The Future of Northern Nobility

[Tlaloc]

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=206522#206522

Feel free to ask questions, request clarification, or provide useful feedback.

I also forgot to mention: Mad props to my army of minions for helping me out with this project: chiefly Vanth and Adhira, who both worked hard to help me out with the vast building projects required for this. With the help of a handful of players for Vanth's s3cR1t Pr0j3cT, we were able to create 5 fully functioning new Clans ready for PC play in record time.

Nice job, guys!

[jhunter]

Not what I was expecting, but sweet. I can see this actually helping to make Tuluki rp more like it should be, at least for the city folks anyway.

[Hymwen]

I can just say... awesome! Having played one Tuluki PC (and my last, I promised myself) I felt a lot of things lacking. Hopefully this will help, and I may try again sometime. There's a lot of potential in Tuluk, but I was very very disappointed.

[Empress]

My first question is, did you really say "form like Voltron"?? !  lol  :shock:

Assuming forming like Voltron is a good thing, the plans sound pretty cool!  Just wondering though what happens if say a Uaptal noble is an uber leader and starts recruiting lots of players and then dies, and the replacement noble chooses to make a Winrothol?  It probably wont happen often but what if the playerbase of one house gets lefts alone for an extended period of time?  Will new noble apps get recommended to play ini certain houses that have an established playerbase, or will the imms take care of playerbases without nobles?  Or will the players bet left on their own to drive their own plots?  Just curious.

[Bogre]

Mad props.

Sounds like an awesome plan.

[Anonymous]

While I appreciate the effort I guess I just remain unsure that the playerbase can fully populate the 5 current noble clans, much less an additional 6 noble houses.  I don't have the access and insight staff has so I can only base that on my own observations.  Hopefully it all works out but at first glance I think I'd rather see fewer noble houses with more members than more noble houses with fewer members.

Edit: Is there going to be some sort of limit on what sort of hiring these new noble characters are going to be doing?  Working for a noble house should, in my opinion, be a sought after position and if there are upwards of 20 nobles in the game all wanting to hire their own aides and each of the 11 houses wanting to hire multiple guards is going to create a real demand for human types to the point that I worry those positions will lose the luster they should, by all rights, have.

[John]

While I appreciate the effort I guess I just remain unsure that the playerbase can fully populate the 5 current noble clans, much less an additional 6 noble houses.  I don't have the access and insight staff has so I can only base that on my own observations.  Hopefully it all works out but at first glance I think I'd rather see fewer noble houses with more members than more noble houses with fewer members.

I dunno, it sounds interesting to me. Rather then see it as all northern noble houses being occupied (which would be impossible anyway), I see it more as allowing a wider variety in the nobles. Rather then have everyone be either a Winrothol or Tenneshi, you CAN be one of the others. Although can the mud support 6 northern nobles? Dunno. How many is there at the moment? 3? How many is there in Allanak? But 6 is a maximum so there can always be less.

[Jherlen]

CRW: Tuluk is only going to have 6 noble PCs at a time maximum as per what Tlaloc wrote. So some of the Tuluki noble clans will be noble-less at some periods. (Which brings up a question, though, what about the commoner underlings hired in?)

In fact I think that's a worthy point to consider. Suppose the nobles in House Lyskae all die off/retire, but there are still active leader PCs at the Sergeant level that can recruit for the Lyskae clan. What happens? Using these scenarios I can definitely imagine all 7 Tuluki Houses active at once, just some won't have a noble around.

Another note: How will this impact the merchants? Will Salarr/Kadius/Kurac have new loadable goods with the insignias of the 5 'new' Houses to sell?

[bloodfromstone]

It's a cool idea on paper. I'm concerned about how it is going to work out in practice, due to a number of things that have been mentioned already. From my limited experience up in Tuluk, there were far less than 6 active nobles. Like CRW mentioned, adding more doesn't only sap the individual players playing those nobles, but they then need underlings and such to do their noble bidding. It seems like the playerbase will be getting pulled a bit thin, when, in my opinion, it already needed condensing.

But maybe it will work out great. It's certainly a cool idea. I'd love to see a day when we can see activity for all sorts of noble houses all at once. Maybe this is a step in that direction, and I'm busy being a nay-sayer.

[Morfeus]

I like the idea, but I also have questions. Some of them will most probably be answered as the thing is starting to work IG. To voice at least one of them, I am concerned what is going to happen with servants once nobles disappear from said House, as was already mentioned above. But really, I am very curious to see what is going to happen in Tuluk in upcoming weeks.

[Bakha]

I'm fairly familiar with some what is planned for Tuluk, but for now I'll just answer the one dominant question:

There is a contingency plan in place for what happens Amos Tenneshi dies out, leaving all of his underlings leaderless.

[UnderSeven]

This is pretty impressive.

[bardess]

I'm apprehensive, as well.

I love Tuluk and I love the Northern Houses, but the point is, is our pbase really big enough for that?  We'll have a few recruits in each House...  it's great for those wanting to be partisans and Aides, but Arm's pbase isn't really ginormous... let alone in Tuluk.

