aye, new runner here.

since there's no discord to ask questions, may i ask why there's a new file rule?

i made a run before knowing that there was a small community who ran the game, and realized my run had broken the new file rule.

my only question is why is it a rule? i've played the game for nearly a decade and can't find any reason for the rule other then tutorial text boxes and maybe being able to go past npcs.

is it just for continuity? i'm already working on another new file run but i just want to know why it's there.

There actually was a discord server, but right now it's sort of just included with a general friends server that myself and other old runners are in. If you'd like, feel free to send me a DM through discord and I'll hook you up with some links.
As for new file, tutorial text boxes and npcs are effectively the only reason we start from new file. We've been meaning to do a complete rule re-write since right now it makes no sense, but I've been the only "active" runner of this game for a long time, so nothing has really happened.