From a Dwilight topic:
Quote from: Geronus on March 29, 2012, 12:08:30 AM
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Yeah, from a gamey perspective, that sucks. From a roleplaying perspective, it has great potential.
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.
Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2012, 06:48:16 PM
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.
Quote
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.
Quote from: Anaris on March 29, 2012, 07:32:21 PM
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?
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 29, 2012, 07:45:45 PM
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.
Quote from: Foundation on March 29, 2012, 07:54:28 PM
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.
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?
Ok, several things go criss-cross here.
One, there's an IR for class choice. IMHO we can completely ignore that, it isn't touched. Yes, you have the IR to play a priest if you want to. You do NOT have the IR to be a member of the religion of your choice.
Two, the design decision is that it shouldn't be a click-of-a-button matter to get rid of a priest who doesn't suit the leaders anymore. There ought to be room for conflict, heresy, minority opinions, etc. within a church. If we allow the elders to simply kick any priest they don't approve of, we have another issue of boring, one-minded, tyrannical game-entity.
Three, griefing is an OOC matter and should be taken to the Titans, end of story.
I do agree that the 100% perfect eternal immunity isn't perfect. Given that it's been in the game for several years now and this is the first time (that I remember) that we've had this discussion, I don't think it's too much of a problem, really.
Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2012, 08:05:27 PMGiven that it's been in the game for several years now and this is the first time (that I remember) that we've had this discussion, I don't think it's too much of a problem, really.
It is not the first time. There have been at least three major discussions I can recall, and more minor ones. I think most of them were more on dev issues like "what do we do with paused elder priests?" but until this discussion, your answer was always some variant of, "They have the inalienable right to be a priest, and so we must not force them out of being a priest. Because we also will not permit pagan priests, this means you cannot force them out of the religion."
Because of that, most times when people have come to me asking about the issue—which has happened on numerous occasions—I have told them that you were very firm on the issue, and that complaining about it wasn't likely to make a difference. I considered it to be essentially as firm a decision as the decision not to allow rogue infiltrators.
If you are open to the idea of allowing dissenting priests to be removed, just not with a single click and without a kefuffle, then I propose we implement a solution incorporating the idea of religious sects that was discussed some time back as a good way to implement religious schism. If a priest wants to preach views contrary to those of the establishment of the religion he's in, he can start a separate sect, and we can give members of other sects within a religion certain protections against summary excommunication.
I updated my previous post with some further thoughts.
Since we do not have a mechanic for actually schisming a religion, I don't think it's fair to not allow religions to control their membership. As you said it, being in the religion of your choice is not an IR.
If you want to make intra-religious conflict a bigger part of the game, we need more mechanics to support things like schisms, not this arbitrary refusal to allow Elders to defrock a priest that's making trouble. You're making both sides powerless to pursue the conflict. A rogue priest can grief the religion he's in and make life very difficult for the Elders, but lacks any ability to truly split the religion a la Martin Luther. The Elders on the other hand have no power at all. They can't even levy punishments like fines, let alone defrock the guy who's making a mockery of everything their religion stands for. All they can do is scold and then basically beg the guy to leave and hope he has the grace to do so.
Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2012, 07:16:06 PM
Yeah, from a gamey perspective, that sucks. From a roleplaying perspective, it has great potential.
Honestly? I don't see any fun roleplaying perspective. You have a Priest as member of a Church that has rejected him, who even the Prophet of the religion considers a heretic, who possibly doesn't even hold any of the tenants of the religion true. And the Church cannot even prevent him from messaging everyone or receiving all messages without quite cumbersome OoC effort (manually selecting the recipients leaving him out).
Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2012, 08:05:27 PM
Two, the design decision is that it shouldn't be a click-of-a-button matter to get rid of a priest who doesn't suit the leaders anymore. There ought to be room for conflict, heresy, minority opinions, etc. within a church. If we allow the elders to simply kick any priest they don't approve of, we have another issue of boring, one-minded, tyrannical game-entity.
Religions are about faith and dogma. Sects, heresies and dissidence are great in my book, but they do not belong all in the same Church. When past a point there has to be a break. I lead an extremely tolerant religion, the third one of Dwilight (Aetheris Pyrism), but not being able to expel heretical Priests makes a big hole in the authority of the Church.
We roleplay a lot, and I have tried to avoid direct involvement in politics both because there is a heavy lack of religions in Dwilight, so I really welcome OoC new ones starting and actually seeing RPs flow, and also to avoid the best as possible being like the many state-religions whose only purpose is being a political tool, extension of the realm, to avoid other realm/religions from taking over our lands. This is why I say that while political conflict is great (we walked the thin line between tolerance and persecution for long), this feature really provides very little enjoyable conflict potential.
surely sect thing would be a way to lead to schisms.. similarly, one could imagine sects merging (eg.. pope, anti pope splits into 2 religions after schism, priests get to align themselves to the other one, etc...)
especially if the follower pop part is based more on individual priests rather than global.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 29, 2012, 07:45:45 PM
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.
