Removal of Priest Immunity

[Anaris]

Send you an OOC message saying what? Threatening to report you if you do things I don't like? That's against the rules. And besides, priestly immunity is something I have hated for ages, and evidence needs to be gathered before a case is opened.

I cannot understand how this is being tied to the IR at all. A priest being expelled isn't being told he can't play a priest, he's only being told he can't be a priest for THAT religion. Back in the early days of VE, I really wanted to become a priest, but no one wanted to promote me to full membership. Was my IR being violated? Is it fine to prevent someone from becoming a priest, but kicking him out after being one for 5 minutes isn't? When I founded my religion for the first time in Gaxano, I lost my lordship doing so and the next lord closed my temple. My religion was lost and I was forced out of being a priest. Was my IR violated there?

It's ridiculous that a five minute lapse can change whether it's okay to expel someone or not. A kicked out priest can always go join another religion or found his own. He is, in NO WAY, being told he can't be a priest. Schism is also an impractical and unknown-deadline solution. Someone who has been a priest for 5 minutes does NOT deserve a schism.

Again, I agree entirely. And as anyone who's been paying attention to the forum or the D-list before it knows, when Chénier and I agree on something, it's a rare event indeed.

The solution is the schism Tim mentioned. Basically, kicking out a priest should result in a new religion being founded with him as (involuntary) founder. How big a share of your religion follows him would depend on different factors, and how long he has been a priest would be one of them. In the extreme cases like this, I would say 10 peasants in the region he's currently in follow him and that's that. In the case where you kick out when of the oldest and most active prophets of your religion, you might lose most of your temples and followers, or not if he's only one of 20.

First of all, while it's a cool idea, it's not a lot like the schism mechanic we most recently discussed.

Second of all, as other people have noted, it could take years to implement.

Third of all, you say the class IR are "not limited," but Chénier just mentioned some pretty clear limitations of the class IR, that are directly affected by players' actions—not simply the inner workings of the game.

Finally, please, Tom, for the love of Cthulhu, just let me implement a "pagan priest" status that prevents all preaching and has the priest treated as "evil" by all religions (and maybe restricts his time pool to 12 hours or something). That would solve the glaring loophole, would not touch the IR, and would also not take months or years before there's time to get it implemented.

I understand that you feel that "pagan priests" are somehow radioactive, and should never be allowed to exist, but even if we grant for a minute that they may be an undesirable, aren't they significantly less undesirable than breaking the IR or permitting an obvious griefing loophole that people have been complaining about literally for years?

[Stabbity]

Send you an OOC message saying what? Threatening to report you if you do things I don't like? That's against the rules. And besides, priestly immunity is something I have hated for ages, and evidence needs to be gathered before a case is opened.

You know what else is against the rules? Openly accusing someone of cheating. Precisely what you did in the Sanguis Astroism thread before opening this one (my stance on the matter regarding this thread being irrelevant for the time being, but I do support your position) and precisely what you did CONSTANTLY regarding Aurvandil.

You are a Magistrate. Act like it. End rant.

[Zakilevo]

It would be a problem if Fulco was excommunicated and they couldnt force him out of the religion. At this moment, it all depends on his answer to an ultimatum, for which he even has given a deadline when he will give that answer. As for the damage done to the peasant following, I admit Fulco has experience as priest, but he has no plans to unreasonably use his abilities. So in this case, Chenier could just have send me an OOC without becoming paranoid.

I think he is only using Fulco's case an example of what might happen in the future. I think something should be done about priests as well. With our dwindling player account, it will become increasingly hard to undo damages done by priests mentioned by Chenier.

[Tom]

I understand that you feel that "pagan priests" are somehow radioactive, and should never be allowed to exist,

worse. They aren't priests, except in name. It's like implementing a "rogue ruler". It's completely meaningless, and meaningless is worse than wrong.

[Tom]

You know what else is against the rules? Openly accusing someone of cheating.

Actually, that's not true. The Social Contract says:

• Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

So if you include evidence, it's not a rules violation. Otherwise we couldn't have public Magistrates cases.

[Anaris]

worse. They aren't priests, except in name. It's like implementing a "rogue ruler". It's completely meaningless, and meaningless is worse than wrong.

