Percieved favouritism - Part I "high priests"

[Rhytania]

I agree with Taerom I think we are kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I like the idea of the extra level, but can do without. I strongly would like to keep the white titles though. They represent and singles that player out as someone in any High Position would be. I am sure we have all heard of President Bush, even though hardly any of us have even come close to seeing him IRL from a distance. The title represents all the offline chatter that "circulates" the kingdom via the npc's. If someone was to say Halia of Mielikki that should trigger something, becuase to be the one person of a faith/guild/organization in the WHOLE WORLD is a very big deal.

[Dalvyn]

The favoritism issue from the IRC chat (At least the one I wanted to be addressed) had nothing to do with this.

Unless I am completely wrong, some examples of high priests were given to sustain the claim for (percieved) favouritism, so the two topics seem to be closely related to me.

Yet, I agree that it's not the only situation where some players thought there was some favouritism. But, hey... check back the title of this thread.

[Argentia]

Out of curiousity, what will happen to current high priests/guild heros/high knights, ect.? Will we keep them, re-assign them all, re-assign some but have competitions for others, or just do it on a case-by-case basis? Sorry if this is a silly question.

[Solaghar]

I'd like to add my two cents into this and hopefully address some problems we all seem to deal with. Lots of heroes and faith managers tend to go inactive. Not all, but many. As people have said, there are numerous guild heroes and the like we've never seen around. I like the idea of doing away with the hero idea altogether. Heroes should be no different from other PCs, except for their reputation which one would presume would be based around IC actions. Giving someone a title to make sure they're heard of because presumably they are so famous that they've become legends is redundant. Not to mention the fact that many faiths, especially the more evil faiths, would not necessarily want to spread around who is the head of their faith.

I think that the main problem with the hero system and the management of faiths is a lack of flexibility. In the real Forgotten Realms, not everyone who wishes to follow a God must travel across the realm to meet the high priest. Often people within a faith have very different ideas about the proper way to worship, so you can have competing ideas within a faith itself. As an example, Sun Elves and Moon Elves have very different ideas about how Corellon ought to be worshipped, but neither one of them has some sort of monopoly on entering that worship field, no matter how misguided the others may think that they are.

One of the biggest things about the Forgotten Realms is the depth and breadth of the worship system, which is unrivalled by other D&D settings as far as I know. Nowhere else does religion play such an important role, so that is one of the reasons people come to play on FR realms, the popular and fun Gods that they are familiar with. Choosing to dedicate yourself to a deity is a personal matter and often has nothing to do with the higher people within your faith. A warrior who finds himself blessed in battle may choose to follow Tempus, it's as simple as dedicating himself to that deity, but here it's a complex system designed to prevent spoilers and fools from entering a faith which may or may not have an active leadershpi in any case. To make a point, I had to wait more than 6 months to have a character faithed *after* finishing the faith quest.

My suggestion for faiths, and for all guilds, would be this. Do away with the old system and institute a new one based around player/admin run organizations, more like the PC run charter organizations we're supposed to have here. For faith organizations, have different levels of faith with different 'benefits'. An example would be, a level 10 cleric may decide he wants to explore Lathander as a possible patron. Visiting the temple, he merely types a command that inducts him into the faith as a Novice. A novice would not gain access to supplicated items or spells, but they would be recognized as someone who is exploring the faith and seeing how they like the organization. Remember that FR's pantheon is polytheistic, so seeking a patron does not mean you don't worship the other Gods, you just choose to venerate one over the others. I think this will allow younger players to perhaps test the waters of a few faiths and allow the better run faiths to better succeed in maintaining members with interesting RP and support.

