Multi-classing

Carmell

Sarapis said:

Arditi said:

I somewhat disagree with opening up Houses to whatever, simply because there's established roleplay and identity with some Houses. Not all, but some.

Here's an interesting point: The reason Houses can't let whoever they want in has nothing to do with roleplay: It's a purely OOC mechanic that doesn't even make any sense. Why couldn't an organization simply let in whoever it wants? There's nothing ICly stopping Houses doing it, only a mechanic with transparent OOC motivations behind its implementation.

I'm not arguing for or against more open Houses, but it should be recognized that telling any organization, via code, that they can't let in who they want is a very artificial restriction and has no basis in RP even if, paradoxically, the intent of that restriction is to encourage RP. 

@Sarapis when houses first went in there was multiple houses in shallam that all had the same classes available.  I think the code was changed sometime after I quit playing to be the way it is now.   NOT that I've even been in a house since I woke up since I'm Targossian and we'll get houses when we get them.  I expect Targossas houses are not going to be so much class based as they are going to be IC based on what @Aurora and @Deucalion want for them each to be.  So I can see how the other houses might get the restriction lifted as well but i'd still like to see more RP about your house then just bouncing from one class to another.

Kresslack

Instead of switching between classes, what about the option of having a main class with two of the regular skillsets, with an option to switch out the third skillset with pre-determiend ones? For instance, for most Runewardens, there aren't many(myself included) who utilize Forging outside of making Fullplate. I'm not sure on the details, but it's something I thought I'd throw out there.

Aktillum

Nakari said:

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little afraid of the idea of knight-serpent-monk-bard-shamans. It just seems on a large level to remove the level of importance of each of those choices and the identities that revolve around them. 

It's not a big deal. People were afraid Achaea RP was going down the drain when Guilds were being turned into Houses and autoclass was introduced. People screamed bloody murder and threatened to leave Achaea 4ever because the tedious requirements of applying to a guild, going through a rigorous interview and being at risk for losing all of your skills if a guild secretary didn't like you was such fantastic RP. Personally, I find it more jolting that I suddenly "forget" all of my skills when I quit a class. Do I take an amnesia pill, or something?

"It just seems on a large level to remove the level of importance of each of those choices and the identities that revolve around them."

That depends on if your character's class defines your personality. I've always roleplayed Aktillum to be frivolous and space-headed, whether he was a Monk, Priest, Serpent or Jester. Your class should not define your identity, or else you'll become another boring Knight archetype, inclining your head and rambling on about chivalry and honor and rescuing princesses from dragons.

"What's the need to be five different classes, anyways? Is it just because people have the credits and want to have as many different skills as possible?"

Well, yeah. Achaea / Iron Realms operates on profit, which pays the producers and coders that bring us these cool changes to the game world. Letting people multi-class would probably drive profits through the roof, for a bit. Now people will buy artefacts for multiple classes, instead of min/maxing for just one. It will also make the race changing artefact more appealing, especially with changes like dexterity being more favorable to Serpents.

Triak

I'm glad the house debate is being brought up as it is inextricably linked to multiclass.

So to expand further for those worried about class identity.  Your class has nothing to do with you as a character, your identity you created through your roleplay does.  People change class all the time, their character traits don't change with them (unless YOU choose to do so)  For example if you change from a Paladin to a Priest, does that mean you have to start doing rituals and counting prayer beads?  No.  You define your role in Achaea, not your chosen class.  Your class is just your profession.

This is evidenced int he real world every day.  @Sarapis said it pretty clearly.  He might of developed a text mud and work on them all the time, but that doesn't mean it defines his life.   You can easily change jobs 10 times in your life, but that doesn't mean you  change as a person every time along with it.

House identity.
This is something that I am truly passionate about as I feel like the current system is beyond broken and hampers roleplay.  Each house in Achaea should be a formulation of their own ideas of what their roleplay is and not base it upon a supposed classes idea of what it is. 

Let me use the Naga and Occultists as examples, since they have certain roles like they to play. 

