Many people were throwing around the idea of partial desertions or
such for the heir system. The death of a PC should be somewhat damaging
to the faction.
This could be implemented at each tree root. If B is killed or persuaded
away, the units under B might suffer a loyalty drop, some might desert,
the rest will swear to B's lord. (or engage Steve's suggestion).
So the loss of a key unit might be damaging, but not completely
disasterous.
> Note that if the killed unit is the PC, we get an "heir" for free.
> All you have to do is make the election take into account the "heir"
> skill, and voila! Instant heirs.
Ah, clever! Not sure about the specific heir skill anymore.
Designating heirs also can get silly. Perhaps best to just choose
the most talented unit (or base on leadership).
But the maze of SWEARs that would follow B's departure is complex.
New leader X is chosen.
X swears to B's lord.
All other units swear to X.
Russell is right about faction trees being gratuitous complexity.
But they're just so much fun! I think it would be neat to have
every unit have a lord that it was sworn to. If the system isn't
too cumbersome or unplayable, I think it would add to the atmosphere.
-- Rich Skrenta <skrenta@rt.com> N2QAV