[Discuss] Friendly secessions

[Christopher Subich]

Tom Vogt wrote:
> the decisions were public, there would be chaos and confusion. You can't 
> have a half-open system. Which is precisely why I say time and time 
> again that the Titans are _not_ a court/trial system. As long as the 
> argument revolves around essentially demanding that they are, the 
> argument is in a dead end.

Justice has never worked behind closed doors.  Your arguments make sense 
to a point, but so long as all aspects of (for want of a better term) 
the Battlemaster judiciary are kept private, there can never be 
resolution.  That's why group-grudges, like this 'Plergoth OOC 
kerfuffle', perpetuate.

The current Titan/Tom duality is opaque to newcomers and scary to 
veterans.  You can call it "not a court system" all you want, but when 
the Titans receive evidence and mete out punishment then a court system 
is exactly what it is -- and one that operates in a Star Chamber way, at 
that.

A large part of the problem is that the line is fuzzy.  The Titans don't 
work on a precedent system (and there's no public precedent anyway!), so 
players can't relate their current situations to the past and find out 
(with any certainty) what is acceptable and what is not.  With no clear 
rulebook, of course you're going to have players arguing.

To make matters worse, there's no reliable way to get an advisory 
opinion, especially one in a timely manner.  This has a chilling effect 
on players, especially ones with power: "if I suggest that we have too 
many cavalry to take the city, will I get bolted?"  Perhaps, "is this 
reason good enough to strip someone of their titles, or will I lose a 
ton of honour for it?"

The Titan system might not be broken, but it's definitely incomplete.  I 
have a couple ideas regarding that, but that'd take this post too far 
off-topic.


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