So I've been Ambassador of Glomdoring for a little while, now, and I'm really enjoying the interaction the role allows with outsiders.

But it occurred to me, that when I step down as GA of the BT, I'm going to lose many of the DIPLOMACY privs (the ones listed under "Organizational leaders only"), which I need to seamlessly handle all I'm supposed to (maybe - does guild security get all of the privs an org leader gets?).

I understand that different orgs utilise their Ambassadors for different things. In Glomdoring, the job handles everything from helping newbies and inducting new members, through to mass enemy/fine management. They serve as the Department of Immigration as well as the Ombudsman -- making sure fellow commune members follow the laws when branding enemies.

It's important to us that all of these duties are centralised in this role, as the Ambassador would need to understand an individual's prior status with the organisation before they were inducted. Accepting a novice straight from the Portal is different to opening our arms to an multi org/guild/spirit/order enemy.

The mechanics of the game (as shown in DIPLOMACY under "Ambassadorial ministry staff only" and HELP AMBASSADOR) seem to provide the Ambassador with induction and newbie-centric commands only.

I'm just curious how everyone else perceives the role of the Ambassador, and what you think it ought to be?

Personally, I'd always thought of the Ambassador as exactly what the word meant in a semi-RL context - that they served as a sort of face for the Organization in dealing with all the other Orgs, which in turn would likely mean they and their Ministry would be handling enemying/brandings/fines/treaties/et cetera. And in most Orgs that seems true, on top of serving in the official capacity of handing novices and induction .

Hallifax, on the other hand, switched to a more in-line with the abilities of the Ministry outlook in so much as the Ambassador only now deals with induction and novices . And now all of our "traditional" Ambassador functions dealing with enemies fall to the collected GCs, with GM/CL oversight, while the City Face aspect seems squarely on the Board Members. .

Bottom line being, mechanically the role of the Ambassador is generally more limited than our perception of what they should be doing. Personally I'd love to see it more in line with the idea of an Ambassador as per the word that the Ambassador handles inguild -and- enemyings already], but it's not quite that in practice and can be handled in other ways .

I have always been in the group that believes the Ambassador should be dealing with inter-organisation things (treaties and such), enemy fines (and relative inductions into the org), and such, not dealing with novices. I also believe the Ambassador should have as little enemy statuses as possible that deal with organisational guilds and related beings that give out status (spirits, lords, etc). But this latter point is more of hopeful thinking if anything.

Dealing with novices shouldn't be part of the job, this should fall under the guild undersecretaries (and I suppose to a lesser point, GA).

I have been told I was wrong and crazy for thinking both these things.

One thing to remember is that the ambassador is appointed, not voted in by the people.

The way I see it, they don't have the authority to speak for the people of their org, only those that were voted by the people do, and even more specifically: Only the one person that everyone got a chance to vote on really can. That'd be the org leader, of course.

I think the role of an Ambassador SHOULD be deleted. Hear me out:

Treaty negotiation is something that is going to be done by the council, as the council can ultimately reject any treaty the Ambassador approves, simply by recalling the Ambassador and appointing someone else, or by refusing to enforce the treaty. And, as Maellio said, nobody is going to listen to an Ambassador, they're going to laugh at you and ask to see the guy that's actually in charge.

City/Commune law is something that will not be enforced by the Ambassador, as the Ambassador, by default, has no ability to impliment punishments - they have to get a Security member to do brandings, a power aide to block/unblock and ranking citizen (or possibly several citizens) to oust.

The role of Ombudsman requires, again, that you be on the Council. There is exactly zilch that you can do as Ambassador to require the Council to obey the laws which a member of the Council cannot do better - they, unlike you, are immune to being replaced for calling the Council out on doing something illegal.

Helping novices is already done by the GAs, the undersecs and the college teachers. There is no need to appoint someone to do this job in addition to the other people already doing it. The only Ambassadorish thing left is "doing things with villages", but that's the job of the Steward.

So, yeah. Delete the Ambassador ministry, it isn't worth keeping.

Greleag:

So, yeah. Delete the Ambassador ministry, it isn't worth keeping.

+1

I was very much of the view that the ambassador role had two main functions - overseeing the collegium (and thus also keeping an eye on novices, though the day to day fell to the org novice aides), and the handling of new citizens via unenemying/fines. Basically, anyone joining or wanting to join the city/commune was under their scope. I also considered them to be a diplomat of sorts - a go between or a first point of contact for people, because really, does the CL need to be annoyed everytime someone wants to ask the process for getting unenemied to the city/commune? That doesn't imply they make the laws or even the treaties, but they were a good candidate to act as the voice-piece of the voted council. Think foreign minister. They're not voted in to their position, but they're chosen for the role (presumably) because they are an upstanding citizen.

The game mechanics don't agree with the above though. They get privs to see novices and that's about it. Nothing more spectacular than the GAs have. I actually agree that the ministry (if kept purely to the mechanic of looking after novices) is totally redundant. There's nothing they do that the guilds can't do in relation to the collegium/novices.

If I need something from another city or commune, I always message their Ambassador to ask for help. Not even for unenemyings, cause I've only had a couple of those and didn't care about removing them. No, for things like permission to visit or recommendations on who talk to about some subject or another. Stuff like that. Or, if I'm not having any luck finding a certain tradesman in my city or commune and people are ignoring anything that isn't dealing with curios in market, I'll look to see if friendly orgs have an Ambassador logged on and send them a tell asking if they could help me find someone in their city/commune.

Mechanics schmanics.

As an ambassador, I'd be a bit worried about unenemying someone without at least passing it by someone on the ruling council. Doesn't need to be CL, but if I let someone in who was (for whatever reason) not to be let in, I'd get a lot of heat. It's happened before, but if a guild master at least okays it, you can pass responsibility. Pretty much, in RL and IG, it's generally a good idea to pass responsibility up the chain of command as fast as possible in a potentially sticky situation. You save everyone a lot of trouble that way.