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We've had some pretty interesting and intriguing discussions of late about Court, defining the Royal Council and the Great Lords. In the process, I'm becoming more and more convinced that our current setup may not make the most sense; it may be unnecessarily duplicative and may take power out of the hands of GLs who could otherwise read it.

I've long questioned if Court, necessarily, should be a guild at all. It doesn't resemble a guild in any traditional sense in that it doesn't have standard positions and promotions, and it covers an extremely wide and scattered range of duties.

My initial idea upon becoming its GL was to give it the official role of coordinating/overseeing OTHER guilds - helping people deal with between-guild issues, issues too big for single guilds, etc. As such, I re-organized some of the positions defined by Herazade to have kind of a full bureaucratic governing body - the High Steward as a 2nd, the Chancellor of the Exchequer for economic matters, Commander of the Banners for military matters, Seneschal of Lithmore for political/diplomatic matters. Five positions that, between them, would be able to comment/advise on just about any aspect of the Kingdom. I called them the "Privy Council", with the idea being I'd be delegating a lot of stuff to them.

Then, to ensure the guilds still got a say, I put these five AND a rep from every guild on the Royal Council. Obviously this makes for a huge group, but since we're a monarchy and not an oligarchy, I figured the RC could be something you call a couple times a year to let people have their say on things like new laws, kingdom-wide initiatives, etc - not something that would be in the day-to-day business of coordinating anything.

That said, I'm getting the impression people are more into councils than just letting the Regent handle stuff, and this complicates the meaning of the term "Great Lord", which has always led to confusion anyway ("I'm a noble now!"). I figured I could use it for the members of the Privy Council, but that did mean it was only being given to people who already WERE noble anyway. Yet, in attempting to just remove it, we still ran into problems.

So this is all very long-winded backstory to illustrate the messiness of the problem.

* If decisions are mostly made by the Regent, then bam, Council composition is far less of an issue. People show up and comment on things but votes hardly matter in most situations, so as many people can be at Council meetings if they want. The downside here is that, while it's thematic and also has the advantage of being nimble, power is concentrated in a single PC - and I get the impression people don't want that. Am I wrong?

* If decisions are made by the Privy Council, we have a still reasonably-sized body that can incorporate the concerns/ideas of the guilds without necessarily being beholden to them. However, ALL governmental power is then concentrated in Court and GLs might feel their power is being abrogated.

* If decisions are made by the Royal Council as I've defined it... they can't be because there's like 16 people in it and we can't possibly meet often.

* If decisions are made by a Royal Council like the old one (Cardinal, Regent, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Earl Marshall, Justiciar) we have a really bizarre pattern of duplicating some roles and ignoring others. The Earl Marshall/Justiciar don't represent the majority of the Kingdom's military might; the Commander of the Banners does. So why isn't the Commander on this council, and why is the Earl Marshall, when the Knights serve as the Order demands anyway? Why is the Justiciar, who implements the Regent's will in the same way? Why is the Chancellor of the Exchequer deemed the economic heavyweight when we have a Grand Magnate as well, and the Chancellor position has very few actual duties on a day-to-day basis?

I recognize I'm glossing over some potential good reasons for all of those choices, but so too are we glossing over good reasons to include the GLs we've excluded. These old choices are genuinely ARBITRARY in that regard. We have a case where solely on economic matters we're using a Court functionary instead of a GL when there's little that the Court position adds the GL doesn't (to my eyes), but on military matters we're using TWO GLs instead of a Court functionary when the GLs don't even necessarily provide as much of the relevant perspective as a single Court functionary might. (And I don't really think it makes sense to make the Earl Marshall Commander of the Banners. Hunting witches is so very different from pitched war!)

Part of me says we should just dump Court, figure out some other way to choose a Regent/Keeper/Seneschal/whatever, and find some way to assign the powers currently held by court functionaries to the GLs in the tiny, "traditional" Royal Council. Part of me says we should kick the GLs (other than probably the Cardinal) off the Royal Council and just use the Privy Council instead. I've already been accused of trying to keep power for my "clique", but the truth is, I just want a functioning government that gives players some say in a logical fashion without paralyzing the works by involving TOO many players in day-to-day decision-making.

Thoughts?

TL;DR: Who should make the decisions for the Kingdom?

This post is a bit left field to me as I was not a party to any discussions on these matters. I'll try to respond as best as I can and not step on any toes by kaboshing people's dreams.

