Posted by Graatch(VIP) on May 12, 2000 at 09:07:19:
In Reply to: Nope, nope, nope, nope.... How wrong you are. posted by Someone who really likes the new rough and tumble Empire. on May 12, 2000 at 08:17:13:
> Cabal Leadership always starts with the Immortals, then down from there.
That's fine. I'm all for letting it trickle down. If the Emperor is not acting appropriately, not anathing enough, whatever, then the Imm's step in and anath him, and replace him.
Step down a level. If a sectleader is not doing it right, not anathing enough, acting wrongly, then the Emperor anath's him. He is replaced.
Step down a level. If a citizen is not doing it right, not living up to citizen standards, then the sectleader anath's him, and replaces him with a bloodoath.
Step down a level. If a bloodoath is not doing it right, not sucking up enough, not doing whatever it is demanded of him, he isn't given citizenship.
Step down a level. If someone wont take the bloodoath, kill them.
See how this works? Each person has someone/some group to fear, someone/group that oversees, and can be capricious as they want, *within their rung.*
There is just no need for the Imms to be doing it to the citizens, on a general basis. That's part of the point of having not just one, but five cabal leaders, in empire.
Bria, Boltthrower, Pico, Raisa, etc. all do way more uninducting then their Mortal leaders. That's the way things work, Cabals are run by Immortals as well as Mortals, and if anathing was left to the Mortals it wouldn't happen nearly often enough to make up for the easy entrance process and you'd have people breaking the laws all the time because they would never get caught.
See above. If an Emperor or sectleader isn't anathing enough, or being "mean" enough, then it's an imm's job to chew him out and/or anath him. Just like I described.
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> A great deal of the betrayal of the Imperial Law/Battlerager Code/Laws of Thera happen when no Mortals are around to witness it and specifically not when the Mortal Leaders are standing right there. So aside from the fact that all CF precident points to having Immortals do the majority of the uninducting, it simply isn't feasible to have only mortals anath.
Obviously, someone is going to say, "but sectleaders and an emperor aren't on all the time, they wont see all the bullshit that would normally get someone anath'd, but is done outside their sight/logon times." Well come on, this is not particulary difficult to get around. Unless the citizen/player logs on *exclusively* when he is the *only* citizen around, then other citizens will see and know of his routine fuck-ups. They can tell their sectleader, or his sectleader. They can send notes, they can pray. And, on the other side, the sectleader can simply ask around about his underlings, etc. And even more, an Imm can switch into a mob, say, a centurion, and comment to the sectleader, "the barracks (where centurions come from) has noticed that citizen x has been acting very strangely. Better keep an eye on him." Bam! You have an informed mortal leader who can now deal with it. (I've had more than one imm do this with some of my cabal leaders. It enhances roleplay as well as works in an administrative capacity) If they refuse to, or choose to do nothing, and it happens more than just once, then as per above, you anath the leader and install a new one who *will* do what is necessary.
There are plenty of ways to find out and patrol, and unlike other cabals where there is just one mortal leader to do it all, and perhaps justification for a greater imm role in day to day business, the empire has five leaders.
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> Further, if the Emperor is a mean, scheming person who should anath at a whim, the Immortals of Empire should be that much meaner and more scheming since they all came from the meanest, nastiest, most successful Imperial Citizens to get to their place.
Not necessarily true, witness Vilhazarog. *smirk*
But in all seriousness, that's not really the point. Nobody is saying that the Imms aren't evil assholes. But you know what? Anathing like this has an ooc component, especially given the way it is done. It's an enormous negative impact on a character which makes the *player's* time investment, 95% of the time, a waste. Again, if there were even some really basic, really fundamental consistency to it, people (and myself) would be less likely to take issue with it being done. But that basic consistency is lacking. And people play a game with rules because rules provide expectations and some foreseability. When you roll up a char you have some notion of how things can go. When something happens that is outside that, and isn't something that can be dealt with by a mortal, it is inappropriate. In my opinion.
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> > If a sectleader or emperor had anath'd them, I bet there would be far, far less anger about this, and likely not even a peep...
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> Player paranoia about the Immortal Conspiracy should be the last thing that should bring about change in the game. There would be no Immortals at all if various mortals had their way. Some group hates just about every Imm out there, so if they worried at all about Player Opinion the game would fall apart.
