Possible LotR Successor Game discussion thread

[TinCow]

GM's Code:

You can please all of the people some of the time.
You can please some of the people all of the time.
You will piss off everyone eventually.

[AussieGiant]

What can I say.

I'm biased and I'm quantitatively sure KotR had more dust ups, wranglings, arguments, threats, venom, spiteful activity than LotR.

The general dynamic worked for a number of reasons.

Therefore I'm suggesting that it is used again, with some changes.

In this instances the method of edict and CA power tied into the game very well, plus how land was secured and distributed, plus the houses was very well done.

Adoption handling, no RBG's, Family Tree usage and a limited understandable rule set are all still arguably well done.

[Zim]

I recall a major problem in the lategame for KotR when players playing important fms became inactive (or rather worse, almost inactive, preventing us from finding new players to fill in). At least that was the view from House Swabia. Didn't Ruppel end up being the only active fm in Swabia?

I did strongly consider the KotR ruleset when it was first brought up. I'd gladly gm such a game, or one closer to LotR. I consider both to have the potential to make the new game great and I'll go for whatever most people prefer.

However, remember when I joined KotR. The Cataclysm was a brief high point of activity followed by a long slow down. I did not experience most of the things you're talking about. I experienced a House with no leader, a manufactured conflict I had no stake or real desire to join (for that matter, when I did try to participate in it I was rebuffed by the players who were already planning the end of the game) and a sudden decision to end the game that I didn't see coming.

I spent the latter months of KotR working with Matthias Steffen to save Outremer (the best part for me, rivaling the Swabian rebellion) and sharing joking complaints with some of my fellow new players about how the Swabian leader was always absent.

The beginning months of LotR, on the other hand, saw a ton of scheming and constant changes in the relationships between my character and those of players such as deguerra, TheFlax, YLC, Tristan, Rossahh, and Smowz (listing only the newer players since I've noted some of the more veteran players seemed not to have known just how much was going on outside of their own admirable attempts to push the game along). I suspect that things might have done much better in the mid-late game had it not been so hard to fight a civil war, and if active players did not drop out without warning (myself included for those months I had no working computer).

I read most of the links in KotR's history thread, and I do think the game's "active period" was longer than LotR's, for various possible reasons. I also agree the Diets were more interesting, and we were much too cooperative in LotR. I think it's important to investigate why that's so. If it turns out that scrapping the LotR rules wholesale and taking up the KotR rules then I'm all for it. If people would rather keep what they like from LotR (flexible Houses, rgbs, etc.) and change the parts they felt hindered the game I'm all for that as well.

I guess what I'm getting at is that KotR does not hold any special magic for me that made it better, largely because I'm not a KotR vet. I joined the game during its waning period, when it's rules were no longer enough to help conflict along and instead events like Siegfried's planned death and the Cataclysm and everything that resulted from it caused most of the conflict. That is, outside forces.

So, for me and I suspect many of the players that weren't in KotR, some convincing is needed. Preferably a serious debate. If such arises I'll gladly start a poll to decide which rules to use. We could begin by asking TinCow to move the longer posts you and Ituralde made in the OOC thread supporting the KotR ruleset here.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Already seeing an upside to this conversation. I'm starting to remember those German names again.

[AussieGiant]

Fair enough and I'm glad you posted a counter position to mine Zim. "Perception is everything" in many ways.

A lot of development went into LotR and I certainly think certain things must be included and melded with KotR. A "super set" of slimmed down rules from both would be ideal.

[mini]

indeed.

[Zim]

I figured being on the short list of guys left who joined KotR in it's later turns my perspective might be different from people who were in it longer or never played the prior game at all...

I actually already have a few ideas for a hybridized system as far as House structure goes, the first time I've thought I could sit down and write up some rules. I'll save the details of it for after we have some discussion of the KotR rules set, though.

One strong point of KotR was that the fixed Houses meant very different characters might have to work together with common goals, something that happened less when you chose your House (although there was potential in LotR for Houses to develop around types of personality, say a dread House and a chivalrous House, in practice I thought they were quite similar). There would also be interesting situations like Swabia. Having its Duke be inactive caused problems, but it also meant that Ruppel had to step up to the plate. Because he wasn't officially duke there was some resistance to his leadership. All in all it meant a very interesting dynamic that I don't think was explored properly.

Fair enough and I'm glad you posted a counter position to mine Zim. "Perception is everything" in many ways.

A lot of development went into LotR and I certainly think certain things must be included and melded with KotR. A "super set" of slimmed down rules from both would be ideal.

[Ramses II CP]

Regarding land and voting consider this: If we return to a 'fixed' House structure, which I can definitely see as a good thing for causing conflict, then vassals will be placed automatically and we can maintain a one province = one vote system without risking new players being unclaimed as vassals and losing the will to participate. If we combine that with a system to replace inactive leaders so the Houses stay active at the top we'll have a good mix of simplicity, engagement, and conflict.

