Introducing Class Fluidity

[Empheba]

I think Another's more radical suggestions above has real merit from a game-design perspective, since it's even more directly supportive of emergent play. Give the building blocks, see what Players come up with. I imagine it's quite a different level of coding work involved in this however, so from a workload perspective with a small staff, it might maybe be something to work towards rather than jump to in one go (I'm not well familiar with ROM-derived code, but that would be my guess). Also I think some of these looser ways to define/join an interest group might be much harder to understand for newcomers than the coded guilds.

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Now, concerning the feature as suggested in the original post. Overall the concept of allowing more fluidity is great. Automating things also make sense from a game-design perspective with a limited staff. That said, I like the ideas with some caveats, which is why I voted "maybe".

1) As others have suggested, there is no need to let GLs become auto-gentried. Others have given good IC and OOC reasons. The GL should be its own impressive status (depending on how renowned the guild is maybe) - if they personally are rich enough to additionally be Gentry, all the more power to them.

2) It is a strange affair to buy wealth to gain gentry status, then having no obligation to keep that wealth. A difference between Nobility and Gentry should be (in my view) that Nobility is given/taken to/from you by someone else (by monarch or possibly through inheritage), whereas Gentryship is a status you've (supposedly) worked hard to reach, and need to work hard to keep. A yearly/monthly/whatever upkeep seem proper. I would suggest a simple way to do this to be an outright fee demanded by the court - you pay the crown to be given a gentry title (this would decouple gentry status from the wealth advantage, although that would still probably be critical to have anyway). The gentried person then needs to pay the crown regularly to be allowed to keep the status. Loosing the status can then be automatic too (and auto-announced on the IC event board, hehe).

I really like the heir system as suggested, I however wonder what advantage the noble gets for picking the "heir" advantage? Or is the pure mechanics of getting assigned an heir (with the RP that comes with it) that is the advantage? Good enough in that case, just curious. Also the "lithmorran court" as a guild makes sense.

Very nice idea and concept overall.
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Empheba

[RabbleRouser]

I'll note.. I am 10 times more supportive of the idea of Gentry status being REQUIRED to be a GL in the first place that I would EVER be to Gentry status being automatically granted IF you can become a GL, and for FREE!

I have others in my corner now that really do NOT like the free gentry-ship idea.

Fact, is I like my first suggestion of dealing with it best, but given the option of Freemen that become GLs automatically being Gentrified and requiring Gentry status before they can becomes a GL in the first place, I a m much more for the later than the first.

[Another]

I think Another's more radical suggestions above has real merit from a game-design perspective, since it's even more directly supportive of emergent play. Give the building blocks, see what Players come up with. I imagine it's quite a different level of coding work involved in this however, so from a workload perspective with a small staff, it might maybe be something to work towards rather than jump to in one go (I'm not well familiar with ROM-derived code, but that would be my guess).

I quite imagine it would be a lot of work, and I don't expect it all to just happen. It's just a personal preference of mine to hammer out a good, solid concept ahead of time. I don't mind if the whole shebang is coded in little bits at a time over a long time, that doesn't bother me at all.

Also I think some of these looser ways to define/join an interest group might be much harder to understand for newcomers than the coded guilds.

I would be willing to spearhead writing up comprehensive help files specifically geared toward newbies.

2) It is a strange affair to buy wealth to gain gentry status, then having no obligation to keep that wealth. A difference between Nobility and Gentry should be (in my view) that Nobility is given/taken to/from you by someone else (by monarch or possibly through inheritage), whereas Gentryship is a status you've (supposedly) worked hard to reach, and need to work hard to keep. A yearly/monthly/whatever upkeep seem proper. I would suggest a simple way to do this to be an outright fee demanded by the court - you pay the crown to be given a gentry title (this would decouple gentry status from the wealth advantage, although that would still probably be critical to have anyway). The gentried person then needs to pay the crown regularly to be allowed to keep the status. Loosing the status can then be automatic too (and auto-announced on the IC event board, hehe).

I could get behind this. Perhaps once we're more comfortable about how upward mobility will work, we can start analyzing how downward mobility might work. I imagine it would simply be a matter of playing one character's power in detriment to another's, to undermine them, via the same support/influence system. I think the nitty-gritty details can wait for another time, though.

[Geras]

I like this quite a bit, though I think having the heir thing happen once a month might be better? Makes it more of a big deal.

[Geras]

By the way, I'm assuming the gentry either requirement/boon for being/becoming GL is only for overt GLs. Would be odd for Tenebrae to have to be or become gentry upon taking his or her role lol.

[Kinaed]

Yeah, covert GLs don't need to be gentry, nor would becoming a covert GL confer any additional social status.

I think it makes sense that being nominated a GL places you in a position of power that you wouldn't otherwise have. I do see issues about making it free, but I can see freemen becoming GLs, and the authority of their office making them gentry, provided it's theme supported.

The question of XP cost has been stated and I'm pondering it.

I like the idea of making 'wealthy' dependent on actually having a certain amount of cash in the bank, and again, I don't see it has a hard change. I do want to see an income being a purchased advantage, however.

Overall, thanks for the feedback everyone - this thread has some awesome ideas, and I'd love to incorporate many of them into the game.