Title Reduction and Madness

[Alasdair Galloway]

I appreciate the feedback from everyone so far!

We will be using the proposed merging as suggested by Gatito:

Seaside & Dockside
Dragon's Gate & Old Market
Old Temple & Cadentia
Battlefield Park & New Haven

We haven't discussed the names yet, but I do like the proposed ones. As things settle we'll open a new thread specifically for the names to see if there are any other proposals.

We're also going to pivot to giving 4 challenge grants for the final four, with the top two having special grants. And we'll be having a special Baron vs. Baron tournament which will either be concurrent to or after Madness, this way current title-holders can have a chance to defend their titles if they can't participate in Madness. This tournament will be announced after Madness has started.

And just as an aside, we have 21 characters entered now. We're extending sign-ups by a week both due to the changes of prizes and in hopes that we might be able to grab enough characters for 32.

Once again, the staff appreciates everyone's suggestions and feedback!

[Lost Valkyrie]

I think a title reduction is entirely understandable. Holding two titles myself, I don't have any sour grapes about it whatsoever. I really like the idea of making the barons of the two districts to be merged fight each other for unification. I also like the most recent grouping that has been proposed, and am glad to see we're moving forward with it.

If you need a villain for story purposes, I've got one. Vacía is thirsty for conquest and bored from not having been challenged, and it's entirely feasible that she might think that forcing a title reduction somehow would increase the scope of her conquest. She's been dabbling in witchcraft in that ghostly manor of hers, and for her to have enough hubris to try and mess with forces like this would be absolutely within her wheelhouse. I would also like people to hate her more, that would be wonderful. :V

[Reign]

Jake, thank you for the trip down memory lane. I really appreciate your insight on the history of the duels, and am glad someone like you is still around who not only remembers but cares to share with the community.

I find this part, here, most relevant to me and my character, who currently holds a title and has held many more before:

So...someplace, somewhere, there's an alien being/god/dimension...whatever it is (and I suggest it remain ill-defined) that is what the Ward of Gondar is attached to. The metaphysics of that connection in some manner cause injuries to be healed in the rings. Perhaps the "other" feeds on pain and blood. Perhaps it reacts to pain/blood the way the human body does and sends white blood cells (healing magic) to deal with that injury. That Ward is the connection between that transfers healing from that "other" to here.

A "spirit" or soul is needed (or was needed) to maintain that link. An anchor if you will. An intention. (Like maintaining Concentration in 5th ed. D&D.)

The rings are not what maintain the Ward. The rings lack intention. The rings are the conduit for the spirit/soul/will/concentration of the wearer to do the heavy lifting of maintaining the Ward.

Shared burden tied to currently active characters to maintain relevance.

It also accommodates those characters who are "unaffected" by the Ward. Perhaps those characters, in addition to not healing, also do not provide any stability to the Ward. But because the burden is shared, having a character or two that aren't contributing doesn't affect the Ward. (Hence why the Ward doesn't collapse when a baronial title goes vacant for a while.)

From the time I created Sal, it has been established that healing magic from outside sources does not work on him, and I carried that forward when I began dueling with him. Everything about his own magic is tied to his blood, which he has always been 100% capable of controlling and manipulating. I have written it many times that if he gets cut in the rings, his blood does not spill or get left behind. And this even before I knew about this possible connection to some otherworldly entity that feeds on blood.

This new insight only fortifies my position that Sal is not likely to help stabilize the ward. Heck. He never wears the baronial rings when he attains them. This is something I established from the very start, when he gained his first barony, in my own story: echoes of history. Every barony he has gained since he has never worn the ring on his finger. Usually he leaves them inside the baronial manors, or tucked away in his coat pocket. So maybe this ambiguous otherworld entity is really fed up with him for blocking its connection to the ward for the past several years, lol.

All this to say that yes I’m still on board to let Sal be part of the problem for your reduction story, but now it’s regardless of him becoming DiArchLord. Though that would be a cool amplification to the plot. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow just how strong his influence, like The Pulse of Autumn, could be!

Adding Reign to the "the healing wards don't work on them" = "annoyed entity" list. Hers tie to her timeline's lack of them and has been a thing from the start for her. Glad to contribute if needed.

[Rachael Blackthorne]

A point that I haven't seen come up yet in this discussion: what happens to the rules about Loyal Wall/Renegade Wall with just four baronies effectively once they are combined?

Will a clear majority, either way (3 out of 4 Baronies), be needed to satisfy the conditions for the Loyal/Renegade Wall? What happens if there's an even split (2 and 2)?

Something to think about and discuss.

[Delahada]

It’s already in the rules that in the event of a tie, the Senior Baron’s alignment decides whether or not the Overlord has a Loyal majority. I don’t expect the reduction complicates or changes this at all.

[Alasdair Galloway]

Correct, the senior baron will be the tiebreaker.

[Mairead Harker]

I found some of what you were referring to in this post by Auritan. ~ The Ward of Gondar ~.

