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[What should the tech level be?]

What should the tech level be?

Spacefaring Empire

4 (36.4%)

1500-1700

7 (63.6%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: October 05, 2018, 12:14:58 AM

We've been trying to get a House RP up and running for ages, and I won't pretend I have it all figured out, but my philosophy has always been that a finished product, however imperfect, beats an unfinished one.

Therefore, friends and countrymen, I have decided to start a new House RP, even if we haven't figured all our shit out before the start-date, as even a failed RP can teach us a few lessons which we can build on.

As always, I am terrible at coming up with names, so if you have a better idea for what to call it, I am all ears.

How will it work? I've had this idea for a while to combine elements of a national RP with ones from a normal character-driven one. We have nobles in Wintreath, like myself, Pengu and Gerrick, and of course we have a Monarch, so my idea was that each noble would preside over one district of the nation, and then there would be lesser nobles and commoners who run for mayoral seats to preside over individual cities, or gain influence through other means, such as the councils of the nobles and monarch.

I haven't gotten down to an enemy faction, and that's mainly due to not knowing whether to make this a fantasy, sci-fi, historical or modern-day setting yet.

I also wanted to try a new way of doing stats, outside the confines of NS, where each city would devote its resources as it sees fit to develop its technology, army or economy.

In the very likely event that I become too busy in real life, I also want to have a whole host of people who can pick this idea up and run with it should I become inactive, so I don't want to make it too overwhelming.

Finally, as I said, if there is enough interest, I want to begin this RP about a week from now, so we don't fall into analysis paralysis.

Any and all are welcome. If you have not yet joined a house, I suggest doing so or starting your own ASAP. I want to try and incentivise you to join an established house, but I also don't want to disincentivise it too much if you want to go ahead and do your own thing.

Not being a House member, and with little understanding and consequently interest in the House system, I suppose I fundamentally question why this is necessarily House based in the first place.
If this is supposed to be that we each rule separate areas of Wintreath in a feudal manner subordinate to Wintermoot, - it could just as easily repackage Houses as political Factions, and continue to allow for people not members of Houses to join in this RP, which, as it is, sounds essentially be a character-driven political RP surrounding the affairs of court and empire.
If it being a House RP is non-negotiable, I'll likely decline to participate simply on the basis of not being all too hot on the idea of Houses in the first place.

Not being a House member, and with little understanding and consequently interest in the House system, I suppose I fundamentally question why this is necessarily House based in the first place.
If this is supposed to be that we each rule separate areas of Wintreath in a feudal manner subordinate to Wintermoot, - it could just as easily repackage Houses as political Factions, and continue to allow for people not members of Houses to join in this RP, which, as it is, sounds essentially be a character-driven political RP surrounding the affairs of court and empire.
If it being a House RP is non-negotiable, I'll likely decline to participate simply on the basis of not being all too hot on the idea of Houses in the first place.

Houses are for RP purposes anyway... what do you see as the difference between creating/joining new political factions for this RP compared to creating/joining Houses for purposes of this RP?

I think the House RP thing is probably because Weissreich has had that RP idea in the works for many years now but it never happened. Valeria was actually formed in large part for the purposes of said RP that never happened, IIRC.

Houses, as I recall them being explained to me, are an NS thing, which is why Crush is, like, a Stuart or whatever, and why there's all this weird parent/child/some-other-relation thing attached to the House system. If we made them a mandatory part of this, I'd have to buy into that.
In contrast, if we had 'noble houses' in this as part of our characters, which seems like a requirement if this is the feudal/neofeudal thing the setting would suggest, and some of these noble houses were tied together in the form of 'political factions' (such as, say, the Valeria Faction), it would allow for both people who had Houses, and those who didn't/didn't wish to, to participate.

Essentially, I'm arguing that we should divorce in-this-RP houses from the-NS-phenomenon Houses as a requirement for the RP.

I fail to see a meaningful difference. Houses in Wintreath mean nothing outside RP. They can be completely ignored, and for the most part, they are. If this gets up and running, it would be the first practical benefit to joining a House.

That said, I see no reason to be black and white about it. We can do something like this: If you don't care to join a House, you can still register a character but you won't get your own city to rule over. You could then join a nobleman's service, by being a member of their guard or political council, etc.

As for resource allocation, I think what I currently have in mind is that each city gets a finite number of credits per day, and can then choose to spend it however they wish. If they belong to a house, then they get diminishing returns based on how big the house is. For example, if you start a house and you're the only person in it, you get the baseline 100% of tax money you're due to run your city. If your house has two members, you get 105% and then need to decide through consensus how it gets spent. After this point, you only get an increase once your house reaches 4 members, and after that, 8 and so on. To balance this out, even if you're going solo, you can invest wisely and see increases to your resources anyway as a reward.

I haven't yet decided whether to make this a feudal scenario or not. Would that be preferred?

Looking forward to this. Have had a house character/nation/management RP in the back of my mind for a while.

And if it were not a feudal scenario, what else could it be?

Depending on the tech level, it could be a bunch of family businesses that crop up and rule a futuristic society, or powerful gangs in a nation of otherwise complete anarchy, etc. Feudalism is the easiest one to imagine, but it's not the only way to do things.

Just going to say that I've been looking forward to a house RP for like YEARS now and I'd definitely enjoy being involved in this.  Excellent ideas in this thread so far!  And if I come up with anything in particular that's interesting, I'll definitely attempt to add it.  The only idea that I really have right now is that each person should probably be some sort of individual "estate" or whatnot for each member of a house, etc (like ancestral lands and the like).  And I definitely think that a late feudal or a sort of mercantile age (1500-1700ish) would probably be an interesting time period.  (Mercantile mostly to send ships/yourself on trade missions to distant lands and such)

Yeah, I myself am leaning a Dark Ages feudal scenario, too. Trade will be an important part of the story, and I definitely see the point of giving each noble their own estate, if not their own city.

What I'm not sure about is whether to include magic. Part of me really wants to.

You could always go full neofeudalist and go interstellar empire.
Then you can have space magic!

You could always go full neofeudalist and go interstellar empire.
Then you can have space magic!

THE EMPEROR WILL PUNISH US FOR THIS HERESY ;P

I am interested in this as well

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In preparation for its launch, there are a few things we need to establish. First, what tech level do we want? I have attached a poll.

And since we are nearing the launch window, everyone can just verbally state whether they want magic/spacemagic or not.

No magic, please.

If you are currently part of a house, I suggest you start thinking of a name for the city/planet you will rule over.

For myself, my character will watch over Highever, the city I claimed when I was ennobled. As one of the higher nobles, I will also oversee one entire province/main region of space.

@Pengu, are you going to take part in the RP? If so, we'll need to work on a way to avoid our house becoming OP.

Oh and those who don't wish to join a House but still wish to participate, need to decide in which region of space/which province they wish to operate, or which noble house to pledge their loyalty to.