If, during your run, you run out of supplies and game over, would it be permitted to enter the corresponding password for the stage that you were on when the game over occurred, as long as you actually saw the password in your run? Obviously, using these to skip forwards or back would be bogus... but being able to re-load the game and start the level over using the game's given passwords seems ok to me? What do you think?

Up to this point I have been under the assumption that passwords are not allowed in a run. However, I don't see it as hurting anything by allowing them if a game over occurs in the run; getting a game over sends you back to the main title screen so you should be able to use the level password to get back to the start of the stage you were on. I would even go so far as to say that you don't even have to see the password in your run, just that you have to get to the stage in question to be able to use the password to return there upon a game over (since the passwords for the stages do not change).

I would, however, see an issue if people were allowed to use passwords to return to a stage without getting a game over (i.e. they get bad RNG at the start of a stage and reset to then put the password in for that stage and try again).

I am not sure if I would be the one who has the sole authority to deem what is acceptable. If so, I want to make sure that everyone is an agreement.

Does this sound like a fair way to proceed? Or would password use be better served in another category??

I would say that, if a runner gains an unfair advantage from a password, they shouldn't be allowed to use it. That said, since a game over is certainly not an advantage, I would suggest that any time a runner gets a game over, they can enter the password but ONLY if they actually show the password on screen and they must enter THAT password only.

That's my 2 cents. It's certainly not a time save, and a casual gamer would use these in their normal playthroughs, so I'd say it is ok, but that's just me. As an aside, if you're worried about someone using a game over to change RNG, the mod(s) should be allowed to, at their discretion, deny any run that seems to use passwords and game overs to save time in a manner that is unfair. Putting that wording into the rules might stop someone with a schemey scheme up their sleeves.

Yeah, I agree. This is pretty much a non issue for the optimized runs, as using passwords would undoubtedly be slower over the course of an entire playthrough. But for those trying to complete a run, passwords would be a great help. And yeah, a password abuse clause may need to be added if it becomes an issue.