Crazy idea: open up all the noble houses.

[Marauder Moe]

No, wait!  Hear me out!

They don't need to be full-fledged clans.  One noble at a time with maybe one aide.  Each house noble would have a relativly simplistic goal that ties in with other people in the city without making them permanent employees.  Like, a House Rennik noble would have the goal of contracting hunters to bring in a variety of different plants.  House Fale could certainly seek out a few bards or artists.  House Sath might need experts in any number of subjects.  The rest of the time they can socialize with other nobles, amuse themselves with commoners, or any other noble pursuits.

You wouldn't need all of them open at once either.  Maybe just two noble roles for the "other" houses at a time per city.  Start with a Lord Jal and a Lord Kasix, once one of them dies/retires you advertise a position for a Lord Fale (or entertain player ideas for another house and it's goal).  This way, at most you're really only draining 2-4 PCs per city yet you give a presence to all the other noble houses.

Might at least be worth a try, like the halfling experiment.  Anyway, this idea came to me pretty quickly, so have at it everyone!  Where are it's flaws?

[LauraMars]

I really don't want to see nine nobles and their aides running around Allanak right now.  Even with the staggering, it would be a bit much.

[LauraMars]

Oh, I answered hastily.  I apologize.  All right, here's another post...

Questions, now: Would the main noble houses still be open?  Because if they get closed every few months on rotation, what happens to the military, the Wyverns, the Scorpions?  Do we just...not have those options anymore until they're back on the roster or what?

And what about the employees the "house of the month" hired?  When the existing noble retires or dies, what happens to the servants, the guards, the aides?  Do they just hang around with nothing to do now that their noble is gone?  Do they get shuttled to another house?  Are the nobles not allowed to hire anybody except on a contract basis?

Nobles are leadership positions.  Before you decide what the fate of a noble house is going to be, you must also consider the fate of the players the noble is in charge of.

I'm still against it.  A rotation schedule wouldn't facilitate long-term interaction, things like House loyalty would go out the window, and it would weaken the playerbase.  All nine houses open at once would severely overbalance us.

[moab]

I think the noble houses would be great with just one or two (max) PC nobles in them.

That is all. :-D

[SpyGuy]

This isn't a bad idea, it'd add more flavor.  The main flaw I see though is that nobles live and die by their servants.  It's a VERY restrictive role and nobles often already have to bend what otherwise would be a social barrier when they try to recruit commoner PCs into their clan.  Also I can see the lesser noble houses having such a low level of relative power money wise that they would be harder to play.  Also if they did have servants, were able to make everything work, but then died well then that would be terrible for the servant PCs involved.

I'm more in favor of opening up a 4th Allanaki noble house to have more conflict down south because I'm definitely in favor of more noble activity concentrated in one place.  I'm just not sure if your solution would be viable.

[Intrepid]

I hate to be a killjoy, since I do find this to be an interesting and valid
idea in its own right, but it looks like the staff is not only planning to
decline this idea, they're also planning to possibly close two noble houses.

[Marauder Moe]

Questions, now: Would the main noble houses still be open?

Yeah, they wouldn't be part of the rotation.

And what about the employees the "house of the month" hired? When the existing noble retires or dies, what happens to the servants, the guards, the aides? Do they just hang around with nothing to do now that their noble is gone? Do they get shuttled to another house? Are the nobles not allowed to hire anybody except on a contract basis?

A very valid flaw, to which I have no answer.

I hate to be a killjoy, since I do find this to be an interesting and valid
idea in its own right, but it looks like the staff is not only planning to
decline this idea, they're also planning to possibly close two noble houses.

I never really expect this to happen.  Just figured it'd be interesting to throw out and let people discuss.

[Cale_Knight]

Get us about 100 more active players and we could totally do this.

[Halaster]

Cale_knight is right in what he was hinting at.  We don't have the playerbase for that.  I'd love to do it, if we had the people.  The only way to really pull it off with our current levels of players would be to shut down the opposing city's noble houses - all of them.  Which I don't think's a good idea.

[Intrepid]

Pretty sure that would be the final nail in the coffin of Tuluk if that
happened.

[Sanvean]

It looks like a lot of work on the staff side of things to me, including the fact that less than half of the noble houses have coded estates.  If we had more playerbase and a larger staff as a a result, maybe.

