What do you want out of your monarch?

[Temi]

So, in our recent discussions, the staff have become concerned that the current monarchy and regency situation isn't serving what the players want out of it. The first regency bids had a lot of excitement, while the second was treated more 'meh' by all the players, and it didn't seem like there was a lot of enthusiasm for another, or that it would all be happening again 6 months. We have nothing against how Ariel has done with the job, but we're wondering if we can do better with something else, and let the court have a more conventional guildleader type position. So, we're just curious... what do you think of the current situation? What do you want to see out of the monarchy and leadership in general? What have you really enjoyed or disliked about different things?

Temi

[Tremere]

I like the idea of the regency/monarch. I think that it is good for a variety of different reasons and purposes. Will everyone like the Regent? No, absolutely not, but that is how it is with a lot of different positions. The Regent/Monarch provides a focal point for secular politics and issues in a similar way that the Cardinal provides for ecclesiastical issues. While it is not a perfect analogy I almost consider the order/knight relationship to be similar to the Court/Reeve relationship. Ultimately the laws come down from the Monarch and the Court to the Reeves where as the Cardinal and church handles heresy where the knights go and apprehend the ecclesiastical criminals. So at that point, I think if you are going to be removing one you really end up having to remove both else you end up with a power imbalance between these two sides. At the moment it is balanced between these two heads in their own domains.

Aside from that, I think that the Monarch/Regency provides a good source of dealing with issues that fall through the cracks that aren't necessarily handled by the other guilds. This is in the way of moderating inter-guild disputes, handling issues of new laws (such as the poison law discussions and the vigilante law discussions) I know an argument could be made for the Justicar handling these things, but thematically i think the Regency handling it makes a lot more sense than a Justicar just being able to make/change laws. With the current regency, a method for helping to deal with corrupt guild leaders has been introduced and this is the sort of thing that could have really been accomplished without the driving force of a Regent.

I won't spoil other ic things going on with the Regency, but I see the Regent driving rp in the game in the way that others can't necessarily. And there is certainly plenty of rp and coordination going on with the regent by people where he is seeing to things. I can't recall the last RP I had with Ariel where he didn't receive at least one messenger, if not two or three during the course of it. Or he wasn't going from meeting to meeting with people. So I would say that people certainly feel the need to go through the regent and do things with the Regent, it's facilitating rp in that regard so I don't see the need to remove the position there.

Perhaps with the Regency quest thing, if you are worried about a lack of interest from the players, perhaps rather than force a vote every 2 ic years have a vote happen when the royal council votes to have a new vote, issues a referendum? That might solve the issue if you are worried about a lack of interest there? (I am not invested in the idea in particular, I am just throwing it out there as one possible idea).

I know that not everyone is interested in the Court/Monarch rp and you know that's fine, all the power to you! I know that some people hate rping anything but mages or thieves, other rp just isn't for them. But I do think that there are players that do enjoy court/monarch rp, I am that for one. That is why I wanted to play a noble in the first place, to play in the court (though I didn't expect the role I ended up with in the first place, ic has really taken my character from what I first imagined) but that being said I do love court rp and I think having the regent/monarch there is a part of that. Snatching it out from the rp I think would hurt it.

[Cellan]

I don't see any problem with the current monarch/regent setup, and I don't think we lose anything by having a string of regents. I think our problem, however, is the way in which they are elected: the first time was fun, but the second began to drag a little. I think I'd be happier if we just treated it like any other guild: first dibs to (eligible) guildies, then take it to applications afterwards. That, in my opinion, would make it go much more smoothly.

Edit: I'd like to add that I've long been in favour of making the Monarch/Cardinal slots NPCs, but particularly the former. In my experience of playing the Queen, there is very little for the person sitting on/representing the throne to actually do that directly and significantly impacts the game in a day-to-day sense, especially when most of the day-to-day RP takes place on ground level. I think we'd be much better off phasing the role into NPC-hood and emphasising the power of Counts, Marquis, and Barons instead.

[Dice]

I agree with Cellan that just the Regency isn't the problem so much as the bids - that system never really worked out very well, and it makes more sense to treat Court's 1st GL like any other guild's first GL, chosen based on active and eligible guildees.

That may mean we need to make the Monarch an NPC and Court's first GL just be somebody more replaceable, but... with the Regency, that's... actually the exact setup we have right now! When our current monarch reaches her age of majority, if we're still around and trucking, the Regency position could just become the Seneschal or Keeper, while keeping the monarch as a NPC figurehead. We ended up in the situation of the bids in the first place because replacing the Court's 1st GL had to be an elaborate and involved process given the fact the 1st GL was actually the Monarch, a position based on blood rather than performance. We smooth out a lot of wrinkles if we remove that.

That said, I've long struggled with Court, both before I was GL and after. Tremere's comments speak to the role I want Court to have: the place you go with problems that don't fit a single guild's purview, the guild that organizes issues that require multi-guild cooperation, and where you head when a GL is problematic. I think that's a role somebody actually needs to fill, and if Court can truly become that for people I think we'll be in good shape. Combine secondary goals like passing new laws and throwing lavish social events as explicit parts of the guild's purview and I think there's a role there. But perhaps I'm wandering off subject...

[Leech]

I wonder if we might be looking at this the wrong way? I honestly don't feel it's a problem of people having a lack of interest - comparative to everything else, even the last bid drew a fair amount of attention. However, we only have so many players to go around. Out of those players, only so many are interested in court RP. Then, there are fewer interested in taking a GL position. You know what that sounds like to me? The same problem we have with every GL - not having enough players interested/wanting/able to fill them.