BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Jens Namtrah on July 17, 2011, 02:26:28 PM
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Wanted to see opinions on this - used to see it from time to time when I played before, and might be seeing it again:
We all know that in a great many realms, Dukes are the long-time friends of the ruler, hardly ever change, very often never say a word, etc.
Occasionally, they go inactive. And the ruler "hems" and "haws" for a few days about making a decision, and then Oh, look! the player logs back in, "IC claims" is used as an excuse, and the character is reappointed to Duke.
Now, in my mind, this is circumventing a rule created by Tom specifically to aid turn-over in positions and let more people become involved, and so the ruler should be punished.
That's my opinion - what is yours?
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I'm fairly sure there is a warning when a Duke is about to go inactive. As soon as that happens, any sensible ruler would start taking auditions for a successor, so one can be appointed ASAP if the Duke does vanish. A city that goes without a Duke for several days, only to see the one noble who was incapable of holding it in the first place reappointed, should at the very least elicit some furious response from the general nobility.
Also, it's just cheap from an OOC point of view.
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generally, i admit to dislike "ingenious" logical links created to present some ordinary in-game event as something which breaks rules.
for me, situation is simple: such dukes have sensible claims and appointing them looks rather natural. if you would forbid reappointment after auto-pausing, that would be serious push about ir, isn't it? someone can auto-pause for whatever reason and if his ic claims and reasons are still strong, there is no ground to forbid reappointment.
all this you hear from someone who heartedly advocate more push to dukes.
however, i am advocating more push for dukes to be more interactive, not login-active. i think these two terms always need strong separation, and every experienced player should care to hold that distinction in his/her mind.
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I'm fairly sure there is a warning when a Duke is about to go inactive. As soon as that happens, any sensible ruler would start taking auditions for a successor, so one can be appointed ASAP if the Duke does vanish. A city that goes without a Duke for several days, only to see the one noble who was incapable of holding it in the first place reappointed, should at the very least elicit some furious response from the general nobility.
Also, it's just cheap from an OOC point of view.
No, there was no 5 day warning, only the removal notice - at least as far as what was sent realm-wide
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No, there was no 5 day warning, only the removal notice - at least as far as what was sent realm-wide
At least the Council always gets a warning.
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Now, in my mind, this is circumventing a rule created by Tom specifically to aid turn-over in positions and let more people become involved, and so the ruler should be punished.
What rule is that?
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Oh, and specifically:
Yes, the ruler should be punished. He should be punished by having his people rise up and protest against him for being such an obvious crony-supporting idiot.
If you can't rally enough people to protest the ruler out of office after that...then clearly, the realm supports the act. Maybe it's stupid, maybe they're all stupid, but that's what the realm has, and you can't always change that.
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Not rule, then -code. Obviously it is there for a reason. You tell me what it is.
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Wanted to see opinions on this - used to see it from time to time when I played before, and might be seeing it again:
We all know that in a great many realms, Dukes are the long-time friends of the ruler, hardly ever change, very often never say a word, etc.
Occasionally, they go inactive. And the ruler "hems" and "haws" for a few days about making a decision, and then Oh, look! the player logs back in, "IC claims" is used as an excuse, and the character is reappointed to Duke.
Now, in my mind, this is circumventing a rule created by Tom specifically to aid turn-over in positions and let more people become involved, and so the ruler should be punished.
That's my opinion - what is yours?
From my experience, this means that the ruler has OOC contacts with the player, such as with MSN, and when this happens they try to get in contact with the person via OOC means to get them to log in again to re-appoint them.
Kinda sucks, but I think that's how it is.
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Or, alternatively, someone went on vacation and then came back after they got auto-removed.
And yeah, sure, there are people who don't say anything but I'm always wary about making those kind of judgements without more information. One of the most active and involved Dukes in Arcaea rarely says anything to the realm and only sometimes to any of the message groups because he prefers handling things via PMs either with his knights and lords, the other Dukes and Duchesses, or his King. If he went on vacation, it would probably look like one of those silent Dukes disappearing and coming back, but not to anyone in the know.
