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Old 02-02-2014, 06:42 AM   #11
Figleaf23
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

Many issues seem already sorted out: wealth and status are unconnected, status and rank are independent (I see nothing wrong with implementing compulsory status buys to match rank gains).

Maintaining status by minimum CoL expenditures would seem to be switched off, but you might want to build or impute a 'Way of Living' requirement that embodies proper imperial conduct.
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Old 02-02-2014, 07:32 AM   #12
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Many issues seem already sorted out:
Yeah. The issue remains, though, how wide the range of Status ought to be, and such particulars. Ought Lt-commander Tomiko Eichberger to be Status 4 or Status 6.

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wealth and status are unconnected, status and rank are independent (I see nothing wrong with implementing compulsory status buys to match rank gains).
It's similar to some suggested optional rules on B.516, and I think it got mentioned in Social Engineering.

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Maintaining status by minimum CoL expenditures would seem to be switched off, but you might want to build or impute a 'Way of Living' requirement that embodies proper imperial conduct.
I seem to recall a rule in Social Engineering that living as required by the terms and conditions of socially appropriate military service does not constitute a failure to meet CoL. If that recollection is correct there is precedent.
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Old 02-02-2014, 07:47 AM   #13
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Yeah. The issue remains, though, how wide the range of Status ought to be, and such particulars. Ought Lt-commander Tomiko Eichberger to be Status 4 or Status 6.
What would her status be if she was 'just' an Eichberger with another sort of job?
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Old 02-02-2014, 07:56 AM   #14
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

About the same. Being a naval engineer doesn't exactly weigh in the balance compared with being one of the two adult Eichbergers. On on hand she could blow it worse, e.g. if she resigned her commission. On the other she could pick things up a bit if she were co-opted to the Council. But she'd have to show a lot more interest in policy for that to become likely.
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Old 02-02-2014, 08:33 AM   #15
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

Do you have a setting Status Table that you are trying to slot her into, or are you in the process of building one and wondering how it could be built to accommodate her ilk?

If the former, you could just treat her as an anomaly, replacing upper levels of status with Reputation.



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The immediate issue is that I am running a campaign in which one player character is a lieutenant-commander in the Imperial Navy whose family name is “Eichberger, yes, that's right, Eichberger”: her grandmother was Chairman of the Imperial Council, her great-grandfather invented FTL, in one possible interpretation she and her brother are co-owners of the Eichberger Trust and all the Imperial Service’s stuff.
What do you mean by the last phrase there? Is this possible interpretation relevant to the campaign, or is it background 'feel'? If it's significant in the campaign, what has to happen to realize it's possibility?

As regards the activities of her forebears, what do they give her, in play, that other characters won't have?
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Old 02-02-2014, 08:56 AM   #16
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Do you have a setting Status Table that you are trying to slot her into, or are you in the process of building one and wondering how it could be built to accommodate her ilk?
The latter.

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What do you mean by the last phrase there? Is this possible interpretation relevant to the campaign, or is it background 'feel'? If it's significant in the campaign, what has to happen to realize it's possibility?
It is not a practical reality. In the sort of way that a TV show can spin a theory that Edward IV was a bastard and therefore that a rice farmer in Jerilderie is the rightful king of England, someone in the setting making a huge assumption, ignoring constitutional developments, treaties, and political realities could make an argument that this character and her brother are rightful owners of the Eichberger Trust and everything the Empire bought with "their" money.

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As regards the activities of her forebears, what do they give her, in play, that other characters won't have?
In the actual campaign she's being designed for, nothing much, except perhaps the ability to one-up anybody who makes any claim of an inherited dignity.

But I would like to get a set of Status rules for the Empire that works correctly.
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Old 02-02-2014, 09:31 AM   #17
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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In the actual campaign she's being designed for, nothing much, except perhaps the ability to one-up anybody who makes any claim of an inherited dignity.

But I would like to get a set of Status rules for the Empire that works correctly.
Courtesy Status 5-6, while actual Status is that of her Rank.
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Old 02-02-2014, 10:30 AM   #18
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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In the actual campaign she's being designed for, nothing much, except perhaps the ability to one-up anybody who makes any claim of an inherited dignity.
I suppose it could be exploited when dealing with monarchies. Tomi, of course, would never think of that and would hate it besides.
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Old 02-02-2014, 10:50 AM   #19
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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The class of people with the lowest prestige are those who don't even have the basic decency to work for the Empire, such as performing artists, free-lance providers of personal services, free-lance content providers, and merchants vending comforts and luxuries. (Of course a personal reputation for furthering the Mission on your own initiative can cancel out the reaction penalties here. Famous authors of Empire-affirming journalism and fiction are not disdained.) The class of people with the highest prestige are those who do important work directly concerned with preventing war, plague, famine and massacre, especially if danger and privation are involved. The least-regarded occupations are routine functions in the bits of the Eichberger Trust that earn the money to keep the whole thing going and jobs in the Home Office that keeps IDJ habitable; work for the Colonial Office delivering health and development aid ranks next; dangerous service with the Navy, the Marines, and the Commission for Justice next; and the political direction of the Empire highest of all.

There is an element of social class to the whole thing, though it is slight compared with some societies and mobility is both easy and rapid. Imperial servants recruited from the colonies often feel that the natives of IDJ are looking down their noses at them, and that they are concentrated in low-prestige jobs in the Colonial Office assistance departments or in the enlisted ranks of the Navy. People whose families have a long history of naval service are proud of that tradition and tend to share a feeling of fellowship with others with similar traditions. Proudest among these are those whose family tradition of naval service goes back to the space navy of the Republic of Mayflower, who may sometimes say that their families were naval officers "when Tom Eichberger was a merchant with poor business ethics". And highest of all you have the IMperial Family, a set of a few hundred related people who have their children raised from childhood to rule, and who dominate appointments to the Imperial Council and Board of Trustees.


Status -1: performing artists, free-lance providers of personal services, free-lance content providers, and merchants vending comforts and luxuries

Status 0: those with a personal reputation for furthering the Mission on their own initiative; authors of Empire-affirming journalism and fiction; routine functions in the bits of the Eichberger Trust that earn the money to keep the whole thing going and jobs in the Home Office that keeps IDJ habitable; ...

Status 1: Colonial Office assistance departments or enlisted ranks of the Navy

Status 2: People whose families have a long history of naval service; specific officeholders tbd

Status 3: those whose family tradition of naval service goes back to the space navy of the Republic of Mayflower; higher officeholders tbd

Status 4: imperial family without portfolios

Status 5: imperial family with portfolios higher than status 4.

You could stop there for SS, and have higher ups represented by Ranks beyond that. Or you can elaborate higher gradations for active imperials plus any exceptional individuals they bring in as viziers or whatever.
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Old 02-02-2014, 10:55 AM   #20
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Courtesy Status 5-6, while actual Status is that of her Rank.
Courtesy Status is for titles without reaction modifiers or real access to power. This is the reverse. Tomi Eichberger doesn't have a title of any sort, but really does have proximity to power and influence.
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