I was asked to move this here. Take it or leave it, but understand it is not a criticism as to how Tribunal exists now but a way to revitalize it's function within the MUD, make it less frustrating to deal with and more rewarding to be apart of in ways other than camping cities for hours on-duty and wanted flags placed. It is a thought experiment and I have no distinct feeling one way or the other regarding Tribunal or Outlander, probably most of this will get thrown out. This thought experiment should require a minimum of coding other than one or two powers and simply a re-arrangement of philosophy and a global quest to go with the rollout similar to how Outlander was implemented to replace Sylvan.

Basically the cabal itself needs to be re-thought out like a business plan:

1) Cabal goals, pros and cons to it's existence and duty in an outline format.
2) Goals need to mention Outlander
3) Merge Acolyte with Tribunal. It is more useful and visible there than in Fortress, and they could have TRIBUNAL or ACOLYTE next to their names in WHO.
4) Fully explain the rationale for removal of evils ICly in the helpfile. It's long since gone past the point of an RP experiment and is close to the point of a 'hard and fast rule'
5) Redefine and rework what being WANTED should mean.

1) Cabal goals, pros and cons to it's existence and duty in an outline format.

It needs a list of goals, starting with what's in the helpfile (no change to laws, only how they are written to allow more 'loopholes' like they do now and a certain degree of ambiguity in enforcement to vary with cabal leaders, but no truly malicious benefits to outlaws) and trimming or expanding as necessary.

2) Goals need to mention Outlander. This is the majority of where the 'Blood' part of 'Blood Tribunal' comes in. It is where the philosophy is also defined as separate from both Fortress and Outlander in terms of the Good Alignment. How you go about this is up to you.

The goals need to be clarified overall and explicitly mention Outlander and an 'end-game' goal with regard to them. Currently they have been irrationally ignored as a mere annoyance. If the apprehension and eventual destruction of the Sapling is a goal it needs to be stated accordingly. Their direct opposition and their attitude toward them. Right now the helpfiles are written like the cabal still doesn't know what to make of them and doesn't even treat them like they did Sylvan. They need cabal powers that allow them to directly counter Outlander abilities, specifically bioempathy and trepidation since those are typically lowbie griefing tools as it is. Let them be cast on Empire but not on Tribunal using a shield of Order to protect from the Chaos of these abilities, and a save versus mental buff of the same theme of Fortress of the Spirit but weaker. (this means Tribunal are resistant to bards now with this example cabal power, something no other cabal can boast) Potentially since Tribunal has had a handful of explorer rangers, you can work animal domestication into their theme to counter beastcall and beastkin spells to make Outlander raids more dynamic. This will also allow them to partially counter shapeshifters, giving most Tribunal a weaker version of Beastmaster ranger's inherent tanking bonuses against shapeshifters. Again, this is justifiable by using the names and lore of the most recent explorer rangers and the 'Blood' portion of 'Blood Tribunal'. e.g. they can certainly afford bloodhounds to hunt criminals as that's what bloodhounds used to do.

3) Merge Acolyte with Tribunal. It is more useful and visible there than in Fortress, and they could have TRIBUNAL or ACOLYTE next to their names in WHO.

4) Fully explain the rationale for removal of evils ICly in the helpfile. It's long since gone past the point of an RP experiment and is close to the point of a 'hard and fast rule'

At the moment the current Tribunal imms have point-blank kicked evils from the cabal. This was started by a player but resumed by the current sitting Imm. The IC reasons are irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that the Imms want orderly evils strongly encouraged to go Empire and stay there due to the shrinking playerbase. No point in fragmenting an alignment unnecessarily when they could be bolstering a specific cabal's numbers.

