Another Proposal

[Amaltea]

I will stand by the example of Guill though. The ability to submit and fight 4 challenges in 4 consecutive months feels broken.

Maybe, but did this person win? Obviously not, because he/she/it was able to challenge 4 times in 4 months. So the warlord got to challenge, the title got challenged but didn't change hands. Again, the title holder was able to defend and add a peg to their bragging record. Maybe -- hopefully -- they even got a little bit or RP along with it. The Warlord should have the "You suck!" title.

Kidding!!!!

Another thing I noticed while looking at the histories is that basically the same people have been title holders at one point or another. Other than Neo and Deathlord I haven't seen any other new faces holding the titles. I'm not pointing this as a bad thing, but we do have new Warlords and it would be nice to see them challenging.

But not every Warlord wants to be a Baron or Overlord.

For the purposes of RP and the game mechanics the titles are supposed to have meaning.

My opinion is that the rules are just rules, the roleplay comes from the player, the history, and the setting. The titles are meaningful when the player holding that title makes it so. The rules should not dictate how to roleplay or force roleplay. I don't think anyone wants to be told how to play, or when, or with who. After all, we are free form. It's up to the player to want to roleplay.

Question, is Dalamar remembered because he was a great roleplayer? Which I have no clue if he was or not because I was not around for that time. Or is he remembered because of the number of defenses?

Now take Siera for example. Is she remembered because she was a great duelist? Or is it because of the story lines?

You are always going to have two groups: 1. The group that wants to duel because they like it, with a bit of RP on the side. 2. The group that prefers to RP with a side of dueling.

[Rock]

I may be new here, but given that we have someone who clearly does not understand the way things ought to work, why not ban Warlords like that from dueling, period? From what little I have read so far, banning someone who exploits the rules every chance he/she/it gets would be an excellent solution to that problem.

Having rules in place to prevent it from happening again would be a sensible step as well, and I am all for a Show of Activity or a time limit on challenges, should I ever get up to that level.

[Artemus Kurgen]

For the purposes of RP and the game mechanics the titles are supposed to have meaning.

My opinion is that the rules are just rules, the roleplay comes from the player, the history, and the setting. The titles are meaningful when the player holding that title makes it so. The rules should not dictate how to roleplay or force roleplay. I don't think anyone wants to be told how to play, or when, or with who. After all, we are free form. It's up to the player to want to roleplay.

The titles are part of the setting and while yes we are discussiong OOC rules, these are of a dual nature as they effect parts of the world in an IC manner. There are characters that actually quote the histories in-game as well as cite certain parts and paragraphs. It's not about forcing, it's we are discussing a change to the setting and that in itself EFFECTS THE ROLE PLAY.

The Universal Terms of Challenge are both an IC and OOC entity. So I am looking at all of this from the IC persepctive. In the realm of Rhydin to our characters these titles are actually something tangible just just a name on a screen so to say that they only have meaning to US the players is a complete load. If they don't have a meaning in both IC and OOC context why have them period?

[Sartan]

So I am looking at all of this from the IC persepctive. In the realm of Rhydin to our characters these titles are actually something tangible just just a name on a screen so to say that they only have meaning to US the players is a complete load. If they don't have a meaning in both IC and OOC context why have them period?

For a long time, being a Baron or Overlord had no meaning IC other than rank on the Standings. There were no manors, no Overlord Island, and yet challenges thrived in high volume. The reason for wanting a title could be any number of things, limited only by your creativity. Even if you didn't care about the creative part and were just power dueling, the reason for challenging was simply to reach the next echelon of rank.

I always thought the Opals in DoF were cooler than Baronial rings because they came with abilities, and yet Sar's only challenged for one Opal while having challenged for quite a few more Baronies. I stopped actively pursuing DoS challenges with this character because he didn't want the newfound responsibility being a Baron implied once the Rings were revamped.

[Goldglo]

I may be new here, but given that we have someone who clearly does not understand the way things ought to work, why not ban Warlords like that from dueling, period? From what little I have read so far, banning someone who exploits the rules every chance he/she/it gets would be an excellent solution to that problem.

Given the E-Mail address that pops up from the "E-Mail" link within your profile, I have my doubts that you're really a new player here on RoH. However, it doesn't really matter.

