Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

That's the one downfall I see -- the Squire tournament, and I'm really partial to the use of Squires and I don't think we have any left. As far as political drama between baronies.. to an extent, it looks like it's already there. Granted, that's only speaking of things recently, but I can see how the trend will probably continue.

There's a lot of legitimacy to this. I have a good deal to think about because I don't want to see the Baron title become Watered down by entirely too many challenges, however I also don't want to see the activity die down either.

Definitely some things to consider here. A balance will need to be maintained.

Sinjin Fai wrote:As far as political drama between baronies.. to an extent, it looks like it's already there. Granted, that's only speaking of things recently, but I can see how the trend will probably continue.

Some of it's there. It comes from having active barons, not necessarily a lot of challenges. I'm afraid that what is there will be eroded and what is building will be lost.

I'm more refering to an Overlord trying to win control of the council, getting barons in place that will assist him in keeping power. It's hard to win control of the council if the council changes on a daily basis. Or a group of renegade barons grouping together to try to bring down the Overlord and his loyals.

Also, God forbid the council was actually needed to make a decision. It would be a nightmare trying to figure out who should be on it and who shouldn't be.

Again, I'm not sure if we've reached that point but those could be some of the pitfalls of a constantly changing baron's council.

Tasslehofl Momus wrote:And Guill.. in regards to your Loyal thing... They only *need* defend once a month, but they do have the right to wave that and be allowed (if they so choose) to defend ASAP. So, if a Loyal defends today, they can then choose to wave the grace period and immediately take another challenge tomorrow (or after the results are posted). I think G made that addendum to the rules somewhere.. either the boards or the official rules, since it wasn't clear to begin with.

Wanted to get to this while I have a brief moment.(Work again. :/)

When I recently went in to edit the rules, fix items and take out references to Peer Wins, I did add the Loyal right to Waive the need to only have one challenge a month. With a max of 3 weeks to get a challenge done, it's not likely going to happen very often. But in case it did, I gave Loyals the waiver rights so they could be challenge more than only once per calendar month.

Also, I have some time off coming up where I can get more in depth to these suggestions here. Will make sure to do that then.

I can see having a limit on how many challenges someone is allowed to have in a given time period.

Peer wins on the other hand are a different matter. I don't think the practice should be reinstated for one simple reason. One never knows when what is now a feast of players involved will slack off. One cannot gain peer wins if there aren't enough peers to meet the requirements.

So many challenges mean there is less and less of a chance to make your reign actually last for a prolonged period of time, and there isn't much of a chance to have one of those legendary reigns that people talk about for years.

I feel like it's too easy to challenge these days.

I don't think a high volume of challenges is a bad thing in terms of creating a duelist's legacy. To me, the Barons/OLs who successfully defended their title a number of times had much more impressive reigns than a Baron who had a title for 18 months but only had two defenses.

I agree that another means for challenging the Overlord would be a good idea. There's too much possibility for a bottleneck at the Baron's rank for people whose goal was Overlord, 10 Peer Wins for a Warlord to directly challenge the Overlord doesn't seem unreasonable.

If getting 10 Peer Wins nowadays is too daunting a task, maybe putting in a requirement for title holders could help? If person X becomes a Baron/OL, they're required to register Y Peer duels per month/cycle/whatevertimeperiodfitsbestandisfair.

Sartan wrote:If getting 10 Peer Wins nowadays is too daunting a task, maybe putting in a requirement for title holders could help? If person X becomes a Baron/OL, they're required to register Y Peer duels per month/cycle/whatevertimeperiodfitsbestandisfair.

While I agree that a Baron or Overlord should be able to be removed for inactivity, I do not like that it has to be a specific number of peer duels, because that would lead to Barons being removed because no one will face them.

That idea of peer wins being a way through to the Overlord wouldn't be bad, though, even if we keep a Baronial challenge as free.

