Badge of Credentials

Trevize

Am I one of the few who likes Houses as they are? Trevize is currently making a shift in terms of how he thinks, to attempt to join a House, and is learning a lot from it. After going ages without a House, and before that, attempting to rejoin an old House - which didn't work out, as he has grown well beyond their ideals. Huge RP potential there, I find it very fun.

Awan

I don't know about other cities, but the current House system doesn't work at all well for Eleusis.

Leaving aside the Druids, who seem pretty well-defined and work well as they are, every other class is split up between the Sentinels and the Sylvans.

Ideally, the Sylvans would take forestals who, whether combatants or not, are really interested the non-combat aspects of forestal roleplay (scholarship, rituals, etc.). And ideally, Sentinels would take folks who are primarily interested in combat. And those who fall somewhere in the middle could go one way or the other depending on where their strongest interest lies. That is the arrangement that would best support the unique identities and values the two Houses have cultivated. It is also the arrangement that would make everyone the happiest, as best I can tell.

Instead, we're forced to divide Eleusians up not by interest, but by class, which has no benefit for us, and makes no sense for us. So if you're really interested in combat and/or really not interested in rituals/scholarship, but you want to fight as a magi, sylvan, blademaster, or shaman, you'd be way happier with the Sentinels but you're out of luck. And if you're interested in rituals and scholarship and/or aren't interested in combat, but want to be a sentinel or serpent or something because the class appeals to you, you'd be way happier with the Syvlans but you're out of luck. And both Houses end up weakening their focus and identity because they're forced to at least try to make space for everyone of those classes, because if they don't, Eleusis as a whole will lose a bunch of people and get weaker.

Nim

I like the general idea of making class restrictions softer, but I'm not entirely fond of the suggested implementation. I like the idea of being able to make specific exceptions, particularly for older characters who have established roleplay that probably far outshadows their class. (For example: adventurers who change their class so often it might as well be the outfit they've decided to wear for the day rather than something they've spent ten years of their life mastering!)

My reasons for liking this idea are numerous:

• Some people got grandfathered in. The fact that they exist, but that more people can't follow in their footsteps, is extremely jarring.
• I hate virtually imposed limitations like this. For some houses, they have legitimate reasons for limiting their allowed classes, but for other houses, it's just like, "yeah, the Gods forced us to do it."
• I don't see any particular drawbacks to an idea like this. The biggest benefit I can think of for hardcoded class limitations is to make sure newbies get into a house that can train them. Most characters who would be circumventing this limitation (as per OP's suggestion, or as per the patron suggestion) would not be newbies, and thus wouldn't require any training.
  You could argue that, if a large group of people join the house of class X, and the house doesn't currently accept newbies of that class, then who will train the newbies? Solution! Change the classes the house accepts. Houses being able to evolve is probably a good thing.
  
• Whether a house accepts members of different classes or not remains the decision of that house.

Also, I really don't like the "just change your class" arguments. I'm finding a hard time thinking of an appropriate metaphor that fully describes how much I don't like that argument, so have two separate ones:

• Regarding class changing: It's not realistic for a doctor to spend ten years of their life learning medicine, only to decide to write hip hop music instead, unless they literally forget ten years of their life first, and spend some magic god-money (credits) to quickly relearn ten years worth of hip hop skills in a few days.
• Regarding house classes: The apostate house lets jesters join them, last I checked. Until this is changed, you are effectively arguing that jesters are better priests of evil than, say, a corrupted druid (eg. Aepas) who believes evil should have dominance over nature. I'm sure I could find things that are almost as silly as this scenario, even if it were changed - I just don't know, off-hand, what classes are allowed in what houses to bring any up.

Aerek

While I am not completely against a measure of flexibility in the matter of Houses' accepted classes, I feel that too many people like to treat class as a change of clothes, completely detached from who they are and what they want to accomplish. Classes are deep wells of roleplay, not hobbies to be picked up on the side while we pursue House X.

I understand some Houses' identities are intentionally and specifically non-class-centric, and I respect that. I'm open to things that would make those Houses able to conduct their affairs with little more freedom, but I want to see the game take classes and class roleplay just a touch more seriously in return.

Averi

going off of @Aerek's statement. I agree. Classes are much more of a person's identity than just what skills they give. For that reason, I'd understand if someone was say in the Ty Beirdd (my house XD) for 50 years or so as a bard and then changed to blademaster but decided to stay in our house. That'd make sense to me cause that person was once a bard person. But for someone who was like always a blademaster to be like oh hi! I'm going to live life writing poetry. That just seems nonsensical. I'm not saying they can't write poetry as a hobby, but that wasn't what they chose as a main profession/class. 

