Don't worry, this thread is the byproduct of Board discussion. We're only half-cheating by using the forums at the moment.

Just don't expect overnight magic.

@Inky: I'm with you but nagging combatants isn't going anywhere. I wish more people were willing to write awesome books like you did. We can just say "Tough, RP or GTFO" about cityfavours, but I'm not sure we can afford to in the long run. Maybe that's me being cynical, eh.

Have my children Inky. HAVE THEM. You just elegantly explained how I feel not only about this Hallifax thread, but about the attitude of too many players as well.

@Inky: There are many reasons why people want to play in Hallifax. If the caste system/scholars being on top was the only reason, then we would not have this topic coming up again and again.

sdkjflkdjflksfdjisad the smug rper righteous indignation going on all over this thread is frustrating. Seriously, we do not all join Hallifax to write books and plays. People join because certain guilds concepts or philosophies are appealing to them. Maybe the social structure in general is. Maybe they're alting and just want to take a break or have a change of scenery. Maybe they like living in a crystal fortress that floats in the sky? Who knows. We really can't all write awesome books even if we tried.

Having a clan with CLHELP positions is definitely one of the less unwieldy solutions, but I still think CR6 should be open to everyone. This is not 'metagaming censor', this is just plain fairness. You can have mechanical equality but still keep the respectable social divisions.

I also don't see what's so hard about identifying castes on your own though. Honestly, I just incorporate my Castes with my characters' actions, descriptions, etc. so it's blatantly obvious when you look at them. If someone is trying to be deceptive it's pretty easy to tell them 'Hey, bro, stop being a jerk and make up your mind.'

I guess I should add 'bitter' with the whole 'smug' and 'righteous indignation' deal too. Good grief.

I don't think the CR=Influence thing can be fixed. If you make it based on playtime, people will just afk around the clock to get their skills. If you leave it to the discretion of the city leaders in terms of 'bestowing' the ability on others, it's just going to be abused eventually.

Hey, that's a good point. If you are so good at RPing, then why do you need to see anything in the game to tell you that you're special and are CR6 unlike all those fighters?

Technically, CR6 is open to everyone. If you do things that may or may not be what you want your character to do. Yeah, that's writing plays, science reports, etc at the moment. But it's not literally CLOSED to anyone. It can be achieved as is.

The question is, do we want other actions to open up CR6 to people. As you can tell by the existence of this thread itself, yes, we're working on that.


Cuz it's Hallifax, we like being orderly and filed and awesome. I get you, it'd be nice if people just chose an RP and rolled with it, but we want a system in place because of aforementioned awesome. Even though it means more work and stuff for city officials. Think of it like Bardics and Artisanals, eh. How there are ranks there. It could something as innocuous as that.

...also you get novices out of the portal thinking they're high caste and start bossing around bureaucrats and that's always...fun...

That happens anyway.

Incorporating the clan gives something for the Wannabe Bureaucrats to do. They could pull aside newbies and tell them about the caste system at some point in their youth, if they really wanted some work to do, so the new person could get their aspirations in order.

To the latter; there's TONS of ways to circumvent this in the event the concept of mutual respect fails.

1. Bureaucrats aren't presently authorized to stray from their current role, and thus cannot meet the higher caste member's demands.
2. Servants are exclusively employed to one individual, and serves others at their own leisure or discretion.
3. Warriors are the bodyguard of an influential person, so this new higher caste person is none of their concern.

It's where the progression list idea I had in a previous post comes into play: you can't have an intern ordering you around, but the Head Researcher definitely can. I don't think someone could reach the prestige of such a rank by being a bossy jerk to everyone beneath them, so it helps ward off the trolls. You just have to implement some viable means of polite refusal. If the one being ordered around feels that the new higher-caste member is being blatantly abusive of their role, they can contact someone on the same caste of a higher level of influence about the problem, and beatings can continue until public order is restored.

Psh, keep your logic to yourself.

Anyway, it's possible the system could just be RP'd out. Just more likely it'd fizzle out that way, imo.

@Furien: I'm fine with the idea of the clan for the Wannabes. I misconstrued your post before this one, as suggesting the idea of putting anything in place is unnecessary. Which is probably the fault of doing last minute work as I forum. You have good ideas, just would...probably wind up in a system format at the end of the day.

Proposal: everyone CR1 and CR2 is a servant, possibly working their way specifically toward one caste. Upon CR3, you take a higher caste, based partly on what you've been favoured for, partly on what guild you're in, and partly on what you want. Track it through one clan.

Unfortunately, while the "good rp people" will actually not need this, the people who are... "not good rp people"? may simply turn around and decide that they are whatever caste they feel like at the time. Also wtf, hallifax they potentially have records on how quickly the paint dried on the walls of a hut they built a millennium ago.



The newbs that think they are high caste... last one I encountered rage quit because rest of the citizens did not agree as all they saw was a servant with no proven merit claiming to be an artist.



eeh, is there more to this? Just I'm thinking about how easily we'll end up with people who earn the all the favours required for those ranks purely from warrior caste favors.
I would also remove guild just because while we might ic'ly react with surprise when a sentinel goes artist we shouldn't design the system to push against it.


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Hrm, with the single clan system would you still have the inverted favour restrictions? Public records of withheld favours could be maintained in clhelps rather easily with recorder perms as specified. Beaurocrats and the Board can keep an eye on them, if the records show that they have met the requirements for a caste then the relevant authority can send an offer for membership in said caste?

What I mean is that you divorce caste from city rank from CR3 up. So CR3 scientists are still 'higher' than CR6 warriors, but you avoid the CR1 morons who think they own the place.

Seriously, Hallifax needs to abuse Caste Article V more. It would solve a lot of problems. Cririk himself said that only exceptional warriors were part of the Upper Caste. Just be a little more lenient. Hallifax needs to keep its RP.

Did everybody forget that designing something gives you a CF? I mean come on, one design!

If I remember correctly Cririk actually said that some of the best warriors were scientists also. They were not in the upper castes because they were good warriors, they were in the upper castes because they were scientists too.

Design a ton of stuff and hope that you get lucky and someone notices that you design a lot. Then hope said person remembers to favour you after all favours for joining revolts and staring at a guy are handed out.

Just make sure those designs are city cartel, not public, or (I was told) they don't count no matter how many or how good.

Yeah. Honestly, the main problem isn't that city favours aren't given out after CR 4 for fighting and revolts. The problem is that those two are the main ways of getting favours in pretty much any org. When Hallifax cuts off that avenue, it shows just how much more work is required to get favours through other means, and how rarely that effort is recognized.

It wouldnt be that hard to keep track of. Each person's progress could be tracked by said persons guild. Just have a bookbinder bookbind for their org. It can be placed in the guilds library so they can have access to their progress at anytime and withdraw the book to show their progress. The guild archivists would be incharge of keeping them updated. (Could also work with clans and the clan recorder priv. Was just trying to cut down on money spent)

In turn it could work like earning a college degree. You want to get a degree in blahblah. You have a program set out for you but with options designated by the school and electives.

So if you wanted to give a Bachelors of Combat Mechanics

So with the servant caste you have your basic courses the English 101, Mathmatics for Critical Thinking (I cant think of names)

Moving into the Second caste with x, y, and z

Then the final cast with the persons Thesis on The Destruction of the Fleshpot of Lovashi

In turn they would still be a warrior but a 'scientist' as well

I explained it better in my letter to Double L but I see I am going to have to nag him.

It'd work like the Cantors guild progression but on a citywide scale