What You Get from this Role

Being a Jurist is a very important role. As a Jurist, you will have many opportunities to work with others and resolve conflicts within The Grey Tavern.

You will work with game makers, bakers, Orders, other Sophers, and many others with 1 overarching and imperative goal that all Sophers share:

As a Jurist, you get to:

• Judge rule infractions for low-ranked Orders and Tier 1 Volunteer Role Path positions
• Give and remove Strikes
• Approve Strike requests from Judicators
• Be the Sopher contact for teams working on Tier 1 Volunteer Role Path projects
• Work with Order Judicators to make sure they know The Grey Tavern Rules and are helping their Order stay within them
• Judge cases brought forward by Order Judicators or Order Lords
• Follow up with project teams, Orders, and volunteers on their deadlines and commitments
• Sending Veracity and Dragon Merit Points to Order Master weekly

Want to get Started as a Sopher?

Responsibilities and Reporting

As a Jurist, you are the face of the Sophers to many other volunteers and will have the opportunity to judge many rule infraction cases, but you do not have:

• Control over the rules, as in you cannot make or remove rules
• Power to judge cases that are outside of those listed above.

These responsibilities belong with either the tier 2 and tier 3 roles within the Sopher Volunteer Role Path. 

You can, however, bring up ideas and suggestions on rules with your Scribe, but rule changes, additions, etc rest with J.R. Casimir.

Who Jurists Report to and What They Report

Jurists report to a Scribe, a tier 2 Sopher. 

What your report should include is described below in section “1. Report to Scribe”

What to Expect

As Veracity and Dragon Merit points are given on a weekly basis, we’ll be talking about Jurists tasks on a weekly, and sometimes monthly, basis.

Working on Assignments

Calendar

Example:

This example would be a moderately busy week

This example calendar shows the 6 primary types of tasks you should expect on a weekly basis, with the expectation of “Order 3 Trial”. Trials are, hopefully, rare. Each type of task is described in more detail below.

1.  Report to Scribe (Ulema Meetings)

You will be expected to report to a Scribe that you are assigned to twice a week. There will be 2- 8 Jurists reporting at the same time as you. This group is called a Scribe’s Ulema.

Scribe’s Ulema

Wednesday and Saturday are the default days to report to your Scribe. These days can change on an Ulema by Ulema basis, but the Scribe needs to let the Chief Scribe know.

Purpose of Ulema meetings:

• Reporting whether or not project teams, Orders, and volunteers you’ve been assigned to oversee are meeting their deadlines and other commitments
• Reporting Strikes that have been given or removed and why
• Reporting rule infractions that need a tier 2 or even tier 3 Sopher to deal with
• Reporting on judgments that you made in a rule infraction case and why
• Explaining cases that have been submitted to you- what the infraction is, who is involved, whether the rule breakers is a minor or not, etc. - and not yet judged

• Asking Grey Tavern Rule questions
• Giving advice on a case
• Learning when rules are being changed, removed, or added
• Obtaining rules and seeing what precedents exist
• Scribe evaluates if you are being good Jurists. If you are too strict or too lenient, you performance will be evaluated, and if this isn’t improved, you will be removed from the Sopher Role Path

If you need to report someone breaking a Grey Tavern rule, treating others poorly as described in Grey Tavern rules, or someone being physically hurt by another volunteer or Grey Tavern patron, report these to a Sopher, not your Scribe.

2.  Follow up (Deadline and Commitment Management)

Jurists have an important role of keeping Grey Tavern projects and volunteers moving and hopefully moving forward. 

Key to this is keeping volunteers and patrons to their commitments and the deadlines their projects and tasks require. 

Example of Jurists Overseeing Orders (Purple) and Order Projects, Tier 1 Role Positions (Triangles), and Tier 1 Role Path Team Projects (Pentagon)

How Jurists should Work with Who They’re Over

If many rule infractions of people and teams you are over are being reported, Jurists should sit in on meetings and attend other instances in which the Order, team, or individual is together and/or working on their projects or tasks. This is done to better understand what is happening.

3.  Study Activities

As a judge of Grey Tavern volunteer’s and patron’s actions, you should know the rules you are judging them on. Spend as much time as possible studying the rules. When you are assigned to a project, you are expected to know the lore associated with the realm, plane, or dimension that the project is taking place in.

One of the purposes of a Ulema meeting is for the Scribe to analyze how well you know the rules you’re working with. If he or she believes you don’t know the rules or aren’t taking the time to learn the rules, you will be reviewed and potentially removed from the project.

Additionally, Scribes evaluate if you are being good Jurists. If you are too strict or too lenient, your performance will be evaluated, and if this isn’t improved, you will be removed from the Sopher Role Path.

If you are struggling to meet your minimum hours commitment requirement, you could study the rules as a way to increase your hours.

4. Order Trial

Order Trials are hopefully infrequent.