So maybe have exceptions for house full members? if you reach H5 and want to change class, you can still stay in the same house but keep the novice restrictions the same? I don't know. 

Nim

@Averi: Actually, from what I know of Blademasters, there's a pretty strong precedence for them being warrior poets. Something like Lucaine writing a ton of poetry, though I'm not entirely sure since most of what I know is mostly just what Nim knows, and she's only learned this through second-hand sources.

Talonia

There are classes that are certainly meant to be played a particular way - Occultists, Apostates, and Priests are specifically designed to be the scholars, clerics, and preachers of their respective ideologies. If they neglect the spiritual/intellectual element of their classes, they're missing something fundamental.

But I also think there is more flexibility on the other end of the spectrum, say with monks. I can picture monk class roleplay leading one towards being either a meditative pacifist and religious leader or a battle-hardened warrior. Perhaps what we really want is more crackdowns on the former category of heavily-aligned classes and less on the latter. The problem is that I suspect these "freer" Houses will once again quickly become terrible at distinguishing themselves from one another, and then we are more or less back where we were again one cycle ago. 

Averi

@Nim then maybe they are not the best example, Substitute blademaster with whatever other class that isn't supposed to be a poet. 

Delphinus

I already wanted to make a chart like this, and with @Awan using Eleusis as an example, I might as well.



A few things of note. First, there's no nurturing/fierce distinction; you can be an approachable and friendly warrior, or a ritualist who foretells the downfall of man.

Second, the current setup allows for a vast amount of flexibility:

A druid who wants to study the interplay of living things, or argue about forestal philosophy, can join the Ancient Circle's scholar path. He does so with the guarantee that it's druid-themed; most conversations, and the focus of his class/house, will be spiritual in nature.

A sentinel could strive to ritualism. If so, that ritualism would all be about the visceral -- the hunt, the path of the warrior -- in keeping with the theme of its classes. Beseeching the gods for strength and bounty, plentiful prey, and so on.

An "all-around" class like a monk would fit just as suitably in any one of these three houses. That doesn't mean he needs to be spread between them, though. Instead, the houses should be accepting of various playstyles, not classes, even if their theme favours one before others.

Wattsee

While I would love for each City and House to be set up with such an ideal structure, it still does nothing to help the fact that if I wished to play a Spiritual Class, I couldn't experience the great Physical House atmosphere. I'd be relegated to the Spiritual House by game mechanics, and hope there's actually enough interest within their Physical branch to actually have members to talk to. Even in an ideal situation where all branches are 'covered', if all three houses are so very much the same, why have three at all? Why not one with massive membership and activity, allowing all the appropriate Classes for a City to have and three branches within it actually being full of people? In that case, if Cities are going to be the main aligners of Class within the game, why restrict Houses so hard, too? I can understand and support "If you want to be a Nature class, join the Nature capital of the world, same with Evil, or Good" and whatever flavor our role-play I want to seek out within the faction is up to me to choose, a hell of a lot more than having the choice already made for my Class where I will be with the City and having to change -what I want to play- in order to enjoy those I want to play with and how I play.

Trevize

Delphinus said:

 Instead, the houses should be accepting of various playstyles, not classes, even if their theme favours one before others.

Well said. Houses being limited to certain classes should be RP potential, not a limitation.

Xith

Silvarien said:

Changing class requires, if I recall, 433 cr. If you decide you don't like the class, that's another 433 cr to change back. That's not even talking about class-related tradeins, (weapon is no longer suitable, now you need a SoA where before you had two swords, etc.) Not every person in this game has hundreds of dollars to blow on a whim. Also, there are people who really love being their class very much, but their mentality is better suited to a House that they cannot be part of. For example, I love writing, which is done most in Ty Beirdd, but in Cyrene I can only be part of the Mojushai, for which I am completely unsuited. I am so unsuited for  Mojushai that my God was chuckling at how "Mojushai" I was while I was attempting to give a required lesson. I don't see how classchanging to Bard at all affects my writing abilities, the two seem completely unrelated. Yet, Bard and Jester are all Ty Beirdd accepts.

I just can't get over that line. Sounds like:

"I can't sing unless I'm signed to a major record label."

"I'm from England so I can't salsa dance."

"Art can only be seen in museums."

If being a writer is that big a chunk of your roleplay itself, then maybe it's urgent that you change to Bard, but I don't see why a Blademaster or whatever you are can't be a master writer or express his talents for the world because he's not in the right house.

