Replacing Founders of Religions

[Iltaran]

Following on from the discussion here http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=4813

Executive summary is that if the founder of a religion goes inactive/deletes/dies then the #1 rank is lost forever, as are any other ranks above the level of the next highest member. That members rank also becomes uneditable. Usually it isn't too serious a problem, but its immersion breaking and annoying. There's been suggestions of complicated ways to select a new #1 ranking member, but my suggestion is to keep it simple.

Create a new option for Senior Members at Temples called "assume leadership". When you click the link, it checks to see if there's anyone above you in rank and if there isn't it promotes you, or everyone at your level, to rank #1. On reflection, I prefer the idea of promoting everyone at your level, simply to remove the race-to-click-the-button aspect

[Draco Tanos]

In favor of the general idea.  Religions shouldn't be semi-crippled just because a leader disappears.  Just because the Pope dies doesn't mean the Roman Catholic Church can't suddenly appoint a new one.

This also shouldn't consider paused/inactive characters either as "above in rank". 

[Telrunya]

True, but what about current options to reclaim your position as Founder? Would the other Founders be demoted to the rank under Founder again when that happens?

[Shenron]

I think Tom said something like Rank #1 is equivalent to Jesus and there can never be a second Jesus.

[Anaris]

Tom has said, quite firmly, that there is not, and will never ever be, a way to replace the Founder of a religion.  Only one person founded it, and no one else can ever claim that they did.

There are plans to make it possible to do everything the Founder can do, in practical terms; however, if the Founder is still there, or comes back, you'll still be subordinate to him.

[Iltaran]

Interesting, I was under the impression that the Founder could promote another person to rank #1 and that person could in turn promote more people to rank #1 and so forth and so on.

Regardless, glad that there's something planned to fix the issues.

[Foundation]

Interesting, I was under the impression that the Founder could promote another person to rank #1 and that person could in turn promote more people to rank #1 and so forth and so on.

Regardless, glad that there's something planned to fix the issues.

From my understanding, there is only at most one title for any rank, so Founder is rank #1, and no one, not even the Founder, can promote another one to rank #1.  The Founder could promote another person to become an elder (maybe rank #5) with about the same abilities as the Founder, but no one can demote the Founder (like an Elder should be able to demote another Elder) while the Founder can demote anyone.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

 

Er, well, yeah, there's only one title for every rank...But more than one person can hold any single rank, except for #1, the Founder rank.

That is because in religion and guild ranking system, every senior member in a given senior rank can modify only every member up to and including its own rank, given that the own rank applies only to himself. So if someone was #2, he could make himself #3 and everything below, and modify everyone at #3 and below, as well as himself. Note that what I'm talking about here is the Order Members part, or GuildMembers.php.

For GuildManage.php which is managing ranks, any senior member can only modify the title of the rank and the peculiars like joining fee, max debt, fee/grant, only for ranks below them. So #2 can only modify #3 and below.

Now, #1 has different options. #1 under GuildManage.php can change his own peculiars, and everyone else's. In GuildMembers.php he can change the ranks of every other member. However, I do not think he can demote himself. My memory of running a guild is about two years ago, so I'm not quite sure about that part. Nevertheless, if possible, it's obvious that he can't ever go back to #1, so I don't think self-demotion/kicking out is something that makes sense.

[fodder]

maybe founders should be #0

[Indirik]

"Our founder goes to 11."

[cjnodell]

OK, so why not consider the original posters suggestion while safeguarding the Founders position? Founder takes off and, eventually, so does everyone of rank 3 and above. This means that the highest ranking priests are of rank 4. The option suggested would then allow all rank 4 priests to get bumped up to rank 2. Personally, I would prefer it to be automagical instead of requiring  button pushing. Of course, something like this might already be in place for all I know.

What I do know is that I really dislike the idea of the founder rank. Not all religions even have a Jesus like figure. Most religions I have looked into tend to be rediscovered religions anyways so it makes little since to have a second Jesus figure hanging about. In some cases it might make sense, but rarely in my opinion...

I also think that there should be a bit more flexibility when it comes to founding a religion. I have already mentioned some suggestions in the threads about temporary lordships for the purpose of starting a religion and about cults/sects/denominations.

[Draco Tanos]

Not to mention that while Jesus is the prophetic figure in Christianity, He's NOT the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.  That was Saint Peter, the first Pope.  Jesus considered Himself a Jew first and foremost. 

[Indirik]

The Founder, at Rank 1, is, and always will be, the Founder's rank. If your religion attaches no special significance to this, then that's your choice, and your RP. I won't argue that with you. It will, however, remain a privileged rank, in that only the actual founder can over hold it, and it will always be the top level rank.

Various plans have been discussed, and will no doubt eventually be implemented. These will revolve around being able to recover the #2 rank, once it is lost for some reason. With that option available, then the rest of the issues regarding ranks in guilds/religions mostly go away.

[fodder]

the reason i mentioned 0... is to make it sound really special. i mean, some future leader is #1 sounds better than being stuck at #2..

oh.. and frees up another rank too, obviously.

personally i still fancy the good old dynamic and relative ranks, as opposed to #numbered ranks. even though i would imagine it's a pain in the arse to code (only reason i can think of why it's not done already, if ever). by dynamic I mean you can stuff a new rank between say rank #22 and #23... without having to manually demote a whole bunch of followers because you forgot to leave space between ranks.

in such a scenario, whether you have #2 or not becomes irrelevant. you just need a tick box next to the ranks to dictate whether they are elder ranks and if none remains, the next highest rank is auto set as elder and they can just add new ranks under them and tick them as elder.

[cjnodell]

I agree that having a founder rank is needed and could be utilized in some cases. I also agree that once a system is in place to recover the next highest rank, things are good.

I think an added bonus would be the option of starting a religion with no founder or a fictional founder. This would cause the "founder" of the religion to come in at rank 2. That would be very cool. Is it possible for a founder to irrevocably give up the founder position currently?