[Poll] Local or inter-ducal RP focus?

[wimple]

Mind, I'm not certain I'm right. I'm floating it to understand the pbase's view on the whole. I suppose I have to ask - if you saw an advertisement for TI as a high politic, multi-kingdom game, would that be more exciting than a game about insidious local politics? Does one call out to you more than the other?

I think from an advertising point of view, the concern of players that we lack the player base to support it is important here. If I did think a multi-kingdom game was more interesting, but came on and saw that it wasn't being utilized or didn't have the players to functionally support it, then what attracted me wouldn't really matter, I wouldn't be called to stay and play. The solution offered here seems to be to use alts, but our player base historically is so suspect of alts that I've quit playing them altogether. Is this just going to kick up more policy issues with alts?

[galaxgal]

For me at least, the appeal of TI is the lower-scale interpersonal drama. I do like the big, slow-cooking kingdom wide plotlines that come up from time to time, but they aren't what I log in for.

In terms of say, Dukes/Duchesses and alts, I would have apprehension about that as a solution when these are high-power and thus high time-investment roles, and a really good one is probably going to be a conflict generator and that jives poorly with alts.

If the current situation is unsustainable (and it sounds like it is), I would prefer expectations of scope be set lower rather than higher. However, I am also a relatively 'new' player to the game, so maybe the novelty of what can be done with that scope hasn't worn off on me yet.

[Sparkles]

In short, having a PC Duchess of Vavard who is a PC deciding how to interact with the Seneschal and RPing her part seems to me to be 1000 fold more interesting than RP Staff answering mails, generally trying to supress top-level RP and redirect it back downwards into the pbase.

One difficulty is that the Dukes and Duchesses have history in the game that is literally a decade long IRL. I find it hard to ponder any one player would come in and be able to pick up all that subtle nuance. Further as we aren't a "roster" game where high end roles can be picked up by someone else playing the same character in case someone goes inactive, I'd wonder or worry what would happen if we follow a recent trend about people apping into those roles and then having very fleeting interest.

[Kinaed]

How much power for change in the hands of players are you thinking of allowing?

Well, if someone has a role, I'd expect their power to reflect that role ICly. I wasn't thinking the queen would become a PC, but would remain the NPC failsafe above the Seneschal, but otherwise out of the picture, leaving the Seneschal as the queen's representative and de facto PC ruler of the Five Duchies.

Then the matter becomes "what needs to be in place to represent political mechanisms and offscreen power, like armies", to allow people's IC power to have weight. We haven't even considered what a system might look like, but for me, it'd probably be related to the existing stats under domains. I'd probably design what this looks like in conjunction with staff and the pbase.

Overall, the changes I'd see to fulfill this would be something like:
1) create a few more capital cities and link them to the grid via a port, looking for time sensitive ways to delay, but not make travel a major hamper on RP
2) open specific foreign noble roles like the dukes and duchesses, and consider allowing existing players to move their phomes if they want
3) establish some standards and rules about how major political things like warfare might be managed, but otherwise allow people to use our extensive, existing tools
4) consider any additional RP tools to help players congregate
5) dump the pbase into the fray and let them do what they will

In a general sense, the only things that are off the table in terms of player control is moving into an enlightened age out of the "medieval era" or destroying The Inquisition (as it's the name of our game). The Queen would step in to preserve the church and feudalism (ie, her own power, the overarching coded structure of society, and protect major cultural norms). This has generally always been my acid test about whether or not what a player does is okay with me. That said, practically speaking, rewriting help files, changing craft recipes, and a heap of other stuff players have asked for under the category of "change based on IC events" is NOT trivial. Finally, more frequently than you'd think, we get players who believe they have the ability to do something ICly that the staff estimate they probably don't have, and get frustrated when staff are like "Yes, I know you're the X, but if you try Y, that's so against theme that you need a lot more than your chutzpah and whimsy to get this to fly."

[Taunya]

I wasn't thinking the queen would become a PC, but would remain the NPC failsafe above the Seneschal

Uh-oh, are we about to lose another ruler? That would save the Queen's Guard from having to be renamed the King's Guard.

A thought on phomes if new cities are built: Currently we're limited to two- usually 1 phome and 1pshop. Rather than simply moving phomes to another zone, I'd recommend besides the 2 currently allowed in the Lithmore grid, two more be allowed in any outside zones. Perhaps at reduced construction costs for ones outside of the lithmore grid, like it is with the southside and wilderness.

[Kinaed]

No... I miswrote that

[Kuzco]

Having duke/duchess roles open means we will again have wildly changing lines of policy for the duchies, with PCs who vanish after few weeks, are constantly outed as mages, or ignore their responsibilities altogether. I think that's a level of instability that can be handled at classic nobility level, but not at this one. Imagine a duchy changing duke PCs regularly, alternatively allying with and abandoning Roland. Or someone apping into one such role, declaring the previous family killed by mages, just to switch the duchy's allegiance then abandoning the PC, or expelling the Order, or something like that.
We just don't have the amount of pbase or appropiate apping guidelines for something like that. If staff decide to go with it anyways, somehow, then I'd recommend a roster system with clear boundaries, and some manner of accountability for violating them, like locking duchal apps for them.

[Kinaed]

I agree the roster suggestion is a good one.

[Taunya]

It would probably be good to be a bit more selective over how such roles are filled, yeah.
On original TI, the ones I remember (Gregory, Duke of Vavard, and Mariel, Duchess of Farin IIRC) were fixtures for a long time.

I kind of think certain roles like GI already should have a minimum time played before being eligible to app into.
We've had some great ones done by first-time players, but many more that didn't work out well.