If you can be more specific regarding which rule(s) you believe have been exploited, it will be much easier to answer your question regarding banning. Banning only takes place rarely, and most definately not on a whim. Can you be specific as to the behaviors/exploitations you've seen or encountered that you believe would be best served, consequence-wise, with a ban? Also, in order not to derail this thread, please tie-in your banning query with the overall theme/topics of this thread or, perhaps, begin a new thread altogether. The rules discussions/potential changes we're all reading about, thinking about, and posting about in this thread should remain the primary focus of the thread.

--Matt

[PrlUnicorn]

I may be new here, but given that we have someone who clearly does not understand the way things ought to work, why not ban Warlords like that from dueling, period? From what little I have read so far, banning someone who exploits the rules every chance he/she/it gets would be an excellent solution to that problem.

Having rules in place to prevent it from happening again would be a sensible step as well, and I am all for a Show of Activity or a time limit on challenges, should I ever get up to that level.

Because if you banned everyone simply because they don't understand the rules, and nuances there of, few people would be playing.

The titles are part of the setting and while yes we are discussiong OOC rules, these are of a dual nature as they effect parts of the world in an IC manner. There are characters that actually quote the histories in-game as well as cite certain parts and paragraphs. It's not about forcing, it's we are discussing a change to the setting and that in itself EFFECTS THE ROLE PLAY.

The Universal Terms of Challenge are both an IC and OOC entity. So I am looking at all of this from the IC persepctive. In the realm of Rhydin to our characters these titles are actually something tangible just just a name on a screen so to say that they only have meaning to US the players is a complete load. If they don't have a meaning in both IC and OOC context why have them period?

A full division of the rules into separate IC and OOC sections used to come up a lot. The consensus was it would make things too damned confusing. and it still would!

As Sartan pointed out, back in the day there were no manors and districts. Baronial rings had numbers not names. Creativity was what we all had to work with as players and we did whether or not we were title holders.

I think the big problem here is that someone, Guill, exploited a potential flaw in the rules that allowed him to challenge a lot. The irony to me is now he's proposing that rules be changed so no one else be allowed to press challenge in the same manner. There will always be people that want to test the limits of the rules no matter how many changes are made. If they were changed every time someone disagreed with their workings, more time would be spent on rules discussions than actually playing the game itself.

Isn't what we're really dealing with here a lack of common sense? Do the rules have to be written to force people to use it?

[Kalamere]

The banning thing is my fault (though not my suggestion) and for that I apologize. I didn't mean to throw Guill under the bus here and I certainly don't think any action should be taken against him. He has found a niche for his character and decided to play it that way. Some of us may disagree with it, but that's certainly no reason to suggest banning the guy.

My wife and I play spades with another couple fairly regularly, always on opposite teams. She's found a bidding strategy that I really don't like and think ought to be removed with a house rule. I don't think she should be kicked out of the game and we're not all about to stop playing. I just think the rules should be tweaked to remove what I think is inappropriate. Same applies here.

The rules should not dictate how to roleplay or force roleplay. I don't think anyone wants to be told how to play, or when, or with who. After all, we are free form. It's up to the player to want to roleplay.

Taking that to it's logical next step would be to say let's get rid of ranks and let anyone challenge for title.

The game has two faces. Yes, it is in place to support FFRP. But it is also a game unto itself, with a rule set that already restricts the nature of free-form to some degree. We are more properly a quasi-free-form arena. Make your character whatever you want, but our combat and rank advancement is, and has always been, much more rule based than just two players deciding on how to cooperatively write their fight outcome. In fact, if you try to decide a challenge like you would a true free-form fight you would risk being banned for collusion.

At the risk of being a broken record on the topic.. I am only suggesting here that we find a better middle ground.

Peer wins existed for a lot of years and, even though I despise the system, they put a reasonable stumbling block in the way of challenges. The system existed for well over a decade and then suddenly went poof. The current system has no stumbling block whatsoever.

The idea, I believe, is to find the compromise that lies somewhere between peer wins and nothing at all. If we're looking at the gauge, I think the 5 duel SoA might point too close to the current system to serve as the compromise we need.

