Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

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Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 2:28 am

I would like to request that The Devil's Table district of Andunor either be updated to a single chair leadership position, or the scripting of the three-party system be altered. There are several reasons for this, that both afflict roleplay and the management of districts that I will outline in the following paragraphs: Precedent, Roleplay, Drow Theme, Settlement Management, Settlement Warfare, Political Tactics, Stress and Play-Time.

Precedent:
All settlements once had this system. It is reviled, and all settlements but one have been removed from this system. I would like this burden removed from Devil’s Table roleplayers. It is almost universally disliked by developers, it is disliked by a super-majority of political players, it is disliked by a majority of anyone who's ever participated in or utilized both systems.

Roleplay:
There isn't any associated with the complicated writ-token system. Most successful governments that enter into it, ignore the writ system entirely and require OOC coordination to vote-count left and right, requiring not just a super-majority, but more. This voter-coordination without any kind of IC polling or citizenship counting... is absolutely metagaming. The entire system is ridiculous and requires an effective government to have OOC coordination that detracts from the roleplay. Further? This was originally designed as the Lawful Evil district, ruled by House Freth and Infernalists… yet it is the most chaotic of the settlements.

Drow Theme:
This is a voter system that punishes councilors for having their political rivals assassinated. This is not in Drow theme. It forces ADDITIONAL coordination and cooperation, rather than allowing any kind of inter-house warfare, and makes it impossible to have a functioning government for remotely extended periods of time. Having a single ruler would allow for longer, more in-depth plotting between the houses, rather than continuous tit-for-tat and the constant PvP we've seen so far. Drow are natural traitors -- we don’t need the additional reason to betray each other.

Settlement Management:
Settlement management is incredibly difficult with a counselor system, and The Devil’s Table experiences more frequent elections than any other settlement, creating a large amount of burnout of solid and well-put together groups. It also creates a large amount of instability when it comes to making alliances with the devil’s table, not because the other faction ceased to exist … but frankly because they’re too exhausted to continue maintaining leadership after three, four, and five elections in a single year (IRL Month) while completely blind to prediction results due to lack of polling, understanding of safety margins and other things these elections require. Likewise? The third councilor is basically just a citizen who cannot be banished and is always locked out in an effective government. The problem with this, is that individual than uses their inability to be banished to steal signs and objects, and force elections at inopportune moments -- which are often OOCly motivated by the understanding that someone will not be in-world due to IRL issues. The district is unable to coordinate at all, let alone compete with The Sharps because The Sharps has had the burden of this system lifted.

CURRENT DROW ... are not the only people who should have a say in this; as such a system? Can also prevent other experienced leaders from creating groups that might benefit Drow roleplay in The Devil's Table, because of lack of desire to interact with this system.

Settlement Warfare:
Given the divided loyalties of all individuals participating in the council system, and their often contrary goals, and backstabbing… it’s absolutely impossible to coordinate a defense of the settlement and outside attacks on the district or it’s leaders regularly lead to political ramifications for the district’s leaders: Whether DM event or player lead doesn’t matter, given how tenuous anyone’s grasp on the district is. Other districts are simply able to make decisions faster, and don't have to rely as much on immediate government opinion, or acting before the councilors beside them do.

The competitive nature of The Table means even DM events can absolutely upset the political environment of the table without intending to; even when they're trying to be fair and balanced between surface and underdark events.

Political Tactics:
The political tactics used to take and maintain control of The Devil’s Table are ridiculously convoluted and change continuously. If everyone rests even a little bit, on the fourth election in the month, and votes for the most popular candidate? All Drow with a J are allied. All Drow with an F are allied. J and F are enemies.

