Why does someone have to be stupid to recognize an implied threat?
Someone has to be stupid
not to recognize an implied threat, or conversely, to be unable to tell the difference between an implied threat and a statement or offer from someone in authority.
If the sheriff tells you 'a little contribution to the police athletic league would go a long way toward making sure that your shop has a patrolman around after dark,' that's an implied threat.
If the sheriff tells you 'we have apples and bananas, you can have either one' you would have to be very dim, insecure, or else very ignorant to imagine that there was a threat. I'll gladly go so far as to say someone brand new to the game might fall into the later category because hey, who knows how sheriffs work in this town, but when dealing with lords or Dukes I don't think that applies.
Your argument here is a classical nanny authority appeal: 'People with any authority will always abuse it, so I who have maximum authority must intervene.' I'm hardly Bendix's biggest fan but this whole thread is pointless busybodies. Either your game caters to adults or it doesn't. If it does, protect them with IR and leave it there.
The entire placeholder problem and the hamfisted rule which applies to it are creations of the game (of the devs, that is) designed to arbitrarily force turnover when the game has no possible way of knowing the context. The result, of course, is that people in authority just do less of whatever it is that might cost them their title, further incentivizing stagnant seat-warmers in power. There is certainly no IC reason why somebody being injured for a week or two or captured would lose a title; at worst they'd have a regent step in and maybe muck things up for them. Otherwise, this whole business is just you guys making work for yourselves in the name of protecting ... who exactly?