[Alasdair Galloway]

So since we ended up with Barons in the Final Four and I didn't plan for that possibility, we're looking at the best way to tackle the Barons fighting.

Suggestion 1:

A round robin tournament. We'd give plenty of time for Barons to match up with each other, so it would be a multi-week thing. The advantages that the Final Four get would in the form of extra fancies to use through the tournament.

Madness winner: 3 extra fancies
Runner-up: 2 extra fancies
3rd and 4th place: 1 extra fancy

The top 4 winners will get to choose which new Barony they want, even if they do not have a ring that matches up to it.

Suggestion 2:

The same format as suggestion 1, but instead of extra fancies, opponents facing off against the final four would have reduced fancies by the same amount listed above. So the Baron facing off against the Madness winner would have 3 fewer fancies, etc.

Suggestion 3:

Sal suggested that when the Barons match up, the final four already start with 1 win in a best of 3 series.

If you have any other suggestions, please post them here. Or if there is a preference for the 2 already listed, let us know. I believe that we'll likely need to wait until Madness is finished before moving to the Baron vs Baron aspect, so we have a little bit of time before settling on a format.

[Lost Valkyrie]

This notion of running an actual tournament feels kind of surprising, and kind of like it came out of nowhere. I think that many of us were under the impression that the pairs would have challenge matches to determine who gets the merged pairing.

I think having a tournament to determine who gets to be a Baron after the mergers has a couple of potential problems. First, there is the possibility that both participants of any given pairing could be locked out of having a Barony. That could be by design, but I'm not sure if it's actually desirable. It does get around the fact that some players have really lopsided matchups with each other, but I'm not sure if that's something we really want to avoid all that badly. And second: it's much more complicated to schedule every baron fighting every other baron than it is to schedule only with the other person in your pairing and then find a caller who's available at that time.

And speaking of callers... if we did a tournament, how would an official factor into it? If we're looking at a multi-week round robin, would we have an official at all? Would that be more or less desirable than having challenge matches officiated in some manner?

Now, to speak about the modifier perks. I think that reducing modifiers is way more impactful than gaining modifiers. A baron who didn't place top four in Madness fighting against the Madness winner would go down to only two mods, which is very constricting. However, the impunity of going from five mods to eight is much less impactful, because I think most of us are already used to making decisions with our five-mod budget in mind. Spending a mod and being incorrect still has a small impact even at five mods. At eight mods, you basically just don't get punished at all for spending a mod and being wrong. So I would be much more in favor of mod buffs instead of mod nerfs because it doesn't affect tactics as much.

[Mairead Harker]

Now, to speak about the modifier perks. I think that reducing modifiers is way more impactful than gaining modifiers. A baron who didn't place top four in Madness fighting against the Madness winner would go down to only two mods, which is very constricting. However, the impunity of going from five mods to eight is much less impactful, because I think most of us are already used to making decisions with our five-mod budget in mind. Spending a mod and being incorrect still has a small impact even at five mods. At eight mods, you basically just don't get punished at all for spending a mod and being wrong. So I would be much more in favor of mod buffs instead of mod nerfs because it doesn't affect tactics as much.

A couple years back, there was a tri-sport tournament that had perks associated with the Opals. The Opals were used to enhance weapons that were used in the Swords part of the event (Might of the Dragon: King of the Ring Tournament!) and found in a Dragon Cache that was opened in the Magic part of the tournament. Might of the Dragon Special Rules Maybe something like that will work.

[Alasdair Galloway]

This notion of running an actual tournament feels kind of surprising, and kind of like it came out of nowhere. I think that many of us were under the impression that the pairs would have challenge matches to determine who gets the merged pairing.

I think having a tournament to determine who gets to be a Baron after the mergers has a couple of potential problems. First, there is the possibility that both participants of any given pairing could be locked out of having a Barony. That could be by design, but I'm not sure if it's actually desirable. It does get around the fact that some players have really lopsided matchups with each other, but I'm not sure if that's something we really want to avoid all that badly. And second: it's much more complicated to schedule every baron fighting every other baron than it is to schedule only with the other person in your pairing and then find a caller who's available at that time.

And speaking of callers... if we did a tournament, how would an official factor into it? If we're looking at a multi-week round robin, would we have an official at all? Would that be more or less desirable than having challenge matches officiated in some manner?

Now, to speak about the modifier perks. I think that reducing modifiers is way more impactful than gaining modifiers. A baron who didn't place top four in Madness fighting against the Madness winner would go down to only two mods, which is very constricting. However, the impunity of going from five mods to eight is much less impactful, because I think most of us are already used to making decisions with our five-mod budget in mind. Spending a mod and being incorrect still has a small impact even at five mods. At eight mods, you basically just don't get punished at all for spending a mod and being wrong. So I would be much more in favor of mod buffs instead of mod nerfs because it doesn't affect tactics as much.

Well as I said, I didn't plan for all the Madness finalists being Barons too, so it threw a wrench into things. That's why I'm asking the Barons which way they want to go.

