GMH Improvement Idea Thread

[sucre]

Could people that have played GHM leaders possibly give an idea of what was most onerous about the role?

I mean I've heard people complain, but it's hard to tell how much is hyperbole and how much is genuine grievance.

Oftentimes, other leader PCs treat you as vending machines. And sometimes, your item requests aren't resolved with the speed they expect, and so you're mistreated in game for things you can not control. I know that might be grievance/offender numero uno.

[MeTekillot]

I agree with Shaleah that GMH Leaders should be able to just load in items themself. It has nothing but upside, save from some possible edge cases of abuse, which is already mitigated by the role requiring the vetting of staff based on player history.

[Barsook]

I also agree with PC Merchants or higher to be able to load in items.

Another problem, which was brought up on Discord, is there is no difference between the Merchant rank and the Agent rank ICly aside from what duties each rank has and what they can do within the GMH. Outside, no one care what rank you are because there seems to be no point.

And it seems that the starting rank from a sponsored role call is the starting rank is Merchant. It would be nice if there was a choice for those who don't care for the journey to higher ranks.

[Wday]

Have all GMH make items and place them in shops.  I feel this would cause more GMH members to get out in public. PLUS! this would fill shops with neat items and not just 10000 agafari sharp knives to buy and so on. ICLY this would keep agents out and busy making sure their shops had items of want to sell to the public.

[Barsook]

That would require item order requests and the knowledge of what are the House crafts because I think some items aren't listed in the mega item list threads for at least one of the GMH's. Also, wouldn't that make the merchant PCs vending machines still and the shopkeeps the middle, in some sense?

[The Gruffalo]

Here's a novel solution, don't drown merchants in item orders, stick to stuff you actually need or if you're shopping for fun make sure it's fun for them too. In other words, turn it into roleplay.

Give them a minimum 1-2 rl weeks to fill your order, to reflect the fact that this is a low tech world where everything is made by hand. Stop being OOCly insensitive to the demands if the role, and allow the characters to to breathe and be characters rather than vending machines.

Getting imaginary stuff can usually wait, and if it can't, use the shops in the bazaar. Y'allcan be some entitled motherfuckers. Being entitled ingame is fine as long as you're being reasonable to world expectations as well. Be entitled about how the seams aren't just so amd the hem needs to be lower. Roleplay it..

Wanting bespoke clothing, armor, or gear made and delivered pronto is a ridiculous notion. I don't care how fast the crafting system actually makes it on an OOC level, IC it should take a few weeks minimum to make most of the orders I'd see as a Merchant PC. So if you're pouncing on them wanting bling yesterday, hold yourr fucking chalton and give them time. If you're offended by this post you're probably one of the people I hated dealing with.

Tl;dr don't be that OOCly insensitive asshole that ruins roles for people..

[Incognito]

I've played my more-than-fair share of GMH PCs, both family and employee roles.  In the past, and up to very recently.

I definitely agree that GMHs need some sort of make-over.

The limitation on number of PCs employed for starters is very restrictive. Add to that the fact that they can only be crafters. Just makes for an extremely restrictive environment to play in. The inability to have in-House hunters/gatherers forces GMHs to depend on outsiders entirely, and that is tricky when one GMH is dominating the others in cornering markets of certain materials, or from certain suppliers of said materials. The same goes for the inability to have in-House intel-gathering staff, and muscle.

This needs to be remedied, perhaps with leeway to hire more and diverse PCs. In-House GMH corps (Kuraci Outriders & Regulars, Salarri Steel Guard and Kadian Falcons) worked well. Better than the Garrison for sure. And MUCH better than having to rely completely on supply companies and independent hunter/gatherers.

Then we come to the whole "order delivery" part, which isn't ideal by a longshot! PCs place orders, the GMH PC conveys those orders to Staff in a weekly email, Staff loads up items on an NPC, then when the customer and GMH PC do meet, the sale is made. Unfortunately, we cannot have an array of NPCs which carry all the House items pre-loaded on them for immediate retrieval and sale, because GMHs have HUGE databases of items (think 1500+ atleast), and then there are restrictions on which items can be sold to which Houses, which restricted items cannot be sold more than a certain number per year IG etc. Finally, factor in the ever-expanding line of custom crafts added to each GMH's line-up.

One solution to this *could* be to have a single NPC in a locked/secure location that can directly load items, so that the authorised GMH personnel could just go there and have their orders loaded up on the spot (using the object number identifier). Needless to say, Staff should receive a log of this activity for perusal/approval at a later date. (Yes, I do know this is easier said than done, but it is the best solution I could think of).

