Not being able to kick out priests of a religion

[JPierreD]

From a Dwilight topic:

You say, thinking of how many times this might have happened to Allison.

But, what about griefers? We had a priest in SA at one point who was fairly obviously working with enemies of the Church, but we couldn't touch him just because of his class. Heck, we still can't touch him now that he's resurfaced. We can and have banned him from the theocratic realms, but it annoys me that he is essentially an untouchable spy in the full membership. If he wanted to make life unpleasant for us by haranguing or mocking us constantly, he could and we couldn't do anything about it. IMO a religion needs to be able to control who represents it; when someone is obviously not aligned with the goals of the religion, or even aligned directly against them, religions need a recourse to be able to simply kick him out. The Vatican sure as hell can defrock people; why can't we?

This is a serious problem whose current solution is quite unsatisfactory, at least in my opinion. Considering the issue is about not forcing someone else to change his Class, an IR, there could be several things we could do about it:

a) Pagan Priest: Can only use the options to Preach (Paganism), Pray for Signs, Look for other priests and Estimate religions. Cannot influence followers through any meanings for, though his teaching are pagan beliefs, pagans in general don't necessarily share his teachings, nor can he build shrines for he has no church. You would only be able to become a Pagan Priest by being expelled, and it is clearly not something you'd want to be.

This idea has been shot down before, but I felt I had to post it since I was not the only one who saw it as a natural solution.

b) Excommunication: Give the option to the Elders to silence any member, meaning they cannot use the message options under "Guilds/Orders" of the religion, nor they can receive from them. This would solve part of the problem Dustole addressed, though it would be a complication of the current system, which has certain limitations whose purpose I don't really understand. Perhaps creating a category below applicants for rejected ones, who would not even be listed when you click on messaging "all / some members", would be an easy fix.

c) Make an expelled Priest have the same fate as when his religion's last temple crumbles. He turns then into a Warrior, does he not? Of course you have the Class IR problem, but it steams out of not being able to be a non-religiously-aligned Priest.

d) Allow an expelled Priest to be part of his own religion to which he cannot convert any noble before having a temple, but otherwise functioning as a normal cult.

[Tom]

e) live with it

This is a very intentional feature. "griefer" is an OOC term, and if he's causing OOC trouble, the Titans, etc. are there to help you. As long as it stays IC - you will have to find a roleplaying solution to deal with your Martin Luthers.

[Anaris]

Tom,
This doesn't make sense.

There is no other case where someone can cause infinite IC trouble within an organization and there is no way at all to get rid of them, save that of a Royal—and that has a perfectly legitimate IC explanation.

There is no logical IC explanation for the total and complete inability for any religion to excommunicate a priest who suddenly starts spouting heresies.

The argument that we must not allow changing a person's class due to the IR doesn't hold up, either, because we remove the Infiltrator subclass when they are made rogue (which is something players can do to them), and we revert Priests to Warriors if their religion loses all its temples.

Your insistence on the class IR as an ideological principle, in this case, causes more harm than good, and isn't even logical given those other exceptions.

[Tom]

I'm not even worried about the IR.

I want religions to choose their priests carefully and not give the priviledge to everyone. Making it possible for priests to cause trouble is one way of doing that. I do think that most IC conflicts are resolved way too easily with game mechanics.

[JPierreD]

But religions cannot choose their priests... They can choose their full members at most.

Let me give an example: Sir Kepler joins a religion, and is made a full member (not really to hard, and it is almost impossible to filter possible problematic nobles without seriously spoiling the fun of everyone that wants to try the religion game). He goes to a level 3 temple and from then on starts influencing peasants whenever he can, so as to drop the amount of followers of the religion. Heck, he can even be calming them, and claim to be making a service to the realm. And what can the religion do about that? Would that be a case for the titans? He can have perfectly good IC reasons to do it...

[Tom]

Yeah, from a gamey perspective, that sucks. From a roleplaying perspective, it has great potential.

[Duvaille]

Well, I suppose then this means that the religion game should perhaps be approached a bit differently. The religions should think of all full members as potential priests and reserve the aspirant ranks for the lay members. Then there is no problem, except that of limited communications, but that can be worked around with a guild for the communications purposes.

Cumbersome but would get the work done.

[Anaris]

I'm not even worried about the IR.

That was exactly what you were worried about the several times we discussed this among the dev team.

I want religions to choose their priests carefully and not give the priviledge to everyone. Making it possible for priests to cause trouble is one way of doing that. I do think that most IC conflicts are resolved way too easily with game mechanics.

This is not practical. The way religion is structured, you would have to exclude all but a privileged and trusted few from the ranks of "full members," who are the ones who have options to do anything within a religion.

Furthermore, Tom, if this was part of the design decisions that went into religion in the first place, this was never communicated to the players. Nor even to the dev team. Asking them to change the structure of their religions so drastically now, because you have come up with the idea that "religions should choose their priests carefully," is a huge imposition.

