Playing a noble

[Revelations]

I am a bit ambivalent right now, the idea of only the templarate holding the power might be interesting, but I think there'd need to be a much deeper/more transparent differentiation of different branches of the templarate.

I agree in some regards. If the lirathan order was to be implemented again, and with two or three templars for each order, I think there would be enough scheming between the templarate to still have the political edge in Tuluk. IMO, that alone is still not enough to make a strong arguement for getting rid of the PC nobility in Tuluk, but when the Merchant Houses are brought into the picture, things become just a little more interesting. They could fill some of the roles that PC nobilty have - and give most of the rest to the templarate - as they vie for influence with templars and with the populace. Merchants would need to make the citizen happy, as well as the templarate, and would act sorta of like middle ground, almost like how Allanaki nobility between the Highlord/templarate and commoners but without the nobles' pomp and status. It would still bring normal PCs things to do, but would also raise the expectations that northern merchants would have to meet.

The only problem that I see with this is that it wouldn't solve the problem of concentrating nobles in the south, since the new role that merchants could play would attract some of the players of nobles. Unless there are more people willing to play merchants than nobles, it wouldn't really solve much, but that's just me speculating.

From OOC, player's point of view, nobles of Northern concept is far more useful for roleplay. They meet with the Commoners all the time (they don't have a separate tavern after all). They work with them, they are supposed to pay artists (thus allowing Bards of the Circles a steady income), to hire people, to be busy in public a lot. Yes, a southern noble player could play around this by claiming his PC to be a 'people person' but that's really just a lame excuse. Yes, it would be bad to think that Northern Nobles really care about Commoners. Hell, they're one different caste (yes, one thing even players in the North often miss). Commoners are disposable tools for nobles, and they most likely realize that - it's their social role. The further we're getting from the Rebellion, the deeper (and more allanak-ish) this difference will be. And that's good. There is some kind of a truce between Nobles and Commoners, though. They are supposed to, and they actually -do- work together. An independant can be very easily hired by a noble for a one-time, menial task, because there is no problem for the independant to get in touch with a noble. You say that it's just the same with Allanak? Then there's something wrong.

The new role that merchants could play would fill this gap that you imply northern nobles have, if not slightly better in some ways. And there -is- a difference between Nakki nobles and Tuluki, well at least there should be. The big thing with Nakki nobles currently, from how I see it, is that they set themselves far apart from the commoners because they always have been. Tuluki nobles, because of the Nakki occupation, needed to work with and amidst commoners, sorta of blurring the lines, which is why northern nobles would likely act as you said - more "people person"ish.

IMHO, Tuluki nobles, when played properly, can be much more useful for players, OOCly, than Allanak nobles... when played properly.

Not necessarily true. Although there is a large gap between Allanaki nobility and the commoners (which I, being the Nakki loyalist that I am, think Zalanthas needs more than the blurred outlook that northern nobles have with their citizens) PC nakki nobles still need the participation of commoners for their image. As the Allanaki nobility docs state, the commoners feel alot better trusting nobles than the mysterious and feared templarate, which is one of the main reasons the nobility of Allanak exist. So, nakki nobles don't exclude the normal PC populace entirely, and likely interacts with them almost as much as a Tuluki noble would, in an OOC standpoint.

And, if noble players -were- to be played correctly, then their interaction with commoners would not be as frivolous as you say. To a noble, commoners are practically mere items to them, it is only more highly emphasized in Allanak than in Tuluk for reasons stated above. IMO, by seeing a more general presence of nobles in public, the PCs fear/respect of them dwindles OOCly due to constant exposure, as with alot of things such as magick. By keeping them mostly out of sight from public view as in Nak, nobles garner more of the feelings that players -should- have of them.

Whew, I hope you're still following me.  :wink:

[Vox]

Regarding Tenneshi mirroring House Tor... Yeah I seem to recall back when the House first emerged there was some talk of them contributing significantly to the defense of Tuluk... But after reading the break down of Nobility on the General Information page... I stand corrected.

But after perusing the description of the duties of these 'Noble' Houses:
1) Tenneshi employs artisans and craftsmen, and controls water.
2) Winrothol provides trained warrior-slaves to the Legion

So Winrothol is a combination of Borsail and Tor... and Tenneshi, well they seem like the Custodians of the city. Just like Jal... who even created the sewer system beneath Allanak.

In short... Winrothol=Borsail/Tor
Tenneshi=Jal

Laeris put alot of work into the whole subject and for that he gets my respect, but I don't think the turkey is done... It needs to bake a bit more and needs to be basted lovingly.(don't we all  :mrgreen:  )

I don't think anyone is suggesting 'scrap it all', we're just suggesting a redistribution of responsibility for the purpose of a better RP experience all around.

