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BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: Chenier on January 26, 2014, 11:14:31 PM
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This is ridiculous. I've said this would happen ages ago, but nobody seemed to care enough.
The Church offers Fulco an ultimatum, to repent or be excommunicated. What does he do? He switches class to priest and starts influencing the faithful. Which means that he can no longer be demoted from full membership, nor expelled, and that he can reduce follower % in regions ridiculously quickly. The effects of a rogue priest are a hundred times as harmful as the effects of an enemy priest. A single rogue priest can turn a large city's following from 100% to 1% within days, which would take years for anyone else. And nothing can be done about it.
Priestly immunity needs to be removed. It's a ridiculous mechanism. Being a priest shouldn't prevent one from being able to be cast out of a religion. The argument about class IR that was risen last time makes no sense. Being a priest of someone else's religion isn't an IR. Unless one founds his own religion, nobody can become a priest unless someone else accepts to make him a full member. It's a privilege. If it was meant to be that anyone could be a priest, becoming one would not depend on the goodwill of others. And anyone who really wants to play a priest can just go about and found his own religion. Demoting a priest has absolutely nothing with telling someone what class they can or can't play. It's about telling them what rank they can have in a religion, and adhering to guilds and religions is not an IR. The argument that one can just declare war on them to capture the priests also doesn't stand: doing so would not allow one to inflict a ban and thus a meaningful consequence, yet would result in serious realm-wide protests if the religion is popular at home.
The power that the protections given to priest yields is abusable beyond belief. It's enough that rogue priests can cause a lot of damage that is almost completely invisible, but to make them immune to reprisals?
Religion elders need to be able to demote and/or expel priests as they can with anyone else.
On another note, I'd also say that doing so should require an hour per person.
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I agree with you completely.
I've agreed for years, and tried to argue this point in the past. However, every time I did, Tom was firm that it was an IR issue, so I haven't pressed it in a long time.
I have, however, sent him this topic, in hopes that he will take a look at the situation, and possibly change his mind.
To add my own argument to this:
The IR are, first and foremost, to protect players from other, less scrupulous players. There are many ways in which the game could be said to "infringe" upon our IR, especially the class IR. There are a multitude of restrictions on who can become what class, and reasons why someone would have to change class, or even be forced to. If a religion is destroyed, all priests of that religion are immediately changed back to Warriors. If an infiltrator becomes rogue, he immediately loses his subclass. I can see no compelling reason to permit someone whose sole purpose is, in essence, briefing to be permitted to remain a nominal part of a religion he actually bears no allegiance to.
In the past, you have said that realistically peasants would, of course, still listen to a heretical priest, and that he should be able to incite them to whatever. This argument seems to rest on the idea that either the character in question has been a priest for a long time and they recognize and trust him, or it's nothing but the robes that make the difference.
Additionally, I recall you claiming that the word of some random noble in some random city far away that this guy is excommunicated wouldn't reach the peasants and wouldn't make a difference…but a) we have instantaneous communication for everything else; there's no reason to think word couldn't reach every temple and notices be tacked up and read publicly, and b) it would have made a difference if he had been excommunicated just seconds before he decided to become a Priest. It would, in fact, have prevented him from becoming a priest, thus, by your own logic, violating his IR possibly even more severely.
Finally, the notion that kicking a priest out of his religion requires violating the IR rests on another premise that you hold as sacrosanct that I do not believe needs to be: that a priest must, at all times, have a religion. If we could kick priests out of their religion and they'd just become powerless nonaligned priests, that would not violated their IR, it would just violate your sensibilities of what it means to be a priest. If you are dead set on preventing this putative IR violation, I'm sure we could come up with some particular restrictions that would make being a "pagan priest" about as appetizing as being a rogue noble.
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Why not just prevent an excommunicated noble from becoming a priest of that religion? Force him out to the default class if he already is a priest?
I think it is way too easy in this game to ruin years of work over a much shorter period of time. Like decimating a city completely while it takes eternity for a city to recover. Wish it would be less stressful to see things being undone but oh well.
