[Discuss] abusing the strip titles option?

[psymann]

Tom Vogt wrote:
> Robert Croson, Jr schrieb:
>> But that's not what the people of the realm are told. They are told 
>> that it has nothing to do with the person's fitness for the position 
>> at all. They are told that it is a direct attack on the nobility of 
>> the person.
>>   
> There is no contradiction. See above, the consequences are explained to 
> the ruler.
> 

Tom, there does seem to be a contradiction - or at least technically it 
might not be, but actually, it is taken to be.  So naybe more of an 
ambiguous piece of text, rather than a contradictory one.


People of the realm are told that it is stripping nobility, because the 
person in question was found to be a peasant, not a noble.

The ruler, while being told lower down in the text that it is equivalent 
to calling the Earl a pig farmer (ie stripping nobilty), is told at the 
start of the text:


 > If a troop leader within your realm has betrayed the trust put
 > in him, or committed another serious offence, but for some reason
 > your judge is not willing or able to ban him, there is one other
 > thing that you as the ruler can do.
 > You can doubt his claim on nobility.

This can be taken in different ways - one causes the contradiction, one 
doesn't, and one is an extra one not properly covered.

1) One correct way to take it (this being the way I think it's meant to 
be taken from the text):
If a lord has really pissed you off, and you can't get rid of him, you 
can try a neat little trick.  Claim he's not a noble, and he'll lose the 
position (and a lot more besides).  Of course, this will mean blatent 
lying in an attempt to deceive the whole realm, so unless you're 
confident you can lie convincingly, don't even think about it.  After 
all, the correct course of action to take is to ban him.

2) The wrong way to take it (this being the way I think some rulers have 
understood it):
If a lord has really pissed you off, and you can't get rid of him, you 
can question his nobility.  This is a legitimate and sensible thing to 
do in order to remove someone from office.  Although serious, because 
you are removing a lord from office, it's perfectly within your rights 
as ruler, and it's just another alternative from banning him.  Pick 
whichever you like the sound of.

3) Another correct way to take it (not included in the text at all):
If a noble is clearly behaving like a buffoon, acting like a common 
peasant and not like a noble, or if you have other knowledge that he is 
faking his nobility, then doubt his claim on nobility.  Make sure you 
have ample proof or the realm will be upset.


I think the wording needs to be altered to (a) include the details of 
(1), and (b) make it clear the difference between (2) and (3).  Use of 
the words "Lying" or "Deception" would be helpful words to use, since 
the ruler is lying in an attempt to deceive the realm, and that needs to 
be understood.  At the moment, the problem is that the players of ruler 
characters actually genuinely believe that their characters have acted 
legitimately, which they have not.  As a result, they can't RP them 
correctly to be the lying devious sods that they are if they do this. 
This then causes unresolvable IC arguments which spread to OOC arguments.

If the text was clear and non-contradictory, then we wouldn't be having 
(another) discussion about it.  So I think just a little re-wording is 
in order.

psymann