Bowie's not such a bad guy once you get to know him, and if you meet his high standards, and if you can tolerate his frequent cursing, and his quick temper, and his unpredictable behaviour, and his lechery, and his alcoholism, and his demonic interior, and his all around roguery.
I don't think I've ever played with any of your other characters, so I can't say how I might react to them. But reading Bowies letters often makes me want to claw my eyes out.
Having said that, I will readily admit that his actions (when safely viewed from afar) often make for some interesting situations, and keep life from getting too dull.
That is unless you suppose realms are the end all be all of power. What happens if the Aristocracy inverts that? Then whoever rules the most powerful Great House could rule more than one realm and issue titles and land as they see fit.
Interesting ambition. And, hey, everyone has to have a goal to shoot for, but that doesn't solve the base problem of how everyone playing along is still, in the guild, subservient to the guild founder. The guild, therefore, exists to serve the aims of the guild founder, who *can't* be kicked out or removed from his position, ever. He remains at the top, watching over everything. Again, it seems like you're trying to play realm politics, without the dedicated realm infrastructure and mechanics. How are you going to keep it dynamic enough to prevent it from getting stale, or preventing people from just leaving or losing interest?
The maintenance o guilds is also a PITA, and expecting people to form subsidiary guilds, and maintain them as well... I just don't see this ever gaining much traction as anything other than a big messaging system. Not to mention that having more than handful of nobles as full members will require a LOT of guildhouses for a rather significant expenditure in infrastructure, and a continual drain on guild funds due to regional taxes and maintenance fees. Your first few levels of guildhouses add quite a few members, but that quickly levels off. A guild that could hold half the nobles on Dwilight would be ... prohibitively expensive. (Proably requiring well over 1,000 gold a month in maintenance fees, not counting taxes.) The largest guild ever in BattleMaster, the Darkan Mercenary Company, peaked at 104 members (not all full members), and we always had problems shuffling people in and out of full membership due to membership constraints.
