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Comments
The price you pay for a world where the players (and gods) can shape it and make it truly interesting is that sometimes you have to deal with things going awry, but it's much preferable to me than the alternative.
The problem with the old system is that if you were careful you were under no real punishment at all. You could go for ages without running out of essence or devo, really, so what was the point of the excom?
I mean, I can see your point, but I've ever thought black and white have and will always be more boring than subtle shades of grey. Which is probably why I have a great problem playing zealot characters.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
1. The biggest problem is that almost everyone agrees with you on that.
Really extreme shades of grey where you're playing against type are a great idea for a video game or a tabletop RPG where there are only a few players and they're interesting because they go "against the grain" and their interactions with NPCs will be more complex because they defy the NPC expectations, but it doesn't really work when you're in an MMO-like setting where something like half of the devotionists are working with factions that directly oppose the source of Devotion's power. You're not really going against the grain at that point, you've just changed the direction of the grain. And that's ignoring how many people would just ignore the RP entirely and use it as an excuse to play a mechanically desirable class.
2. You can absolutely play shades of grey. That's actually one of the main reasons excommunication is set up the way it is.
There are limits to how dark a shade of grey you can play, but you don't get excommunicated for not being a 100% yes-man ultra-zealot for Good. Avoiding excommunication is not the Good equivalent of playing a Mhaldorian character where some degree of zealotry is required (though even Mhaldorians have shades of grey). You can roleplay someone who disagrees with the mainstream direction of Good, even very vocally. Many notable characters have done so. Many have argued over whether the whole "kill the infidels" thing is actually the right path for Good. Some have pointed out syncretism between Good and Evil or Good and Nature. Some have purposefully lived outside the bounds of Good organisations to afford them more opportunity to play those shades of grey. You can absolutely play a nonviolent, non-zealot Good character. People don't get excommunicated for those things. Excommunication doesn't require you to play on the blindingly white side of the scale, it's just a ban on playing too far on the black side of the scale.
And @Aerek, I'm definitely not implying that and that's a silly analogy. There is no logic by which willingness to accept any thing that isn't perfect means that you must accept that Trump rallies are above reproach. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is perfectly fair. Sometimes there are mistakes. But it's pretty damn rare that people get excommunicated without knowing that their actions brought it about and the roleplaying in the game would be far poorer without it. And in cases where excommunication wasn't fair, that's what admin are for (assuming we can rely on them without implying that Trump rallies are beyond reproach).
I'm not personally a stickler for the RPs, I specifically remember "Not Required" written on the Achaea website. (please do correct me if I'm mistaken, it's been quite a bit over a decade at this point) I don't specifically go out of my way to ruin that experience for others, but I'm more than content with doing my own thing and speaking to people who I have literally watched grow up here. That immersion and rp has become more and more a talking point over the years is fine, admin cycle out from the players and players who are primarily ooc chatterinos don't tend to become celani, but that doesn't make it suddenly ok to feel justified in being the boss of make pretend, especially when you stand to cost someone money. It's a text world, but a game primarily, I've never thought of it as that serious. Especially since what GOOD is has been so mutable and varied.
As for trusting players to be responsible, no thanks. I'm pretty sure that is why we lost guild control over classes in the first place, and theft. Two other systems I "dealt with" and were since removed. Not sad to see either gone.
tl;dr: ok
Direct quote from HELP PALADIN. Priest has its own very similar warning.
I don't like the fact that anyone can take away someone else's investment in the game, but you can't say there isn't sufficient warning.
EDIT: Not saying that @Khairt or anyone is complaining, just pointing out that it's clearly stated that the class requires some degree of RP.
I dislike the comparisons to guilds, because guilds were rife with examples of abuses - to my knowledge, there's never been even one instance of Deacon/Archprelate/Dread Eclair going off the rails and abusing their power.
Every excomm essentially has to be backed by the Garden, so no Deacon is really capable of "abuse" in the traditional sense, but I'd still disagree with Aodfionn's assertion that nobody's ever gotten excommed that didn't deserve it. I've seen more than a few excommunications that were handed down for what I consider offenses that didn't warrant it. Shallam/Targossas has always asserted that it's "possible" to play those shades-of-grey characters, but in my 10 years of playing that exact role as Priest/Paladin and leading an entire organization made of them, once the Church took notice of one of those shade-of-greys, excomm was almost always the end result. Once you'd made them mad, for anything, you were under a microscope, and whether it took days or years, eventually you'd make some mistake that would spiral into Excommunication. I'm not trying to paint Team Good as bad people, it's just what happens when you put a nuclear option into the hands of roleplayed zealots. It's just inevitable, and it hangs over your head.
You should be able to penalize me, cripple me, even, for my IC decisions, but you shouldn't be able to hard-code force me out of an investment of that size. It's just a paradigm I disagree with, RP or no RP, player or God.
I disagree with the sentiment behind your point, Aerek - because I personally have done all within my power to encourage and facilitate folks who want to 'just toe the line' to get by with their generally nuanced roles - but I completely get why you'd feel that way. Team Good could definitely have done better by some folks, and I'd like to think we're moving further and further away from that culture.
Speaking of - Rho's wave of excommunications was ten years ago. That's nuts.
As for the number of excomms, I don't know about your Deacon powers, but:
http://www.achaea.com/forum/the-church-0
That's just Hashan and Eleusis on the day of. Easily 60-70 Excomms in that list, though you have to read through and pick them out of the enemyings. Add in the few Ashtani Devos, plus the rogues, Cyrenians, and Shallamese that have caught it over the years? Your command must only track things since the Targossas/Deacon became a thing.
Some of the ones on that list were folks that Rho excomm'd, like Tonk. Caerid was... way, way before Targossas.