The Naga
Do I have to be a serpent to be a Naga?  Current ideology would dictate YES!  If you think about it though, why?  Well of course the serpent is the sneaky class in Achaea...so you have to be it!  Wait what?  You mean you can't be sneaky without being a serpent?  I complete reject that idea.  You can be a dastardly sneaky son of a bitch while being any class in Achaea.  It is how you choose to create your character.  Want to spy on conversations but don't have the tools (phase) available?  So pay a serpent to do so, have them report back the information.  Blackmail someone with it, get them kicked out of their orgs...anything you want!  You don't have to personally acquire it yourself.  Or maybe you want to be an Infernal and a Naga...WHAT???!?!?  Infernals are suppose to be Knightly and chivalrous!  Why?  If you want to do that join the Maldaathi.  If you want to guarantee a kill at any and all costs, be a Infernal Naga.

The Occultists
Let me relate my personal expierence, having been a part of the house back in 2008.  At that time I was a Sylvan and in the house, blasphemy right?  Nope!  I was able to talk about chaos theory, participate in the 5 year war (Rho setting the Babelonion library on fire), do rituals etc.  Nothing about my class being a Sylvan inhibited my game play with the house.  If anything it made it more interesting because I did have detractors who would question me leading to interesting interactions.  I feel houses like the Occultists or old Preists have fallen into the trap more recently though.  Guilds do not exist anymore, it is time to move on.  Let go of the idea that an occultist is the only class that belongs in the Occultist house.  You can draw circles in salt and die on the altars of Babel just as easily as a runewarden or monk.

Triak

As an addendum, I thought of a great in game example of what houses should be like.

The Crown Merchants used to be the sorcerers guild, when houses went in they developd a new identity as a house.  Moving away from the "we are the mage house in hashan" to the "we make money house!"  Now look at where they are.  Their house is filled with people who enjoy to roleplay as a merchant.  They like to run shops or even buy black market wares.  Their house should be able to have knights, serpents, magi, alchs/forestals.  Anything that they think will make them money.

Jonners

Triak said:

House identity.
This is something that I am truly passionate about as I feel like the current system is beyond broken and hampers roleplay.  Each house in Achaea should be a formulation of their own ideas of what their roleplay is and not base it upon a supposed classes idea of what it is.  

I suggested this myself like two or three years ago and was trolled terribly. I completely agree. I think Houses should be more than class. I played a different Druid in the Ty Beirdd back during autoclass, before Jonners, and I loved it. The personal adventure for my character actually interested me and brought me to Achaea more often.

As for the OP I personally would be very upset if multi-classing was hard restricted by 'alignment'. As a Druid I have absolutely no interest in multi-classing as a Sentinel or a Sylvan, only because the skillsets are so similar.

The only other question I have is what will happen to the grove of a Druid or Sylvan? I wouldn't even bother getting a new class if my grove was capable of allowing someone else to imprint while I was having fun as another class for a while.

The other possibility is anyone with a grove-user class would have a grove that would be 'theirs', but that they would be barred use of while not a grove-user. However I could see this increasing congestion for grove space.

All that aside, the only thing I'm truly interested in with multi-classing is the potential of having multiple economic skills. I'm certainly not representative of the majority though, I'd think.

Renoir

Jonners said:

All that aside, the only thing I'm truly interested in with multi-classing is the potential of having multiple economic skills. I'm certainly not representative of the majority though, I'd think.

You are not the only one. I saw the ANNOUNCE, and my first thought was, Renoir would love to Forge and Enchant things.

Accipiter

The upcoming changes from a couple of months ago suggested that economic skills would be divorced from class, which would have to happen if multiclassing went through.

Jonners

I know, doesn't change my position.

Gabryle

I would like to say that I hope you are prepared for the repercussions regarding what multi-classing does to Guilds/Houses.  Ie. In Imperian some guilds are practically dead, because where a class used to be tied to it, they can all go join a bigger guild because their friend is the GM or they have an easy to enter GH, etc... Whatever the reason, some Houses will suffer greatly if this is implemented in a bad manner.

Rohn

I have never understood why Houses were restricted to a particular set of classes. I'm all for changing that. If houses are suffering for membership, then they should figure out why and fix that.

The whole idea of multi-classing however is very similar.  Classes are broken and are just an OOC game mechanic to impose some sort of game balance.  There are numerous RPGs (yeah the old paper and pen type) that didn't have a class restriction.  The class restriction doesn't exist in the real world either. I know plenty of doctors who also have a black belt in Karate or Judo. I know computer programmers who are also master mechanics, with today's cars that provides them an advantage. If you are going to look at multi-classing at least spend some time thinking about about being totally class-free. Obviously there needs to be some sort of limits, etc. for game balance. But it would make the world much richer if everyone got to play a character that was different than all the other characters in the world.  It would make it so much more exciting than, "oh, a serpent turn on those triggers and be done with it".

