Lieutenant of two different regents

[Vicente]

Easy question this time, can someone be a Lieutenant of two different regents?

[Thelandrin]

Luke 16:13 - "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

I don't think there's an actual rule against it, but it could be very tricky, if only for role-playing purposes alone. Just say no and have the Bible on your side. :)

[Vicente]

I will take with this pearl of wisdom and go the easy way :D

[AndrewTall]

Actually the situation has fascinating RP possibilities - and certainly given the paucity of alent in some areas regents might vie for the service of a skilled looey. Other possibilities include turncoats - nominally looey for A but secretly looey of B, possessed husks - Jekyl serves A and Hyde serves B, and inheritors of two estates, each with ancient rights of service.

A matter of justice event could be a looey torn between two masters, or a junior vassal could see loyalty to one fuedal lord and a superior fuedal master in conflict.

As long-term happy bunny situations go though being so close to two powerful masters is not to be recommended and the looey would face a lot of pressure in conflicting loyalties - not to mention time constraints!

[Sorontar]

Hmmm... A temple holding could be subservient to the temple domain and pay GB to the province holding. Therefore, the temple holding regent has two masters. If the holding was "run" by a lieutenant as the figurehead, it may be taken that they have two masters, especially if they also ran a law holding for the provincial regent.

Sorontar

[Vicente]

I have noted this idea in the "nice but not very important improvements" list. I have a ton of stuff to do and while this is not very hard, it takes a little time and I prefer fleshing other things first. So for now a Lt can only serve one regent.

[arpig2]

Actually that situation was not at all uncommon in the middle ages. You might want to check out Barbara Tuchman's marvellous "A Distant Mirror". It tells the story of the 14th century, centering on Engeurrand de Coucy, who was a major vassal to the kings of England & France.

[AndrewTall]

I think that Vicente was actually asking from a programming perspective rather than a role-playing one :p

How readable is 'a distant mirror' for non-historian casual readers?

[Vicente]

Yep, I was asking from a programming perspective. And also from a BR perspective. If it´s common in a BR game to have this situation, I´ll handle it, but if it´s something that doesn´t happen very often, I´ll forget about it for now.

My experience is quite limited (just reading the source material and playing 2 pbems), so that´s why I come to ask here when I have doubts in corner cases :)

[arpig2]

I have only had that specific situation where it wasn't a split-vassalage sort of thing happen openly once in a BR game, and that was a very special situation. On the other hand, I have often infiltrated one of my NPC regent's lieutenants into a PC's household as a Lieutenant.

In one of my campaigns a PC's most trusted lieutenant was his general and served him loyally and well until the PC decided to invade the realm of the regent who the lieutenant actually served. The PC's downfall seemed certain and it was only the timely intervention of the other PCs that allowed the PC to come out with a stub of a realm from which to attempt to rebuild. Of course this now made them all enemies of the newly expanded NPC realm. :)

How you would handle that sort of thing in your tool I have no idea, but it is something that can very easily, and to my thinking - should, arise in any good BR campaign.

[arpig2]

I think that Vicente was actually asking from a programming perspective rather than a role-playing one :p

How readable is 'a distant mirror' for non-historian casual readers?
It reads like a good novel. It is one of the best books I have ever read.

[Vicente]

I have only had that specific situation where it wasn't a split-vassalage sort of thing happen openly once in a BR game, and that was a very special situation. On the other hand, I have often infiltrated one of my NPC regent's lieutenants into a PC's household as a Lieutenant.

In one of my campaigns a PC's most trusted lieutenant was his general and served him loyally and well until the PC decided to invade the realm of the regent who the lieutenant actually served. The PC's downfall seemed certain and it was only the timely intervention of the other PCs that allowed the PC to come out with a stub of a realm from which to attempt to rebuild. Of course this now made them all enemies of the newly expanded NPC realm. :)

How you would handle that sort of thing in your tool I have no idea, but it is something that can very easily, and to my thinking - should, arise in any good BR campaign.

Right now in my tool is not possible to handle that case: a guy can't be a lieutenant of two different rulers :) I have never seen this case before either in any game, but in your case, I think that saying the guy is the Lieutenant of two regents it's just flavor, as mechanically he is only the Lieutenant of the PC: he can't for example rule the law holdings of the NPC he really served without blowing his cover with the PC. The tool is more oriented towards mechanical effects, not flavor, which is better handled as free text (that's how I plan to handle it, as information blocks for the GMs, Players,...).

[arpig2]

he can't for example rule the law holdings of the NPC he really served without blowing his cover with the PC.
I can't see why not myself, but then again I run a much more free form campaign where the rules are guidelines for adjudicating the success of whatever the PCs and NPCs want to do rather than a limit on what they can do. <shrug>


Right now in my tool is not possible to handle that case: a guy can't be a lieutenant of two different rulers See, that's just what I meant by any DM aid limiting the game. Oh well.

I think the free text block would probably be the best way to go...I have a feeling my text blocks would be so numerous and full as to become cumbersome ;)

[Vicente]

Hehe, yeah it's all about rules interpretation mostly. I think that to Rule a Holding is something pretty public, so you can't do it without people knowing you did it. But it's up to the GM and the game really.

About text blocks, everything has at least 2 of them associated (Public and GM information), which makes as you say for a lot of text blocks. But in general in the games I have seen it's pretty similar but with forum posts: every realm has forum posts for its characters, provinces, decrees,... Instead of having tons of forum posts, you have tons of text blocks :)