‘Joanna Drow gets 22 votes’. - Councilor 1
‘Freya Drow gets 10 votes’ - Councilor 2
‘Joelina Drow gets 8 votes’. - Councilor 3
‘Feddie Drow gets 7 votes’
‘June Drow gets 4 votes’
‘Fel'dayrn Drow gets 2 votes’

This means? Joanna, Freya, and Joelina are councilors-- but? Freya now has the ability to force a new election every time she hears that Joelina may OOCly be away for two days: Which requires OOC coordination via discord to coordinate and counter. This entire system … because of the lack of polling, cross-time-zones, lack of understanding of safety margins, or how close the elections actually are? REQUIRE RP-breaking use of Discord to coordinate. Likewise? Freya, though regularly PKing candidates, stealing public property signs and having no governmental powers… cannot be banished, even though CAUGHT DOING THIS and Joelina and Joanna locked her out of the government because her aims are overtly against those of the party with the most votes. Worse? Freya cannot be assassinated without starting ANOTHER election over. And if you assign an assassin’s bounty? She can then resign, sign up first, stack her votes to get on the council… and then any assassination on her before the end of the election 3-day period does nothing, and if you wait till the new cycle is over? It forces yet ANOTHER exhausting re-election.

In no other settlement can or should a super minority be allowed to lock out the super-majority, but it could easily have happened were votes just a little different above. Any system that requires us to go through the interface of a game... should be SIMPLIFIED to account for lack of responsiveness, not made more complicated.

In another example:

‘Freya Drow gets 22 votes’. - Councilor 1
‘Joanna Drow gets 4 votes’ - Councilor 2
‘Joelina Drow gets 2 votes’. - Councilor 3

... Joeanna and Joelina can lock out 22 voters wishes because nobody else wants to deal with the frustrating election system to help Freya out. This has happened before, before my time, where the majority House was completely kicked out and banished because, though they had a majority of the voting pool... they didn't have a majority of the seats, and I suspect? This has likely happened more than once to the frustration and anger of a majority of players in The Devil's Table at the time.

Stress and Play-Time:
Image
The amount of time required to maintain control of the district is ridiculous. I spend more time online than any reasonable person should have to, to manage the district -- because if I don’t I have the possibility of losing the super-majority, or causing the disheartening of individuals within the super-majority so they are less likely to pay attention to the coordination required to maintain control. When too many people vote for one candidate, rather than an allied candidate? It causes an outsider to come in, who gains no power except for the ability to force another, exhausting election. I am asking this system be changed for the sanity and stability of community leaders inside The Devil’s Table so that we can REDUCE the turnover rate of roleplayers in the district. We’re burning through leaders at an obscene rate and always do: And I signed onto this and am maintaining it with the intention of slowing this as best I can for both IC and OOC reasons.

In Closing:
I feel that the Council system needs to either be removed and replaced with the same government system ALL OTHER SETTLEMENTS on the server utilize … or COMPLETELY redesigned from the ground up with rules more conducive to roleplay and the Drow Theme: Which I feel would require developer time better spent elsewhere on the server. My vote is for a single ruler system. People are exhausted. Please help us stop burning our good-roleplayers up.

Thank-you very much for your time.
- Dominant Drowess

Edits: Corrections and updates as the conversation develops and new examples come to mind.

Edit:
dominantdrowess wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:43 am
The only reason my initial paragraph names “Drow Theme” is because I felt like that was the only possible justification for the chaos of the Council system; I did not mean to imply I believed the Drow should in ately have their own district — for clarification.
Last edited by dominantdrowess on Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:45 am, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by strong yeet » Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:02 am

The Council system is, in a word, terrible. There's a reason it was stripped from literally every other settlement on the server. It even got removed from the Sharps, but the system for some reason still persisted in the Table. It's like somebody forgot to remove it out of the other half of the town, like it's a bug gone unfixed.

Except I know that's not true. It was a conscious decision to leave it like this. I cannot even begin to fathom why anyone could see it as a good thing.

It's a constant mess of election-firing because somebody's resigning, or nobody's doing anything because nobody can do anything without somebody else and then nobody's on at the same time so nothing ever happens. It's either stagnant, castrated and lifeless, or it's this rapidfire series of tidal waves that pretty much blocks any attempt at doing government RP. It sucks. DominantDrowess put pretty much every possible problem with it into words more articulate than my tired mind ever could.

It doesn't enhance RP, it just makes for this aggravating mess of thin, boring democracy-lite mechanics that do nothing save detract. It's an obnoxious waste of time. I really can't say enough bad things about it.

I've thought about writing similar threads in the past. I'm glad somebody beat me to it.

edit: some changes to content
Last edited by strong yeet on Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Rwby » Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:06 am

Firstly, almost everything under 'Settlement Management' and a good bit about what comes after sounds an awful lot like the sort of thing that should be taken privately to the DMs, if problem players are metagaming, abusing discord, using someones personal irl circumstances as a weapon, and doing silly things like running around stealing signs because they're a councillor, that's a DM matter, not suited to this forum.