Allene

I like the idea of multi-classing, sure. But after reading what Rohn, posted... this is what I have always wanted.Either class free OR, why not make our abilities "chooseable," much like our traits are. Give us options to choose our skills? I could add on my thoughts on those options and fairness.. but you all speak so much more eloquently.

Shirszae

Allene said:

I like the idea of multi-classing, sure. But after reading what Rohn, posted... this is what I have always wanted.Either class free OR, why not make our abilities "chooseable," much like our traits are. Give us options to choose our skills? I could add on my thoughts on those options and fairness.. but you all speak so much more eloquently.

That would make any kind of combat balance a holy hell, and will thus probably never happen.

Arditi

Shirszae said:

Allene said:

I like the idea of multi-classing, sure. But after reading what Rohn, posted... this is what I have always wanted.Either class free OR, why not make our abilities "chooseable," much like our traits are. Give us options to choose our skills? I could add on my thoughts on those options and fairness.. but you all speak so much more eloquently.

That would make any kind of combat balance a holy hell, and will thus probably never happen.

What are you talking about? My Subterfuge, Evileye, Kaido class would be perfectly balanced.

Sarapis

Gabryle said:

I would like to say that I hope you are prepared for the repercussions regarding what multi-classing does to Guilds/Houses.  Ie. In Imperian some guilds are practically dead, because where a class used to be tied to it, they can all go join a bigger guild because their friend is the GM or they have an easy to enter GH, etc... Whatever the reason, some Houses will suffer greatly if this is implemented in a bad manner.

If nobody wants to be in a House and is only there because the code is making them, the House doesn't have much value to anyone, I'd say.

Allene said:

I like the idea of multi-classing, sure. But after reading what Rohn, posted... this is what I have always wanted.Either class free OR, why not make our abilities "chooseable," much like our traits are. Give us options to choose our skills?

See the OP. There is no possibility of mixing and matching class abilities.

Rohn

Arditi said:

Shirszae said:

Allene said:

I like the idea of multi-classing, sure. But after reading what Rohn, posted... this is what I have always wanted.Either class free OR, why not make our abilities "chooseable," much like our traits are. Give us options to choose our skills? I could add on my thoughts on those options and fairness.. but you all speak so much more eloquently.

That would make any kind of combat balance a holy hell, and will thus probably never happen.

What are you talking about? My Subterfuge, Evileye, Kaido class would be perfectly balanced.

Of course it would since everyone else could do that too if they so chose.  Some people will likely choose to do something other than combat though, at least after the newness wears off. 

Gabryle

Then you will have what Imperian has.  One or two really big Houses/Guilds and then the s*** left over.  I'm not saying that multi-classing is bad.  I'm just saying it negatively impacts organizations because you are no longer tied into a mechanically reinforced RP standard.  Occultists have a cool RP in Ashtan.  Well, I want to go to an easier progress system or a House with more lax requirements.  Occultist House suffers.  Unless anyone wants to argue that the majority of players will not choose the easier path, then by all means.

Decan

I simply think there will be one basic winning combo class and that will be the cookie cutter for the rest. All fighters are generally one set, all non-combatants would be a break down into sub divisions, curative/crafting/forging/enchanting.

Could be good an bad if done like that, the fighting becomes more of a level balance and personal skill level defines you but at the cost of true variety. The non coms would be much better off because they would gain more things to specialize in.

Overall opinion: Good for the overall balance of the game, bad for the 'flavor' aspect.

Lianca

From a House point of view, this would really push people to have a House identity rather than leaning solely on a class skillset. I think it will present some interesting challenges, especially for Houses/Guilds whose history is so rooted in a particular class.

That being said, some very interesting and continued work has come out of non-traditional classes leftover from autoclass in the "single class" Houses, as @Triak said with the odd sylvan leftover in the Occultists. It does however require more commitment and work from these.

For the sake of unmuddling (this is a word now), I would suggest that multiclass options be limited to the neutral classes, serpent, blademaster, monk, and bard, maybe magi, shaman and runewarden (although I have issue with some of those fitting in a Chaotic setting.)

