Reworking Prestige/Honour, etc.

[Velax]

Could put in stuff to prevent that. Eg:

1. Can't gain Largesse from giving away the same item, ever (the game has code in it to stop advies receiving recommendations from the same person - it'd be similar, I think).

2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.

Those would stop most abuses, I'd think.

[Longmane]

You'd definitely need safeguards in place to prevent players gaming the system, but then again with acts of Largesse mostly being something needing being known about widely, (I mean who wants to spend generously ect unless most people know about it?   )  something like that couldn't  or shouldn't be able be done unnoticed.

It would also need a way of keeping everything always on a level playing field when it comes to banquets/gifts/feasts and what have you, insomuch as you'd need the code take into account the wealth of the family concerned compared to whats spent, ie a noble with a family wealth of 3K spending 300 gold would be counted as doing nothing better then a noble with a family wealth of 1k spending 100 gold.

[Indirik]

It would also need a way of keeping everything always on a level playing field when it comes to banquets/gifts/feasts and what have you, insomuch as you'd need the code take into account the wealth of the family concerned compared to whats spent, ie a noble with a family wealth of 3K spending 300 gold would be counted as doing nothing better then a noble with a family wealth of 1k spending 100 gold.

That's a good point. Also, the amount of Largesse you got for any particular action should also consider how much Largesse you already have. Doing the same thing over and over and over shouldn't continue to keep gaining you more and more Largesse.

[Foundation]

Could put in stuff to prevent that. Eg:

1. Can't gain Largesse from giving away the same item, ever (the game has code in it to stop advies receiving recommendations from the same person - it'd be similar, I think).

2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.

Those would stop most abuses, I'd think.

That would be quite a bit of data to keep track of.

Should not Largesse be a publicly available value?  i.e. private gifts should not count towards it?  Having private transactions affect a trait is bound to be optimally exploited regardless of these restrictions on the item or player.

[Longmane]

That follows my line of reasoning somewhat about acts of Largesse being made public knowledge, excepting mine is mostly because it simply only makes sense a noble would "want" such a thing known far and wide, otherwise it's a waste of time and effort as it gains you no brownie points   

[Indirik]

What about the mystery and intrigue of the "anonymous benefactor"?

[egamma]

2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.

Better way--create a field for each item called LastLargesseGrant (or whatever) and have it store a DateTime stamp of the last time the Largesse was granted. No counter necessary--just whenever the person goes to do a grant, deny it if the time isn't expired, or allow it if it has (and update the field).

[De-Legro]

Better way--create a field for each item called LastLargesseGrant (or whatever) and have it store a DateTime stamp of the last time the Largesse was granted. No counter necessary--just whenever the person goes to do a grant, deny it if the time isn't expired, or allow it if it has (and update the field).

So you can still pass the item around, you just need to wait longer for it. It slows the exploit down but the exploit remains.

[Duvaille]

Just give the item one Largesse point that is spent if a noble gives it to another noble without cost. If the item does not have it, it's already "second hand". Or leave the items out of Largesse completely.

[Velax]

Should not Largesse be a publicly available value?  i.e. private gifts should not count towards it?  Having private transactions affect a trait is bound to be optimally exploited regardless of these restrictions on the item or player.

So make it public. Have it announced as a realm-wide event when a noble gifts another noble an item. If my ruler gave another ruler a unique and powerful item, he'd certainly be making it public knowledge, with or without game mechanics.

[Duvaille]

That's right. With largesse you need to have such mechanics. It is, after all, all about making a fuss about something. It could be as simple as choosing between "trading" and "gifting", where gifting always generates a message, while trading never does, even with 0 "price".

The same could work with handing out gold for whatever reason. If you donate to the temple, you could do it discreetly or with trumpets and trinkets. If you choose the trumpet, it does not count towards your balance in a guild or religion. The game should not follow exact numerical amounts with largesse when choosing whether to give an increase in a stat or not, but would rather make a comparison with the weekly  income average for several previous weeks. It's not the total gold at hand which counts, but the income.

It gets a bit trickier with gold transfers between nobles. Again, you could either do it discreetly or with a great pomp. Or to do it the other way around, an individual could declare a need for a certain amount of gold with reasons as to towards which end the gold is needed. Then whoever in the vicinity of a bank could make that transfer and it would be made public. Again, if a knight needs 100 gold for refit, it is peanuts for a duke, but if another knight chooses to hand it out, it would give him a much greater stats bonus.

Sure, this could be gamed such that a wealthy duke gives 1000 gold to a knight who in turn proceeds to hand it out lavishly. But such behavior would be eyed with suspicion by the players, and a corresponding hit to honor would follow. Besides, if largesse was tracked as a value relative to the largesse of the other realm members, you could never increase largesse benefits for all the members of the realm.

