Percieved favouritism - Part I "high priests"

[Dalvyn]

During the last (and first, actually) IRC discussion, some players mentionned the fact that they percieved favouritism in the way players were chosen for positions such as high priest(esse)s and guild heroes.

The imms' answer was that there was no favouritism - at least no positive favouritism. There might be some "negative favouritism", that is, people who have been caught cheating/breaking rules or who spend most of their time twinking are admittedly less likely to be chosen for such positions, but no favouritism that might place someone automatically atop the list of possible candidates.

Yet, to try and answer the players' remarks, here's the new system we want to introduce for all things related to high priests (with some modifications to guild heroes, aka level 51 characters aka white names in the who list).



1. There will be no more level 51 characters, thus no special/out-standing white names in the who list anymore. All characters will be capped at level 50.

2. Guild heroes will most likely still be chosen after a competition or a similar event (think fighters, rangers, wizards, ...), but the "reward" will be an IC item (a medallion of position, a tabard, ...), not a "bonus level" anymore. They can still bear any title they want ICly, but they will not automatically be given any title appearing in white in the who list.

3. The previous position of "high priest" is divided into two parts. High priests are currently both faith managers (screen would-be followers, quest those who are worthy, then give them a holy symbol) and heads of church (IC position, where they can be seen as the mortal representatives of the deity, start faith wars, set up faith policies - policies that might then be followed or not by the worshippers). The two positions will now be separate, and none of them will be distinguished by a white title or a bonus 51st level (they would still be allowed to put this title in their "normal" title on the who list though).

4. Faith managers can be any class, not only clerics. Clerics should still be favoured, but, if there are not enough followers, a follower of another class might be chosen. Large faiths might also have more than one faith manager. Obviously, faith managers should be people who know the faith well enough; they are responsible with screening candidates and making sure that they at least know the principal tenets of the faith (especially for divine followers, i.e., clerics, rangers, druids, and paladins: no more "I'll be a cleric of Lathander because they get cool skills" if you don't know what Lathander is about). Faith managers will be chosen by their deity.




To sum it up, the "technical" bonus of having an additional level has been removed. Those positions now come more with IC and OOC responsibilities, but no benefits code-wise. Comments and questions are welcome in this thread.

[Gwain]

Will faith managers still be required to reach the 50th lv? Or will they be selected from all or any level?

[Dalvyn]

No level requirement anymore.

[Andreas]

Bravo Zulu! I think this is an excellent idea all around. I have a few questions, though.

Will the faith managers be given an object to generate holy symbols to give to prospective followers who "make the grade" and are inducted into the faith?

Should faith managers all be in agreement over who is permitted into the faith or would this defeat the purpose of splitting up that duty so that it isn't dependent upon any one person?

If the faith manager is a Paladin (and yes, I'm speaking from a purely personal point of view here), will the object given to mark their position be a magic item? If so, will it count against their magic item limitation? Same thing if there is an object for holy symbol generation?

I'd prefer to see a high quality non-magical item given to faith managers and High Priests rather than a magic item. I think that would also help reduce the perception of favouritism when those positions become what they really are: responsibility without any added bonuses other than more role play oppurtunities.

How will faith managers be chosen for faiths with non-active deities?

[Tortus]

A suggestion: How about a modified symbol of faith to mark the faith leader(s)?

It wouldn't take up any more slots than usual, and it could have the same enchantment as the regular one, only it looks a bit different.

[Dalvyn]

Will the faith managers be given an object to generate holy symbols to give to prospective followers who "make the grade" and are inducted into the faith?

That would depend on the deity. Some might just want the faith manager to deal with everything; others might prefer to have a closer look on who gets faithed and who does not.

The current high priests items will (eventually) be modified so they can be used by characters of any class, any level (the only condition being the faith), so they are available to the deities if they want to give them to their faith managers.

Should faith managers all be in agreement over who is permitted into the faith or would this defeat the purpose of splitting up that duty so that it isn't dependent upon any one person?

The faith managers should follow the deity's instructions as to what followers should be accepted or not. So, if the instructions are clear enough, they should all agree on whether or not someone is to be faithed.