Kakotas

I do think if you join a house that house should be able to restrict secondary classes to a certain extent. (within certain spheres and reason). And it might be prudent to allow only within things that might make sense (for example Paladins/Runewarden would make sense it would be a character simply learning a different path of expression of skills. Same with other shared classes. But maybe there should be an additional penalty between far removed or non related classes (IE a Paladin learning crystalism would either take longer to switch between the classes or it could have an additional lesson cost in the first place (This prevents willy nilly class switching and really weird combinations somewhat)) (Thus in a typical raid a paladin could conceivably (with enough time) switch to runewarden but couldn't go full sylvan. This would add some flavor to raids.)

What I don't think is correct is to force a thriving house into a different RP just based on external factors. I think we've all lived through that a couple times and it usually doesn't end well.

Ruth

Just have faction restrictions.

Infernal/Apostate available for Multiclassing by Mhaldorians.

Occultists for Ashtan/Hashan.

Paladin/Priest for Targossas/Cyrene.

Restrict number of classes one can learn to 2. Pay additional 200cr for extra class slots, set an absolute max amount of class slots one can have. Restrict class changing to 12 hours.

I think Houses shouldn't have anything to worry about Multiclassing if they already are focused on House identity. Classes are professions/talents, and shouldn't be used to define what a House is.

Nakari

Aktillum said:

Nakari said:

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little afraid of the idea of knight-serpent-monk-bard-shamans. It just seems on a large level to remove the level of importance of each of those choices and the identities that revolve around them. 

It's not a big deal. People were afraid Achaea RP was going down the drain when Guilds were being turned into Houses and autoclass was introduced. People screamed bloody murder and threatened to leave Achaea 4ever because the tedious requirements of applying to a guild, going through a rigorous interview and being at risk for losing all of your skills if a guild secretary didn't like you was such fantastic RP. Personally, I find it more jolting that I suddenly "forget" all of my skills when I quit a class. Do I take an amnesia pill, or something?

"It just seems on a large level to remove the level of importance of each of those choices and the identities that revolve around them."

That depends on if your character's class defines your personality. I've always roleplayed Aktillum to be frivolous and space-headed, whether he was a Monk, Priest, Serpent or Jester. Your class should not define your identity, or else you'll become another boring Knight archetype, inclining your head and rambling on about chivalry and honor and rescuing princesses from dragons.

"What's the need to be five different classes, anyways? Is it just because people have the credits and want to have as many different skills as possible?"

Well, yeah. Achaea / Iron Realms operates on profit, which pays the producers and coders that bring us these cool changes to the game world. Letting people multi-class would probably drive profits through the roof, for a bit. Now people will buy artefacts for multiple classes, instead of min/maxing for just one. It will also make the race changing artefact more appealing, especially with changes like dexterity being more favorable to Serpents.

I get that people whine and predict the end of the world about every change, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects of that criticism that are worth considering.

And while I understand that basing a character around a class is not necessary, and that stereotypes should probably be avoided, that doesn't mean that choosing a class, a set of powerful supernatural skills, should be so inconsequential that you just pick up all of them because you can. Further, if your criticism is actually that class-oriented roleplay is simply bad, I'd point you to the fact that quite a number of houses that base their identity around a class are regularly argued to be some of the best roleplay available. Further, understanding your class as a weighty decision does not mean that you have to be a stereotype.

Lastly, I have all confidence that, while there are any number of aspects of this game that I dislike because of a perceived pay-to-compete attitude, I have full confidence that decisions are not always made because of their potential to make money. And I was asking the players who were making a case for it, not the admin. I doubt the players are just out for more opportunities to buy credits

Jarrod

Factional class restrictions would be a bit silly, and not really address the bigger issues with certain factional classes.

For instance, right now the Occultist House has certain things they have access to that no other Occultists would. Multiclass in the past strained relationships with some Houses who blindly hit 'accept all' including Occultists. It's possible to make Occultist open to all Ashtan Houses without creating a strain, but it would most likely be a gradual process, making the Occultist-House centric stuff tied in with the House's ideal, as opposed to tied in with the class like it is now.

As for limiting what a House can accept, I'm sure that will still be possible, though I'm sure there will be lots of debates on which classes fit where or not. For instace: Bard, on the surface, would seem like a horrible fit for the Shadowsnakes, a House focused primarily on information gathering, thievery, and target elimination. How could a rather attention-centric class fit with such a House ideal that primarily deals in secrets? Maybe this Bard in particular wants to spread misinformation through song, or gather information by entertaining a crowded room, getting everyone drunk, and then jokingly talking to them into revealing information. Maybe those things aren't inherently possible in Achaea, but that doesn't mean it isn't a solid basis of RP for a person.

