Shattered Kingdoms

I am not saying that receiving a summary like that will guarantee that I am going to do it. But there has been a lot of talk about how "we solved that issue in this thread". This thread is clearly too long to decipher which changes were still contemplated by the end. I know I wasn't keeping track that closely. At this point, probably only LK has a clear idea. I'm basically challenging him to get it all into a final form.

Alright D, I'll do it. Just give me a day or two to put it togther. I'll try to make it as to the point as possible....but you all know me, long winded is an understatement.

Lei Kung

I'm not going to advance an idea I don't believe in by a summary, but I will suggest a simple first test:

Give any cabal allied to a tribunal access to that tribunal's tb channel communications. All cabal members can both receive and send messages.

On the plus side, it increases in-game communication in an ICly sensible way. That might be fun for the smaller groups. On the negative side, it reduces the privacy of tribunals. However, a tribunal can opt out by refusing alliance. The lack of privacy is also a far smaller problem than any of these dual-membership schemes would create.

Tribunal reactions should help indicate how much cabal interference they're willing to accept before fighting back.

I'll give you kudos in advance if you can put forward a summary I'm not going to want to pick at, LK.

This is turning Tribunals into lesser organization and baby cabals. The organizations should be equal, I feel. Just my 2 cents.

Communication is a must, but I think combining channels with another group, would kind of defeat the purpose of being their own group.

What about a channel that is for each "group" to communicate through..

Then again, channels equal more crap that spams your screen.

Linking cabal with tribunal would truly make any wars true kingdom wars though....

I'm still very against it.

I didn't read your entire post. I did read this paragraph though.

Anyhow, my reluctance to accept this idea as a good idea is not unfounded. It's actually founded in the changes that occurred to CRS when it was implemented. That was a system I fully supported when it came out, and I almost single-handedly implemented the building changes myself.

A few months later after I had seen what it did to the quality of the players and the leaders and their RP, my stance change. That type of big change which put more emphasis on the player killing of the game ruined the cabal RP which had actually been very good until that point, though perhaps a bit elitest in nature.

I see dual-membership doing the same thing. It's going to become something which favors the power player over the role player. It gives more power to players who have agendas which do NOT promote role play. It is another tool to give their player another edge in PK and they will actively seek out and use this tool, and in the end degrade the quality of the players in these organizations.

This isn't to say that the system won't benefit the RPers. They may find it useful to their own RP agendas.

However, in the history of SK, when you put a PKer in the same room as the RPer, guess who comes out on top? The RPer always losses, and always posts a message on the forums about how all their hard work getting back the blood orb was ruined by some power-players who ganked it ba...oh wait, that's something else entirely..

..or is it?

--

So yes, it is safe to say I've closed off my mind on this topic. I can't be persuaded to think it's a good idea, even though I've heard and read a lot of the arguments for it. I have considered them, but I've been playing this game long enough to know what kind of changes are good for the enviroment of the game, and what kind of changes are bad. This will do nothing but further the divide between RP and PK.

If you don't read anything else that I've written or care to remember anthing REMEMBER THIS ONE THING, if anything else:

SK's motto is "Roleplaying with tactics". It isn't "Tactics with Roleplaying". As much as I love PK (I always will, it's tons of fun), we put role-playing first here on SK, and not PK. We have spent a few years here as Imms and players catering to the PKing aspect of SK.

I think it's about time we change gears and make a push to focus on the RP aspect of the game, before it suffers anymore.

Basically sums up how I'm feeling, at this point.


QFT.

In this post I will start with the summary in outline format. Then I will provide reasoning for the summary. The reason I do it this way because this is a dynamic system where many items have multiple effects. Also, I didn't break it into phases because this is long enough and I was having trouble breaking apart some of the dynamic funtions. With time and a bit more direction I'm sure I can do it. Please excuse the periods, it was the only way to keep my spacing.

Goals
1. Address player group inactivity w/o destroying establish group RP
2. Make tribunals more fully representative of a nation’s governance
3. Empower cabals to be the secret societies they are meant to be
4. Encourage greater levels and consistency of RP
5. Establish a political environment that complements tactics with RP
6. Create more tactical and RP options for players
7. More efficiently utilize features currently in the game

