The Massive Conflict Thread

[Miradus]

There are a lot of inherent conflicts in the game. Desert elves, rogue gicks, runaway slaves, 'rinthi thieves. They have conflict and risk baked right in, straight out of chargen.

If those roles are only scarcely played, does it really send a message to staff that we want more conflict?

[Patuk]

If those roles are only scarcely played

They're not really, they just die really really really quickly. (not so much delves I guess)

[Riev]

Also those roles, inherently, require a lot of solo or minimal contact play. Which leads to either boredom, twinkery, or lack of interaction.

Those that -do- interact, as Patuk said, die rather quickly because conflict IS so scarce that it gets wiped quickly (and should, but its quite a deterrant)

[nauta]

Also those roles, inherently, require a lot of solo or minimal contact play. Which leads to either boredom, twinkery, or lack of interaction.

Those that -do- interact, as Patuk said, die rather quickly because conflict IS so scarce that it gets wiped quickly (and should, but its quite a deterrant)

I agree with the iso claim -- to an extent.  You shouldn't expect to play a bandit or a Guild boss who hangs out at the Gaj.  But I want to put forward an alternative picture to the Patuk/Jingo pessimistic view, with some anecdotes from three experiences as a criminal within the last three years.

1. The Rinther. I played a low-level Guild minion for about half a year with very high play times.  I was a pickpocket.  Together with a dwarf (who I believe had the focus of being the scariest motherfucker in the Known, and he sort of was, kudos to you) we not only managed to live for that half year, but we also managed to pull off some high-level hits on people -- some of which failed in hilarious ways.   (When I first met the dwarf in the narrows, he tossed knives at me, hehe.)  Sure, the AoD was out to get us -- and we were out to get them.  I had several assassination attempts on me, including a templar and a unit of AoD coming into the narrows, a couple gemmed (even a gemmed giant) coming into the narrows, and an entire barricade put up (which I'm still not sure what this was about).  I had elves from the narrows out to kill me too and we were out to kill them.  It was a lot of fun -- there was a lot of wheeling and dealing and a lot of very tense weeks where I'd be afraid to even come out of a hidey-hole (although I did, because fun).  Eventually, I met my end in a great interrogation scene with a templar.  I barely left the rinth during this time, hardly ever idled in 'safe' rooms, never left the city, and managed to have a lot of great RP scenes inside the rinth.

2. A Bandit.  I recently played a minor league bandit out of Red Storm straight out of chargen.  I posted about this before, but after about 5 days playtime put in I stored for another role.  Overall, the responses were superb -- I forget the numbers now but only one person fled with no emotes, and the other six or seven gave me great scenes -- at least three initiated the emote exchange putting themselves at the position of disadvantage, even though codedly they knew, and I knew, that they were better than me on a meta level.  As far as I could tell, there wasn't a great big multi-clan, multi-indie rally to get me, and even if there was: all the better.

3. An elf.  I also had success with an elf from the rinth.  A lot of conflict activity (internal to the rinth) happened, but the one scene I want to highlight: there was an AoD soldier who was superb at not picking out elves and turning the blind eye to petty crimes.  He grabbed me at the Gaj while I was semi-afk and I thought for sure this was the end, but he just released me with a laugh saying he thought I was someone else.  I'm pretty sure the player knew I was into some dank shit, but his character (and perhaps some of the player) felt it was fun enough to let it continue.

The point: people already do care about the things that generate good stories and meaningful conflict.  Sure I've encountered revenge PCs (newbies in each case) and I've met my end in a locked room for no clear reason a couple of times. 

I get where the other side is coming from: when you die for being in the wrong place at the wrong time with no explanation: that hurts.  It gives the impression that there are twinks out wanting to win.  I've also seen a couple players move to the kill button as soon as an insult is put forward, and some have succeeded.  So I get it.

I just find it hard to believe that this happens that often -- that such players are that common.