So this novice is in the Lathanderite temple for a few weeks and he decides, yes, I do want to dedicate myself fully to Lathander. Now he would go to the temple again and do a different command, whereby he applies for full membership as an Acolyte or some other word (individual faiths could easily have different titles for levels within the faith). This leads to the next higher level, the senior members of the faith, who could approve the new member with a simple majority vote. That way you don't necessarily *need* everyone on within a matter of weeks, or even more than a few people. And if you want to have only one person in charge, then that one person is the majority you need. If they don't log on and let people into the faith, then the faith suffers and Acolytes who grow tired of waiting can choose a new faith that actually wants new members. Faiths with full and active leaderships will prosper and grow. Faiths with poor leadership will dwindle until someone puts someone else in charge who is willing to run the faith well.

In my opinion, this is the way it *should* be. It will encourage good players to step up to the plate and take leadership positions in faiths that are struggling. It will encourage people to actually seek out and bring new players who show potential into their church instead of mostly ignoring them. It will encourage new players to test the waters on different faiths rather than just building their character knowing that they like Cyric's spells so they are going to join that faith. It will encourage far more RP to deal with players in their faith.

This is sort of a disorganized post, but I'm running out to have my anniversary with my girlfriend I'll probably write more about it later. But to recap... more player involvement and more options for players to get involved = good. More rigid structure and single leadership roles for all guilds or faiths = bad. FK is a great MUD but it really doesn't give players a lot of options for individual action to affect their faiths and guilds. When I come back I will also write a little about how I plan to organize a guild for Solaghar I've been building, which I think is sort of innovative.

[Taerom]

Is there a log of the IRC chat posted somewhere?

EDIT: I've just been emailed a copy.

[Solaghar]

Now that I'm back and have some time to write out some of my ideas about the hero system and the way things should work, I'll do just that Without getting too far into IC details, I think that organizing guilds more along these lines will make them much more relevant to player's lives and hence, bring them greater prestige. Moving away from things like fighter heroes to the masters of various guilds who hold IC positions of authority over other guild members, but also require some diligence will ensure that there is healthy RP, and that those who do not wish to maintain an active presence can merely turn the position over. The key is to allow IC means by which people can rise to the top positions so that if someone who once ran the guild one day wishes to again, they can go through the hoops like everyone else.

As I was building a fighter's guild for Skullport I wanted it to be more interesting and engaging than just a building full of trainers and a quest to join the guild. I wanted to actually use it to build upon and spur RP. When players accept the quest to join the guild, they'll be informed of the stringent RP they will be expected to abide by upon joining. As it is a Drow run guild devoted to Lloth and Selvetarm, it will express certain ideas about combat and the like which not everyone will share. This is part of the key in my opinion of making things more interesting... give each guild, whether a fighter's guild, a thieve's guild, whatever, it's own individual aspects. Let them focus on certain styles, give certain feats and skills more easily than others. Let evil guilds focus on being evil, but build RP around it as well.

As the character makes his way through the stringent combat tests of the guild, they'll also be quizzed on aspects of Lloth, Selvetarm and combat to make sure they're learning and paying attention. Upon completing the guild quest, they will get a second quest bit within the guild which will signify that they are full members. Full members will have access to more advanced trainers and equipment within the guild. They will also literally be in charge of members who have not yet completed the quest, being able to issue them orders as though part of a military organization.

Above the level of full membership, there will exist a rank of Lieutenant. This level is for the most capable and dangerous warrior within the full membership level. Any full member can challenge the current Lieutenant for the position if they think they can win, though it has to be within the guild and within certain rules. The current Commander of the guild will oversee the combat, and depending on the outcome, the winner will either remain the Lieutenant or be advanced to the position, while the loser remains or is demoted to full membership.

The position of lieutenant is a tricky one. They should be the heirs to the guild if the current Commander ever leaves, but if the Commander doesn't think they're suitable for the task, they've got the ability to groom some other full member for the position and help them to challenge the Lieutenant. If it's really a dire situation, an admin could step in, but the key here is that I've tried to set up rules whereby the guild members can deal with themselves reasonably, while still maintaining an evil theme to the guild based around combatting superiors for rank. A good-themed guild would be much easier to set up and run in my opinion, as you could have general acclimation determining the leader.

