Shattered Kingdoms

Nah. Go on, fix 'em. I dare yah

He's.. fixed me before. :|

I don't really understand the purpose of restricting a character to one cabal or tribunal. Unlike religions, cabal leaders and kingdoms cannot keep a character's 'soul' when they join. It's like the immortals own any character that devotes themselves to a church, but cabals are more like jobs. The only thing this oathbreaker flag restricts is the freedom to play. If you expect 75% of the playerbase to be in a group, it's pretty hard unless all these characters are young. If you have any character that's old, chances are he will have conflicts with the cabal. With religious characters, there can be certain situations where they must go against their cabal in order to remain true to their church. I think most cabals and tribunals allow members the option to put their religion ahead of the cabal.

Sad to say, cabals and tribunals have a lot of ooc set-ups. Sometimes a player is not capable of leadership but he's put into the situation because his friend passes it down, or there isn't anybody else to take over. Then other characters are mass inducted or uninducted for very minor reasons, and that affects perhaps hundreds of hours that a player has spilled into a character.

Sure there are times when a character does break an oath, but probably many times when they are not "oathbreakers" in an rp sense. Different people ask for different oaths when being inducted, and perhaps not even at all if the leader was on drugs. When someone moves from place to place, what is restricting them from serving another kingdom other than this oathbreaker flag? Trust? Considering that some groups can change drastically from leader to leader (such as the hammer which can be anything from passive to pkilling frenzy in a matter of weeks), resigning from said cabal is probably less of a change for this character than continuing under new rules and leadership. I don't see how this can make the character defective and not worthy of trust.

So what grand scheme does this oathbreaker flag fit into? I cannot understand it if the idea is to make more people join cabal/tribunals, then why take away the option to change, or even the option to look into each case individually? 1 in 100 does not count as an option. Ultimately, disallowing older characters to change only drives them into deletion. We're talking races that can be played for hundreds of IC years, and they are not allowed to change their views on government with this oathbreaker flag. Even in real life you have brash young rebels who turn conservative immediately after holding control, then they change all their policies.

Well said.

You have to accept the IC consequences of your IC actions. If you ICly choose to join one cabal or tribunal, so be it, you've joined it. You join them for life. I don't know what kind of cabal or tribunal leader would WANT an ex-member of another cabal or tribunal. After all, you've forsaken what are supposed to be lifelong vows.

If you've been discharged by a new upcoming leader, that too is IC. What tribunal or cabal leader would want to induct a new member who foolishly chose not to make a strategic alliance with someone who was one day going to decide their fate? Not one, in my very humble opinion, who was in fact fit to be a leader. Of course, one might also argue that there are very few able leaders to go around in this mud, and they all tend to stick together (not that I am one to argue that point).

So I suggest that when it is made VERY clear to you that you will only be able to join one such global organisation, that you choose very carefully, and when within such organisations, I also suggest that you forge alliances, if not close friendships, with everybody within it. In my experience, stabbing people in the back and making a nuisance of yourself is not the way to stay in a cabal.

I disagree that this applies to cabals. Tribunals yes, but cabals no. When you've chosen to follow a cabal you've chosen a way of living life. For example you do in fact take a Blood Oath and give your soul to the Dark gods, when you join the Adepts. If you choose to follow the Hammer you have in fact dedicated your life to a fanatical belief for the Light gods. I could give examples for each cabal, but we'll move on because you have some very valid points I'd like to touch on.



Here again I tend to disagree. But I'll give you history as example. Feudal times saw several kings some of good rapport others of ill rapport rise to power. The Knights under them didn't have a choice in whether they wanted to follow them or not. To not swear allegiance was to die (a quite permanent death). So although your character may not agree with the current leader's 'style' perhaps you should play the role of the quiet disagreement. Or, suffer the IC consequences of defying your Leader.



Agreed this can and does happen. And is pretty [REDACTED] when it does. As a leader I when my time is over I strive to put in the most qualified individual not the closest friend I have. This is the one argument I'd have against the OathBreaker flag. Imo, you should always be allowed BACK into the ORIGINAL cabal you joined. Thus it would motivate thrown characters to attempt to place coup'detats or long lived characters the option of getting back when a good leader takes control.



