19. CITIES

What is a society in terms of the world?

It started as a leader of a small guild who (by force of charisma, will or vision) recruited other PC's into the guild. They then became a large guild, then a town. They then either split off sufficient forces to make another town or became warlike with their neighbors and took their town.

Will societies be provided with any tools to help govern themselves?

I envision this game as a cross between an RTS and a MMOLG.

Will citizens be able to belong to more than one society, if not how will it be enforced?

Nope. Enforced? It just won't be possible to change allegiance except once every real life month.

Can the builders of a settlement create their own charter of rules/laws?

Yes. To assist in preventing abuse, we calculate the actual population of the town by how many people spend X hours per month in it. Example: Evil Enterprises decides that 10 hours per month is the right amount (they chose at random). In Joseville, they had 10 people spend ten or more hours within the town. Hence, the population of the town is 10. This would prevent most cool buildings from being built. It is up to the rulers (AKA fancy guilds) to get their members to spend some time in the town. With a population of 10, only 10 NPC guards may be hired, etc. It is in the rulers best interest to 'grow' a town. [Note: The numbers can be played with depending on how many resources are tied up. For example, if Evil Enterprises determined that NPC's tied up a lot of resources, it might be decided that only one guard per five residents could be hired or the price of the NPC's may go up, etc. The objective of the game - it should be kept strongly in mind - is to have PC's doing *everything*.]

Will a settlement built by citizens have a self-elected government body to manage it?

Different government types (republic, democracy, anarchy, etc) cost a different amount of monthly maintenance and give different benefits. The harder the government is to keep (i.e. democracy with monthly votes as opposed to despotism) the more benefits there will be, as well as some drawbacks. Certain rulers will be able to elect other people who can then do functions the rulers cannot. The game is all about interdependence. I want there to be good reasons (aside from roleplay which comes with a good game) for a meeting of the guilds to take place, etc.

Can citizens get married or divorced within the fiction of world?

That's some goofy stuff to Logan, but a lot of people seem to like to do it. Sure - buy a marriage license and go at it... Remember to pay rent on your license or it expires. If procreation were possible within the game, having kids might be interesting as well. Just imagine a new players expression as they were making their character and noticed a button that said 'Baby'. They pressed it and poof - they are a baby. I can't imagine that playing a baby (even with the sped up time within the game) could be a lot of fun. I think the parents expression would be priceless as the first words out of the babies mouth are 'Wen I gets old enuf I ROXXAR U!'.

What are the requirements to become an officially sanctioned society?

People. Lots of people. On a continuous and on going basis. If a group of a couple hundred people get together to try to found a 'society' then all go their separate ways, that's not really a society. If those people were together for a good amount of time you have a society. When the people all go their separate ways it will crumble.