Specialized mobs in the guild will have OOC passwords which will confer membership levels upon various players, so that when somemone actually defeats the old Lieutenant for instance, and becomes the new lieutenant, the old one will utter a word to an NPC and get a new questbit in what will be explicitly explained to be an OOC action representing their IC demotion. The new lieutenant will do the same with a different password, gaining access to the new rank and the specialized store that sells equipment that is in terms of code, identical to other items, merely showing the higher rank. A similar password will exist for the Commander so that if they ever disappear, an admin can help the old Lieutenant or realistically, anyone else move into the position. I wanted to design this guild without some central figure in mind, but as something that will survive and grow beyond the lifetime of a single player, even if that player is myself

Using existing code, we can easily alter most guilds in the game to be something similar, as well as creating things like "Holy Warrior" guilds for certain Gods which could encompass other things like Paladinship as a higher rank within the guild, and leadership composed of clerics or faith leaders. Some faiths like Helm and Torm are actually set up like this in Forgotten Realms canon, with clerics taking the leadership role, Paladins occupying the position of holy warriors, and other types of characters gaining lower positions, yet still having access to the leadership if they prove themselves. Guilds can become a force for RP and competition among one another, not merely the place you join just because it happens to be in your hometown, it can instead be an extension of who your character is.

For characters who have no real desire to join these guilds and operate under their structures, more limited access to trainers and feats would be the result. Why is this reasonable? Because if you're some lone wolf who doesn't want to interact with anyone, few people are willing to take what would really amount to the IC time to teach you anything worth knowing. While a feat like twin sword style only takes a moment to OOC'ly train, it would realistically be the result of months or years of dedicated training. You're far more likely to get that sort of committment out of an organization which has a stake in making sure you're well trained than some random guy on the street.

I think this new structure would be much preferable to the current structure with unrealistic heroes representing all fighters, thieves, wizard guilds, etc. As a Drow fighter, Timaeus is technically my 'guild hero' but I know almost nothing about him except that he is from the surface and he beat me in the contest. His position as a hero is utterly meaningless to my life as a character, and I'm sure that is true for almost everyone else. On the other hand, as the master of a guild which has concrete goals and methods of operation, Solaghar would be well known to all of the fighters within the guild, openly working with them to build up their strength, helping those who need help, and working to encourage others to join *his* guild as opposed to some other. To do that, I'd have to make sure that my guild ran well and offered good benefits to it's members. I couldn't just ignore people who need help as the leader, or I'd find my guild drawing low on membership and my own influence waning as a result. The current heroes have no such influence or any inclination to make sure things run well anywhere, except perhaps for faith heroes who have to ensure their members are faithed (and I don't mean to demean any of the hard work that many many heroes do to keep their faiths running well. But I speak in terms of the guilds themselves, which have almost nothing to do with their heroes.)

I can see a world with thieves guilds in different cities, some teaching the noble profession of stealth and honor, some little more than thug academies. Guilds where Helm, Tyr and Torm work together to train holy warriors to teach honorable methods of combat to their members, while across Toril, a guild of mages run by a Talos worshipper which allows members who follow any number of evil deities, malar, loviatar, etc... all of whom work to further their own ends. It will introduce new aspects of competition and opportunities for players to do more with their characters, take on more responsibilities. Because let's face it, apart from the few players who have hero characters, the rest of us hit level 50 and that's basically it. We can hope to one day achieve those positions, but few of us do. But introducing more ranks and more structure within the guilds, and even allowing people to maintain membership in numerous guilds would allow people to take more responsibility and perhaps learn more of what it's like to be a faith leader.

I think that having subordinates would also help the people in charge of things to be able to delegate their responsibility a bit more to people they can trust. An example of that might be within the Helm guild. A young warrior wants to join the faith as a full member. The faith leader doesn't know him well enough to say yes or no. Instead of saying no for now, they could assign some other member of the guild to get to know the player better, work together with him for a week or so and see what he knows, see how he deals with real situations. At the end of the week he reports back. Giving a good report, he gains some trust and status in the eye of his superior, who may consider him for promotion to higher ranks in the future, regardless of whether the new player joins the guild or not. It just plain gives people something to do and RP about, which is something that I think FK could use more of, and none of it requires the intervention of admins to accomplish.