And the funny thing? I don't think challenges are bad! But I think that a variety of challengers or challenged people would not be a terrible idea. Requiring a losing challenger to wait before challenging again is not wholly bad. Granted, it would kill two challenges this week (Anubis v Rena and Guill v Teagan), but it's quite possible that someone else might have stepped in to challenge instead.

Okay, here we go.

First, I'm not yet convinced that there has been too many challenges overall. Also, taking a look at the histories, there hasn't been much turnover in Baronies yet, either. So, thus far I'm don't believe that too many challenges is a problem.

Second, I think where the problem lies is that it is Too easy to challenge and re-challenge. There's no real risk -vs- reward in the case of a challenge for a Barony. If someone loses, it can be all "Oh well, soon as the standings are out I'm challenging for X barony."

Third, It has seemed a little unfair, almost, to not have Warlords able to challenge the Overlord with exception to the WLT winner. So maybe something should be worked on there.

That all said, I made the elimination of peer wins on a trial basis to test these sorts of things. Unfortunately, this was at a time when we still had very low levels of activity. Since at that time, we were getting a relatively adequate amount of challenges, there were no problems to be seen. That has, apparently, changed with the amount of activity we've seen increase here, activity in which I am very grateful to have.

I think a Barony that is defended several times, despite the amount of challengers is something to be applauded. So I don't want to take away the ease in which challenges are made.

I think a Warlord can challenge and re-challenge for a Barony too easy, thus devaluing the Barony title because there's absolutely no risk to the Warlord. So something should be done to make it slightly more enticing.

I think that an Overlord who only has to worry about a Baron or WLT winner challenging them would have a relatively easy reign, so something must be done to give the OL title more risk.
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Now, onto the initial proposals Guill made...

1. Should a Warlord fail in a challenge for a Barony or Overlordship, he will be unable to challenge for another Barony for a period of 30 days.

I understand the need for this one. I'll get to that more later in what some of my ideas are. That said, I am beginning to imagine that a re-challenge may have some merit in building some rivalries. So I don't think I'd limit the amount of time one can issue another challenge. But I do understand the thought behind this.

2. Should a Baron or Overlord be dethroned by a Warlord, he will be unable to challenge for another Barony for a period of 30 days.

This falls along the first proposal, and can be addressed with my idea as well.

(A) Should the Overlord be dethroned by a Renegade Baron, he will be unable to challenge for the Overlordship for a period of 30 days.
(B) Should the Overlord be dethroned by a Renegade Baron, he will be unable to challenge for the Overlordship for the remainder of the cycle.

I'm taking this one as a suggestion to choose either A or B, rather than going for both. Either way, there's no real reason to make a change to how things are done in regards to an Overlord losing their position. So, I'm not really inclined to do something different there.

With these first 3 rules, it appears that the desire boils down to "The loser of a challenge match is unable to issue challenge again for 30 days." Which I do understand where that comes from.

4. Loyal Barons would need only to defend their title once per 30 days.

I think we addressed this already. That rule is already in the UToC under the Loyal Baron section. The only change to this rule is where I added the waiver rights to those loyal barons. So in this case, there's no need for change.

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Now, on to my thoughts.

Warlords can make challenges with little to no effort. If they lose, they can just go on to the next one, as we've seen a lot recently. Now, this could have been done simply because of the holidays recently has left people with a lot of spare time, or maybe it's cause of the ease in which things are able to be done.

That said, I don't think I'll make any rules changes until after this cycle ends. But here are some thoughts.

Warlords:
As it is now; Warlords can challenge at will, except for a Barony they've already challenged for, and cannot issue a re-challenge if they've just lost a Barony, for that Barony, but can challenge the remaining 6.

Proposed change; Warlords are limited to 2(or 3) challenge rights per cycle to issue challenge to a Baron. They can challenge for any individual Barony up to twice a cycle. (this depends on how many rights they care given)

Barons:
As it is now; Renegade Barons can challenge the Overlord once per cycle.

Proposed change; None.