[Artemus Kurgen]

The banning thing is my fault (though not my suggestion) and for that I apologize. I didn't mean to throw Guill under the bus here and I certainly don't think any action should be taken against him. He has found a niche for his character and decided to play it that way. Some of us may disagree with it, but that's certainly no reason to suggest banning the guy.

My wife and I play spades with another couple fairly regularly, always on opposite teams. She's found a bidding strategy that I really don't like and think ought to be removed with a house rule. I don't think she should be kicked out of the game and we're not all about to stop playing. I just think the rules should be tweaked to remove what I think is inappropriate. Same applies here.

The rules should not dictate how to roleplay or force roleplay. I don't think anyone wants to be told how to play, or when, or with who. After all, we are free form. It's up to the player to want to roleplay.

Taking that to it's logical next step would be to say let's get rid of ranks and let anyone challenge for title.

The game has two faces. Yes, it is in place to support FFRP. But it is also a game unto itself, with a rule set that already restricts the nature of free-form to some degree. We are more properly a quasi-free-form arena. Make your character whatever you want, but our combat and rank advancement is, and has always been, much more rule based than just two players deciding on how to cooperatively write their fight outcome. In fast, if you try to decide a challenge like you would a true free-form fight you would risk being banned for collusion.

At the risk of being a broken record on the topic.. I am only suggesting here that we find a better middle ground.

Peer wins existed for a lot of years and, even though I despise the system, they put a reasonable stumbling block in the way of challenges. The system existed for well over a decade and then suddenly went poof. The current system has no stumbling block whatsoever.

The idea, I believe, is to find the compromise that lies somewhere between peer wins and nothing at all. If we're looking at the gauge, I think the 5 duel SoA might point too close to the current system to serve as the compromise we need.

I concur Kalamere and that's what I've been asking about with upping the ante a bit.

[G]

I'm pretty close to just capping the amount of times a Warlord can challenge per cycle.

It may be easier to track that than it is to track SoA. You can still challenge whenever you feel like, but at a limited rate. I like 2 as the number.

I like WLs challenging Overlord provided the majority of Barons are Renegade, and along with the rest of the rules pertaining to that.

No more pointing at Guill for taking advantage of the current rules. I knew the chance was there when I came up with the current challenge rules, I just had faith that the community could restrain themselves when it came to it. While it's sad to see my faith destroyed, but I knew the risks.

I'm not for punishing the rest of the WL community for the actions of one single duelist, but I do also believe in protecting that same community from any potential threats further down the line. It's easier and more beneficial to improve the rules now, rather than wait for any more potential threats down the line to come take advantage of the current system.

I want WLs to be able to challenge the OL. I want there to be an actual Quest, so to speak, in order to challenge for Baron. If not, a limit on amount of challenges is better. It will make you think harder on how you spend that challenge. For me, it's easy to track "Spring Cycle, G challenged Aya and Tormay already, so can't challenge Maria"

I would like very much to come to a conclusion before the end of this cycle, so we can all decide, as a community, how best to proceed in the Summer Cycle. Keep it as is, or change.

[Kalamere]

I'm pretty close to just capping the amount of times a Warlord can challenge per cycle.

It may be easier to track that than it is to track SoA. You can still challenge whenever you feel like, but at a limited rate. I like 2 as the number.

I know we shouldn't point at Guill any more and I'm sorry to continue doing so.. but I feel compelled to point out that his 4 challenges would still fall within that guideline. 2 Winter Cycle, 2 Spring Cycle.

SoA should be pretty easy to track since duel results are publicly posted and it doesn't matter what rank the person dueled was. Just knock the number up to 10 from 5 and see how it works.

[Artemus Kurgen]

I'm pretty close to just capping the amount of times a Warlord can challenge per cycle.

It may be easier to track that than it is to track SoA. You can still challenge whenever you feel like, but at a limited rate. I like 2 as the number.

I like WLs challenging Overlord provided the majority of Barons are Renegade, and along with the rest of the rules pertaining to that.

No more pointing at Guill for taking advantage of the current rules. I knew the chance was there when I came up with the current challenge rules, I just had faith that the community could restrain themselves when it came to it. While it's sad to see my faith destroyed, but I knew the risks.

I'm not for punishing the rest of the WL community for the actions of one single duelist, but I do also believe in protecting that same community from any potential threats further down the line. It's easier and more beneficial to improve the rules now, rather than wait for any more potential threats down the line to come take advantage of the current system.

