Illarion.org

I remember the guild council a while ago, but it never lasted long. That's just a taste of what would happen if we had a king/queen.

Well it wasn't the "idea" of the guild council that didn't work. It's just that the guild leaders just became increasingly pre-ocupied with other things at the time and nobody took the initiative to make it continue. Also getting meetings or decision making was difficult because of the time zone differences between everyone, but it's possible to get around this somehow. A similar attempt would be the best way to go but I don't think it is quite the time yet. The guilds still need a little more time to re-organize and make themselves known and respected again.

A king or royalty would not work in this game as rulers, or even in real life, unless it forced its self there and put to death all who was opposed and ruled by fear and force.
Why?..For the simple reason and ork would not want to be told what to do by a halfling, a human would not want to be made to give his land to a halfling. A lizard would not want to pay a tax to an elf. etc

It would cause unity yes..but only to overthrow the power.

If there was to be a governing body laying down laws it would HAVE to be a mixed democratic, and voted in group. Atleast one member from each race to the ponit of an odd number, so votes between them will not end in a stale mate. That way all is fair, if some one becomes corupt or stupid or usless he can be replaced with least of fus to the people.

Alas, unfortunately, it is better for the people to fear you than love you. (just a thought). I think, the best thing is, everyone who is for having a monarch, build a new city. That is my plan, and it is a good one. You won't have people going against the monarch because they made the conscious decision to have one. Agree?

Yes that maybe true but the people (majoriy of) dont. (tho that dont stop you from rp'ing a king

Can anyone who is interested in starting a new town with a monarch please email me at verydirtdog@lycos.com or private message me?

Paul,

we have just enouth space for one small town. Where would you want to place a new one ?

Yours,
Loki

With the planned world map coming out sometime in the future, you'll have plenty of room to build small towns. And each race will have their own city which means the race could decide on what type of government they want and Ithink if you have the money for say your a human you could build another small town in the human territory. So I suggest you wait for the map editor to be finished and the rest of the world map to be completed.

In my opinion, there has already been too many changes in the past month or two. Let things smooth over and then bring it up again.

@Dyluck:
That may be the reason it ceased to continue, but you certainly can't say it was liked by all - or even half - the players.

@Astral: Hmm I do think that a lot of people liked it, and the guild leaders were pretty enthusiastic about it too. A few people were a bit questionable about why guilds should be tyring to govern the town, but they didn't have to accept us if they didn't want to, but we were respected and well trusted, so most people would've accepted us anyways.

I never liked the idea of that guild council because the ability for any guild to enter was there and you could have people that knew nothing of the well fare of the town making laws for everyone else. Then once you had the guild council in place and making laws....you have potentially all of these guilds chasing after someone who breaks one law and there is nowhere to hide, even if the law was unjust or the person innocent. The laws would be watered down so as not to offend anyone. So either you're going to have very lose fitting laws to get all of the different types of people in the council to vote for them, or you're going to have strict laws set up by like minded people in the grey rose and grey light for the most part, who are already a partnership, and there will be no escaping those laws and little to no input into changing them if you're not a part of one of the guilds in the council. If there are people who don't wish to be a part of any guild, and don't wish to live under those laws set up by a guild council they will have no place in illarion. This is why I have always thought that the best option would be for smaller kingdoms or guilds or towns or what have you, to make their own laws and have people who want to follow those laws to join that guild...and this would also allow criminals to be harbored by one guild/town/kingdom when another is trying to persecute them if they two larger bodies do not agree on the guilt of the criminal or the justification for the proposed punishment. This would add even more roleplaying possibilities for "evil" characters or guilds. If there was a guild council even if there was a guild of "evil" people they would have no voice in the overall vote, they could accomplish nothing. As it stands now there are hardly any "evil" characters but the opportunity is there and should be explored by some who think they can do it in an RP way. A guild council would almost completely rule out any future guild wars when those are a great means of RP and could add a breath of life to a stagnent time. A council made from guild leaders or of major guilds would be the most, democratic form of government that could be implimented, but it is also one of the most limiting in terms of RP possibilities. For this reason I think it's a bad idea.

I don't like the idea of any guild being able to join either, but we were in the process of working on ways to filter some of them. But for those things you said would limit rp possiblities, I see exactly the opposite. Having very less power to oppose the government or escape it's policy is a great RP scenario to me, just like in many medieval situations where the common people had very less power to change their government, and might even have to revolt or run or whatever if the government was unjust and tyrannic. It could become a very realistic experience for commoners to possibly feel supressed or powerless from the law. Possibly skilled people can even play "evil" politicians, trying to abuse the situation for their own good and from this, guild conflicts could still arise. Having other kingdoms to escape to is good too, but I don't see this happening any time soon.