This needs to be written into the Tribunal helpfiles. Potentially, the whole Acolyte sect needs to be moved from Fortress to Tribunal for OOCly practical reasons. Quite frankly it makes sense for Tribunal to retain neutrals but still serve a charity component with the concept of Justice as a rationale by having Acolytes around. This makes it easy for newbies to locate them and ask for IC help even in passing and therefore facilitates roleplay as the second half of the newbie channel. We need to get back to the point of pointing newbies to Acolyte for help, and lumping them into Tribunal makes it an extremely flashy way to go about it. Further, interesting roles can be made by allowing neutrals into Acolyte, and altruism would make a more interesting Tribunal power than a 'Maran Bi tch Assistance' power. A strong charity component also facilitates an honest populace for witness purposes both ICly out of principle and OOCly newbies, and the vast majority of roles in general with nothing to gain will be honest, generating more leads by simply having more sub-10 eyes around to witness crime. They will be recognized far more often for these things, and Acolytes internally once implemented into Tribunal can be discouraged (but not prohibited) from simply giving them gear, especially from out of the Spire cabal pit (but encourage the use of the protected town pits in lieu of leaving the city to go on pointless jaunts to kill snow worms and giving a blanket reason to refuse to do the same).

One can argue that the reasons for and against doing this are equally valid but from a standpoint of practicality, any arguments that charity and the law are not related are mere semantics. It's patently obvious that charity is a necessity to prevent things like Outlanders or Battle from happening by ensuring that the least of Thera can still contribute to the economies of protected areas. It represents a long term change in thought and evolution of Thera's non-cabal governments which have remained quite static for 5 ages now. In addition, areas NOT influenced by a cabal should be a minority. Nearly all of Thera should have a mark of cabals by region even if it's not automated territory building. Merging Acolyte and Tribunal is the first step to Mek's idea. MERGING ACOLYTE AND TRIBUNAL ALSO HINDERS THE PHENOMENON OF ACOLYTE HEALERS ASSISTING IN LOWBIE PK'S AND HEALING LEVELLING MOBS DUE TO THE NECESSITY OF KEEPING THEIR ON-DUTY TIME UP FOR PROMOTIONS. It's a nice IC way to nip an OOC balance problem in the bud. Acolyte healers under Tribunal simply have no time or incentive to go around griefing as a means to appear 'good'.

5) Redefine and rework what being WANTED should mean.

Once you have accomplished the above two things and made a decision that sets their overall direction since it has now become as severely antiquated as Justice and Arbiters were, THEN you can address what their overall role in cabal wars is, what powers they keep and lose. Keeping the ability to flag people would be entirely unwarranted in the situation that goodie healers are strongly encouraged to go Tribunal, because the charity element can protect the victims of crime until the law enforcement element retrieves the Scales, Incentive for both sides to do their jobs.

Specifically, determine an IC and OOC rationale for losing XP other than 'the WANTED flag has no penalty if you don't lol'. The number of NPC's pissed at a wanted person is already prohibitive without making it impossible to function in the game normally, which means it's already an incentive for someone who is experienced while clearly something a newbie should avoid. Trading the XP loss for a loss of CON to avoid getting looted needs to be re-evaluated as a natural penalty rather than a 'workaround'.

Doing all of the above finally would require concessions that are not likely to occur between Tribunal and Fortress Imms. But it's what needs to be done. A rework such as the above would 90% remove the possibility of a corrupt Tribunal (they would be neutral, which makes sense to a degree).

An ongoing global quest that lasts for a month to allow players to influence and clarify these details in the cabal lore before it goes to the helpfiles would be immensely useful from a design standpoint and to showcase new cabal powers such as the suggested Shield of Order power above to counter bioempathy, trepidation, bards, shaman fatigue and conjurer mental knife, and the animal taming abilities that are likely restricted as skills to Tribunal rangers (hard code the cabal to accept explorers only) and shapeshifters.

You really, really misunderstand what Acolytes are supposed to be about.

It's that this makes more sense from a game balance perspective. I know that half of what I wrote is difficult to justify from a roleplay perspective.

And it's already been noted on the other forum that from a game balance perspective that they are part of the class variety integral to giving Fortress what little 'oomph' it has. Simply removing them from the cabal raid equation (but allowing retrieval) while making them seen by passing lowbies far more often to be asked questions would do wonders for what they and Dawn were originally intended for game balance and facilitation of roleplay. It removes the instances where they fraternize with Sunwardens freely either by chance or by choice, it minimizes instances where wandering around sancing orphans in order to get IMM xp becomes a good idea (it removes them from their more pressing duties of charity inside cities and to players specifically) and puts them more directly at odds with Empire by siding with Tribunal. It changes the nature of what both Acolyte and Tribunal are fundamentally and fixes several issues of balance, griefing and questionable RP without removing the opportunities for realpolitik.