Sure, if yours is a state religion. I like to play a RP-based religion game that is not just a tool for the realms to use in war. I was once ordered by a marshal to go help with a TO by calming down the population, which of course I refused. I'd like to see religions having different goals than their realms, because that is what makes for interesting conflict. Religions are already quite weak themselves, making them further dependent of realms does nothing for the Priest game, an already very unpopular Class to play.
Wasn't there a thread about empowering religions rolling around?
Why not simply have a button that every single Elder of the religion must press in order for the Priest to be kicked out?
It allows a truly troublesome priest to be kicked out, but also requires a significant consensus to do so. It allows the possibility for arguments and conflict, because if the troublesome priest has just one ally on the Elders, then he can't be kicked out.
Therefore, it would get rid of 100% immunity but also not make it an easy or wishy-washy matter to simply boot a priest.
Quote from: Perth on March 29, 2012, 09:25:20 PM
Why not simply have a button that every single Elder of the religion must press in order for the Priest to be kicked out?
It allows a truly troublesome priest to be kicked out, but also requires a significant consensus to do so. It allows the possibility for arguments and conflict, because if the troublesome priest has just one ally on the Elders, then he can't be kicked out.
Therefore, it would get rid of 100% immunity but also not make it an easy or wishy-washy matter to simply boot a priest.
*demotes all elders*
*kicks out priest*
*repromotes elders*
Or, make it just one button click, but make it cause unrest among religious followers.
So, for example, to kick a priest out might cause ((Rand%)*X)% of followers in various regions to abandon the faith, where X is some integer representing how long the priest has been part of the religion, or maybe how long they've been a priest (if the game tracks that). Maybe that value could also diminish outside of the excommunicee's home realm or something.
That way, religions will think twice about excommunicating priests (especially if they are long-standing members), but can still do it.
Of course, that priest could just rejoin the religion. Some kind of re-join block (or some kind of lag where, if the last time you excommunicated the same priest was very recently, there is no penalty for doing it again) would have to be put in place.
... much more interesting if those peasants join the heretic faith, than going pagan.
As I said, it should be possible, but so painful that it won't get used at the first sign of trouble.
I'm thinking along the lines of requiring some cumulative work, like bad marks, basically something that simply takes time (real-world time) so there is time for people to roleplay the trouble. It should take at least a week. And after that, there should be the possibility that you lose temples because they decide they like the heretics version of the faith more.
Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2012, 11:20:40 PM
As I said, it should be possible, but so painful that it won't get used at the first sign of trouble.
I'm thinking along the lines of requiring some cumulative work, like bad marks, basically something that simply takes time (real-world time) so there is time for people to roleplay the trouble. It should take at least a week. And after that, there should be the possibility that you lose temples because they decide they like the heretics version of the faith more.
I think that's fine, but if you're going to tie the excommunication of one priest to major systematic religious upheaval, I would ask that you go the distance and fully flesh out mechanics for religious strife including schisms. After all, the guy we're kicking out might just be a totally insincere priest who's literally only there to spy and/or sabotage things, as opposed to the BM incarnation of Martin Luther. Who would follow someone like that? The ranks of cults and heresies that were stamped out or massacred by the Catholic Church with little to no repercussions far outnumber the sects that successfully split away to form rival Churches. Not every crackpot priest who defied the Pope went on to found a major religion of his own. A priest should have support from fellow *players* to accomplish that level of trouble. They should not be able to put a religion through the ringer just by their choice of class and when every single other character in the religion would just as soon be rid of him.
We have had two instances of this type of thing happening in SA, with priests no one liked or supported being priests just to cause trouble with the buttons they got. Someone like Allison on the other hand *should* be able to wreak religious havoc, as she has a substantial personal following of nobles within the religion and represents a branch of belief that really could form into a schism if she only had the game mechanics to support that.
So how about this: Any priest can create a schism which triggers a kind of a vote where every member of the religion votes. If a certain threshold of votes is gained, a completely separate religion is formed that gets the name that the wayward priest entered at the time of declaring the schism, and the priest becomes the "prophet". Those who voted for him switch religions, and the peasants of the lords doing the switching swap religions as well, as do temples in their regions. If the threshold is not reached, the initiator is kicked out of the religion and reverts back to warrior.
Alternatively an elder can declare a priest heretic. This triggers a schism, which prompts the "heretic" to write a name for the potential new religion. If he gains enough support, he forms a new religion with the mechanism mentioned above. If he does not gain enough support, he is driven out as a heretic.
So if a priest actually enjoys some support (at least one lord with a temple in his region + others) there is a true danger he will take some of the religion with him. But if he is just annoying, he's going to get kicked out.
Also, when the schism is going on, he "heretic" would try to convince as many followers to his side as he can, and vice versa. This creates interesting interaction. Perhaps also the timing of the split would not be set in stone, but would be somewhat random and would depend on the members choosing their sides. Perhaps the schism would last as long as some percentage of the followers have made up their mind (default would be to follow the old creed). While the schism is going on, there are drops in peasant following, and perhaps violent outbursts among the peasants, and perhaps even some temples being destroyed in the process.
The larger the split and the longer it takes, the more there would be these nasty consequences. Would that not work?
I like it except the last paragraph.
Edit:Also if enough of the members vote for the priest, he becomes the sole elder of the religion while the rest who disagreed become the schism.