As far as adding product lines to GMHS, I would say that GMHs do NOT need more and newer products and product lines added to them. Indy trading companies vying to make a MMH already have tremendous difficulty in identifying niche products that do not overlap with the current product lines of existing GMHs. The GMHs have monopolies for a reason, but there's no reason to add to them really.

We want GMHs to be self-sufficient, we want them to deal with gathering raw materials, deliver goods on time without pissing off customers, dangerous elements in the wilderness, deadlier elements in the Cities, templars, nobles, politics amongst themselves - AND we want GMH leader pcs to survive, have longevity and have fun in their roles - then we need to give them the means to succeed!

[Brytta Léofa]

On the special order front: what if PC merchants could generate a ticket that encapsulated your order, which you'd turn in at the standard GMH tailoring location?

- This requires being physically present with the merchant at order time rather than pickup time. Still drives role-play and travel, but totally eliminates the nagging aspect. (Customers can check order progress with the tailor.)
- Being physically present at order time means that the code can take measurements so there are no sizing problems. (Imagine being ABLE to order a bow the correct strength, zomg.)
- The code for this can still support all manner of fun hijinks: amount due at delivery (vs upfront to the PC merchant), time the order takes (with some minimums enforced), whether the recipient ever actually gets the order. Cheat your boss, cheat your customers, spend your own money to sweeten the deal.
- Using tickets supports exciting new theft opportunities.

So this needs three new commands given to PC merchants:
(1) List objects in the database with a clan-specific filter. (This may be slightly glitchy because database inconsistency, but 99% of stuff should be fine...trust your sponsored roles to not load "[bow] [3room] [donotlaod]" that slipped through because of a typo.) They're using this to get object numbers. Yes, nobody should ever OOC "I want onum 12345," d'oh.
(2) View attributes of an onum in the database, just so they can see more than the sdesc. (Only works for objects they can already list.)
(3) Create a "tailoring" ticket for a PC in the room, encapsulating an onum (one that they can list), a price, and an order duration. These can be logged for compliance monitoring.

I think this is worth the investment just for eliminating order-nagging. But it also saves 15-30 mins of PC/staff time per item that could be better spent doing something else. And it gives GMH PCs the ability to be familiar with their craft list, which really should be the case anyway.

[Barsook]

I already suggested my idea about the ticket system earlier for the orders and I think we do need that.

[Brytta Léofa]

I already suggested my idea about the ticket system earlier for the orders and I think we do need that.

Derp, so you did. :thumbs up:

[Barsook]

The limitation on number of PCs employed for starters is very restrictive. Add to that the fact that they can only be crafters. Just makes for an extremely restrictive environment to play in. The inability to have in-House hunters/gatherers forces GMHs to depend on outsiders entirely, and that is tricky when one GMH is dominating the others in cornering markets of certain materials, or from certain suppliers of said materials. The same goes for the inability to have in-House intel-gathering staff, and muscle.

This needs to be remedied, perhaps with leeway to hire more and diverse PCs. In-House GMH corps (Kuraci Outriders & Regulars, Salarri Steel Guard and Kadian Falcons) worked well. Better than the Garrison for sure. And MUCH better than having to rely completely on supply companies and independent hunter/gatherers.

Along with a better ordering system, this is the other biggest problems is the lack of diversity does really limit the options. All of the GMH employees that I played, minus Hostess Songbird Mags of House Kurac, were mostly crafters. I think I had one hunter in House Salarr. That lead to spam crafting like crazy which I think overwhelmed the PC merchants with stuff to sell and no place to sell them.

That's why I enjoyed my first time in House Kurac with Mags because the entertainment branch was just not another crafting/hunting/merchanting branch.

To me, a crew isn't just three pieces of the puzzle but all of the pieces. It functions better that way.

ETA: I do agree that having the guarding branch of each GMH is better than the Garrison as it would create a better power struggle in Luir's rather than "Together we are strong!". Even though GMH's should be not competing against each other...

As far as adding product lines to GMHS, I would say that GMHs do NOT need more and newer products and product lines added to them. Indy trading companies vying to make a MMH already have tremendous difficulty in identifying niche products that do not overlap with the current product lines of existing GMHs. The GMHs have monopolies for a reason, but there's no reason to add to them really.

Agreed.

