Are Noble House PC Guards Needed?

[A guard]

Before replying to this message I ask that you take a moment and think for awhile before replying.  Take the time and give it some honest thought.  Thanks!

I've been thinking recently about PCs in the Noble houses, especially as another Noble House opens.  I have come to the conclusion that PC Guards are almost useless in most Houses.  There is no point in having PCs as guards for most of the Houses - Houses need PCs as aides, servants, slaves, whatever - but not as guards.  These Houses all have npcs that can stand around for hours non-stop and be the guard that they are supposed to be.

There is a question of 'special' missions - and thus you can make a case for special ops type PCs - but the reality is (to the best of my knowledge) that most Houses have their PCs as regular guards and not special ops.

The only House that can make a case for PC guards is Tor - but even there I think it isn't a really good one considering the state of the world.  When the rebellion in the north was in full flux, when the Empire was expanding, and when the Empire collasped Tor Soldier PCs were useful.  Now that there seems to be a stability with no conquest going on anywhere (I could be very wrong and not seeing any conquests) there is no more need for this type of PC.  

Borsail could make a case for PCs that hunt slaves and track them down.  But then they wouldn't be guards - they'd be a unit that specializes in slaves.  Once again, to my limited knowledge, I'm not seeing this happen in any manner that would justify having the PCs "just in case."  For as long as I've known Borsail I have seen them go on maybe two slave runs (that's eight years).  

As for the other Houses - I simply can't come up with any reason for PC guards to exist other than atmosphere.  The life of a guard in most of these Houses is pretty bland - spar, eat, spar, sleep, spar, eat, spar, sleep, etc.  The priorities of the House are carried out by the nobles and their aides.  Occassionaly a guard will act as a messenger but they are just being used to do the function of a servant.

Perhaps I am missing something - but I do not see the drive to constantly recruit guards as useful.  I don't mind having the PC guards around at all, but I think that they are diluting the player base significantly.  After all, each House can optimistically hope to have five regularly played guards.  Five guards isn't really enough to do very much - especially when usually you'll get only one or two online at a time.  

This leaves RPTs - but RPTs tend to make use of auxilary forces to bolster the numbers - so why not just make total use of these forces?  

I'm just thinking about the necessity of PC guards.  Usually the life of a PC Guard is reduced to the life of a messenger (if lucky) or else to a spar / sleep routine.  Once in a long while there might be an event where some PC Guards might be fun to have around - but even then it's just an option the event can carry on seemlessly without any at all.

[spawnloser]

Okay, first thing's first, I can understand why you say this...second thing, I still think that PC guards are a good thing.

Reasons that I think PC guards are good:

1: Gives newer players a way to get used to the game, especially how combat works.

2: NPC Guards are great and all, but if Noble Dickhead wants that guy over their detained, it's so much easier to have a PC guard do it and roleplay it out than having to keep giving orders to an NPC.  The game is about the roleplay, not the system.  I think this is one of the better reasons for keeping PC guards, and you even listed it but don't seem to see the importance to this aspect.

[Angela Christine]

I think it comes down to supply and demand.  Noble houses don't need a lot of PC guards, but a lot of players would rather be a warrior than an aide or servents.  Obviously you could be an aide with a character from the warrior guild, but people like to be buff.

Besides, it can be hard to find things for your employees to do all the time.  At least with guards you can have them train or guard something.  Aides just stand around looking stuffy.

But mainly the buff thing.  If more people chose non-warrior classes there would be more people working non-warrior jobs.  Most warriors want to be buff, so they take jobs as guards, hunters or mercenaries.

As for things to do, there is nothing to prevent noble's soldiers from going on organized hunting trips.  Sure, the nobles can afford to buy meat but fresh meat is good to.  Having your guards do a little hunting keeps them sharp and lowers some of your House expenses.  What's not to love?  You could also send small expeditions of guards (with or without official livery) to Red Storm and Luirs to gather non-local rumors.  If you are feeling particularily daring you could even disguise a couple and send them to the other city-state for a few days.  Information is money.

