=====Ideas and Changes=====
In this game we are going further down the road of multiplayer RPG experience. We are improving the concept of free will and private property, while formalizing social interactions even further.
Unlike previous incarnation, the Gorgeadmired, this fort will have electable overseer, however functions of overseer will be greatly limited: from being the final moral authority to merely observing job assignments and maintaining food stockpiles.
=====Backstory=====
We are a group of mid-aged professionals who got displeased with our lives at the old dwarven halls we were born in. We reached glass ceiling at our careers, developed unsovable grudges with our surroundings or just got to the midlife crisis point. Whatever the reasons - we decided to go to a far away location and start our own settlement with our own rules.
=====Our Team=====
=====Initial rules=====
All players have full freedom of will. They decide themselves when and what to do. Moreover, players also retain full ownership of their possessions and of products of their work.
Of course not all items ownership can be maintaned. Namely food, drinks and clothes are consumed by dwarves without any discrimination. Thus jobs producing any such items are considered inherently peasant and it will be the duty of the overseer to utilize free peasant(npc) population to produce enough of these goods.
All other goods, such as doors, arms, rooms and engravings cannot be produced by free peasants and can only be produced by player initiative(possibly by employed peasants though.
-----Definitions-----
Player - a being from outer world(usually human) who takes direct and permanent responsibility of a being inside the game world(usually dwarf).
PC(Player Character) - a being from game world who is permanently controlled by a player.
Bound NPC - a being in the game world who is a subject of a bounding contract with a PC and thus being temporarily controlled by the same player.
Governmental Body - a group of PCs, who claimed sovereignty over the fort.
Free NPC(Serf) - a being in the game world who is not a subject of any active bounding contracts and is controlled by overseer to execute peasant tasks(hauling, farming, cooking, clothing...)
Influence - measure of social and political weight a character possess.
Shared influence - influence that does not decorate anyone in particular, but instead is shared among whole fortress characters. Can be used by governmental body to fuel it's actions.
Personal inffluence - influence possessed by a single character personally. Can be used by characters to fuel their actions.
Wealth influence - influence generated by ownership over worldly trinkets. Can be used as a pre-requisite for certain actions, but cannot be expanded directly.
Titular influence - influence crystallised in a title. Can be used as a pre-requisite for certain actions, but cannot be expended directly.
Interrupt - a condition when game time stops, situation is described and additional input is required from the players.
Game period - a period of in-game time players are content to live without additional interrupts.
Scheduled interrupt - interrupt in the end of game period.
Unexpected interrupt - interrupt following an unexpected event: ambush, siege, forgotten beast or madness of a high-ranking official.
Player-Requested interrupt - interrupt when player-specified conditions are met: caravan arrived, mood happened, certain official has left fortress in a sock rush...
-----Influence Basics-----
Influence in this game is a limited commodity. This time influence comes into existence with: new dwarves in the fortress; new players; created wealth; artifacts.
10 influence is created as a player enters our fortress. This influence is immidiately added to the said player as personal influence.
1 influence is added to the shared influence for each NPC in the fort. (and substructed if said NPC dies or otherwise leaves the fort)
1 influence is added to the shared influence for each 50k of generated wealth(and substracted if wealth is lost)
2 shared influence is added to the shared influence for each created artifact (and substracted if artifact is lost), additionally to any wealth influence generated by artifact.
Wealth and artifact influence is linked to the items, so whoever posesses those items is awarded the influence instead.
To be crystal clear here: if fort generated 549k wealth - it gains 10 influence in the shared pool. If I somehow managed to own 499k of that wealth - I will gain 9 influence from wealth and shared pool will be left with 1 influence.
So basically our shared influence will be very limited to unowned (government-owned) property, NPC population and whatever players spent from their starting 10.
Why do we need influence? what to do with it? Simple! Influence is used to force your will on others.
General idea is following: you use your popularity, friends, wealth and social status to deprive others of their liberties. Any such action has three consequences:
1. you lose influence (because you are a tyrant here and people dislike tyrants)
2. you victim gains influence (because you de facto recognize that you need to summon your influence to deal with them)
3. your victim suffers inability to exercise some liberty in your favor (hopefully this was the reason of the whole ordeal
Now to the math:
Let's assume I want to usurp ownership of a birchen bed.