We want GMHs to be self-sufficient, we want them to deal with gathering raw materials, deliver goods on time without pissing off customers, dangerous elements in the wilderness, deadlier elements in the Cities, templars, nobles, politics amongst themselves - AND we want GMH leader pcs to survive, have longevity and have fun in their roles - then we need to give them the means to succeed!

Well said.

[sucre]

Maybe every item should be craftable? And then a master list provided of clan crafting recipes?

[Lotion]

Maybe every item should be craftable? And then a master list provided of clan crafting recipes?

this would be so nice but there are also an absurd number of items that lack recipies and posting such a large obtuse list on the gdb would be eek

[Veselka]

GMH absolutely compete against each other. It just is not in our RL understanding of how businesses are "competition". We think of it as — if they are making clothing, and I am making knives, how could we possibly be in competition with one another?

This is not how it plays out in places like Allanak and Tuluk, where you need politics to survive the onslaught of demanded fines, taxes, bribes, and "pocket nobles/Templars" to assist in the survival of your House. This is where the Agent branch comes into play and is IMHO vastly more enjoyable than playing a Merchant.

Houses vie against each other pretty constantly. It isn't always out in the open. Sometimes they are maneuvering for better deals from Templar Soandso while disadvantaging another House. Sometimes one Agent is putting out a hit on another House's Merchant for undercutting them at an Auction. There's a thousand reasons for GMH to not get along, and only a handful of reasons they should. Conflict is interesting when contrasted with peace — so there have been periods of time where that mutual animosity is subtle or behind the scenes.

But I don't think we should perpetuate the notion that GMH get along with one another just because their monopolies focus on different commodities. Politically speaking, they are certainly at odds with one another, as "FAVOR" is a finite resource when it comes to Templars and Nobles.

[Narf]

GMH absolutely compete against each other. It just is not in our RL understanding of how businesses are "competition". We think of it as — if they are making clothing, and I am making knives, how could we possibly be in competition with one another?

Well, except for Kurac. They compete very traditionally with just about everyone in the game. I mean I guess they don't sell slaves, so they're in the clear with Borsail and Kasix. That seems like about it though.

[Dune Bunny]

I think one way of approving a GMH member's time/life is that if you're not "Someone", then you shouldn't really be pestering them for their time. Amos the Grebmeister shouldn't be in the head of Merchant Minnie Salarr, pushing for an order of Ankheg armor ASAP, because he grebbed up 20 large in salt last week. (I'd love to see cash flow severely struck down, to combat these sorts of things, but that's a different topic altogether.)

IMO - Amos, more fittingly, should be going to the bazaar to search through the bins at the two Salarr shops for his elite goods, because common grebbers aren't on the same level of GMH blood, who likely have Nobles and Templars up their ass half the day, and don't need a basic dude adding to the headache. I'd assume Amos should be expecting to lose that Ankheg armor the first time he walks past an AOD corporal/sergeant in tattered leathers that just happens to need some new duds...

The goods at the Salarr shop aren't crap, by the way - they're Salarri quality wares, and the best arms/armor in the Known. And if a common Amos DOES wish to butt in on a GMH blood's busy schedule, it should come at an up-front monetary cost. "Oi, Merchant Minni, I know yer busy an' all, but here's some 'sid for your time, I'd like to speak abouts spendin' lotsa coin wif ya."

Another thing is that I think the GMHs themselves put too much wealth in the hands of the independents. Every normal shop in the world might pay 8 'sid for that bone dagger, but Salarr over there will give you 12. Salarr should be giving you 6-8, because they're doing you a favor by taking your out-of-house products to sell, and will sell it for more than the other shops as well. Why sell the Uber Silken X to Old Dude in the Tent for 500, when Kadius will give you 800, which is more than enough to live on until they sell one of the 5 you sold them, so you can sell more?

^ The sad reality of the above as well, is that as a crafter in a GMH, that thing that sells for 800, you'll see about 200 of it. Free food and water, and a wide open locker isn't an offset of 600 'sid per item when it comes down to numbers - because not only is that indy making an impossible fortune as it is, they have no restrictions put upon them by anything that a GMH will put on its employees. (As someone that has played more of independent crafters in the past few years than likely an entire decade of others pcs, I feel as if shooting myself in the foot here. XD )

The incentives to be in a GMH should be a shining example of 'The Good Life' on Zalanthas. Growing children should see an eventual job with a GMH as the pinnacle of life. Kadian Crafter #28475 should walk about with her chin up, because she's where 99.9% of the Known will never be. These things, sadly, just don't translate into the coded game, as well as the RP-area of it either, regardless of what the docs say about it.