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In the past Tom's said he wants it to work this way so that there's greater opportunity to have Martin Luther type priests challenging religious authority. Fair enough, but I think it goes a little too far to make them immune to reprisals. Why not just have it cause wide spread loss of followers? Maybe 10% across the board when word spreads that a priest was cast out. That way church leadership wont kick out any dissenting priest as a first resort for fear that they'll lose followers.
If someone really wants to challenge a religion and create a schism they should just found their own religion based on the original and RP it as a new sect.
The last time this came up people suggested making it harder to become priests. The dev team said that we should simply not make people full members. That doesn't work for large religions because many stay in the aspirant ranks to avoid the message traffic. If we make the full member rank's restrictive that will either severely limit the number of players that are privy to church politics or it will cause these to spill over into the "all members" channel.
How about requiring a new priest to be ordained in the presence of an existing priest? The exception to this would be the founder. That would actually be very cool, it would drive roleplay.
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If someone really wants to challenge a religion and create a schism they should just found their own religion based on the original and RP it as a new sect.
There have actually been plans to implement schisms as an honest-to-goodness feature for a while now. It's just a ways down the list, unfortunately.
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There have actually been plans to implement schisms as an honest-to-goodness feature for a while now. It's just a ways down the list, unfortunately.
But why bother? It's not really needed. SA has had two schisms using only the existing mechanics.
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Any deterrent to sanctions against priests that doesn't consider the amount of time the person was a priest is ridiculous. In this specific case, I don't think the guy was ever a priest before being explicitly being threatened with expulsion. Kicking out this kind of priest should never yield any negative results.
We can't in one hand say that for the game to be fun, we need to be more open, less paranoid, and involve others more, and on the other say that any random schuck has the right to the ability to cause debilitating damage to years' worth of efforts with absolutely no effort themselves.
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Maybe you should consider not giving them the opportunity to repent and just expel them from the church; after all, they can always repent after their castle has been auto da fe'd. Not that I think the priest's ability to never be kicked out of a religion is good, but that is a method of working within the established ruleset.
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Maybe you should consider not giving them the opportunity to repent and just expel them from the church; after all, they can always repent after their castle has been auto da fe'd. Not that I think the priest's ability to never be kicked out of a religion is good, but that is a method of working within the established ruleset.
No, it isn't a solution. Arbitrarily kicking someone out without notice is a good way to incite others to defend him by becoming rogue priests themselves. The only way to prevent THAT would be to kick EVERYONE out of the religion. And for a a social game, skipping all interaction makes a poor fix anyways.
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But why bother? It's not really needed. SA has had two schisms using only the existing mechanics.
Because Chenier is ignoring the class IR which is why priests have the immunity. The only way for it to not break the class IR is to kick the priest such that he creates a sect.
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Because Chenier is ignoring the class IR which is why priests have the immunity. The only way for it to not break the class IR is to kick the priest such that he creates a sect.
Or have "pagan priests". Or just accept that "class IR" is inherently limited. There are already classes that you can lose if the right circumstances occur. If you kick a priest out of a religion and cause them to default to warrior it doesn't mean they can't be a priest anymore it just means they can't be a priest of that particular religion. They can still join another religion and become a priest of that. They'll still have the right to play the class they want, they just wont have the right to play the religion they want.
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No, the IR is not "limited". As Tim said, and as is explained on the IR wiki page, losing your class due to a game mechanic is something else entirely. The IR is to protect you from other players, not from game mechanics.
I agree that rogue priests are a problem.
I disagree that a mechanic to kick them out of the class is the solution.
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.
But that game mechanic is, as Tim said, way down on the TODO list. The solution for the moment would be a complaint against the player for griefing. Unfortunately the Social Contract does not contain a passage explicitly forbidding griefing or trolling because it hasn't been a problem so far. But I think we all agree that someone is exploiting a game mechanic here so this is a §2 issue.
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But that game mechanic is, as Tim said, way down on the TODO list. The solution for the moment would be a complaint against the player for griefing. Unfortunately the Social Contract does not contain a passage explicitly forbidding griefing or trolling because it hasn't been a problem so far. But I think we all agree that someone is exploiting a game mechanic here so this is a §2 issue.
