Oaths (was: Re: Most infamous nobles of Dwilight)

[De-Legro]

Sounds no different from how contracts are used today.

Today they are mostly just ignored. Apart from assigning the knight to an army the majority of Lords probably have no further real Lord to Knight contact. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many Lords wouldn't even be able to name their knights without checking region details.

[OFaolain]

Nothing stops people from recording oaths on the wiki and causing a ruckus if they are broken.

People in general don't, which is sad; I don't want oaths implemented in any binding game-mechanical way, that's for sure.  Though it's no use to complain about it if I'm doing nothing; I should work on getting some oath swearing done in Corsanctum when I have the time, but I've been working on personal RP lately instead.

[Dishman]

It really just comes down to a copy/paste for the player, but it at least makes the relationship formal. Sometimes it really does matter if you 'give your word' on something. It may not be apparent, but it is engrained into every culture in some way.

"Keeping their word" should be fairly important to the nobility, and there should be vulgarity reports for oathbreaking (at least in Dwilight). There already are h/p hits for mechanic reputation changes (emigrating, abdicating), and vulgarity is one given to the players. There really is no need for additional game mechanics, as we have all the tools to do it ourselves.

[De-Legro]

It really just comes down to a copy/paste for the player, but it at least makes the relationship formal. Sometimes it really does matter if you 'give your word' on something. It may not be apparent, but it is engrained into every culture in some way.

"Keeping their word" should be fairly important to the nobility, and there should be vulgarity reports for oathbreaking (at least in Dwilight). There already are h/p hits for mechanic reputation changes (emigrating, abdicating), and vulgarity is one given to the players. There really is no need for additional game mechanics, as we have all the tools to do it ourselves.

Posting it the wiki is probably not the problem. Taking the time to formulate the oath, agree on the terms and post it to start with are the sticking points. Even in realms were "acceptable" oaths were provided on the wiki for everyone to use I think I saw less then 10% of players bother.

I had hoped it would be less of a issue with the estate system. The push to have enough knights to maintain control of a region used to be the regular excuse. Oh I had to set up the knight now to maintain the region. We will get to the oath when we have more time sort of thing.

End the end remember not everyone is keen on the RP part of the game, and would prefer not to bother with oaths at all.

[Buffalkill]

End the end remember not everyone is keen on the RP part of the game, and would prefer not to bother with oaths at all.

I never swore any oaths after I joined the game because nobody ever told me to. I suppose if the ruler or someone in a leadership position said that I had to then I would have.

[Chenier]

Maintaining these systems is a chore and tends to wane with time as the people who intigated them decrease in their activity, get ousted, or otherwise leave. D'Hara was really strong on oaths... way back. They were all recorded and taken quite seriously. It was also mostly an initiative of the clique in charge, and even if the one who took power was mostly part of that same clique, the exodus that resulted from the rebellion turned him into a minority as far as this went, other actors having different priorities than recording oaths and various wiki-writing.

I'd also attribute part of the shift in priorities on player density and world politics. Back in the early days, there were numerous knights per lords as the realm was usually tiny, and foreigners were usually too far to be of much relevance. Intra-realm politics was therefore significantly more important. As borders grew, noble count stagnated, and foreign entities grew as well, it was only natural to shift the attention abroad, instead of at home, and we thus saw the rise of various multi-realm entities (Sanguis Astroism, Veinsormoot, Lurian Empire, etc.). Not only are there more foreigners to come into contact with, not only are those contacts worth more than the ones at home (were turnover is both easy and rare due to the low number of candidacies for any given positions), but the intra-realm relations have also matured as many of the characters there have now lived together for years and have a good idea of what to expect from each other.

Heck, even in the Warders of the Temple, such an oath was required and recently taken by many. I don't even think the ranks were adjusted properly as a result of this. This record-keeping is not really intuitive or fun, and mostly requires someone really motivated and with spare time on their hands, and as such, I predict it will only be rarer as time progresses.

[JeVondair]

It'd be nice to see more oath swearing in a world where swearing oaths is the foundation of real estate ownership and the social and political structure of the land. Oaths won't prevent actions, but they'll make them more interesting and appropriate to the atmosphere of the game, not least because when oaths are broken others might treat that like it's a big deal and rationalizations might actually be made in the first place. As it is, nobody bothers rationalizing anything because players act like oaths aren't actually a thing, when regardless of whether they are explicitly roleplayed, they are a part of every knight-lord and lord-duke and duke-ruler relationship there is.

The JeRavosi of the Order of Aristocrats do it as a matter of course. Oaths are an important part of their institutional identity and it makes for great character interaction.

[Dishman]

Maintaining these systems is a chore and tends to wane with time as the people who intigated them decrease in their activity, get ousted, or otherwise leave.

I can see what you are saying, but not every office needs an oath. Kings, dukes, maybe heads of guilds/religions. The rest can be implied oaths of fealty, but leaders need to be bound by some memorable promise.

All it really amounts to is a copy-paste from a text-file, so it isn't too laborious. People may get mad more vehemently when those promises are broken...which is good and bad.

[Chenier]

I can see what you are saying, but not every office needs an oath. Kings, dukes, maybe heads of guilds/religions. The rest can be implied oaths of fealty, but leaders need to be bound by some memorable promise.

All it really amounts to is a copy-paste from a text-file, so it isn't too laborious. People may get mad more vehemently when those promises are broken...which is good and bad.

People have a tendency not to bother with these things unless they feel pressured to comply. Which requires, usually, at least one person who cares enough to exercise this pressure. I have seen a number of such oaths or constitutions fall into disuse, over the years, as the number of people who cared enough waned.

I agree with what you are saying, though. While applied, their disrespect does tend to increase discontent.

But that discontent is also relative to the number of contenders. If there were five candidates to rulership, all vowing to respect a given oath more piously than the other, then breaking the oath would likely upset quite a number of people. If there was just one candidate, and he never even pretended to care about the oath and didn't even bother formally giving it, the discontent effect will not be great. And as the game is evolving, well, the number of candidates in any given situation is constantly nearing zero.

[Dishman]

People have a tendency not to bother with these things unless they feel pressured to comply. Which requires, usually, at least one person who cares enough to exercise this pressure. I have seen a number of such oaths or constitutions fall into disuse, over the years, as the number of people who cared enough waned.

I wonder if it would help to add incentive to honoring agreements. Something like fame, but a in-character assessment by other characters. Maybe more like the medal system, but for characters rather than players. I know feature requests are on the backburner, but it's worth a thought.

[Indirik]

Why not just give them trust medals, or RP medals?

[Dishman]

I'm not really sure the current system translates well enough to give a character reputation (maybe a family). To be informative of a character (rather than a player), it would need to focus on specific characters. A quick way to measure reputation beyond honor/prestige.

It would be neat, but there are plenty of better things to work on. I'm satisfied with oaths being a RP element that is approached only when the interest arises, but I would like to see a way to incorporate them more into the game (without forcing it upon people who don't want it).

[Roran]

I would like to see oaths in-game as an RP element mostly to recreate social interaction between the characters. Right now people can change a region to another duchy without anyone batting an eye, but what if he swore an oatrh of loyalty? The duchy owner is losing territory after all, and it might spark internal problems. A knight going to another region is breaking an oath, and while it hasn't necessarily have to be punished, I'd love to see people have some sort of reputation start to grow as they break oaths. Due to the rather low player count most cases of oathbreaking won't be punished too dearly anyways.