Hot Swapping Religion

[Vellos]

I think the problem is that there are just too many religions in BM. If you have to be at odds with all of them, then you'd have no time for anything else. I'd much prefer 3-4 major religions per island, rather than the 1 religion for every realm crap we have on most islands now.

Dwilight has a moderate number of religions compared to continent size, IMHO.

If religions collectively gained a bonus for having few competitors (say, peasants are more generous with giving across the whole continent, to all religions, if there are fewer religions), it could help with this process without creating some new penalty that is easily manipulable. At worst, new religions could be founded to raise the total number, dropping the bonus, returning to things as they are now. The "threshold" could be any arbitrary number honestly. I would favor something like 5 for Dwilight, 3-4 for the other continents. More religions could exist obviously, but if fewer religions existed, all religions would have easier upkeep: so religions would have incentives to try and destroy each other.

The possibly negative side is that established religions would have an incentive to immediately crush any new religion. I say possibly negative because that could have the beneficial effect of channeling players who want to do religious RP into old religions, leading to broadly more fleshed-out religions. It could also possibly encourage big religions to seek a bit more conflict than previously. But it could have detrimental effects on gameplay to some degree.

[Vellos]

But that's not very relevant to the question asked, and can probably be split into a different thread.

[De-Legro]

To provide another example, more closely related and officially judged to be abusive:

Noble A wants to found a religion, and for RP purposes, it is desirable that it be founded in the capital city.  Noble B, the Duke, and Noble C, the Ruler, agree on these points. With RP of the Ruler and Duke officially naming Noble A as some sort of official delegate of the Duke (I forget the exact language used), Noble B steps down, Noble C appoints Noble A as Duke, Noble A founds the religion (thus stepping down), and Noble C reappoints Noble B as Duke.

This was reported to the Titans, and Noble C found in violation and given a 1-day lock.

Noble C, in this case, was me.

I have often argued against the idea of appointing someone to a Lordship just so they can found a religion. Unfortunately I still see it happen all the time.

Just because it's the only way to do something doesn't mean that it's not abusive, or against the spirit of the game.

If you want your friend and realm-mate to collect the extravagant bounty on your character so the enemy doesn't claim it, is it OK to move to a region with no other troops, disband your unit , and let your buddy stab you?

Indeed this was my position, and it was ridiculed as apparently no one was "hurt" by the actions so why complain.

[Tom]

Indeed this was my position, and it was ridiculed as apparently no one was "hurt" by the actions so why complain.

Sadly, people don't understand the concept of the commons anymore. That's why if you copy a movie illegally and get caught, you pay $25,481,394 in fines, but if a big company appropriates something from the public domain, only a few weird people even notice.

[Marlboro]

If you want your friend and realm-mate to collect the extravagant bounty on your character so the enemy doesn't claim it, is it OK to move to a region with no other troops, disband your unit , and let your buddy stab you?

This sounds just like the premise for so many wacky crime caper movies. I don't see any reason why this couldn't be planned out and executed IC.

[Sacha]

If I recall right, that kind of practice has been deemed extremely not cool and therefor unacceptable.

[Indirik]

This sounds just like the premise for so many wacky crime caper movies. I don't see any reason why this couldn't be planned out and executed IC.

Because you don't get paid bounties for pretending to kill people. You get paid bounties for killing people. (True, in the game we bow to the "don't die without consent" convention and accept serious wounds for bounties. But still...) And game mechanics trumps RP, *every time*. If your assassin tries to "assassinate" someone, they are trying to kill that other character, not waving a rubber knife around and pretending to inflict stabbity death. And when they inflict a serious wound, it's called a "serious wound" because, you know, it's pretty damn serious. Like, you could die, serious.

If you want to completely RP an assassination attempt, then that's fine. Go ahead and do it. I've seen realms go to war over an RP'd assassination attempt. But as soon as you have an infil click that "Assault someone" link, that's no longer a pretend attack. It's attempted murder.

[Marlboro]

Because you don't get paid bounties for pretending to kill people. You get paid bounties for killing people. (True, in the game we bow to the "don't die without consent" convention and accept serious wounds for bounties. But still...) And game mechanics trumps RP, *every time*. If your assassin tries to "assassinate" someone, they are trying to kill that other character, not waving a rubber knife around and pretending to inflict stabbity death. And when they inflict a serious wound, it's called a "serious wound" because, you know, it's pretty damn serious. Like, you could die, serious.

If you want to completely RP an assassination attempt, then that's fine. Go ahead and do it. I've seen realms go to war over an RP'd assassination attempt. But as soon as you have an infil click that "Assault someone" link, that's no longer a pretend attack. It's attempted murder.

Well you've introduced this hypothetical of a "friend" who is also an assassin. I'd trust my friend, who is just coincidentally also an assassin, to do a cleaner, quicker job of killing me than some stranger from another country, and also he gets the money out of it. Never said it was just for jokes, but you do see this in movies and sometimes in real life with stuff like insurance fraud where the victim has some serious coverage and a deathwish but not the guts to do it himself.

Edit: Improved hypothetical.

