Important organizations with Courtesy Rank for standard ranks

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

An organization with only courtesy rank can't really function as an organization.

It's probably possible for them to, although it will become much more difficult to accomplish anything as it gets particularly large. Let's consider an Adventurer's Guild. You could probably have a relatively small one where there are individuals in charge of finances (taking payments from clients and paying the adventurers and other employees), individuals in charge of advancement, individuals in charge of determining the difficulty of each quest (and thus who is eligible and likely how much the client is to be charged and the adventurers are to be paid), individuals in charge of assigning quests and confirming their completion, and of course the adventurers themselves who undertake the quests, without anybody actually being in charge of anybody else, so long as they all want to work toward a common goal (and those that go against said goal get summarily disinvited by the others). At the small size necessary for this to work, you'll probably have several individuals wearing multiple hats, of course. But you could likely have quite a large such organization where most of the members have only Courtesy Ranks, and the others have full-fat Rank with authority over those of lower rank (but, as you later note, only those in their chain of command). And in that case, you'd have another hat - those in charge of disciplinary actions against adventurers who violate the guild charter (Goblin Slayer has a case of a mid-ranking adventurer being demoted back to Porcelain, the lowest rank, due to the fact he'd been stealing all the best loot for himself; they have Goblin Slayer sit in with them for the hearing, but he has no authority, largely being there as protection in case the demotee turns violent) - which without any true ranks would have to essentially be mob justice instead.

[Kromm]

Canada's Department of National Defense (DND). Many of its employees are civilian civil servants without the Military Rank that would include or innately imply their Security Clearance. However, they often have Security Clearance in military matters that would be granted on the grounds of Military Rank (and billet, of course) in the military. This is a concrete demonstration of what p. B82 means by:

For instance, a general "cleared" for military secrets commensurate with his Military Rank would not have to buy Security Clearance separately, but a civilian with exactly the same level of access would have to pay points for the privilege.

Anyway, since such Security Clearance is often NATO or NORAD clearance, and as those are military treaty organizations that organize all of their personnel-facing operations around Military Rank, DND staff have Courtesy Rank. My friend in operational research, who has never served and who owns no military uniforms, is addressed as "Brigadier General" and treated as an OF-6/O-7 for protocol. He answers to another nonmilitary person whose main distinction is being older and having more seniority, and who is addressed and treated as an OF-7/O-8. These Courtesy Ranks definitely affect pay and benefits! Oh, do they ever . . .

However, these Courtesy Ranks do not correspond in any special way to Administrative Rank in the larger federal civil service. You can have Courtesy Rank 8 to qualify for fancy Security Clearance, but that counts only at military meetings pertaining to military matters. Outside of that context, you're just an old person who spent their entire career in an obscure sinecure of little importance to the country's day-to-day operation. A younger, less-senior civil servant who works closer to Parliament will have true Administrative Rank that gives actual Status and that can be parlayed into a political career; a younger, less-senior military officer who serves in the field will have true Military Rank that gives actual Status and that can be parlayed into any career that favors military service.

So, DND has a formal ranking system that amounts to Courtesy Rank + Security Clearance.

Something similar holds for our security services . . . You can have Legal Enforcement Powers with Courtesy Rank rather than Police Rank. The RCMP has Police Rank, and can enforce most laws most everywhere, but your Courtesy Rank in an obscure domestic security service determines only who tells you how to use your much less extensive Legal Enforcement Powers. This is a formal ranking system that amounts to Courtesy Rank + Legal Enforcement Powers.

There are also a few cases of Courtesy Rank + Legal Immunity. You might be called by a title similar to that of a civil servant with Administrative Rank, but you're not paid the same as them and you can't boss them around just because you have higher on-paper Rank. In effect, Courtesy Rank really determines only how high someone else's Administrative or Police Rank has to be before they can ignore your Legal Immunity.

In general, if an organization has:

1. Privilege (p. B30) – Claim to Hospitality, Clerical Investment, Legal Enforcement Powers, Legal Immunity, Security Clearance, Social Regard, or Tenure – that normally pertains without a point cost to people who have true Rank (Administrative, Merchant, Military, Police, Religious, whatever).

2. A hierarchy that determines pay grade, who is the on-paper boss of whom within the organization, how much privilege you get, and the minimum level of "real" Rank that outsiders must have to abrogate your privilege.