I doubt the schism mechanic will be finished in a year or two. Who knows, it might never get finished. What will happen for breaking the §2 of the social contract?
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But that game mechanic is, as Tim said, way down on the TODO list. The solution for the moment would be a complaint against the player for griefing. Unfortunately the Social Contract does not contain a passage explicitly forbidding griefing or trolling because it hasn't been a problem so far. But I think we all agree that someone is exploiting a game mechanic here so this is a §2 issue.
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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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."
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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."
Obviously my intention would be to have the system not be so one sided in favour of the heretic.
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Why not just add a special rank called 'Excommunicated' with auto mute within the religion and no available religious actions. Make it a lower rank than a new comer.
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Why not just add a special rank called 'Excommunicated' with auto mute within the religion and no available religious actions. Make it a lower rank than a new comer.
Because we would need to change the system such that priest can be demoted to and hold ranks lower then a full member?
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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.
Your argument is completely invalid.
I can deny someone their inalienable right to recruit troops by simply destroying all recruiting centers in my realm. No rights broken. No recruiting. To a lesser extent, i can deny someone the right to recruit a specific type of unit by making sure or realm had no rcs of that type. Used to be very common with MI.
I can deny someone their right to be an infiltrator by making them go rogue.
I can deny someone the right choose the priest class by refusing to grant them full membership in my religion.
Etc, etc, etc.
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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.
In existing mechanics it's a matter of them getting a player following from the starting religion that can help them establish a new heretical sect.
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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.
Royals can't be banned... sure. That's kinda how elders can't be removed by lower-ranking elders. I'm not sure what your point is. The ban parallel is fully adequate. And heck, you can also exile royals to prevent them from recruiting. You can also refuse to give them estates so they lack the gold to recruit... Stuff their city with militia if they are lords so that they don't get an income to recruit. Is a trader's IR being violated if nobody puts up sale offers? Is a newbie's IR being violated when his realm has too much peace to allow him to gain enough h/p to pick the subclasses he wants?
I think there is a gross exageration of what the IRs actually cover. The IRs are there to prevent people from telling others how to play. They aren't there to force people to make every path equally viable or attainable.
Telling people not to become warriors is against the IRs, but failing to provide people with income or RCs is not.
Telling people not to become traders is against the IRs, but failing to provide trade offers is not.
Telling people not to recruit from archers is against the IRs, but failing to provide archer RCs is not.
Telling people not to play priests is against the IRs, but providing them a religion to be a priest is should not be considered as such. They can always found their own religion or pick another religion if they want to be a priest.
The rights offer a protection to the individuals, not a duty to the collectivity to heed to every little desire of said individuals.
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I don't know how IRs entered this discussion, so let me clear something up:
A game mechanic applied in the way it is intended is never an IR violation. The IRs are a RIGHT, not a natural law. Real-world example, mute people are not deprived of their 1st Amendment Free Speech rights - they simply can't speak.
The IR does specifically not state that you have the right to play any class at any moment. On the contrary, the game limits access to classes in many ways.
The IR define the limits of PLAYER ACTIONS. The right to recruit any unit type of your choice does NOT mean every realm is mandated to provide any type. Likewise, someone who wants to play a priest still needs to find a way to become one.
The IR simply means that players can't go and tell someone WHO BY GAME MECHANICS COULD to not do something that's covered by the IR.
So the whole "you can't kick a priest out of a religion" thing has nothing to do with the IR of playing that class. Banning someone from a realm who is an infiltrator will also make him lose that subclass - no IR violation there.
No, what the game mechanic is intended to do is allow conflict within churches and make sure that priests enjoy some leeway. It's more like tenure.
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So the whole "you can't kick a priest out of a religion" thing has nothing to do with the IR of playing that class. Banning someone from a realm who is an infiltrator will also make him lose that subclass - no IR violation there.
Except that I'm 99.8% sure that you have used exactly that as a reason why we couldn't allow priests to be kicked out of religions, and as a reason why we couldn't allow deportation of priests.