So get out there and shake things up.  Insult the breed at the bar, show some fear to the gemmed at the bar, start conflicts.  As I also said: I've been seeing this in the game right now.

[Feco]

I'm going to second natua's post.  This is all anecdotal, but not useless.

I've played rinthers and raiders in the past.  I've mugged people in the cities and in the waste.  Generally, people respond awesomely, and these were incredibly fun roles to play.  These characters didn't go level up and do this, either.  Everything was right out of char-gen, basically.

None of these characters have been the target of grand conflict-stomping inquisitions.  I've lost them to NPCs, to falling, and to hazards of the job.  Never to people white-knighting when they shouldn't.  I've never experienced a response that seemed like obscene escalation.

Also, this locked room thing keeps coming up.  I realize it's a cheap way to kill someone, but I don't think it's necessarily poor roleplay.  I've done it a few times, and I feel dirty when it happens.  Still, sometimes you gotta get shit done, and usually a lot of roleplay gets put into setting these things up.  I sympathize if someone doesn't emote -- I always try to emote during combat.  I also like to emote a bit before actually killing someone -- once they're on the ground and out.  But sometimes this shit happens really, really fast.  Sometimes you can't control how fast it goes, either.

I don't believe that tons of people just go out and do crazy no-roleplay random murdering in locked apartments.

[Jingo]

Locked room killings shouldn't be tolerated at all. There isn't a reasonable person in this world or Zalanthas that would find it as an acceptable way to get the job done.

But because we're not really playing in a gameworld, but some ludonarrative in which npc reactions and stigmas don't need to be considered. And since staff just arn't interested in enforcing it anymore, you can get away with it without any fucks to be given.

Realistically, if someone disappeared on the Tor estate after a meeting with Lord Tor, someone would notice, someone would have questions, and Lord Tor would develop a reputation among the public, among other nobles and among his own staff.

Oh. And "roleplay". Sure, you roleplayed it though, so that makes it okay. Have a gold star. Nevermind that it's easy, lazy and damaging to the players on the other end.

[Feco]

There isn't a reasonable person in this world or Zalanthas that would find it as an acceptable way to get the job done.

You're telling me that catching someone by surprise, in a room they can't escape, so that you can hopefully quickly and quietly kill them, isn't a viable or realistic tactic?  I don't even know how to respond to that except to say I disagree.

Realistically, if someone disappeared on the Tor estate after a meeting with Lord Tor, someone would notice, someone would have questions, and Lord Tor would develop a reputation among the public, among other nobles and among his own staff.

I don't know why you think this doesn't happen.  It does.

People who do anything without considering the world, particularly the virtual one, should not be tolerated.  But, a lot of people, hopefully myself included, do consider how the world would react.  Wishing up, turning in character reports, thinking and feeling, and playing your character in a believable and consistent way are all ways to insure you're doing that.

We also have to remember that this is a game, with a limited playerbase, which can't perfectly simulate the real world.  I also don't think we want it to simulate the real world.  That wouldn't be any fun.

Getting killed sucks and it makes everyone salty.  I suspect that people are extra-salty, though, because they forget that this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Just because you got killed in 3 hits in a locked room doesn't mean that was the beginning and end of play.  For example, remember something has to happen to the body.

Someone who leaves a body in their perfectly furnished room and runs away because they know it will codedly vanish without leaving any evidence at some point should be punished.

People who wait until dark to take the body out, or abandon the apartment in a bloody ruin, or come up with some scheme to dispose of it should not be punished.

But because we're not really playing in a gameworld, but some ludonarrative in which npc reactions and stigmas don't need to be considered. And since staff just arn't interested in enforcing it anymore, you can get away with it without any fucks to be given.

Oh. And "roleplay". Sure, you roleplayed it though, so that makes it okay. Have a gold star. Nevermind that it's easy, lazy and damaging to the players on the other end.