The title Great Lord is special and goes to two individuals in the kingdom: the Justiciar and Earl Marshall. This is to give them the authority to arrest mages and criminals amongst the nobility who would otherwise socially outrank them. This will not change.

A privy council is a fine idea, and I support it, but I am not prepared to supplant the Royal Council with a body selected solely by the regent. It would reduce conflict and pretty much ensure the only people allowed to come to the table in any discussion would be the Regent's supporters (mind, I'm not saying Ariel or any of the players in court are cliquish or anything, I just see this as the natural, structural result of filling the Royal Council with people chosen by the regent).

According to the help files (which I removed when Charmaine died because we set up a triumvirate), the Royal Council is the monarch, the Justiciar, the Earl Marshal, and the 5 dukes. As most of these characters are NPCs and not in game, to me, it's a bit like the staff-run High Synod, but with the understanding that the staff have to come to the table to talk shop with the regent before changing laws and whatnot on the regent. This plays into HELP MONARCH.

Maybe that needs to change, but I don't see this being in any way in conflict with the privy council running the kingdom day to day. The specific role of the Royal Council is to create and change laws, nothing more. The role of operating within the laws seems just fine for the council as described as Ariel decided he wants to run court.

So, having clarified these issues, what remains of concern?

Note: The role of the Justiciar is to enforce the law and lead the Reeves, not to execute the Regent's will.

The Justiciar thing was bad wording on the spur of the moment. Justiciar enforces the laws but the Crown/Throne makes them, was my thought there. Apologies, I was writing the post in a hurry.

Re: The Justiciar/EM thing, the GL distinction doesn't make a lot of sense because it isn't only the Justiciar/EM who can arrest those people who outrank them, PLUS the actual warrant approval must still come from the Regent/Monarch or the Cardinal, who does outrank any of the nobles - so that's where I figured the power to arrest was coming from, the superiors. This seemed especially true to me as the Justiciar/EM do not legally outrank nobility, they just have precedence over most of them but the same legal rights AFAIK. If it's about warrants, it also brings up the question of why the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a Great Lord (???).

I think that the whole concept of Great Lords is worth re-considering and it might make more sense to vest the power that enables arrest explicitly in the Cardinal/Monarch, as befits help noble rights. For another reason, as well...

The thing about the Royal Council is that right now they basically don't do anything, and very rarely have at any time I've been on TI:L. I never heard of them being required to change law before Brynieve mentioned to me it's evidently in a Reeve helpfile somewhere; maybe this is just because law change isn't frequent, but.

If the Royal Council's job is solely to vote on laws (which I'm cool with, actually) then I think having the Privy Council generally run the country makes sense, and the RC can be the bigger body. Votes can be taken from whomever manages to show up on any given day... but this goes full circle to Great Lords again. If every GL can be on the Royal Council, which I like, do we really have any use/reasonable definition for the term?

I haven't been privy to any ongoing debate, so apologies if any of the below has been covered already elsewhere.

I love councils: the debate, discussions, voting etc are all great fun, and I'm still kicking myself that I was so distracted irl during the last one, that I didn't have the presence/focus to introduce even a third of the spanners into the works that I wanted to.

Traditionally, the Royal Council consisted of the following (the help file is from Richael's day, but would be generally consistent under Charmaine):

Old Helpfile wrote: Queen of Lithmore: Richael ab Harmon
Crown Princess: Caterana ab Harmon #
Duke of Vandago: William von Dusairus
Duke of Vavard: Eachan dul Acris
Duke of Farin: Cameron de Montford
Duchess of Tubor: Calinne le Vanse
Grand Inquisitor: Lauris ab Novembris
Lord Justiciar: Nathanial ab Lancaster
Earl Marshall: Crevon ab Castillius
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Vellit ab Beaufort (NPC)

# The council seat of the heir will continue to remain vacant until the Crown Princess reaches the age of fourteen.

Other than substituting the Grand Inquisitor for the Cardinal (as the Cardinal and Crown were one at this stage), the Monarch for the Regent and cutting the Heir entirely (give the regent two votes, or just cut it- we won't have an heir in majority for a long time), I would say that the above would stand, either with or without the Dukes.

