Making priests great again! At least slightly more enjoyable with two changes

[Puciek]

Figured that I will take the two viable ideas from there and put them as separate suggestion.

So my suggestion is to allow priests to weight in on other people plots for added success chance/level of success/lowered costs etc. In few words, we could look at it as that the priest provides a blessing for that enterprise which makes it better for people carrying out the plot. How much better would depend on current faith metric and individual IP of the priest. And for the priests that would not only benefit their own RP and be sought out to RP with but also for every involvement like that Piety city metric would get a boost if the plot is successful.

I think this would make it worthwhile to befriend priests and seek their spiritual guidance so they can help you with enterprises. It could also, opens some interesting avenues for corrupt priests who would be backing all sort of shady enterprise, spiritual guidance is spiritual guidance, even if the morality of enterprise may be shaky.

Rhothrian had an idea regarding sermons, so let me quote the man himself:

What if sermon functioned in a similar manner as a rumor for the priest. They could select a theme based on some current event or whatever Erra Patter tie in they wished to speak on that day and people could interact as they wished to. The difference is that real names of the speaker as well as people who respond are released to the public and would bestow a onetime award to piety for participation as well as counting toward the influence total for that week for the speaking priest. This would simulate the priest and congregation sitting in the same space IC without forcing someone to sit through an actual event. In addition to the influence and piety awards the sermon could even act as a vote toward an appropriate city metric to the theme, flushed out during the construction of the sermon as a free vote. Now you have a situation where the powers that be will start seeking out members of the clergy for support, which opens up opportunities for other RP avenues.

“Fund our southside food drive and we will see about talking to the merchant’s guild to lower the taxes on certain imported goods.”

“Support our community outreach and education program to improve race relations and we will see if we can summon up funds for your city infrastructure plan."

I really love the idea behind it. The problem with sermons is that it's a big event which is either entirely preplanned or has some impromptu moments which very often come out awkward as players get called out to talk about faith in front of the whole town without much time to prepare. And as a whole, the sermon doesn't benefit those who can't/don't want to sit through it anyway.

This rumour system, although it would see it as a more guided system - where simply it goes through parts of the sermon, giving people some time in between to discuss and exchange ideas, and then move to another part till it's over. This way whole population can take part in it, and speak out, without having to come up with thematically correct answers on the spot. We could then also have an archive of those sermons to browse etc, and to hold one it wouldn't require coordinating a lot of players online - simply start new coded sermon and it can easily span over OOC week or weeks.

[Rhothrian]

So my suggestion is to allow priests to weight in on other people plots for added success chance/level of success/lowered costs etc. In few words, we could look at it as that the priest provides a blessing for that enterprise which makes it better for people carrying out the plot. How much better would depend on current faith metric and individual IP of the priest. And for the priests that would not only benefit their own RP and be sought out to RP with but also for every involvement like that Piety city metric would get a boost if the plot is successful.

Interesting. So, at what point would the priest enter into the plot: the very beginning when it is created or sought out after it has been submitted? This, "blessing" would be considered the use of contacts within the city infrastructure to influence whatever factions needed to affected in order to further the plot towards success, and not an actual ritual, yes? I like it.

This and other changes will make the priest feel more like a useful politician as opposed to the frothing zealot that the player base seems to have little interest in interacting with.

[Voxumo]

As long success is not hinged on having a priest, then I see no issue with that. I wouldn't want my plot advances to fail just because I didn't have a priest involved.

As for the sermon bit... I have no idea what you are trying to describe, is it just reads confusing as all heck.

[Rhothrian]

As for the sermon bit... I have no idea what you are trying to describe, is it just reads confusing as all heck.

That version of a sermon is a simulation of an IC speech from the priest. Instead of sitting in an actual sermon the priest would construct it in a similar manner as a rumor, it goes public and people can react to it as if they were sitting in the cathedral listening if they wish to. Asynchronous gameplay. However, unlike a normal rumor the sermon would allow the priest to vote on a city metric for free as determined during the edit menu. Thus, the priest would have an agenda that is clearly reflected in the body of the sermon and the people responding can weigh in if they wish.