These two statements make me wonder if it was even worth responding.  Why talk like that?  All this tells me is that you have an overly pessimistic view of the game, and that you don't mind talking down to people.


If someone gets upset about something that happens in game, they should file a player and/or staff complaint about it.  If people are playing responsibly, then it's likely staff already knows what's going on, to some degree, and can deal with it.

[Riev]

If someone gets upset about something that happens in game, they should file a player and/or staff complaint about it.  If people are playing responsibly, then it's likely staff already knows what's going on, to some degree, and can deal with it.

This is the part where I have to disagree. Staff are great, but they aren't omnipotent and aren't watching us NEARLY as often as you think. Sure, they watch the interesting people, but the average player doesn't have staff who see them playing responsibly, and understand whats going on.

[Feco]

If someone gets upset about something that happens in game, they should file a player and/or staff complaint about it.  If people are playing responsibly, then it's likely staff already knows what's going on, to some degree, and can deal with it.

This is the part where I have to disagree. Staff are great, but they aren't omnipotent and aren't watching us NEARLY as often as you think. Sure, they watch the interesting people, but the average player doesn't have staff who see them playing responsibly, and understand whats going on.

I agree with that.

I don't expect them to know everything, though.  What complaints can do, though, is the following:

If someone gets lured into an apartment and is killed under roleplay-suspicious circumstances, if they send in a request, staff might ask that the PKer start sending in PK logs/PK reports.  If suspicous play is reported a number of times for the same player, at least there's a history to point to when it's time to do something.  A lot of people don't report PKs, I'm sure, just because they've never thought to.  But I'm sure some people out there don't do it because they know they're doing stuff they shouldn't.  Complaints can help catch them.

I always send in PK reports with logs.  I have no doubt I've upset people PKing them.  It's my hope that, if they complain, staff would be able to at least tell them "Listen, there's a lot that went on before and after, and what happened wasn't just a twinky no-roleplay random act of nonsense."

Not only is this a good practice to keep staff informed, and to deal with any complaints, but if I'm doing something wrong, it's right there in the logs.  Staff can point it out to me.  I can improve my play.

Please don't get the wrong idea about me.  Not every character I make is a bloodthirsty PK-seeker.  I haven't actually PK'd that many PCs.  But it has happened, sometimes more frequently than others.

[bardlyone]

I've played this game for 9 years next month.

I've never once been apartment killed. I know it's a thing and it happens. I have seen and heard about it in game and heard about it on the boards here. But it's never happened to me.

I've been pked in the wilderness a couple times. By far, the most prevalent killings I've been on the receiving end of is people leading me into clan compounds and pking me. And when I say by far, I mean 4-6 times as opposed to the 0 apartment killings and the couple times out in the wild.

[Feco]

Clan compound killings can be a bit different.  In some cases I don't think they're any different than what I described above.  But if players are using clan NPCs and doing suspicious things that multiple NPCs and vNPCs would notice, and ignoring it, that's something else.

There are rules in place to make sure PCs don't get away with abusing the privileges of being in a coded clan.  This is another instance where player complaints can go a long way if people do suspicious-seeming things.

[nauta]

If someone gets upset about something that happens in game, they should file a player and/or staff complaint about it.  If people are playing responsibly, then it's likely staff already knows what's going on, to some degree, and can deal with it.

This is the part where I have to disagree. Staff are great, but they aren't omnipotent and aren't watching us NEARLY as often as you think. Sure, they watch the interesting people, but the average player doesn't have staff who see them playing responsibly, and understand whats going on.

Staff aren't omniscient, which is why player complaints (or reporting things in your character reports) are so important.

I've had good turn around on complaint requests recently -- like Feco said, it's important to keep staff informed.  (One complaint -- and really I wish the label were changed to 'concern' since that's all it was -- turned out to be a really unfortunate series of unrelated events that gave the impression of grief behaviour where none occurred.) 

Of course they aren't omniscient, but if you notice something twinky, mention it.  We trust them to do the right thing with the information we give them.  See something, say something.