[Jherlen]

Thirdly, I do think closing the northern nobility would help noble roles as a whole by concentrating them in a single area again.  Familiarity breeds contempt and the more peers someone has to roleplay with the chances for interaction/conflict/plots/creativity increases exponentially with each additional noble in a city.  I understand why people think that it would be harmful for Tuluk but in looking back at how the nobles were reintroduced to Tuluk (from my perspective it was from out of nowhere and voila, instant tiered society) I'm not sure that would be the case.  A city ruled by templars who are constantly being wooed by this merchant house or this rich trader seems like an interesting change from Allanak.  There could be divisions within either Templar order, similar to the Allanaki templars but allowed for player characters, for templars that watch over the city's trade, infrastructure and safety.  These divisions of power could be just one way that templars would find strife/politics between each other as a templar in charge of trade tries to thwart a rivals plan from the infrastructure division to make a road change that would lower the profitabilty of a given street corner, etc.  The best part about the notion of closing the northern nobility is that it doesn't need to be permanent.  If after a certain timeframe it's determined the playerbase is better served by having them open for play that can be done, obviously.

Lastly, I'd like to see Tuluk exert more control over it's surrounding environment and the relatively large cache of raw materials nearby.  Similar to how Allanak has control of all nearby crop-bearing fields, Tuluk should be taking control of the forests and the grasslands in some portion.  Making the best or most accessible areas the domain of one or another merchant house (at a premium, of course) I think would help put a little much needed squeeze on the independents and making playing for a merchant house, a necessity if the nobles are closed, more appealing not just for monetary sake but for the increased chances for outdoorsy gameplay, something I know I sorely miss when relegated to guard-bot duty.

Amazingly well said.

I still disagree with the logic that southern houses will have no one to fight against without the presence of Winrothol and Tenneshi. How much direct plotting has gone on between northern and southern noble houses recently? (Okay, okay, find out IC, you don't have to say it.) But that aside, Borsail and Oash and Tor (and the six other virtual nakki houses) are hardly all buddy buddy with each other. I think we could find PLENTY for these houses to fight over amongst themselves with. And since Allanaki politics don't have to be 'subtle', these plots would be farther out in the open and do their part to suck more unaffiliated PCs in, willingly or otherwise.

If we're really worried about the lack of people in Tuluk being able to be recruited into clans, lets make it so that more PCs in Tuluk will want to join up with who's there. A Lirathan order, and several more Jihaen templars, along with Legion sergeants, would help this. All four merchant Houses could stand to be represented more in the north than they are now, this could help recruiting as well. Even the Byn or other smaller mercenary groups might work. Tuluk is a "tribal" society, everyone says, so it strikes me that most people would want to be able to claim membership to a tribe/House/clan in order to get by. The society could frown down on those who weren't a part of anything bigger than just themself.

I'd like to really see how this goes. An experiment doesn't seem like it could hurt. If it does, we can always go back to the way things are now.

Another point to make regarding low numbers in nobles and clans - everyone can agree bringing more players to the game is good and will help that. Go vote!

[Tamarin]

I played a bastard noble once.  It was fun enough, I suppose, but I probably wouldn't do it again.  I've just grown out of imm-sponsored roles.

[Delirium]

The Lirathan Order is a very tough role, and that might be part of the reason why it was pulled.  A look at making it a little more approachable might be in order, but I won't go into further detail here.

[purity]

There is still one Lirathan PC left.  I'd like to see the Order reopened to more once some of the difficulties are worked out.

[Angela Christine]

Leadership positions make me cringe. I hate feeling like I HAVE TO LOG ON, or else I'm a BAD LEADER who is RUINING OTHER PLAYERS ENJOYMENT and will likely see a dozen HOW TO ROLEPLAY A LEADER posts on the GDB due to my ineptitude.
Whether I'm a Byn Sergeant or a noble, I'd rather lead a pack of rabid halflings than other players. I don't want Arm to feel like a responsibility. I have enough of that in real life.

Exactly.  I would only want to be a noble, templar or sargeant in a clan that had at least 2 or 3 other nobles/templar/sargeants at the same time.  I don't want a whole clan (plus everyone that wants to deal with a "leader" of that clan) waiting for me, watching me, judging me.  If I am the only one, or even one of two, I feel responsible for a lot of stuff that shouldn't be my character's problem, or any of thier business.

Like, suppose I was playing a Lirathan Templar.  The only Lirathan Templar.  And suppose further that there weren't any Jihaen templars around either.  I find out that the Legion PCs haven't been paid in a while.  This is so NOT my character's problem, Legionaires are not in her chain of command.  But I'm the only PC Templar . . . so the legion sort of is my responsibility.  Should I pay them?  I can certainly afford to, but it isn't something my PC should be doing.  Reporting it IC to my superiors would be pointless, it isn't their problem either.  Try to report it to a Jihaen or high-ranking legion NPC?  I'm not even sure if it is an IC problem or an OOC problem, there ought to be a paymaster or someone making sure the legions get paid, and probably the NPC legions are getting paid, so it probably isn't an IC situation where the payroll is going missing.  Argh!  Little situations like that pop up all the time for leader characters.  