Which is to say, following the KotR example, House Franconia has 3 members. The Duke has 3 provinces and his two counts have each conquered one. When a new general or family member comes into the House there's a huge amount of tension created automatically within the house. Does the Duke give up a province (And a vote) to invest his new vassal in the house? Does he give the new man an army and tell him to go get his own province? Which province can the new man go after anyway, surely the older counts want to expand in all the obvious directions already? Is it time to take a look at Swabia's lightly held central towns? Etc, etc.

There was none of this tension within Houses in LotR.

I like the LotR ruleset. I think TC built a good framework for open roleplaying and cooperative storylines, but during the test we didn't see that there weren't enough restrictions on the players to cause internal conflict and too much complexity in the ranks and powers. I think if we simplify things so that power is directly tied to land there will always be conflict, there will always be Houses and players eyeing each other's loosely defended settlements in the center of the Empire, which, let's face it, is one of the core flaws of MTWII. After you grow to a certain size there are vast regions where nothing is going on.

The fixed house structure is frustrating when you're playing it. Believe me, Fritz was in the worst possible spot in the KotR ranks with his younger brother being first Duke, then Prinz, and finally Kaiser. He had essentially no possibility of feudal advancement... which is why, in my mind, the Illuminati were so appealing to him. Conflict created, conflict resolved, interesting story produced.

I don't oppose having some modifiers to the votes because obviously the King, Prince, and perhaps former Megas/Chancellor should have some added influence, but I think the essence of the system for most players should be one province = one vote. I can nearly guarantee we won't reach the sort of static 'lock down' we have at the end of LotR where you have to march 5 turns across the Empire to try to find a fight.

I particularly think that if we keep the system for siezing captain led stacks we're going to see some interesting developments.

[KnightnDay]

What about an in-game victory awarded to a house that controlled a certain percentage of provinces? So if there were 4 houses, victory might be achieved if a single house controlled a third or more of the factions provinces. The condition might not be enabled until a minimum number of provinces were controlled by the faction. It would certainly make for conflict as a house looks at weakly defended places belonging to another house.

[flyd]

I'd like to speak against the one province = one vote idea. I think it goes in the wrong direction. It encourages wild expansion, and will once again lead to bodyguards flying off left and right in the early game. Furthermore, there are only a handful of provinces in the early game for any faction, and it will make a large proprotion of the players disenfranchised. It would only serve to further weaken the Diet, and we have never before taken away anyone's votes, at least until the secession rules.

In fact, I'd rather go the other way: one person = one vote. If there is to be any good Diet discussion, there needs to be a powerful Diet. With everone having a vote, it would be up to the leaders to woo the voters, and each voter would maintain significant power. We also need to make expansion difficult and slow (the AI will not do that for us), which could be done through the territory Edicts I ranted on about in my last post. LotR had strong fuedalism and it killed the Senate. We need to go back to a more of a voting bloc thing rather than lord-and-vassal.

[TinCow]

Fair enough and I'm glad you posted a counter position to mine Zim. "Perception is everything" in many ways.

A lot of development went into LotR and I certainly think certain things must be included and melded with KotR. A "super set" of slimmed down rules from both would be ideal.

I think our views of KOTR can sometimes be clouded a bit by the Illuminati-effect. One of the reasons KOTR is remembered so fondly is that there was a dedicated group of people who decided to play the bad guys over the long term. This in turn encouraged other people to become similarly dedicated in their opposition to the bad guys, resulting initially in a subtle political struggle and eventually moving into open warfare. From my perspective, it wasn't the KOTR rules that caused this, it was the players themselves: the Illuminati who played the bad guys and the loyalists who then stood up against them.

I would be interested in hearing Northnovas' perspective on this, because I distinctly remember being told that he was very bored with KotR and was close to dropping out. One of the reasons we invited him into the Illuminati was to make the game more interesting for him. After that, he was a major player the entire time. If this is in fact true, the only thing that caused Northnovas' feelings about the game to shift was the Illuminati.

I may very well be biased here, because this game was my brain child. I definitely made huge mistakes with the rule system which cause serious, long-term problems. However, from my perspective as an impartial observer of the game from the very beginning, it seemed like no one every really took much of a lead in the game. I always felt like I had to do things myself to inject conflict and excitement into the game, and that wasn't how it was designed to work. LotR was meant to be a RPG sandbox game. It was designed to let people have a lot of freedom in their actions. Yet it felt to me like people were always waiting around for someone else to do something to cause the excitement.

There were a couple early sparks, like Elite Ferret getting kicked out of his House, but these were always soothed over and everyone tried to be friends. That's the perfect way to act in the real world, but it's damned boring in a game. The first person who took a lead on generating conflict was, not surprisingly, Ignoramus. Iggy played the only true 'villain' we had in LotR and while he did a great job, always remaining consistent in his actions, it took FOREVER for anyone to stand up to him. His blatant abuses of power were handled with a CA banning him from automatically taking the Megas position. That's it, that was his only penalty. The first time anyone really stood up to him was when Tristan stopped him from marrying off his daughter, and even then I had to step in and use my powers to try and make that conflict serious.