In general, the pessimistic view not only strikes me as highly dubious, but as damaging to the game when new players read such things and come away with the impression that this happens all the time or even a lot of the time or even, in my view, some of the time -- it hardly ever happens.  Even worse, the pessimistic viewpoint stifles players from going out and stirring things up for fear of the bogeyman of a whiteknight twink retribution.

PS: I do think apartment killings should be nerfed.  Perhaps the kill command in apartments could trigger a staff alarm like sneaking into a guard does.

[bardlyone]

Eh. Every time it's happened it's been a leader pc/sponsored role. They've never used npcs to do it. Some did it personally, and some have had their underlings do it. I'm not particularly salty about it in an overarching way, though usually for a few days after it, I'm pretty pissed at having to start out at 0 again. I feel like people that get a reputation for doing this only wind up hamstringing themselves though, so I don't really mind. If you want to do it, do it. Same as I want to let people know that I'm disappearing into a clan compound with X or Y leader before I go when it happens, just in case they do get knife happy - so that there are people out in the PC world who know what happened.

I take that back, I was pked probably 2-3 times by Qoriya, but I don't think the jails count as a clan compound. And it was her job to rid the world of shiftless abominations, so, again, even if I didn't like the methodology, I understand it on the meta. She was doing her job.

[Feco]

Perhaps the kill command in apartments could trigger a staff alarm like sneaking into a guard does.

I think this is absolutely a good idea, if it's not too difficult to implement.

[Jingo]

There isn't a reasonable person in this world or Zalanthas that would find it as an acceptable way to get the job done.

You're telling me that catching someone by surprise, in a room they can't escape, so that you can hopefully quickly and quietly kill them, isn't a viable or realistic tactic?  I don't even know how to respond to that except to say I disagree.

No I'm saying there should be a stigma attached to characters that pull this. Even on the most desolate and brutal societies on the planet, betrayal was not a taboo broken lightly.

Realistically, if someone disappeared on the Tor estate after a meeting with Lord Tor, someone would notice, someone would have questions, and Lord Tor would develop a reputation among the public, among other nobles and among his own staff.

I don't know why you think this doesn't happen.  It does.

And yet it's still normalized to the point of acceptability. It shouldn't be.

We also have to remember that this is a game, with a limited playerbase, which can't perfectly simulate the real world.  I also don't think we want it to simulate the real world.  That wouldn't be any fun.

I could see the good in enforcing this sort of rule. There would be more room for assassins. Plausable deniability would be a useful consideration. I believe The Way needs to be changed before actual spycraft becomes relevant, but it would allow plots like this to be sussed out and for actual risk to enter the game.

But this is easy. That is hard. So easy wins. It's really got nothing to do with the state of the game.

Getting killed sucks and it makes everyone salty.  I suspect that people are extra-salty, though, because they forget that this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Just because you got killed in 3 hits in a locked room doesn't mean that was the beginning and end of play.  For example, remember something has to happen to the body.

Someone who leaves a body in their perfectly furnished room and runs away because they know it will codedly vanish without leaving any evidence at some point should be punished.

People who wait until dark to take the body out, or abandon the apartment in a bloody ruin, or come up with some scheme to dispose of it should not be punished.

Again, "But roleplay!" I just don't think that's good enough.

I could come up with a dozen solutions for getting rid of a body in Zalanthas. And a few in a locked room. Most of them would probably work. Again, there should be risk attached. But there functionally isn't any.

But because we're not really playing in a gameworld, but some ludonarrative in which npc reactions and stigmas don't need to be considered. And since staff just arn't interested in enforcing it anymore, you can get away with it without any fucks to be given.

Oh. And "roleplay". Sure, you roleplayed it though, so that makes it okay. Have a gold star. Nevermind that it's easy, lazy and damaging to the players on the other end.

