Guild Mergers! Downsizing! Outsourcing!

[Gavin]

It also makes no sense whatsoever in terms of guild hierarchy. The Reeves are responsible to the Duke/Duchess of Lithmore, a title held personally be the Crown. While they treat other nobles with respect and deference and assisting when possible, Cellan is the Reeves' feudal lord, through her position as Duchess of Lithmore.

Would the Count of Lothos be hearing cases, changing patrol routes, overriding sentences? The Count of Lothos doesn't meddle in Lithmorran Reeves' affairs because the Count has his or her own Reeves back in Lothos to boss around. Our Reeves answer to someone else - Cellan.

If you merge the two guilds, you'd have two parallel and independent structures, each with only one thing in common - the person at the top. Frankly, this would just be confusing. It would also not be amenable to x-blocks/mob progs. And for what? What would it gain? If the Court guild isn't working out, I don't think inserting it into the Reeves will do much aside from screwing up the Reeves.

I like Order-Knight and Crown-Reeve parallels. The idea of a guild with the Queen as 1GL and the Justiciar as 2GL appeals to me, personally.

[Geras]

I'm more worried about having the Baron of Swampwater in that guild too.

I don't think it's really the Queen's role to manage the day to day affairs of the Reeves either.

[Geras]

Whatever happened to having an elected Mayor BTW? If people want the Reeves to take on more of a civil governance role, incorporating the Mayor as second GL might be a means to accomplish that.

[Lei]

This makes good solid sense to me from some angles. A bunch of angles. If I wasn't playing a reeve, I'd love the idea.

I do play a reeve though, and I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around how this would actually work. I don't think the reeves guild is broken and needs this 'fix', or that this proposed streamlining is necessary or helpful for it.

I like the pseudo-sovereignty that the guild has, presently. I don't want to lose that. I don't want a monarch looking over the justiciar's shoulder with that level of liberty without them actually working hard via RP for that advantage.

[Gavin]

This makes good solid sense to me from some angles. A bunch of angles. If I wasn't playing a reeve, I'd love the idea.

I do play a reeve though, and I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around how this would actually work. I don't think the reeves guild is broken and needs this 'fix', or that this proposed streamlining is necessary or helpful for it.

I like the pseudo-sovereignty that the guild has, presently. I don't want to lose that. I don't want a monarch looking over the justiciar's shoulder with that level of liberty without them actually working hard via RP for that advantage.

I think pseudo-sovereignty could be maintained. For instance, I don't think Olivia looks over the Earl Marshall's shoulder.

I'm more worried about having the Baron of Swampwater in that guild too.

I don't think it's really the Queen's role to manage the day to day affairs of the Reeves either

I think we're talking past each other, because I agree. The reason why I think a merger makes sense is because of numbers, sharing guild-notes, and having a shared guild channel. Just because the Baron is in the same guild doesn't mean he's a Reeve; it doesn't mean he's trying cases.

Nor would the Queen be managing the day-to-day affairs of the Reeves at all. That's what the rank and file are for.

In the end, this isn't something that is desperately, immediately needed, but neither was merging the knights and the Order -- except that it did work out well, and therefore I think it's worth exploring because of the similarities.

[Geras]

If it's only to share guildnotes and a guild channel, I'm sure that could be accomplished far more simply than with a merger. There's already a common reeve/order/knight channel. A common court/reeve channel wouldn't be hard. Guild merger has all sorts of other code implication, like with approval, coups potentially, sponsorship, mobprogs...

[Lei]

It's enough pseudo-sovereignty lost, Gavin, to leave me solidly opposed to the idea. I... just don't care for it. To me, if the queen and court have access to my gnotes, all they have to do is read them to be looking over my shoulder.

I don't think the monarch should have access to everything reeve. IMO, they should have to ICly throw their weight around to get what they want or need from us. And then... if they don't have access to everything reeve, it doesn't make much sense to make them the reeve 1st GL.

[Lei]

From my perspective, This would be less a merger than it would be the court guild swallowing the reeve guild whole. Of course that's great for the crown- that's a huge IC consolidation of power without having to negotiate any of the otherwise necessary IC legwork. The reeves are handed over, essentially on a silver platter.

For the reeve guild? That's less than ideal.

What benefit would they get from this? I don't see any at all, myself, and propping up the justiciar as a 2nd GL for the court makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why would a reeve with no authority over the queen's nobles bve given that position? If it doesn't make IC sense to say that's the situation, why would it make OOC code sense? It's gummy, unwieldy, and, to me, feels an awful lot like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.

Court and reeves are not smoothly aligned together in the same way that the knights and the order are. We could try to make it work, yeah, but... why? I see more cons than pros, and I don't think we have -so- many GLs on the board that this change is, with that in mind, in any way close to imperative.

[Lei]

If we -are- that worried about an over abundance of GLs, why can't we just drop 2nd GLs from guilds? That in itself halves the GL slots, which is the biggests pro I can glean from this merger proposal. That would be much less guild invasive. On TI Atonement I held a moderate level reeve position with GL powers and no title. It was a really good setup. Jobs got done and GL titles weren't needed beyond the solo GL title that the justiciar held.

[Voxumo]

I do not really agree with this whole thing