So, the topic has come up many times both in game and in the forums: The Caste System in Hallifax. From in game discussions, it seems like all of the Hallifax GMs and the CL and Patron realize that the current system is not ideal, but all of us seem to be at a loss on what to do to make the Caste System workable for everyone without compromising the integrity of the RP of the system. I would be interested in hearing some well thought out ideas on how to "fix" the issue from our forum community. I'll include a summary so that everyone can be on the same page.

Hallifax Caste System Summary

Background: Hallifax society is organized into a hierarchical tiered system of castes. The lower castes are not permitted to speak out against the higher castes (in public) and all of the other nuances one would expect from a highly structured class system. The lowest caste (CR1-CR2) is considered to be the servant/manual labor tier of the city. The middle caste (CR3-CR4) is made up of the bureaucrats, merchants, and fighters of the city. The upper caste (CR5-CR6) is composed of the scientists and artists of the city. You can get a CF for doing essentially anything CF-worthy up to CR4. Once you hit CR4, you can only get CFs for artist/scientist style stuff (writing, doing experiments, prolific designing, etc.). The Board of Directors is currently reviewing a proposal to extend the middle caste up to CR5, leaving the highest caste to only CR6 but everyone realizes that his helps the situation slightly, but does not fully address the problem.

Problem: Fighters cannot reach CR6 (and thus the third village influence skill) unless they also participate in scholarly/artistic activities and are essentially capped at CR4 (or CR5 if the Board votes to change it) if the player is not interested in doing anything scholarly/artistic.

I would love to hear what people think can be done to fix the issue while keeping the integrity of the caste system intact. Please be specific. A lot of people have suggested complete dissociating the caste system from city rank but have not specified how to do it or how to do it without completely losing the meaning of the caste system.

I look forward to seeing what our community can come up with.

I can understand the ease of attaching the caste system to the city rank system, but is it necessary to do so? You can just as easily play that those of scholarly and artisitic talent and showing are far more important to the city than those who take the warriors path in the city through RP means without attaching it to a mechanic.

There's a titling system, a design system, etc. which are all rp tools that can help separate the two.

I'm not trying to attack the system or anything, I think the RP aspects of it are wonderful but I'm more question why it's a necessity to limit rank with this. :\\

I personally love the caste system as it is. The discrepancy I see is that fighters work really hard and fight and are not as recognized, but someone writes a BS little pamphlet and BAM, up they go in CR.

I would actually suggest making the highest tier -more- selective. "Oh look, here's a pamphlet I wrote on the ways cute little squirrels go 'chirpity-chirp', CR6 plz" is not the way to endear the system to anybody.

The scientists/artists should be the absolute cream of the crop-- those who have done extensive work in the sciences and arts. Those who have done only a little should still be in the servants caste, and they should stay there until they have really proved themselves worthy.

Same thing for fighters-- keep the fighters in the servant caste until they prove themselves good fighters (which should be easier to do than getting into the top caste). There should always be a much greater majority in the lower caste than in the highest caste.

The only problem, and the problem that a lot of people point out, is that influencing abilities are tied to CR. It is a major issue with having the castes tied to CR.

I'm trying to think of other things, but I thought I'd throw this out there to get the ball rolling.

That's the point of this thread, a lot of people have pointed out that they are unhappy with the system as-is or that the system makes it more difficult for Hallifax to succeed in village revolts. It may not be necessary that caste system be tied to city rank system, but that is the only current way we have to make it meaningful. I was hoping that by creating this thread, we would find other options to make the caste system meaningful. I'm definitely sure that we use RP to reinforce the system, but how? What rewards to we give to the highest castes if it isn't part of CR? How do we keep track of who is in what caste without CR (do you want to be the person that maintains the project or chelp that lists everyone's caste assignment?).

I realize that people probably love or hate the system. I think we all realize that. What I'm looking at is not how people feel about it (unless you think it is fine as is and doesn't need changed), but how the system can be improved.

I do think being more selective with what gets a favour should be looked at, though certainly lack of selectiveness has played a role in encouraging growth. On the other hand, when you really can get a favor for writing a 25-line poem on nothing particularly meaningful... :/

Speaking of which, I think 'meaningful' is the key word here. Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to divorce the caste system from city ranks. The problem in doing so is finding a way of going about it that doesn't render the system meaningless, and I've done enough in terms of leadership in my time in the IRE games to know that without numbers on a readout that you get when you type SCORE or STAT or whatever, it becomes exponentially harder to motivate people. Sad, but there you are.