If someone didn't agree with the government they were being ruled by they had more options, they could flee to another country, city, state, town, house even.....they could join up in arms and fight back against their opressors. Here that is not possible under the guild council government. If you didn't agree with rules and laws and how they were being decided upon and enforced you could not fight back, you could try to join the council but that would do no good as the opinions and votes of the ones opressing you would greatly outnumber your own. You could try to fight back and raise up an army but there would be no chance to defeat all of the other guilds at once, it would result in endless pking and multiple killings, dragging illarion down to a state of no repair. The ones fighting back would be deleted and banned for fighting back against something they couldn't change.

How would you decide who could join this council anyway? You said that it was being discussed who should be rejected from the chance, would this be all "evil" guilds? If so then you rule out their point of view and you have lost an important part of society. Would you rule out all new guilds? If you do that then you will miss out on all the new ideas coming into illarion, they'll see that they can not change what is not right in their minds and leave. This would be a travesty. If they didn't have a website?. What does a website outside of illarion forums have to do with dedication and idea generation in illarion? It speaks not a word towards ones roleplaying ability. Now, what would constitute a guild? A magic academy would not be a guild, it's a group of teachers who teach magic and other things to citizens. Would the teachers be members along with the students or only the teachers? I think none. The grey rose and grey light would not be guilds, they're organized governments already, almost small cities within our own. But as it stands, the term 'guild' as been stretched over nearly every facit of our society in illarion and has come to mean any group of people who want to call themself a guild in order to gain power over their own ranks, or outsiders, and in many cases, both. If those that think differently than you are not allowed into the council, those that don't meet your pre-determined requirements that were meant to exclude "outsiders" from hendering your desired control over illarion to have a say, or a vote, then you have dashed away all hope of a fair government. You have crushed the democratic foundation that the council was meant to be founded upon.

So, once a guild council was formed it could not be changed. The rules would be law, everyone who was not in these guilds would suffer, Illarion could sink to an all new low. The idea is ludicris. There is also the fact that soon there will be a seperate city for each race, the council would then be ineffective, out dated. Each city will have to create it's own laws for it's own race or else there would be no point at all in having seperate cities. All variation would be tossed out of the game.

It was the same idea when SMACC was formed. There were those that opposed it and those who liked it - there always will be. But look where that has gone. Down the drain too. You can keep trying to form a "government", but the result is inevitable, it won't last.

I personally don't like the idea of segregating the different races, but since the dwarves have started it, I suppose that it too is inevitable.

What you speak of could apply to any government. How would you overthrow a dwarven king or some other ruler? You can still flee away, or maybe it's not so easy to leave depending on the laws, that's the beauty of it, the decisions of the governing characters will decide in RP. If you're afraid of a government being able to impose it's will on the people, then what's the point of having one if it is powerless? In the goverment of multiple guilds you can still try and influence people to your opinions. They are after all, seperate guilds, seperate nobilities. If you don't agree to the laws set and there are only a minority of people who agree with you, then that's the reality of a medieval government and I think that's great for RP. The fact that you can't fight your way to overthrow the numbers of the guild council is even better, then you'd have to find other solutions to influence parties who share your opinions. It isn't easy of course, but whoever said trying to change a government would be?

As for how to decide who joins this council, it all depends on what the parties involved decide. Don't dwell on the ideas presented over a year ago, they are but a starting point.
Perhaps the decisions made within the council are seemingly democratic, but setting the foundation many not necessarily be democratic. Maybe the government comes into power through a process that is not completely fair, but that doesn't necessarily mean the people will reject it. A lot has to do with how you present the idea and package it. Such is the work that a clever politician must do.

But there's no end to this, we can only say how the people will theoretically react. Let the RP world progress, and see what will happen.

@Astral: How can you say that when you've barely even tried? The guild council and SMACC that you speak of, it is not that the idea itself did not work, but that there is more to making an idea work besides simply presenting it.