Quote from: Duvaille on March 30, 2012, 06:21:34 AM
So how about this: Any priest can create a schism which triggers a kind of a vote where every member of the religion votes.
Just a note, schisms have been approved and a nice way of handling them worked out, they were just not a coding priority.
Bedwyr,
Well, this is then, I suppose, a rather pointless discussion. That is, if the schism system in the works will eventually help with the problem at hand.
Well if it does not include the priests being kicked out in the new schism system then this discussion is still needed to verify how the removing of the priests will be done.
Quote from: Penchant on March 30, 2012, 07:35:01 AM
Well if it does not include the priests being kicked out in the new schism system then this discussion is still needed to verify how the removing of the priests will be done.
Well, this is true. Whatever the proposal is, perhaps a "forced schism" option could be added to it to take care of the problem at hand.
Quote from: Duvaille on March 30, 2012, 07:45:37 AM
Well, this is true. Whatever the proposal is, perhaps a "forced schism" option could be added to it to take care of the problem at hand.
That was indeed part of the discussion. However, I don't recall if a mechanic was settled for forced schisms, though it was agreed they were necessary.
Why should there be a whole complicated mechanic for this? If someone wants to play a Martin Luther they should found a new religion. If they can't get a single region lord on board (or if they're not a region lord themselves) then their doctrine clearly isn't powerful enough to gather followers.
If a spy infiltrates a religion there should be an option to ban them from receiving messages from the religion. It shouldn't be very difficult for church leaders to say "hey, that guy's a spy, stop sending him our mail". Infiltrating a religion can be a legitimate role played action, but to suggest hat spying should grant them a lifetime supply of free intelligence is ludicrous. Let them have the ability to send messages to the faith which should limit the Churches ability to use this as a way to summarily silence descent.
And with that, this topic is dead. Another idea/request killed by overcomplications.
People, how much more often do I need to say it? If you want things to actually happen, instead of just being discussed on the forum, they need to have three very important things going for them. They need to be simple, they need to be simple and finally they need to be simple.
Everything else is not going to happen within, say, the next year or so.
The minute someone talked about fully implementing religious shisms should've been the moment everyone realized that this is not going to happen anytime soon, end of story.
So deal with your wayward priest the way I originally explained: By roleplaying.
Quote from: Anaris on March 29, 2012, 07:55:33 PM
- Get the priest banned -OR- declare war on the priest's realm
Yay, more war! \°/
Quote from: Anaris on March 29, 2012, 07:55:33 PM
- Find someone in the same region as the priest with the capability of arresting them
Yay! More player interaction! \°/
Quote from: Anaris on March 29, 2012, 07:55:33 PM
- Assuming the priest is banned from the realm he is arrested in, convince its Judge to either deport or execute him.
You can't deport priests, and I would be in favour of changing something to make it so, but given that you can execute him it's not that bad. I think it's perfectly normal that Judges have a say in this.
Quote from: JPierreD on March 29, 2012, 08:33:40 PM
Religions are about faith and dogma. Sects, heresies and dissidence are great in my book, but they do not belong all in the same Church. When past a point there has to be a break. I lead an extremely tolerant religion, the third one of Dwilight (Aetheris Pyrism), but not being able to expel heretical Priests makes a big hole in the authority of the Church.
We roleplay a lot, and I have tried to avoid direct involvement in politics both because there is a heavy lack of religions in Dwilight,(...) This is why I say that while political conflict is great (we walked the thin line between tolerance and persecution for long), this feature really provides very little enjoyable conflict potential.
This is a fine roleplay for a religion, and you can play it that way. However withdrawing from politics does mean you have less political power, which is pretty much your point; you can't then complaint that you lack political powers.
Think about it: how would you, realistically, prevent a noble from preaching in a church in a medieval setting? The setting is this: A person who is a well-known nobleman arrives in a village where a temple of Keplerism stands. This noble wears the official symbol of Keplerism and speaks about Keplerism. He enters the church and demands to give the day's sermon.
The local priest is faced with a choice: he has in his church a nobleman with a sword who tells him one thing, and a letter signed by another nobleman who tells him the inverse. Who is he going to trust? The one in front of him, of course.
Unless the high ranking church official who signed the excommunication letter manages to send a troop of armed soldiers to enforce the order. But he can only do that if he has secular power to enforce his will. Playing the hermit religious figure who forgoes all secular things is fine; but the consequence is that he can do nothing but talk.
The complication of schism was brought up because Bedwyr said the idea was already fleshed out and needed to be coded so I don't see how its a complication and it was only one idea, not the only idea brought up.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 30, 2012, 10:08:10 AM
This is a fine roleplay for a religion, and you can play it that way. However withdrawing from politics does mean you have less political power, which is pretty much your point; you can't then complaint that you lack political powers.
I never complained about not having political powers, and to be honest we do, we just don't use them as much. And yes, playing a state-religion is also fine, what I am asking is for the game to consider both approaches, for the sake of the religion game. There are many small religions in the game who do not control realms.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 30, 2012, 10:08:10 AM
Think about it: how would you, realistically, prevent a noble from preaching in a church in a medieval setting? The setting is this: A person who is a well-known nobleman arrives in a village where a temple of Keplerism stands. This noble wears the official symbol of Keplerism and speaks about Keplerism. He enters the church and demands to give the day's sermon.
