Great houses

Elanorwen

Yes, I know, I'm probably beating a dead horse, but... great houses really need to work in a slightly different way. It just seems that it's too much trouble to try and find someone to marry without chasing after every novice that pops out of the portal and hoping to snatch them up before a great house (be it your own or another) can claim them as their kid. Never mind the part where the great houses that exist are pretty much the only great houses that can ever exist at this point. Getting to 50 members is a pain, considering the population and the fact that the ones that actually managed to get up there have the numbers to snatch up novices more often than the smaller, growing families.

On that note, what I am proposing is as follows:

Remove the whole concept of "marrying out", make it so if a member of a family gets proposed to, they get to stay in their own house while also joining the house of the person who proposed to them, while the person proposing remains in their own house only. Honor gains will be split for the target of the proposal, part of it going to their "new" family, while the rest, major part of the honor gain goes to their "former" family. I know, probably a pretty major change to implement in the first place, but at least it is an idea to ponder that might give more flexibility to families, rather than every time a member of a great house makes a comment about marrying out, they get comments about being disowned, kicked out, shunned, etcetera.

Lerad

Eh, I don't see how allowing someone to count in more than one family will make the system any less gamey than it is, if that's what you're largely having a problem with. I think it's perfectly fine to have RP that includes conflict between houses, marrying out to a house that is seen as inferior should certainly invite disparaging comments, as long as it is IC.

If you allow a person to count to more than one family, then the act of marriage becomes even less of an IC decision than it already is. If two houses of a city is at 40 people, they'd just get a bunch of people to intermarry with little thought for consequences, and the result is two great houses. It's going to be abused to hell, in short.

The current system certainly does entrench Great Houses as places novices gravitate towards. That is innately part of the advantage of being a Great House - not a mechanically, hard coded advantage, but simply by being visible, labelled with an adjective that denotes prestige and achievement, you're going to attract new characters (alts or otherwise) who want a piece of that big pie you have baking in the oven. It makes it pretty difficult for minor Houses, or even startup Houses, to break into the arena of inter-House rivalry, and I wouldn't mind seeing it being made easier for more Houses to get to certain mechanical benefits of the system. But your suggestion is probably not going to do anything to help push things in that direction, if it doesn't make things worse.

Back before the great houses re-code, there were a bunch of suggestions and discussions about how the new system should look like. Maybe there are some things that can be dug up from there to add to the system. This current one's been around long enough that any flaws should be identifiable from the time we've been able to use and evaluate it. Someone could go dig those suggestions up and see if there's anything useful now, I guess.

Astraea

Honestly, the only thing I would suggest changing is, somehow being able to get to Lesser House faster, or hell, maybe there being a quest so that your family of 5 can get LH. I really think there should be a ton of Lesser Houses, and I find that that's not particularly true - at least in Glomdoring. I think if there were more LH's, it would make the whole system much more exciting and worth it. It is tough for small families to get members, really tough. And as someone with a GH, I know how long it took to get there, and the family game is sort of ruthless.

Enyalida

I think it would be a pretty cool expansion for houses to include people not of the main house family, as real additions to the house. That way, your kiddos can start their own family and not be splitting the house numbers. 

Eventru

Astraea said:

Honestly, the only thing I would suggest changing is, somehow being able to get to Lesser House faster, or hell, maybe there being a quest so that your family of 5 can get LH. I really think there should be a ton of Lesser Houses, and I find that that's not particularly true - at least in Glomdoring. I think if there were more LH's, it would make the whole system much more exciting and worth it. It is tough for small families to get members, really tough. And as someone with a GH, I know how long it took to get there, and the family game is sort of ruthless.

What's the minimum for a LH? I feel like part of the reason it was chosen (isn't it 10? Or 12? Or 15? One of those) was so that we didn't have families die right back out again (the minimum was the same one we'd used as requirements for historical families, iirc). See: Shervalian. 

Xenthos

Eventru said:

Astraea said:

Honestly, the only thing I would suggest changing is, somehow being able to get to Lesser House faster, or hell, maybe there being a quest so that your family of 5 can get LH. I really think there should be a ton of Lesser Houses, and I find that that's not particularly true - at least in Glomdoring. I think if there were more LH's, it would make the whole system much more exciting and worth it. It is tough for small families to get members, really tough. And as someone with a GH, I know how long it took to get there, and the family game is sort of ruthless.

What's the minimum for a LH? I feel like part of the reason it was chosen (isn't it 10? Or 12? Or 15? One of those) was so that we didn't have families die right back out again (the minimum was the same one we'd used as requirements for historical families, iirc). See: Shervalian. 

It's 15, but I kind of think that it should be changed a little.  I think that a GH should be attained at 50, but not lost until under 45.  A Lesser House should be gained at 15 but not lost until under 10.

Just because when you lose status you lose all your accumulated honour and such, so if you get the plateau and someone marries out you're done for.

Astraea

I believe historical families get LH no matter what - or well, maybe those historical families beneath 15 were just grandfathered in. I just think it would be fun to increase the level of flexibility. I dunno, maybe for established small families (Llaewell, for instance) that aren't going anywhere, but have very low numbers, there could be something done so that, on a case by case basis, maybe they could get 'approved' to be a LH. I think, it's just somewhat demoralizing. Which, I understand, if you want to enjoy it, go join a big family, but I really feel that something is lost when you only have mammoth families battling one another.

Eventru

Astraea said:

I believe historical families get LH no matter what - or well, maybe those historical families beneath 15 were just grandfathered in.

Grandfathered in, yes. You have to have a minimum of a LH to get historical, now.

Xenthos

Eventru said:

Astraea said:

I believe historical families get LH no matter what - or well, maybe those historical families beneath 15 were just grandfathered in.

Grandfathered in, yes. You have to have a minimum of a LH to get historical, now.

What about tweaking the numbers needed to lose it a little bit, so it's still possible if people abandon the family but not to a chance accident of 1 person right after you barely make the minimum?

Elanorwen

My issue really came from trying to find someone to marry that didn't just pop out of the portal, preferably someone who is established and I know would likely stick around for longer than a couple of months. Finding someone that isn't in a GH, so there wouldn't be the issue of trying to talk them into marrying out... or having them trying to talk me into marrying in proves to be almost impossible. That said, I'm a bit picky too, so it gets even worse there, which is probably one of the reasons I'd rather see houses being a bit more flexible when it comes to marriage. GHs will always have their claws dug in deep within their members. Heck, I remember having this issue on another character who was in a family with barely 10 members. In the end, what I'm saying is... yes, should definitely look into a way to flex things up a bit. I know, I'm probably a bit too picky myself, but I doubt I'm the only one either.