The new house-class system does seem limiting in its roleplay restrictions in forcing all members of a city and class to adopt the views of the one house that accepts that class in that city, backing you into a corner based on your profession. I understand where you're coming from, but for the time being, you might just want to go houseless if that's an option. Or ignore all your House reqs and focus on whatever pleases you.

You can be a non-Bard writer just like you can be a non-Cyrenese Phaestian or a greyfaced jester.

But no matter how you spin it, you're playing a player-driven MUD, so a writer can never be backed into a corner.

Xith

Separate post:

Silvarien said:

Changing class requires, if I recall, 433 cr. If you decide you don't like the class, that's another 433 cr to change back. That's not even talking about class-related tradeins, (weapon is no longer suitable, now you need a SoA where before you had two swords, etc.) Not every person in this game has hundreds of dollars to blow on a whim. 

If you're putting enough time into Achaea for all of these things to matter, you should be Elite Membership consistently, knowing full-well that you're going to invest in the credits at some point and that you might as well keep it steady, knowing that you'll need them. And all at the cost of the average Netflix membership. That being said, you accumulate 150 lessons a month on the plan just from being here, and ultimately 150cr a month. So saving for 3 months ($75) is 450cr + 450 lessons.

I'm not the type to trade my stuff in when it might need to be reversed, so when I switch from jester I'll be keeping my custom lvl3 blackjack and my quill rather than using them to fund the aldar diadem I'd need for Magi. Personal choice, but I expect I might come back to Jester, and in a year or two when that happens, I'll be glad I kept my stuff.

But if you don't anticipate changing back, trading in your toys definitely helps conserve the expense if needed.

Lastly, 2000 lessons during a lesson sale is like $60, leaving only about 600 lessons you have to get by other means. And class changes aren't something to do on a "whim" anyway. Unless you're @Earionduil or @Mizik.

Sylvance

I still don't get why Clans can't be used for much of this. Honestly, I don't. I get that Clans are different from Houses, but so what?

If you want to 'do Art' but aren't in an Art House, then class change or join an Art Clan.  If there isn't a Clan that's doing what you what to do, then founding one could be a brilliant, delicious piece of RP pie.

ETA: I don't think the argument that 'mechanical restrictions are bad' can really be applied to an MMOMUD in any sensible fashion.

Sancero

There's a substantial difference between a non-Beirdd member of the AFA doing art on the side of their regular House obligations, and being a member of a House whose entire mission and structure was (and is) to teach/create/disseminate art. If you truly don't see it, I apologize, but it strikes me as a disingenuous claim. 

I'm sure you can understand my frustration at having led a House whose identity was enmeshed with the idea that class was no determiner of artistic proclivity, only to have a decision come down from on high that flies in the face of hundreds of years of IG history. What really burns is that the "solution" to the notion that autoclass diluted House identities was always in the hands of House leaders. That is to say, the "no Houses can share classes in one city" limitation could have been formulated and executed by House and city leaders with Patron encouragement, if it was deemed necessary. For Ty Beirdd and some others, it most certainly was not a problem that needed solving. There was absolutely no reason (that I can see) to make it a mechanical restriction.

Sylvance

No, I get that Ty Beirdd is a special case. Same with the Merchants. But if you want to be a person 'whose entire mission and organisation's structure is to teach/create/disseminate art', then you don't want to roleplay a Knight.

ETA: To be clear, I get your frustration on this from the POV of a previous head of Ty Beirdd. That's not what I'm arguing.  But I guess we're approaching the 'Each side has been stated' point of this thread, so I'll shut up at this point.

Sancero

That's just it. Knights in Ty Beirdd didn't roleplay as Wardens. They would take inspiration from their class skills, and in many cases incorporate them into the pieces they created. That's what made Ty Beirdd so rich and wonderful: the unique perspectives of a bunch of classes all directed towards art and performance.

For us, class was a set of skills, and could heavily influence the kind of work you did, but didn't have to define your entire roleplay. Maybe we were wrong to adopt that philosophy, but the admin never gave us any indication that class was intended to be the beginning and end of roleplay.

Again, I'm sorry for driving this discussion so far off the rails if the OP, but obviously it's a topic I'm passionate about and feel needs to be discussed. I was left out of whatever initial discussion brought about the change, because I never imagined forum membership would impact my ability to be an in-game leader.

Aerek

That's what I was talking about when I mentioned people treating class like a change of clothes, though. Yes, in reality, we can all switch classes at the drop of a hat, just as a necessary game mechanic, but the skills contained in classes represent knowledge and ability gained through years of constant training. A Knight's class roleplay is constant dedication to the arts of combat and warfare. A Magi's class roleplay is centered around manipulating the elements of the world through hours of study and practice. Realistically, if your true passion is creative writing, you would not be able to become these classes, because your focus is not on the discipline and study necessary to learn these arts.

