Successor game rules, draft one.

[ULC]

The Council can veto it, but not force it to a certain House or noble. The King still decides. I think that is appropriate.

Hmm...I still think we need people to pander to Houses more, and thus become dependent on them for power or any kind of gain. We also want to stir inter house rivalry. Being able to fight over who gets what could help, and it shouldn't always be the backers of the King that get everything.

My 2 cents.

Also, what do you think of my idea concerning RBG's?

[mini]

if we force rgb's to be sponserd (linked to a house) we will have more civil wars, as people might want to move up in the world. That may not always be possible if ur forced to part of a certain house ;p


I joined Lotr fairely late, but did manage to fight a battle (and lose :p) and got involved in the 4 basilei war.
I hope i can get my hands on one from the start this time ;p

[TinCow]

RBGs:

There are two main concerns that seem to be expressed regarding using RBGs. First, that players consider them disposable. There's no way to make someone keep an avatar alive when they don't want to, so it's pointless to try and do that. However, we can encourage someone to be more dedicated to their present avatar, regardless of the circumstances they're in. I see two ways of doing this:

1) Respawn timer. After a player dies, a new RBG cannot be spawned for them until X turns have passed. 5 seems reasonable to me. This would prevent avatar swapping unless you're moving from a RBG to a family member, which should probably not be blocked since those avatars stick around even if they're not being used. This also allows someone who won a battle in a civil war (and killed an enemy avatar) time to exploit their opponents temporary weakness before the player gets a chance to respawn and sign back up to fight for the same side.

2) No more multiple RBG spawns. Instead of spawning 3-6 RBGs and letting a player pick from them, a single RBG is spawned and that's what you have to take, regardless of traits, etc. This will make respawning risky because you might well get stuck with a crappy avatar or one you don't particularly like. It might also encourage more interesting roleplaying, forcing a player to take a character in a different direction than they had otherwise planned.

A combination of both 1 and 2 might be effective while still being simple to implement.

The second RBG concern that has been expressed is house instability, which I frankly think is an issue for family members as well. The best way to solve this is simply to make it hard to leave a House once you've joined one. In feudal societies, changing allegiances was a major thing and it would make sense to have major consequences. The most basic idea is simply to prevent any player from breaking an Oath except (1) if he has a dispensation from the King or (2) he declares war on his former Lord. While it makes sense to allow an Oath break if the Duke agrees to it, if the Duke and the vassal are in agreement, I suspect most Kings will give a dispensation. If the King won't allow it, it's just good IC politicking. This also gives the King a second way to manage Houses in addition to the land allocation power we are discussing.

Civil War Mechanics:

This seems to be a question of balancing strategic complexity with efficiency. I can think of many different ways of managing this. The more strategically complex it is, the slower and less likely to result in a battle it is. Here are the various systems I can think of off the top of my head, in decreasing order of complexity (and thus increasing likelihood of battles occurring).

1) Basic LotR system, as the rules are currently written. Players move normally on the map and battles occur when they encounter one another. This allows total freedom of movement in the game and is thus the most strategic, but as we saw in LotR in-game movement speeds often result in 'phony' wars with no fighting whatsoever. This system thus makes civil war almost completely harmless to an enemy whose lands are not near your own, which reduces their impact and makes them less serious. This system has the advantage of allowing gameplay to continue relatively normally while the maneuvering is in progress.

2) Phased Movement system, as was used in the LotR War of the Four Basileis. Essentially, players submit movement orders by PM to the GM or battle Umpire, who then makes all the moves simultaneously, using the console to allow multiple movement phases without advancing the game year. Only combatants submit orders, with all neutrals remaining frozen while the war takes place. This is faster than (1), more likely to result in battles due to the ability to allow increased movement ranges, and still allows moderate strategic movements, such as occupying bridges or defending certain settlements. However, players can still run away from one another or otherwise refrain from fighting if they want to. This also makes everyone else sit around and twiddle their fingers waiting for it all to be over, which can be a pain if it lasts a long time.

3) Phased Movement system, as was used in the KotR Cataclysm. Pretty much the same as (2), but everyone submits movement orders, even neutrals, and the game year keeps advancing. Has the advantages of (2) without making people twiddle their fingers. However, it's a lot more work for the GM/Umpire and it risks exploitation if the neutrals use this period of time to beat up the AI with their bonus movement.

