Trouble with Tribunes

Its been said several times that you should think of Tribunal more as an empire, not the good guy policemen. But if they are a big empire capable of evil things...aren't goods at least slightly sacrificing their morals by joining up?

I was one of the biggest people to bitch in support of Justice and Royal being combined, but what's being discusssed is an AGE OLD issue that has rearisen because the law cabal actually has some power now.

Everyone has a manifesto of their life.

Every character should be expected to carry that manifesto through until the end.

A greedy thief can be expected to kill, cheat and be caught by the tribs(that is such a cool gangster name for them).

A chaotic demon can be expected to slay anything and everything inside and outside of the city at his disgression.

A chaotic good, as described by the helpfile itself, should be expected to do what is right with TOTAL and ABSOLUTE DISREGUARD for whether a tribunal IS OR IS NOT PRESENT.

To a chaotic good, if a lightwalker has joined with a corrupt system, they have been tainted. They are still a lightwalker, but a mislead one. They would always prefer not to kill a lightwalker...but if they are inspired by their cause and believe they are endowed by their god with their powers in order to serve a worthy cause, they may at times be willing to kill good men whom turn on them and the light by serving a cause which, in their eyes, is corrupt.

They are left with two choices. They can surrender. If they surrender, they may be executed. They are not supposed to expect another life after that one, so for them it is the end. Their cause is over, anything they expected to get done...they can no longer do.

Their second option? They ride to combat with their opponent. Perhaps they will knock some sense into them literally, or perhaps they will be forced to kill a good man, but they are serving a greater good, the work of their god. They kill this man, who ATTACKED them...who tried to kill them in the name of an organization which is CORRUPT in their eyes and LEAD BY A VAMPIRE!!!

By killing the Tribunal, perhaps they have done something they did not want to. A good man has died, but he was tainted and corrupted by an idealogy which had corrupted and seized control of many a good man. His death is a sad story, but was in his own hands when he joined a corrupt society. It was not the wish of the chaotic good to kill this man...but he attacked him in the course of his good work, and he had no choice but to bring down this corrupted man. He is sorry for what he has done, but he realized that the fault rests, at least in most part, with the man for joining with an organization which prided itself on catching men...some of which walk the paths of light. When that man made that choice, he understood he was going to be tracking down and executing lightwalkers. He understand the consequences of joining such an organization and he CHOSE a path which could lead to this end.

By joining the tribunal he CHOSE to hunt down lightwalkers, By being chaotic the good CHOSE to defend himself.

It is not within the roleplay of a well played chaotic good to surrender. He believe the establishment is evil, and will bring it down at any cost.

Nor is it it within the roleplay of a well played chaotic good to pay any heed to the presence of tribunal.

I fall back on Behrens reasoning. Even when it gave you an advantage, very few of my chaotics broke the law. It was always easier to manipulate it to my advantage instead. Chaotic != Stupid.

I think it is a good idea to look back upon how things used to be. At the beginning of 1.0, you had to kill the criminal to apprehend them. And in 2.0, outcasting wasn't automatic, so many a lightwalking Justice bit it to Knights and other lightwalkers. I think this system has come a long way. And I believe the addition of evil to Tribunal has really opened up a much greater RP avenue in our world. Sure, there will be growing pains, and adjustments, just like anything fairly new, but things will be tweaked.

The important thing to remember is that it is a game, and as such, Heated debates should remain just that, intellectual exercises in non-agreement. Nice to see it being kept level headed.

Before I go on, I'd just like to say I'm not trying to add fuel to the fire here, I'm simple trying to understand what is, and isn't, acceptible.

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First, a good coordinating with an evil Justice is hardly going against Good align RP. They are working to restore order which keeps people safe, in the cities at least. It also allows the Good to make sure the criminal is captured and treated fairly as well. What possible motives would DK bob and CLeric Jack have for working together? They both obviously aren't in the same cabal, unless perhaps Savant.

