Shattered Kingdoms

Discussion point: Cabals must be secret
It seems unnecessary to lump all cabals into this generic category. Some cabals are by nature more secret than others. Adepts and Harlequins would be the most secretive. Hammer and Fist the least. Midnight and Druid would probably fall somewhere in-between. My point here is that Fist doesn't need to be radically changed or its abilities "secret-ized" in order for some of the other proposals to work. Just leave them public.

Obviously I've never been a big proponent of the secrecy thing. In the past it led to exclusion and stagnation. Many of you were either not around "in the old days" or see them through rose-colored glasses, but I had to deal with the consequences. There was almost always at least one cabal that was dying or dead due to lack of members. Immortals had to spend a lot more time back then just keeping the groups alive.

What happens if a leader successfully commands both, then effectively merges them and shows to be an advantage over other? Well the others will then work to accomplish the same. Then instead of having what Dual Membership set out to do, we will have effectively a merger. Not to mention it does not promote influence peddling or spy RPs because it promotes leaders taking control of other organizations and “locking them down”. In other words, it promotes almost total goal failure.



This is and absolutely ASININE argument. How can it be too OOCly restrictive when currently no one can be a member of more then one organization and that ISN’T too restrictive? Compared to now, which is considered fine by the “you can’t do that” policy, nothing is lost. Therefore, it cannot violate the “you can’t do that” policy. This is a logically impossible argument and to state it makes no sense.




Again, it promotes goal failure on all levels and promotes a limiting of RP and tactical opportunities compared to when leaders are not allowed to control two organizations. How you ask. Simple, when two organizations effectively merge that then eliminates influence peddling and spy RP by any other organization. Also, it then limits the combination of Dual Membership because now a cabal and tribunal is effectively closed off due to merger. Lastly, forces one organization to be an extension of the other, thereby destroying the organizational integrity and RP of the subservient organization.

One last point, by not allowing leaders Dual Membership, RPs that are power struggles actually are encouraged. Even if the leader is no long a member, they are sympathetic to the cabal’s cause. As tribunal members maneuver to gain control, cabals will still have a vested interest, but not a controlling one. This will promote such RPs and give them greater depth.

Lei Kung

Two things D, first it isn't that they must be secret. It is their members must have the ability to remain secret if they so choose. This is a big difference.

Second, secrecy wasn't why membership was so limited. It was because the leaders made it exclusive and made the induction process much more difficult then it is now. I would like to see cabals become more elite but that doesn't mean number will shrink. Because of Dual Membership, I see cabals being more elite because to be effective they need higher standards of RP and therefore demand it out of their members. Another reason why leaders need to have greater ability rein in members.

Lei Kung

You read the help files for the cabals lately? I think all but one mentions the word secrecy or intimates it by phrasing.

LK, I want my changes in a format that doesn't read like an Act from parliament. That's what I mean by 'too complicated'. To be honest, I don't like to read a lot of what you write, because I find you to be fairly boring and unable to accept anybody else's arguments. For example, I find it quite funny indeed that you say Amadeo's being asinine when he says something goes against the spirit of the game, when you quite happily wave the same flag on your side of the fence, saying that it doesn't go with what Dulrik wants.

But for your sake, I'll explain my argument further.

1. FIST should remain a cabal. You say that martial arts shouldn't be limited. Neither should skilled horseriding, but the Hammer have the monopoly there. Neither should the ability to charge, but the Hammer has that, too. Sorry, no. You can learn martial arts in SKs. It's called self defense, brawling, and even wild fighting, along with kick, trip, bash, dirt, and a number of other skills. If you want to RP a martial artist, great.

If you want to argue that the FIST shouldn't be a cabal, then you should argue with equal force that the adepts should just be disbanded and their spells be given to necromancers. The same with the Hammer to priests/paladins (or the creation of a generic knight class). Druids? Who needs them as a cabal when you can just have a druid class? Sorry, your argument just doesn't wash.

2. Leaders should be able to join a cabal and a tribunal, and become leaders of both if they are offered.

How's this. The mud says "We won't tell you 'you can't do that'". End of story. You're trying to say that no matter how good a person's RP is, no matter how skilled they are, no matter how much everyone loves them, the mud will still tell them "You can't do that". Despite common sense providing otherwise. How about this.

You're a secret leader of X cabal. Y tribunal says "Hey, want to join us?" It is completely in your RP to join that tribunal. You have to say "Gee, no, sorry... It's uh, just not right for me, you know?" - everyone immediately knows you are a leader of some cabal. The same deal with being offered leadership. GEE MAN THAT'S NOT TRANSPARENT AT ALL, I WONDER IF UR the LEADER OF ANOTHER ORGANISATIONS?!??!