Overlord:
As it is now; Can only be challenged by Renegade Barons, Special Circumstances by Loyal Barons, and the prize winner of the Warlord Tournament.(WLT)

Proposed change; Re-institution of a Peer Win system for Warlords to issue challenge to Overlord. Barons and WLT prize winner challenge to OL remains the same. But a Warlord wanting to challenge for Overlord should be something they can earn. Judging by the amount of active Peer Duels available, the amount of Peer Wins should be in the range of 8-10. Peer Wins are zeroed out after a challenge is issued for any title.

Problem with the Peer Win system: Some duelists may consider it easier to just up and challenge a Baron and try to gain Overlord that way.

Possible solution: Include all challenges under the limited challenge rights previously described to Warlords. I.E. Any duelist able to challenge is limited to 2(3) challenge rights per cycle, not restricted to title. This means that G has 2 challenge rights. He issues Challenge to Battlefield and wins, using 1 challenge right, then challenges for Overlord, using his 2nd challenge right. Should he lose the Overlord challenge, and then lose the Barony, he would be unable to issue challenge for the remained of the cycle. Warlord Peer Wins to challenge the Overlord would not be included in the Challenge Rights. So, a Warlord could challenge an Overlord at will as long as they get 8-10 peer wins.

Peer Wins are defined as wins against Warlords, Barons, Overlord, and Grand Master Squires. You cannot have duplicate Peer Wins.(I.E. G could not appear on a Peer Win list twice.)
Exception: Warlord Tournament wins are considered Blind Peer Wins, and are usable even if a name appears on the PW list in regular dueling.
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I apologize if this looks really cluttered. But I am attempting to close as many loopholes as possible in these situations while still making things interesting and challenging.

Read at will!

G wrote:Overlord:
As it is now; Can only be challenged by Renegade Barons, Special Circumstances by Loyal Barons, and the prize winner of the Warlord Tournament.(WLT)

Proposed change; Re-institution of a Peer Win system for Warlords to issue challenge to Overlord. Barons and WLT prize winner challenge to OL remains the same. But a Warlord wanting to challenge for Overlord should be something they can earn. Judging by the amount of active Peer Duels available, the amount of Peer Wins should be in the range of 8-10. Peer Wins are zeroed out after a successful victory to any challengable title.

Problem with the Peer Win system: Some duelists may consider it easier to just up and challenge a Baron and try to gain Overlord that way.

Possible solution: Include all challenges under the limited challenge rights previously described to Warlords. I.E. Any duelist able to challenge is limited to 2(3) challenge rights per cycle, not restricted to title. This means that G has 2 challenge rights. He issues Challenge to Battlefield and wins, using 1 challenge right, then challenges for Overlord, using his 2nd challenge right. Should he lose the Overlord challenge, and then lose the Barony, he would be unable to issue challenge for the remained of the cycle. Warlord Peer Wins to challenge the Overlord would not be included in the Challenge Rights. So, a Warlord could challenge an Overlord at will as long as they get 8-10 peer wins.

Peer Wins are defined as wins against Warlords, Barons, Overlord, and Grand Master Squires. You cannot have duplicate Peer Wins.(I.E. G could not appear on a Peer Win list twice.)
Exception: Warlord Tournament wins are considered Blind Peer Wins, and are usable even if a name appears on the PW list in regular dueling.

The problem with peer wins is book-keeping.

Rather than go back to that, I'd suggest an idea that was proposed once before (though unfortunately I cannot remember who originally proposed it).

The essence of the original suggestion was that the Overlord was only challengeable if the majority of Barons were aligned Renegade.

This idea creates opportunity for RP in that it gives the Overlord an incentive to WANT their Barons to be Loyal. Hence a reason to interact with them. But, is also optional. If the Overlord wants to just ignore everyone, and risk the Barons going Renegade, which leaves him/her open to challenge, they can do that too.

So, in this proposal, the two scenarios would be:

1. Majority of Barons aligned Loyal: WLT winner, and other special circumstances, will allow direct challenge of the Overlord by a Warlord.*

2. Majority of Barons aligned Renegade: Overlord is open to challenge from any Warlord that chooses to initiate a challenge.*

* And also open to challenges from Barons as previously outlined in the rules.