How to change that without making independents feel like they've had the rug yanked out from beneath them is a debacle I don't think I have an answer for though. So, I don't really think there's much reworking that needs done to the GMH, so much as the culture of the game surrounding them needs to be in a place where GMHs are considered fun/viable/awesome to be a part of when compared to not having any restrictions to adhere to as an independent. (A former Trade Templar that was not happy at all if my 300 a year taxes didn't come with at least a large worth of a tip was a nice thing to see, even if by lore standards, 1300 a year should be a fortune. XD)

That was a lot of (hopefully not) incoherent rambling, sorry!

[WithSprinkles]

GMH absolutely compete against each other. It just is not in our RL understanding of how businesses are "competition". We think of it as — if they are making clothing, and I am making knives, how could we possibly be in competition with one another?

Well, except for Kurac. They compete very traditionally with just about everyone in the game. I mean I guess they don't sell slaves, so they're in the clear with Borsail and Kasix. That seems like about it though.

I had considered contributing and said nah, but this caught my attention.

I don't see Nergal's post right now, and don't feel like searching for it, but years past he put up a summary about an RPT that was attempted for the merchant houses. It seemed to end rather prematurely on staff's part, and his post cleared up the fact that staff had seemingly dropped it because there were suspicions of OOC collusion. At the time, my character was very much still alive, at the time of the post, and for a long while after, so I felt that my hands were tied in properly responding to what was shared with the community, though I expressed my displeasure in the request tool at how events were characterized. I'm not bound by a living character, or the one year "rule" anymore.

The merchant houses do squabble and compete, though folks that regularly play in them, the merchant houses and AOD know that. At the time, Kadius and Salarr had a pretty good relationship. Our crews regularly went out to hunt together, and we had several leadership roles in both crews - I think three in each house. There were no major conflicts between any of us that I noted, beyond usual sibling pranks and tensions in house. In fact, Bella of the Salarri crew had proposed to Maristen - they both had no true interest in each other beyond being friends, but saw the benefit of a business marriage contract (which would have been a way to get Maristen rightfully promoted... maybe also transferred, but again, politics). His own house ended up jamming a ring onto his finger, maybe, to prevent a talent poaching as lifesworn had been abolished at that point. From a character perspective, I've no clue.

In any case, both houses got on so well that there would be makeshift surprise sculptures outside of both compounds made by the crafters and hunters in teasing formations of random supplies that I think the leaders pretended to ignore, for the most part. With the combined strength of the crews, we were bringing down big, and sometimes exotic game, and using it for new crafts.

So when we got wind of a cave full of ankheg with pretty shells, we naturally got excited. It was right near Kurac's holding, but we reasoned that it was right by Salarr's Camp, and near enough to Kadius' Outpost, so we weren't gonna let them just have it all to themselves. So Salarr and Kadius sat down and tirelessly wrote draft after draft after DRAFT of a contract with a 33 percent share to show to Kurac. My character couldn't read at the time, but was fully involved in it all, with the leaders of both houses beginning to (with permission from higher up and some dealing) showing my character how to understand Cavilish writing.

Kurac wasn't having it, and was angry and suspicious that we'd already been negotiating, and hardly any amount of discussion was getting through to them. So we wrote the contract over and over again with them threatening to just blow the cave up saying that it would be safer for their Outpost - which... took Kadius and Salarr aback. We started posting up spies, and sure enough, Kurac seemed to be sending in scouts, and there were fences being set up near the cave.

Now this was getting the leaders of Kadius and Salarr pretty upset, and spies were sent in. My character clapped his hands over his ears a couple times during some parts of the discussion, because he wanted to be able to say WITHOUT LYING that he knew nothing of some of what might go down, because the Kuraci were beginning to get exceedingly hostile about blurs in the sands. After the events at the Estate a year or so prior with the crafter named Mert, Maristen had a certain terror of magic. However, he spent a good deal of his time in the company of Templars that sometimes glowed with power, and had to frequently do business in Tuluk as a Merchant House Overseer. He had been trained to know what mind worms were, if not what their attacks felt like, and carried fetishes on himself to try to shield his thoughts.

