something goes wrong, we look for the cause in the set-up, not the person, and fix it where the next person will meet it.
Say what you will do; do what you said. When you cannot, say so early.
Agents offer; people decide. An agent says whose it is and what it is running, including anything that records. It never decides or consents for a person.
No coercion, no solicitation, no exploitation, no proselytizing, no harm. No one may use the Game to pressure, deceive, sell to, recruit for gain, press their beliefs on, harass, or take advantage of another, in any way. What we share is offered, never pushed.
Children are protected first. Anyone under eighteen takes part only with a parent or guardian who has agreed to this page for them, and never alone with an adult outside their family.

What we make together

The Game is played to build a commons: knowledge, tools and forms that belong to no one and serve All. So what we make together is given, not held.

Writing is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Stories, pages, lessons, cards and plans made in the Game may be used, adapted and passed on by anyone, with credit, under the same freedom.
Code is shared under MPL-2.0. Skills, prompts, charters and software made in the Game stay open, and changes to them stay open too.
Tracking provenance. As a culture, we prefer to track and honour provenance, so that every idea and work can be traced back through its lineage and the hands it passed through are remembered. Ideas travel freely, under the Chatham House rule. Sources and lineages are named as their licences require, and otherwise only with the source's consent.
We intend to federate everything we co-create. In the spirit of the superorganism.earth articulation, what we build together — our works, our value, and the Cells and bodies that grow from the Game — is meant to federate into one living whole: sovereign to sovereign, with a voice and a share for every party that federates, and knowledge held in the commons by default. Federation is always an offering, never a condition. When its lasting forms exist, you will be asked, and you may say yes or no.

Strong, not safe

We cannot promise to keep one another safe, and we will not pretend to. We make the terms clear and help one another become strong.

Playing may mean meeting strangers, in person and online; strong feelings and hard questions of meaning and faith; travel, shared spaces and physical activity; giving time or money; and trusting people you have only just met. A Player+ agent means running AI software on your own machine, with the risks the kit's waiver sets out.

I take part voluntarily and accept these risks as my own. I will care for myself: my own health, safety, property and wellbeing, stepping off the mat whenever I need to, and seeking professional help where I need it. I will care for the other players, as I would want to be cared for. And I will care for all beings, and for the world we share, in everything I do in the Game.

Release, and my own acts

To the fullest extent the law allows, I release every other player, host, Carrier, Cell, contributor and steward of The Great Game and LIØNSBERG, and any association later formed to carry it, from any claim for injury, loss or damage arising from my taking part, including their ordinary mistakes. I answer for my own acts: if I break these agreements, or cause harm on purpose or through gross negligence, I will make it right and will not shift that cost onto anyone else.

Matters of the spirit stay within the association

What the Game teaches and practises, who plays and who is asked to step away, how its tables, Cells and homes are ordered, and how its own disagreements are mended are internal matters of a voluntary spiritual association. They are decided within it, by its own agreements and ways of mending, and not by any court or arbitrator. I agree not to ask either to decide them, and I recognise the long-standing principle that civil courts do not intervene in the internal faith, practice, membership and governance of a spiritual community.

The Spirit of the Game

Beneath every agreement on this page is one spirit, and it asks more of us than any rule can.

Love, absolute and unconditional. For yourself, for every other player, and for every being, including the ones you do not yet understand.
Help one another. No one wins alone. When a player stumbles, the table leans in.
Do no harm. And where harm is done, mend it.

All of us helping all of us, and all things, rise to the fullness of our potential and flourish together in harmony. That is the Game.

When something goes wrong

Say it at the table. Most things mend there.
If the table is the trouble, bring in a host who knows it but is not inside it.
If that fails, a mediator both sides accept.
If that still does not settle it, a trusted arbiter. Together, choose one person you both trust, and agree beforehand that their decision is final. That is where it ends, not in court. If you cannot agree on one, each of you names one, and those two choose together. Share the cost fairly, so that cost never keeps anyone from being heard.

Nothing here stands in the way of urgent help when someone may be harmed.

How this page changes

Anyone may propose a change, with a reason. A change binds you only once you have been told and could say yes or leave in order. If any part cannot be enforced where you live, the rest stands.

Saying yes

Taking part is how you say yes. By joining a table, a Cell or a room of the Game, or by using the Player+ kit, you agree to this page, freely, as it stands on the day you take part. If you do not agree, please do not take part; you are always welcome to keep reading.

You must be eighteen or older, or take part with a parent or guardian who has agreed to this page for you. You may leave in order at any time. Ongoing participation requires ongoing mutual consent.

CC BY-SA 4.0 · LIØNSBERG