Reworking Prestige/Honour, etc.

[Duvaille]

I don't know if it is in the scope of this discussion, but you could use current honor values as base figures for the future combat experience and use the old prestige as a base value for the new prestige. Give everyone average largesse value to begin with and zero fame/infamy and zero love-hate score. I don't know why it would be a problem at all.

[Penchant]

Its a problem because of the stats actually effecting things, so if a courtier never stepped foot in a battle yet using honor as a base which through his many ventures he has gained a lot of honor he can field a massive unit yet a stat like largesse which there are several ways that a courtier could have easily gained he will be equal to everyone else, and thats just one scenario.

[Tom]

We will not start everyone at zero, but the transition will be painful for some, simply because it can't be perfect. The new attributes represent things we did not record, or not record seperately, before. So we have no way of knowing the correct new values and lots will be guesswork.

[Duvaille]

So far there has been discussion about combat experience, love-hate, reputation and largesse, but not so much about the "new prestige", which according to Tom would be something that you get whenever the game mentions your name. It is a nice stat to have, but what would it gain you?

If combat experience influences the quality and the amount of troops you can have, and if largesse influences the amount of troops, and if Tom wants to make the stats more separate of one another, the new prestige does not seem to fit in with either increasing your troop size or their quality/type. What else is there that a stat could have an effect on?

Another limit that I think Tom has mentioned is that the stats should not have too strong a role either.

So, what benefits do the truly prestigious people have over us ordinary people? They get better service wherever they go, and what they say gains more visibility. Their opinions seem to count more. But how would something like this be modeled in a game? I do not know, so I ask all of you.

[Longmane]

Perhaps if we loosely equate BM's Prestige with RL Respect it might help, as just like how much respect an employer, politician, lecturer or general ect has can often affect how successful they are in their own spheres, ie who the hell would give their best/trust/take real notice of/ follow one of those if don't have much respect for them?

So it might be worth looking at what effects Respect would have in BM term, ie would a court held by a judge/lord be more effective relative to how much the locals respected them ect.

[Duvaille]

Perhaps if we loosely equate BM's Prestige with RL Respect it might help, as just like how much respect an employer, politician, lecturer or general ect has can often affect how successful they are in their own spheres, ie who the hell would give their best/trust/take real notice of/ follow one of those if don't have much respect for them?

So it might be worth looking at what effects Respect would have in BM term, ie would a court held by a judge/lord be more effective relative to how much the locals respected them ect.

This could work. The efficiency of holding courts is certainly something that the new prestige could influence. Another one that comes to mind is investing to a region. For a successful investment you need both the gold and you also need to know the right people and have these people believe in you. So prestige would open the right doors for you to make the most of the investment. Investing in itself makes your name visible, so there's a loop there. I am not sure if that's good or bad. "Do more and get better at it" is at least a concept that is easy to grasp.

[Charles]

As I do not really play the religion part of the game and usually can't join tournaments as most of my characters are in govt, I would like to see more options for gaining largess.
I like the family investments in other regions option, perhaps family investments in your own region can add to a lesser degree.
Being a sponsor of an army could add largess, so long as the treasury is kept from emptying. 
I would like to see a way of sponsoring poorer region lords as getting points in this as well. 

As for points for giving an item away, I have used unique items as a portable bank.  Sell the item to a noble in need of gold for 0 gold, and buy it back from them at a higher price.   I would therefore not want too much restriction on getting largess from giving away an item, but I recognize that there needs to be enough to keep people from gaming the system.  I can think of a variety of restrictions that accomplish this without being too restrictive.  They all do require saving more information with an item.  I have no idea how much work this would be.  How much information is saved with each item?  How difficult would it be to keep track of who the previous owners are?  How much they payed for the item?  etc.

[Longmane]

I'm of the opinion that anything (or at least mostly) concerning Largesse should avoid direct personal interaction between chars, ie giving items/gold, as doing that should hopefully make if far easier prevent anybody attempting some shenanigans. 

[JPierreD]

As I do not really play the religion part of the game and usually can't join tournaments as most of my characters are in govt, I would like to see more options for gaining largess.

Why don't you play the religion game even if just as a noble doing the formalities required from him, not out of piety but out of social convention?

[Charles]

I don't find it interesting.  And I choose not to.  Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants, but that is where I now stop.  I tried to involve myself more a few times, shortly after I did the religions died.

[Indirik]

Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants,

That's something I've never done, personally. Never found a reason to do so.

[Foundation]

+1 for Rob.  I see no need to change my RP to suit the needs of the lowly peasants. ;)

[Duvaille]

I'm of the opinion that anything (or at least mostly) concerning Largesse should avoid direct personal interaction between chars, ie giving items/gold, as doing that should hopefully make if far easier prevent anybody attempting some shenanigans.

I am with you in this. The possibilities for exploits should be minimal. As far as I understand, making a donation to a temple is one way transaction. Sure, you could then have a rank that gives you high income as a member, and you could keep "laundering the money" with that by first donating and then drawing the gold. But having such a rank would be a risk for the religion, as you could just keep drawing the gold without donating.

I don't find it interesting.  And I choose not to.  Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants, but that is where I now stop.  I tried to involve myself more a few times, shortly after I did the religions died.

Perhaps, then, having Largesse to be mostly about religion is a way to encourage better religions. If people are going to be donating to some religions anyway, you need to make sure that your religion is the more interesting one.

There is also a problem with having family investments effect Largesse. Essentially it is family gold that might be generated by wealthy characters on other continents. If you are a poor knight, and if gaining largesse is tied to income (as I think it should), family investments may screw this balance. In my opinion it would be much better to tie the investments to prestige.

[Norrel]

Lords giving a higher percentage of their income to their knights relative to their realmmates could get a constant largesse boost?

[Tom]

+1 for Rob.  I see no need to change my RP to suit the needs of the lowly peasants. ;)

Also don't forget that it also works the other way around - the lord's faith does have a positive effect on his chosen religion. Peasants do change their belief in order to match the lord, over time.