I want WLs to be able to challenge the OL. I want there to be an actual Quest, so to speak, in order to challenge for Baron. If not, a limit on amount of challenges is better. It will make you think harder on how you spend that challenge. For me, it's easy to track "Spring Cycle, G challenged Aya and Tormay already, so can't challenge Maria"

I would like very much to come to a conclusion before the end of this cycle, so we can all decide, as a community, how best to proceed in the Summer Cycle. Keep it as is, or change.

I don't think that Kalamere or I are pointing blame fingers, though Kalamere can speak for himself. I just see it as a point that the current system was abused soundly, albeit by one person and one alone. We should set up a safeguard to keep it from working for another person.

Going on from that, Warlords being limited to challenge 2x a cycle is reasonable, it means a Warlord can challenge 8 times in a year for Baron. Summer, Spring, Fall, Winter. Could we up the SoA numbers now that it's been brought up how close that is to our current system? Maybe 10 duels for Baron and 15 duels for Overlord as Kalamere mentioned.

This then gives us this to institute if chosen carefully:

UToC Addendums:
1. A Warlord may only challenge for Baron twice a cycle or Overlord once a cycle.

2. The Warlord may challenge for the Title of Overlord should either of the following prerequisites be met:
2a. The majority of Barons are alligned Renegade.
2b. The Warlord is given permission by a Ren. Baron on grounds the Baron his/her/its self cannot challenge that cycle.

3.Warlord has proven a Show of Activity by dueling X amoumt over the last cycle.


This sound about right to everyone?

[G]

I'm pretty close to just capping the amount of times a Warlord
This then gives us this to institute if chosen carefully:

UToC Addendums:
1. A Warlord may only challenge for Baron twice a cycle or Overlord once a cycle.

2. The Warlord may challenge for the Title of Overlord should either of the following prerequisites be met:
2a. The majority of Barons are alligned Renegade.
2b. The Warlord is given permission by a Ren. Baron on grounds the Baron his/her/its self cannot challenge that cycle.

3.Warlord has proven a Show of Activity by dueling X amoumt over the last cycle.


This sound about right to everyone?

Would SoA really been needed at this point, given adding restrictions?

[Artemus Kurgen]

I'm pretty close to just capping the amount of times a Warlord
This then gives us this to institute if chosen carefully:

UToC Addendums:
1. A Warlord may only challenge for Baron twice a cycle or Overlord once a cycle.

2. The Warlord may challenge for the Title of Overlord should either of the following prerequisites be met:
2a. The majority of Barons are alligned Renegade.
2b. The Warlord is given permission by a Ren. Baron on grounds the Baron his/her/its self cannot challenge that cycle.

3.Warlord has proven a Show of Activity by dueling X amoumt over the last cycle.


This sound about right to everyone?

Would SoA really been needed at this point, given adding restrictions?

I think SoA would then fall to be an eligibility requirement before any of the other options could be utilized. So like, say Artemus duels 10 times, and goes away for a month. Comes back and issues a challenge. He hasn't been dueling the past month but can issue a challenge because the SoA was within the cycle.

[G]

I should bring something up, by the way.

I want to include the casual gamer in this sort of thing. I don't want someone to feel forced to duel in order to get a challenge in, even if a cycle is long enough to get 10 duels in reasonably. Some people tend to duel maybe once or twice about every two-three weeks. I don't want to give the impression that we're excluding them, because they could possibly prefer to RP or Write as opposed to duel. Jake is a good example of this.

Thoughts?

[Tasslehofl Momus]

Well.. my little weigh in on this..

I like the SoA idea, as it does pull on the idea of the old Peer system. However, while everyone is choosing to go along the lines of "duels" rather than wins, it seems now that people are wanting a hurdle, or time frame between when you can challenge.

So, why not change the "duels" needed to "wins" needed... 5/10 or 10/15. Wins would not be that hard to track. Yes, the idea of dueling below ranks and commoners to just get those wins have come up.. but people are gonna do that regardless if they want to. Just as some people will push the limits of the rules to see how far they can go and what they can get away with.

And, as I said.. it really isn't that hard to track the "wins" if you are already tracking the "duels".