The End of the Regency

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

One thing I worry about is that the choice of which metric support is always going to be fairly obvious - that is, whichever one needs the most attention - and that, generally speaking, the levels will be kept in more or less ideal equilibrium, with any imbalance only ever coming from deliberate troublemakers, or from major plots / events - which is the major cause of their shifting already. I do think that a crucial component of this system should be that choosing which metric to focus on should be, at least some of the time, a difficult choice.

I have to reinforce that I continue to hold reservations, even in the aftermath of the updated voting specs, that this will be the case. I really wish there were a way to more randomize the increases and decreases, with the 'focus' at least always improving and the least-voted on metric always decreasing. From there, if things were a bit more in flux, with unvoted things sometimes improving and weakly voted things sometimes decreasing, and maybe more preference given to a Seneschal who can capably direct different people to different focuses -- ie, managing resources, rather than just convinving people to staticly dump into 3 to get the guaranteed upgrades -- would give the role of 'Seneschal' more interest (I rather like Zeita's suggestion of making the title be Alderman, as Seneschal to me implies a more 'Hostess' position; ie, the person in charge of entertaining dignitaries in the Palace.

What is Court right now, if not "all active nobles"?

Right now, while most active nobles are members of the Court, not all are. Also, the Court encompasses many non-noble positions, such as, currently, the Royal Historian and Chamberlain. In theory, the Court compromises both the nobles who take an active interest in the well-being and running of Lithmore as well as the select Gentry who are able to impress the nobility enough to receive Royal appointment. The City Council, in contrast, would be a thematic grouping of those people who have the most ability to impact change.

With regards to non-GL and non-nobles, I raised that potentially they could purchase a vote with IP. One person responded positively to it as a side topic to their main post. What does everyone else think?

I'd actually only be a fan of this if there was a very limited impact it could have; maybe have a certain number of votes (two or three?) which could be purchased by non-noble, non-GL in a given session, with those votes going to the highest IP bidder? I don't like the idea of anyone being able to buy any number of votes because I feel it'll dilute the theme of the Council a bit too much. In my opinion, those without the social positions of power to effect change could be doing much the same by finding a noble who they can pay off, or by convincing a GL to go with a certain focus.

With regards to guildleaders, would it be a vote per guild, or one each for the primary and secondary leaders? I'd lean towards the latter.

I worry this would just get a bit messy, in my head at least. What about a vote from a Guild counting twice (as I think any Guild, even the Bards, would have more influence and capacity than any single noble), but the vote could be submitted by either GL or second GL -- there'd have to be some collusion on that, sure, but that will probably only be a good thing and allow the main GL to be absent sometimes from the game without removing them from the Council.

[Jester]

With regards to guildleaders, would it be a vote per guild, or one each for the primary and secondary leaders? I'd lean towards the latter.

I worry this would just get a bit messy, in my head at least. What about a vote from a Guild counting twice (as I think any Guild, even the Bards, would have more influence and capacity than any single noble), but the vote could be submitted by either GL or second GL -- there'd have to be some collusion on that, sure, but that will probably only be a good thing and allow the main GL to be absent sometimes from the game without removing them from the Council.

Why not put a proxy vote system in place? Each person on the council could pick a proxy to place their vote for them in case of absences.

A Guild Leader could choose a trusted, established member of the Guild who agrees with them politically, and Nobles could choose a fellow countryman of the same variety. I think it could be a bad idea to be allowed to choose another member of the Council as your proxy, as that would basically give them two votes, but other people probably have better ideas on that. It would also give people who aren't on the council but are very vested in the city (such as the court members who didn't make the council) a chance to participate and also help deal with the absence problem.