1) The escape from battle thing:
Just as we have "Survive Fatal Wound" we can have "Discretion" (as in
"better part of valor") which would be either/both a Combat or Stealth
skill:
Discretion: 4 Weeks, No NPS
Learning when to cut an run, and being able to do it, is an
important part of every noble's education. With this skill, you
will abandon a combat when it appears you are likely to be taken
prisoner [or "when you have been taken prisoner", i.e. either
when 1) things are unquantifiably bad, 2) You have been targeted
3) You have been hit, 4) you have been taken prisoner] and you
will run for safe haven, dropping all of your troops and horses,
most of your gold, and none of your personal possessions. This
action takes three weeks to execute as you smuggle yourself to
Imperial City.
Discretion, once used, must be relearned.
Note that the time to get away can be increased so it destroys all
queued orders. It should not happen at a break point; as I understand
and feel the need, it is designed to save your noble when either your
own bloodthirst or another's iterative "attack" has put you in a bad
spot. (A good case should be made that it would _not_ work following
an attack _you_ initiated) I think most players would neglect this
skill as too-time consuming and costly for the return, but more con-
servative ones would embrace it.
What do you folks think?
-Chris Butchko
2) attitude meaning
-------- -------
hostile HOSTILE
neutral As if the other unit didn't exist
cooperative admit to building
friendly admit to stack and building
partner Defend and admit
ally Defend and join all combats, even if initiated
3) Old players in safe havens-
I don't think safe havens should be exit only. New players will
accidentally wander out and will sometimes need to run back to lick
their wounds. If there was a counter in the game, I would set it to
eject players from barter/etc in Imperial City after their faction
had 1 year's play. I like the idea of IC as B5, that is, a neutral
ground, so I would allow verteran players in, but they should not
participate in commerce. This would prevent new players from getting
caught up in the "promote" scam to abuse the list. (Maybe I'd make
all promoted characters irrelevant for priority determinations.)
I like Greg Lindahl's suggestion to make common tasks a shared
enterprise. It would decrease the abuse if it was 100/mages, and it
would make exploration and spreading-out more worthwhile. I would say,
however, that common should still be 7 days long no matter how little
it returned, and that you only get to do it once, NMHLIT.
I have two nobles who run around selling charms, if it matters...
Chris Butchko