The difference between the Dukes and the members of this privy council (I'm not sure who they all are, sorry) is that, as Peers of the Realm, they are on the same tier as the Monarch/Regent and also don't owe their position to the Crown and are thus able to more easily dispute and debate with them. They also ICly have a large spread of influence. I have the concern that council including or even solely by privy council would be little more than a rubber stamp- these people are beholden to the regent for their positions and that skews any subsequent debate. The privy council would be great for internal discussion and delegation, but as a rule making body, the regent may as well just go ahead and make the laws himself. (Which, for the record, makes sense from an IC perspective, but doesn't make things as interesting for everyone else).

The Earl Marshall position used to be different than it seems to be today (noting that I haven't really played a knight for some 12+ years). They were the ultimate leader of the Knights Lithmorran but rarely dealt with hunting mages, except in emergencies, and instead dealt largely with governance and politics with the crown and church. Day to day command sat with the Grand Master. Under that set up, when they also served the Crown more directly (monarch as head of church) it also made much more sense that they were the ultimate battle commander. With the changes to bring them more directly into the church, more of that has been lost. I feel that the Commander of the Banners role, in particular, gravely undercuts the Earl Marshall's role and influence. (Also, to note on the subject: this was an intentional slight at the time by Herazade's regency, when I first created the CotB title, due to ecclesiastical suspicions that were hanging over Arynon and not wanting to see power invested in him due to that. But it was intended to largely be a dual title also held by the EM, when he was a trustworthy sort.)

Somewhere after Charmaine, the Merchants and Troubadours snuck into the council (or perhaps even during: when we had the big crusade council week going on, they were certainly involved in that) and with them on, it wouldn't have been right to exclude the Physicians when that guild was reintroduced.

There is also the consideration that some members of the privy council also have alts that are among the primary GLs, so merging the two wouldn't be viable from that POV. Also, yes, it would gets unwieldy with so many people. If all members of council are GLs, it does remove any possibility of that ever coming to pass.

My general preference with regards to councils, is to go first to the GLs, and I could be OOCly on board with paring down to the following core: Regent, EM, Justiciar, Cardinal and Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is neat, tidy, gets the people you need and has an odd number to avoid ties. ICly, I'd probably fight tooth and nail if those rights were removed without good reason, staff dictate or without something ICly offered to make up for it, but that has no bearing on what is best.

Kinaed: The Chancellor of the Exchequer is, and has always been, a Great Lord as well, although they were always an NPC before Marisa took the role.

Dice wrote: * If decisions are mostly made by the Regent, then bam, Council composition is far less of an issue. People show up and comment on things but votes hardly matter in most situations, so as many people can be at Council meetings if they want. The downside here is that, while it's thematic and also has the advantage of being nimble, power is concentrated in a single PC - and I get the impression people don't want that. Am I wrong?

In my case, absolutely wrong. YOU won the regency bid. YOU are a substitute monarch, in place of our young actual one. Unless the staff have the actual monarch make a decree (in which case, again, you could probably challenge it with some success ICly), YOU should have the final say on every decision and I wouldn't have it any other way. Have your privy councils, definitely delegate (share that power, it's fun!) but in the end it all comes down to YOU. That's what being monarch is, and being regent shouldn't take that power away, only give it a sense of reverence and respect for the actual crown.

* If decisions are made by the Privy Council, we have a still reasonably-sized body that can incorporate the concerns/ideas of the guilds without necessarily being beholden to them. However, ALL governmental power is then concentrated in Court and GLs might feel their power is being abrogated.

This seems like a completely IC problem, and one that you need to navigate ICly. If GLs feel their power is being abrogated, it should be an IC feeling - one not carried over OOCly at all. After all, all the 'power' you've talked about so far seems to be that over IC decision making. If they want more of it, they should do more and take it.

* If decisions are made by the Royal Council as I've defined it... they can't be because there's like 16 people in it and we can't possibly meet often.

Don't have a Royal Council! Definitely have people you delegate things to, like a Cultural Minister, a Treasurer, etc. Encourage them to work together. But there aren't really many situations where you'd need a consensus from a lot of people. In that case, seek council, but the final decision should be the regent's.

