KOTR Postmortem and Next-Gen Rules Discussion

[Ferret]

I think nothing should be left to the same players next avatar, that is just hogging power and part of the fun is earning what you have, not being born with it. However it would make sense if a Grand Duke or Duke left a single settlement to his son. If the player's next avatar is of no relation though then it is just meta gaming and should, imo, be avoided.

[Privateerkev]

I like that the positions can yo-yo. It will force the upper-ranks to earn their title and not just inherit it.

Power... some people work hard for it. Some people get it as a "sweet-16 present".

As for how important "houses", "royalty", "lineage", "nobility", ect... are, that will be up to us to decide IC. I'm glad TC's rules don't dictate specific House structures, family tree structures, and bloodlines. We'll figure all of that out ourselves.

Maybe it was not as historic to have the nobles yo-yo up and down based on fickle vassals, but it might be a lot more fun. Quite frankly, I believe we had some "weak" Dukes in KotR. And for the most part, they were "weak" because they weren't online much, or felt that they could treat their vassals crappy because there were few consequences. Having the "oaths of fealty" become "breakable", solves a lot of those problems. Is the Duke not online much and ignores you? Just switch to another. Is your Duke sidelining you for personal reasons? Switch to another.

Now, the noble's ability to declare war on someone who breaks an oath is a powerful counter-balance. Also, TC's idea on a "cooling off" period might help too.

[Zim]

I like the idea of requiring land + title being given only to an avatar that already has a character. The idea of having that character possibly be a regent for the leader's underage son is also interesting, since if the regent decides to keep the land a civil war could start between loyalists and supporters of the regent.

RE: AussieGiant's concerns, I'm a little ambivalent. I really liked the relative stability of the House structure in KOTR, but also like the fluidity of the new system, where in year x the main power could reside in a single giant House, but 100 years later there might be many, roughly equal ones, as the old one fragmented. The possibility of a Civil War is supposed to make the idea of breaking fealty a weighty decision, but it will be hard to figure out what kind of difference that will make until we play the game for a while (and longer than a potential test game).