Shattered Kingdoms

I disagree. The cabal player's first resposibility is to his own interests. Unless things have dramatically changed since I last had any involvement in the issue (always possible, I admit) each cabal and tribunal has an immortal patron responsible for the oversight of that organisation. The Patron's first responsibility is to the interests of that organisation and the overall good of the game. Not just for the benefit of the playes currently involved, but for those that will follow also.

Part of the patron's job description is to allocate the two leadership flags.

This is generally done on consensus of the players involved. These things do work best when they are player directed and Imm supported. Likewise, the position of second is typically allocated on the nomination of the existing leader. But this is just tradition and common-sense, it isn't a hard and fast rule.

To address DA's argument, if the existing leader nominated a second that was clearly against the best interests of the organisation or game as a whole, the patron would have a responsibility to block it.

Likewise, if a leadership candidate was clearly unsuitable for a role, there is nothing to stop the patron concerned from blocking that appointment and giving it to somebody else. In my view, it's the patron's responsibilty to do just that. A Druid in the Council of Necromancers, for example. These organisations are bigger and much, much more important in the overall scheme of things than the many characters that make up their numbers.

Generally, however, it has to be said that the interests of the organisations concerned and the players that rise to lead them fall pretty much in line, so none of this is an issue.

Holding the leadership position within two sympathetic organisations is not double the amount of leadership. And if leadership is putting such an incredible stress on the leader, I question their decision to continue in the position. It's a game, you're supposed to enjoy it



If, and I mean if it ever got to the point that it was causing an obvious problem, the solution is simple. The powers that be decide to block dual leadership from that point on. If there are characters with multiple leadership positions that are causing a problem, remove one or both of the flags.

Nothing's coded. Nothing's broken. Leadership flags are assigned by the Staff. The supervision and rules pertaining to their allocation can be managed by policy.



If inactive or inattentive leadership was the hemlock for cabals and tribunals that you seem to suggest it is, they'd all have died long ago. The grass-roots membership defines the quality and potential of any organisation.



I assume you mean if you believe

Actually, my cards on the table, if I had my way I'd actually remerge the various tribunals with their original cabals. Giving player groups territorial law immunity and the ability to order their affiliated law NPCs was one of the best changes I've ever seen implemented in SK. With pure hindsight, I believe splitting the Cabals into Cabals and Tribunals to do so was a mistake.

But I appreciate I hold a minority view on this, and appreciate this is likely never going to happen. We've come too far down this particular road, and besides, it's not a road without redeeming features of its own.

So I can't say this bothers me too much. And to be honest, opening up the possibility of dual membership would be almost as good as remerging them in my view.

Especially if you allowed the possibility of joint leadership, even if at first this were only by keeping the flexibility to allow such within the code, and not actually a privilage that was ever entrusted to anybody until it was certain all the various teething problems that dual membership in any form is inevitably going to bring up had been identified and resolved.

It isn’t a matter of might or might not, it is a matter of when and how bad. By having leaders be dual members, there is a leader that will have effective control of both organizations. Either by directly leading both or having command of a member that leads another organization. Either way, one of the organizations' integrity is compromised. No matter how closely a cabal’s ideals are seem to those of a tribunal, they are not the same as that of any tribunal. If a tribunal gains control of a cabal, that cabal then MUST act in the best interest of the tribunal irregardless of what is in the best interest of that cabal. Same is true if a cabal gains control of a tribunal.

This does not even touch on the fact that OOC cliques are empowered even more under such circumstances or that dual leadership very likely could become no more then a merger. Maybe that is the goal of some that support Dual Leadership, I don’t know.

When approaching any significant change, one must prepare for the “lowest common denominator”. Failing to plan for this is a major reason CRS is widely considered more detrimental then beneficial. Mass inductions happened because numbers meant power and off hour raids happened because then defenses were low. I mention just those two issues because they show not only how someone will act in their own self interest but how you must plan for the “lowerst common denominator”. Allowing dual leadership you are allowing the “lowest common denominators” to merge a cabal and a tribunal. And if that shows to have an advantage then all others will be forced into a merge, just as all cabals had to up their numbers for CRS once one did.



There is absolutely no punishment for being gifted. If you wish to lead then you choose to give up dual membership. THAT IS A CHOICE NOT A PUNISHMENT. If you are speaker of the house and you want to be the President of the United States of America, if you are elected then you must give up your role as speaker of the house. That isn’t a punishment.



Again I’m totally lost on how this is a punishment. If someone wants to be a leader of an organization, then they can but at a cost. Costs are not punishments. If I want to be a lawyer, I must go to school and work hard in law school. That is not a punishment for showing the initiative to become a lawyer. The time, money, and effort are all costs that I would pay to reach that goal.