* If decisions are made by a Royal Council like the old one (Cardinal, Regent, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Earl Marshall, Justiciar) we have a really bizarre pattern of duplicating some roles and ignoring others. The Earl Marshall/Justiciar don't represent the majority of the Kingdom's military might; the Commander of the Banners does. So why isn't the Commander on this council, and why is the Earl Marshall, when the Knights serve as the Order demands anyway? Why is the Justiciar, who implements the Regent's will in the same way? Why is the Chancellor of the Exchequer deemed the economic heavyweight when we have a Grand Magnate as well, and the Chancellor position has very few actual duties on a day-to-day basis?

Roll in the Chancellor with Grand Magnate, rewrite the helpfiles to insure the EM is about serving the Church, and on a limited, special basis, the Kingdom, and bam. Problem solved.

Sounds like staff should handle this and do a bit of revisioning with helpfiles. Long overdue, IMO. For example, you could have the merchant GL be the defacto 'Minister of Trade' and need a role in court, whether guilded or not.

Part of me says we should just dump Court, figure out some other way to choose a Regent/Keeper/Seneschal/whatever, and find some way to assign the powers currently held by court functionaries to the GLs in the tiny, "traditional" Royal Council. Part of me says we should kick the GLs (other than probably the Cardinal) off the Royal Council and just use the Privy Council instead. I've already been accused of trying to keep power for my "clique", but the truth is, I just want a functioning government that gives players some say in a logical fashion without paralyzing the works by involving TOO many players in day-to-day decision-making.

Thoughts?

TL;DR: Who should make the decisions for the Kingdom?

TL;DR: The Regent. This is one of those moments where you're going to have to step up and be the bad guy sometimes. You can't please everyone, and it sounds like the majority of the hate is coming OOCly - which is bullshit. It's stupid and petty. All this should be IC, and stay IC in my opinion. Much healthier that way.

The traditional royal council has always made my head hurt. Figuring out who does what in a logical way makes no sense when you have dozens of helpfiles that our staff haven't looked at in comparison with current standards and player introduced theme bits that haven't been checked by staff. It all leads to a startling lack of continuity. That's not me saying it's the staff's fault, only me saying that it's about time that we look at some of the 'lack of definition' in an objective OOC light, as a whole, and make sense of it.

What EXACTLY does the Earl Marshall do in a century old monotheistic kingdom? How far does their reach go into the army? What does the Commander of Banners do? Does the Kingdom receive it's troop via levies/conscriptions? What part do either have in that?

What EXACTLY does the Grand Magnate do? Are they strictly involved with trade policy, or do they practice internal/external trade deals to? If Lithmore wanted to establish a spice route with Vandago, who would do that - Chancellor or Magnate?

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Edit: My initial thoughts. Reading newer posts that came up.

Okay, had a chance to read this in full, and I see that Leech seems to have responded in-line in quotes to Ariel's earlier stuff that I took for being a total quote of Ariel's stuff... anyway, ignore all my yabbering.

Points, 'cause I'm tired:
ON ROYAL COUNCIL
- I agree with Casimir that Ariel was placed in the Regency, so really, it's Ariel's show however he wants to run things... to the limit of HELP MONARCH. If that's collaboratively, more power to him.
- In the sense of the Regent running stuff and the structure of the Royal Council, as mentioned earlier, I think the Royal Council should remain an off-screen NPC body similar to the Synod responsible for making and changing laws (and thus the help files as per HELP MONARCH). Ariel seems to be cool with this in his earlier post, so I'll consider this done and will restore the old help file with updates to reflect "modern" TI.

ON GREAT LORDS
- The Great Lord role is clearly partly about prestige, but also partly about elevating the very likely common-background EM and Justiciar to nobility for the duration of their terms. This is done in large part to allow them to arrest nobility, delegate their authority to their guild members to arrest nobility, and otherwise rub shoulders with nobles and participate at Court.
- The Chancellor of the Exchequer being a Great Lord "since long into the past" doesn't really seem to be a major issue, or even one most people notice since the current one already is a noble and the rest were all NPCs.
- Regardless, I don't see any structural problems or issues arising because we have Great Lords or that they have specific rights. To me, that's just theme, environmental texture, and a potential source of conflict.
- Because part of the nature of why being a Great Lord is desirable has to do with prestige, I also don't see any good to come of naming new or more Great Lords - it actually detracts from the theme of it.
- Ultimately, I think I just don't 'grok' the issue that anyone has with it. It's been this way forever, and I'm probably attached to it for no reasons other than tradition. Still, tradition can be a good thing; I love TI and it's personality now, I don't need to change into something to love.