If you really want, I can try and dig up the posts (probably to the dev list) where you said these things...I can certainly accept that you're changing your mind, but please don't try to tell me this was never an issue.
No, what the game mechanic is intended to do is allow conflict within churches and make sure that priests enjoy some leeway. It's more like tenure.
Fine. Then let's make it less absolute. Even a tenured professor can be fired if they break the law. Right now, this isn't "more leeway"—it's an open invitation to abuse that cannot be stopped short of finding a way to execute the damn priest.
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Fine. Then let's make it less absolute. Even a tenured professor can be fired if they break the law. Right now, this isn't "more leeway"—it's an open invitation to abuse that cannot be stopped short of finding a way to execute the damn priest.
Which, unless the guy is REALLY stupid, is next to impossible. Things that damage the religion the most can never result in bans. Arresting them is not only pointless, it's also self-destructive if your regions are of your faith.
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Why not this:
Remember the old liege/vassal point system?
Incorporate it into a religion like this:
A priest cannot be kicked from a religion unless they have so many black marks (based on the number of elders). Makes it so an elder can now be involved in supporting a heretic or undesirable, and makes church politics more politickier. At the same time, it makes it so if there is a general consensus among the elders that a priest should be removed, they can be.
In summary, elders get the ability to give good/bad marks to priests, and a priest who accrues enough bad marks can be kicked.
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Why not this:
Remember the old liege/vassal point system?
Incorporate it into a religion like this:
A priest cannot be kicked from a religion unless they have so many black marks (based on the number of elders). Makes it so an elder can now be involved in supporting a heretic or undesirable, and makes church politics more politickier. At the same time, it makes it so if there is a general consensus among the elders that a priest should be removed, they can be.
In summary, elders get the ability to give good/bad marks to priests, and a priest who accrues enough bad marks can be kicked.
I don't like this on the basis that it can be gamed. If the top elder wants it done, all he has to do is demote all of the other elders temporarily and all of a sudden he'd have all of the freedom he desires? I don't think restrictions are worth it if they can be gamed like this. I also don't think the marks system ever really worked all too good.
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It'd be interesting if there was a kind of recommendation process - kind of like how Adventurers have to get three recommendations from nobles to become a Warrior class, a would-be priest has to get three recommendations from the senior members of the religion. That would help prevent just any-old full member becoming a priest willy-nilly. After all these aren't just common ministers who can get mail-order ministry cards online, these are nobles who become the equivalent of cardinals or bishops, it should involve at least a bit of vetting by the religious leadership.
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A rogue priest means someone trusted him enough to let him in and now he's betrayed you. That sucks, for sure, but that's like electing Hitler and then complaining that he's OP when he dismantles the government, starts building weird rocket planes and oppressing ethnic groups.
If someone is griefing/trolling the other players in an OOC manner using this religious function then the Social Contract does provide for that. "Do not insult or harass other players."
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A rogue priest means someone trusted him enough to let him in and now he's betrayed you. That sucks, for sure, but that's like electing Hitler and then complaining that he's OP when he dismantles the government, starts building weird rocket planes and oppressing ethnic groups.
If someone is griefing/trolling the other players in an OOC manner using this religious function then the Social Contract does provide for that. "Do not insult or harass other players."
It can also be used to power game. It's been done in the past.
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A rogue priest means someone trusted him enough to let him in and now he's betrayed you. That sucks, for sure, but that's like electing Hitler and then complaining that he's OP when he dismantles the government, starts building weird rocket planes and oppressing ethnic groups.
No. Nobody "elected" him as a priest. To be a priest only requires being a full member of the religion. To be trusted as a full member is not the same thing as being trusted as a priest. Religions should not have to be paranoid about making members full members on the off chance that they will become rogue priests and gain immunity from all crimes.
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Indeed, the comparison is wrong on so many levels it's beyond belief. And even if they were comparable, which they totally aren't, at least government members can be protested out of office, wounded out office, and so on...
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It can also be used to power game. It's been done in the past.
