Shattered Kingdoms

I'm sorry, in a world where there is magic to determine the heart of an individual, and where gods play an active role in the society, powerful world influencing secret societies are able to prevent treachery and weed out divided loyalties.

I think a really good question is, why would we make this huge change just to allow spies. You do realize you can already do this right? I've been meaning to do that for a while now. Yeah you don't get the perks of both organizations, but how fair is it for a traitor to have all of those benefits?

I bet I know which people will be doing most of the crying.

In the last couple of pages there's been only one or two posts that I'd consider useful to the topic. I think it's very likely that this thread has gone on for too long and people have wandered off into fairy worlds of their own - perhaps it should either be locked or receive further posts from Dulrik on what he is and isn't willing to consider from the bulk of posts so far.

Wow, this thread exploded.

Merge cabals and tribunals? I sincerely hope not. Although there are a couple tribunals where members are desperately needed (Peacekeepers kind of, Guardians and CoN?), I really don't think this is the way to go, at least not yet. The dual membership idea seems to be a very exploitable change that will cause problems for a large amount of players, and I'm just not up for merging cabals and tribunals, at least not yet. There's still some things I was hoping to do.

It may be true that tribunals have less members than they used to, although I've seen my fair share of fluctuation in the past, and members flow from one group to another. In fact, if you asked me, one of the main reasons that tribs have lost members is the re-implementation of bounty NPCs. With bounty NPCs spawning all over the place, cities are attacked less, and less people notice it and want to defend. Supply meets demand in that case. I know the reason that I joined the peacekeepers with my current character was because Exile was so frequently raided and I OOC'ly wanted in on some of the action. Combat's typically starting to move out of cities now, however, unless larger-size groups are involved. I don't really like this change that much.

As far as dual membership goes, I think it's a bad idea. It wouldn't be long before things would go sour with some players, I'm sure, and it opens up the doorway for a whole new realm of sick ownage characters that some people simply don't need. One thing I'm sure of, though, is that the Oathbreaker flag should NOT be removed. Ugh. That's just a recipe for disaster, these rules were put here for a reason, right?

My thoughts in summary: Leave cabals and tribunals be for the time being. If inactivity is causing too much of a problem in tribs especially, then perhaps merging them would be the best thing. My vote is strongly against dual membership or anything of the like, however.

Duel membership is something I at first glance did not think was that good an idea but now I am thinking it would be better for SK as a whole.
Firstly the idea of two tribunals or two cabals is nonsense it is not what the idea is about. One Tribunal and One cabal. With Tribunal and cabal (sperate) oath breaker flags.
It is clear with the SK player base size that it can not really handle 10 completely different factions at the moment. Merging cabals and factions seems like an answer but you lose a lot of RP because of it. Talons and Fists do have different ideals etc.
As a straight duel membership I can see how it might seem daunting or over powered but look at what you really get. A few buff spells and a NPC to help you. If you had law immunity you could get spells from else where and the guards would still auto assist you in battle. Not quite what you would have but close. If a wimping of duel members I think loss of the top two cabal powers would be suitable. Your connection with the relic is not so strong because you spend time doing other stuff, attending guard meetings etc.
The fear of mass inductions are well founded and most likely will happen but mass things normally happen when something big changes. Look at cabal raids when they first came about. Look at specialization when they where first introduced. Remember when bards where first made. It will die down or become the normal I know for one as a leader I am going to be asking anyone who goes outside the faction why.

The risk I see is that uninductions will be come more common. I find out your a harlequin in the peacekeepers there is little room for second chances. You disagree with my judgement because you are going with what your other faction said there is a risk someone will be uninducted. I think most leaders know to use the tarnish command for most disagreements.

Duel leadership may or may not be a bad thing. The problem I see with a cabal member/tribunal Leader is the same reason why merging is not a good idea RP differences between the cabal and tribunal will break down. To become a tribunal leader you should not be able to be in a cabal, in every kingdom accept for Empire. To compensate perhaps a tribunal leader should be given something else leaders grace Cha bonus similar to GS in raises max and actual.

Other things that should be remember is. You can not be in a tribunal unless you live in the nation. This gives your cabal leader a good idea if you are trying to be a druid CoN member. Tribunals and always order a member not to use cabal powers under punishment of tarnishment, at least of the most part. Also if a cabal member acts out the tribunal will then have reason to have words with the cabal about their behaviour. Resulting in being tarnished in two factions.

In short I think it would be a more forward for SK creating a richer environment to RP with in. So long as cabals and tribunals ideals are kept distinct.

Duel, that word you are using. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Read that with Duel, then replace it with Dual and read it again. Makes a world of difference.

Oathbreaker should be made to only apply to cabals, so a character could shift between any number of tribunals in the course of a career, but never more than one cabal.

So the leader of the Council of Necromancers discovers that one of his members is a Druid? That's the leader's problem to solve, as it would be the leader's problem to solve any other kind of betrayal within his ranks.

The leader of the Peacekeepers turns out to also be a Harlequin? Better yet, he's also the leader of the Harlequins? Bully for him. Harlequins gain dominence in Taslamaran politics for the tenure of that leader's reign, and the Peacekeepers take on a distinctly Harlequin tinge until they are either usurped by another interest group or they fade away once again as is typically the norm with any group that temporarily finds itself on the ascendent.

If you're not going to go for re-merging tribunals with their respective cabals, then this sort of dynamic could provide an interesting and workable alternative.

This is an interesting situation, but usurping isn't code supported. If a tribunal leader is also a cabal leader there is no way to remove him from power. He has the ability to kick out all that oppose him. Unless, of course, the Imms are going to watch over and take action in a timely fashion every time something like this happens. That would also mean dealing with the accusations of favoritism. They always have to deal with that, but in cases of leadership, it seems worse.

Lei Kung

Now there lays the problem. If a cabal leader finds himself in power of a Tribunal aswell, you can pretty much guess what will happen. The Cabal will hold the tribunal till the end of days and just invite new members into both. This usurpe you speak of.... in the history of the game how many times has someone tooken forcable control over a cabal/tribunal? Allowing leadership in both factions with this dumb bandaid of an idea will just do more harm than good, be better off just merging them back, god knows people will work OOCly to setup a dual leadership between both and reap the benefits of doing it. Just a big can of abuse waiting to happen. heh.

PS, if this idea was slated when I had the Harlies, I'd PK'd the Talon members into deletion and set up someone to take leadership of the tribunal and just move in and take it, or abuse OOC friendships from other tribunals and take that one.

Which is one of the big reasons why I believe that the leaders of player organizations should not be allowed to have dual membership.

Lei Kung

It doesn't matter if they have dual leaderships or not, only takes two friends to cease control using force, OOC dealings, or other unethical tactics to pocket both factions, giving both law immunity, command over the guards and 5 new spells/skills. So unless other factions take up the same idea, who do you think will hold more power?