Olympia: The heir system, what's the sudden quiet? From: frits@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Frits Kuijlman) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:40:09 +0000 Well, the discussion about heirs seems to have died down a bit, so I`ll try to restart it. This has some connection to Rich's posting about faction trees, but I want to concentrate mainly on the question of heirs. Current faction leaders(your PC) has no leadership skill whatsoever. If he gets killed you're out of the game. Too bad. If you introduce an heir skill then you can have several men/woman in your faction study to become the leader when your old leader dies. This can be done without faction trees(awful name!), they can be wandering around somewhere without any responsibility, and when it is time they become the new leader. Advantage: - Can be introduced into the current game. - The more money you invest, the less risk if you lose your leader. - You can create as large a faction as you want without having to have a very good leader. Only the heirs have to be good. Disadvantage: - Faction survival depends on skill of best heir. - Where did your old leader learn to lead? (IMHO conceptually weak) IMHO a leader can only be replaced successfully by somebody else who has some leadership skills. You could require that to lead a large faction you need a high leadership skill. If you want an heir you have to let him study the leadership skill also(same as heir skill), but this heir can lead part of your organization. You can even go so far as to have several leaders that are loyal to the faction, i.e no top leader but a committee. Advantage: - Can create relatively independent subfactions. - Death in a subfaction does not have to influence other subfactions. - More money invested, the less risk you lose your leader. - Creates all kinds of possibilities for loyalty changes. - For a large faction you need one or more highly skilled leaders. (IMHO conceptually better than above heir skill) Disadvantage: - Needs Rich's faction trees. - What skill does your current leader get? As you have probably seen I am in favor of some kind of leadership skill. There are several points which are applicable to both skills, and some of you may want to put them in the advantages or the disadvantages list depending on your preferences. The main possibilities are: - No leadership skill and optional heirs. - Mandatory leadership skill and one top leader. - The same with more top leaders in a faction. Most(if not all) of the above has already been said by others. Maybe there are other ideas about heirs, so let's hear them. I wanted this mainly to lead to a discussion about what we really want from an heir system. When there has been enough discussion maybe we can turn this into a vote(Rich)? As an aside, all discussions about faction trees are also welcome. The rec.games.pbm group is a bit quiet on the Olympia subject lately. Frits -- Frits Kuijlman frits @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl Delft University of Technology The Netherlands Referenced By Up