Now, I understand that's a grey area, a fuzzy line, and perhaps even a slippery slope, and I've already mentioned that I respect Ty Beirdd's non-class centric focus and want to help it succeed. But I see the one-House per class as a fair way to enforce some class roleplay. Without it, people don't respect their classes. A pacifistic knight is a paradox, the antithesis of his skills, and shouldn't exist in Houses that don't have some manner of martial focus. A Priest without any interest in spiritual matters couldn't and shouldn't be a Priest. Sure, these classes can dabble in other interests, but Houses represent your primary, all-encompassing ideology, and should exclude more classes than they include based on implicit class flavour and roleplay.

Do I believe there is a middle ground between the two sides of this argument? Yes, but I've yet to see it.

Averi

@Aerek well technically there could be a pacifist knight or a nonreligious priest if one played out the whole I am a knight/priest cause my family pushed me into it thing. But I agree, these things shouldn't happen without some sort of arpee behind it. It is an arpee game after all.

Sancero

This is going to come off as argumentative, and I'm sorry. I'm glad we have some common ground! But heaven help me, I just can't stop when it comes to this issue. Also, I fully acknowledge that I'm heavily biased, and have only one perspective from which to draw.

Aerek said:

Realistically, if your true passion is creative writing, you would not be able to become these classes, because your focus is not on the discipline and study necessary to learn these arts.

We demonstrated for RL years that any class could succeed in Ty Beirdd. From the founding of the Bards guild, the organization's focus was on production and performance, never on the skill set. Just count how many combatants worth their salt have ever come out of the original Bards or Ty Beirdd. We just never cared about training bards to be bards - we were about training anyone to be artists (and from our perspective, bard =/= artist).

Aerek said:

But I see the one-House per class as a fair way to enforce some class roleplay. Without it, people don't respect their classes.

As I said before, this was always in the hands of House leaders and their Patrons. Is your House aimless and losing its identity because you can't integrate all the classes you accept? Well, talk to your leading council and Patron, decide what's best for your House, and move forward from there. Why did it have to be enforced mechanically? Why does ANY House have to suffer from a mechanical change when the solution could be reached through player actions? As I recall, not only was there very little in-game warning that this change was coming, there was also no in-game explanation for it other than "This is the way things are going to be now." It really left us in the lurch with no way to justify cutting down our classes that made sense with the House's identity established from day one. As a side note, we invested a lot of gold in class-specific improvements. Sure, it might have been selfish for a 'Bard House' to buy a Master Crystal, especially when we had a 'Magi House' right in Cyrene, but there was never any indication that the Age of Houses was a passing fad. Felt a little burned by that as well.

Aerek said:

Do I believe there is a middle ground between the two sides of this argument? Yes, but I've yet to see it.

For me, it's as simple as giving us our classes back. Like I mentioned, we don't generally want to encourage special snowflakes, but I'm fairly sure most people will agree that Ty Beirdd was something of a special snowflake. Give us and other Houses some avenue to appeal the limitation. If most Houses are happy with the way things are, great. If ANY Houses are not, then I think it's absolutely worth investigating.

Aerek

You're missing my point, I think. You're looking at this form solely the House's perspective. I'm looking at it from the classes'  perspective, and the game's perspective, at large.

Sancero said:

We demonstrated for RL years that any class could succeed in Ty Beirdd. From the founding of the Bards guild, the organization's focus was on production and performance, never on the skill set. Just count how many combatants worth their salt have ever come out of the original Bards or Ty Beirdd. We just never cared about training bards to be bards - we were about training anyone to be artists (and from our perspective, bard =/= artist).

Yes, but this is exactly the issue. Your House flourished with all the classes in it, but it was filled with people who weren't playing their classes. You had Priests and Paladins who didn't care about protecting Creation, Forestals who just wanted to harvest, and Magi who didn't know who Garash or Whiirh are. The Bards' House flourished, and that's great! But it ignored the intrinsic roleplay of its member classes, and that's not great. Its members treated their classes as hobbies and novelties that they could pick up and set down when convenient, when classes should be deep roleplay commitments with lots of potential and sometimes obligations, both from individuals and the organizations that accept those classes.