It's not that I don't understand it Daevryn. It's simply that I disagree and have tossed it out entirely for the thought experiment. You'll notice I also tossed out a huge chunk of the 'Blood' in 'Blood Tribunal' as well in order to propose the rework.

And it's not as if this is the only, or even the best way to go about what it's trying to accomplish. The folks who asked me to move it here disagreed with half of it to begin with. It is entirely possible for instance to justify and implement the Shield of Order and animal domestication without cramming Acolyte in there to increase their visibility and usage by Academy denizens.

Healing/buffing lowbies is a class ability, not a cabal ability.

True, acolytes get altruism but unless they already have a class ability to heal/buff they won't get tons of mileage out of it.

How would changing the cabal scene affect the distribution of class skills?

I do think that some sort of merger of tribunal and empire would be a really nifty idea.

That is to say, healing/buffing lowbies, or what I feel is the bigger concern, healing/buffing mobs in order to loot lowbies.

A shaman who insists upon following Thror and being a Rager without getting inducted into the Village (unnecessary due to their class abilities like you already stated) is an outlier. They are a minority.

A healer that is uncaballed will still grief people and pretend to be 'good' while relishing in the OOC rage and frustration bleeding through as much as they can cause. You can't stop that anymore than you can stop the former. Uncaballeds will do whatever they want, and should.

But you can create a situation where this behavior is never rewarded or encouraged by doing what I said above. And merging Empire and Tribunal makes even less sense than giving Tribunal a proactive charity component to help keep 'the poor' in check in every protected city. This is because one is quite literally a conquering army and the other is merely a (mercenary) law enforcement mechanism.

In either case the concept of Order only plays in thematically. For game balance there is no reason to fuse what is meant to provide a half-assed degree of player safety in protected areas with a conquering army.

What DOES make sense is reinstating the friction that Evils provided by having the new more visible, more useful, and likely more populated charity component with the requisite benefits and powers for being so, into the enforcement mechanism. Which is more important, Justice or Mercy? Charity or Law? These sorts of conundrums don't come about when one is sequestered in a mountain and only passes through a city to raid some dustbowl or an enemy estate.

I do think Tribunal could be more interesting and fun. But it would take a lot of thought into how to change the cabal to make it more active/fun and interesting.

I have toyed with the idea of creating a pacifist healer character, monks of Moudrilar style, that literally abhors violence. This is a character that would never kill a single thing. Any exp would be from exploration/observational/non-killing quests. That is a character I have seriously considered playing.

You know what I haven't considered playing in years? Anything that is Tribunal. Anything that I could fit into Tribunal would be better off as an uncabaled, fort, or empire character. The below example, about Warlock stuff... Why join Tribunal? You can do all of those things without exposing yourself to the dangers, frustrations, or obligations of Tribunal.

There are currently evils in Tribs, evils are allowed in Tribs. Evils just have to RP harder to get into Tribunal. Evils shouldn't be allowed to join Tribunal, take advantage of city protection while throwing Trib RP out the window, then join Empire as a fallback option when they get booted. Thats literally all I think is going on with evil Magistrates, prove yourself then you're inducted.

As far as Acolyte/Tribs? Wut?

There is really nothing wrong with Tribunal as a cabal, it is pretty awesome. If you don't like the cabal, don't play it, there are lots of options. I found that if you have a really immersive role to sink into the hours spent on duty fly by. The key is have other #### to do with your character. If your role is 'I will protect the cities and be ever vigilant', you are going to get bored as hell in the cabal. If your role is something like 'I will bring back the lost magic of the Warlocks, and gather followers of Light Magic to myself to further my personal goals of ending chaos and evil' you will probably not notice the hundreds of hours you spend on duty while gathering others to RP your goals with.