Liberties must be weighted against influence (through money or whatever[one birch bed is < 50k dorfbucks, so 0-1 influence]). Always rounded up (it is freedom we are speaking of here[1 birch bed (or more, as long as it is <50k) is worth 1 influence]).
I start by giving up that value to the shared pool (consequence 1. I am less popular).
I follow by giving half of that value to the victim, rounding up. (consequence 2. he is more popular now)
Now, if I still have more influence then my victim - I become an owner of the birchen bed. (consequence 3. My precious!)
More formal explanation:
So we gathered together, stockpiled our posessions and listed our current skills and set off to the distant location. Since we(PCs) are basically of same social standing at the start - we are all entitled to make decisions in a simple democratic form - on a tribal meeting, when each opinion is weighted against the influence of the voter. So basically all votes at the start will be influence-weighted. Maybe in future we will want to change that to some other suffrage, like male-only, wealth-based, natively-born only, universal, age-limited or whatever will be possible at the time.
Now the laws. The persistent laws can be of two kinds: the demanding laws that require someone to do something whether he wants that or not, called "Laws"; and the more relaxed "Traditions" which basically state what is considered good and what is not good. Also non-persistent laws are "Actions".
"Laws": persistent legislations that limit someone's freedom.
- Can be created by a governmental body of the group invoved (tribal gathering at the start for fortress level, whatever is considered governmental body of a group, for group level).
- Governmental body(sum of all members) MUST have at least twice as much influence as other members of the group to be legit and able to pass or revoke legislations
- By default(tribal gathering) it is majority votes that decide that law is passed or not. Later governments can have different voting and majority rules.
- proposing a vote on law costs influence(like 2 influence). No further penalties for failed votes. If a vote passes - half the cost is refunded to the proposer (1 influence)
"Traditions": a more relaxed for of law: gives the feeling of what is an acceptable and glorious behavior.
- Each PC can have a list of things he like in a for of triggers. (to be a carpenter. to kill an enemy. to govern a group. to have a member in the group...)
- Each overseep period those like and dislikes are counted(influence weighted) and traditions are added and removed based on these traditions
- traditions upgrade: if 75% of votes like something it became a lvl1 tradition. 85% - lvl2 tradition. 95% - lvl3 tradition.
- traditions downgrade: if there are less then 25% votes for lvl3 tradtion it becomes lvl2, 15% - lvl2->lvl1, 5% - tradition is forgotten
- lvl1 traditions give 1 influence for all those who qualify, lvl2 - 2 influence, lvl3 - 3 influence
- traditions are processed as following: lvl3(1st point), lvl2(1st point), lvl1(1st point), lvl3(2nd point), lvl2(2nd point), lvl3(3rd point), starting from least influential candidates, because "hey, this half-sane hobo is finally doing something right with his life" beats "This pillar of society have done another good deed, whatever."
- there can theoretically also be some negative traditions, removing 1,2 or 3 influence from the applicable dwarves (like having no home)
- Player can support up to three established(active) traditions and up to three any traditions. So it is a maximum of 6 traditions supported, only three of which may be new(unsupported yet) ideas.
"Actions": are deeds of one-time forcing someone.
- You pay the cost of freedom you are trying to abuse. For example if you are trying to usurp a title of 5 influence - you return 5 influence to the pool(for being such a nasty backstabber)
- You pay half of that cost to the victim, rounded up (because you recognize that he is important enough to usurp stuff from him)
- after that you MUST still have more total influence thenm victim, who is still holding the title/item/freedom
- so, to usurp a title of a 5-influence squad leader who has 10 personal influence you need to have 15+3+3+5+1=27 influence to start with: you give up 5 influence at the start (you:27-5 = 22), you give (5/2 = 3) influence to the victim(you:22-3 = 19;victim: 15+3=18), and you are still more influenctial then he is.(19>18), so after action you became 19+5 = 24 influence (27->24), while your victim 18-5 = 13 influence (15->13)
- this works nicely with titles(always good to usurp if you can) and items (any small item is rounded up to a least 50k to usurp, so 1 influence, while it does not necessarily brings you that influence back).