A round robin tournament wouldn't need officials and would be done with the Barons communicating with each other on time and dates. We'd set a deadline on when all matches would need to be complete and it would be up to the Barons to get in the duels by that time.

The idea is that these will be unsanctioned or unofficial. An IC caller wouldn't be necessary, and I think just an OOC heads up to staff on the day and time would be good so we can try and make ourselves available if something goes wrong with the bot or something like that.

I really have no preference as far as a round robin tournament or just having the pairs match up in a best of three. This is why I'd like for the Barons to say which they prefer because they're the ones who will be participating.

Thanks for the input on the perks. I would be more in favor of adding more mods because I feel like taking them away feels like not allowing someone to use the perks they've earned. But again, if the majority of Barons want something else, we'll do that.

[Partly Cloudy]

If this storyline and conversation were happening during another time of year, I think I would be more open to the idea of a longer form, round robin tournament. That said, I'm currently still fighting Madness fights, and the very idea of having to fight seven more fights immediately after, just to keep my character's status and title, is exhausting. From my perspective, as one of the Final Four, I don't think it's very fair to ask that of us. At least, not at this point in time, and not with the current prize list for Madness.

Now, if you want to swap out the current prizes for something else and give us some resting time after Madness is finished—as well as giving this storyline some more time to cook and play out, so our characters can figure out that the city needs redistricting and baronies need to be merged—and then determine which four barons will be the first seated in the new baronies via a round robin, I'm more open to that. Right now, though, there's just too much happening in too short of a period of time, and I don't want to have to tap out before this is finished.

I still think the simplest solution is the one I proposed initially: that Swords staff would decide upon how the city is redistricted for the baronies, and then have the two barons of each pair fight a challenge to decide who holds both rings. I still think this is simplest and most elegant on many levels, including for the sake of the histories. Close out the chapters on the current baronies with the final baron-v-baron fights—officially. And begin anew.

In the other thread, the Barons Council came up. I think this is a great idea and goes hand in hand with what I proposed above. The BC can meet with the DoS team and decide how the city needs to look going forward, and then that sets the matches. It's a little deus ex machina, sure, but it'll get the job done, and it will make the IC narrative match what's been decided OOC.

Anyhow, at this point in time, the only one of these suggestions that appeals to me, personally, is Suggestion 3.

[Lost Valkyrie]

My motivation is similar to Gatito's. Both of my characters stayed in Madness until the final four, so I've been mired in scheduling. I'm tired of scheduling things! So I'm also exhausted. Matt likely is too. So I am in favor of just having Challenge matches between each pairing with perks for the Madness final four.

Also, Gatito mentioned the Madness prize list. I assumed those were placeholder prizes. I still feel like they are, actually. Especially because the characters don't know yet that there are going to be new baronies. There's a contradiction there, so I've been having my characters ignore the existence of prizes entirely for the time being.

[Alasdair Galloway]

Thanks, that input helps! I think it's pretty well settled we'll go with just the eight facing off head to head and giving fancies as advantages.

I consider the Madness posts to be mostly OOC, so I think for now characters would be waiting for the end for prize announcements.

[Partly Cloudy]

Thanks, that input helps! I think it's pretty well settled we'll go with just the eight facing off head to head and giving fancies as advantages.

That'll work. Thank you for that update.

I consider the Madness posts to be mostly OOC, so I think for now characters would be waiting for the end for prize announcements.

I mean this kindly, but I think you are probably in the minority regarding that, particularly since the Madness folder and all of its posts are in the In Character section of our forums. I think most of us acknowledge that there is some OOC language in the Rules And Regulations posts, as there must be, but the rest of it exists in the overlap between IC and OOC. Things like prizes, who is facing whom, when fights are scheduled to happen, etc. are as relevant to the IC world as to the OOC one. As far as I know, in the past six years or longer, characters have gone into Madness knowing that there was an Overlord Challenge Grant on the line for the winner.

This year has existed in a sort of grey space because the prizes haven't matched the characters' reality. I can't speak for others, but that grey space has hampered how I've interacted with both Madness and the ongoing Ward SL. Unfortunately, I've previously forgotten to ask what our characters do and do not know about prizes in Madness this year, thanks to general life busyness.

In the future, if the current DoS team considers Madness posts largely OOC, it may be a good idea to clearly denote in those posts what is considered OOC and what is considered IC, and make it clear for the sake of the shared IC narrative what characters do and do not know going into Madness. I would suggest moving the folder to the OOC section of our board for the sake of clarity, but there's a lot of IC work in that folder, too, like TippleToe's Tip Top Ten threads, so maybe splitting off into an IC folder and an OOC folder would be better?

Anyhow, where do our characters stand this year with regards to this issue? Do they all believe they have been fighting for the expected Overlord Challenge Grant? What happens when that isn't delivered to the winner? How will it be explained that there is no such grant, and that the districts are being merged? How will it be explained that the Final Four are being granted extra fancies, since fancies are an OOC mechanism to reflect greater skill with ranking? I'm asking from an IC perspective because these are important to the shared narrative, particularly at this point in time.