AC

[X-D]

Speaking as one who has had a few long term noble guards I think they are needed and fun to play, far more to do then to eat sleep spar, specialy if the house has a good noble who will use his/her pc guards, Who btw are actually far more useful then an npc guard, specialy if not all your pc guards are of the warrior guild, plus a guards job is to guard everything of that house, this includes servants if needed, aides, nobles, wagons ETC.

One also has to be able to think things up on your own and not depend totally on others, AC's bit can handle being repeated:)

As for things to do, there is nothing to prevent noble's soldiers from going on organized hunting trips. Sure, the nobles can afford to buy meat but fresh meat is good to. Having your guards do a little hunting keeps them sharp and lowers some of your House expenses. What's not to love? You could also send small expeditions of guards (with or without official livery) to Red Storm and Luirs to gather non-local rumors. If you are feeling particularily daring you could even disguise a couple and send them to the other city-state for a few days. Information is money.

Then add in relationships, hobbies, intrigue and more.

Once a guard has been around for 5-10 ic years or more sparring begins to take a backseat.

My chars day(s) can often look more like, eat, spar, socialize, hobby, recruit, eat, sleep, guard, hunt, drink, spy,guard, socialize, travel, shop, travel, hunt,spar,guard.

ETC

Some of the things are started/run by the nobles, others he starts/runs, some are alone, some are in large groups and some are with a single partner.


Eat sleep spar over and over, that sounds more like a merc company:)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Sounds like the....DUMDEEDUM!...Byn.

[Barzalene]

I actually agree with the original poster. I'd rather see the warrior types work for the Byn and have the noble houses hire the byn more often.

That said, I'm not advocating that all the houses fire their guards immediately. I'm just saying that it's hard to have a dynamic house guard with lots of purpose.

[Angela Christine]

I actually agree with the original poster. I'd rather see the warrior types work for the Byn and have the noble houses hire the byn more often.

I agree, but I'd expand it to the Byn and the local Militia/Legion.  

It isn't a feudal system where each House has a lot of lands peasants they are responsible for, so there isn't a reason for each house to have it's own standing army.  They only need enough guards to manage the slaves, guard the gates and work as body guards (most of that is well managed by NPCs and VNPCs).  
While Milita have less freedom than Byn in terms of travel, they do have things to do inside the city.  I've seen plenty of missions that included a noble house and a detatchement of militia, so it seems like the Templarate is willing to lend them out (heck, they probably _like_ having some of their own people watching).

Angela Christine

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Actually, I agree greatly...I feel that in the main, a Noble House should serve as a social style organization in regards to players, and I feel that more contract for mercenary compnies should be formed, so that mercenary companies serve even more of a purpose...I would also advocate the existance of more than one mercenary company.

Kuraci, for example, in theory, is a perfect house, hiring mercenaries and not requiring a life term. I would really rather see more mercs allowed to work with more Houses, for then the PC base flows instead of staying stagnant.

[crymerci]

I didn't post what I was originally going to, because it was all about who was doing what wrong.  Instead, I'll just leave it to the following:

-Be creative.  Whether you're a noble, an officer, or a grunt, shake it up a little.  Make people wodner about your allegiances.  Try out varied tasks. Change the rules.  Break the rules.  Be gung-ho about the rules.  I've seen a lot of creative characters who were noble house guards.

-Yeah, this one is specifically for the nobles and recruiters.  Ok, I know your boss told you that you have to recruit X amount of people before you get Y reward.  Please don't recruit just to have the most PC's.  Don't recruit just in case you might need those guards.  Don't recruit unless you have need and use and time and energy and yes, creativity to do something with those guards. Pretty please?

[Swordsman]

I have to disagree with a lot of what's been said above. Guards and soldiers have a lot more to do than just eat, sleep, and spar (and guarding when needed). If there's any clan out there where the PC guards are just basically eating, sleeping, and sparring (and occasionally standing guard), then I think the problem's either with incompetent leaders (ICly and/or OOCly) or unimaginative players (playing the guards, i.e. the followers, not the leaders). Sure, sparring gets your combat skills up, but what about procedures? If there's an intruder on your estate, do you have a basic search pattern set up so that every PC guard knows what to do and so that the whole estate gets searched? If an assassin attacks your noble, do you have a procedure for which guard does what, or are you all going to just pull out your swords and 'kill assassin'? (Too bad no one thought to 'rescue noble' ...) A guard's life is going to be 95% relaxed and 5% on total alert. But in that 95% relaxed is going to have to go a lot of training in a lot of things so that he/she can handle the 5% alert competently. I'll say it again: PC guards have a lot more to do than just eat, sleep, and spar, and if that's basically all they're doing then there's something seriously wrong IMO.