Knights "seem" to like the idea that Tribs are keeping the cities safe, but I would imagine they have a problem with a couple members of Tribunal. So why go to war over a couple members of the cabal?

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Ah. Well, I guess that makes me see it your way a little bit. It was my understanding, as from reading the posts, that Knights hated the Tribs because they were against the true order of their true king that was yet to come.

But as for why would a dk and a cleric help each other if not in the same cabal? All a cabal is, if you look at it, is a group of people with like minded goals and ideals. If five people had the same goals and ideas and weren't in a cabal because one didn't exist that fit their particular RP, couldn't they take out the Tribs together, in a round about sort of way? Basically what I'm saying is, just because there isn't a church or something that has the views on religion and life that I have doesn't mean I can't help people with the same views as me, whether they're criminals or whatever else they could be.

I guess my point is, as far as I see it (and again, I'm not talking from experience, only from what I've read on the forums... so I may be totally off here) as a double standard, where and evil and a good who view the law as something worthwhile can join forces, but an evil and a good who view the law as something bad can't. I don't know. Like I said, I haven't gotten to 50 yet and played with this whole mess.

a-g

I wish I could respond more in depth, but it'd give away the majority of the characters I play.

Warpnow, Behrens posted and described what the help file really meant. Your interpretation at this point is in-valid and does not go against RP. But if you want to think that, sure.

And as stated many, many times in this thread, ETHOS > ALLIGNMENT. Raargant said it several times, and I'm going to believe him. Why? Because I've seen many cases in the past (1.0) where problems such as this arrised. But did we see any problem with it, except that the ENFORCER hounds were extremely buff? No, we didn't.

All I see now is people complaining because they don't know how to deal with a new change. Just like you complained when the IMMs were beta-testing Liches, Warpnow. When in fact, when they beta-tested blademasters, you had no problem with it, because the said beta-tester was a goodie elf blademaster, and in turn had no run-ins with you.

And I sure as hell don't see half the player base against the whole Tribunal/Royal system. I'm personally okay with it, and believe it or not, two of my characters, both currently at 50, and both at 50 when Tribunal was inducted, have had run-ins with the law. I don't see any problem with it.

Most of this is revolving around the fact the Martineius is a vampire, and the first Council in Tribunal that actually did something. Elise didn't write any laws, she just basically sat around in her Watchtower (WHEN she was even AROUND) and got about 9 captures before leaving Tribunal. Has anyone read the COUNCIL help file recently? What would everyone have done if Elise had done just that: Created and enforced laws? Nothing. Why? Because I still think the majority of the player base has and probably still are playing goodies, and have bias arguments.

Now that a vampire is is up and 'kicking butt' in the whole 'Council Chair', people are having problems with it. When my goodie was wanted, did I have a goodie Justice usually come after me if another evil one was on? No, actually, I had the evil one come after me, which makes me believe that they at least mark their offenders with allignment to reduce as much complaining as possible, and gives the goodie justice a chance to take NO part in the apprehension of their 'goodie' friend.

A lot of you are also saying the IMMs aren't doing **** to help or cater to your ideas and suggestions. Read the changes recently made: shouldn't that help Watchers/rangers INCREDIBLY? The archery bug was fixed (THANK GOD!), and several other things fixed / modified. The IMMs are listening, they always have been. Just because you don't get your way sometimes does not mean they're not listening. They just don't agree.

AMEN brother! I've never had a problem with Marty OR mass amounts of Tribs. Like I said earlier, it gives me a chance to induce a mass conspiracy against them, which I've always wanted to do.

re: Acer

maybe some are mad now that there is a kick butt Justice. I've never liked Justice. And now with the changes in the system (land grab for power) I dn't understand their point.

What is the difference between Knight and Justice now? The both want THEIR law and order imposed upon the world. But Trib has the system's backing.

Serioulsy every cabal is now in the world domination business. Why should only Tribs get such integrated system backing? (This goes back to my unanswered question: Why do the IMMs love Justice/Trib?) In the old old old system, you couldn't get around it at all, even if you took their item. So if it is still a cabal COMMAND, let everyone be responsible for the areas they control. Give it to all of them. Let every cabal be a political entity.