From the perspective of the Warlord:

If the Barons are mostly aligned Renegade, the Warlord can offer challenge to the Overlord.

If the Barons are mostly aligned Loyal, the Warlord must either challenge a Baron and win, so that they can then challenge the Overlord, or they can try to convince enough Barons to turn Renegade, or get other Warlords to challenge and win enough Baronies, to create a Renegade majority.

Just a thought for consideration.

Less book-keeping. More potential RP/politics for those that wish to participate in such.

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As an addendum to the Squire rules, Squires may not challenge the Overlord.

How about each Warlord gets three challenge credits per cycle? Only...

Challenging a Baron takes away 1 credit.
Challenging the Overlord takes away 2 credits.

So a warlord could have three baron challenges in a cycle, or one and an overlord challenge.

Jake wrote:The essence of the original suggestion was that the Overlord was only challengeable if the majority of Barons were aligned Renegade.

This idea creates opportunity for RP in that it gives the Overlord an incentive to WANT their Barons to be Loyal. Hence a reason to interact with them. But, is also optional. If the Overlord wants to just ignore everyone, and risk the Barons going Renegade, which leaves him/her open to challenge, they can do that too.

So, in this proposal, the two scenarios would be:

1. Majority of Barons aligned Loyal: WLT winner, and other special circumstances, will allow direct challenge of the Overlord by a Warlord.*

2. Majority of Barons aligned Renegade: Overlord is open to challenge from any Warlord that chooses to initiate a challenge.*

* And also open to challenges from Barons as previously outlined in the rules.

From the perspective of the Warlord:

If the Barons are mostly aligned Renegade, the Warlord can offer challenge to the Overlord.

If the Barons are mostly aligned Loyal, the Warlord must either challenge a Baron and win, so that they can then challenge the Overlord, or they can try to convince enough Barons to turn Renegade, or get other Warlords to challenge and win enough Baronies, to create a Renegade majority.

Just a thought for consideration.

Less book-keeping. More potential RP/politics for those that wish to participate in such.

Never heard this idea before but (while I'm sure there's ramifications I haven't thought through) I am totally in love with the roleplay it could create.

Can you imagine how important that fourth baron would be? Very very cool.

I like Jake's suggestion a lot.. good stuff.

One other thing I just wanted to toss out there is the idea of requiring <insert number> of official duels rather than peer wins. One of the reasons peer wins existed was to make sure that people challenging were active in the sport. Simply counting how many duels someone has fought accomplishes that without requiring a bunch of active peers. So, if numbers decrease again you don't have to modify the system to account for somebody only being able to find 2 peers a week. As long as there are people dueling they can make their numbers.

Naturally this applies only if it's decided that a peer win system is necessary.

~Kal

Hi, Kal.


So who are you playing these days? What kind of experiences have you had with the current rules? Anything pop out that happened to you personally that might need more looking into?

Max Blue wrote:Hi, Kal.


So who are you playing these days? What kind of experiences have you had with the current rules? Anything pop out that happened to you personally that might need more looking into?

Activity in the rings or regular game play is not a requirement for having an opinion on rules. If Kal wants to make a suggestion on the rules, he's one of the people I'm going to take seriously.

Please keep comments in this thread constructive and on topic.

Max Blue wrote:Hi, Kal.


So who are you playing these days? What kind of experiences have you had with the current rules? Anything pop out that happened to you personally that might need more looking into?

If he is playing another character, I'm guessing he doesn't want to out himself any more than you want to out yourself.

If he's not, I, for one, still would like to hear his opinion as he is someone who has heard/seen a lot of these ideas through the years. Many of them have already been debated and the very some comments been discussed. If there's a good point that is being missed, I don't care if it's brought up by someone who plays every day or someone who hasn't touched the forum in five years.

A good idea is a good idea.