ON HATRED:
- What? Where was this? Did I miss something? This convo struck me as civil...?
- If people are being OOCly rude or nasty to/about someone because they don't like their ideas, please stop. OOCly, no one is holding their views with the intent to be evil or rain on anyone's parade. Using rude or hateful speech or talking badly about someone behind their back is hurtful, rude, unnecessary, and does no good for the game at all.
- IC hatred, however, is grand and about telling a good story, not hurting people we disagree with over what is essentially just a difference in perspective.

ON UNDEFINED ROLES:
- I don't believe the roles of Earl Marshall or Justiciar (or even the Exchequer) are undefined. They have help files, and whereas they're not so specific as "At 9:00am, the Justiciar has a cup of coffee. At 10:00am, he writes letters," etc, doesn't mean someone playing the job doesn't have enough of an idea of the role's purpose to do the job and tailor it to themselves.

The theme needs to be the right mix of defined and ambiguous to give a great framework with room for player creativity, so please don't be in a rush to fill in every nook and cranny of possibility with answers.

The problem with as much ambiguity as we have is that it means an awful lot of every GL repeatedly re-inventing the wheel, and the Monarch's wheel is PARTICULARLY big and cumbersome...

So, clarification question: If I want to submit new laws, they simply go through staff? I'm a little confused because the Royal Council has a few PCs on it. Half PCs, I guess, if it's Dukes, Great Lords, Regent and Heir (who I assume would be Steward in this case since we have a Regent rather than Monarch and the heir is also underage?). Do the PCs get to vote first?

I think every GL reinvents the wheel, not because they don't know the game or the theme, but because they want to make things run more like their 'best imagined version of their guild' as per their own perspective. They come in wanting to fix perceived problems, etc.

Practically everyone knows who the Justiciar and the Earl Marshall are, and practically everyone knows what they do in game. The fact that they are a Great Lord is just a thematic fact, and what it means to be a Great Lord (provided precedence and authority due to position rather then birth station) is also defined.

With regards to submitting new laws, please do submit them to staff for implementation. HELP MONARCH has always required any help file changes or new help files be staff reviewed and approved before introduced; I think adding or changing laws fits in that criteria as there is a "HELP SUMMARY OF LAWS". That said, please understand that I aim to be collaborative with the Monarch, not a road block, so I don't intend to poo poo things the Monarch throws up just because I can. Rather, my intent is solely to enjoy the sound structure, theme and environment of TI for RP according to the Inquisition theme.

Just to note, the Synod also has PCs that would be entitled to sit on it, but is run as an NPC body that speaks for itself.

I'll review the Royal Council to be more like the Synod, and set up a help file. I'll pboard it to you first so you can have a looksie and comment before making it live.

I still don't know exactly how interactions between the EM and the Commander of Banners would go when fighting a war - say for instance, now, with the Daravi conflict. I know how I'd -like- it to be (EM being the guy who does special ops with his Knights and makes sure the Commander doesn't screw up the Order's prerogative.

But again, everyone reinvents the wheel. There's no hard set theme for that because of it. There's no hard set Knight ritual, member requirements, education training, list of duties, lore, or history - and I'd be afraid to add anything. I don't mean to sound whiny, I love what the new Brohood is, but after working on the guild member's reqs and their theme and trying to make them something proactive/political, only to have it fall away, it leaves a bitter taste to ever doing it again, y'know? So it's kinda disheartening. Not to say that people shouldn't challenge what somebody does - but I thought it'd be great for the Brohood to have hard set requirements for advancement, and kudos if they mutated the ones I put in place and use them. Point is, I wish other guilds would do that as well - and have it stick. To do this, you kind of need staff to step in and say 'Okay, this structure works, this is the framework for all future changes, boom, done.'

We've had this discussion on OOC many times: ambiguity versus staff supported structure. I'm highly in favor of staff supported structure. You'll give GLs something they can comfortably come into. And they can still tweak it, if they want. Not to say staff should just do all the work - it would be best as a group effort.

But I think that might be a discussion for a whole nother thread.

I have to echo Leech's comments, in that I'd love to have the staff set the guild themes, rank structures and so forth and just say 'That is that, no changes without a damned good reason'. It seems like we're reinventing the wheel every three months in a lot of guilds, when time could be better spent elsewhere. I'm as guilty of perpetrating that as anyone.