THE END

[Penryn]

My thoughts for who should also still have councils and what not is the following:


Paladin orders should remain, after all it takes so long and hard work to reach this point. It is a huge honor to do and they are important for the faithful. Helmite, Tormite, Tyrran paladins really hold a higher position then most of the time High Priests even.

I dont think most of the paladins care about the "title" at the front of their name or anything. But within the religion they do serve a deeply needed purpose.


What about the prospect of:
High Priest
Faith Manager
First sword (paladin order name):

would give a trio of individals with different roles for those like tempus that are very militant orders.


I guess I am just old fashion when it comes to orders and how paladins are. How they need to earn it up and all (best place I have ever seen in my almost decade of mudding now is here for paladins, why change what isnt broken?)

Wizards:

I would say how about a wizard conclave together for them. A "tower" or something along those lines where they could decide a trio of individuals to be the leaders to work with and assign out apprentices for role play purposes. I know alot wouldnt join it. But it could help when joining and role playing through mages. I always loved the fact that the role play that could come of such a thing. Much like the Ranger council itself.

Rangers:
I like how the council is and draws a very IC prospect into the role play there. It draws out folks and makes sure they know what it means to be a ranger. Why to stay out of cities and what is needed to become better and progress.


Thieves:
I love the idea of drawing them all more together into a thieves guild. Even if a thief is a follower of Tymora they still would respect the abilities and place of another thief.

I would love to see more use of the guilds for thieves. Perhaps a similiar thing to the Rangers where to become part of them one needs to join one of the two major guilds (spies or night masks). Just a personal opinion there, as there is no real reason they couldnt learn alone though.

[Solaghar]

No disrespect to Penryn, but what he suggests is basically what we have now with a few more guilds added in. In my opinion what makes the overarching guilds here so meaningless is the fact that they have to represent so many people as to be meaningless. How can the Waterdeep fighter's guild have a credo or manifesto if it allows virtually anyone of any race and most alignments to join? What does it stand for? What does it represent? These are the things that spur RP.

What should be done is to allow players the ability to create their own organizations which will succeed and fail based on how well they're run. This is the free market of ideas. Right now, each guild and faith has a monopoly on power within it. People join a faith for the RP purposes, but if people had other organizations they could join for RP purposes, they wouldn't necessarily always need to turn to the faiths as their only RP outlet. Like-minded people could come together, four or five at a time and create an organization dedicated to serving some cause, protecting some area, furthering the credo of some God or the influence of some city. These are the people you'd think of as your 'adventuring parties' in a lot of ways, the primary people in your lives who you've cast your lot in with. And you could even join more than one of these organizations... there would not necessarily be anything to prevent someone from being part of a guild of Helm Paladins and a guild dedicated to bringing true justice to lawless lands. It would open up things like espionage between guilds as well.

The problem with the way things work now I believe, is that if the person in charge of your faith or guild or whatever isn't active, if they don't create the RP for you, then your faith suffers greatly. In deity help files, you often come across the organizations that these deities support, yet it is a rare and momentous occasion for anyone to be taken into one of these, and even when they are, it merely becomes an RP feather in the cap since the members are so few and far-between.

I don't know whether it's a lack of trust on the part of the admins that orders, guilds and the like are so exclusive as to be basically non-existant to RP, but consider this... if people are running orders and guilds on their own, they get to decide who is good enough to join their guild. If someone proves themselves over time through RP to have no knowledge of their guild, they will never achieve any high membership in it without changing because no one will want to promote them. If they decide to go off and create a guild of their own, let them! If they're such idiots that they can't handle RPing in someone else's organization, who is to say that anyone will join theirs? And if people do, then perhaps that person is creating a niche that simply didn't exist and rbavo to them. If they're spurring RP, even if it's mediocre RP, that is better than none... and as long as people have lots of choices, why would they choose something mediocre over something great?

