Oh, another vaguely related question: If you quit your guild (doesn't matter if you quit city or not), and you never forgot your skills, then rejoined as a novice, what would happen?

I think you keep your skills. That's judging from the fact that a Paladin who converted to the Celestines retained their Sacraments skills as a Celestine novice.

This is exactly why we did it this way, so moving from guilds is easier. It's stupid if yuo go from the good knights to the evil knights in other realms that you have to forget and relearn forging and chivalry.

I completely agree with this point. I never understood why you couldn't quit the guild, keep your skills and then, when you join another guild, have the skills at the same level but perhaps they feel it would encourage more people to go rogue earlier if they can quit a guild and keep their skills at GR1 or 2?

That's why we make all rogues lose their best power skills. Other games actually make it easier to go rogue and harder to switch guilds since rogues can keep everything, but if you join a guild with just one skillset different, you have to dump and relearn (with massive lesson loss) those two matching skillsets. Here, you don't have to dump so many skills, but rogues always are missing some skills.

Heh. I'm finding this out quite quickly myself.

If you quit a guild, then join another guild (or the same guild), you will be considered a "novice" which is different than a "freshman novice". A regular (non-freshman) novice who quits their guild does not lose any skills. Only a freshman novice (i.e., a newbie who joins a guild for the first time) that quits a guild will lose all their skills and receive almost all of their lessons back. This is to allow true newbies a chance to "shop around" for guilds if they happen to find they made a mistake in choosing a guild. Again, a non-freshman novice (someone who has already graduated from freshman novicehood at any point) retains all skills and loses nothing except guild membership.

Quitting a guild and remaining in that guild's city or commune allows full access to all guild skills. The loss here is mostly a disenfranchisement from the political process as you cannot vote for a member of the ruling council (the guildmaster). Of course, keep in mind that the guildmaster is defacto a member of the ruling council and can outcitizen you at any time, so if you want to remain a citizen and quit a guild, you'd probably want to make sure that you have some sort of understanding with the guildmaster.

This came up in the 'funnies' a few days back, after a Divine or two made the point about guild requirements (essays and such) being too high would drive away members, especially since guilds no longer hold the 'keys' to class as they do in other IRE games. My counter point was exactly what you mention here, that the GM, as a member of the ruling council, still has leverage over you nearly as powerful of class, that being citizenship and therefore power.

So, you have two changes from 'canon' IRE setups, both of which seem good taken apart:

1. You can get 'class' simply over a short course of game time, instead of requiring active guild promotion to attain class.

2. The political entities of cities and guilds are no longer entirely separate entities, but rather the guilds are integral and active parts of the city from top to bottom.

Taken together, you get the chance/probability that estrangement from guild leadership => estrangement from the city. I suggested, from my history in IRE games, that I wouldn't be surprised at all to see city laws to the effect that if you quit/are expelled from a guild, you are removed from the city as well (possibly with appeal or whatever).

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want it to be easier for people to be rogues (as anyone who knows who I am in Achaea is well aware, I've been very outspoken about this) and I think leverage for cities and guilds to maintain members is an important part of the IC roleplaying resolution that SHOULD happen in a game of this sort. I can't -stand- when people go out of their way to ensure that they answer to -no one- so that you can never appeal to an authority figure to haul in the reigns. It pretty much reduces the concept of 'IC resolution' to 'retributive PK.' Most of these same people are also serpent class with artifact wings and blah blah *rambling* (note, I have no problem with DoC as 'rogues,' since they are tied together and have a RP purpose. Bravo)

I -do-, however, worry that the perception that guilds lack the leverage over people that they have in other realms, and that will automatically preempt absurd requirements like essays, doesn't account for all the factors that will inevitably rear their heads. From the way You phrase it here, it sounds like the Divine won't be interfering with city politics and laws on that level (at least generally speaking, and I think this is a good thing for the most part).

There are answers like the following:
1. Losing access to the power source doesn't entirely derive you of power (astral nodes, draining powers).
2. Losing specific power doesn't deny you total access to the specialty skills (barring bugs like in totems(?)).
3. The obvious solutions that my mortal mind can see are unpalatable...make specific power possible to get w/o citizenship, remove specific power from more skills, Divine intervention in some cases of city law, etc.

