Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Aug 2007 to 25 Aug 2007 (#2007-80) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 26/08/2007, 17:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 3 messages totalling 153 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. voting in Glantri (2) 2. Question for Geoff & Aaron especially ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 02:06:05 +0200 From: Knud Gentz Subject: voting in Glantri Hi all, have I missed an Information, that not all Princes vote on the Council or are motions carried by a vote of less than 50%? According to the Gazetteer (p. 14, center bar) a proposal before the Council of Princes is rejected with 50 votes or less and passed with a vote of 80 or more (out of 191)! Should this be 50 and 80 percent of the votes? Knud -- A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 20:33:43 -0700 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Question for Geoff & Aaron especially On Thu, 9 Aug 2007 16:51:02 +0300, Ville V Lahde wrote: > But I'd like to flesh out the human culture of the late 200's. This is still the time when orcs are being driven our of present-day Darokin. Settlement of Corun's Glen signs the beginning of full-human Darokin. > > What I'm looking for is: > - The general nature of the human culture > - The technology level > - Architecture, heraldics... Hi Ville, Sorry I didn't get to this earlier! Here are some preliminary thoughts - I hope they help! I can't speak for Aaron, but I imagined the human culture of the region to be a bit of a mix - Eraedan stock from the south and those descended from Inlashar. So the locals might be a bit shorter, and perhaps have slightly "Asiatic" features, but I digress. Technologically the people might be a bit behind those in the south (living on the orcish frontier doesn't give one many opportunities to be introspective, or to think much beyond what might happen next week, or next month), but everything might be done more economically, in the sense that no one can afford to make mistakes, waste resources, or worry about how something might look; as long as whatever is crafted does what it is supposed to do, that is all that matters. This may carry over into the culture in the sense that the locals may have no patience at all for posturing or subtlety; they need to know whether you are on their side or not, and whether you can be trusted to hold the line when the orcs come. Open displays of strength may be tolerated - even encouraged - so long as they can be backed up. Architecture might be simpler (function over form), but buildings would likely be sturdier, more defensible, etc. Geoff ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:08:01 -0400 From: Rodger Burns Subject: Re: voting in Glantri On 8/25/07, Knud Gentz wrote: > > Hi all, > > have I missed an Information, that not all Princes vote on the > Council or are motions carried by a vote of less than 50%? > According to the Gazetteer (p. 14, center bar) a proposal before the > Council of Princes is rejected with 50 votes or less and passed with > a vote of 80 or more (out of 191)! > Should this be 50 and 80 percent of the votes? Ye gods! Getting three-quarters of the Glantrian Princes to agree on anything? You'd never get it to fly! Parliament would be in session whenever *anyone* in the government needed anything done. Short version - no, I don't think that 80 votes total is out of line, at least not given AC 1000 politics (with the extra Princes enfiefed during the WotI timeline, the numbers quite possibly shift) and the fickleness of Glantrian politics. Remember that a Glantrian Prince has a lot of other things to do besides vote on the Council - manage their own dominions, deal with their relatives, handle their Secret Craft, plus all the other usual affairs of a high-level wizard who *isn't* a secular ruler. Also remember that anytime you put five Princes together in a room together, at least two of them will be open enemies, meaning that even the people who *want* Council votes to go through will be hesitant to call a session of the Council too often. Do so at the wrong time and you're replacing upholstery, furniture, walls, mid-level Parliamentary functionaries... (Hmmm... I should probably go into the long version of How Glantrian Politics Probably Work in a separate message, see if I can get it clear enough to stand on its own in the Vaults or similar.) Summary - 80 votes in the Council may be a minority in *absolute* terms, but it quite likely represents a *practical* quorum for getting things done. It exists as a roleplaying bar for PCs - "get this many Princes on your side, many of whom hate each other, and you can have the government support your cause." Feel free to fiddle with the numbers as needed to suit your campaign - the more votes needed for a motion to pass the Council, the more important the Parliament becomes and the less power the Princes have as individuals - but bear in mind that it's probably a good idea to set the bar low enough that the Council can pass motions in situations when a gun isn't being pointed at the Princes' collective heads. Knud > > -- > A woman has the last word in any argument. > Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Aug 2007 to 25 Aug 2007 (#2007-80) ***************************************************************