Long story short, he woke from resting at Red's, and as soon as he stepped out into the streets, people told him to hide himself, because Ruke was dead. I think he immediately changed cloaks and ran home. I was a bit confused as a player, and shocked, and also had a good deal of, "What the hell?" swirling in my head. I was bummed because I respected the longevity and work of the player, but my character thought he was being difficult to work with at the time. I believe that Tezi died soon after this, leaving Meg was the highest ranked one left standing.

I reasoned that perhaps it might be a good idea to take a swipe at, or kill, Meg, because if the new leadership rolled in, and she wasn't there, then things might smooth over more quickly. There was also the fact that Kadius as dealing with a bit of unnecessary back and forth with the Atrium over "party rights" and interior design contracts, which shouldn't have even been a thing we needed to tousle with the school over, but it was what we were simultaneously being told to do by our Storytellers, and told was "beneath us". It was a very mixed message, and this is important -

   * The Atrium was supposedly a school, but it was sequestering all of the nobles and high crust people away behind a membership. They were a Minor Merchant House and making it hard for the Major Merchant houses to work because they were operating outside their role by being a tea house. As for myself personally, I was not being "allowed" to ASK for a membership, and I was not being allowed to JOIN by my Storyteller at the time. So it meant, FAR less business. Basically, they were setting up the leader of the Atrium to fail and be killed unless she opened her doors - and... it wasn't really happening, she had about 4 different contracts on her life.

  *THAT is important because MEG came to town and started selling her goods in the middle of a silent turf war. Right in front of the people feuding. If she had known, had agents in town, or stayed away, she wouldn't have gotten batted at. But, she did, and it scared her so much she didn't want to come back. I remember that she got caught up later, and that was also a part of things, I think.

I believe after this was the Ocotillo festival (I know that I may be getting some of the order of events confused). Kadius bribed the Templars to raid Kurac's wagon, and I'm sorry. I know that was a HUGE inconvenience, but it was good, you have to admit... We were also trying to get them taxed and everything else to keep them from participating and joining in on the profits because of their behavior during negotiations.

After Meg died, Joyner (Kadius' NPC) comes barging into the argosy where Maristen and Zhaka lived, and starts demanding to search us. I have zero idea what is going on and he's laying into us hard. When my character speaks up, Joyner calls him a "worm", which makes Zhaka step in front of Maristen and tell Joyner to remember that my character is a family member and mind his tongue. It pisses Joyner off, but he changes subjects. Zhaka admits to doing what he had to do for the house, but as I player, I'm pretty flabbergasted by the pure anger in the room, let alone Joyner going off on me, because he never had before - Joyner calls us both stupid because the Guild is beholden to Kurac, so hiring them to attack Kurac would never work.

*This fact was not in Kadian documentation, and I had specifically asked for any pertinent info when I was made a Leader. Apparently, as far as I can piece together, the Storyteller took it on themselves to animate the world and pass along the information, because they were very firm about Kurac knowing everything, despite the fact that it made little sense. It was the last time I, the player, hired or trusted the guild for anything because I lacked this insight, and I ended up making Guild members pay for the supposed "betrayal" after. The only thing my character knew in regards to the Guild was that he was supposed to pay the proper protections, get the markings, and kill off anyone that stepped too heavily on his toes - otherwise, live and let live.

The fact is, it was a very strange response from Joyner - to demand that we bend our necks and give up instead of trying to work with us. Zhaka kept asking him if he had been somehow been nibbled on by brain worms, and I hilariously kept thinking of maggots in his brain because I hadn't heard the term "Worm" before in regards to... that. Joryner denied it, and got alarmed and angry when it looked like he was going to be attacked, but after things calmed a little, Zhaka stormed off, and I couldn't blame him. I really wanted to as well, and wondered if I shouldn't have in the days after. Zhaka's head was delivered to Kurac. Joyner apologized to my character, and handed Maristen Zhaka's ring finger, telling him that it was all his mess to clean up or he was fucked. Maristen wrapped and buried the bit of his cousin in the garden and in the years after would go and "talk" to Zhaka when he needed some quiet time.

As for the rest of the conflict, Salarr was still and ally, but they were having their own breaks with family and major issues. Mannivichi, Kadius' First Hunter, was attacked by a half-elf sergeant while in Luirs, and was later killed. Albie also vanished around this time, I think, but Maristen didn't have the resources to figure out what happened. This is around the time that Maristen grew a pair and started killing people that got in his way.