[Aldiel]

I think the noble houses would be great with just one or two (max) PC nobles in them.

That is all. :-D

Yeah, but it's already like this, and it hard enough to find solid RPers for these roles.

[ale six]

While I agree that we don't have the playerbase to support many more open noble clans, I'd love to see the environment for nobility and politcal roleplay expanded.

:arrow: I'd love it if the Senate documentation was updated, and if Senate meetings did take place (real or even virtually) every IC year. Motions and resolutions could be introduced and talked about, and PCs could try to affect their passage or defeat. This would give real, tangible goals to all of the junior nobles, templars, and Merchant House agents, and the summation of their actions might play a part in affecting things in the Senate.

The same principle could in theory be applied to Tuluk's Triumvirate, though the process would be somewhat different.

:arrow: Even if we didn't do the above, I'd love it if the npc Houses in both cities had more of a visible effect on the game. Even if staff just made a few npc nobility to come around and stir things up now and then, or if there were more rumors posted about what Valika, Kasix, Fale, Rennik, Sath and Jal are up to, I think it would make things a lot richer and more interesting, for a hopefully small amount of extra work.

I'm talking about stuff both large and small - maybe an npc Rennik noble might put out a call to all hunters to go find him some kind of rare exotic flower once in a while, or maybe a rumor might get out that Valika made an error in the city accounting books and now the city has an extra 500k to spend (and so everyone could try and fight over what to spend it on).

(Again, the same stuff could be done in Tuluk for the 5 npc Chosen houses.)

I realize all of this would be extra staff effort. It's just something I'd love to see.

[Aldiel]

It looks like a lot of work on the staff side of things to me, including the fact that less than half of the noble houses have coded estates.  If we had more playerbase and a larger staff as a a result, maybe.

Yeah, I think we just need to wait for the pop to go up.  Although, it would really have to go up, I think.

[Moofassa]

Idea is very crazy, agreed.

Definetly need more players. Advertise on ADULTmud sites, if there are such things. Just get Mansa to post some logs. Possibly even LM.

Atleast 25+ players from that. most likely 95% male, all over 45, and drooling.

[X-D]

I'd love to see the high noble houses closed for a while, all of them, and the low ranking ones all opened:)

[Maybe42or54]

I want Jal openned. They can do sewer missions, forage salt, have salty shots of ale, drown people in salt, salt scrab meat. What more do you want?

[John]

I want Jal openned. They can ... drown people in salt

The Guild lets you do that too, but I've said too much.

[Marauder Moe]

Hah!  Not so crazy after all was it?  I was just thinking of the wrong city.  

[/gloat]  :wink:

Anyway, it does seem to fit better in the north if life-oaths are to become uncommon.

[ShaLeah]

I'm sorry.  I can't even -start- to enjoy the thought of this idea much less really give it a second thought.

The vast majority of the world should remain COMMONER.

1.  Special roles should be those in rarity: templars, merchant family, nobility and they should remain "special" because not everyone can play a convincing <insert special role here>.
2.  Too many chiefs, not enough indians.  (Do you really wanna give most people the power to order death on a whim?  How long before it becomes hack and slash?)
3.  Too many chiefs, not enough Spirit Guides (Can you imagine the workload for immortals???)
4.  Do we have the player base to even ponder this without disrupting the balance of the game?
5.  How many times have you walked into a tavern to see an idle noble doing nothing (to the visual eye) but looking pretty?  Imagine that over and over again... on every single coded table.

Have I said how much I dislike this thought??!!??




ShaLeah
- who just read the original post and reeeeaaaally apologizes profusely if she ad-nauseumed anything already said.  It's like something took over me and I was suddenly one of THOSE people... you know... the "activists"... shudder.

[Marauder Moe]

Yeeek!  :shock:

I did call it a crazy idea, didn't I?  Never expected it'd be implemented, was just hoping to spawn some thought-provoking discussion.  I only bumped it up because it bears a striking resemblance to a particular Tlalocian project currently underway...

[spawnloser]

Um...are we confused, using different definitions of 'open' ?

I mean, it's not like EVERYONE can suddenly play a noble in Tuluk now.  They're still special roles that you have to go through the staff to get.