No idea what all makes this list, but it seems to go back before Rho, and also misses some of the names in that log.
edit: Cursory honors-check of a lot of the names from that forum log says that a lot of them suicided. If I had to guess, I'd wager my list is comprehensive only so far as it includes characters that still exist. There is no record of the ones that suicide, from my end.
[20:06:54] declared enemy of the Church, Eleusian."
Good times!
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
I don't think anyone disagrees that a Hashani playing a Priest needs to be stopped for the sake of the integrity of the game if nothing else, but it's still possible to bypass the hard-coded restrictions that were added by popping a Lucrescent and grabbing the class. I don't like seeing any class that's factional (or almost like Occultist) being played by someone who doesn't follow the actual outline of the class.
As to the OP: I think adding another the restrictions on joining a class (a Hashani newb can't make a priest, as far as I know) went a long way. If they closed the Lucescent loophole, I wonder if it's worth discussing removing the ability entirely and leaving actual stripping of skills to the Divine directly. In the event your divine is dormant, maybe even have a denizen that can.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
But I agree that the clear problem is what you would replace it with. I can't see any mechanical way to do it that doesn't require exactly the same kind of discretion as excommunication.
Even if you hardcore in that priests can't join Mhaldor and you manage to cover all of the different ways of being Mhaldorian and changing to priest, or being a priest and becoming Mhaldorian, you haven't really solved the problem. All someone has to do in that circumstance is play a sort of city-ally without actually mechanically joining the city. It doesn't even matter if Mhaldor commits to not accepting that person - they can still roleplay trying to help Mhaldor despite having Devotion, which makes no sense. No matter what mechanical restrictions you put on priests, no mechanical restriction can test whether a player is roleplaying a character sympathetic to Evil, which is the root RP problem. Lacking better artificial intelligence systems, for the present the only way to address a character's RP is to use a human.
It seems like the bigger problem that many people here are articulating though is the cost, not the inability to play an Evil devotionist.
And while I don't think it's a good reason to get rid of excommunication or design a system of "lesser" excommunication or make playing an excommunicated devotionist more forgiving, I'm definitely a little bit more sympathetic about the money involved than maybe I've implied.
I don't really see any reason why getting excommunicated couldn't, for instance, just strip you of Devotion and give you back all the lessons. You'll likely still want to change class to get a third skill, but at least you're only losing 1/3 of your lesson investment in that scenario (rather than the normal 1/2).
Or, better yet, if the goal is to incentivise people not to play devotionists in situations that don't make sense, why not strip Devotion and then just make forgeting the Excommunicated Priest class cost-free (i.e., you get all of your lessons back instead of 50%). It makes some sense - you're rewarding them for not playing the class against the established RP and, for the rare few who purposefully get excommunicated to get a "free" class change, they have to both burn their bridges with everyone they know on Team Good to do it and they're providing some drama for the game by doing things to get excommunicated.
I guess either of those would cut into credit purchases, but the number of excommunications is already ridiculously low, and class changes often have more side purchases involved anyway (changing stats, traits, artefacts, etc). Hell, it might even be that more people end up buying credits making priest characters if they're less afraid (whether rationally or not) of excommunication.
100% lesson return from skills negated by excom is something I'd love to see from Tecton/Sarapis' side.
I think they aren't going to change the excommunication how it is because in the past few years they've been working hard against the dilution of faction idealogy. Recalling factional skills, the Renaissance and even re-writing the purpose of certain cities have been huge steps in strengthening factional identities. I think reigning in the shades of grey is actually good for the game. Painting a picture with black and white is much more striking then two shades of grey slightly different than each other... but it's alright because the first grey you added white to black but the second shade you added black to white.
That old excom thread is such a good read. Am I the only one who misses forums where Silas could post this?:
On topic though, it is SUPER IMPORTANT that excom/anathema remains in the hands of players. It opens up all sorts of interesting RP opportunities. Yes, of course, there's the potential for abuse, but excom/anathema has, historically, been probably the most admin-scrutinized player power in existence. If it was genuinely abused, there is a very good chance that it would be reversed and the abuser removed from their position quick-smart.
It's worth looking back at Rho-gate, and actually a lot (most? all?) of the people who lost out ended up getting reimbursed through various RP related means. It was hugely interesting, and a really good example of the playerbase at their best. Recognising the OOC issues with their IC RP, and addressing them without any dilution of the story. People can rise to their best if you let them, and powers like this are (a sadly vanishing) means of players developing the story of Achaea.
I only pop in now and then, not because I play, but because I still love the game and the story even if I don't really have the time to play it any more, and if I want the playerbase to do anything it's dream big, play big, shoot for the big change. Fight stagnation, shake things up, do something different. If you're in a position of power, think about how you can really take your org forward. Players have done such amazingly interesting things in the past. Effectively created a God, fundamentally realigned Achaean power structures, instigated massive RP events.
Achaeans (both mortal and not) should always, always, err on the side of big story rather than safety. And just deal with the fall-out as best it can.
ETA: You would not believe how long it took me to manually get a quote right. WTF ever happened to [quote]blah[/quote].
Also, your list of excomunicated players is people, Aodfionn. Unless it's a list of still currently excommunicated (I was excommunicated twice, three times if you count the time Sarapis excomm'd me right after Aurora did).
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Only the Dread Ecclesiarch himself, along with the wiser yet previous surviving mortals who served in the role will be authorized to address the topic. No shit that the Tyrannus and Sartan have involvement in the matter but again, piss off. The Dread Uncle is like Sean Spicer. He's sent out to lay pipe on your mind.
Go home, everyone. A curfew is immediately in affect and martial law has been declared. All non military targets will be liquidated as Communist agitators and flood deathsight.
~Fin