Let PCs Own Existing Places

[Patuk]

You know how, in Tuluk, there are a gazillion ownable shops that nobody rents?

You know how, in Allanak, the only reason the Den 'worked' was because the current taverns are spaced real awkwardly?

You know how sometimes someone tries to build something, including some Tuluki right now, and they get shoved to the absolute middle of nowhere?

All of this could be avoided if enterprising PCs could take over existing establishments rather than balance the entirety of a cool new project on a single PC with hit points in the double digits and a gazillion enemies.

This doesn't have to be too complicated: have some cash, an important guy or two who owes you, some clout? Congrats: your investments mean you now own the lease on the Gladiator and Gaj. You get to set prices and host events and fuck around with the interior.

As long as some things are kept (don't change the names! Keep the maps legible!) I don't see how this would be an issue. Likely helps with cities' diffusion and building woes, too. Nobody has to painstakingly wrangle ginka into having new warehouse rooms or whatever if you can just assign a new owner once they earn the right to.

Pros: see above

Cons: new thing bad

[Supified]

I think that the way clans and player run clans are done in this game is absolutely detrimental to this game.  Taking a page out of Harshlands books, player clans are easy and common, in fact you're generated essentially as your own clan.  Staff take a much more hands off approach to things in general, but especially in terms of organizations. 

Personally I find the GMH and major clans that players really have no control over and no real power in quite stifling.  The idea of "resource" pc is dated and very boring (in my view) to play.  Of course because of the nature of the game non resource pc leaders can obtain a ton of power since pcs, not npcs and vnpcs actually are the ones doing things, but it makes for more engaging role play and more fun plots. 

I think a big part of the problem with everything being npc and vpnc controlled and managed is it then falls on staff to make things happen, plots run and action occur, but even with the smaller playerbase I also think that that is way too much for staff to ever manage in a truly engaging way except for a small selection of pet pcs.  Try as staff might to get away from playing favorites, as long as the game is designed to give staff all the ultimate power and control over the existing clans, this is exactly what is going to happen.

I believe one of the philosophies behind arm 2.0 was more player control and ownership.  Arm 2.0 might be abandoned, but that concept could still go a long way toward helping this game if applied now.