The local priest is faced with a choice: he has in his church a nobleman with a sword who tells him one thing, and a letter signed by another nobleman who tells him the inverse. Who is he going to trust? The one in front of him, of course.
Unless the high ranking church official who signed the excommunication letter manages to send a troop of armed soldiers to enforce the order. But he can only do that if he has secular power to enforce his will. Playing the hermit religious figure who forgoes all secular things is fine; but the consequence is that he can do nothing but talk.
That example is all fine and dandy, but it hardly applies to BM reality. And in RL you also had Judaic, Orthodox and Muslim minorities who dealt with their own heresies, even if it was just by shunning the transgressors.
What you are talking is about a schism, about who keeps the temple. That is a different matter. Or not, it would be nice if we knew the idea of the game mechanics that was agreed on the future schism to know where we stand on, and if what we are discussing is relevant or not in the long term.
I feel like becoming a priest and then instantly joining an enemy realm to begin griefing the realm where the religion is dominant, in an RPed way of course, just to show how stupid this restriction is.
Because if "roleplaying" is the solution to this, then "roleplaying" should *also* be the solution to spies who join realm and annoy realm mates. Why do realms get a ban function?
I have personally been griefed in the past by people joining my religion to get temple locations, and I know of others who have been griefed by people joining the religion to spam. Had the griefers known they could become priests for unlimited griefing powers, who knows how much they would have ruined the fun of everyone else. And they can easily RP justify their actions without making it any less harmful to everyone's gaming experience.
If you want kicking priests out to be tied with schisms, then code the kicking priests out part *now*, and add the schisms whenever. Religions aren't broken without schisms, but they are without being able to kick out priests. Cause a minor follower loss if you think it's so important, but always remember that there *are* griefers in the game, and they often RP to weasel themselves around the rules.
Quote from: Tom on March 30, 2012, 09:57:18 AM
And with that, this topic is dead. Another idea/request killed by overcomplications.
People, how much more often do I need to say it? If you want things to actually happen, instead of just being discussed on the forum, they need to have three very important things going for them. They need to be simple, they need to be simple and finally they need to be simple.
Everything else is not going to happen within, say, the next year or so.
The minute someone talked about fully implementing religious shisms should've been the moment everyone realized that this is not going to happen anytime soon, end of story.
So deal with your wayward priest the way I originally explained: By roleplaying.
The request in the topic isn't to implement full schisms, it's to give Elders a means to kick out a priest. You are the one who keeps forcing the conversation down the road toward schisms by insisting that there must be mechanical consequences for doing that. That's the only reason I mentioned it. What I was trying to say is, if you're going to go down that road then just give us full schisms. Don't get us half way there by levying arbitrary penalties on a religion that kicks out a priest when the circumstances of a particular incident might not warrant it.
Until schisms
are implemented, religions should be given the ability to control who represents them as priests. The existing situation isn't good for anyone, especially religions. Either go the whole nine yards or let it go.
Quote from: Perth on March 29, 2012, 09:25:20 PM
Why not simply have a button that every single Elder of the religion must press in order for the Priest to be kicked out?
It allows a truly troublesome priest to be kicked out, but also requires a significant consensus to do so. It allows the possibility for arguments and conflict, because if the troublesome priest has just one ally on the Elders, then he can't be kicked out.
Therefore, it would get rid of 100% immunity but also not make it an easy or wishy-washy matter to simply boot a priest.
This is the request I would press forward with, and dispense with any further hypothetical mechanical penalties for kicking out a priest until you're ready to implement full schisms. It sets a somewhat high bar for actually kicking out a priest, and leaves room for ongoing conflict in the event that the Elders are divided. It satisfies my concerns, and hopefully yours Tom.
And, it
appears to be fairly simple (says the non-programmer).
Quote from: JPierreD on March 30, 2012, 01:23:20 PM
That example is all fine and dandy, but it hardly applies to BM reality. And in RL you also had Judaic, Orthodox and Muslim minorities who dealt with their own heresies, even if it was just by shunning the transgressors.
I think it applies perfectly to the BM reality. And remember, we are talking exclusively about
noble priests here. If a noble from a friendly realm comes and talks to the minority of peasants who follow his religion, the peasants will follow him. Commoners don't shun nobles.
Quote
What you are talking is about a schism, about who keeps the temple. That is a different matter. Or not, it would be nice if we knew the idea of the game mechanics that was agreed on the future schism to know where we stand on, and if what we are discussing is relevant or not in the long term.
No, not really. I am saying that as long as a single noble priest is in the region, that noble priest will get to use the temple. That is the prerogative of nobility. If two noble priests are in the region and disagree, then there will be strife within the peasantry as they don't know who to choose: this is well represented in BM. The only way to prevent a noble from using a region's infrastructure is to hunt that noble down; don't expect the peasants to know this without you telling them to.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 30, 2012, 03:22:24 PM
I think it applies perfectly to the BM reality. And remember, we are talking exclusively about noble priests here. If a noble from a friendly realm comes and talks to the minority of peasants who follow his religion, the peasants will follow him. Commoners don't shun nobles.