Give me three clear-cut examples. I haven't been here as long as you, so I am interested in the lore of this subject.
Religions should not have to be paranoid about making members full members on the off chance that they will become rogue priests and gain immunity from all crimes.
They should, for all the reasons presented in this thread. Remember that they aren't just priests, they are noblemen, typically landed and often in positions of major authority, like Medugnatos of Corsanctum or the most recent former Prime Minister of CE.
Really, who should have this power? I've heard a lot of arguments as to why it should exist but no good answer on who should have it. Chenier's initial suggestion was just plain ludicrous. Any elder? And it only takes an hour for all the paperwork? That sounds like it would lead to even worse abuse. For example, when Khari was on the elder council of SA and, assuming that ability existed, I could've pressured her to use it, bam, there go all of SA's priests.
A rogue priest is one thing, but individually they don't wield the kind of power you would be placing in every Elder's hands.
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No. Nobody "elected" him as a priest. To be a priest only requires being a full member of the religion. To be trusted as a full member is not the same thing as being trusted as a priest. Religions should not have to be paranoid about making members full members on the off chance that they will become rogue priests and gain immunity from all crimes.
Perhaps we need a rank between full and elder for religions that exists as the priest range. That way pious nobles are still able to be full members, while providing a system to elevate characters to the priesthood.
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They should, for all the reasons presented in this thread. Remember that they aren't just priests, they are noblemen, typically landed and often in positions of major authority, like Medugnatos of Corsanctum or the most recent former Prime Minister of CE.
Yes but only priests have the magic immunity power. So, it doesn't matter if you're a mighty lord, a king, a prime minister, a duke - none of that grants you magic immunity power. Just being a priest does. And it takes basically nothing to become a priest. So, want to have magic immunity from a religion? Become a priest. And your proposed solution to that is.... make it harder for people to become full members?
Why not just make it harder to become a priest?
Better yet, get rid of this stupid immunity. It's absolutely unrealistic. "We'd excommunicate you, but last night you found the Magical Priest Collar of Power, so uh, now we can't. The Prophet of the religion can't. No power on earth can. Because magic."
A rogue priest is one thing, but individually they don't wield the kind of power you would be placing in every Elder's hands.
The power to kick members out of the religion? That power that every Elder already has?
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The power to kick members out of the religion? That power that every Elder already has?
Very different from kicking out priests, pretty self-evident.
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I don't like this on the basis that it can be gamed. If the top elder wants it done, all he has to do is demote all of the other elders temporarily and all of a sudden he'd have all of the freedom he desires? I don't think restrictions are worth it if they can be gamed like this. I also don't think the marks system ever really worked all too good.
You call that gaming, but I call it a power play. "Haha, look at what I can do!" and suddenly you've alienated the other elder members of the faith, and they possess power to dismantle the faith.
"Oh really? We're going to reform the faith without you, and excommunicate everyone because you were dumb enough to re-promote us after this."
Conversely you base the number of bad marks needed on the total membership, and suddenly you're no longer able to do that, and it encourages religions to have a diversified group of elder members. Can you survive without it? Yes. Can you kick out rogue priests without making some promotions, no. Which you shouldn't be able to anyway. If you have a small and weak group of elder members, they obviously don't wield enough power to effectively excommunicate a clergy member.
And while yes, the marks system didn't get used that much, I'll argue that it was a result of it not being around for that long (by my standards for bm features), and that when it was implemented the game culture was different, and more nationalist than it is now.
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Very different from kicking out priests, pretty self-evident.
Not really. Your example of an Elder getting rid of all the priests, well, as things are currently, any Elder can kick out any (and all, potentially) members (save priests) of lower rank, even other Elders. That's not too great a power for an Elder to have, but to kick out the priests, well, that's too much? Why? What makes a priest so special, when it takes nothing to become a priest?
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Not really. Your example of an Elder getting rid of all the priests, well, as things are currently, any Elder can kick out any (and all, potentially) members (save priests) of lower rank, even other Elders. That's not too great a power for an Elder to have, but to kick out the priests, well, that's too much? Why? What makes a priest so special, when it takes nothing to become a priest?