Sancero said:

For me, it's as simple as giving us our classes back. Like I mentioned, we don't generally want to encourage special snowflakes, but I'm fairly sure most people will agree that Ty Beirdd was something of a special snowflake. Give us and other Houses some avenue to appeal the limitation. If most Houses are happy with the way things are, great. If ANY Houses are not, then I think it's absolutely worth investigating.

The game has to consider what's good for the many over what's good for the few. The Bards and Merchants flourished under the all-classes-accepted era, but almost every other House suffered as their identity and purpose was eroded away. You can't build a reputation as a quality Runewarden House when you accept multiple other classes, or when more of the Runewardens in town join the Mojushai, Bards, or Kindred.

For me, the middle ground is this:
Every class has some implicit roleplay attached. If your House wants to accept a particular class, you're going to have to modify your House ideology or structure to accommodate it. If you want Knights, you're going to have to inject some Knightly roleplay in there. Magi or Alchemists? Some scholarly or scientific tones. Priests? Some religious observance . To want to accept all classes and ignore the inherent roleplay of each of them is irresponsible and selfish in a roleplaying game, and impacts everyone else who DOES respect the inherent roleplay of those classes.

Averi said:

@Aerek well technically there could be a pacifist knight or a nonreligious priest if one played out the whole I am a knight/priest cause my family pushed me into it thing. But I agree, these things shouldn't happen without some sort of arpee behind it. It is an arpee game after all.

Hey, you can always go rogue and do that, sure. The difference is that Houses are Garden-backed, and have undeniable influence on how the players view the game and their own classes and roles within it. That makes Houses accountable and responsible for upholding certain arpee conventions within the game.

Sancero

If we were wrong to go the direction we were going (from the very beginning of the Bards' guild), if our philosophy was at odds with the admins' goals or vision for the game, someone could have said so instead of letting us continue down that path for IG centuries.

I accept that the needs of the many must be taken into consideration, but I'll say again that there was nothing from stopping HL's and Patrons from coming up with solutions to their supposed problems. In a game this small, there's no need to sacrifice the few for the many, because even the many aren't that big!

You're right that I'm only looking at this from the House's perspective, since its the only perspective I have. I will never believe that Ty Beridd's philosophy was harming the game, it's classes, or any other House. If anything, it enriched the RP environment.

We did adapt our ideology in response to the change. We had to. But at the end of the day, we couldn't give any better reason for it than "the gods said so."

Cardan

The simplest analogy I can up with for this is: it's possible for anyone to swim (ignoring the outlying rocks who have a built-in tendency to sink), but it takes someone with serious commitment to be a professional swimmer. This is what I always envisioned the difference was in situations of knights and bards who both create 'art things'.

Part of the reasoning behind the one house per class per city ruling was around encouraging RP between the orgs in a city and trying to spread membership around based on the ideologies of the houses rather than everyone trying to lump into the one House because that's where all the 'CoolKids' were and they wanted to be in the same chat room while they bashed.

If the ideology of the House worked in a limited number of instances with all classes, that may be good for them, but if it's not good for the rest of the Houses in the city, then it's a problem for the game as a larger whole. If a House can proverbially flip the bird at every other House in the city and face no repercussions, then your RP options are stifled. 

As an example, if a member of the Serpentlords wants things like runes/enchantments/blessings/etc they need to interact with someone outside their immediate circle (the House) to get them. This then opens them up to repercussions from failed diplomacy with the other orgs either specifically from within Hashan or from Sapience as a whole. If they can't come up with a deal to get these things, they either don't get them, or have to come up with an underhanded way to get them. Either way, RP opportunities abound. If on the other hand, your house accepts all classes, you can tell every other org in Sapience to naff off if you so chose and won't have the problem of not being able to get any of those skill-generated commodities because someone in the House will be able to provide them. No real RP opportunities.

If the only reason you want to join a particular House is because that's where all your friends/people you like to hang out with are, then perhaps you need to reassess whether you should be joining the House. Joining an organisation should be based more around what RP opportunities present as a result of it. What opportunities to advance your character come from joining the organisation. If you're looking at things like what icon bonus can I get, what sort of bonus will I get from the City effigy, will it give me a mathematical boost in combat, then you as a player are focussing on meta-like questions which should be an added bonus to your RP rather than an opposing factor to them.

In a similar vein, if you're choosing to join Ty Beirdd because you the player want to play your character as having a passion for the artistic, but you're choosing to be a knight because you the player likes how easy it is kill things and grind up the levels, then again, you're mixing RP choices with OOC considerations which shouldn't be a factor when deciding what role you want to play.

Wattsee

Since I rather well suck at the tagging people thing, or the accurately quoting thing, I'll try this route.