These two statements make me wonder if it was even worth responding.  Why talk like that?  All this tells me is that you have an overly pessimistic view of the game, and that you don't mind talking down to people.


If someone gets upset about something that happens in game, they should file a player and/or staff complaint about it.  If people are playing responsibly, then it's likely staff already knows what's going on, to some degree, and can deal with it.

Sure I get salty. And I frequently need to watch my language on the forum. So point taken.

But I also try to see why things are the way they are and how they can be changed to make the game more rewarding for everyone.

Sorry, but no. I'll never consider this sort of play acceptable. I have never organized a killing like this and never will. And I resent the fact that players will endlessly justify cheapening the game for others just because it's an easy, risk-free solution.

[Feco]

I apologize if I misread your post a bit.  It seems like you're saying, at least in part, that we should look down on characters that do this sort of thing.  I absolutely agree with you.  It's smarmy.  It feels dirty to do it.  But my characters do a lot of shitty things I would never do, and I invite people to treat them shitty because of it.

If it's easy and risk free, though, I think it's being done wrong.  It can be risk-free if you operate in a vacuum and twink around.  It's risk free if you 1) know you can win the fight, and 2) just leave the body there and walk out like nothing happened, only coming back when you know it's all cleaned up by the code.

Character reports letting staff know your plans, wishing up at the time, and responsibly considering the environment make it everything but risk free.  PCs frequent apartment complexes.  You need to get past lots of actual NPCs -- not just vNPCs.  These things make it difficult for a good roleplayer.

Roleplay *does* make the difference, here.  If you're roleplaying, it's hard.  The only bonus is you have a higher chance of actually killing someone.  There are less risky ways to do things, but they may not be as effective.  What plan your PC makes, if any, depends on the situation.

So, player complaints.  Make staff pay attention to people you think are being shitty.

Also, just banning apartment killings would be weird.  Not all apartment killings are the result of planning an ambush.  I would think such a rule would be "don't lure people to your apartment rooms just to kill them."  But, people don't always do that.  People bring people to their apartments for a plethora of reasons, and sometimes someone ends up dead.  You'll probably end up with the same amount of player complaints, and it'll require the same amount of staff oversight (if not MORE).  Also, is it just specific to apartments?  What if you get lured into a ruin and the assassin got a key to the door?  Or reverse lockpicked it?  I don't see such a rule adding anything to the game.

And again... please don't think I'm constantly luring PCs into apartments to kill them.

[Jingo]

Yes. I frequently have to remind myself that I'll get better results when I'm not attacking people. Like I said earlier, that's on me.

Kicking the ball into staff's court isn't the wrong way of doing it. But even they're subject to the notion that this kind of thing is normal for Zalanthas too. (when even what's normal is just an interpretation of static game artifacts and application of our own beliefs about society)

So I'm not just shouting into the howling wind at players here either.

[Jingo]

I like assassins. Assassins need to be easier to play and widely employable.

[Fathi]

In my opinion the greatest contributor to a feeling of stagnation is that compared to even 5-6 years ago, PCs seem to live a fuck of a lot longer. Maybe that's just rosy-goggle nostalgia or the bias of memory, but I used to remember being blown away when I'd take a one year break and come back and see a scant handful of the same people. Those two dudes must be SUCH BADASSES, wow!

I recently returned from an almost two-year stint of playing only very sporadically and I recognized 8 of the 10 PCs my new character ran into from back in the day. That shit was wild.

Not that every long lived character is some stagnant do-nothing--the opposite, in fact, tends to happen--but over the course of playing my last super long lived character, having little PC turnover in her social circles for like 3 RL years made things feel pretty stale sometimes.

Edit: I feel like maybe I should elaborate on why a bunch of long-lived characters can result in an RP desert, so to speak.

1. Old characters have shitpiles of resources, which makes it easier to do that stamping out of minor conflict people have brought up repeatedly in this thread.

