Old Clerk-Based Feudal System

In order to implement this in a fair way, guilds would have to be somewhat formalized with in-game support. My original sash-based proposal for creating and maintaining guilds was a bit complicated; a simpler (although perhaps less interesting) system for membership control based on the one proposed by Slade is now included in the proposal:

• There would be an NPC in every town (including Buc's Den) called the Town Clerk. Guild creation and maintenance would be handled by talking to this NPC.
• Founding a new guild would be done with the word create. The NPC would ask for the guild name and an abbreviation (up to four letters), as well as your title as guild leader. In order to prevent people from abusing the system to found a large number of dummy guilds (i.e. to use up desireable abbreviations), any one person can found only one guild per UO month and guilds of three or fewer members would automatically disband after one UO month. Origin GMs should also be able to intervene in cases of guild name abuse.
• As the leader of the guild, you can control guild membership; see below. The leader maintains his status by having more followers than any other guild member; see the subsection on Hierarchy for details on leadership status.
• To join a guild, one must be invited by a current guild member. The new recruit uses the fealty keyword (and specifies a guild name: "I wish to swear fealty to BCK"), and the Town Clerk prompts the recruit to target an existing member. The current member is informed by the Clerk of the recruit's wish to join, and the recruit is invited into the guild with the accept keyword. Then:
  • The recruit is asked (yes/no dialog) if they wish to display the abbreviation in their paperdoll. If so, the paperdoll is changed to display the guild abbreviation: The Great Lord Faramir (BCK) of Ocllo, Master Archer. If the paperdoll would be too long (definitely possible with a long name and an association with a long-named city, and GM skill in a long-named profession), the game informs the recruit and the paperdoll does not display the abbreviation.
  • The recruit receives a message ("You are now a member of The Brotherhood of the Crimson Knights").
  • The guild leader is informed, if he is logged on.
  • The recruit is now a follower of the existing member that was targeted by the fealty command. He is also a follower of all of that person's lords, all the way up to the guild leader.
• The members keyword brings up a scrolling list (like the existing skill list) of the members of the guild. This keyword (and all keywords except create) are followed by the guild name or abbreviation ("Who are the members of BCK?"); if not given, the NPC prompts the character for the name.
• The list is presented hierarchically, with the member's connection to the leader and the member's immediate followers shown by default. See the Hierarchy section for details.
• An action button (like the "use skill" button) is provided to remove oneself from the guild. A guild member can also remove anyone who has sworn fealty directly to him; this also removes that person's followers. The guild leader can remove anyone at any level of the hierarchy.
• If the guild leader removes himself (this should probably require a yes/no confirmation window), he must target a new leader from among his followers; targeting himself (or any other non-member) disbands the guild.
• Hierarchy/Miscellany:
• Each entry in the scrolling list of members has a tab (like the one that accesses skill groups in the skills list) that allows the user to "open" that person's followers:
  

  Guild Hierarchy
  > Jim Leader
    ^ Joe Subleader
    > Jed Subleader
      > Me
        ^ Follower 1
        ^ Follower 2
      ^ My friend
    ^ Ned Subleader
  

  "My" view of the list automatically updates when someone swears fealty to "Me" or when "I" swear fealty. Other updates must be done manually as loyalties are changed and discovered.
• Anyone can challenge for guild leadership using the fealty keyword by targeting their own character. If the challenger has the support (has more followers than the current leader would have without the support of the challenger) then he is the new leader, and the leader becomes his follower. The count of members for this does not include recruits less than one real-time week old. [I am considering a variant of this where the leader must approve all new recruits. Until he approves them, they are in a "pending" state and do not have the benefits of being in the guild.]
• The leader is identified by a title in the paperdoll: The Great Lord Faramir (BCK, SFP President) of Ocllo, Master Archer. An interesting variant to my idea would be to provide the leader with a magical sceptre (wand) that allows him to access some of the guild maintenance commands without visiting the Town Clerk; this sceptre would pass magically from leader to leader and could not be traded, dropped, banked, or otherwise lost except by losing the leadership of the guild.
• The guild leader can send messages (with an effect similar to an Origin GM's worldwide "tell" command) to all guild members. The leader can also specify minimum or maximum notoriety or skill levels for recruits.
• Any member can levy a per-diem tax on his immediate followers. The leader can also levy a guild-wide tax.
• If a guild leader is a member of, or swears fealty to, a different guild, all members of his guild are also subjects of the different guild. In order to simplify implementation, the default behavior for members of the founder’s guild is not to display the other guild on their paperdoll. If they wish to display it, they must re-join (which will prompt them about the paperdoll display).
• Anyone in a guild can swear fealty to another guild without losing their position in their old guild. Swearing fealty to a new leader within one's current guild changes the balance of loyalties within the guild.
• Alliances: some additional complexity could allow for two guild leaders to declare an alliance without either leader becoming a subject of the other. Allying with a guild at war would result in a war with that guild's enemy, and starting a war would put all the allies involved at war as well. This could get tricky with allies being at war with each other; war would override alliances.
• A vendor, NPC hireling, or pet that is owned by a guild member can be designated guild-owned, allowing all members to access it as an owner or friend.
• War!
[Note: it is my firmly held opinion that guild wars would have to be declared mutually; otherwise, all combat would be notoriety-free, since everyone would just declare war on their victim before attacking. This proposal reflects that.]