What better way to do away with perceptions of favoritism than to allow everyone free access to the creation of RP organizations? If some newbie who is playing FK for his first time manages to create a thriving, fun organization within his first few weeks of being here then that is a good thing! Why make someone wait around until their characters have 500 hours before they will even be acknowledged? There is no better way to maintain and build a strong community of good players than to create conditions where those good players are allowed to succeed, whether they've been here a month or 6 years. Imagine if in the business world, only millionaires who have been in business for years at a time were allowed to start new businesses? I hate to say it but in a lot of ways, young people with new ideas and a lot of talent and a love of great RP are kept in the dark for what amounts to RL months and years because they aren't particularly *given* many chances to show what they can do. We have fewer and fewer centralized RPs, less admin-player interaction, and fewer faith and guild leaders maintaining an active presence than in the past. Let the people with new ideas build themselves up IC'ly and have a chance to succeed or fail. The worst thing that happens is their little organization fails and gets disbanded. The best thing that happens is a new paradigm is created whereby players can RP in more fully involved ways with other players and the entire world around them by allowing them far more freedom to congregate and associate as they wish, not lumping every thief from a follower of Corellon to Lloth under the category 'thieves guild', nor warriors as different as Timaeus and Solaghar under the lump of 'fighters guild'.

[Dalvyn]

That would mostly make sense only if the player base is large enough. I see no point in having 6 "heads of the mages guild" if there are only 6 mages; or have small groups of 2 wizards forming guilds here and there. Or are you only talking about the dichotomy surface vs drow?

As for letting everyone set up their own guild and thus - if I understand your idea correctly - gaining the power to "guild" other characters code-wise, that would require code and area support that would be wasted in most of the cases. Note also that something like that is already possible. If you want to set up an organization, you can apply to build an area for it. That also allows us to "screen" candidates that are motivated and those who are not.

[Andreas]

Keep It Simple Stupid

That is probably one of the most basic things I learned in the Navy. Hard not to learn when you hear it screamed at you at least once a day in Boot Camp! When we start to over-complicate things, then we give ourselves too much room for error.

I think the solution reached by the Imms is a very simple and workable resolution to the problem of faith management. There's been a lot of good suggestions; albeit a number of them, including a few of mine, took this discussion off the topic of High Priests. There will probably be other threads in the future to discuss the management of various guilds and IC organisations.

I feel that dividing the responsibilities of faith management among well role played members of the faith can only benefit the game as a whole.

[Solaghar]

That would mostly make sense only if the player base is large enough. I see no point in having 6 "heads of the mages guild" if there are only 6 mages; or have small groups of 2 wizards forming guilds here and there. Or are you only talking about the dichotomy surface vs drow?

You're thinking about this incorrectly. The head of these 'guilds' would have no power over anyone else, no special titles other than the ones they give themselves, and no respect unless other people give it to them. If Solaghar set his title to King of the Underdark, that doesn't make him king of the Underdark. No one is going to want to have a guild of two people, there's little point. Or rather, if two people do decide to set up a guild, then they would more than likely want to bring other people into it. Nothing successful is going to start off with 50 players, and if it does start off, it will be so watered down as to what 50 people can agree on as to be functionally useless. It has nothing to do with surface vs anything.

As for letting everyone set up their own guild and thus - if I understand your idea correctly - gaining the power to "guild" other characters code-wise, that would require code and area support that would be wasted in most of the cases. Note also that something like that is already possible. If you want to set up an organization, you can apply to build an area for it. That also allows us to "screen" candidates that are motivated and those who are not.

How many organizations have ever been set up by anyone? I know of one, and it's been inactive since I've played here. I don't know how many organizations applications you get, but I know you've gotten some over time, and as far as I know we have no active organizations, so I assume that the ideas are not what you're looking for or the players are being rejected for some reason. The very example that is posted in the thread about organizations as a great application for an organization, as it says right on the thread, was turned down simply because they didn't meet a time requirement that has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of someone's RP.