I like it better when there are several people in leadership positions.  I've been in the Byn when there are 3 or 4 PC Sargeants/Lts, and it was great.  You have one Sergeant that you are primarly responsible to, and each sergeant has a squad of grunts that he is primarily responsible for, but most of the load is shared.  If the Sergeant of the Obsidian Wrists gets a contract she will try to take all of her own squad, but the if the Sand Jozhal's Sarge isn't around, she will probably take them along too.  If you have several nobles in a house one might take primary responsiblility for the military PC while another takes primary responibility for the servants, and the other noble (or two) might not be responsible for any PCs except her personal aides that she hired herself so she can devote herself to socializing and plotting, but any of the three can attempt to get any other PC in the clan involved in plots (it also gives lower ranking PCs in the clan the oportunity to play their "bosses" against one another).

Being the only "leader" in a clan sucks.  You, or your PC, may not have good leadership skills, the character may not have been designed as a leader.  Some nobles are just dilettantes, clothes horses, black sheep, bookish scholarls, bon vivants, spoiled rich kids, etc., they are not all ambitious senator wannabes or effective middle-mangement -- especially when young.  When there is just one leader that leader has to be effective, or the clan dies.  It is too restrictive, too stressful.


Angela Christine

[Ghost]

Leadership positions make me cringe. I hate feeling like I HAVE TO LOG ON, or else I'm a BAD LEADER who is RUINING OTHER PLAYERS ENJOYMENT and will likely see a dozen HOW TO ROLEPLAY A LEADER posts on the GDB due to my ineptitude.
Whether I'm a Byn Sergeant or a noble, I'd rather lead a pack of rabid halflings than other players. I don't want Arm to feel like a responsibility. I have enough of that in real life.

I am suffering this.  Badly.

[Delirium]

Leadership positions make me cringe. I hate feeling like I HAVE TO LOG ON, or else I'm a BAD LEADER who is RUINING OTHER PLAYERS ENJOYMENT and will likely see a dozen HOW TO ROLEPLAY A LEADER posts on the GDB due to my ineptitude.
Whether I'm a Byn Sergeant or a noble, I'd rather lead a pack of rabid halflings than other players. I don't want Arm to feel like a responsibility. I have enough of that in real life.

I am suffering this.  Badly.

Probably all leaders do at some point in time.

The best thing to do is keep a firm grasp on your character.  Don't let them become nothing but their job.  The other best thing to do is stay in close contact with your clan immortals and let them know if things are becoming too much.  The third thing to do is delegate.  Delegate, delegate, delegate.  Even if you're a control freak you have to learn to let others do at least some of your work for you.  No one person can do everything.  While they all answer to you, you can give them some of your grunt work, and as a side effect, they have more to keep them busy, and you get a bit of a load off your shoulders.  Works for everybody.

[Pantoufle]

Not all nobles are leaders.  While some may think this sentiment is going against the grain, consider that of the handful of nobles I've played, not one of them was ever in a position of authority (short of being able to hire personal aides, which doesn't make you a leader of people.)  To add to this, of the noble PCs I've encountered in my decade+ of playing this MUD, I've only encountered a few nobles who were assigned the role of "leader".  Being expected to motivate and move plotlines is a separate role from leadership.  A rag-clad beggar can move plotlines and motivate people to action just as well as a red-robed templar can.

[Revelations]

So what really is expected of a noble that makes the role feel like the player has to play the "leader"? At least that's what seems to be the popular sentiment.

[Bestatte]

In my observation as a non-leader player:

A noble player 'must' be able to come up with and drive plotlines. A non-noble player 'may' come up with an drive plotlines, and only "leadership" non-noble players are urged to do so (such as sergeants of military units/clans, senior aids/assistants, etc).

While one group is urged, encouraged, and even begged to guide others through accomplishing "things to do," it is the noble and templar who is looked to most, and ends up taking the brunt of the responsibility.

I don't say this as some official anything I've read in the docs, that the staff expects ALL noble players to run things. But rather, it is the game itself that is geared toward that, and the expectation, whether actual or merely perceived, exists.

[Jherlen]

So what really is expected of a noble that makes the role feel like the player has to play the "leader"? At least that's what seems to be the popular sentiment.

I've never played a noble, but here's my observation:

Noble roles have a lot of perks over other commoner roles in the game. The staff is setting you up with a character who is going to be respected, admired, feared, and privledged in whichever society they're in, simply because of their blood. Noble characters get set up with hefty allowances, npc guards, and use of their own estates, among other things. However, the staff isn't giving a noble's player all of this just to be nice. They expect the nobles to use their influence and money, engage/employ other players around them, rather than just sitting around acting important and using their stipend to buy every piece of clothing in the game. In that sense a noble could be considered a 'leader' role in OOC terms, because they're responsible by virtue of their IC influence and money to support their aides/spies/guards/etc and give them stuff to do.