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I recently had a player go inactive in Astrum, and lose a duchy. Another player then phoned him and warned him. The former duke then logged in and sent an OOC message about how he was house-sitting and didn't have net access. The hardest part about this is that by the time he did send the message, we had already picked a new duke. Plus, the player only sent an OOC explanation, nothing IC about it at all. So from an IC perspective, the character had just disappeared without a trace. Hard to deal with IC, when there's no response from the IC-inactive player, even when you OOC know what happened.
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Another player then phoned him and warned him.
This irks me. It's not entirely logical I guess, but it just does.
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Oh, and specifically:
Yes, the ruler should be punished. He should be punished by having his people rise up and protest against him for being such an obvious crony-supporting idiot.
If you can't rally enough people to protest the ruler out of office after that...then clearly, the realm supports the act. Maybe it's stupid, maybe they're all stupid, but that's what the realm has, and you can't always change that.
Why would they do that? It is clearly an OOC issue
To me, this seems very similar to "place-holding" a ruler position, which I thought was against the rules.
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What if a Duke is wounded and loses his position? Is it okay to wait for him to recover and reappoint him?
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Waiting for someone to recover and the reappointing them, or re-electing them, is perfectly acceptable. And, if you want that character in that position, the correct thing to do.
Appointing someone to hold the region for four days until the "rightful duke" is back and then they'll step down is not acceptable. If that was acceptable, then the game would specifically allow you to appoint someone to do that.
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...Um...so we can ask the Magistrates (Heyhey look at that, something for them to do already!) but I'm quite confident that there exists no rule nor spirit of a rule that says one cannot keep an open position open indefinitely and at some point in the future appoint whoever he wishes.
No, seriously, it's probably a supremely bad idea, but idiocy isn't rulebreaking, and if the ruler appoints lordships, then he does in fact have the power to appoint who he wishes when he wishes. Now the placeholder rule, if I understand correctly, is when the ruler doesn't want to leave the position open because that leads to stats penalties and lower taxes, so in order to mitigate this mechanical penalty he appoints someone temporarily to the position with the understanding that the temp will step down once the intended duke can resume his position. Furthermore, that only becomes an issue if in fact the temp does step down and it was due to the predetermined agreement.
You can all split hairs defining it but the fact, I believe, remains clear:
There's nothing wrong with appointing no one to a position.
There's nothing wrong with appointing your friend to the position as long as you...actually, no, screw that and the craven rulers and hypocrites who talk about always requiring IC justification: If you have the power to appoint someone to a position, it's 100% A-OK to appoint some random dude to the position. Your realm might protest, but I don't think it's something that Tom/the Titans/the Magistrates should get their hands into. Obviously IR and SC remain in effect, but if King Random sees that his capital city of Screwed has no duke and decides to label a roulette wheel with all the names of nobles who are eligible for the position then throws a marble on there, and it turns out he appoints Sir Dumbass to Duke Dumbass then there can be a whole ton of intrarealm conflict (Hooray! Because apparently people like that!) but no lightning storms striking down the monumentally whimsical King Random.
Oh, and since I might have strayed from the original point, it's also perfectly fine for King Favoritism to appoint Sir Brownnose as well. So what? Yeah, poor form, but that's why you grab your torches and pitchforks and oust King Favoritism. The king really doesn't need to give a justification, as long as he doesn't do some excessive OOC stuff to make his realm uninviting to newcomers. Hard to imagine King Favoritism not doing that, but sometimes, there really are just the rare exceptions where the player's friend really wants it and real-life friendships bleed into the game. As long as it's not the whole realm, I think, it's just annoying, but not exactly wrong.