Kurac's new family members screamed profanities about Meg's death at Maristen, and were showing deference to a person that was not their family member yet over him. They demanded 50,000 sid from Maristen personally (which was a harken back to when Maristen asked for 50,000 sid for Mannivichi's attack. The difference between the two instances is that Maristen opened up with 50,000 to negotiate and was met with offense, and when he was told to pay 50,000 and balked, their NPC merchant was kidnapped and trade was halted).

Trade was only "halted" for Maristen's particular company, so to speak, and he was told by Kadius that all the other companies could get through and that his problems were his own and to fix it. So... Maristen turned to the nobles and Templars of the city and proposed making a new trade route through Ten Serak. There was enthusiastic agreement. However, Kadius again said no (they had been attempting to discourage participation in the Ankheg event at ALL, and were refusing to help and actively hindering a lot).

So.. Sometimes when you are hit with a no, you just prepare to do things anyway. I was also getting very sick, as a player, of listening to the half-elf character constantly contacting me via the Way and mentioning how he was going to "piss on your grave" and stuff like that. It was more than I wanted to deal with. He had some assumption that my character wanted to kill him, but I didn't have that reach yet, and was mostly trying to end the conflict so that I could regroup.

I also refused to pay out of pocket for the negotiation. I gave them the 50k out of the clan account and had done with it. I wanted to buy my hunters armor and told the Storytellers that I was getting fed up with it all, and I wanted help ending it, because the verbal abuse was getting stupid. Yeah, I had participated just the same as everyone else, but I wasn't a villain and I was ready for it to be over, as I figured I had played along long enough. It's probably obvious that I'm getting testy thinking back on it. When Ten Serak was ruled out as an option, I was polling Allanak and cajoling the leadership to try to take the Outpost. It wouldn't have happened, but I was willing to do whatever it took, if it meant dismantling that place brick by brick by myself to be left alone.

Kurac and Kadius settled the dispute, and I was sort of bemoaning the loss of Tuluk, because I REALLY wanted a change of scenery after all that when I made a new character. Yeesh. As much as I grumble about it, it was fun, and I think I got a lot out of it, learning how to play, but when the argosy wheel snapped, I was done. I wasn't, in any universe, gonna talk with the Kuraci again for at least another year or two. Too soon. I'm sure you were all lovely, but I bet you all feel me from the other end of that muddle. I just wrote a novel, and that was exhausting to recall.

So yeah... improvements? Let's have both more and less of THAT. I was gonna format it and make it pretty, but screw it. bathe in that ramble, and I don't like to be grumpy, but whomever that Storyteller was, I hope your ears are burning a little. My character, like many others who got through all that, deserved a promotion and a trophy for all that fuss. My recall may not be perfect, and I wasn't any angel, but I didn't see any collusion in all that. We were almost chewing on all that paper writing out those dang contracts and those meetings to get it all done to RL hours.

You wanna know what being an Overseer is? This is it. On TOP of filling orders. Man.

[Incognito]

GMH absolutely compete against each other. It just is not in our RL understanding of how businesses are "competition". We think of it as — if they are making clothing, and I am making knives, how could we possibly be in competition with one another?

This is not how it plays out in places like Allanak and Tuluk, where you need politics to survive the onslaught of demanded fines, taxes, bribes, and "pocket nobles/Templars" to assist in the survival of your House. This is where the Agent branch comes into play and is IMHO vastly more enjoyable than playing a Merchant.

Houses vie against each other pretty constantly. It isn't always out in the open. Sometimes they are maneuvering for better deals from Templar Soandso while disadvantaging another House. Sometimes one Agent is putting out a hit on another House's Merchant for undercutting them at an Auction. There's a thousand reasons for GMH to not get along, and only a handful of reasons they should. Conflict is interesting when contrasted with peace — so there have been periods of time where that mutual animosity is subtle or behind the scenes.

But I don't think we should perpetuate the notion that GMH get along with one another just because their monopolies focus on different commodities. Politically speaking, they are certainly at odds with one another, as "FAVOR" is a finite resource when it comes to Templars and Nobles.

Competition and conflict between GMH's (for resources or favor or intel or overall dominance even) is fine and actually healthy, as long as it is on an equal footing, and subjected to the same restrictions and limitations by PCs and NPCs and the World (i.e. Staff).

Saying anything more on this subject would be considered whining and IC sensitive, so I'll leave it at that.

Edited to add : Although, I will admit and agree, that a fresh-out-of-chargen GMH leader PC cannot and should not expect to have the same power and influence as their counterpart in another GMH, who has been around for a while and has built up relationships that result in what might "seem" to be disproportionate advantages.