A few people've said that Houses don't really need their own armies (assuming this means big group of guards). I disagree. Here's something to think about: imagine living in a third-world country and trying to keep a 24-hour watch on your house and your belongings. By the way, you only have three people to act as guards, and there're no such things as guns, so if you get outnumbered, that's basically it. Sure, an estate in Allanak's not going to be exactly the same, but the point is that to keep 'total' watch on a place where you have only basic weapons and no security technology apart from basic locks, it takes a lot of manpower. And now add nobles (who want to go outside the estate, silly things) that have to be well protected. And you want to tell me there's no real need for each House to have its own reasonably large guard corps? Sorry, I disagree ... and no, mercenaries just aren't going to cut it. Mercenaries might be cost-effective, coin-wise, but there's no way that's ever going to beat having a tried and truly loyal guard at your side (and the more the better). All it takes is one smart assassin to join a mercenary band and get assigned to protect your noble or guard that estate gate, and ... crunch.

Just my hard-nosed take.

Swordsman

[Barzalene]

I would like to agree with swordsman if only because I like him, but I can't here. I think the npc and vnpc guards can handle the noble houses without problem.

Swordsman is correct that having a strong leader goes a long way. But what about the houses that do not have a strong leader? Or the houses that have so few pc's that when the leader isn't online no one is there to occupy the troops?

Now, the large merchant houses travel, and for them an active guard makes sense. And Kurac in particular does a great job with keeping their guard occupied.

However, if the warrior types in the north and south were concentrated into militia/legion and byn, perhaps in general they'd have more fun. Which is not to imply that they are not having fun now, of course.

[creeper386]

I think the problem here is with everyone thinking PC warriors that work for houses are all guards... They might do alittle guarding but thats hardly the only thing they do. I've yet to see any house that kept around guards that just stand around and do nothing but eat, sleep, spar and sometimes guard... I know as a player of a guard I wouldn't do that. No fucking way.

I've don't think I've seen a house really gather a whole lot of guards... Well maybe once or twice but don't think it was the intention to grab alot of guards just kind of got out of hand. At most I've seen any one house have five guards... Though all playing times... Ever tried to go and do anything with only five people? Specially when there are probably at LEAST two people for those five to guard? Even with NPC help theres problems, and hardly ever would the guards all be on at a time...

Just trying to figure out where this is coming up? Is there houses that have massed PC armies that do absolutely nothing? Why would the players of these guards stick up with doing absolutely nothing? If this was hurting the player base(The PCs doing absolutely nothing in mass numbers) why aren't the staff working on correcting the problem?


Creeper

[Savak]

This sounds like a playability question at heart.

We're caught between players (in general) preferring a lot of freedom within whatever role their character lives and IC'ly there being a lot of appropriate restriction within many jobs (particularly respectable, salaried jobs for fighter-types).  Noble House guards may have a lot to do, but they are still restricted to a certain range of "appropriate" actions (and there aren't always suitable reasons for some of those actions).

With that in mind, I can see the argument on behalf of pushing the majority of non-family Noble House PC's into more of a special-ops category.  The term alone implies a much greater range of "appropriate" activity, which in fact may also include basic guard duties.

But, it also implies much more trust from the family.  Personally I surmise that most true "special-ops" type people would have to first rise through the ranks of the guards, and THEN be selected for other duties.

It's an idea I wouldn't dismiss out of hand, certainly.  I'm just not convinced it's the best way to go as a sweeping sort of change.

-Savak

[John]

Wow. Lots of great posts.

Another function for guards is to be bought. You can't buy NPCs, but PCs can talk to non-House members in their off-time and might let stuff slip that they didn't realise they let slip, or might be given incentive to tell non-House members about whats going on. They can also be hired to kill lord hob-knob (providing they're disloyal to their noble ).