2. Old characters tend to have shitpiles of skills, which means that if they are the sort of player who's prone to UTTERLY MURDERFY anyone who crosses them or upsets them, they can do so more or less with impunity.

3. Old characters often occupy higher ranks of their clan and social ladders, which means they may be more inclined to be defensive toward newcomers and react in a way that stymies conflict RP rather than engenders it.

4. I'm definitely guilty of this with my long-lived PCs: you end up in your own little bubbles. You have a few friends, maybe a couple people you've sworn to hate, maybe a long-lived boss. If you're a clan leader, clan leader demands can take up a lot of your time. When you're a long-lived character it's easy to interact with fewer people because you've got an established "cast" and that can stifle conflict with newer characters who may not even MEET you.

5. A world where even nobles, GMH leaders, and super-warriors die frequently would in theory inspire more PCs to work together for survivability's sake. If surviving is easy, you don't have to plot as much to simply not die.

But at the same time I'm not really sure how to fix it, because I understand that the players of these characters don't deserve to just have their PCs die simply because they've been around for a while. But I do wish there were more environmental factors--disease, inner city dangers, whatever--that made dying a more real threat in ways that weren't just PK.

However, I have no idea how staff could accomplish that without upsetting a lot of people! Or if they'd even want to. Again, perhaps "people live too long and things get stagnant" is a perception issue on my end.

[Akaramu]

However, I have no idea how staff could accomplish that without upsetting a lot of people! Or if they'd even want to. Again, perhaps "people live too long and things get stagnant" is a perception issue on my end.

Demon invasion ftw!

[Delirium]

It's a double-edged sword with long-lived PCs.

Either the turnover is higher and they get jaded at losing all their friends; or the turnover is low and they get in a rut.

The answer is almost always "more conflict".

[Dunetrade55]

PArt of the issue, in my opinion, hinges on established clans being "too big to fail" and having virtually limitless resources compared to your average upstart commoner. Try what you'd like, but sooner or later you may hit a wall with one of these and no matter how many chinks you make in it, you'll never get anywhere real with it, except maybe stuffed into a box and buried in the garden. This can be stifling to conflict in that even if you "win", you lose, why engage in it at all if the outcome is already pre-determined? But that's just how the game is, I suppose.

I feel if clans were player founded, run, and operated, you know, actually lived or died by the players within them, then we'd see a lot more REASON for the conflict (or considering some saner negotiating tactics), then we'd see a lot more meaningful conflict, whereas the rest could just be, closed to play save a few special instances. I mean, it worked for the Jaxa Pah (didn't it? Or did I miss something?)

I mean, in Romeo and Juliet, both the Montagues and Capulets are a big deal, their conflict is central to the story. Never does one get the impression, however, that they are in any way timeless and invincible. The struggle is meaningful because it is REAL, because if you DON'T get the upper hand here, you, and everything you care about, is done. There isn't a sponsored role-call when the shit hits the fan and a knife finds the boss's heart, that's just not how it works.

[Fathi]

PArt of the issue, in my opinion, hinges on established clans being "too big to fail" and having virtually limitless resources compared to your average upstart commoner. Try what you'd like, but sooner or later you may hit a wall with one of these and no matter how many chinks you make in it, you'll never get anywhere real with it, except maybe stuffed into a box and buried in the garden. This can be stifling to conflict in that even if you "win", you lose, why engage in it at all if the outcome is already pre-determined? But that's just how the game is, I suppose.

<snip for brevity>

There isn't a sponsored role-call when the shit hits the fan and a knife finds the boss's heart, that's just not how it works.

The main problem with this is that the too-big-to-fail clans in Armageddon serve a valuable purpose and the game gets kinda clunky when they aren't properly represented. I played a Byn Sergeant during a time when there was about a 6-8 month period with no visible PC presence from Salarr, for example. Sure, fancy weapons and armour aren't a right to every PC, but that also meant Salarr wasn't out there giving contracts to the Byn or wheeling and dealing with the nobility or any number of things. I played a Tuluki noble in a house that was obsessed with spice during a time when Kurac had no agent in the city. That was also not fun and resulted in a lot of weirdness that felt very OOC, such as my fellow nobles just buying spice from elves who'd wander down to Red Storm and sift it.