Secondly, this appears to be a suggestion, and should go in the suggestion forum, [Where indeed, a near identical post lies.] - Remember Dunshine is away now, and I'm not sure Irongron is back - He's certainly not been posting in the forum, so there may very well be no-one with the power to impliment any changes anyway. Be patient.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:16 am

Rwby wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:06 am
Firstly, almost everything under 'Settlement Management' and a good bit about what comes after sounds an awful lot like the sort of thing that should be taken privately to the DMs, if problem players are metagaming, abusing discord, using someones personal irl circumstances as a weapon, and doing silly things like running around stealing signs because they're a councillor, that's a DM matter, not suited to this forum.

Secondly, this appears to be a suggestion, and should go in the suggestion forum, [Where indeed, a near identical post lies.] - Remember Dunshine is away now, and I'm not sure Irongron is back - He's certainly not been posting in the forum, so there may very well be no-one with the power to impliment any changes anyway. Be patient.

I am not impatient. I am providing feedback to a system to a system that is producing a generally negative experience. None of these occurrences are isolated; and DM's are well aware of the times they've been reported so it isn't so much about reporting instances, or complaining about instances in public... and instead providing feedback on a series of events that have existed since the system's inception, which is why I felt it should go under player feedback.
Last edited by dominantdrowess on Sat Jul 28, 2018 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Skibbles » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:02 am

This needs to happen.
Irongron wrote: [...] the super-secret Arelith development roadmap is a post apocalyptic wasteland populated with competing tribes of hand-bombard wielding techno-giants, and strewn with the bones of long dead elves.

So we're very much on track.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by BegoneThoth » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:03 am

dominantdrowess wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 3:16 am
I am not impatient. I am providing feedback to a system to a system that is producing a generally negative experience.
I would replace 'generally' with 'entirely.'

The Devils Table does not function because it is built in such a way that it cannot function.
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:05 am

The points made by OP, most especially the Roleplay and Settlement Management sections, hit on a very uncomfortable and straining issue in Andunor.

I have watched or participated in council after council after council where the considerable majority of thought and effort that went into attaining, maintaining, or exercising any power in the Table was devoted to OOC coordination due to a uniquely cumbersome system.

This is not a condemnation of the players that have been involved (as many have been really stellar community members), but acknowledgement that without resigning yourself to a tedious and frustrating meta, your participation in the government mechanics will be largely pointless.

Whatever interesting dynamics we might like to see as a result of the Council system/factional interplay, it has been consistently evidenced for years now that those dynamics are overwhelmed by awkward and really unfun drawbacks.

The strengths and positives of the existing implementation of the Council system are underwhelming and minor in comparison to the drawbacks, which DD summarized in a way that reflects my own thoughts.

These are not isolated complaints specific to current in-game politics. This is endemic to the Table. If it's not in the Andunor team's (Irongron, Dunshine, ActionReplay) interest to just remove the Council system from the Table, then it should rather need to be cut down/streamlined significantly, or overhauled. It generates far more frustration than fun or intrigue.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Xerah » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:52 am

Both times I've been in the UD, I've been involved (or by proxy) with the leadership system. And it always has the same problem. Maybe this is the way of representing the chaotic nature of the drow, but if we're trying to take OOC into account of actually doing cool stuff, then this system is not ideal to allow for that.
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Imperatrix » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:01 am

This system is almost universally reviled and I cannot fathom why it still exists. There's no reasonable excuse. I've done Devil's Table politics once since joining the server and I will simply never bother dealing with this system ever again. It has no redeeming qualities.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by magistrasa » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:21 am

I was once a councilor and it was the most depressing and disenchanting experience I had on this server. Pretty much everything stated above holds true in my experience, and potentially even worse! Because even when everyone at the table is on the same side, the fact that you can't do anything without signatures on a writ SUCKS when one councilor seems like they're never online and the other one plays at a completely different time zone. Not only that, but my roleplay became consumed with all my allies wanting to coordinate for the next election, rather than doing anything with the election I'd just won the day before. I ended that month feeling like I'd wasted my time, and I don't think you could pay me real life money to run under this system again.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by BegoneThoth » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:29 am

Also, lets say we have an ideal situation here. Two parties, each put up three. They play fair, and run fair elections with actual non-messed with votes.