Now, I don't think that situations where one might be incited to go and seek another faith manager because the first one might not accept them, are not particularly desirable (some might disagree and say that this could lead to schism-like roleplays). Eventually (I'm beginning to like this word), there will be faith boards for each faith, so faith managers can communicate; that means that if a faith manager thinks that a candidate is not ready to be faithed, this information can be given to all the other faith managers.

If the faith manager is a Paladin (and yes, I'm speaking from a purely personal point of view here), will the object given to mark their position be a magic item? If so, will it count against their magic item limitation? Same thing if there is an object for holy symbol generation?

It will be a magic item, but no, it will not count.

Note also that this limit on how many magic items a paladin can have is 2nd edition, not 3rd, so whether or not it should still be applied is debatable.

I'd prefer to see a high quality non-magical item given to faith managers and High Priests rather than a magic item. I think that would also help reduce the perception of favouritism when those positions become what they really are: responsibility without any added bonuses other than more role play oppurtunities.

What I mean by magic item above is an item with the flag 'magic'.

Actually, it might be simpler to make a new object common to all faith managers. Ideas for what it could look like are welcome.

High priests will not get it, unless they are both high priests and faith managers.

We have not yet discussed what high priests might recieve as "symbols of office", or even if they will get one.

How will faith managers be chosen for faiths with non-active deities?

Maybe a vote by all the imms. Note that if no good candidate for faith manager can be found in a particular faith, there won't be any of them; that is, there might be faiths with no faith managers.

[Glim]

Will the High Knight position still exist? Or will this be removed for the faith manager position? E.g. Tyr would have a high priest, a faith manager, and a high knight. Or only high priest and faith manager.

[Dalvyn]

Good question.

As far as non-clerics are concerned, I would think that

- A myrmidon (fighter hero) still makes sense. Fighters generally like to fight each other and see who can take the other down and so on (you know, brawl-not-brain kind-of-people )

- A warden (ranger hero) still makes sense, with the new organization for ranger (council). This is a position of honour; whether or not rangers want to follow the warden's decisions is something each ranger will decide ICly.

- As far as wizards, paladins, thieves, and bards are concerned though, I am not sure if we still need heroes. What do you all think?

[Gwain]

Wizards need leaders, maybe a council with one leader from each guild on it? Thieves need guildmasters to monitor and watch thieving activities, Paladins need Order masters and High Knights to monitor the other members...Bards though, maybe set up clans with elected leaderships?
just some ideas

[Glim]

I think that the more positions, honestly. The better. They should have authority in their own area of influence, but it should leave plenty of people opportunities to get somewhere. It gives people something to work towards, a goal. A goal, I believe, keeps people interested and working towards that goal breeds ambition and actual interest in that character's roleplay. It might not make the positions as "special", but it is still a position of authority and respect in their prospective areas. There being more positions might also keep people from being corrupted by the power (power corrupts, as my history teacher LOVED saying) that might come with such a position, as there are others of their class/religion, with authority that rivals and equals their own. A mage being the champion of Mystra, other mages being the leader of their prospective guilds. A fighter being the champion of Tempus, another fighter being the fighter's guild hero. A ranger or druid being the champion of Mielikkie, with the warden the leader of the guild of rangers.

I agree wholeheartedly with removing the level limit, as I believe this moves the focus of heros more towards RP than skill/level based power. Some positions, by nature, would still come from skill (fighters guild hero comes to mind), of course.

Feedback is always welcome,

[Glim]

Also, another question, apart from my original topic. Why was the hero level limit put in place in the first place? I know it wasnt originally and ive wondered what problems came about that this might have been necessary. This would certainly be important so as not to repeat whatever made the change in the first place.

[Dalvyn]

Also, another question, apart from my original topic. Why was the hero level limit put in place in the first place? I know it wasnt originally and ive wondered what problems came about that this might have been necessary. This would certainly be important so as not to repeat whatever made the change in the first place.

What do you mean by "hero level limit"? The fact that they had to be level 50?

If that's it, I believe the restriction was set because heroes were levelled up to 51, so it kind of made sense to require that they be already level 50.

Or did I misunderstand you?