A lot of talk, but the conversation became rather derailed, excepting the POW idea, that I like. But if that's not feasible, why not consider allowing loot on mercy? You wouldn't have to worry about goods using it to loot fellow goods just for kicks, because the victim could note immortal.

If I'm running from a cop who's after me for attacking a bad guy, and I manage to knock him out, I think the authorities wouldn't be that ticked off at me for taking his car keys and radio relative to me killing him. This scenario (mercy loot) simply brings into balance the good trib good criminal dynamic by giving both the ability to evade death on a slightly more permanent basis without risking damnation.

Think of the RP benefits as well. I'm a good who gets attacked by a neutral who is after my armor. I mercy him, give him a little lecture, then take away his weapons and let him go without a death. I'd appreciate some feedback on this idea, as well as Myrek's, rather than more merry-go-round rhetoric on perceived problems with the Tribs.

Myrek raises a very good point in that the Justice do have a very "real" and tangible slice of the pie, with very real and very powerful ways of messing you up if you walk on their grass.

Now, it used to be, without getting too specific, that trade played a larger part of the cabal mechanics, and you could really have a viable means of hurting another cabal through sanctions and co-ordinated trade embargos.

Now, really, that's all been simplifed, and almost removed from the equation, and the cabal armies which can at times ranges from being beaten all the way back, to out roaming the entire world owning three major cities, don't really affect much. While one cabal may own virtually half the world, they in fact are less powerful in many respects than the Tribunal, who "own" three areas.

Couple things here:

1. I think Iyorvin's point about tastes and taking them elsewhere was misunderstood. Unless I'm mistaken, he was talking about playing something other than a good or an avatar, not leaving the MUD.

2. Much of the logic of this thread flows from a postulate about the necessity of Justice or Tribunal to have some lawful territory within the cities. This postulate is what forces the awkward situation of avatars being pursued by goods who can execute them but not being able to kill in self-defense. As Raargant points out, it has always been this way. It's also part of the Knight or avatar tragic RP it seems to me. (There were evils in Justice in 1.0--Gorthae was an evil psionicist.)

I agree, it should be this way. It just wouldn't work if goods could slay goods in Tribunal. It would just turn into a free-for-all basically.

However, given this situation, it does have to be taken into account for the playability of avatars, Knights and others who will have to fight any undeads or the like in Tribunal. (I'm less sympathetic to the case of Demons hanging about in the city. Yes it's a pain but come on--deal with it.) Not saying it's not playable right now, just saying that it has to be taken into account. I like the change to ensare--balance should be kept in mind in the future.

1. Much of the trouble arises from the total absence of law for the last few years. There is going to be a lot of butt-kicking while darwinian selection leaves only a few outlaws standing.

My only gripe with Tribunal is there are too many of them. Hehe, and not enough Nexus, Savant, Knight, Watcher, Syndicate.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this thread wasn't started to discuss whether people have problems w/ Tribunal; there are lots of threads like that. This is more "Since people have problems, here's a suggestion that might help." Hence the Suggestions thread.

My suggestion that will fix all of your various problems is to make a tribunal.

There are a lot of excellent points in this thread, so I want to compliment a lot of you on your thinking.

First, as to the requirement of "laws". Every city has laws, and people who enforce them, from olden time sheriffs to modern policemen. All that has happened is that the Justice have "merged" with the Royals of 2.0 who made the laws. I think that the merge is one that benefits the RP of the MUD. The Justice-Royal conflicts that existed at that time were an RP annoyance. Knight is a different situation in that they can be Trib's allies or enemies, based on who makes the laws, just as any patriotic group can be against or for the current government based on how "just" they feel the laws are. (Think American Revolution).

Every cabal has a sort of "world domination" feel, but that's just because they're all very dedicated. Technically, only Knight and Tribunal really want "world domination". Nexus just wants to immerse themselves, and by extension, everyone else, in chaos. It's their religion, if you will. Think of modern Jihadi terrorists.