[Decameron]

*Take it with a grain of salt, as I've only had one PC GMHer in over 25+ years of playing, this is just my personal observation in that time*

I'll be touching briefly on player perspective and expectation, since that is something I believe we can all change. I am sure there are other areas others have touched on, but as noted above, there seems to be a trend or natural human instinct to log right in and swing for the fences.

It's sort of like prison rules mentality has bled into the concept of this specific role that I rarely see anywhere else in game, for example:

Take a newly app'd Borsail Noble, they aren't going to:
- Immediately try to kill a Senior Noble of House Oash (without consequence)
- Try to take over Jal's sewer responsibilities (without consequences and a lot of odd looks from their own family)
- 'Shake Things Up' by conquering a new outpost without involving anyone else
- Gun immediately for promotion (from what I've seen, if you think you're playing in the role for less than an OOC year and think you're getting a promotion, you're wrong)
- Go super off-doc (trying to hire known magickers, mind-benders, etc. Likely getting stored in the process)

Even with the competition actually built into the Templars, you aren't going to have a fresh-faced nobody Blue take a look at an established Lord Inquisitor, compare their two month-long stint to the years and hundreds of OOC hours of connections, networking, experience, effort, etc and mutter, "Hold my farmer's blood, I got this."  I am not saying these objectives aren't all well and good for the long-term (mind-bender / magicker hiring aside), but just because you've spent 7 hours IC doesn't mean these things are going to be achievable. 

The Noble analogy is also interesting to me because it points to specific areas that the Noble Houses are centered upon, and I feel this should be considered similar to the GMHs, but which is often overlooked. They do compete for natural resources and influence, but their markets are more or less settled to my understanding. I don't think Kadius should be trying to dive into the spice trade, Salarr trying to build wagons, or Kurac trying to get into fine silks or weaponry. They have their respective monopolies for a reason, and these trades earn each GMH millions of 'sid every year, and have for hundreds of IC years. That isn't going to change without some major effort, nor should it.

tldr: I am all for MCB, but just as the Allanaki Nobility hasn't torn each other apart over their own occasional squabbles, I view the GMHs as siblings rather than at war with one another.

That being said, I do feel it is one of the most labor intensive, challenging,  often thankless, and overlooked positions that I have ever experienced in the game. The challenge is its own reward.  The documentation could use a little love as things have naturally changed. However, as challenging as it is, it does share similarities with other leadership roles within the game: you need patience and you need to establish yourself first and foremost before potentially pursuing some of those big ticket items.

[Barsook]

tldr: I am all for MCB, but just as the Allanaki Nobility hasn't torn each other apart over their own occasional squabbles, I view the GMHs as siblings rather than at war with one another.

You nailed it and from other posts above, I see the take away is that competition isn't much in resources but it's political. And as Decameron said, plus one on updating the docs.

[Jihelu]

I would say that competition probably isn't as fine as it sounds in theory, primarily due to the way the houses have formed themselves. Competition works if you're providing competing services. A northern merchant house that supplies building materials, vs a southern house that provides building materials. Both competing for contracts in Luirs.

That doesn't work when your house is providing substantially different products. There can be a bit of competition in a few areas but they are few, such as Salarri armor and gear vs Kuraci outdoor gear and bows and what not, but Borsail isn't going to be fighting Sath anytime soon over slavery.
They've contracted themselves into their own merchant kingdoms because they knew it would help themselves, any energy focused on 'competition' is keeping smaller merchant houses in their place or absorbing them (As the merchant houses have done before).

[Derain]

One thing, the world should re-act accordingly if you murder a merchant family member..

Templar executes a merchant publicly for some dumbass reason or no reason? Well? The NPC family with there huge wealth should make the Templars life hell..

Oh you killed Bob Salarr? wellll all the legions have just taken a 10% cost increase on cod pieces across the board..

Oh shit you killed Joe Bob Kurac? Welp suddenly there is no spice for any of the Templarates Mul's in the city.

Kadius? oh well.. ok but now Great Lord whosowhatsit isn't getting his lace thong for another 2 years.

[Jihelu]

One thing, the world should re-act accordingly if you murder a merchant family member..

Templar executes a merchant publicly for some dumbass reason or no reason? Well? The NPC family with there huge wealth should make the Templars life hell..

Oh you killed Bob Salarr? wellll all the legions have just taken a 10% cost increase on cod pieces across the board..

