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Post by shakes on Sept 30, 2018 19:55:55 GMT -5
The squaddies follow a captain who is elected by vote by the merchant houses. The first few were these hunter types who were holdouts from the old hunting crews, but then they all died and it ended up just promotion from within. There's a second in command who almost always seems to get the captaincy. So much that it now seems expected.
Trust is important in a WORKING military, but the Garrison doesn't seem like it was ever designed to really ... you know ... work like that. It seemed like it was supposed to be a source of perpetual political conflict, which I think would have been pretty good. But they became an entity all to themselves, only BARELY beholden to the merchant houses which are supposed to pay for them. If you only ever promote from within, you don't GET any loyalty to the merchant houses. You get what you got ... an insular group of die-hards who form just another clique in-game.
The Garrison always seems like they've got some decent roleplayers but they're sealed up in a can of "can't do nothing" and so they just roam around killing gith, and getting killed by the occasional supergith.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2018 19:58:33 GMT -5
I think the heads of the families vote. Not the soldiers themselves. Truth be said, I dont really understand Garrison very well. There is a lot of backstabbing going on between the merchant houses in Luirs. Though I dont think it affects too much an average mercenary. I think staff is leaving it to the players to duke it out, so everything is just hanging in abyss.
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Post by shakes on Sept 30, 2018 20:08:08 GMT -5
Yeah, the family heads vote. Not the soldiers. You're supposed to go and politic with all the heads to get them to vote for you. And they have no rule which says the next captain even has to be a soldier. It could be one of their merchants if they wanted! Though now all the soldiers expect to get their turn at captain so they'd revolt and probably conspire to murder the merchant somehow. In other words ... you'd get what Armageddon professes to be good at! Murder, corruption, betrayal.
I like the CONCEPT better than the Kuraci Fist, but the reality is that everyone is so risk adverse they don't make a move and you get stagnation.
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tedium
Clueless newb
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Post by tedium on Sept 30, 2018 22:00:37 GMT -5
It sounds like they formed the basis of a republic there, which has a lot of potential. They have the commercial interest on one side, mimicking a senate, and the security interest on the other, mimicking the police and courts. However, I already see one issue, which is that the military members are expected to go bribing the merchants for promotions. In real life this sometimes works in a peacetime military, but not in one which is in constant conflict. Not to mention leadership roles are hard for players. Realistically, this should go the OTHER way. Swords > coin > people holding swords. You pay the people with the swords so they don't cut off your head. As Rome conquered other areas, the military leadership became very wealthy and so they were constantly assassinated because they became impervious to bribes. The Senate feared a coup by a charismatic military leader. Both the Roman Republic and the Maritime Republics focused heavily on propaganda and bribes to keep the military loyal. Rome used a nationalistic identity, while the Maritimes used religion and family ties. So I have a few questions. 1) Who recruits Garrison novices? 2) Can the Merchant Houses vote on things other than just who the Garrison leader is? Can they, say, order them to conquer an area for resource exploitation? 3) What are Merchant House players dependent on Garrison players for? Defense of the city is mostly done by NPCs I'd imagine. Escorts, hunting, and foraging? 4) What are Garrison players dependent on Merchant House players for? Does pay come directly from PCs, or from an NPC? 5) What are the perks to being Garrison clanlead?
If A) the Garrison recruits their own novices, and B) the Garrison gets no perks from the Merchants other than the standard food, water, and pay from an NPC, then it makes sense that they would fall back on seniority leadership. After all, they have loyalty to the person who recruited and trained them, not to the merchant players they don't interact with.
My quick take on it, from the background I've read here: Make recruitment into the Garrison go through Merchant Houses, with the prize of becoming a family member after proving ones-self as a clanlead. This makes merchant houses care about the health of their military, and invests them into keeping it full of their own loyalists. At the same time, it creates an obligation in the soldiers to serve the merchants, since they were the ones sponsored in by a patron. Clanleads have to perform a balancing act between keeping their soldiers, their sponsor, and the other houses happy, so the perks for this should be REALLY high for players who invest time into that role.
At the same time, the Houses would strive to ensure that the military was happy with coin, booze, and whores. Worst case scenario, the system fails to break the seniority loyalty inherent in every military ever, and you still have politics between houses to earn the loyalty of the Garrison clanlead. Though in practical terms, that requires the Garrison do things regularly for the Merchant Houses in which it can favor one over the other.