4) MTW/Risk-style system. Similar to phased movement, but players submit orders to move based on province proximity. For instance, any player can move their army up to two (or one, or three, or whatever) consecutive provinces per phased turn. When players enter a province with a hostile force, a battle occurs. Battles are treated as they are in MTW, namely that if one army is moving into a province with the enemy, but the enemy was stationary that turn, the moving army is the attacker and the stationary army is the defender and may get a terrain/settlement advantage. If both armies were moving, it is a meeting engagement and occurs on an open battlefield without one side getting a terrain advantage. This is even faster than (2) and (3) and very likely to result in a battle, since people don't need to move close to each other in a province, they just need to be in the same province. However, this doesn't allow for the same level of strategic detail as (1) through (3) and generally limits people to deciding whether to attack or defend. This also will make the neutrals sit around watching for a while, though for not as long as (2).

5) Instant battle system. As soon as a civil war is declared, all players declare who they support or whether they are neutral. When this is completed, a battle instantly occurs with all participants on both sides showing up. When the battle is over, the war is over. This is the fastest method possible and will ALWAYS result in a battle, making civil wars very serious things. However, it allows for pretty much no pre-battle strategy beyond politically recruiting allies.

Please feel free to discuss these options or otherwise propose your own systems.

[AussieGiant]

As a basic premise, KotR had more interaction and IC politicking than I could handle. Therefore to me the system supported this aspect extremely well. I know it's just my experience but I did play both extremes of the spectrum, unnamed elector, then a family member.

A bit of light reading of the Diet sessions can confirm this.

RBG's are nice, but not a "must have" in my view. At the very least it's a one shot spawn in order to ensure the disposability of the RBG is not exploited.

Civil Wars...again I thought the KotR system was a nice blend of characteristics.

[TinCow]

Civil Wars...again I thought the KotR system was a nice blend of characteristics.

The only KotR civil war system was the Cataclysm, and that took so much time to implement that I had to promise my wife I would never do it again. Just a warning to anyone considering running that kind of thing.

[AussieGiant]

The only KotR civil war system was the Cataclysm, and that took so much time to implement that I had to promise my wife I would never do it again. Just a warning to anyone considering running that kind of thing.

Well lets strike that from the list of options then.

[TheFlax]

Concerning the RGBs, I am in agreement, although I thought having a choice was nice.

As for the Civil War system I like option 4 the best. It seems to be a good compromise between strategy and efficiency.

[Vladimir]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

4) MTW/Risk-style system. Similar to phased movement, but players submit orders to move based on province proximity. For instance, any player can move their army up to two (or one, or three, or whatever) consecutive provinces per phased turn. When players enter a province with a hostile force, a battle occurs. Battles are treated as they are in MTW, namely that if one army is moving into a province with the enemy, but the enemy was stationary that turn, the moving army is the attacker and the stationary army is the defender and may get a terrain/settlement advantage. If both armies were moving, it is a meeting engagement and occurs on an open battlefield without one side getting a terrain advantage. This is even faster than (2) and (3) and very likely to result in a battle, since people don't need to move close to each other in a province, they just need to be in the same province. However, this doesn't allow for the same level of strategic detail as (1) through (3) and generally limits people to deciding whether to attack or defend. This also will make the neutrals sit around watching for a while, though for not as long as (2).

This seems like a simple yet flexible system. If the player does not specify the umpire will assume they are taking the most direct route. However, the player can also specify tactical moves to end their movement on a hill, hidden in forests, and etc. The presence of a spy in an army should allow it to avoid ambushes, choose favorable terrain, and etc.

Maybe I’m thinking of a merger between (1) and (4). A hostile army shouldn’t be able to move freely through a hostile province. Simple turn-based movement doesn’t account for the use of watchtowers, spies, and scout reports that allow the defending army to react to the threat in real time. The defender should have the advantage, say, in a weighted dice role with the above sensors figured in.

[Cecil XIX]

I remember that at the beginning of LOTR Tincow had the swell idea of having the players vote on what type of PVP battle would be fought, with the idea of keeping things moving. Could we do something like this here?

At the start of each PVP war, there could be a poll of the choices Tincow listed, minus whatever Zim doesn't want to do. Perhaps restrict the voting just to the combatants, since they'd presumably want to get it done quickly while still caring deeply about the outcome. Zim could cast the tiebraker.

This could allow for a trial-and-error process to see which of the five systems work best, and would also allow us to adjust to the fact that some wars are more suited to the more interactive methods due to closer proximity. For example, a war between Bohemia and Austria would be resolved fairly quickly even in option one since Prague and Vienna are so close.