Summary
I. Allow characters to belong to more then one faction
...A. Leaders are only allowed to belong to one organization
...B. Collusion is illegal
...C. Midnight Council is split
.........1. Midnight Council becomes the cabal
...............a. A power is added
.........2. The Legions becomes the tribunal
...............a. A caster NPC is added
...D. Oathbreaker
.........1. Still applies to cabals
.........2. Tribunals receive discharge instead
...............a. Honorable discharge parting on good terms
...............b. Dishonorable discharge is parting on bad terms
...............c. Tribunal leader can see all discharges before induction
.........3. Leaders can’t impede members from leaving organization
...E. Increase leader’s ability to rein in members
.........1. More then tarnish and uninduct
.........2. Maybe affect skills, attributes, maledictions, something
II. Move cabals into the shadows (secret society – i.e. Illuminati, Masons)
...A. Remove CRS from cabals
.........1. Change cabal HQ’s to secret non-secure locations
.........2. Allow cabals to design and add their flavor to HQs
...B. Allow members secrecy
.........1. Change cabal abilities so that usage doesn’t reveal member
...............a. Remove casting echos
...............b. Ability affect become unseen/looks like normal return
.........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
.........3. PCB – private cabal channel
...............a. Two members to speak without revealing identity
...............b. Requires mana like a tell
.........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
.....................iii. Items character holds can’t be located
.....................iv. Upon death all eq is lost and corpse can’t be identified
...C. Lessen tactical appeal for cabals
.........1. Remove two powers from cabal current skill set
III. Move tribunals out front in conflict and war
...A. Leadership crosses boarders for waring countries
...B. Make cities siege-able (moving CRS to tribunals)
.........1. Make all entrances have gates that can be besieged
.........2. Gates bar entrance to any of a warring tribunal
.........3. NPC spawning during enemy attack (see CRS)
...C. Destroyable/repairable rooms (Cannibal would need to outline this)
...D. Capture land/build strongholds
...E. Increase tactical draw of tribunals
.........1. Power removed from cabals added to tribunals
...F. Differentiate tribunals from one another
.........1. Powers added to tribunals done in thematic fashion
IV. Miscellaneous
...A. Cabals gain group casting spell
.........1. Affects economy and/or a country/city’s operations
...............a. Can be beneficial or detrimental
.........2. Potency is proportional to number of casters
.........3. Casters lose access to cabal powers
...............a. Duration is inversely proportional to number of casters
...B. Fist is made into a class


Reasoning
Allowing characters to belong to more then one faction
- This effectively doubles the eligible player base.

Leaders only allowed to belong to one organization.
- If a leader leads two organizations, effectively one becomes an extension of the other.

- If a leader leads ABC but is a member in XYZ, effectively the leader of the XYZ leads both

- There is a conflict of interest as the goals and ideals of the two organizations are different

- Circumvents the political workings and undermines the spirit of Dual Membership

Collusion being illegal
- This is because it circumvents the intention and purpose of Dual Membership

- With monthly reports showing membership and induction dates, it is easy to spot

Midnight Council is split
- This is for balance

Oathbreaker and Discharge
- This sets the stage for the differences in the organizations. One being military and the other being a secret brotherhood based on certain ideals. It also sets the table for the political environment.

Increase leader’s ability to rein in members
- Because of the political environment, members having greater tactical powers, and split loyalties, leaders need a way of keeping control without dismissing players but might need a bigger stick then tarnish.

Moving CRS from cabals to Tribunals.
- The very nature of CRS brings about open conflict. This prevents cabals from being shadowy organization. Tribunals which are meant to represent nation’s governance lack the ability to do anything but act as a police force. By moving the epic combat of CRS to tribunals, the focus of open combat shifts to tribunals.

Cabal member secrecy
- This is fairly obvious, if cabals are to be secret societies they need to be secret. For this to stand it one must be able to protect their character’s identity ICly and OOCly. The suggesting above accomplish this.

Lessen cabal’s tactical appeal while increasing tribunals tactical appeal
- First, by lessening the tactical appeal of cabals, they take a step back from the tactical forefront. Conversely, by increasing tribunal’s tactical appeal, they take a step toward the tactical forefront.

- Second, cabals by being able to conceal membership and ability usage gain significantly in tactics and political RP, this gain must be offset for balance sake.

- Thirdly, because cabals keep oathbreaker but tribunals don’t, cabals have an edge in maintaining member loyalty.

- Lastly, tribunals are rather homogenous. This step is to increase the differentiation between tribunals and help formulate a distinct flavor to each.

Allowing leadership NPCs to cross into countries at war with
- This step allows for basic tribunal warfare. This is needed for tribunals to be the overt force, to truly represent a nation’s governance.

Making cities siege-able
- CRS spawned many brilliant features, such as the NPC spawning. This again helps bring tribunals epic combat forefront and helps tribunals fulfill their role as a nation’s government. But just as important, those inventive features will be more effectively utilized.

Destroyable/repairable rooms
- This is another evolution in tribunal warfare where rooms can be damaged. They can also be repaired based on things such as economic state, population, etc. This was entirely Cannibal’s idea and he is the one that should elaborate on it and I don’t want to butcher it.

Capture land
- Again this would be another evolution in tribunal warfare where a tribunal can build a stronghold on the map. Building the stronghold would take time and money. During that time, the site can be attacked and if successful the strong hold isn’t build. If the stronghold is build, X rooms surrounding will fall under control of the tribunal owning the stronghold. After it is built it can be destroyed but is more difficult. This would add another element to epic combat as well as adding an actual strategic element to the game.

Cabals gain group casting spell
- The intent of this spell is to give the organization as a whole a significant bargaining chip to use when dealing with tribunals. It has a significant penalty and a group components to help ensure its use happens for good cause and not willy-nilly.

Fist made into a class
- First, limiting the martial arts to a cabal doesn’t seem right. All alignments should have access to them, the skills are underutilized by being limited to a cabal, and the skills can’t be made to be secret (at least I can’t see a way for it to happen).

- Second, this would give the players another class that many are clamoring for (I myself would love this).

I think this “summary” illustrates the plan and gives some of the reasoning behind the moves. It does not cover every argument nor will it go into deep discussion about how all the goals are met. I believe if one can wrap their mind around how all the parts interplay, the dynamic nature shows how all the goals are fully met. I didn’t break this out into phases because this is long enough as is and because I was having difficulty trying to break apart some of the dynamic functions. Given more time and direction I believe I could do it, but I just wanted to get this