So, I guess we'll see things out.

[Vanth]

In trying to move closer to the partisan model of Tuluki relations, life oaths to a House are no longer going to be the norm.  Instead, commoners will be employed by a specific noble for no longer than that noble's life as a PC, and in some cases, the relationship may intentionally be shorter...the length of a single 'job', a year-long contract, five years, etc.  

When Joe Dasari dies/retires, you as a commoner employee can hang on and see if the next PC noble is a Dasari and wants to hire you, or you can go work for Jane Lirathan or Tom Tenneshi or Bob Salarr.  Yes, this means you may have a series of caste tattoos extending all the way up your arm.

Part of the original intent of New Tuluk was to make commoners and nobles more interdependent.  We're hoping that this plan will make that intent into more of a reality (particularly when Phase II goes into effect).

A commoner gains status by working for a noble, and has the advantage of being close to that noble's ear.  But nobles are only as strong as the amount of the populace they can influence, so they need the commoners as well.

And when Phase II does go into effect, you'll find that as a commoner employee you have a lot more to do.

[Anonymous]

I looked a little..but can someone point out general docs on these houses?

[marko]

I think this is a great plan and a great idea.  It opens up the noble houses and will give Tuluk a more shifting flavor.  By adding more focus upon patronage (which means a formal agreement that is _not_ employment) a lot of the issues people are coming up with will not be happening.  In terms of what happens if the patron dies - the partisan is freed up for other patronage.  On top of that, most patronage relationships allow commoners to accept jobs from other people even while patroned.

I've always felt that patronage is not used enough in Tuluk and this will definitely promote it.

Six noble slots makes for healthy interplay amongst the Houses.  I believe this will shift Tuluk's interactions to greater intrigue, more assassinations, and even better - a broader understanding of the different Houses which, in turn, should lead to a greater Tuluki feel.  I think six is a great number.  

I'm looking forward to this.

[marko]

General docs describing the Houses:

http://www.armageddon.org/general/tuluki_rp.html

Added a thought:

Will players be able to directly impact the social standing of their House through their actions (over time)?

For example, let's say there are two players in Uaptal who really bugger it up.  They hire magickers openly (and regularly), they insult everyone, and they basically have everyone laughing at them and their House behind their backs.  At the same time there are a couple of stars in Negean that are doing it all right.

Would Uaptal see its position diminish, after say, a few months of these difficulties while Negean would see its position rising?

[zanthalandreams]

As much as it boggles my mind to think of more clan offerings when we can't populate the ones we have. . .

This does sound like a very cool fleshing out of Tuluk.  I haven't played a character focused on Tuluk in a while, this is interesting enough to make me want to come back and look around some.

[Tlaloc]

Will players be able to directly impact the social standing of their House through their actions (over time)?

For example, let's say there are two players in Uaptal who really bugger it up.  They hire magickers openly (and regularly), they insult everyone, and they basically have everyone laughing at them and their House behind their backs.  At the same time there are a couple of stars in Negean that are doing it all right.

Would Uaptal see its position diminish, after say, a few months of these difficulties while Negean would see its position rising?

This is more a goal of Phase II, but yes. An initial thought to this plan was that rigid noble-house 'ranks' were more of a Southern thing: in Tuluk, nobility are a caste. This puts them all, equally, on the level. How powerful they are within Tuluki society is all in the hands of the noble houses and players, and IC actions in-game. For example, during the restoration of Tuluk, Houses Tenneshi and Winrothol would naturally be at the top. Now that new buildings and slaves are less needed, you might see other Houses (Like Lyskae or Negean) become more powerful and influencial.

It will be very possible to see other Noble Houses raise or lower their status much more quickly. Competition and how much each noble House gets paid (as well as the pay of individual nobles) and the actual 'power' a House (and an individual PC noble) has, will be all be in the hands of the PCs.

So yes, the Uaptals in your example, Marko, could cause House Uaptal to fall in their position relative to other Houses, and maybe even cause the House to eventually collapse. While this would be rare - Noble players should keep this in mind, heh.

Another note: How will this impact the merchants? Will Salarr/Kadius/Kurac have new loadable goods with the insignias of the 5 'new' Houses to sell?

Yes.

Although can the mud support 6 northern nobles? Dunno. How many is there at the moment? 3? How many is there in Allanak? But 6 is a maximum so there can always be less.

One reason I chose the number six was because, on average there have usually been roughly six nobles active in the Northlands anyway...they were all just in two Houses. Now you have six nobles in any House.

Currently, there are less than that, because we've been holding off on asking for new nobles untill we can place this in.

Assuming forming like Voltron is a good thing, the plans sound pretty cool! Just wondering though what happens if say a Uaptal noble is an uber leader and starts recruiting lots of players and then dies, and the replacement noble chooses to make a Winrothol?

Forming like Voltron is always a good thing.

