The Council of Wyrms

[Cainehill]

Well, nice thing about capitol only VPs is you can scan the map quick when you start the game - if a couple nations / VPs are too close together (or one or two are all alone for 20 leagues) you could start it again.

[Arralen]

There's another error in the Oriania map file:

#2 should be mountains, not plains ...

[Arralen]

proposed rules - some remarks/suggestions

Draw a clear line between in-game rules and the council of wyrms, and (outside) players decisions.

Atm, both is mixed up, and twenty years experience of board- and PC-MP-gaming tells me that is begging for trouble. Big trouble.

E.g.:Code:

---

 Rule 6.

A proposal must gain at least a tie vote 

abstentions do not count) in the Council

to succeed. The only exception is turning

a player to AI. Because this is irreversible,

AI votes require 80% of the votes to suceed.

---

So a player who did not choose (for whatever role- or gameplay reasons) a wyrm as a pretender, can't even vote against himself thrown out of the game?? You must be joking !

Furthermore, there are some rules which can't be enforced, as there will be no evidence if someone broke them. That isn't that bad, if they are only 'in-game' rules, as it may lead to some serious and interesting role-playing and strategic decisions.
E.g. what if some casts "Ghost Riders" on his neighbours province, whom he is not at war with and whom he cannot attack without council ruling:

Code:

---

 Rule 15.

Attacks that convert an owned province

to neutral (such as Ghost Riders) are 

not allowed without a Council ruling.

---

As long as everything stays 'in-game', there will be some suspicions, and (maybe wrong) accusations, but no wyrm will ever know for sure.
But if you'll have the 'referee' check the turn files, you're taking it out of the game, and in between the players. And thing will get very personal then, and the game will be over before it has really begun.

So, please, give this another look and devide the rules into 'game rules' and 'council rules', just to make a clear distinction between what is role-playing and what is real-world code of conduct.

Stefan

PS: And, o.c., wyrms should not be allowed into Death Match !

[Huntsman]

Arralen said:
Furthermore, there are some rules which can't be enforced, as there will be no evidence if someone broke them. That isn't that bad, if they are only 'in-game' rules, as it may lead to some serious and interesting role-playing and strategic decisions.
E.g. what if some casts "Ghost Riders" on his neighbours province, whom he is not at war with and whom he cannot attack without council ruling:

Code:

---

 Rule 15.

Attacks that convert an owned province

to neutral (such as Ghost Riders) are 

not allowed without a Council ruling.

---

As long as everything stays 'in-game', there will be some suspicions, and (maybe wrong) accusations, but no wyrm will ever know for sure.
But if you'll have the 'referee' check the turn files, you're taking it out of the game, and in between the players. And thing will get very personal then, and the game will be over before it has really begun.

So, please, give this another look and devide the rules into 'game rules' and 'council rules', just to make a clear distinction between what is role-playing and what is real-world code of conduct.

I agree that a clear separation of "character" and "player" knowledge is critical for an RP game.

Using your Ghost Rider example above, there is definitely some interesting RP potential to be gained by keeping it "in-game" (ie, anonymous), as you say, since GR is indeed an anonymous spell and therefore the Council wouldn't know who cast it without actually having a "player" do some digging in the log files.

However, since this is an RP game we could certainly add some RP flavor by saying the council has the power to figure out who the culprit is--should they decide they really want to know--with a special "scrying" ritual (ie, digging into the log files).

We can add even more RP goodness by putting a cost on the scrying, say, 10-15 astral gems that must be paid by the wyrm that initiates the investigation. It could be the victim of the unsanctioned Ghost Rider attack or anyone else on the council that's interested in knowing.

And more more RP flavor, perhaps a majority vote is needed to even do the scrying ritual. Or perhaps there is a minimum participation (eg 10 wyrms) in the ritual but Wyrms aren't required to join, only if they're actually interested in knowing the answer. Or perhaps there is no minimum but anyone wishing to participate in the scrying must pay 10 Astrals and the results of the scrying would obviously only be privy to those that participated.