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Post by lechuck on Sept 30, 2018 22:24:06 GMT -5
I haven't found that ALL the AoD instagank criminals. There's been a few who will sneak into the rinth and attack people or go after you on a rooftop or at night, but overall most of the AoD seem to be geared towards getting involved with the Guild and getting those lovely, lovely handouts. with a criminal id take #1 over #2 any day of the week in fact later on in arm it seems #2 was the only tihng that happened the whole 'pax dragona' working deal between guild and aod that seemed to become the default over time always kept things way too tame between the groups to make it any scary fun it was way more fun when guilders were treated like public enemy #1 by aod and vice versa, there was actual war between the two and ppl made deals between more neutral parties to arrange shit and balance it out It isn't sustainable, though. Outside the unique and bizarre era where the Guild had three mindbenders and an immortal demon nilazi in it, they have never been able to survive open hostility with the law. For one thing, the Guild typically has between one and four members while the law easily comprises half a dozen soldiers, three templars, and however many veteran Allanaki civilians are bored enough to join in the mafia hunt; you know, those 100-day rangers and warriors with too few opportunities to put their skills to use who throw themselves headfirst into any plot they can detect. There's always a few of those guys knocking about and they're always tight with the templars. I've been pretty closely involved with the Guild on several different characters over the years, and except for the extreme outlier that was the Gin+Quick era, it has always ended up with the leader and/or top men getting killed by templars inside two months from when conflict begins to escalate, putting the clan out of the picture for a few months as another generation has to build it up again. So few people play in the 'rinth (because there's literally nothing whatsoever to do) that the Guild is simply too fragile a construct to be able to go to war with anyone. It's really more of a social clan that can occasionally make a token move like assassinating a sponsored character. In the ideal world where the game has many hundreds of concurrent players so that you can actually stay in the 'rinth most of the time without dying of boredom, and can have a southside face guy who doesn't become known to the whole playerbase inside two weeks, your "mafia vs. FBI" scenario would work. That's just not reality, though. Reality is that when one side or the other decides that it's time to escalate, the Guild is wiped out inside two months because they're three dinky mundanes who suddenly become enemies with a quarter of the playerbase. It happens two or three times a year, every single year. Executing a Guild boss is like a rite of passage for templars. |
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Post by shakes on Sept 30, 2018 22:38:58 GMT -5
I don't know that much more about the Garrison so I can't answer those questions.  On the Guild thing ... yeah ... for a long time seeing that I thought it was just me ... but nope ... it's the way the Guild works. You can't push outwards against the box you're in, or you get stomped. Everything runs on rails mostly and everyone pays protection like they're supposed to ... but if you push outwards ... here comes the boot. They never really feel like anything other than token villains. Which is a real shame. You essentially work for the templarate. |
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
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Post by jkarr on Oct 1, 2018 9:23:15 GMT -5
with a criminal id take #1 over #2 any day of the week in fact later on in arm it seems #2 was the only tihng that happened the whole 'pax dragona' working deal between guild and aod that seemed to become the default over time always kept things way too tame between the groups to make it any scary fun it was way more fun when guilders were treated like public enemy #1 by aod and vice versa, there was actual war between the two and ppl made deals between more neutral parties to arrange shit and balance it out It isn't sustainable, though. Outside the unique and bizarre era where the Guild had three mindbenders and an immortal demon nilazi in it, they have never been able to survive open hostility with the law. For one thing, the Guild typically has between one and four members while the law easily comprises half a dozen soldiers, three templars, and however many veteran Allanaki civilians are bored enough to join in the mafia hunt; you know, those 100-day rangers and warriors with too few opportunities to put their skills to use who throw themselves headfirst into any plot they can detect. There's always a few of those guys knocking about and they're always tight with the templars. I've been pretty closely involved with the Guild on several different characters over the years, and except for the extreme outlier that was the Gin+Quick era, it has always ended up with the leader and/or top men getting killed by templars inside two months from when conflict begins to escalate, putting the clan out of the picture for a few months as another generation has to build it up again. So few people play in the 'rinth (because there's literally nothing whatsoever to do) that the Guild is simply too fragile a construct to be able to go to war with anyone. It's really more of a social clan that can occasionally make a token move like assassinating a sponsored character. In the ideal world where the game has many hundreds of concurrent players so that you can actually stay in the 'rinth most of the time without dying of boredom, and can have a southside face guy who doesn't become known to the whole playerbase inside two weeks, your "mafia vs. FBI" scenario would work. That's just not reality, though. Reality is that when one side or the other decides that it's time to escalate, the Guild is wiped out inside two months because they're three dinky mundanes who suddenly become enemies with a quarter of the playerbase. It happens two or three times a year, every single year. Executing a Guild boss is like a rite of passage for templars. yeah and also part of where im talking abt comes from an era when the rinth didnt have such a strong elf/human split so rinthis in general were a bigger collective force the split just made it even harder for that to be a thing even if it made sense in game |
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Post by shakes on Oct 1, 2018 11:22:01 GMT -5
You do occasionally get one or both sides where they want to call a truce on that split and work together a little. But it only takes one asshole to come along and undo all that.