The sad truth is most characters don't last a RL year let alone long enough to aptly earn the trust of a new organization enough to join it. Which is partly why we have a 1 in 100 chance. Because characters that are not 3 months old are asking to cabal hop.

Now if its a character who through exceptional RP has proven they have changed their mindset and way of doing things and continued to show exceptional dedication to their character for a good length of time in this new mindset. Then you could very well be that 1 in 100 chance. But the sad truth is no one has patience enough to do that, or dedication to their character enough to do that, when they could just level a new character to 50 in that amount of time.

To which I say, to each his own.

I've seen a couple try to pull it off Kalum. They were denied access from a tribunal to a cabal of fairly similar mindset.

If there indeed is such a character, trust me when i say he shall go totaly un-noticed. The 1 in 100 chance depends on two factors and they are both clear.

1) Have a friendly Cabal/Tribunal leader, spoken to OOCly who would be interested into RPing with you and letting you in.

2) Have a friendly immortal willing to participate and make this scheme come true. Or on the other hand, have no hostile immortal(s) willing to do anything to let you burn and, pretend they're innocent.


I understand Cabal hopping to be forbidden, as Cabals are indeed the lifestyle you lead.
I dont understand dissallowing an ex Tribunal member, join a diferent tribunal after he moves to another kingdom, or being invested into a Cabal.

I would agree with most of Kalum's replies (yes, even when he disagrees with what I wrote previously), but I think the most important point is that the flag limits the times when there are "exceptions".

I mean, how many movies or stories have something where a new leader, or one who goes crazy, strays from certain virtues (either the oaths of a tribunal or cabal in the case of SK) because he is influenced by some external group or because he is simply different in mindset. Then some loyal followers who think themselves to be right rebel from the leader, get kicked out, do a bunch of stuff, defeat the new leader and put themselves in their place? We've seen similar things in Gladiator and Lord of the Rings. However, now this cannot happen in SK without many OOC considerations and rules.

The problem I see is that with the flag, any IC decision is very much tainted with OOC consideration. Sure, your righteous character could fight the new leader's "evil ways" and stay true to his idea of the oath he took, but then you would never get back into the cabal because you're an oathbreaker. It is now turned into something about stats, flags and other OOC things that I thought this mud is trying to stay away from.

As for the example of taking a blood oath, something like the adepts, you're going to have some different restrictions depending on whether the leader is a diabolical necro or an aberrant hellion. What if for example, the hellion is ordered to horribly multilate and kill a sworn brother, where one oath comes in conflict with another? There could be many outcomes in real life, but probably only one in SK. Kick his [REDACTED] or get your [REDACTED] kicked out of the cabal with no chance of return.

I suppose the flag was integrated to stop problems of cabal hopping within a matter of weeks, and for that it works. There are just too many holes in the policy. The imms seem totally against the idea of any characters from switching cabals/tribunals that it can discourage people from keeping their characters for a long time, simply because they are "screwed" by a flag.

Agreed. 1 in 100 might be a bit of an exaggeration. Just bear in mind that most of the playerbase considers themselves to be an 'exception' which is why we've had to implement the enmity files and other such restrictions.



Here is where SK is played. It took me a long time to figure this out, by the way, and I used to try and push things ICly. But what one needs to realize is to seperate IC from OOC. That being said, how SK is played basically is setup things on an OOC level and play them through on an IC level. Does this mean we need to script everything? no, some things can happen purely IC and other things take IC twists and turns. But major changes such as CoupD'Etats and Gladiator type scenarios have to happen on an OOC level first. Once one understands that, you've mastered SK. Remember Gladiator was first scripted and then acted upon (as a movie). And SK is more akin to a movie than RL, as I have thought all RPGs are more akin to movies than RL.



Yes and no. If you hang onto your character I can pretty much garauntee you that you'll outlive the leader in question. In my character's (not even RL year yet) I've seen something like 12 leaders of various organizations come and go. Some of them multiple times. Again instant gratification is just not going to happen when you're working with these types of things on SK.



Here again, keeping your character for a long time in the first place would make you an exception to the norm. I agree that you should be able to re-join a cabal/tribunal you've been ousted from.

And I agree that if you move countries and prove yourself over time you should be able to switch tribunals. But those are both time investments. And I maintain that my argument is most people don't have the patience to play through such an event.