Wait, so you are saying if I have really good RP I should be allowed to play a deep elf paladin or a elven necromancer? Guess what, you are told all the time in the game there are things you can’t do. By simply looking at how the game works, its obvious that it isn’t meant to be as broadly interpreted as is being used here.

More importantly, right now players are not allowed to be in more then one organization and this has never been deemed to be any kind of violation of the “you can’t do that” policy. Hence, it can’t be a violation of said policy to allow non-leader characters more freedoms then they had before. After all, the leaders are losing nothing, it’s just the other members that gain something.



This statement I find the most confusing for one simple reason. I offered a compromise where leaders would receive some kind of compensation for not being allowed to be dual members. If the compensation is equal to the tactical draw of being a dual member, there will be no shortage of leaders. To deny the compromise solution so out of hand I find dubious.

On another note, I believe leaders will be found without any extra compensation. After all a leader gains access to a greater range of powers though the members he leads. He will also have access to the influence they peddle in other organization. Ultimately, with dual leadership there will be no influence peddling RP or infiltration RP or any kind of RP that goes deeper with a political edge. Because as one organization become the extension of another, the leader has the ability to make sure all members belong only to his two organizations.

Lei Kung

I think you are a class act by being up front and honest about what you think and where you stand. Others in this thread have not and it is a shame because they are transparent. Even though we disagree, I respect you for stepping up like that.

Lei Kung

It's obvious that the Druid leaders of CoN in my example(or any other strange combo anyway) won't make their cabal identities and plans known, until they are well established in leadership and they have support from other druid recruits as well. Once they know well enough they have the power to be unstoppable, unless an immortal interferes, they will make their plans known. And in this case, the QQ about favoritism starts, because immortals allowed them through dual membership of leaders to set up their big RP, to wait and make all the background work, and when it was about to happen, the patron stopped it.

After all, if some things are to remain static(I think that's the idea), such strange combos should be forbidden from the start.

Sure a druid initiate or elder can join CoN as a member to be a spy according to you, but he shouldn't be allowed to gain leadership. Generally leaders have too much power in their hands so they must restrict themselves to one organization. Unless we don't want groups to be player run anymore and we want everything(and I mean everything) to go through immortal approval. Things like "QQ we, all Adepts, were deported from Krychire and that's BS" etc etc.

As for what is the point of going leader if you are to lose powers and all, I'd still prefer to have the power of a tribunal leader than just being a member and having a cabal's skills/spells as well. The gap between a tribunal member and a tribunal leader is huge, both in mechanics capabilities and RP capabilities. The same, to a lesser extent though, applies for cabal leaders.

This is all I'm going to address at this point because I'm quite tired: you had better not be referring to me in the bolded text.

I made it extremely clear in threads preceding this one that I was in favor of remerging tribunals and cabals, but Dulrik said that it had zero chance of happening. Absolute zero. However, he said, there was a chance at dual membership.

So LK, unless you have a list of everyone who posted in those preceding threads, I suggest you give an apology to whoever it is you were pointing that vague finger at. And have the decency to use their name(s) rather than vague slander that blackens the name of everyone disagreeing with you by omission.

I will reply to the rest either later today or tomorrow.

He meant me, not you.

That doesn't make character assassination (too strong a phrase, but still) in an attempt to validate your argument any more morally appropriate.

Oh, I'm pretty sure he means me. Not only has Lei accused me of this before, but I was urging the very same leadership rule he adopted. I'm sure my change in position is annoying.

But ... it's a real change in position. If we're going to have dual membership, I now think it's better to let cabals take over tribunals, if they're so inclined. As Tatali0n said, we get most of the advantages of merging while still allowing for single membership. And we don't get the OOC mess of anti-collusion rules and the like. We're more likely to get good RP this way.

The downsides are that we lose a good chunk of current tribunal RP, and we reduce the opportunities for multiple conflicting cabals in an organization. I've finally decided the first is a given anyway if we pick dual membership, and I've never been a fan of the second. That last is amply demonstrated in past pages, if someone cares to play archeologist.

I even agree with Tatali0n that immortal intervention would stop anything really silly, such as Druids taking over the Northern Wastes. I'd just have the immortals wait until the Druids actually try getting rid of the undead. THEN the necromancers can destroy the leaders, as their nature demands.

For my part, I'm not dismissing it out of hand. I've considered it, and I'm content to dismiss it anyway. Two reasons.

a) It requires code. Which means there's no going back because of the investment. I'd rather leave the possibility of dual leadership open and simply have it unavailable through policy. That leaves the possibility of evolution with no wasted investment.

b) The idea is twinky. There's a word I've not seen in a while. But the idea of giving a buff to somebody because they've tagged the leadership slot is entirely wrong and will attract exactly the wrong sort of people to the job. The reward of leadership is leading. The perks that come with it should only be the perks necessary to do your job. Not some special leadership equivilent of the hero amulet.