Because priests give up everything that makes up the core game to dedicate themselves to a cause. No more will they fight battles, and gain honor and prestige. There is no requirement, but there is a cost.
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Indeed, the comparison is wrong on so many levels it's beyond belief. And even if they were comparable, which they totally aren't, at least government members can be protested out of office, wounded out office, and so on...
Hey there's an idea. Create a "protest" option. All full members have the option to try and vote any priest out of office.
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Because priests give up everything that makes up the core game to dedicate themselves to a cause. No more will they fight battles, and gain honor and prestige. There is no requirement, but there is a cost.
Opportunity cost, sure, but even that's only temporary. It's not like heroes, or indeed even like adventurers->warriors, where there's no turning back. And if you're already a lord or government member you're not exactly losing much power by not being able to command troops.
There should be some requirements. I really think the recommendation idea would be useful here. To be a priest should show not only that your character wants to be a priest but that at least someone else in the religious leadership does too. This protects the institution of religion the same way that the recommendation process protects the institution of the aristocracy. And the recommendation process already exists and is already tied to class changes, so probably not as much modification needed?
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Opportunity cost, sure, but even that's only temporary. It's not like heroes, or indeed even like adventurers->warriors, where there's no turning back. And if you're already a lord or government member you're not exactly losing much power by not being able to command troops.
There should be some requirements. I really think the recommendation idea would be useful here. To be a priest should show not only that your character wants to be a priest but that at least someone else in the religious leadership does too. This protects the institution of religion the same way that the recommendation process protects the institution of the aristocracy. And the recommendation process already exists and is already tied to class changes, so probably not as much modification needed?
To work it would need to have multiple ways you can receive enough recommendations.
A single recommendation from the prophet/founder/pope/whoever's in charge should give a noble automatic approval. That's the simplest way to allow new religions to expand.
After that they should need a certain number of recommendations from elders, or a certain larger number of recommendations from regular priests. They could be percentile like 25% of either group, or they could be a fixed number. Alternatively all recommendations could be weighted by the rank of whoever's giving them, but that would be pretty complicated.
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Not really.
Yes, really. You kick out a normal member, he retains his class, he can go back to any temple and rejoin the religion. Kick out a priest, and suddenly they're a warrior. If they're in neutral or, gods forbid, enemy realms, then they are stuck travelling as a normal noble, whereupon they must head back to a region with a temple of sufficient size that is also in their own realm (Can't change class outside of realm). That could be quite a ways away from where priests tend to wander.
Even if they are in their own realm, standing right outside a suitably large temple, they will have to wait several days to change back to a priest because they just changed classes (against their will). So if one rogue elder can kick out every priest, then the religion will be without priests at minimum several days.
It's much different than simply kicking out a non-priest.
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Yes, really. You kick out a normal member, he retains his class, he can go back to any temple and rejoin the religion. Kick out a priest, and suddenly they're a warrior. If they're in neutral or, gods forbid, enemy realms, then they are stuck travelling as a normal noble, whereupon they must head back to a region with a temple of sufficient size that is also in their own realm (Can't change class outside of realm). That could be quite a ways away from where priests tend to wander.
Isn't it kinda funny how your situation can so rapidly change in this game? Imagine how crappy it would be if you could be on a raid deep into enemy territory and get in battle, get wounded and your unit wiped out, and your realm-mates left you behind, and you'd have to find your own way home as a normal noble, traveling through all those enemy regions. That would totally suck. Good thing it can't happen, huh?
Even if they are in their own realm, standing right outside a suitably large temple, they will have to wait several days to change back to a priest because they just changed classes (against their will). So if one rogue elder can kick out every priest, then the religion will be without priests at minimum several days.
1) Assuming that no none else in the entire religion wants to be a priest.
2) Too bad for them. The dev team is generally not in the business of protecting people from their own stupidity, or the possible negative effects of their own actions.
