The Current Languishing of Tuluki Nobility

[Gimfalisette]

Are the docs detailed enough that, say, an average player like myself could jump into that sort of role without making a total fool of myself within a week?

No. That is why we call them "noobles"

More seriously, playing a noble is a difficult role. It's not for everyone. But it's learnable.

A lot of players make the mistake of thinking that playing a noble is about having some kind of "authority" or "power" or "backing." But that's not what it's about. And that's why so many screw it up.

Power comes from politics, not from code.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

I would assume the VNPC soldiers are taking care of the VNPC Kadians.  If some PC Kadian happens to slip by, you call the soldiers on them.  If the soldiers don't cooperate, you take it up with their Templar.  If the Templar doesn't cooperate, you find an IC way to punish them.  For instance maybe economically strangling them (which may not be hard coded but the Imms can simulate it really well).  Plots are born.  Fun ensues.

Your authority is dependent on the Templarate only inasmuch as you allow it to be.  You seem to be treating the situation like the whole Legion is hostile to you personally or your House along with the entirety of the Templar order in question, which if there are enough Templars is likely to have conflicts within their own ranks is only going to happen for a good reason.  Like you going out of your way to piss them off.  

It's been made to sound like soldiers just chose to ignore nobles with impunity.  I have -never- seen that happen.  

I really don't see the deal here about not having coded power to arrest your own criminals.  Not every aspect of the game is hard coded, and not everything about making a law is going to revolve around the coded ability to be able to haul your criminals off personally to your own personal jail.  There are lots of other ways to enforce something even IF the Legions aren't cooperating.

[Delstro]

Sooo... Don't tell me I can do that if I can't. If I have no coded power to stop someone from doing something, and they want to do it anyway, then I can't give them IC consequences without help from other PCs. That is disheartening. I don't really care "Power is more than code." Power is in the RP, because I have no coded support. So if someone in the string of PCs doesn't want to RP, that line of RP is broken and I'll lose interest. If that is only the way it "appears," then that is a major detriment to the whole idea.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Then it sounds like you ought to avoid that system, since you're just going to be frustrated by it.   

[Delstro]

Re: The Current Languishing of Tuluki Nobility

That could be a reason for the languish. Deal, I will be avoiding it.

[Jherlen]

I would assume the VNPC soldiers are taking care of the VNPC Kadians.  If some PC Kadian happens to slip by, you call the soldiers on them.  If the soldiers don't cooperate, you take it up with their Templar.  If the Templar doesn't cooperate, you find an IC way to punish them.

Your authority is dependent on the Templarate only inasmuch as you allow it to be.  You seem to be treating the situation like the whole Legion is hostile to you personally or your House along with the entirety of the Templar order in question, which if there are enough Templars is likely to have conflicts within their own ranks is only going to happen for a good reason.  Like you going out of your way to piss them off.

All it takes is a templar who decides to order his soldiers not to bother enforcing the law because he thinks it's stupid, and you have a breakdown in government. A well placed Kadian bribe in the situation I described would totally undercut my authority as a governor. So would bad relations with the templar PCs. So would inactivity on the part of the templars, or if the templars are too busy to enforce my laws. Notice how so much of this seems dependent on what the templars do and don't do?

Unless the nobles and templars march in really close step, it seems like that would happen fairly frequently. That seems far too chaotic to have a stable government. Either the templarate has to be absolutely obligated to enforce whatever laws the Chosen dish out, under pain of punishment if they don't, or the Chosen don't really have the power it's being claimed they do. And since this is Zalanthas and the templarate themselves are the ones with the army, I honestly can't see them self-imposing restrictions on themselves.

I'm not focusing on coded power, I'm just trying to understand the system as a sensible function government. Right now, I don't see it working the way people say it does.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

My point is that all of these issues you could hypothetically have with the Templarate not helping you enforce your laws can all be solved through other means ICly, if you are creative.

Edit -

I would even hazard to say that you are going to have MORE fun and MORE plots if the Templarate refuses to cooperate, since a tax on Kadians is pretty straightforward and mundane, but figuring out a way to muscle uncooperative Templar into complying with your will is going to be a lot more convoluted and require a lot more thinking, manipulation, other people, and roleplay.  None of which I see as bad.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

All I have to say is that obviously, the Tuluki Noble Caste is for niche players. I consider myself a fairly good player, and I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the role of a Governer who has no coded power in his territory. It just makes no sense.

But then, I never was a subtle player, so perhaps I'd better stay in Allanak if I ever want to play a Noble.

[Malken]

So obviously the Voltron Has Never Formed.

It's like my xmas gift long ago, I received a voltron except I was missing that fat yellow guy, who is, as far as I can remember, the left leg of the Voltron.

Maybe the system needs to be a lot simpler, because all I'm seeing right now is 90% of the people coming here having to be explained how everything really works by Gimfalisette.

As much as I like her, Gimfalisette is not the rest of us

I agree, it is for niche players, unfortunately, it also affects the rest of the players playing around the system.

[Gimfalisette]

All I have to say is that obviously, the Tuluki Noble Caste is for niche players. I consider myself a fairly good player, and I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the role of a Governer who has no coded power in his territory. It just makes no sense.