If you've got a bounty high enough for some cockamamie scheme like that, you're probably an Infiltrator yourself. Perhaps you're Lord of a region, you're quite old and each day is growing shorter, leaving you less time to work the trade you've mastered. You've got a knight, your "friend" who is also an Infiltrator, and whom you've been mentoring in the ways of the sneaky jerk. He's still relatively new to the game, though, without any big kills or much reputation to speak of. You know your time's at hand, so you tell him to take a shot, the final exam if you will. Even without a unit, there's a (good) chance that the attacker will be caught, since it's still murder (Or at the very least an assault). This is just one of a million possible examples if you use your imagination.

[De-Legro]

Well you've introduced this hypothetical of a "friend" who is also an assassin. I'd trust my friend, who is just coincidentally also an assassin, to do a cleaner, quicker job of killing me than some stranger from another country, and also he gets the money out of it. Never said it was just for jokes, but you do see this in movies and sometimes in real life with stuff like insurance fraud where the victim has some serious coverage and a deathwish but not the guts to do it himself.

Edit: Improved hypothetical.

If you've got a bounty high enough for some cockamamie scheme like that, you're probably an Infiltrator yourself. Perhaps you're Lord of a region, you're quite old and each day is growing shorter, leaving you less time to work the trade you've mastered. You've got a knight, your "friend" who is also an Infiltrator, and whom you've been mentoring in the ways of the sneaky jerk. He's still relatively new to the game, though, without any big kills or much reputation to speak of. You know your time's at hand, so you tell him to take a shot, the final exam if you will. Even without a unit, there's a (good) chance that the attacker will be caught, since it's still murder (Or at the very least an assault). This is just one of a million possible examples if you use your imagination.

And all one million of them are not allowed.

[Indirik]

If you were really willing to delete your character if the assassin was successful, then *maybe*, just *maybe*, I could see something like this being marginally acceptable. But I still doubt it. This is way too easy to abuse. Just about any bounty-collecting scheme I've ever seen has always been someone having a friend stab them so that their realm can collect the bounty, instead of their enemies. It has nothing to do with good RP, or even telling some kind of cheesy b-movie kung-fu ripoff story.

If you've got a bounty high enough for some cockamamie scheme like that, you're probably an Infiltrator yourself.

No, you're most likely a ruler who pissed someone off. More likely several some-ones. No one hates an infil that much. They bounty the rulers who seceded to create new realms, or who switched sides in a war. Or the judge that tortured them or all their realm-mates.  Not the infil that just did what infils do. Besides, the really good infils generally don't get found out.

[Vellos]

No, you're most likely a ruler who pissed someone off. More likely several some-ones. No one hates an infil that much. They bounty the rulers who seceded to create new realms, or who switched sides in a war. Or the judge that tortured them or all their realm-mates.  Not the infil that just did what infils do. Besides, the really good infils generally don't get found out.

And even if they do, their swordfighting skill makes putting a bounty on them unlikely to achieve much.

[Marlboro]

If you were really willing to delete your character if the assassin was successful, then *maybe*, just *maybe*, I could see something like this being marginally acceptable. But I still doubt it. This is way too easy to abuse. Just about any bounty-collecting scheme I've ever seen has always been someone having a friend stab them so that their realm can collect the bounty, instead of their enemies. It has nothing to do with good RP, or even telling some kind of cheesy b-movie kung-fu ripoff story.
No, you're most likely a ruler who pissed someone off. More likely several some-ones. No one hates an infil that much. They bounty the rulers who seceded to create new realms, or who switched sides in a war. Or the judge that tortured them or all their realm-mates.  Not the infil that just did what infils do. Besides, the really good infils generally don't get found out.

I can see how that would be a problem 99.99% of the time. Thanks for the clarification. I don't even have an Infil, but the way they're set up (Still more a diplomatic type than an unseen assassin) always seemed like it would make for some excellent stories.

[Indirik]

I don't even have an Infil, but the way they're set up (Still more a diplomatic type than an unseen assassin) always seemed like it would make for some excellent stories.

Sure, they can make for great stories. I've seen some really good ones. But a "friendly assassination" just isn't one of them.

[De-Legro]

If you were really willing to delete your character if the assassin was successful, then *maybe*, just *maybe*, I could see something like this being marginally acceptable. But I still doubt it. This is way too easy to abuse. Just about any bounty-collecting scheme I've ever seen has always been someone having a friend stab them so that their realm can collect the bounty, instead of their enemies. It has nothing to do with good RP, or even telling some kind of cheesy b-movie kung-fu ripoff story.
No, you're most likely a ruler who pissed someone off. More likely several some-ones. No one hates an infil that much. They bounty the rulers who seceded to create new realms, or who switched sides in a war. Or the judge that tortured them or all their realm-mates.  Not the infil that just did what infils do. Besides, the really good infils generally don't get found out.

My infil was a fairly detested guy. Before he was executed he had performed extensive terror campaigns in four different realms on FEI. His bounty never went over 250 gold. Why bother setting a bounty on infiltrators? People would prefer to simply capture and execute/deport them