3) As with the ability to kick out other religion members, you wouldn't be able to kick out people who are higher-ranked than you. If the highest ranked member in your religion is a non-priest, then sure, he could kick out every priest. But, hey, a judge can ban every non-council member in the realm, who then can't rejoin the realm until someone else gets made the judge to lift all the bans. How come you're not up in arms over that?
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Give me three clear-cut examples. I haven't been here as long as you, so I am interested in the lore of this subject.
They should, for all the reasons presented in this thread. Remember that they aren't just priests, they are noblemen, typically landed and often in positions of major authority, like Medugnatos of Corsanctum or the most recent former Prime Minister of CE.
Really, who should have this power? I've heard a lot of arguments as to why it should exist but no good answer on who should have it. Chenier's initial suggestion was just plain ludicrous. Any elder? And it only takes an hour for all the paperwork? That sounds like it would lead to even worse abuse. For example, when Khari was on the elder council of SA and, assuming that ability existed, I could've pressured her to use it, bam, there go all of SA's priests.
A rogue priest is one thing, but individually they don't wield the kind of power you would be placing in every Elder's hands.
So if I'm understanding you correctly, a rogue full member being able to cause mayhem is totally fine, but a rogue elder being able to do the same is ridiculously overpowered and prone to abuse?
If Kari was on the elder council, you could pressure her to kick out EVERY OTHER MEMBER of the church. Are you saying that this wouldn't matter? That only being able to kick out non-rogue priests would hurt the church? Seriously?
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Isn't it kinda funny how your situation can so rapidly change in this game? Imagine how crappy it would be if you could be on a raid deep into enemy territory and get in battle, get wounded and your unit wiped out, and your realm-mates left you behind, and you'd have to find your own way home as a normal noble, traveling through all those enemy regions. That would totally suck. Good thing it can't happen, huh?
False equivalence spotted. Quick, hard to starboard!
1) Assuming that no none else in the entire religion wants to be a priest.
2) Too bad for them. The dev team is generally not in the business of protecting people from their own stupidity, or the possible negative effects of their own actions.
3) As with the ability to kick out other religion members, you wouldn't be able to kick out people who are higher-ranked than you. If the highest ranked member in your religion is a non-priest, then sure, he could kick out every priest. But, hey, a judge can ban every non-council member in the realm, who then can't rejoin the realm until someone else gets made the judge to lift all the bans. How come you're not up in arms over that?
A judge is one member of a realm, one single guy with a number of checks and balances against his position, not a council of people each with conflicting interests and virtually no oversight. Why not just make it so the founder and only the founder can kick priests? Oh, right, because the founder of Sanguis Astroism deleted his character, and this whole push is being made with that specific religion and no others in mind.
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Why not just make it so the founder and only the founder can kick priests?
Of course you can't make it "just the founder" because, as you said, the founder can disappear. However I would have no issue with giving this possibility only to the highest-ranked people.
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I've had serious issues with this mechanic way before I ever joined SA.
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A judge is one member of a realm, one single guy with a number of checks and balances against his position, not a council of people each with conflicting interests and virtually no oversight.
A judge can easily ban nearly every member of all but the biggest realms before anyone can stop him. (We've seen this happen several times.) By the time you can protest him out, elect a new judge, and then undo all the bans he's put in place, it could be many days. (There's a two or three day cooling down period before a new judge can play with bans.) If done at the proper time, it could easily kill a realm. There are no real checks or balances to this occurrence.
But, really, who cares about checks and balances in a religion anyway? A religion/guild is NOT a realm. The people at the top of the guild/religion are ultimate powers. Specifically the founder. He has absolute control over the guild/religion, even if he leaves and then comes back. They are specifically not institutions where any kind of democracy/fairness is implied or provided for. The are absolute tyrannies by design.
Why not just make it so the founder and only the founder can kick priests?
For the exactly reason the reason you point out: The founder can leave. The devs have gone through quite a bit of effort to ensure that both religions and guilds remain completely viable after the founder leaves. (The only unrecoverable loss being the Founder's rank.) Hardcoding an ability to the Founder's rank would be directly against that policy. The obvious possibility, as VonGenf states, is to tie the ability to the currently highest occupied. This also has the benefit of reducing the potential for abuse.