>There are currently evils in Tribs, evils are allowed in
>Tribs. Evils just have to RP harder to get into Tribunal.
>Evils shouldn't be allowed to join Tribunal, take advantage of
>city protection while throwing Trib RP out the window, then
>join Empire as a fallback option when they get booted.

>There is really nothing wrong with Tribunal as a cabal, it is
>pretty awesome. If you don't like the cabal, don't play it,
>there are lots of options. I found that if you have a really
>immersive role to sink into the hours spent on duty fly by.
>The key is have other #### to do with your character. If your
>role is 'I will protect the cities and be ever vigilant', you
>are going to get bored as hell in the cabal. If your role is
>something like 'I will bring back the lost magic of the
>Warlocks, and gather followers of Light Magic to myself to
>further my personal goals of ending chaos and evil' you will
>probably not notice the hundreds of hours you spend on duty
>while gathering others to RP your goals with.

You can feel free to disagree if you want. The fact of the matter is, your opinion doesn't bear out the 12 members and 4 pledges it currently has relative to nearly the rest of the MUD.

Currently Tribunal is expected to raid with gimped and/or no cabal powers, and the authority to raid rests solely with an individual who likely does not even exist if they aren't an air/offense shapeshifter or highly aggressive warrior or cleric well-suited to the rigors of tracking. Those are the only three classes that make Vindicator fairly often, and usually only with 200+ hours on the character.

If you do in fact get the chance to raid, you are expected to raid with no cabal powers completely gimped against individuals who at the bare minimum can use chameleon and in all likelihood have a concealment, damroll, and mob advantage against you. None of these things by themselves is terribly powerful, but then neither would the soft counters such as Shield of Order and animal domestication either. Niche' uses that are powerful enough to consider joining the cabal (like Nightwalker and +hit/+dam for example) but not overwhelming advantages that Nexus and Village can get under the right circumstances.

And no, 'prove yourself a little more before getting in' only to find you're even more gimped than simply keeping your nose clean in Empire is not a 'perfectly fine' state of affairs. Imms clearly want to shunt orderly evils to Empire exclusively. This rework further facilitates that, putting Acolytes inside the Spire not only lets them do their job better and gives them an excuse to be more visible on WHO so newbies can ask them questions ICly but also gives them a reason to refuse to gear-whore them and butt heads with both Empire and Outlander. To argue that those reasons already exist with Empire is quite frankly a huge cop-out. With the rework as stated above you'd have more flexibility and fun in who could be allowed to be an Acolyte, with more to do, and more options for good-aligns than just Fortress or Gimpbunal whose options amount to 'set the entire forest on fire or don't bother raiding'

Druid (and I've done A pro trib Druid) and necro to give two examples. That said, I think evils should get in as easily as others. The align mix adds interest and IMHO orderly evil is not a bad thing.

Tribunal simply wasn't entertaining to me unless I could be an evil shapeshifter or evil conjurer due to the onerous amounts of downtime and evil conjurer was the only way I could raid solo efficiently because we never had the numbers it actually takes to raid. Conversely Outlander never had the numbers it takes to stand against an evil conjurer raiding when I solo raided but also didn't have anyone that would stick around long enough to die defending. Comparatively, disallowing or hindering evils in the cabal is completely #### ing stupid. I'm pointedly tossing RP aside in that consideration, as I said before.

But, may as well roll with it rather than fight it. Hence the other radical proposals.

I know full well they won't be implemented, but they are worth suggesting if only for posterity and the fact that other proposals similarly detailed either haven't been written or don't reach the public eye.

Ultimately the difference, I feel, is that thematic considerations are trumping the funstick, and then the lack of transparency exacerbates the miscommunications caused initially by what I feel is an erroneous focus. Decide what is fun and workable, THEN justify it thematically, not the reverse.

A charity and mercy-based organization that is the Shield of the Light makes no sense from a gameplay perspective sequestered away in the mountains even if distance is no real barrier to the members most capable of helping lowbies. A polite refusal to help lowbies despite being advertised as such on WHO also facilitates RP.