As for King Nepotism or King Narcissist, who appoint family members and himself, respectively, well, nothing to do there really. It's completely within his bounds, and thankfully only two characters from the same family can exist on a single continent. You have all council positions and the two largest cities taken by two characters from the same family? Your ruler holds all but one council position and sits as duke of the capital? Ok, if you're discontent do something about it. Can't? Oh well too bad, go somewhere else if it vexes you so much. Eventually if enough people are also annoyed by it the realm will wither and die due to lack of player support.
Anyway, what isn't good is if you try to circumvent game mechanics by appointing a temp whom you replace shortly thereafter according to your plan...whose intention was to circumvent game mechanics.
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What if a Duke is wounded and loses his position? Is it okay to wait for him to recover and reappoint him?
An interesting question.
I don't personally think the idea of characters losing positions makes much sense the way it works now. I suppose the idea behind it was that the character was presumed dead, and others with claims step up to grab his old titles. I think that's fine in a heavily role played realm that isn't full of "sheeple", but we don't really see it that often, and it is very hard to start a role play around anyway. ("Lord X shouldn't be returned his titles because he was wounded on the front lines!" ?? Who is going to rally around you against the will of the King or Duke based on that?)
However, if the code was put there with the intention of causing more turn over, then it would seem to go against Tom's intentions to reappoint him. So, no, he should not be given back his duchy in that case, unless no one else claims it or there is at the very least some sort of IG role play and opportunity for others to be appointed.
However, I don't think we need to complicate the issue by lumping a lot of seemingly related activities together. The question I asked originally revolved around OOC inactivity and what could even be considered to be OOC-clanning, if you want to take it that far.
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...Um...so we can ask the Magistrates (Heyhey look at that, something for them to do already!) but I'm quite confident that there exists no rule nor spirit of a rule that says one cannot keep an open position open indefinitely and at some point in the future appoint whoever he wishes.
Other Magistrates can chip in if they want, but I feel reasonably confident in saying that, for myself, I'd favor a "case or controversy" limitation for the Magistrates. Indeed, I think the standing requirements for the US Supreme Court (injury, causation, redressability). Meaning my thought is that we would require an actual complaint be brought by one player against another player for a specific instance of a behavior.
Again, other Magistrates may disagree. It's a new system we're still working out. But that's my thought. If the Magistrates wade into addressing hypotheticals we will have an endless workload.
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Other Magistrates can chip in if they want, but I feel reasonably confident in saying that, for myself, I'd favor a "case or controversy" limitation for the Magistrates. Indeed, I think the standing requirements for the US Supreme Court (injury, causation, redressability). Meaning my thought is that we would require an actual complaint be brought by one player against another player for a specific instance of a behavior.
Again, other Magistrates may disagree. It's a new system we're still working out. But that's my thought. If the Magistrates wade into addressing hypotheticals we will have an endless workload.
I tend to agree.
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Aye, no point in addressing hypotheticals. Show me an actual situation where I can find out what's really going on and we'll talk. Otherwise people can construct hypotheticals that prove whatever point they want to prove.
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I haven't really kept up with this new idea, but I thought the Magistrates were some role-playing device to handle In Game disputes?
This is an OOC issue.
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I haven't really kept up with this new idea, but I thought the Magistrates were some role-playing device to handle In Game disputes?
This is an OOC issue.
No. They are OOC officials to handle OOC disputes over rules between players.
They are an experimental replacement for the Titans.
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I recently had a player go inactive in Astrum, and lose a duchy. Another player then phoned him and warned him. The former duke then logged in and sent an OOC message about how he was house-sitting and didn't have net access. The hardest part about this is that by the time he did send the message, we had already picked a new duke. Plus, the player only sent an OOC explanation, nothing IC about it at all. So from an IC perspective, the character had just disappeared without a trace. Hard to deal with IC, when there's no response from the IC-inactive player, even when you OOC know what happened.
My character got appointed because of this ;) I guess these kind of things give an opportunity for younger noble like my character.
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if a ruler can stand having a city deteriorate due to lack of lord for an indeterminable period... and have no one bitch about it ingame.. then... who cares?