Summary: I doubt this is unintentional, or likely to change, but there seems to be a mitigator to the argument:

A1: Guilds lack the leverage to require essays and such from their members because there is an alternative to remaining in the guild that will allow you to retain your hard-earned skills.

A1 could be quickly reduced to a fractional possibility because the power is no longer distributed between two essentially unique factions, where you could have the total support of one even being totally alienated from the other.

Is this how You All intend or envision this working?

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: On the one hand, I'm not overly fond of essays or other obstructive guild requirements that drive away players. On the other hand, I don't like having the administration interfere with the social dynamics established by players. Lusternia's guild system is designed so that a player may enter any guild and graduate so long as he or she achieves 24 hours of playing time. At this point, the player has full access to all guild skills. This is indeed what we want--a game system that allows players to enter the guild they want and get the skills they desire without overly intrusive requirements. Now, then, if the player then wishes to become more involved in the guild, he or she will want access to the guild newsboard, the guild secret channel, perhaps want an elected or appointed position in the guild. To achieve these hallmarks, I see nothing wrong with a guild exerting their privilege to have members meet certain requirements. It has nothing to do with whether they get skills or not, but rather whether they achieve certain status and position within the guild's social and political structure.

Frankly, I see nothing wrong with players deciding they don't want to be involved with a guild and either stay as a rank 1 guildmember or leave the guild and remain part of the city or commune (so long as the guildmaster allows it of course). So what if someone is a wiccan (for example) but not in the Moondancers? If the person remains in Serenwilde and has access to all the powers of the Moondancers, how is that harming the Moondancers? How is that diluting their power? The Moondancer guild itself will still elect a member of the ruling council, still have control over its nexus security powers, still be a powerful political force within Serenwilde. Seriously, being without a guild but a part of the guild's city or commune means you are a second-class citizen, without a voice in the government and without the chance to be a part of a community that many people find enriching. Sure, this may suit a few 'individualistic' or 'anti-social' people, but I doubt it would be the norm most would willingly choose. Ultimately, if large numbers of people continually are stuck at rank 1, then the problem rests upon the shoulders of the guild leadership and that's a problem that can be easily resolved by the guildmembers themselves.

Estarra,

Thank you for your response. That is sort of what I expected you to say, and I hope that the guilds/cities/communes work as you envision. Seems like a good compromise between different factors.

I thin it shoudl also be noted that if one were to quit their guild, but reamin a citizen, they would loose just about all say in their guild skills. Thus, changes could be cuased from the guild wanting them changed, and the guildless person woudl suddenly have to cope with a chnage they didn't see comming.

The average guild member doesn't have all that much say in their guild skills anyway. And if you are so inclined, I'd suspect the Envoy of the guild would take suggestions from classed members outside the guild since they've got just as much experience with the skills as people inside.

Well, if the envoy has the oppinions of the guild members and the rouges, and they each one something different, which would the envoy choose?
The rogues wont lose all say, but they would lose warning about changes and some say in their skills.

Why would they say something different? I'm a bit confused, I've never yet seen a case where people in the same guild goes "X needs to be better" and someone else go "no it doesn't". Even if it's only because no one would say that one of their skills shouldn't be better.

Estarra, question.


Can the Leader of a City outcity a member of the Ruling Council?

It seems a controversial aspect, on one hand, you have a GM who can decide how the guild goes, and is a member of the Ruling Council to enforce it.

On the other, can the GM be overturned by the leader of the City, which thus negates the power, anyway.?

Why should the guildmaster have to allow it? Not supporting it I can see, but being able to with a wave of the hand remove all your city powers, wipe out maybe years of effort and city favours and trash your character in the process.

How can I justify spending money if some person comes in decides they don't like the rules and I can't even leave without seriously damaging my character?

If your having fun, thats justification for spending money.
Now, all I need is some money to spend...
If the GM is the only one who gets angry at you leaving the guild, but staying in the city, Chances are you will have many in the city on your side, who will override the GM.

It doesn't have to be a case of anger. Just a GM who thinks if you're not in the guild you shouldn't be in the city and how exactly can he be overruled if Estarra is saying it is within his rights?

Then let me tell you, I've said that before. Sometimes it's obvious that changing a skill for the better will make it far too powerful to be reasonable in usage. As much as I would love to have some of our skills powered more, it'd just be unfair in combat. Frankly, I'd rather have a challenge anyway, it's more enjoyable.