- In case of freedom - I propose to make it auction style: I want you to do *this* (make me a bed, enlist in my squad, etc...) for 1 influence (I pay 1 to pool and 1 to you), you decline(if you can. Obviously you cannot decline right away because I still have more influence then you, but after a term or two you might have more and be able to break free from my influence) for 1 influence (you pay 1 to pool and 1 to me), I insist by raising stakes to 2( I pay 2 to pool and 1 to you), you decline for 2 (2 to pool, 1 to me.), etc...
- NPC peasants cannot decline, so the only competition will be with players, to it will go like :I hire@1, you re-hire@2, I re-hire@3, but you do not give half of freedom to the victim because he is an NPC(his value rises instead)
- NPC price tag can be bumped up by paying more then NPC currently costs: paying 6 influence for NPC priced @3 will automatically cause next bidder to pay 7 if he wants your serf.
- Note that NPC enter into a long-term relationship, while PC are entering a one-time contract.
- On the other hand NPC price rises for all future hires, while PC price rises only for THIS type of contract, for THIS customer. So different dwarves can force a poor carpenter to make them beds @1, while second bed(if they have family or the first one happened to be of a questionable quality) will be @2 for them.
"Claims" This is a type of public action needed for others to know what are you up to. While you can PM to every other carpenter in the game and organize an underground carpentry guild, noone will know about it. The downside is that you will not be able to trigger special conditions like "is member of the guild, is governing a group, has a member in his group, etc.." and thus trigger certain traditions, and be applicable for certain laws (like if government decides to give guild leaders special privileges), and to pass laws that would influence your group.
- You can create whatever you want, name it and decide how it will work.
- When you create it you invest part of your influence into the associated title/titles. Governmental body of the fortress can create titles out of free influence, however it is considered a law and therefore usual laws rules apply here (-2 influence to propose, +1 if passed)
- The more you invest - the more you will be refunded when it is revoked, but the more you will lose in that situation. On the other hand you cannot lose title-bound influence, so if you think you will be defamed a lot - it can be a good idea to invest as much of your influence into a title.
- Titles can be destroyed at their cost. Governmental body can destroy titles it holds(after it usurped them, for example; when government usurp something it pays from the pool, but still needs to do it in legal way (-2;+1)) for only the law cost (-2;+1) for the initiator
So basically private individuals can do staff using their own influence, while government can do this using the pool influence(if there is enough). Main way to gain influence is through traditions and political backstabbing.
If there are no influence in the pool - there is no influence income for traditions. if PC have no personal influence - he cannot do influence-based stuff(he basically can only vote).
"Free" peasants do food, booze, clothes, hauling and other stuff we cannot track(maybe basic carpentry like barrels, buildings and so on?).
A little more on the titles:
is there any limit or restriction on what position you can usurp? I think you should be restricted to one major position (like guild leader, militia commander etc) so you can't use influence gained from usurping one position to usurp another and so on until you control everything
Well. There are a couple considerations about that.
First of all you pay for the usurpation with your personal influence, so you cannot pay for it with bound influence from your other positions. Overall you are losing influence while usurping (27->24 in the example). So you will be quite unlikely to usurp an awful lot of power.
And Second: do you remember the guy named Gaius Julius Caesar? He had a lot of influence, a lot of titles, but very few friends. I suspect that if you usurp a lot - you are likely to give it all back soon, together with your life
That would be good time to test our arena idea
So I am not sure we should forbid this type of gameplay. Of course final decision is for the gathering of tribe
when creating a (non government) position does the influence put into it directly equal the influence it is worth? How is the influence of government positions determined
Yes. you basically tie part of your current
The idea is to force people to use their best judgement every time. Several things must be weighted when you are creating a title:
is it likely to be usurped(make it a small one)? are you going to give it to someone; what for(more on this later)? will your heir inherit it after your demise(make it a big one)?
Now to the creation of titles for someone else: Imagine that you want someone to raise a squad for you.
You can give him a title of military tribune (little influence), but he might not be able to conscript much, since he had an abysmal influence to begin with, so everyone is too influential for your tribune to conscript.
Or you can name him a legate(moderate influence), and he will easily overcome most of the veteran serfs.
Or you can make him Dux(large influence), and he will be able to pick from the best warriors our fortress has to offer.
