Which honestly is almost as bad as a noble flipping the region as the Lord then heading back to his old region. Allegiance shouldn't be treated as like that. Its a kin to changing your citizenship, buying some land then wanting to change back to your old nation.
While some people consider this as bad, it is the easiest and least damaging way to do it. It was also advocated as the best way to do it for quite some time. I'm fairly certain that Tom mentioned it as a good way to do things, back on the DList.
Given the way region exchanges work, this will continue to be the most popular, and most often suggested way to do it.
Given that oaths are all RP, and can be switched at any time without any penalties, I don't see any particular reason why an oath of fealty can't have conditions or terms, or whatever you want to call it. Do oaths of fealty have to be "Forever and ever, amen"? Can't it just be "I will serve you and your duchy to the best of my abilities for the next three weeks"?
You can't give the players two ways to do something, one quick/easy/painless and the other longer/more complex/painful, then tell them they're doing it wrong when they choose the quick/easy/painless way. At some point we need to stop blaming the players and realize that just maybe the system we're giving them actively promotes the kind of behavior we say we don't want to see. And it's
our fault, not theirs.