Order Trials are when you meet with:

• Those who are accused of a rule infraction
• A Guardian of the accused, if the accused is a minor
• The reporter of the infraction
• At least 2 witnesses
• Other individuals that may be needed (this should be rare)

During Order Trials, Jurist should:

• Hear both sides of the issue
• View and evaluate any and all evidence that the accuser and the accused bring.
• Picture evidence of an online conversation
• Witnesses of the event (at least 2)
• Objects or other things that may be part of the event
• etc.
• Compare the situation with the rules and historic precedent
• Evaluate if this Trial needs to actually be performed by a Scribe. Depends on how high the issue reaches or how massive the rule infraction is.
• Pass judgment

For ways of passing judgment, review the Passing Judgment Guide (coming soon).

5. Veracity and Dragon Merit Point Allotment

On Sundays, you will need to evaluate the Veracity for the Orders you are overseeing. Just the Orders.

You’ll follow the mathematical guide for how Dragon Merit Points should be calculated based on Total Veracity Earned per week. See Dragon Merit Point Guide for this.

You should send Veracity and Dragon Merit Point information of the Masters of your Orders.

 6. Veracity Report

Veracity Reports are listed under each “calendar” event for a reason.

Here’s a meta tip:

• Filling out an Order Veracity Report after every activity will get you more Veracity overall.

The Report takes 5 minutes or less to complete! We strongly suggest that you wrap up every activity by filling out an Order Veracity Report.

Note to All Jurists

If you see a rule being broken, you should:

• Correct the behavior
• Make sure they know the rule
• Potential give them a Strike if you know this isn’t the first time this rule has been broken by that individual
• Report what happened to the Sopher over the Order that individual is in

However, in this case and any time you are enforcing a rule, do so not out of vindictiveness or as a way to hold power over others. You should enforce the rules, but do so with mercy and understanding, allowing them the opportunity to change and improve their behavior.

If you are found to be using your Sopher power for your own benefit, to hold power over others, or to get revenge for whatever reason, you will be removed from the Sopher Role Path. If you ever seek to return, it will take a great effort to do so.

Grey Tavern Property Damage

If any Grey Tavern physical property is damaged as a result of your actions or during an Order activity, you are expected to:

• Report the damage to The Grey Tavern
  
  
• Replace or fix it
• If you don’t, it will become something for your Order to replace or fix
  
  
• If the thing is too expensive to replace, you may:
• Submit an item request to a Generative Order
  
  
•  If you don’t have the skills to fix it or the resources, you may:
• Submit a request to an Eternal Order to help you fix it

Making Changes or Ascending the Hierarchy

There are 2 ways of moving things forward:

1. If you see an issue, and opportunity to make an improvement, or something that can be done, you may propose a project to The Grey Tavern (link to How to Continue Volunteering with anchor tag to projects)
2. You may apply to ascend to a higher position in the Sopher hierarchy. You could only apply to be a Scribe when you are a Jurist. 

Use the links above to see the details of how to do these 2 things and to access the forms.

Sopher Hierarchy

Intellectual Property

When you first became a Sopher, you signed a Volunteer Appointment Agreement. Within it, there was an Intellectual Property release section. Here, we will clarify some of what Intellectual Property you are giving to The Grey Tavern as part of that release.

• Rule ideas and suggestions
• Rule style guides you create, assist with, or participate with in any way
• Game, story, costume, or an ideas, assets, materials, skills, or time contributed to any The Grey Tavern project

Volunteer Time

As a Grey Tavern volunteer, The Grey Tavern requires volunteers to communicate with them what their minimum and maximum hours they can donate per week is.

This is done when you sign the “The Grey Tavern Volunteer Rules and Policies” agreement. However, if you need to change these hours, you simply need to communicate the changes to your Scribe who will send the message up the chain.

These hours are required because it helps The Grey Tavern as well as Volunteer and Order leaders know how much to expect from you. This will help:

• You not feel overburdened
• Leaders not feel that they have to do everything by themselves

What Type of Volunteering You’re Offering

Volunteering type is important for knowing what donation or quest type you should generally be reporting for your role.

As a Sopher, you will be spending most of your volunteer service donating time. This is time put into:

• Rule study
• Following up and making sure deadlines are met
• Attending Scribe’s Ulema meetings
• Holding Order Trials
• Veracity and Dragon Merit Points
• Other potential lore discussions or meetings

This means that usually you will be submitting the quest type of Tavern Volunteering in which time gives you the greatest benefit.

If you are in an Experiential Order as well, the time you donate will have the greatest effect as far as Veracity earned per week. However, your Jurist service will always increase your Veracity, as long as you report it, no matter what Order type you are part of.

What to Expect from Working with Us

We truly want you to have fun as a Jurist!

We seek to give you as much autonomy as possible within your role. As long as you keep what’s listed in the following list, we wish for you to thrive, imagine, and make this role yours.

• Keep your commitments
• Keep the guidelines expressed in this document
• Keep the rules of The Grey Tavern
• Stay within Sopher rules, expectations, style guides, and other Sopher parameters

• Stay within Grey Tavern lore

• Fill out your Order Veracity Report regularly
• Treat others with respect and kindness
• Do not intentionally damage Grey Tavern property
• Communicate with The Grey Tavern when your commitments need to change or if you have a Legitimate Excuse (Link) for why you weren’t able to keep it
• Approve your projects with The Grey Tavern BEFORE starting on them
• Do not make rules of your own and judge others by them