That depends on if the noble is considered a heretic (like Luteran noble trying to use a Catholic church), or not. And what we are asking is the option to consider him so.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 30, 2012, 03:22:24 PM
No, not really. I am saying that as long as a single noble priest is in the region, that noble priest will get to use the temple. That is the prerogative of nobility. If two noble priests are in the region and disagree, then there will be strife within the peasantry as they don't know who to choose: this is well represented in BM.
A Hussite noble priest in a Catholic realm would usually only be able to use their temples by the force of arms, unless the ones in charge of the temple were also Hussites. The problem is that we don't have the ability to declare a Priest from within our Church a heretic.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 30, 2012, 03:22:24 PM
The only way to prevent a noble from using a region's infrastructure is to hunt that noble down; don't expect the peasants to know this without you telling them to.
And I don't. What I expect is to have an option to tell them to.
.. there really isn't any point in doing half arse heretic without going the whole schism thingy or priest centric following. because they'll have to do it again later on.
a quick boot is a band aid.
Quote from: fodder on March 30, 2012, 06:30:24 PM
.. there really isn't any point in doing half arse heretic without going the whole schism thingy or priest centric following. because they'll have to do it again later on.
a quick boot is a band aid.
My point exactly.
Quote from: fodder on March 30, 2012, 06:30:24 PM
.. there really isn't any point in doing half arse heretic without going the whole schism thingy or priest centric following. because they'll have to do it again later on.
a quick boot is a band aid.
That's not true at all.
There are situations where it would be perfectly appropriate to excommunicate a priest, where the priest in question is not trying to set up his own splinter sect of the church.
Quote from: Anaris on March 30, 2012, 06:37:15 PM
That's not true at all.
There are situations where it would be perfectly appropriate to excommunicate a priest, where the priest in question is not trying to set up his own splinter sect of the church.
Maybe I misunderstood fodder then. My point, again, is rather than thinking we need to levy punishments on religions that want to kick out a priest, let's implement a balanced way for them to do it now and save the more complex mechanics for when real schisms come along. No point in getting half-way there now, especially if it's done in a punitive manner.
2 sides of the same coin surely. if followers follow a particular priest, then you boot him, he'll have a chance of taking his flock with him.
simply excommunicate a notable priest and expect no loss of flock? hah!
if it's a priest of no following, then he will take a couple of hundred of followers at most. basically no loss.
it does not matter whether the priest is trying to set up anything. if he doesn't fancy going on after the boot, then let it lapse. you as elder should not be allowed to dictate whether he wants to split or not. don't want a big split? convert his followers before booting him.
put another way, unless the band aid is like a 5 minute job, why waste all the effort, when you can wait a few more months (well.. and hope it's not 1-2 years)
Quote from: fodder on March 30, 2012, 07:52:48 PM
2 sides of the same coin surely. if followers follow a particular priest, then you boot him, he'll have a chance of taking his flock with him.
simply excommunicate a notable priest and expect no loss of flock? hah!
if it's a priest of no following, then he will take a couple of hundred of followers at most. basically no loss.
it does not matter whether the priest is trying to set up anything. if he doesn't fancy going on after the boot, then let it lapse. you as elder should not be allowed to dictate whether he wants to split or not. don't want a big split? convert his followers before booting him.
You are assuming that any schism mechanic will, in fact, assign peasant followers to individual priests. That's a huge assumption.
Quote
put another way, unless the band aid is like a 5 minute job, why waste all the effort, when you can wait a few more months (well.. and hope it's not 1-2 years)
It might well be another year or more. No way to tell at this point.
I'm not gonna close this thread though it's gotten off topic, but as Tom's noted, someone will have to come forward and make very simple feature requests for these discussions to have any real impact.
Discussions like these belong on this Development forum, specific features belong on the Feature Request subforum, but do not expect the dev team to take every idea and modification into consideration on this parent board.
Hmm, so maybe some kind of Exile option for Religions, with the usual contest of wills. Not sure how that would work though.
Quote from: Anaris on March 30, 2012, 07:57:23 PM
You are assuming that any schism mechanic will, in fact, assign peasant followers to individual priests. That's a huge assumption.
not so much assumption but rather something that makes sense.
---
for the band aid...
what exactly are you trying to prevent?
someone looking up locations of temples - they are not really hidden. anyone passing by would see it. you can look up every region in your realm too. tedious. need chums from other realms... <---don't bother.
someone using message list of religion (to find members, or whatever)... <--- hidden ranks?
someone preaching to peasants / influencing them
building shrines to - 1)waste your global treasury 2)annoy other realm/religion
knocking down shrines?
anything else?
a quick boot is no good.. imagine this.. there's a priest who did all the preaching and gathering followers. someone else came in as elder and boots him and the priest ends up with nothing? doesn't make sense.
Quote from: fodder on March 30, 2012, 10:41:14 PM
not so much assumption but rather something that makes sense.