Actually all of the three stats could be seen as PvP within a realm, where someone making a gain causes someone else to gain a loss. Largesse would be one way for a new knight to begin to make a name for himself, which would alert the other nobles to outbid him with more largesse. "No no no, I insist, I want to pay for the enlargement of the guild hall! - Very well, you do that, but I will enlarge it even further!!" Which in real life is ridiculous, but for us in BM it could be fun.

There is still the question as to what high largesse would gain for a character in addition to his reputation. One possibility could be that high largesse would have a positive influence on the "honor marks" I have mentioned earlier. You could not influence your own honor directly, but you could influence how much honor you can give to the others.

Or you could see the stats as a threefold split where each stat represents how different groups see you. Honor tells you your reputation among the nobility. Prowess is how the soldiers see you, and largesse is how the peasants value you. With high largesse then you would get morale bonus for the peasants under your control. Ie. if your estate covers 30%, your largesse would influence the 30% of the peasant morale in the region. If you are a lord, you influence the whole region. If you are a duke, your largesse influences the entire duchy. And if you are a ruler, it is the whole realm.

Additionally it could be that knights with high largesse would be somehow better able to deal with the peasants. Their police work would be more effective, as the peasants would help them. Their civil work would be more effective. They would get quite detailed information from the peasants, and perhaps some useful rumors as well. Perhaps they would occasionally even gain volunteers from the peasants to join their units.

Granted this is not entirely logical, as the actions that gain you largesse might not necessarily have any benefit towards the peasants. But it could work the other way around in such a way that looting, harsh courts and such could get you a negative largesse hit.  Perhaps characters with low largesse would be more effective in such harsh actions. Again, not entirely related here, but largesse could fill that role.

Perhaps, indeed, having average largesse would also give some benefits. Or rather, having largesse in the extreme in either way would give some very specific benefits, but more penalties the other way around. You could either be loved by the common folk or have them in your iron grip, but not both.

[Tom]

My turn:


We will have one and only one player-driven attribute. It will be called "Reputation". It will work a bit like the medals do, i.e. you can give other players points for good or bad reputation. They will be counted seperately so that you have a "total reputation" and then that total reputation is either good or bad depending on which value is higher. There will be limits so it can't be easily gamed.


Prowess sounds a lot like the battle experience attribute I already proposed. I will merge some ideas. Basically, the game could track a few simple statistics about a character. In fact, after thinking about it, I believe that six numbers will allow us to calculate everything else from there, namely the number of battles fought and the number of battles won in three categories: outnumbering the enemy, evenly-matched, being outnumbered. From that we can calculate the total number of battles as well as the total number of victories, and also whether the guy likes to take a risk or plays it save.

Largesse I would base on actions that cost gold, but are not strictly necessary. Spending money for extra stuff because you can. Family investments, donations to temples, entertainment for your men when their morale is already good, throwing rounds of drinks at the tournament, etc. etc. Potentially also for future actions relating to improving your estate, etc.


But we also need an attribute to capture things like civil work, trading, looting, etc. I don't yet have a name, but I am still thinking along the lines of the love/fear principle - a stat that captures how your character treats peasants. Not in a morally judging way, in fact both oppressing and aiding them would have advantages on related actions, but make the opposites more difficult. So if you are known for oppressing people, then they will give up their gold more readily when you loot them, but you would have a more difficult time doing civil work. And vice versa.


And finally - and I think 5 really is the upper limit - I would like to retain something like "prestige" as a simple measure of how well you are known. Basically, an attribute that gets a boost whenever your name is mentioned. Whenever you do something that is reported to others. It would automatically drop slowly if you don't do anything.

[Aldwoni]

Will some of this will also be available for priests?

[Duvaille]

 

Will some of this will also be available for priests?

It would seem from the looks of it that priests would have most everything except of course prowess. They would be tagged for reputation just like everyone else, and could very well perform actions that gained them largesse. They already have a variety of way they can influence the peasants. So scaring them and badmouthing some realm might be seen as generating fear, as well as persecuting infidels. Improving morale and lauding a realm do the opposite. And priests are frequently mentioned, as they preach frequently, so prestige is there for them to grab as well.

At least this is how it could be done, and I don't see why not.

[Longmane]

Sounds good Tom, as not offers plenty of scope for being able encompass everything required game-wise "and" what most players could want/need right from the off, but also with just as much scope, if not more, for future tweaking/add ons 

I do think it would be neat if we could have a few extra options added for actions that gain Largesse in it though, as likewise a few that can gain nobles points toward something via Piety, stuff like pilgrimages to where a religion founder was born or/and had their vision, donating to their faith, sponsoring one of it's temples upkeep ect, as not only spot on for those who play priests, but might also hopefully help push the religion part of the game more, as might encourage other players to want their own chars "be more pious" what with cookies (points) being up for grabs