[Pantoufle]

Jherlen pretty much sums up what I was trying to say.  

[spawnloser]

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Learn your lessons from Spiderman.  I'm done.

[jmordetsky]

..and other times it's like the advertisement was written in Esperanto because no one reacts to it.  

First off....Nice reference. I haven't heard that word since college.

Second: This is way out of line with the other posts on nobility. My issue isn't with the spread by rather with the mechanics. For me even if there was 50 noble PC in Allanak, the political banter without consequence or tangibles would still fizz out after a few days.

My personal issue with playing nobility, is that you have all this power to do all of these things, but you really have nothing tangible you have to accomplish.  As a result you end up doing the same stuff, paying spies gathering info, buying shit, paying people off. And at the same time there are very strict lines you cannot cross concerning intra-house interactions, which along with your OOC responsibilities can very, very restrictive.

When I was playing, I felt my characters aspirations for power and money were bascially in the hands of the Imms. I would position the character in various ways politcally which I felt would gain him the most favour with other houses and his superiors in hopes that this would win him more position in the organization he was in. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but it becomes to much of a subjective exercise. I feel that a nobles path to glory and status should be much more cut and dry.

This touches on what Vox, CRW and ERS have said, perhaps with more PC nobles your politcal base is much more real as it's either supported or not by actual PCs rather then virtually decided by the Imms.

The other thing is that, Nobles should have real responsibilities. Someone needs to look after Borsail's slaving interests, someone needs to be watching Oash's positions, Fale, etc. There are no tangibles for nobles. It's all politics...Which for me, get old...very quickly.

For example, if I play an indy hunter/mugger/miner, I'm responsible for getting myself food, water etc etc and my general focus is on staying alive. These are the things of my daily life that keep me busy durring lulls in plots. It keeps things interesting, and if a plot comes my way, well then cool. But the game remains fun, and I stay busy in the absence of plots.

However, when I play a noble or noble-like (I think this goes for the templarate and house leaders as well) there are no tangibles. Plots do surface, and there are things to investigate, but my feelings on these is that they are sporadic, and fairly slow moving, way to slow moving for my tastes. And they need to be, so that they can mature and involve alot of people,  but what it leads to is a serious lack of "wow" moments in the noble-likes life span (imho of course).

I would really like to see more weekly tangibles inflicted on leadership characters. For example, I think (barring a few minor issues), that Naiona's slavers post is a good step in this direction. If slavers had quotas or incentives to fill quotas, Nobles of slaving houses could be responsible for the motivation and cooridination of these operations, and would be held accountable for a dip in slave income, or would optionally have to earn their stipend by playing a role in this.

Another example would be force merchant house leaders to be more responsible for the daily operation of trade, importing obsidian coordianting wagon movement, etc etc.  You could also impose strategic acquisitions on War houses like Tor. Forcing them to provide support to keep caravans safe, raiders away etc.

I posted something concerning day to day minutia and tasks a while ago that I felt would make these roles more interesting, to more of the player base, but from the looks of the voting it may not be needed. *shrug* I guess to each their own.

EDIT: It might be an interesting exercise to look at the overlap of the various Noble houses, Merchants houses etc to determine where the most likely areas of conflict concerning control of the various interests in the city would be. And force some more competition for these areas.

One of the cooler things I saw while playing a noble, was one noble house creatively using the area it controlled to edge in on another noble houses territory. Was brilliant, but never matured, because really (i suspect) it was an Imm sponsored plot rather then a player's idea to make a play on tangibles.

Though I really don't know, something like this is a radically different way of looking at the world.

For example: What if Kurac decided it was going to start producing swords to sell to Tuluk? It would need to obtain obsidian from Allanank, it would need to get it to a production facility in Luirs, and then it would need to ship the swords to Tuluk under Salarr's nose. Maybe Salarr then tries to hire raiders to intecept the shipment, or tries to bully kurac politcally to get them to stop.

These are all things I beleive should be in player hands. It's much to static a world to make for interesting leadership positions as of now. I personally after my last foray into it am stearing well clear of them.

[Krath]

I agree with him 100%

[Cenghiz]

Just applied for my first noble. I'm waiting for the answers.. so..
Thanks to everyone for their opinions.. Now I feel clearer about my -hopefully- future role.

[Moofassa]

Nobles are rewarding, if you're willing to put in the work.

[Maybe42or54]

And you can't twink out your fighting skills with the common guards.
You have to twink them out with fellow nobles. Just hope to tek that one that fights comes around.