Contract Rules

Many players on Alinea enjoy trading, offering services, and managing projects, and making deals is a natural part of this. These rules exist to clarify how moderators will assist in enforcing contracts, ensuring players know what to expect. The goal is for these rules—and any moderator intervention—to be needed as rarely as possible, with all deals faithfully honoured by the players themselves.

What are contracts?

A contract is an agreement between players where all parties agree to give or receive something of value. Everyone involved must understand and accept the terms—no tricks or hidden details.

While contracts don’t have to be written down to count, it’s a really good idea to record them. Use an in-game book and quill signed by everyone, or Discord messages with backed-up screenshots. This makes proving the agreement much easier if there’s a dispute. Having a neutral third-party witness is also helpful.

Honouring contracts

Once you agree to a contract, you’re expected to follow through on your promises. Always act in good faith—this means being fair, honest, and clear about your intentions. Do not trick other players into contracts, and don’t look for sneaky loopholes to exploit.

A contract can only be changed or waived if everyone involved agrees.

Enforcability of contracts

Not every contract can or should be enforced. A contract becomes unenforceable if any of the following are true.

The contract requires a party to break a rule.
Someone was forced to agree to the contract under unfair pressure.
The terms of the contract are so one-sided, that they are unconscionable.
Something unforseeable, and beyond anyone’s control, made the contract impossible to fulfil.
The contract was clearly part of role-play, and was not meant to be taken seriously.

To really make clear how to interpret these criteria, let’s look at some examples.

Legitimate Pressure vs. Unfair Pressure — Imagine Anna owns a house where Elias ’ lives. Anna tells Elias, “You need to sell me five stacks of diamonds at half the regular price, or I will evict you.” Anna is pressuring Elias, but she has the fair right to decide who lives in her house. However, if Anna also threatens to burn Elias’s belongings unless he agrees, this would be unfair pressure, making the contract unenforceable.
One-sidedness vs. Unconscionability — Consider a trade between Clara and Max. Clara agrees to give Max a netherite block, if Max gets her a diamond by tomorrow. While this trade clearly favours Max, it is still enforceable because it is not so extreme as to be unconscionable. On the other hand, if Clara agrees to trade an entire barrel of netherite blocks for a single diamond, the deal becomes so excessively unfair that it crosses the line into unconscionability.
Difficulty vs. Impossibility — Imagine Lucas agrees to build a castle for Sofia in exchange for a dragon egg. Sofia accepts, but Lucas doesn’t own the egg—Henrik does, and he refuses to sell. Even though Henrik controls the egg, the contract is still enforceable because it’s not impossible for Lucas to acquire it. He could negotiate, trade, or find other ways to obtain the egg. However, if Henrik accidentally drops the egg into lava, destroying it, the contract would become impossible to fulfill, as no one could have foreseen its destruction.

Dispute Resolution

If a contract dispute arises, first try to resolve it amicably. Talk directly with everyone involved and make a genuine effort to work things out. If needed, involve a neutral mediator to hear out all sides, and help find a fair solution.

If all else fails, you can ask an administrator to step in. You are only allowed to do this if you have made a good-faith effort to resolve the dispute yourself, and you will be expected to provide evidence of this! The administrator will then review the contract, hear all sides, and make a judgement.

Resolution Fee

In dispute resolution, the handling administrator is also likely to charge a small fee for their time, to be paid in in-game currency. If all sides cooperate, the fee will be split evenly between them. However, if in the dispute, one side is found to be in the wrong, they may be required to pay a larger share of the fee, or even the entire amount.

Don’t worry, the fee is entirely to be paid in in-game currency; no real money is involved.