Is it worse than an IR violation?

Is it worse than a blatantly abusable game mechanic?

If we make it a status that no one would actually enjoy, and has no discernible benefits whatsoever, how is allowing that worse than allowing priests to grief on their religions?

[pcw27]

worse. They aren't priests, except in name. It's like implementing a "rogue ruler". It's completely meaningless, and meaningless is worse than wrong.

How about if you excommunicate a priest they lose all abilities and their religion is listed as "heretic" until they find a new religion.

Is that any worse then the fact that a warrior with no unit can't fight in battles?

[De-Legro]

How about if you excommunicate a priest they lose all abilities and their religion is listed as "heretic" until they find a new religion.

Is that any worse then the fact that a warrior with no unit can't fight in battles?

It would be more similar to a warrior that is prevented from game mechanics from recruiting at all.

[Stabbity]

Actually, that's not true. The Social Contract says:

• Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

So if you include evidence, it's not a rules violation. Otherwise we couldn't have public Magistrates cases.

In this case it would require proof of intent. That is about impossible to prove that in this case, and it isn't the first time he's done this. See anything he's posted about Aurvandil prior to the Mendicant purge. Was he right? Yea. Did he have proof? Nope.

[pcw27]

It would be more similar to a warrior that is prevented from game mechanics from recruiting at all.

You mean like if said warrior had gone rogue after being banned from his realm?

[De-Legro]

You mean like if said warrior had gone rogue after being banned from his realm?

Yup, now we are talking close to equivalence.

The only real problem is that heretics are likely to still attract some sort of following among the faithful, so completely removing their abilities would seem odd, as is telling them to just find a new religion. This is the characters faith, their core belief (at least in most cases, surely there are priests characters that do not really believe in their faith) and yet they should be able to just convert to another religion?

It is far too much work at this stage, but a new system that sees the heretic trying to wage a guerilla religious war against the establishment would be entertaining.

[Penchant]

You mean like if said warrior had gone rogue after being banned from his realm?

No. Chenier didn't request it for only when priests go rogue, he requested to be able to do it whenever which would equate to a warrior being denied by game mechanics to recruit a unit. Priests are like the equivalent of royals in that they can't be banned.

[Stabbity]

Yup, now we are talking close to equivalence.

The only real problem is that heretics are likely to still attract some sort of following among the faithful, so completely removing their abilities would seem odd, as is telling them to just find a new religion. This is the characters faith, their core belief (at least in most cases, surely there are priests characters that do not really believe in their faith) and yet they should be able to just convert to another religion?

It is far too much work at this stage, but a new system that sees the heretic trying to wage a guerilla religious war against the establishment would be entertaining.

Simple, give back their priestly abilities minus the ability to build temples. When they preach, they convert peasants to a special religion called Keplerism (Heresy).

[De-Legro]

Simple, give back their priestly abilities minus the ability to build temples. When they preach, they convert peasants to a special religion called Keplerism (Heresy).

Its not that simple, since as stated earlier the ability to convert regions quickly as a heretic could be overpowered. Besides that isn't considering what effect having special case religions (without temples) would imply in the clean up code, the turn code etc. So after 5 minutes though we need to

• Create a system in the database and code such that we can detect the priest belongs to a heretic group so as to prevent certain actions
• Create a system to automatically create a new religion for the heretic to belong to, do we allow others to join?
• Ensure lack of temples doesn't break scripts

We spend some more time and start actually going through the code and more little details like this will pop up.

[Daycryn]

Yup, now we are talking close to equivalence.

The only real problem is that heretics are likely to still attract some sort of following among the faithful, so completely removing their abilities would seem odd, as is telling them to just find a new religion. This is the characters faith, their core belief (at least in most cases, surely there are priests characters that do not really believe in their faith) and yet they should be able to just convert to another religion?

It is far too much work at this stage, but a new system that sees the heretic trying to wage a guerilla religious war against the establishment would be entertaining.

We kinda already have that Become a priest, and then you can be as heretical as you want, openly stir dissent and recruit others against the religion, all the while knowing and exploiting the fact that no one in the religion can do a thing about it. Elders have no in-game reason why they can't excommunicate a heretical priest. "He's got the magical collar on, rendering us helpless."