But then, I never was a subtle player, so perhaps I'd better stay in Allanak if I ever want to play a Noble.

I just don't see that this is true. I don't think I'm a niche player. And the issue has nothing to do with subtlety.

The role of a Governor is political. How does that not make sense? How is that so complicated?

Maybe the system needs to be a lot simpler, because all I'm seeing right now is 90% of the people coming here having to be explained how everything really works by Gimfalisette.

As much as I like her, Gimfalisette is not the rest of us

I agree, it is for niche players, unfortunately, it also affects the rest of the players playing around the system.

While I appreciate the backhanded compliment, I've seen other noble players successfully navigate the new system in Tuluk. Some better than me, in some ways. The role is really not THAT different from the role of a Nakki noble.

[helix]

All it takes is a templar who decides to order his soldiers not to bother enforcing the law because he thinks it's stupid, and you have a breakdown in government. A well placed Kadian bribe in the situation I described would totally undercut my authority as a governor. So would bad relations with the templar PCs. So would inactivity on the part of the templars, or if the templars are too busy to enforce my laws. Notice how so much of this seems dependent on what the templars do and don't do?

In my past experience, this is untrue. You're really talking about something that you don't seem to know about ICly, and honestly - you're flat wrong. This situation has actually come about in the past and it did not result in a, "breakdown in government". There may be systems that you are unaware of.

[Malken]

While I appreciate the backhanded compliment, I've seen other noble players successfully navigate the new system in Tuluk. Some better than me, in some ways. The role is really not THAT different from the role of a Nakki noble.

I don't know what a backhanded compliment is, but yah, I meant to say that you seem to have a lot of knowledge about the whole game, much more than most of us do

I've seen other noble players successfully navigate the new system in Tuluk. Some better than me, in some ways. The role is really not THAT different from the role of a Nakki noble.

Really? Because I haven't seen that many -nobles- to begin with since yours, and except for one of them who I think we all know who I speak of, all the others seem to have lasted less than a month or two since then, and
I can't remember any of them having any sort of lasting effect on Tuluk, at least that I'm aware of.

When your gang of five nobles started out, you probably had TONS of Staff support to go with you, since the whole system was new and probably "exciting", back then.

[Janna]

Just to chime in a bit more and hopefully clear up some misconceptions for some people, Templars are -not- the be all to end all in Tuluk, or Allanak for that matter. Code really doesn't mean squat except in minor cases which can be worked around imho. I can clearly recall four Chosen with my first Lirathan, and three more with my second one that had plenty of power and ways to move around the system based entirely on politics with -less- power then they have now.

It's a complicated sounding system, but not that hard once in full practice from my personal point of view.

Using the "I want to ban pink shoes in the commons' example. You, as Govenor fancypants with the new system of Tuluk, can certainly see your laws enforced regardless of crime code. If someone is caught, fine them. If they run, get the Legions on it.

But what if the Templar is mad at me and tells the legions not to help? Well, with the new system in place, as govenor of the commons, it would be a particular headache to said Templar if you decided to up the rent (especially on legionaires living out of barracks) then send around a bard or two to tell the tale of Templars causing hardships for the common people based off some petty dispute. It causes said templar to lose face, if effective, cost more coin if they want those places in the commons held onto for whatever reason, a nightmare of reassigning bunks/food rations in barracks for those who need to return from the cost, and jack the crime rate by others who need to steal to pay such rent.

Is all of that -really- worth not enforcing some small law with a soldier or two, or collecting a fifty sid fine for a Templar? I doubt it. So it gets done regardless of it they hate your guts.

[Nyr]

I mean this threadlock in the nicest and gentlest way possible. 

Some closing remarks:

Governorship is not/has not been granted arbitrarily.
Tuluki noble PCs are not necessarily guaranteed a qynar or straisiri to govern.
Those that play Tuluki nobles do have access to more documentation than the rest of the playerbase.
This documentation is also in IC form.

Discussion on things that are in that documentation or other non-public documentation should not be on the boards. 
***This applies to (but isn't necessarily limited to) passworded documentation and documentation available via clan discussion boards, as well as helpfiles available for restricted guilds and races.  It is borderline discussion, I understand that.  However, we discourage (or outright disallow) discussion of certain matters that can be found out in-game or are secret.  The magick system, secret cultural documentation, branching information for classes, plotlines--all of these are along the same lines.***

The role of a Tuluki noble is a niche role, but so is that of an Allanaki noble, an Allanaki Templar, a Tuluki Templar (of either sect), a GMH family member, a tribal--the list goes on and even extends into guilds and races.  Some people don't like playing elves.  Some people don't like playing merchants.  Some don't like playing combat roles.  Play in the niche that suits you.

One of the underlying problems of no PC nobles is being resolved.  I volunteered to help get apps through for this over the weekend, and I've already been through some of them and made notes.
There were a lot of good points and posts made here and they will be (and have been already, in some cases) taken into advisement. 
Without this thread, this likely would not have been brought to attention so quickly and there would not have been a slew of applications.

Thanks for your involvement in this thread and your contribution to making the game more awesometacular.