Being that I am not a combatant but someone who has no issues with either artistic or scientific pursuits, I'm probably not the best person to pass judgments here but I do have a question that has been bothering me ever since this discussion popped up on the forums. Also note that I'm fully aware that this question is sponsored by the snobby RP ivy league and that the game is for having fun and that sometimes fun > RP.

So, is it so much to ask of the people who choose Hallifax as their home, fully aware of its culture and designated caste roleplay (or learn of it due course), to actually be Hallifaxians? If Hallifaxian RP dictates that the warriors are below the artists and the scientists then so it is, and if it happens to be tied into mechanics, then so it is too. Now, instead of turning the city upside down scrambling for a way to give them CR6 for one influence skill (as outside of this one issue I am unaware of any other problem), why do the poor warriors who must surely recognise that they are but mere meatshields there to protect the highest caste, not try to actually get the jobs done to raise higher if such is in the best interest of their city and in so far as their duties go. It surely is in the best interest of the city to have warriors capable of influencing using all three skills, yes? Then if the only way to do that is to do something artsy or sciency, why not?

No one's to say that Hallifax warriors have to be dumb meatshields, I actually don't think there is a place for your usual hack and slash guys in Hallifax, and that is not how I personally see them at all. They can be cunning, manipulative and self-sufficient bastards who get the job done. They could either research combat techniques as a science project or design weapons and armour. They could even pay some servant with artistic inspirations, but who is still but a servant and a nobody and cannot imagine themselves rising further, to design for them. Or beseech a known biologist to take them into their service as a bodyguard and in return be helped with a project on wounds and their applications.

I know absolutely nothing of how this caste system plays out or how actually caste systems have worked in history, BUT I am going to comment anyway.

Why not make caste non-hierarchical? In other words, if you're in the scientist caste you are only rewarded for or given respect for creating a scientific work or project or what-have-you. If you're in the fighter caste you are only rewarded for, well, fighting. You could associate different castes with different types of respect but this could be less tangible than CR. So in other words two CR 6s will not be equivalent in respect in terms of RP, even if they possess all of the mechanical benefits of CR 6 (like the aforementioned influence skill).

If this is what is being meant by disassociating CR from the castes then I suppose I am just repeating what others have said.

Edit: This would still be a caste system in that someone couldn't simply hop from one caste to another, it would either be a permanent state or moving from one caste would be a difficult and elaborate process, particularly if one went to a "higher" caste in terms of respect.

Have fighters somehow work together with the scientists, like bringing in bodies to experiment on, be a test subject, ? I understand the whole scholars and artists being valued but uhm if you really want to solve it isn't combat sort of an art and science in itself as well?

Question though: Does having the third influence ability matter other than having more diversion so longer until the influenced grows resistant? Because if it is that big an advantage, wouldn't cities actually like to have as much people favored to the highest rank? I know, metagaming, and I am sure the administration would strike down upon it, but it just occurred to me. Unless, of course, GR6 also grants some privs that could be abused in the wrong hands, I have no clue about that.

I agree with diamondias that decoupling CR from the caste system is probably the best solution. Use titles for it, and grant other rewards for them: rights to boss people around, access to new rooms you build in the city specifically to be for higher ranks, discounted prices on city credits, etc.

But the other solution of making "military sciences" an avenue to higher castes, that Prav and others have proposed, would also work. Easy way to preserve the feel of the current system: require them not just to fight but also to teach to get the highest ranks, but interpret "teach" broadly, to include not just writing a book on tactics, but also, hosting arena events or team exercises designed to demonstrate a particular tactical technique, giving individual lessons, etc. This approach is probably easier to add into the existing system, and teaching fits into the academic part of culture pretty neatly.

That is the point, having a soft cap at CR4 or 5 prevents people from getting the CR6 influence. This is the biggest (or really only) complaint I've read about on the forums. The problem is that a lot of us are idealists and would like to preserve the RP and culture of the caste system while also seeming attractive to beefy fighters who can do village influence with all three skills if they want to.