Anyway, point is, we can put an RP explanation on anything that constitutes "player" knowledge and even have some fun with it. After all, the point of the game (any game!) is to have fun and not get hung up on all the minor niggles (which will occur no matter how many rules you write).

[The Panther]

Actually, since ghost riders is anonymous, then you might be able to cast it and get away with it. However, it is required to be against the rules since it results in province ownership change. Using it therefore entails risk. If the receiving player can muster the 3 necessary votes, he can appeal to the Chief Justice to find the truth. Of course, the other wyrms might not care enough to help him here or maybe they are just glad it didn't happen to them, so there may not be enough votes for an appeal (and it would never be proved). The possibilities of intrigue and accusations are potentially endless. Since it is just a game played for recreation, I don't think it will get personal.

Keep in mind that everything that does not result in province ownership change is perfectly legal, even when it is reported by the game mechanics who did it. Assassinations, seeking arrows, fires from afar, murdering winter, all these things are legal and the receiving player has no recourse except through the Council or to return the 'favor' to the guilty party.

I agree about the AI thing being too harsh. This has already been brought up by Pasha Dawg. The council should never be able to throw an active player out of the game, and I do mean never! Throwing them out of the Council (rogue) is thematic. Throwing them out of the game (AI) is not. The AI rule was for a player that quits without explanation. However, it will become obvious to all wyrms that something must be done when a player disappears and stales 3-4 times in a row. I will therefore change this rule so that the Council cannot turn an active player to AI under any circumstances.

Hopefully, all have noticed that Version 2 of the rules was posted on the COW site. The main change was the last rule about the Chief Justice.

Also, since no one has proposed any other candidates, Alneyan will win the nomination for Chief Justice by default at 8 PM MDT this evening when the game officially begins.

[Huntsman]

The Panther said:
Since it is just a game played for recreation, I don't think it will get personal.

Precisely! IMHO, "winning" takes a backseat to role-playing.

Now to get started on my pretender!

[The Panther]

As for the victory conditions and game setup, I looked at the map in great detail last night. Because it seems to me that a mere 5 VPs to win is much too few, I am now planning the following:

1. The starting spots will be fixed. However, I did notice (like several people mentioned) that the Orania War starting spots are not really very balanced, so I am working on a better 17 spots. This afternoon, I will announce the 17 province numbers of the starting locations and let interested people suggest changes.
2. The actual nation assignment to these 17 spots will be random. You have a 1 in 15 chance to get any single spot (1 in 2 if you are a water nation). The nation locations will not be publicly announced.
3. Each capitol will have a Victory Point. I will add a second VP province that is near each capitol, giving us 34 VPs to work with. I will publicly announce the province location of these 17 extra VP provinces.
4. The victory condition will be at least 1/3 of these, or 12 VPs to win.
5. All special provinces and preset sites are removed from the map.

[Alneyan]

I would suggest not to put the victory condition in the game itself, but simply a "100% of VPs needed". This should display how many VPs a nation have, allowing to keep track of that, while not creating an automatic endgame.

The difference would be meaningful if two nations were doing very well (both lacking a handful of VPs for victory), and a final grand conflict was preferred, instead of being a rush to snatch those two or three VPs.

In the other case, where a nation is clearly ruling over everyone else, automatic VP victory would be pretty much the same. Still, I know some SEIV games resulted in a bitter ending because of automatic victory conditions, and the same might be true here.

Not that I am actually playing in the game, of course, but the Supreme Court can give its advice, even when nobody requests it. Well, it wasn't possible until today, but I have just added that power to my list of attributions.

[RonD]

If we keep it in the RP context, then a Ghost Riders "verdict" could (should?) be purely by council vote. No special out of game scrying spell. If an innocent party gets convicted - well - oops.

[Morkilus]

The Panther said:

You don't send me or anyone else your password.

Oops,I guess I misread your instructions. See? I might need some help... Well I trust ya, and at least you can find a sub if I become completely incapacitated. I'm excited to start playing! About Zen 5.0, though: it needs that Winged Boots fix or alot of people will be frustrated that they need 2 water path Should I post my fix? It's all in the thread in Mods.