One of the problems I see with the game is that you demand too much of the people who want to do things to make the game better. Not everyone is as good an RPer as everyone else. Not everyone makes characters as deep and interesting as others. But by excluding them from the possibility of working through the game to do more interesting things, and by basically telling new players to the game that they'll have to play for 1000 hours before they'll be considered a 'regular' is pretty demanding. I've played here for a few years now and I've just reached my first character with 1000 hours very recently. I would hope few people would speak poorly of my quality of RP or contributions to the game in whatever limited ways I've been allowed to contribute. I'd love to do *more* to contribute, but frankly I don't know what else I can do other than offer suggestions I'd hope are helpful, and continue playing and building.

[Gwain]

I would say that when you play it is always good to be patient and enjoy the mud as best as you can. Some people would say that I am settling for less and I say to them, Ha, if I enjoy it now as I did when I started then how did I settle?

It's the goal to find something that you like and make the best of it and look to a good future. I think, that if you resend your ideas, eventually they will be picked up or not. If not then you should ask how they could be made better for your own icly run group or such. Otherwise the option would not be embraced by the admins as they have by asking for ideas and character companies and such.

The admins, builders, coders, imms all give their time as best as they can, sometimes certain things take longer to do than other things, so it is best to just wait, never get frustated if you can help it, and enjoy the mud, it's free, it allows you to be something interesting and out of the ordinary. This does not mean you need to be the best character, but if you enjoy something and live by the rules you will eventually excel and such. I've been around for about three thousand character hours on the mud, but I find that I'd still enjoy it with less than a hundred. I'm not here to advance or dominate, (and I am not saying anyone else is) I am here because most other elderly (I say the term loosely) gents and lasses I know don't like to play table top. I like that I can come here and relax and if I get the chance add to the game at my own pace.

I don't mean to detract from the discussion but, if you enjoy it, then don't make yourself upset about the process, make the best of your situation and work towards reachable goals. And it never hurts to take up knitting (Unless you poke yourself alot) or just set up ideas and make suggestions, sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't at least you try, and in trying you do your best.

In conclusion, do what you can and that is enough, understand that the people behind the mud are not agaist anyone, but are busy and often have immense to do lists that are being done at a pace that has to be adjusted constantly for real life. They're doing there best, and I think that is very good. Especially when a game is free, whereas those other online ones expect you to pay. If I had money I'd buy chocolate....

Just my opinion. Try your best, do what you can and that shall be enough

[Athon]

From my entire experience on these boards - it has been many years - one of the biggest things I have noticed is the intolerance for whining. Every prior whine was thwarted, halted, dismembered, any word you seek that means "stopped." And yet, he were are. We've given in to some whiners.

There are always people that whine and/or complain about the given status of ANYTHING. It's human nature. But if you give in to them, they will feel that they have power and can potentially start to abuse it. I personally believe that it is derived from either jealousy or envy of the person/figure. You know what? That person/figure worked hard to obtain what they did, whether you like it or not. The whining comes from the people who will not work hard, will not give it that little extra, and probably give up after only a brief period. Let's take a modern day example, say a contemporary government similar in structure to the US government. Let's say Person1 is the president of this country. Obviously, to reach this position, he worked and devoted himself over years of trial, torment, and challenge. The road is not easy but in the end it is always the better. However, there are always going to be the people that whine, no mater what Person1 does. As with many of those who study psychology and other fields that deal with the synthesis of the human mind, I personally agree that at least a majority of that whining stems from the lack of desire mentioned from above.

Ironically enough, this is exactly what has happened here in our precious Forgotten Kingdoms. Players have worked hard to establish characters. They've devoted hundreds to thousands of hours just on one character to make them what they are. As these players continue to give their hard work and desire to work to achieve better things, the better things arrive. It's not a total guarantee to be a high priest, a high knight, or even simple a hero by FK terms, but they are rewarded in various ways nonetheless. It really hurts me to see that people are still whining about all the hard work these players have put into their characters. Worst of all, they used favourtism as their structure towards their argument. There is a very small amount - if even remotely close to be any - favourtism among this game. Every hero I've seen has worked to get there. It's not some quick process that happened in a few days. Most of these players have been playing that character for years, folks.