" The Bards' House flourished, and that's great! But it ignored the intrinsic roleplay of its member classes, and that's not great. Its members treated their classes as hobbies and novelties that they could pick up and set down when convenient, when classes should be deep roleplay commitments with lots of potential and sometimes obligations, both from individuals and the organizations that accept those classes." - Aerek

So the Bard's House, which had very deep and rich role-play within in, needed to be mechanically limited because other players who were not involved with that House or the role-play within it, think those players SHOULDN'T play that way.

If you find it absolutely engrossing to play your role-play around your Class, I encourage you to do so. I absolutely love playing a Magi, and even when I've dabbled with other classes on alts I've always come back. I love the Elements, the Channeling, the Crystalism bending the world to my will, it's amazing. But I also love being part of an organization above and beyond my Class. Am I wrong? Who are you to tell me I'm wrong? Who is -anybody-, including the game administration, to tell me I'm wrong for enjoying something?


"The game has to consider what's good for the many over what's good for the few. The Bards and Merchants flourished under the all-classes-accepted era, but almost every other House suffered as their identity and purpose was eroded away." - Aerek

Based on HOUSE INFLUENCE and sheer membership numbers, I dare say the Merchants and Bards outnumbered a great many individual Houses, and even some Cities as a whole. Perhaps we aren't represented in quite proportionate numbers on the forums, but that's a different point.

"You can't build a reputation as a quality Runewarden House when you accept multiple other classes, or when more of the Runewardens in town join the Mojushai, Bards, or Kindred." - Aerek

Maybe -you- can't, but it is hardly impossible to build a reputation as a quality Runewarden House. First off, the House leadership could restrict themselves. Second off, they could promote kick ass interaction to encourage players to join. Third, they could take some accountability for dismal active membership numbers and ask themselves "Hmm, out of all the options for Runewardens, 90% of them join other Houses. Maybe we need to take a look at ourselves and see -why-. What can -we- do differently?"

If you want to mechanically -force- players of a certain Class to join your House or go rogue within the city/faction of their choice (many classes are deeply connected with House resources) because you can't gain membership numbers any other way, that's your call. It's a bad one in my opinion, but I think iron-fisted monopolies compared to free markets can always get people riled up especially when they've enjoyed a flourishing free market for so long.

There are already hard-coded mechanical limits within the heavily aligned Classes which force 'proper' role-play. Excommunication and becoming an enemy of the forests are absolutely brutal for their respective Classes, as examples.

" To want to accept all classes and ignore the inherent roleplay of each of them is irresponsible and selfish in a roleplaying game, and impacts everyone else who DOES respect the inherent roleplay of those classes." - Aerek

I don't see a single reference here of anyone -not- wanting to incorporate their Classes unique abilities in broad-scope Houses, we just don't want them to be the end-all, be-all of our Houses. Saying we are irresponsible to want something we're not doing isn't very responsible either. But I'll ask in this regard, how would a Runewarden in the Kindred completely intent on studying mysticism and ritual, or a Runewarden in the Barrds wanting to spend his days forging a masterpiece sword simply for its beauty ever negatively impact a Runewarden in the Wardens who wants to learn the martial arts, become a Knight and protect Cyrene? If you can answer that with anything legitimate besides "they aren't playing the way I think they should play and it irks me." I'd be wholly surprised.

"For me, it's as simple as giving us our classes back. Like I mentioned, we don't generally want to encourage special snowflakes, but I'm fairly sure most people will agree that Ty Beirdd was something of a special snowflake. Give us and other Houses some avenue to appeal the limitation. If most Houses are happy with the way things are, great. If ANY Houses are not, then I think it's absolutely worth investigating. " - Sancero

This is why I encourage this badge of credentials at the very least. My ideal wouldn't be give everyone all the classes, but each House leadership and each House and City Patron/Matron have a little bit of a sit down chat. Where would the Garden like the City to go? Where would the membership like the House to go? Can those two work together? Can two Houses within the same City legitimately share a Class with a very good reason? I think with just a few questions and the possibility of removing the mechanical limit a lot of people would have a much better idea of where to go. At the very least, it could give those Houses who flourished during the Age of Houses a clear direction to change in, instead of "the gods said so" and muddling through with a band-aid fix.

Mathonwy

A few thoughts, in no particular order:

House Influence is and has been pretty meaningless for a long while now. Having been in Houses on the high and low end, I can safely say it's mostly a measure of House size, not House activity (well, unless you count 'activity' as 'being logged in'). It's not really a great measure off of which to base any argument.

(Also, to go ahead and state the obvious, no House ever outnumbered a City in terms of membership, sorry. (Shallam isn't a city any more and doesn't count.))

