Quote Originally Posted by TinCow
I think PK hit the nail on the thread with his edit. There is already a way to pass provinces and retinue along to a son who is not yet assigned to a player: use a third party. This occurred to me momentarily when I was thinking about some kind of Regent rule, but it would work perfectly fine here as well. All you have to do is give it to a third-party nobleman who you would intend to act as Regent until the true heir came of age or was taken by a new player. Then that nobleman could just voluntarily pass own ownership to the intended heir. However, since it isn't a mandatory trade, the 'Regent' could simply refuse to hand over possession if that's what he wanted to do. That would have IC implications that would be fun... and all of it without any changes to the rules. I would be perfectly happy to even allow people to pass things onto themselves via that method, because the added buffer of a third party who has absolute control over the final exchange introduces a level of politics and uncertainty that would benefit the game.
As long as the 3rd party transfer remained voluntary, I'd support this. While still open to abuse, this adds in a nice "check and balance" that has the added bonus of encouraging RP'ing and politicking. It was the direct handing down of resources from a player's 1st avatar to the player's 2nd avatar that felt icky to me. The "regent" could decide for himself whether to honor the noble's wishes. The burden would then be on the noble to treat the regent well before he died to help ensure the regent remains loyal. If the regent changes his mind after the noble dies, well then the "eldest son" would certainly have a large IC beef but all of that could be RP'd and could be exciting.
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I have two new ideas that are unrelated to matters of inheritance:

1.) What would you think of adding 1 influence to Faction Heirs? They get a +1 cap already. Chancellors get +1 influence plus +1 cap and I think FH's should get the same. The way I see it, there is influence inherent in being a "Prince" and the +1 influence would reflect that.

2.) A Grand Duke (and maybe even a Duke) would have the power once per Chancellor session to mandate that a certain guild in a certain province "must be accepted" if that guild is offered in a province the noble controls. The Grand Duke and Duke already have the power to "prioritize" buildings and this power is along those lines. This means a Grand Duke can say, "During this session, if Hamburg is offered a Merchant Guild, the Chancellor must accept it." And maybe the Faction Leader can dictate 2 "must accepts" for guilds in his settlements. That way, higher ranking nobles can direct the guild strategy in their provinces.