Now that the whole ethical and philosophical data is behind us, time to move on. It deals with the reform that Forgotten Kingdoms. In the past year specifically, we've seen a grand change in the aspects of FK, more than at any time that I've been around. We've also seen a decrease in the amount of older players (Those around when it first started) accelerate rapidly. With this, many of our higher ups have left as well, leaving us in a shortage of management. The solution is not to divide faiths into high priests and faith managers, not at all. First of all, our player base is simply not diverse enough to be able to pull it off. Most faiths have just enough members to rightfully assign a high priest. Making another member a faith manager or something similar will be like having ten governors manage your 100 population town. If we're to have more than one leading PC power in a faith, we need more people. We're not at that stage yet. I don't care about the loss in level for heroes - that level didn't add much codewise or RPwise. However, demoting the current heroes and integrating them to be more like the rest of the players could be considerd an insult to some heroes. As a hero in the game, it is rightful for them to be honoured with a white title and a 'power' (not code-wise) position in the game. They worked hard and earned that position. It is an astrocity to be demurred of this.

Now this may seem a rather farfetched and my knowledge will be severely limited by lack of experience, but what of the possibility of perhaps asking a few more players to be immortal figures in the game? Being an immortal is not for everyone and a rigerous screening period should be automatically required. But that is where the value of the game used to lie. There used to be many Imm-driven RP's in the game. Many of these RP's turned out to be some of the best. The current game is starting to lack this, unfortunately. Hiring more imms specifically asked to drive RP would be a remarkable bonus to Forgotten Kingdoms. Also, the new imms could also support the faith manager/high priest conflict. Each of the immortals in the game is given a specific deity and any other deities with no real player are shared amongst the imms (or so I've assumed). However, in limited numbers, it becomes difficult to manage faithing and much faithing gets behind. My solution is this: Take the deities that currently have no player and divide it by say, 3 or 4, maybe even 5. Then, after some -very trusted- players are carefully selected, assign these new immortals to those unplayed deities. That will greatly support and bolster the faithing process, potentially leading to some very happy players.

Well, I see that I've ranted probably way too far, but these are my opinions. I am all for debates and logical arguments such as these - it is one of my passions, really. As such, I really would appreciate it if my comments weren't taken to be offensive, flames, or whines, but rather to be thoughts of a player to be considered by the rest of you.

Thanks
Sean

[Dalvyn]

Re: organizations.

As long as you do not expect area or code support, your application will most likely be accepted immediately. You are free to set up groups however you want. But we still require the application so that we know what is going on.

Now, that means that you will not get an area where your organization can gather, with specific trainers/shops. That also means that you will not get a signet ring or special bracelet or emblem. And that means that you will not be given the means to guild people (in the technical sense, that is, to turn them from warriors to rangers or warriors to fighters, or rogues to thieves, or wizards to invokers). If you do not need any of those things, then you only need to send an application to let us know what is going on.

Re: faith managers and heroes.

Let us get this topic back on tracks please. If you want to continue discussing organizations, fine, but do so in another topic instead of hijacking this thread.

[Raona]

As a new player, the distinction of white titles in the WHO list was a big help, and continues to be. It is also helpful to have ready access to some information indicating the members of a faith, visible without sighting them personally, if you are interested in learning about one of the less prevalent faiths.

[Charissa]

I could not really decide which topic my idea should fall under, so I’m taking a chance and posting it here, sorry if it is the wrong place. After reading one of Lerytha’s posts, an idea popped into my head. I still, really like the idea of still having guild heroes, after a competition or similar event. So, maybe instead of the “white titles,” when you join a guild, by completing the quest, there could be a registry.