In my opinion (which is always right so don't question it) there are too many different views of what's right or wrong, what is good and evil in the world to have one overshadowing government. In the real world there will never be a world government ruling over all countries, we're all individuals and all have different beliefs and one set of laws will never be able to include all of these different beliefs or religions or lifestyles. This is why there are so many smaller countries in the world today, especially in Europe. There were too many differences between the people to have one umbrella government. That is why I think that when the illarion community is split up into different cities for each race the possibility for governments will be the greatest, not before. Each race should think differently, each race should behave differently because they are afterall, different, and one set of laws made up of a council of mixed races (although probably the majority would be human and elves) would not be all inclusive, it would be forcing entire races to hold laws created by those who are not even of the same speices as them true and would have to live by them. This is why I believe that there should be smaller kingdoms created (possibly for each race in the future but that will be done naturally and not forced by the creators (by which I mean actual governments and not the individual towns)) and these would make up rules for their own inhabitants (who would join voluntarily) and from these kingdoms alliances could be made with other kingdoms and even a net of alliaces could spread through the land but not one all inclusive set of laws. A council of existing guilds of mixed races creating laws for all inhabitants seems too poetic and too nice, it could never work like that. That wouldn't be something natural, it wouldn't be good RP in my opinion (and I've already stated this opinion of mine is always correct so there is no point in questioning it).

To your comparason of the countries in the world to kingdoms in illarion, then think of the United Nations in comparason to the guild council. Since there are no real kingdoms now in illarion and probably not for a good while, the kingdoms that we do have are then what we call guilds. It is the guilds that represent the different interests of the people for now. Even if there were a different kingdoms, you would still have to have some kind of power in one to reperesent your interest, and the guilds is the best mirror to that right now. In essense you could already think of each guld as a seperate kingdom with their own laws and interests, they just don't have territory that's all.
Like the UN, a guild council does not rule over everyone, but their alliance in their objectives makes them powerful in many ways. They aren't the rulers of the world, but nonetheless people will want to join or conform to their rules in order to get the benefits that it can bring. But like I say , it's not whether the idea itself will work, we won't know for sure. It's up to the people trying to make it work to show how good of a politician they are.

To give another point,
it was said, that not the guild council allone will make laws.
There was planed also a town council, in which shall be elected people, which aren't in any guild to give these people also a voice.
And these two, guild council and town councel together shall make laws and enforce them.

@ Astral.

There were those that opposed it and those who liked it - there always will be. But look where that has gone. Down the drain too. You can keep trying to form a "government", but the result is inevitable, it won't last.

Down the drain? Not quite, it had more tremendous impact on the economy than you might even guess. It was the smacc that raised the prices, prices which are quite the standard now.

Goverments? Perhaps they would last a bit longer, if only there wouldn't be as much people who 'are not ready to give it a shot'
Positivity, people!

I personally like this idea of Town council and Guild Council.
This would prevent people of controlling the town too easily because there would be the another council to take over, too and It would create a certain 'battle of will' between the two councils.
Of course, almost every goverment requires money to work.
That is why I would be interested to see a 'citizenship tax' to be implemented. But enough of this now, elect me into the council and I shall reveal my plans.
(And no, I do not plan to keep them all by myself, Dyluck.)

Caranthir for king

What? Now this I could call progress.
I ask them to elect me into some council, and already they are making me the king!
Fine, I guess I shall accept your request..

I have searched on the board for the rules of the guild council, made a year ago and post them as a remembrance and base for discussion:

"
To the meeting is every guild allowed, if it is good or evil. the meeting is a place for politics, not for weapons and threats. Unrespectable behavior or attacks have the fact, that this person and guild will loose his seat. If it is loosed, the guild can regain it after a month.

Guilds, which have get their 6th member can ably for a seat and will reach it one month later.
Guilds, which have get their 12th member can ably for two seats and will reach it two months later.
Schools with 12 pupils will get one seat, after a month of existing.
Schools with 24 pupils will get two seats after two months of existing.

One player can only have one char, which counts for the same guild as member.
"

and from another topic:

"
- It was decided that the Guild Council will have a website.

- The requirements for a seat in the council are as follows:

- For a Guild or Clan:
- 1 seat requires at least 6 members and 1 month old
- 2 seats requires at least 12 members and 2 months old

- For a School:
- 1 seat requires at least 12 students, 3 teachers, and 1 month old
- 2 seats requires at least 24 students, 6 teachers, and 2 months old

- All Guilds that meet the requirements (even if they are "evil" ) have the right to 1 or 2 seats (specified above), as long as they behave. If a guild member loses a seat, all the seats from that guild will be revoked and the guild cannot attend the meetings for one month.
"


If looking at the old topics, you will see, that the idea was mainly destroyed by a few people, who always fought against one another in each topic in the boards .... but htey have gone.

@ Cara
As I said long ago, for me, you will be always King of the Ironhammer.