---
for the band aid...
what exactly are you trying to prevent?
someone looking up locations of temples - they are not really hidden. anyone passing by would see it. you can look up every region in your realm too. tedious. need chums from other realms... <---don't bother.
someone using message list of religion (to find members, or whatever)... <--- hidden ranks?
someone preaching to peasants / influencing them
building shrines to - 1)waste your global treasury 2)annoy other realm/religion
knocking down shrines?
anything else?
a quick boot is no good.. imagine this.. there's a priest who did all the preaching and gathering followers. someone else came in as elder and boots him and the priest ends up with nothing? doesn't make sense.
I have a hard time to follow what you are trying to say with that post.
If a priest did all of this work, and then "someone else came in as elder and boots him", then that's kinda the priest's fault for not demanding to be made an elder himself. If he asks for no reconnaissance, than why should he expect some when he gets booted? Besides, nobody boots out priests without serious motive. If the threat only resurfaces now, it's because it's never really been an issue yet, mostly because people did not know how this worked (and thus no one tried to abuse it). A priest promotes your faith, and they are usually hard to come by. If a religion wants to boot a priest, then it's because the priest really deserves it.
Honestly, the best way to proceed is to simply allow religion elders to kick out priests like any other members, and to then, later when time is available, make a better code to make it a bit more difficult. Sure, it'd be best if there were some consequences to such a drastic act, but no consequences is already a hell of a lot better than no possibility to kick them out.
As for the other things you mention:
Shrines: they cost the priest 50 gold a shot, minimum. Sure they can be a drain, but the cost to the priest and to benefits to the religion means this is the least optimal way of griefing one can think of. Thus, not really a concern.
Member list: If we want to encourage "outside the box" religions, then I'd make it so that only full members can see the names of all other religion members. I'd do the same with guilds, too. But I don't consider this to have such an impact that it warrant anything higher than a low priority project.
Temple list: Full members only. Knowing where the temples of the enemy faith are is incredibly strategic information if you want to go to war against that church, since no temple = no religion. I've had this used against enemies of my faith, and I consider that if I did the same thing I'd have a considerable advantage to go destroy competing faiths. But I consider this abuse. The impacts of this are much greater than the member list, so I'd consider this to be a greater priority.
But these flaws with religion/guilds are nothing compared to the inability to kick out priests and to demote members to a rank with a lower maximum debt than the member's current debt. Especially the priest one.
Quote from: Foundation on March 30, 2012, 09:27:58 PM
I'm not gonna close this thread though it's gotten off topic, but as Tom's noted, someone will have to come forward and make very simple feature requests for these discussions to have any real impact.
The thread started with that, but then had many other ideas. I'll try to sum up those I remember as simple ones:
a) Allow expelling a Priest if all the Elders agree.
b) Impose a penalty in number of followers for the expulsion.
c) An Elder can call an exile/ban/excommunication procedure which takes a week (the time for people to auto-pause), at the term of which if he managed enough support the Priest is expelled, and if not the Elder himself is booted (or add any other penalty). Perhaps the one expelled cannot join the religion in X time.
Quote from: Chénier on March 30, 2012, 11:56:01 PM
Member list: If we want to encourage "outside the box" religions, then I'd make it so that only full members can see the names of all other religion members. I'd do the same with guilds, too. But I don't consider this to have such an impact that it warrant anything higher than a low priority project.
This has been stated more than once before by Tom that was not going to happen.
You mean a simple proposal like this?
Quote from: pcw27 on March 30, 2012, 08:15:36 AM
Why should there be a whole complicated mechanic for this? If someone wants to play a Martin Luther they should found a new religion. If they can't get a single region lord on board (or if they're not a region lord themselves) then their doctrine clearly isn't powerful enough to gather followers.
If a spy infiltrates a religion there should be an option to ban them from receiving messages from the religion. It shouldn't be very difficult for church leaders to say "hey, that guy's a spy, stop sending him our mail". Infiltrating a religion can be a legitimate role played action, but to suggest that spying should grant them a lifetime supply of free intelligence is ludicrous. Let them have the ability to send messages to the faith which should limit the Churches ability to use this as a way to summarily silence descent.
The main issue I've read that doesn't relate to schisms is that people bring in priests as spies and saboteurs.
A solution that doesn't seem hard to code, and more of a tweak:
Make it so that Aspirant ranked priests can only Preach and Pray for Signs. Some features are already only available to Elders after promotion. By demotion it would act similar to how Exiles work in a realm heirarchy.
Have a priests that's a pain in the ass? Demote him to aspirant so he can't do any negative actions. Worried about spies? Send messages to full members only. It's not like if you're truely worried about spies that you aren't already doing this anyways, since ANYONE can join ANY guild so long as they're not trying to join a second religion simultaneously.
Quote from: Psyche on March 31, 2012, 05:07:31 AM
Have a priests that's a pain in the ass? Demote him to aspirant so he can't do any negative actions. Worried about spies? Send messages to full members only. It's not like if you're truely worried about spies that you aren't already doing this anyways, since ANYONE can join ANY guild so long as they're not trying to join a second religion simultaneously.
This is so far the solution I've liked the most.
Yeah I'd support this option as well.