It was only about a month or two ago that people finally DID catch on to what was needed and what was possible. Ignoramus, YLC, Ramses, Cecil, Zim, TheFlax, Ibn... all of these people stepped out of the 'friend zone' everyone was playing in and decided to shake things up. Suddenly, the game became exciting, but unfortunately the damage had already been done.

I personally don't think it truly matters which rule system is used. I think a new game based on the KotR rules could be a massive success or a massive failure. I think a new game based on the LotR rules could be a massive success or a massive failure. The determining factor, IMO, is whether the players decide to take risks and rile up the system. No matter how good the rules, a game will be dull if this doesn't happen. No matter how agonizingly bad the rules (well, within reason), a game will be exciting if the players give it exciting plotlines.

These games are sandbox games. Sandbox games give players the tools to do whatever they want, but they have to create their own entertainment. If everyone just sits in the sandbox waiting for someone else to start building something interesting, eventually they'll all get bored and go home. Or someone will pee in the sandbox.

[Zim]

I thought this was interesting. I certainly agree that it's more players that drive game activity than rules, especially players willing to go against the grain.

I think I should mention that things could be tough for those of us joining late and out of the loop. Unlike players inside the conflict I was pretty oblivious concerning the Illuminati. People talked a little about a secret group but it was represented to me more as an obsession of Jan's than anything else.

Then a couple times when I tried to get more involved (considering a run for Chancellor and then later trying to be involved in the investigation Cecil was doing) I was rebuffed by one or more Illuminati members.

The story came together wonderfully at the end of the game and I see it as one of KotR's greatest accomplishments. However, I can truthfully say that for a few of us newer guys activity was stifled rather than encouraged by the group. Perhaps if I had taken up a banner against it things would have been different.

On the note of influence, I agree that it wasn't paid attention to much. Caps tended to be low and not many of us had the uberstats needed to have much influence, no matter the rank. I remember it being pretty much the Basileus with a lot of influence, former Megas' with 2 or 3, and lots of 1s...

I think our views of KOTR can sometimes be clouded a bit by the Illuminati-effect. One of the reasons KOTR is remembered so fondly is that there was a dedicated group of people who decided to play the bad guys over the long term. This in turn encouraged other people to become similarly dedicated in their opposition to the bad guys, resulting initially in a subtle political struggle and eventually moving into open warfare. From my perspective, it wasn't the KOTR rules that caused this, it was the players themselves: the Illuminati who played the bad guys and the loyalists who then stood up against them.

I would be interested in hearing Northnovas' perspective on this, because I distinctly remember being told that he was very bored with KotR and was close to dropping out. One of the reasons we invited him into the Illuminati was to make the game more interesting for him. After that, he was a major player the entire time. If this is in fact true, the only thing that caused Northnovas' feelings about the game to shift was the Illuminati.

[Ignoramus]

I think we should have the ability to form new Duchies but it should be harder than convincing a few people to switch votes. Maybe requiring the official approval of the King in order to legitimise it? The Kaiser in KotR had quite an important role in assigning new provinces, which meant that Houses couldn't afford to risk alienating him. If the King could officially sanction rebels of Dukes then it would create a sense of risk to go against him.

I also think that LotR flopped because of a lack of competition. There was simply too much land to go around. No one threw the kitchen sink into to getting a certain province.

A key element in KotR was stability. The four duchies were there to stay, and so you could make long term plans. In LotR, you were never sure whether a house would exist by the next term which made alliances riskier.

[TheFlax]

GM's Code:

So very true.


Now, from what I read, most people seem to want a compromise between KotR and LotR. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

I'll talk about Houses in an instant, first I want to talk about Ramses' proposition that votes be tied to land. While this has some merit, making land much more important and promoting conflict over land. I think it takes out too many newcomers out of the equation. I think it would be much more sensible to have some sort of system where the number of landed vassals are more important. Not only does land remain important, but people also become an important resource. I'm thinking it would make for a fun game if people had to fight for vassals and loyalty would become rather important.

If I remember correctly, LotR wanted to do that, but by tying voting power to stats, even the people with the highest ranks (like deguerra) never got high enough stats to benefit from their rank.

Now for the Houses, perhaps a mix of established "permanent" Houses and other more fluid Houses could be established. So lets say we go with the family tree being split into Houses, like KotR. We could also have RGBs who form small units of their own, similar to Houses, and who can pledge themselves to a House for a certain amount of time, at the cost of the established noble House. Just an idea and it could be more refined, it also does not remedy what to do with adoption. (I guess they could be treated case by case.)