Shattered Kingdoms

PHASE ONE:
II. Move cabals into the shadows (secret society – i.e. Illuminati, Masons)
...B. Allow members secrecy
.........2. New toggle – cabal anonymous
...............a. who list does not show character as a member
...............b. Only shows member/leader tag on cabal channel
.....................i. CBname allows chosen name to appear on CB
.........4. Cabal Robe skill
...............a. Creates one of three robes: Leader, member, and initiate
...............b. When worn
.....................i. Appears as a robed figure with a preset description
.....................ii. All ways to identify character are made impossible
.....................iv. Upon death all eq is lost and corpse can’t be identified
III. Move tribunals out front in conflict and war
...A. Leadership crosses boarders for waring countries

Let's get down to specifics. I just went back to the outline and pared out everything I am not interested in at the moment. Ironically, that means I axed dual-membership itself, but the game has to be prepared for that before it can be implemented, and right now it is not.

If I was going to start moving forward, the above things are where I would spend my time for phase one. So currently all I am interested in hearing opinions about are the items mentioned above. There might never be a phase two, so postulate how the game would be impacted if these were the only changes that were ever made in this direction.

I think the ideas outlined for cabal secrecy is insanely cool. That's all the input I really have.

I think cabal secrecy robes are a little too powerful:

* Can't summon/gate a robed figure that one sees. Normally a description can be soon linked to a name.
* Targetting problems in a group of six identical hooded figures.
* Can't use a dead enemy's equipment against him, or stop him from reclaiming it.
* Can't even create a spirit doll of dead target, lest it identify him?

Suggested fix:
* Cabal robes destroyed on taking damage.
* Hooded figures have a race-depedendent adjective. Dwarves and halflings might both be small; a griffon taloned. (It's IC for robes not to cover such things, and it helps with targetting.)

Toggle to turn cabal membership off the who list I see as a good thing. It limits potential OOC abuse of players.

Toggle to turn your name off CB seems like your letting people be lazy while trying to be anonymous. If you want to be anonymous to the group then you will have less standing with in the group and not talk openly as a member to other members.
Although if you could never add your name to CB then this could be an interesting addition forcing cabals to have to meetings in person more often.

Cabal Robes sounds a lot like a cabal skill that is already around. Only better. This idea to me seems over the top the secret society shouldnt be secret to itself accept for those who put effort into remaining secret from most of the group.
If one group wants its members to remain secret from each other perhaps an area in their HQ that one can no see in where they can hold meetings.


Tribunals war sounds good.
Something I would like to see across the board for tribunals is Dispel magic for dealing with rifts and cabal room spells. Doesnt need to be high level just high enough that after the first attack has been fought back they can be removed. Also cure disease so tribunal members can deal with plagues and keep the newbies safe I think this one is covered but I am not sure about the empire.

Sorry, but the whole cabal robes thing sounds....well, a waste of time.

There's better things that need fixing and doing and it doesn't even make that much sense.

I'd really like to hear a reasoning as to why it'd help cabals out.

All of these look good to me - the only issue that might arise in my opinion is people deliberately going about in their robed forms to prevent being looted, and then collecting all their things back immediately on repop.

I don't actually see a way out of that while still maintaining a person's secrecy though with this 'cabal robe' thing. I suggest leaving items on the corpse, leave the corpse as unidentifiable, and make all items unseen in any way except upon the person's death. That way people remain anonymous (except for their items on death), but they can't twink the system out.

Cabal robes sound cool for secret meetings and stuff but I really don't like their side effects. Besides the things Forsooth mentioned, I'm going to add that:

- Part of the tactics on the game involves knowing what classes your opponents are. Against groups wearing cabal robes you would be going against the unknown every time. Combine this with the targeting problems mentioned and the robes offer a significant buff.

- Totally unidentifiable people cause issues with the law system - will guards and hunters go after a criminal in cabal robes, and will someone in cabal robes be reportable for their crimes? If they really prevent all means of identification then the answer would be no, and it's tantamount to giving a certain law-evading cabal skill to all cabals.

- Even if the cabal robes make the corpse unidentifiable, the ghost of the dead char can still be seen by anyone with spirit sight (unless the robes magically mask even the spirit of the person who was wearing it in life).

- The side effects of cabal robes on death can encourage people to attack kamikaze since they don't risk anything significant. They could charge into battle wearing storebought eq and they don't risk having their affiliations being found out if they die. Imms could mitigate this by watching for and punishing this kind of behavior, but I imagine that an immortal would have better things to do with his time.

I suggest removing all these effects and limit their usefulness as a tool for holding anonymous meetings in a cabal. Perhaps the robes should only be usable inside cabal HQs and other related areas (e.g. the secret Druid groves, the Adept's abyssal tower) and crumble say two ticks after the wearer leaves those areas. The only thing they would do is mask the wearer's descs and eq, and if someone is killed while wearing cabal robes then they're just dead, with all their gear and their corpse intact.

(edited to add to the first point)

Good point about using it to evade the law. I don't really like that idea and it would have to be dealt with somehow.

Some of this functionality could be handled in a more generic manner, and has actually been suggested before. All cloaks could have commands to cover your body to obscure your gear and hoods to obscure your face.

Possibly we could deal with this in the future by having guards demand that you uncloak yourself and be identified. Refusal to do so would result in you being attacked and forcibly revealed.

Just some idle ideas.

That could be tied into cabal and tribunal diplomacy - cabals who have alliances with tribunals might not face such demands from guards, for example.

Or robes could be treated just like disguise and polymorph - law NPCs always see through them. It may not be that IC, but it has worked well.