Quote from: JPierreD on March 30, 2012, 06:11:12 PM
A Hussite noble priest in a Catholic realm would usually only be able to use their temples by the force of arms, unless the ones in charge of the temple were also Hussites. The problem is that we don't have the ability to declare a Priest from within our Church a heretic.
Yes, a Hussite noble preaching in a Catholic realm would be prevented from preaching by the realm's authority.
You can arrest priests.
What you are asking for is for the Catholic hierarchy to tell the peasants in an Orthodox realm not to listen to the Hussite priests, or even possibly in an Hussite realm! The temples are physical buildings within realms, the realms already have all the tools at their disposal to fight priests who use them wrongly.
Quote from: Psyche on March 31, 2012, 05:07:31 AM
Make it so that Aspirant ranked priests can only Preach and Pray for Signs. Some features are already only available to Elders after promotion. By demotion it would act similar to how Exiles work in a realm heirarchy.
Have a priests that's a pain in the ass? Demote him to aspirant so he can't do any negative actions. Worried about spies? Send messages to full members only. It's not like if you're truely worried about spies that you aren't already doing this anyways, since ANYONE can join ANY guild so long as they're not trying to join a second religion simultaneously.
This seems a very sensible and simple option.
Quote from: Psyche on March 31, 2012, 05:07:31 AM
The main issue I've read that doesn't relate to schisms is that people bring in priests as spies and saboteurs.
A solution that doesn't seem hard to code, and more of a tweak:
Make it so that Aspirant ranked priests can only Preach and Pray for Signs. Some features are already only available to Elders after promotion. By demotion it would act similar to how Exiles work in a realm heirarchy.
Have a priests that's a pain in the ass? Demote him to aspirant so he can't do any negative actions. Worried about spies? Send messages to full members only. It's not like if you're truely worried about spies that you aren't already doing this anyways, since ANYONE can join ANY guild so long as they're not trying to join a second religion simultaneously.
Doesn't prevent griefers from spamming.
I've heard of it happening, people joining guilds to spam and rejoining as soon as they get kicked out. This way, they don't even need to pay the admission fee to continue spamming.
That's what the ignore button is for.
Quote from: Chénier on March 30, 2012, 01:42:20 PM
I have personally been griefed in the past by people joining my religion to get temple locations, and I know of others who have been griefed by people joining the religion to spam. Had the griefers known they could become priests for unlimited griefing powers,
Only if you promote them to full members first, so they can become priests. So this argument of yours has no bearing on the argument of this topic. For those "griefers" you speak about, your religion
does have a ban option.
Quote from: Perth on March 29, 2012, 09:25:20 PM
Why not simply have a button that every single Elder of the religion must press in order for the Priest to be kicked out?
Because there is absolutely no code to support such a thing, and it would require changes to code, database, etc.
Quote from: JPierreD on March 30, 2012, 06:11:12 PM
A Hussite noble priest in a Catholic realm would usually only be able to use their temples by the force of arms,
Which means whenever he wants to, because as a noble he'd carry a sword and the peasants don't.
It'll be many months, if not years. There is no current activity on implementing shisms.
The problem is that at the time of the "ban", we don't yet know what the victim wants to do. Just leave, schism, try to cling on? We also do not currently have a place to store this "banned from church" information in order to delay it (like bans are) so he can make a choice we can react to.
Basically, anything discussed so far requires changes not only to the code, but also to the database. And during a total code conversion like we are still doing, that's not going to happen unless it is really important. And sorry to say that, in a game with 1000 players and 6 game worlds, a single current case simply isn't important.
Quote from: Psyche on March 31, 2012, 05:07:31 AM
The main issue I've read that doesn't relate to schisms is that people bring in priests as spies and saboteurs.
A solution that doesn't seem hard to code, and more of a tweak:
Make it so that Aspirant ranked priests can only Preach and Pray for Signs. Some features are already only available to Elders after promotion. By demotion it would act similar to how Exiles work in a realm heirarchy.
Have a priests that's a pain in the ass? Demote him to aspirant so he can't do any negative actions. Worried about spies? Send messages to full members only. It's not like if you're truely worried about spies that you aren't already doing this anyways, since ANYONE can join ANY guild so long as they're not trying to join a second religion simultaneously.
And just what, exactly, are you even doing here still? You've been locked for multicheating twice now.
Go away and stop trolling us.
Quote from: Anaris on March 31, 2012, 05:59:28 PM
And just what, exactly, are you even doing here still? You've been locked for multicheating twice now.
Go away and stop trolling us.
oh he was a troll.
Well hopefully the code change will be done by the end of the year.
Offering advice.
He wasn't acting rude or aggressive or anything so though he may of cheated but that doesn't mean he is trolling by posting a good idea to the forum.
Quote from: Tom on March 31, 2012, 04:15:26 PM
Only if you promote them to full members first, so they can become priests. So this argument of yours has no bearing on the argument of this topic. For those "griefers" you speak about, your religion does have a ban option.
But that's the problem, they can't be demoted back down to aspirant or kicked once they're found out as spies. It makes no logical sense for any organization to allow a known spie to continue receiving their information just because they were ordained.