[Chronium]

Over my Arm career, I've played quite a few noble house guards at various levels of rank and power.  From my experience, I've found that it can be one of the most rewarding character concepts the game has to offer, and it can be a position from which almost anything is possible.  While a guard is mostly regarded as some dude that stands around and watches nobles all day, I find that most noble houses have separate factions within their guard detail.  Most will carry out the normal safety issues of nobles within the house (NPC guards), and then there are the 'elite' guards that carry out other responsibilities.  The most basic of thse responsibilities often is merely to show off in public and create or propogate a house style or attitude, ie. a pompous prick of a lieutenant for an uppity noble house, or a foppish dandy for some insufferably stylish house, and so on.  Fashioning a style to conduct the PC guard of a noble house can be really fun, especially since these groups tend to be small.  Of course, it requires care and work from the clan and guard leaders in order to make something that will work with the particular house, but the result is well worth it.

[Barzalene]

In light of all the discussion in this thread, perhaps I have a solution. The decision should be left to the houses themselves. Each noble should be asking themselves the following questions:

1. Can I find a strong leader type to promote, and who will be able to keep the troops productive and interested?

2. Is the upper echelon of the house busy enough, (think play times) putting in enough hours, to keep a corps of guards busy and interested?

3. Do I have clear vision that I can impart to the soldiers, so they feel a sense of purpose?

4. Would NPCs and VNPCS suffice for my purposes?

If each employer answered the above questions honestly, the bulk of the pc guard playing populations could congregate in the places where they would find the most dynamic rp experience.

Finally, those in positions of authority in the various houses should make use of the byn whenever possible.

[spawnloser]

Whenever possible?  I'd say whenever necessary.  Following what you've said above and others have said before and combining them:

If you have stuff for PC guards to do, hire them.
If you no longer need the Byn, when doing something needing muscle, don't use them.

[Malifaxis]

I've played bynners, I've played guards.. I've played bynners who became guards... and I have to state that those characters that have chosen to work with a noble house have helped me greatly in learning the social system of the town I'm working in.  As a complete green newbie I've found that there is no way better to figure out some of the things that you would IC know if you'd been raised in that town... you get a high exposure to nobility, so you get to interact with all sorts of people wearing those funky hooded cloaks.  "The thick figure in the silver kank emblazoned, paisley silk greatcloak" would be easily recognizable as a probable noble to someone who had, per se, lived in Tullanak for all of time... but if it's your 3rd char, and you've never been to Tullanak as a player then you're scrizewed.

The sleep/spar boredom is for only as long as you let it hold you... eventually, *someone* is going to drag you from that compound and make you buy them drinks.  You'll trust this person because you train with them daily... and you'll get all loaded... and you'll go do something stupid.
It's *bound* to happen eventually.  The bonus of it is that you have the backing of people of rank who are able to say "Hey, Templar X... maybe mooning the incoming Kuraci delegation from the top of the gates wasn't the most wise thing, but does Private X really have to be fed to the Gaj?"

And yeah, everyone always hollers about the difficulty of solo roleplay.  Bah, nothing compares to the challenge of out 'guarding' the guards of another house.  You have to constantly think of new, awesome ways to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than look over the crowds.  A well trained guard can add the utmost in atmosphere during those tense negotiations...
A guard versed in ettiquette?  Priceless to a noble.  You have an absolutely kick ass person, completely loyal (or thought to be), who you can trust to not make a fool of themselves while delivering some random gift or bribe to another important person.

The Byn is an awesome place to learn, and I am in *total* agreement that we need more people hiring the Byn to go out and do crazy stuff... but like history states *no* ruler ever used exclusively mercenaries.  Mercs are hired as a supplement to normal forces because you need people there that you know are loyal to make sure those mercs do what you need.

Seeing Byn/Elite interaction is beautiful... well trained guards wearing killer, emblazoned armor looking down noses at dwarven byn sargeants who don't give a crap unless they wipe their boots in your face... things like this should happen more often.

Yes, PC Noble Guards are needed and awesome to play.
Yes, Byn characters need more business.

Solution?  Kick the nobles in the pants, get them to do some crazy noble stuff!!!  The nobles depend on the guards to keep them alive... and the guards depend on the nobles to try to get them killed, or at least give them some excitement.

*hint*