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Of course you can't make it "just the founder" because, as you said, the founder can disappear. However I would have no issue with giving this possibility only to the highest-ranked people.
For the exactly reason the reason you point out: The founder can leave.
Why not? It beats the alternative: nobody being able to do it at all ever.
But, really, who cares about checks and balances in a religion anyway?
Let's stop comparing being able to kick priests out of a religion to various realm functions then, eh?
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Why not?
I already told you why.
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I already told you why.
The founder can leave.
It beats the alternative: nobody being able to do it at all ever.
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Actually, no, it doesn't. All giving it to the founder, specifically, does is create endless frustration and complaints from religions whose founder no longer exists, because suddenly they don't have the same options as religions whose founder is still there. And there's no good reason for that, so please stop advocating such a pointless restriction.
If such a feature were to be implemented, it would absolutely not be given to the founder only. If it were to be restricted to a single elder rank, it would without any doubt whatsoever be the top rank, whatever that currently happens to be.
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Actually, no, it doesn't. All giving it to the founder, specifically, does is create endless frustration and complaints from religions whose founder no longer exists, because suddenly they don't have the same options as religions whose founder is still there. And there's no good reason for that, so please stop advocating such a pointless restriction.
If such a feature were to be implemented, it would absolutely not be given to the founder only. If it were to be restricted to a single elder rank, it would without any doubt whatsoever be the top rank, whatever that currently happens to be.
Which is what Indirik agreed with, so Marlboro would seem to be arguing just to argue.
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I don't see why the option to kick priests shouldn't be available for all elders of a religion. They already have control of most ranks. I'm just trying to think how to keep it from being used too much (so people can mostly go on priesting how they want to unabused). Maybe give the option to kick people out of the religion, even if they are a priest?
Regardless, I approve of 90% of this thread.
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I think loss of followers makes the most sense.
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Priest immunity makes religion more interesting. How else can a religion end up in schism/civil war? Or should religions be protected from the folly of their elders?
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Priest immunity makes religion more interesting. How else can a religion end up in schism/civil war? Or should religions be protected from the folly of their elders?
Total immunity though can make things overpowering. If priest are too lose that immunity, the result I think must be a difficult process. Make it too easy to remove priest and you are correct, the potential for conflict within a religion is reduced by too much.
That said perhaps we should be looking at why it is so easy to remove other members that aren't priest. A high ranked noble, devoted to the church, respected for their years of work for the faith can be removed by one player in a matter of minutes. Right now that will hopefully spark some sort of conflict and either they will be restored within the church or not, but to my mind the conflict should first revolve around the effort to remove such a figure, not around the effort to restore them.
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Neither schism nor internal dissent require priest immunity as a precondition. That would be like saying the only way to have a rebellion our civil disorder in a realm is to first have a royal to lead it.
IIMO it should be possible to remove priests, but it should be difficult/painful. The most obvious way would be to tie it to how long someone had been a priest. The convert-of-the-day should be bootable with no consequences. Long-time priests and long-time elders should be difficult to kick out.
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Neither schism nor internal dissent require priest immunity as a precondition. That would be like saying the only way to have a rebellion our civil disorder in a realm is to first have a royal to lead it.
IIMO it should be possible to remove priests, but it should be difficult/painful. The most obvious way would be to tie it to how long someone had been a priest. The convert-of-the-day should be bootable with no consequences. Long-time priests and long-time elders should be difficult to kick out.
Completely agree. Other options would be requiring a vote among elders so that removal of a priest needs the backing of a majority of the leadership.
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In the absence of data on historic of priesthood, oration skill could be used as an imperfect substitute. Only one other path improves that skill, key to priests, and it's a logical skill to impact consequences.
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The date of the last class change is tracked, isn't it? How else could we get a two week timer on changing class again?
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The date of the last class change is tracked, isn't it? How else could we get a two week timer on changing class again?
Yes, but it is one counter shared between main class and sub class I think, so changing your sub class will reset the the counter.
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So something that could be fixed without an extreme amount of effort.