Best case? The leadership becomes a mix of peoples from each party; but there's only 3 positions, so one group is down two to one.

So the minority party steals the treasury and force an election. The government remains utterly non-functional for an extended period of time.

How many times has this happened now? Like 12 in the past six months?
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by flower » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:37 am

The district was not designed as LE.

Aligment of district is in hands of players.


But is it even relevant, Devils table was almost always in drag of Sharps last year and members of its factions either corrupted by Sharpian powers, disloyal to district, or just few and thus weak :D :D :D

3 seat council allows minimal opposition possible and secures possesion for the leader of it, you cannot evict a councilor right?

The goverment system needs a serious rework. Addition for example of inner council where all who got noble award (plus number of selected persons by leader) could vote on infernal affairs preventing people from being exiled on word of a single person and having limited powers within settlements. So leader would be forced to least minimal cooperation with local nobility and factions (each faction leader of certain number of members could be considered a noble or influental person.).

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:46 am

Kinda like Flower's idea of implementing the nobility reward SOMEHOW in the Underdark~ sounds cool...

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by BegoneThoth » Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:52 am

An underdark noble district would be great.
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Red Ropes » Sat Jul 28, 2018 6:10 am

Make it unitary.

The council system can be summed up with `peepee and doodoo`.


edit: to expand upon it. All it does is makes it so the weakest member can disrupt and start new elections and requires two people to make an alliance. There is no incentive to share power and none of them have power to do anything without cooperation. Because it is 2v1, mathematically, logically it makes sense to knock over the third person.

so just go ahead and make it a single seat tbh
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Cortex » Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:48 am

It's funny to me nobody has stepped up to the defense of the council system.
:)

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by ProbablyAMage » Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:56 am

Even the devil gets an advocate, but not the council system. It's horrible.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Huschpfusch » Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:03 am

Cortex wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:48 am
It's funny to me nobody has stepped up to the defense of the council system.

Because having a council system and elections being decided by democratic voting seem utterly bewildering concept to all my drow characters anyhow.
Three-seat-council-system would make more sense on the City level than district level. Like if Andunor had three districts (Drow, Human, Monstrous) which have one-seat-ruler-elections and Andunor as a city had the 3-councelors - each seat representing one of the districts and its racial/cultural flavor.
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:10 am

Cortex wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:48 am
It's funny to me nobody has stepped up to the defense of the council system.
Not even people who are enemies from other cities... wish the council system on the drow. :-P

People may disagree on the quest/writ system. People may disagree on Druids. Not even worshippers of Bane and Asmodeus are okay with The Council system. Haha~

The Council of The Devil's Table has in the past... literally vassaled itself ... in a bid to get rid of the system.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Ebonstar » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:16 am

dominantdrowess wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:10 am
Cortex wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:48 am
It's funny to me nobody has stepped up to the defense of the council system.
Not even people who are enemies from other cities... wish the council system on the drow. :-P

People may disagree on the quest/writ system. People may disagree on Druids. Not even worshippers of Bane and Asmodeus are okay with The Council system. Haha~

The Council of The Devil's Table has in the past... literally vassaled itself ... in a bid to get rid of the system.
The Table would be vassalized again if it goes single seat, simply because of the situation in place right now anyway.

Drow have no single seat governments in any lore whatsoever.

They are led by the top three Houses with all other Houses beneath them plotting and biding their time to overthrow the upper Houses.

The problem in the Table is we have groups who use Freth as their buffer as npcs to not have true Drow style.

Freth and Claddath for those who dont know are the Crinti of the past. Yes the founding Houses of Andunor were the hunted heretics of the Vault in times past.

Freth is not the First House, they are called the founding house, because the First House has to be able to be overthrown by intrigue plotting and war. Same for the second, Third or fourth houses. That is Drow culture. and it has nothing to do with elections or how players abuse settlement powers to get their group into power.

imo Drow do not bow or turn over power to those not of the Underdark, and even Outcasts are not born of the Underdark.

We have too much lets make everyone welcome because they are the best mechanically for the game represented.