You say you don't want the class skills to be the end-all, be-all of House definition, but the application of an ideal or a handful of ideals to your class skills (i.e, coming together as a group to pursue Ideal through the application of Skill) is exactly what a House is. As I understand it, that's the entire idea they were put into place. It's what separates the Naga from, say, the Shadowsnakes, and both of those from rogue serpents.

As for factional classes: excommunication (and presumably anathema and Oakstone enemying or whatever their version of the cut-off mechanic is) is brutal, but it's not arbitrary, and it reinforces both the idea that these skills are sacred and introduces a certain weight or seriousness to undertaking those classes. Given the flavor of those classes specifically, though (beseeching the aid of Celestia, praying to the Lords of Hell, etc.), these classes have much, much narrower room for expression in House composition.

Also, I do feel the need to disabuse you of the notion that Houses in the era of 'potentially allow any class' were these bastions of laissez-faire competition encouraging rational selection, thought, and adherence to a purely logical norm borne out of self-interest, consequentially allowing the best to rise to the top and damning the worst to sink into obscurity. Mostly, people joined Houses because they knew/liked/etc people in the House, ICly or (very often) OOCly, and whatever sense of purpose the Houses that let just about anyone in had often dwindled or become so diluted as to be utterly meaningless. In the worst cases, favoritism etc. reigned supreme (because you would eventually have enough friends to approve any application letter sent to you or enough people who would vote for you if you were contested) which only compounded the problem. Because this game isn't like a RL corporation, the worst offenders couldn't be removed from the Houses, and the particularly egregious examples tended to get stuck in this cycle of being absolutely terrible and inert as far as RP momentum etc. was concerned, because the only people who ever had power in the Houses etc. were people who were friends of X.

Furthermore, given that each House was kind of designed (or, at least, refined over time) to fill a niche within the City in which it resided (which, again, was what Houses were designed to do; this is also the reason, as I understand it, that various Houses over the years were not allowed to break away from their Cities, for example), this had the unfortunate habit, in a few places, of actually hurting the City as well. From a game design perspective, giving small groups of players a good deal of disruptive power over organizations that affected many more people was really a bad move, in that there was no equal incentive to cooperate for the betterment of, say, the City as a whole.

Speaking of game design, allowing just about anyone in was often pure hell from the perspective of anyone trying to establish a normalized gaming experience for novices etc. With static class availability, there's going to be significantly better odds that person X is not only available as a knowledgeable tutor of class Y, but also has some shared roleplay aspect of the class itself. Classes certainly aren't everything there is to each character's individual narrative (as it were), but it's inarguably important, and especially where novices are concerned, it looms large as the first hurdle of developing your character from ordinary to extraordinary. That is one (of many) of the big advantages to joining a House: giving you an angle to approach something like, say, a student of Chaos or a disciplined warrior.

(So why shouldn't Runewardens be allowed in the Kindred or the Ty Beirdd? Because it muddies the niche and distracts the leadership, both mortal and Garden, who are tasked with ensuring a relevant and compelling gameplay experience for everyone (well, as much as is reasonably possible, but you know what I mean) in the House.)

As it stands at the moment, Houses are sort of the intermediary between Cities and Orders; Cities generally are based around a very broad theme (Nature, Evil, Good) and are consequentially much more accessible, whereas Orders are generally based around one (or, at most, a very small handful) of ideals, and are consequentially more exclusionary. Similarly, the amount of character-defining, conflict-laden RP you're likely to get in a City (raids excluded, even though they do count as 'conflict' I suppose) is probably going to be more generic and less tailored to your character and his/her interests than you're likely to get in an Order. Basically, each plays a key role, and each serves the task of filling out gradually smaller niche roles.

Now, nobody's stopping you from being a Magi and focusing on studying the fine arts. It's a great niche, and probably one that isn't filled very often. Thing is, for all the reasons listed by all the fine people in this thread, the cost/benefit calculus of allowing multiple classes to join multiple Houses within a single City doesn't appear to work out in the longer-run. They tried it; it had nasty side effects. Unfortunate, but there you go, I suppose, the best laboratory being the real world and all (well, real text world... or something like that).

So, Magi poet: great role. Probably better suited to a clan, High Clan (the depths of those don't appear to have been extensively plumbed; you could blaze your own trail, if you so desired!), or an Order, though... in fact, from everything I hear about him from Cyrenians, the forums, etc., Scarlatti's order is absolutely wonderful, and you would be lucky to be afforded the opportunity to join.

Xith

Cardan hit it right on the head.