. . . then it has Courtesy Rank. The definitive social trait is the privilege, not the Rank.

[SRoach]

Okay, Kromm has spoken, but I have a question. An, I'll admit openly, ignorant question, as I am not British.

What about the children, and especially the presumptive heirs, of nobility?

[Anders]

Don't they have Status with the Heir limitation (-50%)?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

Don't they have Status with the Heir limitation (-50%)?

IIRC, the immediate family members of nobility typically have Status that is 1 or 2 lower than the ranked noble. Whoever is set to inherit can indeed have the additional levels of Status between their own and the family head with the Heir Limitation, which typically functions as a Potential Advantage but I believe the GM can allow it to partially come into play - someone with Status 2 + Status 2 (Heir -50%) would likely get preferential treatment to someone who only has Status 2, as the former is set to be more influential in the future and may remember the way they were treated when that happens. Some individuals with such a trait may offset its cost with OPH ("Don't you know who I am?!?"/"My father will hear of this!").

[Kromm]

Status isn't Rank, and I'd be hesitant to invent "Courtesy Status."

In nearly all cases of hereditary titles, there are complex rules specific to the domain that govern the standing of family members of primary title holders. It'll be on the books somewhere that if Joe is Status N, Jane acquires Status M ≤ N by marrying him, and that while Joe is alive, their children have Status A, B, C, D, . . . < N, determined by birth order and gender. If Joe is awarded his Status mid-life, there could be a completely different set of subsidiary values, including special ones for Joe's parents and siblings. All of these values might be formalities but they aren't mere courtesies – disrespect them at your peril. They are real Status.

Those values are likely to be determined by very old customs that won't even make a lot of sense. Once Joe dies, some of them will change. The Heir trait is strictly for those whose change would be for the positive upon Joe's death. It's largely beside the point while Joe is alive, though.

[Donny Brook]

Large business conglomerates rank structures get pretty muddy sometimes.

One example is subsidiary corporations which will have a "President and CEO" who reports to a Senior VP in the larger entity.

There is also deliberate rank inflation for external presentation, which is particularly common in Sales. A 'Regional VP' of sales can't expect to over-rule a Director of IT or a Senior Legal Counsel.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

There is also deliberate rank inflation for external presentation, which is particularly common in Sales.

There's also a legal requirement that only an "officer of the company" can sign a binding contract, which at least in the USA starts at the Vice President level (that's effectively what the title means).

There are roughly a billion VP of ... in sales and banking because if you want to "do a deal," you need to be able to sign for it, and to sign for it, you have to be an officer.

[Kromm]

It's certainly the case that corporations follow the pattern I outlined:

1. Privilege. Some combination of Claim to Hospitality (your "social group" is your corporation, and "food, shelter, and basic aid" is hotel or corporate lodgings, drivers, and expense accounts . . . and it's reciprocal, as sometimes you have to use up your expense account to entertain visitors), Security Clearance (the half-cost corporate kind, for trade secrets and confidential business reports that could be used for insider trading), and Tenure (you can be fired, but if you are, the golden parachute is typically worth close to what you'd have earned if you hadn't been fired, largely to avoid a lawsuit). These might be "phased in" at ever-higher levels of Courtesy Rank.

2. Hierarchy. Corporate table of organization and pay schedule, including the privilege phased in at each level, and the minimum level of sometimes Administrative, sometimes Police Rank that outsiders – like government auditors and investigators – need in practice to force you to, say, divulge confidential information or step down. Pretty much any tax auditor can show up and yell at a clerk, but security and/or lawyers will shut down one who tries to barge into the CEO's office. A web of custom ensures that high-level access calls for a high-level warrant from a highly placed official.

Giving corporate types actual Merchant Rank would be silly, though their Courtesy Rank is nominally Courtesy Merchant Rank.

[johndallman]

Another example: a large software corporation, consisting almost entirely of professionals and their support staff. The one I work for has four nearly independent ladders:

1. How long you've been there. This doesn't mean a huge amount, unless you're very new and haven't caught on to how things work yet.
2. Your actual grade. This is loosely corelated with pay, but pay scales are not public information, and expertise often trumps grade.
3. The set of people you're in charge of. However, there are quite a few important people who aren't in charge of anyone.
4. How much respect you get, which seems more like Reputation than anything else.

Does it have Merchant Rank? I don't think so.