Oh shit you killed Joe Bob Kurac? Welp suddenly there is no spice for any of the Templarates Mul's in the city.

Kadius? oh well.. ok but now Great Lord whosowhatsit isn't getting his lace thong for another 2 years.

Yeah, this is a politics nightmare that the game does express sometimes but the virtual world would have the most impact.

Even if the family member was a bit of a fuck up, if they were a huge fuck up the family wouldn't have them in place to be executed they'd do it themselves, the Templarate just expressed that the Merchant Houses 'aren't as special' as they feel they are.

Merchants would be calling in favors or politicking with nobles over this.
They'd be politicking with other Templars who are more in their pocket.
They've be raising hell depending on how important the member was to their contacts in the Senate (Don't they have seats on the Senate or do nobles represent them?) If they are less important I imagine most bitching is the backroom/way kind of bitching.

I imagine there would be less of a 'measured response' as simple as 'They killed our person, haha fuck their prices' as that angers people you can't afford to anger.  Amos Kurac and House Kurac aren't as important as the Templarate, sorry but sucks to suck. However inconveniencing a single Templar, or a small group of them, won't get your entire ass introuble. Once Samos the Red starts getting inconvenienced he flies into the Estate and starts asking questions.

Nobles/Templars aren't commoners. inconveniencing them gets them mad, not inconvenienced.  A commoner gets a 10% increase on their product and goes 'Damn that sucks'. A noble does and they start plotting or finding someone else to do their stuff. (Or in my case, I get a bad deal from a Merchant House and my staffer tells me it's a great idea to go around them. Then his staffer tells me 'Uh no sorry uh trade deals I guess deal with the enormous price hike'. And then the plot dies!)

[Hestia]

One thing, the world should re-act accordingly if you murder a merchant family member..

Templar executes a merchant publicly for some dumbass reason or no reason? Well? The NPC family with there huge wealth should make the Templars life hell..

Oh you killed Bob Salarr? wellll all the legions have just taken a 10% cost increase on cod pieces across the board..

Oh shit you killed Joe Bob Kurac? Welp suddenly there is no spice for any of the Templarates Mul's in the city.

Kadius? oh well.. ok but now Great Lord whosowhatsit isn't getting his lace thong for another 2 years.

It depends on the merchant and the reason for killing them.  Not everyone has access to all the information leading up to the kill.  A hypothetical though:

Bob Salarr gets killed. You know this. You know he was killed because Lord Templar Amos caught him overcharging the AOD for armor.

What you don't know, is that Bob Salarr intentionally overcharged the AOD, because the AOD QUIETLY eliminated Bob's aide, Talia, who they knew was a mindbender. Bob also knew that Talia was a mindbender, and didn't immediately give her up to the templarate. The Templarate discovered that Bob knew. The Templarate questioned Bob over the Way following Talia's execution, and Bob admitted that he knew it, but he loved his mindbender and she was a good armor maker so he kept her around, plus she was manipulating all his minions to do better work, and that's always good for business.  When the AOD killed her, things started falling apart for him. So he started charging the AOD double to punish them for interfering in Salarr business.

Except - mindbenders are absolutely NOT Salarr business. They're Templar business.

But you didn't know any of that. All you know is he was executed for overcharging the AOD, and that seemed like a lousy reason, and the templar was over-reaching his authority, and so Salarr should come down hard on the templar and punish the entire city by refusing to make armor for the AOD for the next year.

You'd be 100% wrong about that.  Salarr should be presenting gifts to the templar for cleaning up what was turning into a HUGE mess for Salarr, and apologizing profusely for allowing the mess to exist in the first place.

[Halcyon]

I'd like to suggest GMH products get separated into three groups.

Restricted House goods I think should be added to a set of vendors only GMH Merchants + can access.   The GMHs know they will sell Oash or Kassigarh more armor and uniforms.  There are probably a few stacks made somewhere so that good relations can be retained with the nobility.

Most of the rest of the item list should require a pc craft, AND pc gathered materials, with all recipes published on clan forums.  This makes hunters and crafters needed.  This makes some goods cyclic based on material access.   This makes part of a Merchant or Head Crafters job maintenance of the materials stores.

The rarest and best of items should always come from orders.   I see logical problems with allowing pcs to craft metal, for instance.   Access to the highest tier weapons and armor should politically restricted, and I like a ST being able to use these requests to generate plots, bidding wars, etc.