Please rethink this, Tom. I believe that the position you have taken will be seriously detrimental to the game as a whole. It is not simple, it is not easy to understand, it is not newbie-friendly, it is not even user-friendly. It empowers griefers at the expense of regular players, as long as those griefers have the minimum amount of sense necessary to keep their griefing totally in-character—and that is the exact opposite of the message we want to be sending and the atmosphere we want to be creating.

[Zakilevo]

That was exactly what you were worried about the several times we discussed this among the dev team.

This is not practical. The way religion is structured, you would have to exclude all but a privileged and trusted few from the ranks of "full members," who are the ones who have options to do anything within a religion.

Furthermore, Tom, if this was part of the design decisions that went into religion in the first place, this was never communicated to the players. Nor even to the dev team. Asking them to change the structure of their religions so drastically now, because you have come up with the idea that "religions should choose their priests carefully," is a huge imposition.

Please rethink this, Tom. I believe that the position you have taken will be seriously detrimental to the game as a whole. It is not simple, it is not easy to understand, it is not newbie-friendly, it is not even user-friendly. It empowers griefers at the expense of regular players, as long as those griefers have the minimum amount of sense necessary to keep their griefing totally in-character—and that is the exact opposite of the message we want to be sending and the atmosphere we want to be creating.

I agree 100% with Anaris. Tom you do not need to make the whole thing too complicated. You have a totally different idea of the current religion system from many players. If you look at SA for example they have 70 full members. Every single one can become a priest at will. Why do you want to limit things when there aren't that many priests around in the first place? Choosing priests carefully? When any full member can become one if they want?

[vonGenf]

It is not true that there is nothing you can do. You can ask the priest's realm to ban him; you can eventually execute him. You can have him stabbed.

If the priest in question has powerful backers, then he won.

The religion game is not completely separate from the rest of politics. Religions must find ways to get secular authorities to do their bidding.

Now, I don't oppose some way to perform an excommunication - I do think it would make a lot of sense, but I don't think the game is broken without it.

[egamma]

Perhaps a better solution would be for a "request to become a priest" be sent to all elders, when a character tries to become a priest. That way there's some control.

[Foundation]

I agree with religions having to make sure that they choose the right nobles to be priest.  If they choose poorly, then it's their own fault.

To do this, religions need to be empowered to actively choose who can be a recognized priest for them, otherwise there's no choice in the matter.

[Anaris]

It is not true that there is nothing you can do. You can ask the priest's realm to ban him; you can eventually execute him. You can have him stabbed.

If the priest in question has powerful backers, then he won.

The religion game is not completely separate from the rest of politics. Religions must find ways to get secular authorities to do their bidding.

That's ridiculous.

If a heretic becomes a priest (or a priest becomes a heretic), then to prevent them from spreading their heretical views by going through the secular political system, you need to go through the following steps:

• Get the priest banned -OR- declare war on the priest's realm
• Find someone in the same region as the priest with the capability of arresting them
• Assuming the priest is banned from the realm he is arrested in, convince its Judge to either deport or execute him.

All three of those steps are fraught with difficulties, and only a few of them have anything to do with the priest having "powerful backers." If you really still think that this method is viable, I can try and enumerate them for you.

All this is only necessary because, at present, the simple act of declaring himself a priest means that, unlike anyone else in the game, he cannot be kicked out of his religion/guild.

[Geronus]

I agree with religions having to make sure that they choose the right nobles to be priest.  If they choose poorly, then it's their own fault.

To do this, religions need to be empowered to actively choose who can be a recognized priest for them, otherwise there's no choice in the matter.

Agreed, this would be essential if we're expected to proceed in the manner Tom has enumerated.

That said, I don't like this concept at all. You put the onus on a religion to vet anyone asking to be a priest. I have serious concerns about that approach:

1. It encourages religions to be extremely cautious about permitting people to become priests. This restricts opportunities for players to do what they want to do. My prediction, if we play like Tom is suggesting: You will see a lot less priests, and completely discourage people from casually experimenting with the class to see if they like it.

2. You force religions into a catch 22. It is in their interest to have as many priests as possible, but now they have an opposing interest in making sure that only trusted members can become priests. You thereby force them to choose between opening themselves up to heresy and/or sabotage and restricting their own growth, which isn't good for anyone involved.

3. You force religions to make decisions based on trust, but without enough metrics for people to prove that they are trustworthy. Realms have a myriad of different institutions, roles and positions available in which nobles can prove themselves to be loyal and hard-working, from armies to lordships. Religions have far fewer, the most important of which is being a priest. We can't let people become priests to prove that they'll be trustworthy priests though; that makes no sense. Most religions will be put in a position where they are being asked to approve the priesthood for someone who they probably only have limited interaction within the context of the actual religion.

[Zakilevo]

Instead of kicking them out of the church, why not give elders or the highest rank an option to mute them? Taking away their right to send letters to full members?