While Vanth answered the big question on everyones minds, it should also be noted that the amount of PCs an individual noble will be able to hire will be controlled, and based on the individual power of that PC noble. Much like Newtons laws of thermodynamics, the total number of PCs hired into the Noble Clans will not really change (much), they will merely shift form.

Savvy nobles might consider political alliances (and marriages) to solve problems which could arise from this, or have enemies killed off or disgraced, or more preferably: both.

[marko]

I love this idea all the more.  I am in total and complete agreement about the ranking system of the Noble Houses.  

All I have to say is - This is an amazingly great and genius idea.  The implementation sounds very reasonable and well designed as well.

I'm loving it and it isn't even fully in the game yet.

[spawnloser]

To people who have said that they don't know how opening more clans is going to deal with the population of the mud...

Most of the people in Tuluk should not be 'hired' and 'clanned' members of the noble houses.  They should be some dude/chica that does this thing...and does it for this one noble.  The noble gets the work done, and the dude/chica gets Chosen support.

Noone should work for a House...they should work for that person from this House.

Editted to add: I love this idea.

[SpyGuy]

Alright, this idea sounds amazing.  But I was still reserved about it with the employee worries but the idea to increase use of the patronage system sounds like it'll make it all the better.  So here's one question...

Will Northern nobility be taking a more active role in their affairs to compensate for the structure?  To explain myself:  Say if Joe Lyksae is actually going strong in game now and has a PC Sergeant and two or three competent soldiers.  That's a thriving clan that has room to go somewhere, especially if the PC Sergeant is a good one.  But it seems to me that with a patronage situation there would be less cooperation between employees of any noble which wanted to begin a military clan.  So would a noble from a martial House be more likely now to take the role of the PC Sergeant during important operations that would require the command of a large group of patrons, or would that be passed off on others?

Or is part of the idea to remove some of the military roles away from Noble Houses and put them solely with the Legion?  And then have noble houses be more likely to hire independent hunters and mercenaries to accomplish their active goals rather than have 3-4 players kept sparring for when they might be needed?  Hell, if this increases the number of Byn contracts I'm all for it...again.

[Moofassa]

When can people who are interested, begin to apply for positions?

[marko]

In regards to the employee question - most of the noble Houses in Tuluk (five of seven) are not focussed on any sort of "military" action.  

The two that can be argued to have a vested interest in having a functional "military" force would be Lyksae (although, I imagine that they would not have much of a standing force) and Winrothol (for slave capture operations).

The other Houses have no significant need for a regular standing House force other than guards.  The House Guard role is easily handled via npcs.

What I really like about this system is that it will force people to stop thinking that there are only two roles in a Noble House - House Guard or House Servant.

In this system a noble who seeks a specific hide from a beast would simply hire a hunter to go out and bring them the hide.  If the noble knows there is a requirement for many hides then they may consider entering into a patronage agreement with a hunter.  In return for the hunter bringing all the hides the hunter gains a stipend, a roof over their head (via a rented apartment), and the protection of having a noble for a patron.

A noble who wants to capture a beast would just hire a group like the Byn.

Basically, nobles would have a few partisans for regularly occurring activities and just hire others for one-offs.  

Another example, a noble would bring on a bard as a partisan for their own political gain.  Bards are great political figures in the game of politics and a good bard can bring a lot of prestige.  Some nobles would have artisans as their partisans - providing the supplies for the artisan to craft in return for custom goods later (or specific goods or whatever the agreement is) but, all the while, these partisans can accept contracts from other people.  

For example, the bard can accept a contract to compose a song for a templar.  The artisan can craft a bunch of tabards for another noble.  There may be limitations as to what the partisan is allowed to accept (ie, the noble doesn't like a different noble house and thus prevents the partisan from accepting jobs from that particular house).

But, in the end, the focus will shift away from these two extremely restricted employee / employer roles to a more open and shifting system of one-offs and patronage.

A noble from any House could bring together a bunch of fighting types if they so pleased - but this would likely only happen if there is a very specific plan that the noble has.  For example, a Winrothol noble may bring together four or five fighting types to capture slaves.  A Tenneshi noble may see some construction plan out at the frontier of Tuluk's territory and bring on a few fighting types to scout out the location and protect it.

I think this will turn Tuluk into a place where there is a lot of activity based on short-term plots and longer-term plots will shape the political landscape.  Interactions between the Houses will probably increase as will the total amount of on-going plots.

This system also will, hopefully, lead to people having jobs independent (ie, being true artisans) of the Noble Houses.  A jeweller would be a jeweller and not an employee of Noble House X.  People from all walks of life would go to the jeweller for jewelry - which will lead to interesting interactions with the Great Merchant House Kadius.  I really have a lot of hope for this system - I think it really advances Tuluk as Tuluk.

Other roles that will probably gain in prestige and potency will be the professional assassin and professional thief.  Basically, I see professionals in everything popping up and owning their own businesses.

[A Chosen Lady]

Does this mean that current noble players are supposed to send their update emails to Tlaloc, Mekeda, and Nusku immediately rather than previous clan IMMs?