Seriously, it's not only a bad idea, it's a bloody stupid one. Sure, at some points someone's RP will cause them to dominate entire countries, but so what? It's RP, dude. You're saying NO NO NO WE CAN'T HAVE THAT KIND OF RP BCOZ SOMEONE MIGHT HAVE SIMILAR RPS WITH A CABAL AND A TRIBZ. That's not real solid, and is completely counter-productive to the spirit of the game and the idea of roleplay in general. It's not merging the cabal and the tribunal back together. Cabals and tribunals often have similar goals and work together. That doesn't mean that they're merged, and I don't think for a second any leader's going to last too long who insists on having members of his tribunal be members of his cabal. It'd be too limiting. ALSO, tribunals and cabals serve very different functions. As I've stated elsewhere, their RP and function would by necessity be different.

I think I've made my opinion known in the last thread. I'll leave it to whoever to decide upon its merits or otherwise. I'm done with this discussion.

Unless this thread reaches 60 pages, in which case I reserve the right to reconsider

Because you're not only talking about dual membership, but several other major systemic changes. The merits of each can be addressed one by one, but we're already moving into our 70th page of discussion on this. There's something to be said for looking just at what dual membership needs to work, and setting up other discussions for other features.



It was a significant reason. I know I wasn't the only cabal seeker to simply give up because I couldn't find my cabal of choice, or even confirm it still existed. Too much secrecy isn't good for the game.

But, in the interests of moving back to things of more relevancy to dual membership itself, let's look at two other things.



If you're arguing in favor of dual membership, you're essentially saying that the current membership rules are too restrictive, right?

But more seriously, the value of an OOC rule is in whether it helps the game enough to be worth the cost. The current rule against dual membership helps with balance, and it also keeps groups focused. The leader can expect, if not total loyalty, at least a reasonable semblance.

Now I agree your leader limitations provide some value too. Cabal takeover of tribunals is not optimum. But you need not only this rule, but rules against ill-defined collusion that immortals have to monitor. In the end, I don't want OOC rules driving induction that much.

And if we toss out the anti-collusion rule, there's no merit in keeping the leadership restrictions around. In themselves, they can't protect tribunals from takeover - we've already discussed this at length. So, IMO, leadership restrictions no longer meet the test of sufficient merit. Tribunals may well lose their focus, but at least they'll do so ICly.



Here's a place where I disagree with both proposals. Oathbreaker is an example of a good OOC rule. It helps people get into organizations, since leaders can be less paranoid. It also helps organizations stay cohesive, and that will be even more vital when dual membership threatens to split loyalties. Why change it?

We have a merger, that has a high probability of also catching the eye of others as 'oh hells no,' and promoting external conflict. Such as the nature of alliances as they work in the game now.

Far as locking things down, it would also IMHO step things up. As you mentioned somewhere, there are inate conflicts of interests between each organization. When someone attempts to, and especially when someone would gain more power, the more likely it is someone else from with-in the group that was 'taken over' is going toward taking posession back. I guess where you see failure, I see greater potential for conflict/counter coops/larger scale struggles for power. Because every group has some conflicts of interests from another, I don't see the road as remotely easy for someone who takes over a second group. I don't see most members tolerant of the change. I guess the danger would be when the new leader themselves realize this, and kick everyone out to do... what you propose to be the problem. I guess... points taken?


Respectfully, I am not going to bother replying to the rest of your reply. If you want to flame, do it elsewhere.

Well that answers the who, it is “too complicated” for you, not for it to be effective or in any other respect. It also answers the how, it is like reading an Act from parliament. Again that says nothing about the content. So your comment says nothing about the actual effectiveness or even the steps it takes.



Fair enough, I’m not writing to be entertaining but to clearly make my points. Although, if you don’t read them I really don’t understand how you can make informed arguments contrary to them. It is your choice of course.


I find this interesting because here you are trying to defame me to make your stance stronger. In fact you became the internet tough guy when you thought I was doing that very thing. Point of fact, I have never defamed you trying to make myself look stronger. I find such tactics unethical and it doesn’t actually prove anything about either person’s point of view.

More importantly, I have adapted my stance on this very issue due to strong points being made. It isn’t my fault that I’ve put more time and work into developing this idea then anyone else and therefore have already dealt with many of the points being made. And if you’ve paid any attention to my posting over the years you will see that I do listen to others because the way I argue is to concede or contend their arguments point by point. Not agreeing and debating a person is not the same as not being able to see their points.



Well I’m guessing this point is made because as you said you don’t read all of what I write. I called the “you can’t do that argument” asinine because it doesn’t logically hold up. I will repeat it for you. Right now, no one is allowed to join more then one organization for any reason. This is not considered to violate the “you can’t do that” policy. Then any greater freedoms in that vein cannot be considered a violation of the “you can’t do that” policy because the directly more restircitve form is not in violation.