Also some actions may be discounted or even available only to Dux. Like investing legates or enlisting whole squads into your army.
Of course that leaves a question of what is considered "Military Tribune", "Legate" and "Dux". Especially since the actual titles will be "Neblime's Bodyguard Chief(15 influence)" or "Kerod's Swornswords Leader(25 influence)". And that is basically up to government body to decide. One of the possible ways to handle that would be laws such as:
"A "Military Tribune" is a title of no less then 10 influence, which requires it's holder to train at least 2 seasons per year and have an adequate "fighter" skill. Any Military Tribune is entitled to sleep in communal barracks and to train in the yard we just built. (will build)."
"A "Legate" is a title of no less then 20 influence, which requires holder to have at least competent weapon and teacher skill, own the said weapon and teach at least three recruits for at least 3 seasons per year. All Legates are to be supplied by steel armor free of charge and are free from taxation on any loot they acquire in spring."
That kind of stuff. So government set the rules, while private individuals look how can they profit within those rules. So as you can see Neblime's Bodyguard Chief can be considered Military Tribune, but will not be considered Legate. But that does not mean that he will not do a great job guarding Neblime and his kin from any incursions. Kerod's Swornswords Leader can become Legate IF he will satisfy all the other requirements (train people, have skills, own weapon...).
Some implications, problems, issues
Player cannot do anything influence-related if he has no free(untied to titles, wealth, artifacts) influence.
Government cannot do almost anything when shared pool is empty. And yes, shared pool can even become negative.
Notice the percentage near traditions. Traditions can easily run out of control. One period you think it would be good to reward your friend with some free influence from traditions, but after few turns you notice that the same tradition you started pays great deal of influence to your arch-enemy.
Government loses mandate when its members lose enough influence. Oh, right, government:
GovernmentI am not sure we should have senate, or any form of government, right from the start. I thought of us as a group of adventurers this time, with roughly equal starting influence. If at some point a group of us will have more influence the anyone else(or twice as much)[Edit: let's sey 60% for now], they can decide to create a more stable government and force lows on their fellows(costing them influence, since laws are always unpopular).
Thus I am not 100% sure we should have any discrimination going at the start against private initiatives. After all our fort will rely heavily on freelancer warriors for protection against goblins(until we will get armies, public or private).
So, there will be influence crunches, there will be governmental instability. The solution I see to it is DEATH:
Whenever a PC dies - his free influence goes to the shared pool. His titles and his worldly possessions go to his heir (if he adopted one. I think we need new rules for adoption though.). And if heir was not named or died unexpectedly - everything goes to the government.
any unassigned titles are destroyed if the shared pool is empty.So we will have unbalanced system -> influence crunch -> ineffective government -> !!FUN!! -> influence freed again. Should be more dynamic/tragic/epic and less predictable at the same time.
General description
So as (will be) seen in rules there are two types of dwarves: PC and NPC. PC have full freedom of will and full property rights. So we will start by naming ourselves. Who you are, what are your skills and what do you take with you. We will mod the game to take needed number of dwarves and pack all their stuff. After that we will have a simplified parliamentary session to make amendments to the initial laws and set off to find a suitable embark site.
I am wtitng this from my phone, and it is a bit tiring to write large texts. I will make good with this post once I am at a more confortable workstation. For now you may refer posts in our last thread here :
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133733.885. There are a lot of ideas and insights about us and a discussion of draft for initial rules.
While you can start whoever you want and take whatever you want with you, please keep it coherent:
A warrior can start fully armed and armored, but a herd of goats would seem wierd. Also please put adequate number of skill points if you have earned all that high-value gear.
A livestock merchant can start with a heard of goats and a an arm dealer can start with a cart of weapon. But merchant selling both would be wierd. Also a high-value item merchant (weapons) must be more skilled then low-value item merchant(livestock).
So the more stuff and skills you take with you - the richer your story should be. And more importantly - the better your RP should be, as taking lads and loads of valuables to a trip in the uncharted lands will likely get you killed and robbed before even arriving at the destination.
I hope I covered everything in detail. If you spot some problems, conflits or whatever - please give me a note. Everything here is up for discussion. if any mechanic, values, ideas sounds not fun or need correcting, adding, subtracting, modifying - please be very vocal about it.