Savant just wants to be left alone to study the mysteries of time and space, and use their lands to bring in tribute to fund that. Warmaster the same, but combat instead. Watcher and Syndicate could care less for lands. Watcher just wants to be left alone to their woods.

And, in answer to that question, yes, good and evils can put aside differences temporarily in order to serve the "greater good". Dragonlance has an excellent example in Raistlin (never a particularly good person, even when technically "neutral") helping Tanis and Sturm (very good people), because it benefited him.

However, if I see too much fraternization between good and evil, there will be consequences, as usual.

Regarding Tribs and "World" domination. They don't have armies for a reason. Their "World" is the three lawful cities. There are ways around their "World" in almost every case. So, I don't really see them and Knight as synonymous.

Oh, and like any new cabal, the numbers are higher because people want to know how they work. As always is the case, the tide will change, and some other cabal will begin to dominate. Balance will be maintained, even if it has to be tweaked a bit from above. Thanks for the Watcher change, by the way, Behrens.

Actually, it isn't. Chaotics don't care about the law. That doesn't mean they're stupid.

And Sneak, you are welcome to RP that you don't see good Tribs as "good", but expect Irumeru to beat you up pretty badly for it. If I say someone is "good", they are.

Remember, alignment in this game is absolute, not a "grey area".

But the thing is that you imms see this from one side only.

Goodie gets wanted and has to fight a trib goodie - tough luck, if he gets killed nothing happens cause he was 'wanted'. He could have avoided fighting him or getting wanted.

Goodie gets wanted and has to fight a trib goodie - he kills the trib - now why isnt this tough luck for the trib who couldve left him alone.

Its like upholding the belief in order is a valid reason for a goodie to kill a goodie but upholding a belief in, say purity, or church is not.

It makes no sense it goes one way only - no imms have made a valid reason for that and as I see it almost all the players thinks this is strange.

Good tribunals do not kill other goods, end of discussion. Following purity or combat or order does not give you the right to kill other goods, end of discussion. Fight all the good tribunals you want when you are wanted, just don't kill them and if that doesn't work and they just keep coming at you even after you've beaten them into the ground repeatedly, don't get wanted.

So why not allow loot on mercy? Or implement POW? No one has addressed those suggestions, there's just a lot of whining that Trib's a problem or suggestions to not be wanted.

Mercykill lootings? Doesn't make sense, it's bad enough to listen to someone preach when you're mercied and now you want to give someone the ability to preach to you and take some of your items? Maybe if you were a thief and while they were knocked unconscious kneeling there you could pry a few things away but how about a big ol storm giants clumsy fat fingers trying to slip a necklace from around an elf's neck?

POW's, if you were a member of a warring cabal(Iyorvin's paladin for example) and you were wanted and captured a good I could see him being transported to your cabal and stuck there for a few hours. His cabalmates could try and kill the cabal guardian and he could go free. It has possibilities but all in all and bottom line, goods should not be fighting goods with the intention of taking their eq, killing them, anything like that. If you want to be wanted and an outlaw goodie go right ahead, what's wrong with surrendering if a goodie trib is attacking you? What's wrong with avoiding the goodies and going after the neutral/evil tribs?

When I was a trib, marty specifically told us not to harass a certain outlaw unless she acted up first. We didn't capture and execute her repeatedly, day after day, and hour after hour. When Sneak's ogre was outlawed he got repeatedly executed, captured, pursued simply because instead of giving the tribs a break, he kept coming back and back and back. I love the cabal(except so many members) and I think all of them are doing a fine job with one exception and there's really nothing I can do about that, I've complained enough while I was a trib and after I deleted.

A storm giant getting the necklace off the neck of a corpse would be no less difficult without breaking the necklace. If he can put it on himself, he can get it off someone else.

As for it not making sense otherwise you've provided no reasons beyond your personal distaste. Any other thoughts?

oh, well if you want to get pissy I can definately downgrade the quality of this topic quick.