Drow, Gnolls, Goblins, Kobolds, Ogres, and other Monster races would never give their home away, nor their power within.

Right now we have a group "in power" only because they walk the mechanical line. Now that group wants to turn over the last spot that even resembles Drow style.

Single Seats government is fine for humans and dwarves and halflings and elves, for they have kings and coronals, and thanes.


Drow have Matrons and Drow have one Main entiity they bow their knee too and any other should be seen as blasphemy. Drow who bow to any other than Lolth and Dark Seldarine are not drow, they are simple sheep with black skin

You want to fix the governing of the Table, move Freth to the West Wheel and Claddath to the East Wheel since they are NPC like the Hubmaster.

Sharps likes having a king, fine and dandy they are mostly humans and other races who have such.

Drow need to have House Politics and maneuvering for power and above that Favor of our Dread Queen.

The table was claimed by the Drow because it was made spidery when Andunor opened, it has been mentioned many times over the years, those drow players saw that and claimed it and it has remained that way until now.

What the drow do not need is to be shaped into a human sheep style of place for that is a disservice to the Drow and the players who play them.

I have seen players leave of late saying they cant play drow the way they want, and I will admit the thought crossed my mind as well when we moved away from RP back into my mechanics are better than yours so I win mentality.

I have seen players leave because they are not in the popular clique, and are tired of their play not being respected by others, of which the DMs have made announcements about to remind players that behind the other characters are other players as well.

Reworking the Table is the right way to go about it, not turning it into the Sharps or Cordor or somewhere else.

Do not do the Drow disservice that way or the players who will play Drow in the future
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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:25 am

The fact of the matter is, that is a problem with the vassal system. And there not being an IC way to stop it or reverse it at the moment. Because it is a vestigial wing of a broken system DMs already stepped in on with Cordor being vassaled in the past.

Ebonstar though other people already mentioned it?

The Devils Table is not intended to be an All Drow district it has no race limitation on it.

Almost none of that stuff you said has anything to do with the councilor system. It almost comes off as satire because you are writing it from a personal perspective rather than an OOC one.. and I can understand it is something you feel strongly about.. but the system used to represent it I just don’t think is fitting.

The crazy politics would be better represented I think by 3 districts with one councilor each and possible solutions to the systems problems are what I am trying to discuss because it causes people to suffer because it is so hard to work with.
Last edited by dominantdrowess on Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:39 am

Devils Table is not, nor was ever truly meant to be 'The Drow District.'

Reguardless of any changes to the councellor system, I doubt that it ever will be enforced as 'The Drow District.'
This too shall pass.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by dominantdrowess » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:43 am

The only reason my initial paragraph names “Drow Theme” is because I felt like that was the only possible justification for the chaos of the Council system; I did not mean to imply I believed the Drow should in ately have their own district — for clarification.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by LichBait » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:52 am

The council system is extremely cumbersome, especially if two out of three councilors are not active. To be frankly honest, the only time it worked for my drow PC was when she hilariously wrote a position for herself and cornered another councilor, and gave herself all settlement powers which in effect was a unitary system. You know something is a little broken when your settlement employees can be more empowered than one of its leaders.

The fact of the matter is while Menzoberranzan and some other drow cities 'work' with a council system Andunor is not a drow city. The drow population barely sustains a pair of Houses that boast any kind of numbers. To be entirely frank, even though one of the prime examples of drow culture Menzoberranzan which is about as non-mixed as an underdark city can get in racial popluation, the first house rules everything with an iron first. The council is largely just so the first house can tell the seven other more powerful houses what's what. Also a single drow ruling body not being a thing is just blatantly wrong. Drow cities vary vastly from region to reigon. Maerimydra is a city that has a single ruling House in House Chûmavh.

To sum up, a single ruler system would be more effective and less time consuming for those involved.

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Re: Devil's Table Councilor/Writ System

Post by Xarge VI » Sat Jul 28, 2018 11:09 am

I do believe single district head would allow for more dynamic setting.

Ebonstar I think you're mostly describing traditional Lolthite priestesses your post. I think the vast majority of drow have only one being who has any intrinsic value, themselves.
Being mostly intimidated into submission by the clergy, if another opportunity presents itself it's only natural that many would choose that which profits them most.

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