Noble Wealth

[lkbalboa]

Currently, the general consensus seems to be among new nobility is that there is not enough starting wealth to actively portray coming from old blood and money. This makes it harder to stimulate noble-commoner RP, buy a house, or do generally expected noble things. Several ideas were put forward. Please discuss!

1) nobles start with tier 3 asset
2) more starting silver
3) a larger free PHome to house PCs like servants/guards for noble-commoner interactive RP
4) I think someone also suggested letting nobles purchase wealth on grid, as their RP should be as app'd character used to stimulate RP for others, thus they will be spending that money frequently.

Any other ideas? Thoughts?

[Puciek]

I disagree with that there is a consensus like that. If you are starting and cannot afford to roll out a wealthy noble you can perfectly find start an impoverished one and then rely on making connections with some gentry to fuel you with wealth.

Because to create the illusion of past wealth you don't really need to spend much silver - can be done out of the free phome by making it a castle main room with a description where the doorways to others room were bolted down, and the household staff is very poor looking and looking very skeleton. You still live in a castle just... can't really afford to maintain/man it. This is still coming from old blood and money, you still have the title, you still have the titled power just... no money.

Not having broke nobles really messes up the gentry-noble-freeman triangle and I for one like the new broke-ass nobles on the grid, and not every noble is a true aristocrat.

[chronodbu]

I disagree with forcing new nobles who can't sink tens of thousands of xp into purchase wealth in chargen to play broke nobles.

That defeats a large theme of the noble class being privileged.

However, I feel tier 3 assets makes a lot of sense. A domain feels to me like it's exactly what tier 3 should be by definition and fits perfectly within the confines of the system without needing more benefits added.

I disagree with raising starting silver. What they get is perfectly fine to start with to hit the ground moving, and a bump to tier 3 on their noble asset would help provide a very solid revenue stream to play with.

As for the phome idea, that feels kind of much. A one room phome is fine and the costs for building homes got lowered too. Get some assets set up in charge with your noble asset, Rp for a few weeks, and you should be fine.

Keep in mind a lot of nobles aren't even from Lithmore and even some of the Lithmorran nobles might not have estates in Lithmore city itself. It's perfectly feasible for them to take some time having one built or pulling resources to buy one from the real estate board.


Edit to add - Keep in mind, nobles likely aren't going to own entire castles in Lithmore city. That's something to invest in back home in their domain. Estates are more likely, like a visiting home to stay in while visiting court or doing their business. Heck, if they have friends in other nobles, they may well stay with them to foster relations.

[Voxumo]

Points 2 through 4 I disagree with. However I do think upping the noble's Domain asset to tier 3 would be the smartest and logical route. And really why aren't they Tier 3 already? A noble domain seems like it would be a tier 3 asset.

[Whisper]

While I can understand some might like the challenge of playing a broke noble, it should not be the ONLY way you have to play a new noble character. It really takes the fun out of starting a noble for me that I cannot just jump right into hiring people, harassing merchants for fancy items, building my estate, hosting events, and generally RPing as a noble. I'm too broke and its disheartening that a noble who has lands and a title should have to mooch off gentry who likely wouldn't help them anyway. Besides it would be seen as admitting weakness wouldn't it?

I think upgrading the domains to tier 3 is a good idea. I also think the boost in starting silver is a good idea. My noble is young and I thought she needed a handmaiden. That cost me 500 silver! That's half of what I started with.

Now another thing that could be done is to lower the cost of buying wealth in creation. Make it 5000 xp for extra money instead of the 10,000, because lets face it only older players will ever be able to afford that and assets and skills. And making it so older players are the only ones who can play the more advanced concepts without struggling will drive away new blood or so I think.

But those are just my opinions and I'm very glad to see this topic discussed. With the new nobles I feel it needs to be addressed.

[Puciek]

This isn't a new thing and "forcing" people into a role, it's a thing that was always a thing on TI and you can explicitly read in help application:

Staff do not provide the xp, qp, etc necessary to make a character
concept a player cannot afford (not even a GL character). If you
cannot afford the concept, you can either alter it to fit what you
can afford or hold the character creation until you can afford it.

And from help noble

The True Aristocracy, however,
has both money and titles, and thus competition to become this elite of
elites frequently requires alliances with the gentry, thus creating the
only reasonable path (as the granting of titles is rare to say the least)
for gentry to achieve the ultimate benefits in society, those reserved for
nobles.

So no, rolling with cash is not what every noble does, or is intended to do. It's a coveted position amongst nobles, not a default one.

And I really do not see it as a bad thing at all, especially when talking about dumping silver into the economy and taking over a very important position that will directly impact many players it should come with a serious commitment from the player taking over the post, not just be granted because you filled an application. And there is a lot more to noble rp than just spending gold, heck, if that is your RP goal to have a fancy estate, many staff and fancy items and genreally splashing around in gold - roll a gentry, because being rich is their primary domain.

Nobles are all about flexing their title, and power that comes from it. That and exercising it to its limits. The relation where they have to rely on gentry should not be disheartening but an important piece of balance and a check that prevents Nobles from doing literally anything and relying on people underneath them to get stuff done. It also then allows for people in the gentry class to try to create pressure/influence on the Nobles and get their own things done that require the title to execute. But if nobles are all rich that goes right out of the window.

[wimple]

I tend to agree with Puciek. There are applications open right now - if you cannot afford a wealthy noble, than you can only afford a broke noble. Being broke is not the only way for people to play nobles, right now, it's just the only way for some that are jumping to do one since the application opened. I think the broke nobles still have plenty of avenues of the RP conflict this causes both with gentry and other nobles that are actually wealthy.

That said, a free Tier 3 asset seems reasonable.

[Puciek]

I tend to agree with Puciek. There are applications open right now - if you cannot afford a wealthy noble, than you can only afford a broke noble. Being broke is not the only way for people to play nobles, right now, it's just the only way for some that are jumping to do one since the application opened. I think the broke nobles still have plenty of avenues of the RP conflict this causes both with gentry and other nobles that are actually wealthy.

That said, a free Tier 3 asset seems reasonable.

Even a broke noble can just say "whip this man" and unless that man has a lot of connections (enough to directly oppose a titled noble) he is getting whipped. This is the power of the title, one that is just not used a lot lately. I am not sure where I stand on the free tier 3, somewhere in the negative really because that puts them ahead of the gentry in terms of free cash they receive every week.

[Starstarfish]

Part of the problem is perception. There is a big gap between what folks who could purchase silver/wealth could get on-grid. As been noted - look at some of the houses for sale up in the Real Estate office - huge monster beast houses etc. So that makes the "new" nobles look super broke in comparison. So the transition period is a bit odd.

[Puciek]

But those were not bought by new players either, as they did cost 100+gold to build. The difference is that back then you didn't need to have the XP up front for it, instead, you could've just magically added it as you went along which was silly (that and silver had no actual value besides houses/Damascus stuff).