Quote from: pcw27 on March 31, 2012, 10:26:17 PM
But that's the problem,
No. Read the post I was replying to. It was claiming that anyone could walk in, become a priest and be an instant, immune spy.
Most religions are not going to conduct background checks on people interested in becoming full members, nor should they have to. That's an onerous burden to place on them. A character doesn't have to tell you he wants to be priest, he just has to become a full member, then can become a priest at any time with or without prior notice.
Religions aren't secret societies; they should not need to screen every prospective full member to make absolutely sure they can be trusted. Religions are by their very nature inclusive, and have to be in order to thrive. Your continued intimations that they should be more careful and less trusting run contrary to what a religion is supposed to be, both in terms of game mechanics and in terms of what a religion is in real life.
I am sympathetic to what you're saying about coding limitations. If the Elders vote approach won't work, what about black marks, they way a lord can kick out a knight? Maybe reserve it for the ranking Elder? Or hell, honestly, why not just let them be kicked like any other member? As you've said, the complexities of whether or not he'd even want to take followers with him are simply beyond what we can do at the moment. Instead of idealizing that scenario, why not just fix it right now by giving religions the ability to kick them out as any other member, then address the entire issue with as much depth and detail as desired at such a time as schisms can be fully implemented? The current situation is not good. I get that you'd like kicking a priest to be a richer source of conflict, but we just don't have the mechanics to support that now. Leaving things as they are is not better.
If you want a conflict just make sure a message is sent to all members that the priest was kicked. Small religions might be losing their only priest and larger ones will have members who supported the priest argueing about it all for sure, if the priest was actually doing anything to help the religion.
the issue for me is not the kicking, it's kicking with complete impunity.
what if, as a temp solution, you can kick. but if it's a priest of long standing/high skill, then every region with your followers will kick up a fuss - magnitude depends on follower lvl, priest's standing, etc...
a bit like sacking a shrine/temple..
also as a temp thing, a separate "silence" function could also be added to make preaching/influencing more ineffective
spamming is an ooc thing. sic the titans on them.
Rather than use game mechanics for it, why not just let the players raise hell over it? I have yet to see a game mechanic that will cause as much trouble as a few pissed-off players. If the priest kicked out is anything more than a lone whackjob, he probably has some support that can cause trouble for him.
Quote from: fodder on April 01, 2012, 07:18:15 PM
what if, as a temp solution, you can kick. but if it's a priest of long standing/high skill, then every region with your followers will kick up a fuss - magnitude depends on follower lvl, priest's standing, etc...
Except that we don't have such a thing as a "standing".
That is exactly what I've been saying half of this discussion: We currently do not have any of the data required for making this work. Whatever we do, it requires changes to code and database.
Quote from: Indirik on April 01, 2012, 07:35:33 PM
I have yet to see a game mechanic that will cause as much trouble as a few pissed-off players.
Most players don't say anything, ever. In this game, you can do the equivalent of having the queen strip naked and gangbang the palace guard and people will barely say a word.
Quote from: Indirik on April 01, 2012, 07:35:33 PM
Rather than use game mechanics for it, why not just let the players raise hell over it? I have yet to see a game mechanic that will cause as much trouble as a few pissed-off players. If the priest kicked out is anything more than a lone whackjob, he probably has some support that can cause trouble for him.
What about being able to demote them to aspirants? That allows them to get rid of spies but keeps them from abusing it to silence dissent.
Quote from: Tom on April 01, 2012, 08:37:47 PM
Except that we don't have such a thing as a "standing".
That is exactly what I've been saying half of this discussion: We currently do not have any of the data required for making this work. Whatever we do, it requires changes to code and database.
isn't there a time since joining religion somewhere? (have to look it up when i get to a temple)
by no means accurate regarding priesthood obviously.
i think there is a time in rank thing (or at least a date).. but if it's just the rank then it's no good. because you can change rank, then boot -> less than 1 day
Quote from: Tom on April 01, 2012, 08:39:11 PM
Most players don't say anything, ever. In this game, you can do the equivalent of having the queen strip naked and gangbang the palace guard and people will barely say a word.
Sure, if you run one of those dead religions that exist only to fill a vacuum and that no one really cares about. If you did the above things in the halls of SA, you'd be lucky to survive the ensuing avalanche of message traffic with your sanity intact. There are other religions I have experience with that are plenty vibrant even without approach what goes on in SA, like the Way of the Hammer on AT, or the Church of Ibladesh, pre-butt whooping. I'm sure there are others.
I agree with Indirik. If no one can be bothered to kick up a fuss, then the priest probably was a lone whackjob, wasn't he? How else could he first stir up enough trouble to get kicked out and then have absolutely no one stand up for him? If no one cares, no one's going to care what he does. If someone cares, then there's conflict and there will likely be a fuss over him getting kicked out.
Besides, the act of kicking out a priest is so counter-productive to the religion that they are unlikely to do so without serious motive. Most religions don't have all that many priests, they don't have the luxury of being able to kick them out left and right.
While a middle-ground may be preferable, I stand by the opinion that being able to kick out priests as one would kick out a non-priest is preferable to priests having total immunity, and that therefore the restrictions should be lifted until the time is taken for a more complex middle-ground solution.