PC-founded clans often fall apart when the leader PC dies or stores. Be it because they were founded on a cult of personality basis, or because that PC was the glue holding everything together.

I'm not sure I'd want to play a game where a couple ill-timed PKs or people riding off the wrong cliff could make large chunks of the game's resources completely unavailable to PCs. Sometimes it's good that staff can just whip up a sponsored role to keep things chugging along.

The too-big-to-failness can be really frustrating in a lot of ways, but I don't think independent merchants or player-created merchant clans could fill the void of the Merchant Houses and ESPECIALLY the social void of the Noble Houses. There's be whole swaths of RP opportunities that would just vanish if you could simply nuke Kadius by killing the dude who ran it and all his PC underlings.

[Lizzie]

The too-big-to-failness can be really frustrating in a lot of ways, but I don't think independent merchants or player-created merchant clans could fill the void of the Merchant Houses and ESPECIALLY the social void of the Noble Houses. There's be whole swaths of RP opportunities that would just vanish if you could simply nuke Kadius by killing the dude who ran it and all his PC underlings.

While I agree that killing the Kingpin shouldn't result in the demise of an entire House...

I disagree that the demise of an entire House would necessarily be a bad thing, or vanish RP opportunities. In fact, I think it'd ADD opportunities where they had previously not existed.

No one is ALLOWED to make a clothing-and-accessories GMH to rival Kadius, because Kadius is Kadius and they won't stand for it. You can try, but as a player, you are expected to accept that it won't ever happen.

On the other hand - if Kadius were wiped out - there now is a HUGE RP opportunity to be "the ones" to replace them. Battles over who rules the silk trade, who can amass the fortune necessary to buy their way into a GMH estate instead of just a mere 2-room warehouse...who gets to clothe and bejewel the nobility... it'd be immense. The RP possibilies are staggering.

[Fathi]

The too-big-to-failness can be really frustrating in a lot of ways, but I don't think independent merchants or player-created merchant clans could fill the void of the Merchant Houses and ESPECIALLY the social void of the Noble Houses. There's be whole swaths of RP opportunities that would just vanish if you could simply nuke Kadius by killing the dude who ran it and all his PC underlings.

While I agree that killing the Kingpin shouldn't result in the demise of an entire House...

I disagree that the demise of an entire House would necessarily be a bad thing, or vanish RP opportunities. In fact, I think it'd ADD opportunities where they had previously not existed.

No one is ALLOWED to make a clothing-and-accessories GMH to rival Kadius, because Kadius is Kadius and they won't stand for it. You can try, but as a player, you are expected to accept that it won't ever happen.

On the other hand - if Kadius were wiped out - there now is a HUGE RP opportunity to be "the ones" to replace them. Battles over who rules the silk trade, who can amass the fortune necessary to buy their way into a GMH estate instead of just a mere 2-room warehouse...who gets to clothe and bejewel the nobility... it'd be immense. The RP possibilies are staggering.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But that would take a huge amount of time for PCs to do all that stuff mentioned in your bottom paragraph. In the meantime, the absence would probably be pretty frustrating. That's more what I meant when I say that just suddenly being able to nuke a clan would create a vacuum that would irritate a lot of players and put a lot of plots on old.

If all that stuff in your last paragraph were possible to do over time for an eventual Kadius takeover or something, it'd be great. I'm all for it.

But I think it would be shitty from a gameplay perspective if PKing the right people could result in a complete and utter absence of a Kadius-type entity until someone could build all that up enough to be considered the new dude in town. That could take RL months.

Basically, those huge clans offer a continuity that's just as much for OOC convenience as it is IC lore.