Noble Advancement

[Tribalware]

closing nobles for the time being would really lead to stagnation you think? id suggest not, people hang onto their nobles they are many peoples main characters and its not like any of them are getting killed.

besides if the problem is 'we currently have too many nobles' then surely we could stand to have a few cycle out to return the natural balance of things, maybe theyd cycle out of noble classes and back into freemen - isnt this the method used when the argument 'we have too many mages' is put forth? at least until some get burned or (like nobles) cycle out of use, they get closed down. encourage the gentry (who appear to have very little player defined purpose which would change with a few more of them active no doubt) and of course the freemen.

if someone like me say who has never played a noble before but knows the game fairly well by now wanted to give it a go, make me apply for one like you would make a GL, vet my intentions and suitability to filling a role of power within the game rather than just playing a powerful role.

[Temi]

I think the most convincing argument I've seen pointed out is the closure of mages to latent being like closing down nobility. What would you all think if we just had courtiers available for new characters (non-heir, non-ducal), and they had to work with existing characters to get actual titles? Through marriage, being named their heir, being granted it by the queen, etc. It would be the noble sort of equivalent of latency - you can achieve it, but have to do so through RP. Then if we ever drop below how many titled nobles we'd like to see, we could open it back up somehow, like we would do for mages. (Maybe open applications at that point?)

Any thoughts?

[Geras]

Wait... where did someone say closing (new) nobles would make things stagnant?

Temi - I dunno... I hear the argument that current courtiers are kind of screwed if you don't let them advance to a titled position, but doing those sorts of things too often in the long run just feels... artificial to me.

I don't think the magery comparison is completely valid. Yes both mages and nobles suffer from the problem of "over-demand," but mages have a much shorter life-span that nobles.

[Clockwork]

... but mages have a much shorter life-span that nobles.

If someone would kill Tobin already, I'll fix that right up for you.

[Kinaed]

I have no problem with players seeking nobles ICly with the intent of gaining admittance to court as a lowly 'courtier', provided that the existing nobles treat this with the weight that it deserves and vette them with real sponsorship, etc. So, in short, I see nothing wrong with a noble seeking system (though I might attempt to enforce that nobles can't sponsor someone that isn't gentry at all to just keep some semblance of realism there).

It's more the issue around promotions and whatnot that I find difficult. BUT...

Those leave the nobles guild open, (right now, seeking is enabled for nobles, btw) and people in this thread seem to argue that there are too many nobles to allow other character types to flourish.

I'm sure there are more nobles than warranted. What I'm not sure is if drastic action is necessary at this stage as we've already ruled out removing existing nobles, and we've already ruled out people purchasing into nobility. So, all that leaves is RP, which we're all saying is legitimate enough. With seeking, players vette for each other if they think it's reasonable that a person could have gotten into Court.

At this stage, I'm kind of happy where we're sitting and am okay to listen to more rhetoric while I enjoy my 'wait and see what the current game status really is after all of our seeking changes before I muck anymore'. For now. :)

[Enix]

Why couldnt non-gentry/nobles seek? Its a Nobles guild right? Is there not positions filled as Freeman? I seem to know of one off the top of my head, the other I am not sure if she is officially IN the guild, but does play a role as a servant.

[Enix]

Disregard my last....i see it works. YOu mean for being a courtier....im tired, forgive me

[Temi]

Temi - I dunno... I hear the argument that current courtiers are kind of screwed if you don't let them advance to a titled position, but doing those sorts of things too often in the long run just feels... artificial to me.

I was talking about only allowing new courtiers in general. They wouldn't generally receive advancements, and it wouldn't be expected that they were owed it. They would have to earn it through RP, finding a titled person to marry them, for example.

I don't think that they would be screwed. Do you think that they would be? It actually makes more sense for a courtier to do other, non-noble things than it does for titled people. They could quite reasonably be in almost any guild, with the right sort of positions, and they are left with a position that necessitates RP to make it to wherever they want to end up in life. It shouldn't be quite the same level of 'already-arrived' that many titled nobles would already be at.

Sorry if I didn't quite understand your post correctly. I had troubles following how that connected in.

[Geras]

Oh ok, then I agree yes.

[Marisa]

Just my personal observations/thoughts...

I didn't start Marisa to be a noble, but I did want her in the upper echelons of society. She was supposed to be the epitome of a gentrywoman, and I think the fact that she managed to achieve nobility through RP makes her a more interesting character; she really achieved something impressive. I wouldn't want it to be common or lightly done, but I think it would have been less fun for me if I'd just started by purchasing the position in chargen.

And I think there's as many people with titles now who got them through roleplay as through buying them. Having to RP doesn't stop it from happening, but it does make it so the character has more invested, more story.