Last thing to note is probably High Clans, which exist now as a means of opening avenues into new roleplay for things that don't exist in a particular house. Essentially, if you can garner enough interest in a cause to hold 10 active members or so, you've got yourself a potential org.

Minimum requirements to become a High Clan

------------------------------------------

- The clan leader must post a clearly stated IC mission statement/clan charter,

  similar to the help scrolls for a House, in the clan's news post. This

  charter should contain, at minimum, the RP goals of the clan and the methods

  by which the clan intends to achieve those goals. The goals and methods may

  evolve during the clan's lifespan, but any significant changes may result in

  loss of the High Clan status pending a new application.

- The clan must operate under that charter for at least 5 Achaean years after

  the posting of said charter.

- The clan must, of course, be a strictly IC one, with no OOC communication

  permitted on its channel or newsboard.

- The clan must have at minimum ten members who are active within the clan.

- The clan head must have at least 500 hours played.

- No secret clans.

What will improve a clan's chances of being designated a High Clan?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

- A mutual affiliation with an existing RP organisation such as a city, House,

  Divine Order, et cetera.

- Clan leader and members with strong, consistent, established roleplaying

  history. If your rolepoints are often docked because you have a

  predilection for shouting RL pop song lyrics, your clan is probably not

  going to be approved.

- Existing history as a consistent and active RP clan prior to the availability

  of this designation.

Might not work for writers but then again, who knows. And a "writer" is most likely solitary by nature. You could self-publish a book for sale to others and become a famous author, or circulate your works through Ty Beirdd. I'm sure if you've got the gift they'll take note and accept you as an unofficial member.

Aerek

There's a thought. If the AFA can make it to High Clan  status, it would have nearly all the functionality of a House. I know from working with the Lumeni. Then the Bards' House, itself, becomes the collection of professors to the AFA's student body.

Sylvance

<Shutting up, I'm done inadvertently fueling this thread>

Nakari

I think that high clans have the fundamental issue of not being as mechanically supported as houses are. If a house ends up in a slump, be it by inactive leadership or something else, the existence of direct admin support, as well as the hard-coded existence of auto-induction in the trial and the like at the very least ensures that the house will stick around. Clans don't have that. If the often times few really active people in power go dormant or just get tired of it, the clan will have a hard time surviving at all, let alone reaching new potential members.

As far as the issue of class rp goes, while it should certainly be encouraged, it isn't, and probably shouldn't be enforced (save for aligned, classes, of course). There is little practical difference, I find, between allowing, say, a rogue magi or runewarden to focus on crafting or art or having a house where they can do that to the extent that class-based roleplaying is concerned. What would the real harm be to just allowing Ty Beirdd and the Merchants to be exemptions to the rules and keeping the rest of the system as is? While the existence of a plethora of house choices was a net negative for class and house identity, I find it doubtful that two choices in certain instances would really hurt anything. In the aforementioned example of the Cyrenian runewarden, being able to chose between role-play focused around knight skills or role-play as a bardd, given that both houses have and would have relatively demanding expectations for both, would be unlikely to devalue the class as a whole, and rather offer a choice between two paths of role-play. While we may look down on the path that doesn't require class-centric roleplay as being inferior, that path already exits in some form, and as long as it isn't hurting anyone (which only two exemptions to the rule would likely keep the case), then who is anyone to say that said choice is bad or shouldn't be supported? As far as I'm concerned, more supported paths for people to roleplay generally only makes the game better. It wouldn't be an elegant solution, and maybe not a fair one, but it could, perhaps, be a valid compromise.

Nim

I think the issue regarding the Bard and Merchant houses is that their basic essence is not tied to any actual class skills. Being a bard is about art, and there aren't any actual art skills (just skills that let you use art to create magical effects). Being a merchant is about trade, and while there are plenty of trade skills, anyone can become a tailor, and thus anyone (of any class, or even of no class) could be a legitimate merchant.

I don't even fully grasp this overlap issue, in regards to these two houses. If you're going to play a runewarden and join the Bard house instead of the Wardens, you probably weren't going to join the Wardens anyway. I could see an issue if, for instance, a city had two militaristic houses that accepted the same class. However, as an outsider, it sounds like the Bard house views combat the same way the Wardens presumably view art; an activity completely unrelated to the house.

Also, it feels like there's this notion that houses support class roleplay. I disagree. Houses can support class roleplay, and it seems like there are a few examples that do so quite wonderfully. Then you get things like Mojushai serpents, or classes like Alchemists. Houses can currently support, damage, or even be unrelated to class roleplay.