• To declare war, the guild founder uses the war keyword with the Town Clerk: "Declare war on SoB." This brings up a yes/no dialog: "Do you wish to declare war on The Shadows of Britannia?"
• If both sides declare war, all members receive notification (assuming they are logged on) and notoriety-free combat is allowed between the two guilds.
• A member of both guilds in a guild war can be attacked by either side, and can attack either side, without notoriety penalty.
• To end the war, there are two options. The peace keyword would allow a mutually-declared peace: after one leader uses it, the other leader has one UO day to follow suit to end the war; the war continues normally in the interim (and afterwards, if the second guild does not agree to the peace). The other option is the surrender keyword, which can be used without the consent of the enemy and ends the war immediately. This should incur a serious penalty (perhaps a skill penalty for all guild members). This would encourage guilds to "sue for peace," with the losing guild agreeing to pay a price in items, buildings, and/or gold in exchange for the winning guild's declaration of peace.

Another important feature of the feudal system would be to make it possible for the taxpayers of a town to elect a leader. My idea for electing the leader runs like this:

• As above, the system works through an NPC resident of all towns called the Town Clerk.
• The Town Clerk recognizes the keyword election. If it has been at least one real-time month since the last election, or there is no current Council leader, a bulletin board (and newspaper, if implemented) announcement about the election is made.
• The election period lasts one real-time week after the election is first announced. During this period, the Town Clerk mentions it to passers-by ("five more days left in the election period!").
• Mentioning the keyword candidates lists current candidates. The key phrase run for office (equivalent to the fealty keyword with yourself as the target) is used to become a candidate.
• The Town Clerk takes votes with the vote keyword. All citizens (current taxpayers, see above in the Taxes section) can vote. This functions much like the fealty keyword, except that it automatically assumes the user is talking about their Town Council instead of requiring a guild name, and swearing fealty to a candidate's follower makes you a direct follower of the candidate (flat hierarchy). Candidates would be able to hire NPCs to represent them (as targets of vote) while they are not logged on.
• After the election period is over, the new leader is named (announced) and his paperdoll shows "Mayor" (other ideas welcome!) before his city affiliation: The Great Lord Faramir (SFP President), Mayor of Ocllo, Master Archer.

Once the leader is elected, the system would work exactly as it does for normal guilds, with the "guild" replaced by the Town Council. Of course, "joining" and fealty would no longer apply: all citizens (see the section on taxes) would be part of the "guild" and the hierarchy would be flat. An odd (though realistic) side effect of this would be that a citizen of one town might actually pay more taxes to a different town because of his buildings there; this would be an inducement to change citizenship in order to have more control over his property taxes! Origin could direct a percentage of the taxes collected for the town into the bank account of the Mayor, who could use the money to hire a militia, stage feasts, etc. (Or, the Mayor could just keep the money!) If the taxation system for guilds were implemented (as explained above), this could happen automatically, with the additional benefit that a Mayor could control the tax rate (both for property and for citizenship), thus making his city more (or less!) appealing to residents. Note: the Mayor could abdicate (allowing for a new election) at any time by removing himself from the roster of members as explained above; there would not be an option to appoint a successor, however. A city with no Mayor would collect taxes at the rate established by the previous Mayor, but the money would disappear.

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