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jkarr
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Post by jkarr on Oct 1, 2018 13:05:25 GMT -5
You do occasionally get one or both sides where they want to call a truce on that split and work together a little. But it only takes one asshole to come along and undo all that. im saying the problem was the opposite for a long time there were too many guild bosses whose leadership style was centered around appeasing the aod so they can continue doing their stuff but basicly under the supervision of 'adults' which given what templars and tek could technically do makes a bit of ic sense again which may be fine in theme and pragmatic from an ig standpoint but i think structurally it wouldve kept it far more fun if rinth really was a no mans land and the ppl controlling the city didnt have power over it there was an element to that in the past that led to a lot of fun rp but sure that def could be argued was unrealistic icly just based on the ig power differences in the city in other words rinth has no fighting chance to begin with and any boss actually living would be doing exactly the things that have made it less fun than when ppl had a way more open way of interpreting the power dynamic between the rinth and the city forces so maybe shake up whatever that dynamic is enough to where the rinth and the aod have no reason to constantly collude as groups and the templars have more or better things to worry about |
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Post by shakes on Oct 1, 2018 13:11:13 GMT -5
The problem is the lack of safe operating space. The rinth sucks as a fortress because Templars can just walk right the fuck in and murder you if they get fed up with your shit. Or they can flip the crimcode flag on you remotely and you're confined to those 35 or so rooms unless you want to face teleporting halfgiants who can see through master hide.
The reality is that you'd need staff support to animate rinther riots and such if the Templars really came in force, and general unrest in the city. But if you don't get that, or don't think you're going to get that ... then you don't dare make an enemy.
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jkarr
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Post by jkarr on Oct 1, 2018 13:20:30 GMT -5
The problem is the lack of safe operating space. The rinth sucks as a fortress because Templars can just walk right the fuck in and murder you if they get fed up with your shit. agree here and the fix is easy u can make it as inaccessible or dangerous to templars and soldiers as it is for wanted criminals in nak ie more dangerous teleporting hidden sentries + expanding the climb rooms/hideouts Or they can flip the crimcode flag on you remotely if theyve given pc templars or aod the power to do that then theyre fucking retarded if ur gripe is more that staff can do this well then thats a diff problem that has nothing to do with the setup itself |
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Post by shakes on Oct 1, 2018 13:30:10 GMT -5
I don't know who can do it. I know that it's been done. And when it's done, you're done in Nak.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2018 14:19:16 GMT -5
I dont think Templars can set wanted remote, not without staff aid.
Having said that, most Templars are monitored very closely. So if the criminal is known enough, setting wanted on them is a matter of a single wish up.
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tedium
Clueless newb
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Post by tedium on Oct 2, 2018 16:08:08 GMT -5
Kind of tangential to the clan cap discussion, but here's a thought on the Labyrinth's non-viability at a clan level: What if they added an anti-crimcode to the Labyrinth?
Basically the same thing as the crimcode in civilization, except the authority for the west side would be the Guild. You'd have to add new/more NPCs, but I think you could re-use a lot of existing code to make them effective and thematic. Raptor tracking and gortok/kryl pack mentality could be repurposed to create roving gangs of 3-5 NPCs that still rob people with expensive equipment, but actively pursue/murder people who have been crimflagged by the Guild's leader. A significant force of the Arm (especially supplemented by the Byn) could oppose them, but it would be an ordeal that leaves them open to additional parties entering the mix (assassinations in the chaos). It would also emphasize the importance of the east vs. west rivalry, because the opposing rinth clans would be most suited to taking each other out, but they would face the most direct retaliation for doing so because of the close proximity. Ultimately it would insulate both labyrinth factions from AoD and Templar reprisals within reason.
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Post by shakes on Oct 2, 2018 16:27:23 GMT -5
I hate everything about that.  What problem are you trying to solve with scripted code? |
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