A book or a post, showing who is in that guild and possibly, who is the Guild Hero. You would automatically be listed on the post when joining the guild and only people in that guild would have access to view it. Now, I understand, it may be part of an ic roleplay to not let people know which guild you are in, so if the code allowed it, maybe there could be a way to choose if you want your name shown on it or not. Not sure how good, but just summarizing an idea. Comments more than welcomed.

[Dalvyn]

Some technical considerations first.

- Each guild (not IC guild, but guild in the sense of "class", what appears wen you type "score") has an associated "white title" name. E.g., "Luckbringer" for the guild "clerics of Tymora", "High Knight" for "paladins", "King of the Dead" for the guild "necromancers", and so on.

- In the old system, it was easy to determine (or, rather, code) whether someone should have a white title or not: if they were level 51, then the "who" list should use the white title; otherwise, just use the race.

- In the new system, it is also relatively easy: if the character is a cleric (including druid) and faith manager, then use the white title. Note as a side note that it also explains why non-clerics faith managers do not have white titles: it's because the white title associated to their guild wouldn't make sense; and the white titles associated to the "priest of X" guild would not work either for non-priests.

Now, giving white titles to "heroes" would require that, somehow, the mud is able to determine whether or not someone is a hero. Since we don't use level 51 anymore, that can't be that simple. Picking up heroes and giving them a white title would thus require some deeper code modification to indicate if someone is a hero or not. So... putting those back is not completely trivial, since we don't use level 51 anymore.

Some IC considerations now.

Having a High Knight (paladins) or a Warden (rangers) is not really a problem ICly, because all the paladins think alike, and all the rangers kind of stick together.

What about mages though? Let's say that someone is dubbed High Mage. Would both a Mystran mage from Waterdeep and a Banite mage from Zhentil Keep recognize any value to this title? How would both of those mages even agree on who is to be dubbed High Mage? How to determine a High Mage whose title actually means something and is accepted by all as such? Oh... and if you find a solution for the Mystran mage of Waterdeep and the Banite mage of Zhentil Keep, add a drow mage of Menzoberranzan in the equation, and see if it still works!

Same for bards... and for fighters... and for other schools of wizardry.

ICly, it did not make much sense for one person to obtain a High Thingy title, because all the members of that class would not respect that title.

Now... ICly, you do not need a white title or an official organization to elect a High Thingy. You can gather all the thingies (or perhaps only all the thingies of a given area), set up a contest or a vote or something similar and ICly designate the High Thingy for this group. For example, the white (= IC way to say good) transmuters could decide to gather up and elect a High (White) Transmuter. That character could use 'High White Transmuter' as an IC title and voilà. They wouldn't have a white title in the "who" list, but they would be actually recognized as High White Transmuter by all good tranmuters.[/img]

[Lerytha]

Hmm... would such an action have any imm support/recognition? I mean, if a character was to set up a council of mages and have a High Mage elected, would that elected character be legitimate? By imm support, I don't mean items. I mean, in RPs run by imms, for example, would the title have any recognisable impact?

ie. Feywardens, Painbearers, etc, as High Priests of a faith are often given IC respect by imms. Would the same go for a High Fighter of Waterdeep?

(And thanks, btw - the answer was clear enough for me to understand on an early Sunday morning! )

[Enaria]

I read through this thing, and I just go with whatever anyone decides without caring as long as it doesn't effect my RP usually, but, I really do like the white titles, and it would be nice if they could stay. But, maybe there would be a way to make an imm command to set someones title who needed it, to whatever the appropriate title to their position was?

[Dalvyn]

I too agree that white titles bestowed by the imms would be nice to have... but if they are put back in, the percieved favouritism will be back with them.

And yes, if someone is dubbed High Thingy by a reasonably valid process, I don't see why their titles wouldn't be recognized in roleplays (at least by mobs who would ICly recognize it). By "reasonably valid", I mean that, if three mages gather and decide that one of them is going to be called "High Mage" and the other two, "High Mage's Advisors", without consulting any other mages, then those titles will most likely be mocked, and not respected.