I think a lot of people are focusing on what could possibly go wrong, and sure, there's plenty of things that -could- go wrong. But if we never did anything with potential drawbacks, that would be a boring as hell game environment.

Blujixapug

My main concern with multiclassing is that it will erode House identity, maybe a little, maybe a lot. Houses are to a large extent defined by the skills of their member class(es), the themes of those skills, and the types of activities those skills permit, eg. Naga (thieves and assassins), Occultists (forbidden mystics), Ty Beirdd (performing artists). During the previous period of House multiclass, when each House accepted 6-8 classes, with much overlap between Houses in each city, you saw their identities totally disintegrate as Houses boiled down to lowest common denominator ideas like 'fighter House' and 'scholar House'.

You can argue that it's silly to keep people out of Houses because of arbitrary coded restrictions. But Houses are lead by regular people. They don't always have perfect foresight. They make mistakes. They have bad ideas. They don't realise that compromise after compromise has turned their House into a mess until it's too late.

I doubt it's possible to implement multiclass without these problems occurring. I'm not arguing against multiclass. Instead, I strongly recommend measures be taken to reinforce House identity. Give Houses unique activities, hard-coded mechanics, that reflect their core identity. That way the Ashura will still be the Ashura - something recognisably different from Ebon Fist or Black Lotus - even when they are all runies and shamans and BMs and mages.

Xith

Long story short, Houses will be able to focus less on what their members are and more on what their members do. Be like an actual org, and try to make use of every class's skills that benefit their objectives.

I don't think there should be any restriction on the number of classes, and not in learning either. That's kind of overkill. You might need to buy a Class Slot Permit for 100cr per additional class, but I don't think requiring thousands upon thousands of lessons is going to have a point.

Considering how difficult it is for non-spenders to trans a single class, it's probably better not to increase their difficulty for the sake of increasing the artie people's. Besides, you'll have people owning an enchantment medallion, inscribing quill, runic gauntlet, Yggdrasian splinter, loki's tear, ekanelian jewel, etc, etc, etc.... all at the same time because they can use them all. So the financial boost for IRE is more than sufficient.

As for frequency of the change, I think an achaean day is not too much to ask. I wouldn't want to see it any faster than that, really. Just because of raid implications. But because of utility/rp reasons, I think something more like 15 minutes would be reasonable.

As far as the raid format, I get the feeling you'll see Ashtan raid with 6 monks, then come back and raid with 6 magi as soon as they can switch. Possibly add a buffer timer after participating in a sanctioned raid, etc. Certain amount of time in or out of combat?

To take an aligned class, you might have to choose an alignment for your character, so that even rogues can't be apriestates.. So you'd have to choose good/evil/chaos/nature to have use of any of those classes, which would be mutually exclusive.

Conveniently enough, that makes Ashtan/chaos less attractive with only one chaos class, and Eleusis more attractive with 3 nature classes.

Zandre

One question I raise is one's past classes. I am a Runewarden and I kind of miss Blademaster, however I don't have money (IC or IRL) to get credits enough to go after a class-switch, as I was Tri-Trans BM and if I -were- to change, I would only do it when I'm able to at least 2.5 Trans "instantly".   The multi-class concept would help this dilemma of mine, and even many others with this department.  My question is this: Would one have to build up as if a starting novice, or would the "lessons" carry over to each class (ie Tri trans in both)?  If not that, would the idea of a "Legacy" class system, where if you were the class in the past, you would reacquire it all back (or if not all, preferably percent that's not as if you did a full class-change, 50%) be off the table or possibly not considered?

Dortheron

I'm still brainstorming, but this is what I thought of: Maybe Achaea could have quest class changes. So similar to an honours quests like Caer Wirtin, you have this big grand quest that could take a long time to do. Each quest (or maybe one quest that works different per each faction) could be geared towards the class change.

Each org (city, house, whatever) could have different possibilities with the quests, and the ability to hinder others outside of their org. So the Occultists could potentially hamper other Ashtani from joining the occultist class. Houses could still have an impact or options to different parts of the quest, speeding up the process similar to class ranks right now. This doesn't even need to be hard coded in, but part of the house roleplay. And note that I said hamper: they wouldn't actually be able to stop or grief them from becoming it, it just becomes harder.