This is in no way hypocrisy. Granted the “you can’t do that” policy was started by Dulrik, but he has also declaired that elves can’t be necromancers. Hence, we can see it isn’t as broadly applied across the board. Moreso, Dulrik explicitly said he isn’t in favor of a merger. Hence, there is no contradiction.



With as antagonistic as you have been I hate to admit you have a point. One could consider self-defense, brawling, wild fighting, etc. to be a form of martial arts. I will say that those don’t effectively allow someone that isn’t a fist member to be a martial artist. But that is actually an entirely different discussion, so for the moment I will concede the point. I won’t quote the other part of your argument since I’ve already conceded it, and therefore no reason to go into why I disagree.



As I’ve already clearly pointed out in this thread, the “you can’t do that” policy does not logically apply in this instance. Common sense says if I can’t currently but that is okay, then any change that means after it I still can’t then must be okay.



Are you serious? There are countless reasons why someone might choose not to join any given organization. No one immediately knows anything about your character other then he does not wish to join.


I’ll just I disagree with your opinion. In fact I think it is a brilliant idea, but that is just our difference of opinion.



Let me start with an example. A person could commit the most horrible rape scene upon anOOCly unwilling player. This might be completely within the RP established by the perpetrator but because of other concerns it is not something that is allowed according to the TOS. As much as I don’t want to hinder RP, there are specific times when other concerns must take precedent. So what isn’t a good enough answer, in fact it isn’t an answer to the problem of players being able to circumvent Dual Membership and create a merger. Out of personally curiosity do you fight for leaders having dual membership so that you or someone else can bring about mergers?


I agree and this isn’t what I’m talking about. So this is a non-issue.


The only way to deal with this is with immortal intervention. This would also lead to an outcry by the ones the immortals acted against because the game allows them to act in such a way. Then you would have a legitimate reason for applying the “you can’t do that” policy because an immortal is stopping you from doing something the game clear would be allowing you. Nothing short of immortal intervention or doing something to get the leader to delete would cause that leader to not “last long”.


Again I agree with you that tribunals and cabals serve different functions. But because of this the organizations goals can come into conflict. In such situations one organization’s interests will be dismissed in favor of the other. Take for example, a leader grabs control of the hammer and the talons. The hammer needs to charge off and destroy some RP that the Northern Wastes have started. The best interest of the talons is to remain uninvolved. Either the leader decides to do nothing, violating the spirit of the hammer or he charges off and draws the talons into a war that is against the nation’s best interests. Clearly, one organization’s interests must be subservient to the other’s interst.

Lei Kung

Before I reply:



P-p-p-paradox!

That is a fair definition. Although, I would argue that to meet the goals the steps listed are needed or some other proposal that meets them is. Believe it or not, when I started thinking about Dual Membership, which goes back to when I was upstairs, I started out with simple Dual Membership. What you see now is the evolution of anticipating problems and finding dynamic/synergistic solutions to them.


Again, fair enough. I should say then, I never had a problem locating members of any given cabal. Also note back in the day I only gamed with 2-5 friends OOCly and the information I found was IC. I would summit that if I can do it anyone can, but that doesn’t mean others didn’t give up because they couldn’t find members. I still believe there were much larger issues on why membership was limited. Although, with the proposal noted in the beginning of this thread, cabals gain power through influence peddling. By limiting the number of members the cabal would limit its ability to wield influence. What is more important is that the members have a strong ability to RP.


No, that is not what I’m saying. I don’t believe that membership rules are too restrictive unless you are solely talking about being allowed only one membership. And I’m arguing for that to change because of the depth of RP, the greater tactical choices, and the dynamic environment that dual membership would create. Those advantages really don’t have anything to do with current membership restrictions other then the advantages aren’t possible under single membership.


The anti-collusion rule has come into question and I feel this is because many don’t understand what I mean. Collusion is defined as “a secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose”. Now this the same type of rule that says multi-playing is illegal because it is something that happens OOCly to affect the game ICly. IC collusion would not be a problem because any leader, without taking OOC considerations into account, would see collusion that leads to merger as weakening their organization. I will go more into this upon request. Suffice it to say, the collusion rule is basically to prevent players from using the OOC to affect the IC.


Actually, the collusion rule is just to let players know if they try to circumvent the purpose of separate leadership by using OOC means will be punished. In fact if there is no separate leadership there is no need for collusion rule, but if there is no collusion rule there is still a need for separate leadership.

In regards to how separate leadership doesn’t meet the sufficient merit test does not apply. That is because the collusion rule is spawned of separate leadership and not the other way around. More importantly, the rule is no more invasive then the rule against multi-playing.

Lastly, I disagree with your stance on oathbreaker and discharge, but I need to take a little break from typing, so I’ll attempt to deal with that later.

Lei Kung