Offices Discussion

Hey everyone.

One of the things we (mainly I, >.>) had hoped to include were government offices. At first we thought we could do it locally, like becoming Captain of the City Watch of any given city, but that was simply too large to manage. We'd settled on making things more regional and a few global (Pendor-wide). Things like Marshal of the North, Sheriff of the Steppe, etc. Some of these would give troops restricted to an area, some might give special powers, you get the idea. We never finalized a list, or even had a full working list, because of the problem...

How do we handle gaining (and losing) these offices for PCs?

The highest quality/immersive way would be to RP every relevant NPC power broker in Pendor... and actually use RPed diplomacy/intrigue to determine. That would be a massive undertaking, worthy of its own RP project... and still need to be localized to actually work. So that idea is out.

The other idea is far less immersive and very gamey. It would involve bidding influence points (representing bribes, charisma, threats, etc) towards an office, with the highest bidder winning the office and all influence that was bid being lost. The office would be held for a certain amount of game time (an event, a few regular progression RL weeks, etc) and then go back to bidding again... representing a term of offices, and the possible re-appointment of the holder. In that system players could bid their influence for someone else, just to deprive an enemy of the office. We held off on putting this in, because it simply isn't immersive and we hoped to come up with a better solution.

What do you guys think about this? Can you come up with a more IC way than 'bidding abstracted influence' that is also workable? If we can't come up with something better, is it worth including this idea at all? No matter what solution arises, offices likely won't be in until after the first event.

Can this also be used to determine the leader of the armed forces in Windholm? Say, four Orders send troops and one knight gets the command of all of them?

If there were an official expedition, or mutual agreement by the PCs, I suppose it could. (I assume you're referring to the bidding idea) Though when the PCs alone are involved, it is more practical to handle it purely through communications or an IC vote. Or the Orders can skirmish all they please... a note needs to be made on that elsewhere though.

However in a similar situation, if the Offices were in, there might be a Marshal of the West/Fierdsvain or something like that, who would have a better claim to leadership of all Orders in the area than anyone else. It wouldn't be de jure leadership of the Orders' warbands unless there were an official mission in the area.

I like the idea of having said marshals, but don't have an opinion yet about the mechanic behind it.

Can this be done by IC councils or something similar? Each knight/retainer interested can present themselves to it. (non-Order related council)