@ Calixa. Having the third skill matters a lot, it's faster, better, they grow less resistant to your attempts. And yes, it is in everyone's best interest that a city has as many CR6s as possible. Thankfully, we have more people who care about RP than metagamers.

I think my issue with people complaining is, why do fighters need all three influencing skills. They're there to fight, not influence. They should be killing people so that the higher ranked people can get their job done. And I agree with Nariah that there is no place in Hallifax for the dumb meatshields. The Sentinels RP, unless I'm mistaken, is more about protecting the time stream and temporal mechanics than it is about physical combat. The Aeromancers are meant to be philosophers and the Institute is full of scientists.

The only possible solution I can think of that would pacify those complaining, is providing a provisional CR6 to exceptional warriors. They would be barred from giving cityfavours, expect maybe for defense/offense related activities. Basically, they would be CR6, but still only recognized as part of the middle castes. If they earn the highest caste in their own right, the restrictions would be removed.

I just feel if the caste system is completely removed from city rank, there will be huge problems keeping it straight.

The most suitable method is really detaching castes from CR.

The question then of course becomes when are people recognised for their caste and one can either make caste count more in guilds because after GR3 everything in guildranks is just flavour.

A more work intensive method for the board is to elevate people to higher castes on paper/project and add different rewards to that (as well as prestige). For example rewards can be given out for science and art things, and the higher your caste the higher the reward. As well as additional benifits like cheaper credits in credit sales, more credits in credit sales, bragging rights, getting more leaway before getting the smackdown by leadership.

Also to those that are all about you should not be able to get recognition for a single poem/design and whats not, way to discourage anyone new to writing. Not to mention other orgs favour anyone that shows up to defend and uses nothing but web.

Because Hallifax is intensely hierarchical, in-canon. It's even in the help file.

I've said it before, but why not reward people for strategy, good use of skill, turning the use of the skills in order to show scientific awareness/research of what happens to the body under certain situations, treat a duel, if done well, as a dance or performance? Or start encouraging people to teach combat if they intend to be primarily combat orientated, or.. eh, I'm sure there's plenty of other things and reasons that can be made!

So long as it's presented correctly, it could work, but that's the thing, you never know until you try and things can either fail, work or.. kind of fall in the middle and stagnate.

Clearly the biggest problem is that what matters, mechanics-wise (influence skills) is tied to Cityrank. Divorcing the two aspects would be optimal, but it just can't be done. The ascent through cityranks is regarded as synonymous with moving up through the caste tiers. If you remove the outward appearance of the growth, how do you make sure it's still there? Roleplay it? Seems pretty cumbersome.

The idea of clans is just as cumbersome.

I wonder, though, why cityrank is regarded as an example of the caste tiers? Is a member of the Institute or Aeromancers not a scientist or artist by default, having essentially spending years of their time amongst that society? I figure that, pre-Portal of Fate, this is exactly how it was: it's why the Sentinels have their guildhall on a lower level. But nothing really stops a Sentinel from getting CR6 save for lolbooks nowadays.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is - do people not choose their castes? Are they not offered this option, save for the indentured servants, which exist in the metaphorical basement of the caste system? It's why I feel the divorce is as important as it is. One should be able to reach CR6 regardless of their Caste Tier. The Cityrank is just indicative of their proficiency or devotion in their particular tier. You can have talented warriors reach CR6 just as you can have devoted, loyal servants reach CR6. Socially, though, the structure stays the same - and I figure since everyone is picking their own place in society, they'd be fine with that.

Nariah: 'Why not', because it's not in their interest. OOC player will always trump IC character when it comes to what is fun. Your alternative opportunities, which are all perfect and exactly the reason I play a deliberately low-caste character, just don't seem to come up, in my experience.

But who decides what caste you're in? It shouldn't be impossible to be a fighter and an artist and a scientist. And what do you do with that novice who pops out of the Portal insisting that they were born a member of the highest caste, and are therefore due the respect going along with that rank?

There isn't really a 'fighter' caste in hallifax, it really just has 3 castes: lower, middle and higher. If you are a fighter and established artist you would still be in the higher caste.

edit: Oh and yes everyone pretty much starts at indentured servant level.

As I understand it (and that might not be wholly completely), Hallifax's caste system is not strictly a "birthright" system, and no one starts at a high rank just beacuse of parentage, only based on merit and achievements, so that's a non-issue.