[Argentia]

As it stands now, I rarely see the wizard guild leaders(I think I have only ever seen three, two of which were relatively active) and I don't believe I have ever seen the thieve's guild hero. I would love to see more importance and influence given to these positions so that it would give incentive for those who have these characters to play them.(Given that their player is still active; I don't know anything about the players, only what I have seen of the characters) They could help police and govern their respective guild, perhaps even start guild wars or organize guild-wide RPs.(Like maybe a massive summoning experiment(*coughgonewrongcough*) for conjurers or a realm-wide call to illusionists to help hide a city, stuff like that)

I believe high knights are important as well. Granted, the position of paladin itself is a rather rare and prestigious position in and of itself, but the position of high knight gives the power to declare holy wars and crusades and all sorts of fun stuff, I think. These sort of things, which involve entire faiths and orders, are much more cleanly executed with a leader at the head.

As for bards, well in all honesty I have never seen much order to their guild. Maybe the players of bards would like some, or not. I don't know, I don't play one.

[Kregor]

Wizards need leaders, maybe a council with one leader from each guild on it? Thieves need guildmasters to monitor and watch thieving activities, Paladins need Order masters and High Knights to monitor the other members...Bards though, maybe set up clans with elected leaderships?
just some ideas

A big benefit I see of the removal of level and a single authority for each guild, and faith, is that it opens the possibility for more variations within the guilds and faiths themselves.

To expand on Gwain's comments... Much in the same way that there is a priest of a given faith at any given temple of that faith, in any given community, who is considered the representative of that faith in that community, ultimately beholden (more or less) to a High Priest over the faith... we can now have an IC High Priest, as well as other delegated priests who will be able to faith others thru the virtue of their own RP of the faith.

Knights should have an IC hierarchy, as they are Lawful orders. Rank and file is an essence of a knightly order. However, having these ranks ICly now makes more sense. A knight could easily be a faith manager, and a high ranking knight... much in the same way fantasy depicts knights knighting others upon the battlefield.

thieves of different guilds and different faiths would have their own leaders, guildmasters, et al. Does it make IC sense, that a thief hero of Mask would be somehow influential upon a guild of good Tymoran thieves? Guilds would each have their respective persons of esteem, and IC-built guilds would have their leaders in those who built them. Guild wars, anyone?

While the concept of the ranger council is one I support in an essence, I see it as a council of rangers from different paths and faiths, with the common goals of collaboration and education of young adventurers. Rangers of certain faiths also have their own orders, those of Selune and Mystra, even those of Chauntea and Mielikki, though we do not currently code-wise support formal orders for the latter faiths. I see a master ranger as being the voice of his faith's order among the rangers as a whole, and the council would encompass representation from all paths of faith that rangers travel.

Ultimately, what I see as the potential results of a new way of viewing "heroes" and those of authority, is that no more will a good RPing priest feel like they have to train up to that magic lvl50 to have a chance to represent their faith. No more will there need be acusations of favoring a certain person who has X number of titles, simply because they were the only lvl50 of a given class, faith, order, etc., because those who want the RP and responsibility of IC positions will be able to have them. And most important, we can have multiple people to turn to for seeking a given faith, rather than waiting for a single figure to log. Faster faithing will yield to less disgruntlement among players with a solid character concept with faith included. It will also lead to more encouragement to play priests, which should hopefully lead to even richer faith RP and faith management.

[Dalvyn]

Wizard heroes: that might be nice, since a unifying body might work.

Thieves... as Kregor pointed out, I can't see a Maskite thief obeying to a Tymoran, nor a Tymoran obeying to a Maskite. There could be a "hero" for the spies' guild, then maybe a (faith-related) hero Maskite thief. We could theoretically have one thief hero per guild in game... but I would keep this option for later, when/if there are more players. It does not make much sense to have 1 thief in each guild, each one of them being the hero of their own guild.