I think that entire paragraph as a non-sequitur. Nobody was saying that game policy should be driven by any particular group's personal goals. And that is not what is going on here. Nobody said there was an Imm conspiracy about this. (as oppose to other things....:P) The arguments put forth here are based on how things work and how things affect players as a whole. Not on whim the desires of some special interest group.
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> >>While it may not be quantifyably different, it is enough that it *feels* different when it's done by an Imm, and that it changes from Imm to Imm so there isn't even some consistency there, in that smaller sample.
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> If you can feel the difference, then you should be able to figure out who is anathing you so it shouldn't matter if they are Wizi or not. In any case, I imagine that part of the reason that they anath while Wizi instead of Vis is to stop personal attacks from people and to try and create a feeling that you never know who is watching you when, so you'd better be on your toes at all time. Big Brother watching is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to keep people in line with the Cabal Laws of any of the various cabals out there.
And that could be nearly as easily accomplished by having mortal leaders do it. Well informed mortal leaders. Mortal leaders who roleplay it, rather than just some voice from nowhere who explains nothing. Mortal leaders who bribe sectmembers of other sects to gain information about their own members, so they know who to trust at all, who to anath, who to reward, who to put on the "soon to be anath'd" list, etc, etc, etc.
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> > Let the Mortals do the anathing. You complain there are no mortals to do it? Well that's because you haven't made anyone sectleader and emperor. You complain that nobody is good enough? Too bad, the game has the players it has...
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> First of all, I'm not complaining that there are no mortals to do it, but I would absolutely prefer to have no Emperor at all rather than a weak one. The Emperor should always be a badass who commands respect, no matter what. Sect Leaders can be weaker, but should still be able to command respect. All Mortal Cabal leaders should command respect, and if there is no one to fill the role, the Imms should take over.
I could not disagree more. And I think you are placing your personal desires over real roleplay, in this instance. Sure, you want cabals to be the way you want them, you want emperors who are strong, command respect, etc. But it is unrealistic in the *extreme* to believe that an EMPIRE (think, really, an EMPIRE) would have not just no leader, but no sub leaders! And for *years*! (Game time -- weeks in real time.) THe problem is, there is an artificially imposed structure. Sure, some of it is necessary. It is required that an imm actually make some mortal a leader. Mortals can't simply declare themselves sectleader and actually be the sectleader with induction powers, anath powers, etc. So, yes, it has to be at least that one step away from realism. But why distance it even more than you need to from realism? Your arguments constantly refer to the "real" actions of some evil capricious person. Why be selective in when you choose to enhance realism and acting in concert with how someone/something of that nature would behave? An Empire has an Emperor. It has Sub-leaders. (It may have a senate, some legislative body, whatever, but you get the idea.) THIS Empire has an Emperor and five Sub-leaders. If one is lost for whatever reason (death, coup, resignation, etc.) then another would realistically step up and take his place, and very very quickly. Unlike other cabals that can go a long time without a leader as part of their rp (battle is based on true combat prowess, masters are very smart and proficient at magic, etc. and so can wait until someone rises who meets those OBJECTIVE criteria) the Empire has no objective criteria. Whoever is strongest, AT THAT TIME, should and would realistically be, the leader. And he would stay leader until someone stronger came along and took his place. Violently, usually.
Instead, you artificially impose long periods of time waiting for some player who fits your bill of a leader. And while doing this, you hurt both the function of the game as well as the roleplay of the empire. Install the new mortal sectleaders pretty much asap when the slot is open, and let them fight it out, deal with it. IF they fuck up and act like some dawnite and not anath anyone or walk around dropping rose petals, then anath them and install the next guy. Who cares if that means you get three blademasters in a week? That would be realistic and would allow people to play their roles and their chars. That's how an empire works, and how people can have some reasonable confidence that they must toe the line or they'll get the boot.
Further, you complain about the way the Immortals act? To bad, the game has the Immortals it has, deal with it.
That's mature. Take your marbles and go home? Not worthy of you.
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> Also, the main reason Rome eventually fell is because they had incompitent Emperors who hung onto the power when they weren't strong enough to lead... If Empire wants to succeed they should ignore your "historical advice."
You missed the point entirely. Nobody is giving advice for how empire should grow stronger or weaker. Rather the discussion is how the cabal should run on a day to day basis. Bad emperors/leaders? Fine, they run down the empire until someone better comes along and pushes them out. You don't impose some artificial "world in a bubble" hermetically sealed citadel that only the imm-liked can join. That is called the sylvan cabal. :P