Or as someone already suggested, this could be dovetailed into the new talisman feature that is being worked on currently.

Suladan

I think multi-classing is a good and natural progression. No reason your character couldn't learn new things. As a comparison to RL, many people go through many professions. I've had and been successful at several myself.

One way of dealing with class switching would be to have the maximum skill level of the new class gradually come up. I.e. you're a practicing Serpent and switch over to Jester you only have access to skills up to Virt level (even if you've trans'd it) for the first Achaean hour, then up to Fabled, then Mythical and finally Trans. This was how the demi-god powers wore off after the Bal-met saga - only in reverse as we "forgot" those skills. 

This also mirrors RL. I know if I haven't prepared a legal document in a while and sit down to write one it takes me longer to "get back into it" than when I wrote them every day. Same for coding - if I haven't written any C for a while (years) and sit down to write a native app, it's a struggle at first until I get into the groove.

The ideological points are, I believe, already taken care of in-game. No devotion user would last a minute in Mhaldor. The respective Gods wouldn't permit their powers to be invoked and the citizenry would annihilate on principle alone.

Multi-classing also gives the guys (and girls) that have been around forever a way to progress and continue to create their character without having to waste what they've already worked so hard for already. It's "natural" for a multi-hundred year old person to learn a few more things. Nobody's going to have a 5-classed omni-trans'd character without dropping thousands (and you can already create arti-whore characters now if you want to spend thousands up front -- but even then the balance is you still have to work with people and earn some respect. Anybody can be taken out. And just having more arties doesn't necessarily make you friends or successful). If you want to spend that time working at it and your character is a thousand years old then why not. Even still it would work out as per the above warm up period on switching classes.

On the House question, I say we disable the coding restrictions and let the Houses work it out. People join groups because they like the people, believe in their ideals and as a group they're stronger than they are individually. The House also carries a reputation and you are identified as being part of that House. If your House gets a rep for accepting everything under the sun and having no identity then the people that are actually interested in RP and city politics and those types of things won't go for it anyway. Whereas the groups that have strong ideals, strong RP elements and are a real team will have people applying in droves. The House can decide who to let in and who they don't want and have whatever IG requirements they want.

Triak

Blujixapug said:

 During the previous period of House multiclass, when each House accepted 6-8 classes, with much overlap between Houses in each city, you saw their identities totally disintegrate as Houses boiled down to lowest common denominator ideas like 'fighter House' and 'scholar House'.

I don't believe you've explained why this is a bad thing.  If anything this is where Achaea needs to go.  I would not enjoy a house that liked to make sure their library was top notch, ran around performing rituals, or sitting around drinking in Fire and Spice.  Don't get me wrong there are nothing wrong with those things, but they are not for me.  Just as about half of Ashtan has zero interest in raiding or combat, so a fighting house would not be for them.  What you are describing are character traits - fighter, scholar, basher, merchant.  These are what houses should be based on, not "oh occultists are the ritual class because it was that way 15 years ago". 

I would like you to respond to my previous post about how successful the Merchants have become.  They are now a merchant house with classes that benefit mercantilism.  Mages and knights in the same house - that doesn't seem to jive with what you think should be allowed.

Lastly, if you could explain how you do not think classes are simply professions, but instead character altering roles.  How would you reconcile that with the amount of people that change classes constantly, yet perform the same duties?  (IE if I went bard that does not suddenly mean I would enjoy Ty Beird or want to give performances at the Delos theater)

Aktillum

I'd like to add that the ideals of Houses change based on who's in current leadership. The CIJ started out as a wacky guild for people who just wanted to goof off, then in recent times started to mirror the Ty'Beirdd because of an influx of Cyrenian / Scarlattan members. Now that Scarlatti has gone dormant and Pandora is matron again, the House is slowly going back to mischievous, pranky and goofy.

We accept Jesters and Bards because of their obvious entertainer tropes, but also Serpents on flimsy grounds (they're illusionists which has "performance value"). To be honest, every person, no matter their class, has the potential to be a theatre performer. An Infernal knight could easily emote his way through a play, a Priest could learn how to mime and tell bad puns. Of course, the CIJ do have a certain Jester flavor with the wacky carnival theme and carousel rides in our estate, but everyone loves cotton candy. Most everyone, anyways. I hear the Greyfaces hate cotton candy.