This is just an example of one possible way of how we were doing it a year ago though. It is just one of many possible ways to set up a council of guilds, so don't dwell on this guideline as the basis in trying to determine whether or not the idea of a guild council will work.

For a school, would those have to be current students or students who have in the past come to the school for instruction? I'm not trying to be a thorn in anyone's side but if this idea is going to be implimented it should be refined so I thought I would ask a few questions. Also, how would you decide what is a school? I know that I have instructed many people in many things and received payment in more than 12 cases, couldn't I pay two cronies one day and call myself a school who's taught 12 students and get a vote? I sure hope not. I think that if they are 12 current students that would obviously be the best case to define a school worthy of a vote, but it would be hard to prove who are the current students because the inscruction process could take place over months with long periods of dormancy. Those are just a few things to think about I thought I should mention. Having the town council independant of the guild council seems like a good idea to me as they are seperate entities and that would provide a way to have the option to fight back against what you thouht was wrong if you could sway a vote or two in the town council. Or even all of them if one of the "evil" guilds could somehow take over the town council.

@Dyluck, I'm sorry if it seems as though I'm trying to refute your vote here but you're the only school I can think of and these questions came up. This isn't aimed at you in any way, please don't take this personally. There was the Shi Long monistary but I've heard nothing of them for the past few months, I may have but it would have been in german so I should say I haven't heard anything from them that I have understood in the past few months.

You could also pay some cronies and call yourself a guild too, and you wouldn't need as much members. It's also just as hard to know for sure if a guild member is active as it is to know for a school's students. One of the reasons why a webpage is required so it's more troublesome to fake a guild. But anyways for a school, it counts all students in the record, and that's why schools require more members than a guild needs to be recognized and get a seat. I'm just telling you this to answer your question. I myself don't think this guideline made a year ago is the best way to go and I still see many problems with it. I have my own thoughts on how to make it work, but that's for Dyluck to go do, not me.

A year ago, the council could've worked, due to the RP environment we had then. But although it was good on paper, it lacked implementation. So if you can come up with a good system for government, I will support it.

I say Dyluck should be one of the leaders of the town, since he has strong opinions (sometimes too strong JK) and good will.

@Caranthir
What ever happened to the ironhammer guild? Or was it a kingdom? And what happened to make you a former king? Just some questions I'd like answered. Thanks again.

Yours,

@ Lanth
There was also "The School of Combat" one year ago.
These rules should prevent the council from guilds build for some days and than vanish again. So the rules take care for guilds, which will work in Illarion for longer time and also have worked for an amount of time.

(Like to discuss things clearer, but this isn't my mothertongue and for always looking in a dictionary, I'm to lazy.)

There should be a minimum number of current students enrolled in the school as well in order to get a seat or you could rely on your past work and do nothing in the present but still be able to decide what's best for the prestent, and not the past where you should have had a voice. If it were only past students then it would not be fair to guilds who have to have active members, sure you could call your teachers active because you're paying them but then you are essentially a guild of three or four people, that doesn't seem to be just.

Well, this is what happened to the Ironhammer.

I started this game, and one of the first persons I encountered was Udan.
Udan helped me to get started, and then after few hours he told me that he was going to create a dwarven guild/clan/kindom and asked me to be the number two dwarf of his creation.
That was quite flattering, so I agreed.
The reasons why we fell, was basically two things.
First, our recruitment system. We took any dwarf into our ranks, without questions asked, without test time or anything. I think that you are bringth enough to guess what happened, but I will explain it to all of you who didn't. They didn't return. They just 'disappeard'. So basically a we had about 40-50 members, with 15 active at its best.

Another thing was, that the information didn't go from the right hand to the left, which is nicely shown by the fact that Udan told me of his departation five minutes before he left, gave me crown and said to me 'You are the king now.'
The ship was already sinking before I became the captain.
Well, the membership count was dropping all the time, and Leif and I we discussing of drastical means of stopping the people from disappearing, and how to replace the people who already left with trustworthy dwarves.
But we could not find enough of the or act swiftly enough to divert the course we were heading. The real deathblow was Leif's disappearance, since he was trusted the handling of public relations (Webpages) of the guild.
Shortly after that, I was basically alone. I got frustrated, and 'buried' the guild by now more actively searching for promising members.
Long before Udan came back, I had begun to plan scrapping the guild as whole, but since he had trusted me with it, I could not do so.
When he suprised me and returned, I immediatly made him the captain of the sunken ship, and left the Guild.


This is written in 'I' as for Caranthir's actions, since this is not RP-board words such 'game' appear there.