Paladins. I can see generals/paladin heroes for each deity. Then again, is there any point in doing so when we have only 1 paladin per faith? When/if we get more paladins, then it becomes more interesting.

because those who want the RP and responsibility of IC positions will be able to have them

As long as they show they can do it. There is no obligation for a god to set up a faith manager if (s)he thinks that there is no good canditate in his/her faith currently. I do not want to point fingers - and it actually opens up into another debate - but there are characters who follow a deity just because that allows them to gain access to cool equipment and supplicated items, but who do not know much of anything about that deity's faith. I hope that the gods will ba able to discern those and not make them into faith managers.

Faster faithing will yield to less disgruntlement among players with a solid character concept with faith included. It will also lead to more encouragement to play priests, which should hopefully lead to even richer faith RP and faith management.

I hope that having more faith managers will not only make it possible to get an answer more quickly, but that it will also make it possible to screen the candidates better. The aim is certainly not to just faith more people "blindly", but to make entering into a faith something not trivial. Hopefully, the faith managers will take the time to talk with the candidates and make sure they know what they are doing (especially for priests or other divine characters).

[Andreas]

I believe high knights are important as well. Granted, the position of paladin itself is a rather rare and prestigious position in and of itself, but the position of high knight gives the power to declare holy wars and crusades and all sorts of fun stuff, I think. These sort of things, which involve entire faiths and orders, are much more cleanly executed with a leader at the head.

Actually, a Paladin, even a High Knight, can't declare war or start a crusade without the approval of their Deity and/or faith leadership.

Personally, I'd like to see the smaller Orders open up again. There's a lot of them "filled" by PCs that haven't logged in a very long time. Maybe even increase the numbers (i.e. from 2 to 5) to give more players the oppurtunity to play a Paladin of a faith that they enjoy.

I see a lot of potential for Thieves with this sort of leadership system in place. Each city that has a Thieves' Guild could have a leadership hierarchy. That could definitely make for some interesting role play if a Thief from another city is operating on Guild territory...

Wizards also tend to form hierarchal enclaves... i.e. the Host Tower in Luskan, The Magister of Mystra or the War Wizards of Cormyr. Wizard leaders in the game could help promote Mage Fairs (an established tradition in the FR campaign) and other roleplay specific to mages.

Bards tend to be a bit more chaotic in their organisation, but there are still acknowledged leaders within the various Bardic colleges.

Again, overall I see a tremendous amount of improved role play coming from this change in the IC leadership systems.

[Tandria]

As for bards, well in all honesty I have never seen much order to their guild. Maybe the players of bards would like some, or not.

As a longterm player of a bard I think that I would like to see somewhat of a council set up ICly rather than nothing at all. Something like the rangers' council would be nice, I think.

From this system I also see a greater likelihood for player-run organisations. A bard's council would help out young/newly-made bards, a wizard's council (ICly rather than the OOC one) with at least one wizard of each class to help out young wizards (and perhaps a wizard, nominated by the rest of the group, to head the organisation), etc. A player-run nomination for that sort of thing would remove any perceived favourtism, in my opinion, and give players more of a say.

I'm just tossing out ideas, though .

[Dalvyn]

For all those things (like the bard organization Tandria suggested), I would like to see some player initiative. That is, set up a "guild" meeting, decide on how you want to organize your guild. If there is to be a "guildmaster", choose what the symbol of his/her position would be (tabard, scepter, ...) and we can then make one such object.

I believe it would be good to make it only player-dependant (that is, unless it is necessary, imms wouldn't influence who gets the title and the object in this case).

[Andreas]

I believe it would be good to make it only player-dependant (that is, unless it is necessary, imms wouldn't influence who gets the title and the object in this case).

I think this is a good idea, but some Imm influence might be necessary to avoid favouritism among players who might be tempted to form a guild then promptly plug all the leadership spots with their OOC buddies as opposed to PCs that would be suitable.

[Taerom]

The fact that heroes get an extra level. a white title, and an item needs no change at all, as I see it--it's a good system, the players of high priests take on some significant responsibilities and they deserve some rewards to go with them. The favoritism issue from the IRC chat (At least the one I wanted to be addressed) had nothing to do with this.

As for the division of responsibility between faith managers and high priests, I like this system very much as well. Player-run councils for the various classes/guilds? Also very, very cool. It gets a big double thumbs-up from yours truly--I can't wait to see it happen in game.