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View Full Version : Making a fair challenge against a Guild Master



Occasional Sage
2015-01-16, 05:11 PM
I'm setting up a Mages' Guild, and having trouble balancing a set of rules. Maybe yall can weigh in?

In this Guild, a student is the responsibility of a single Guild Master (though older students often take teaching duties), and students add "subservient to [Master's name]" to their own name until they attain Master status in the Guild. Earning the status of Master requires one of two things: if the Master has been dead for a full year a student may petition for Master status and get a 90% majority vote of Guild Masters, taken a month after the student's request; or, if the Master is still alive, the student must defeat the Master in a magical challenge, and that's where I'm unsure.

The challenge is adjudicated by a panel of five Masters: two are appointed by the student, two by the Master, and one (the Prime Adjudicant) by vote of the Masters. To encourage non-atrocious treatment of students the forfeit of the challenge is chosen by the student. To ensure difficulty the terms of the challenge are set by the Master. Both terms and forfeit must be approved by the Prime Adjudicant, who can arbitrarily set further rules which do not contradict the terms and forfeit.

This allows for a fair bit of politicking, a reasonable amount of fairness, and limits the ability of the student to simply kill (or have killed) a Master due to divinations before the Vote of Elevation.

Playground, how do you abuse these rules from either side?

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-16, 06:29 PM
Are there other mage guilds or associations vying for power? What other power groups are there? Is this in a single nation, or a single city, or what?

As for me, I'd divine out the master's dirty little secrets and sell them to the highest bidder. If they're clean, there has to be some criminal who'd want information. Or heck, slaughter them all so no one could do the Vote of Elevation. If I can kill one mage surely I could try to the same to the rest. If I get caught, flee to the enemy of my current nation. If I was not assured of my ability to kill or scry, I'd try to get all of the mages into my pocket and if I cannot have the position, no one else can either. Or bribe the judges. Or heck, just sign up with the oldest, least popular person and just wait for him to keel over.

Wait a minute. Becoming a master means I'm on someone's hit list. Why do I want this position again?

Glimbur
2015-01-16, 08:41 PM
Can either person forfeit the challenge, or just the student? There could be some shenanigans with setting the forfeit to something the Master will do, either by habit or because of manipulation/spells/etc. This might be a feature, not a bug, but it lets the student set a win condition.

JNAProductions
2015-01-16, 09:27 PM
Read Dresden Files and Discworld. Both feature powerful wizards and witches who abuse the ever-loving heck out of everything not magic.

Hire assassins, mercenaries, street-toughs, bring an antimagic item and then tackle your Master (or bring an antimagic item and tackle your student), shoot them with a crossbow while they're trying to cast a spell, set the forfeit condition to saying a certain word (something like apple-you wouldn't say it in a fight for no reason, but given time...) and leave for a while while keeping track of if your opponent ever says that word while you're gone...

If you have a specific challenge, knowing how to abuse it would be much more precise, too.

Hazrond
2015-01-17, 12:05 AM
another thing you could do is set the forfeit condition to something that is out of the Master's control, for instance maybe some sort of "in the event of a person being struck by a *insert spell/projectile/weapon here*, that person is immediately forfeit of this challenge" and then do everything in your power to fulfill the condition, alternatively the master could set ludicrously difficult challenges for the apprentice (Trial by spell (assuming the Master has many more spells at his disposal), trial by fire (Master polymorphs into something with fire immunity), or maybe trial by monster (two mages, two basilisks, FIGHT!)?)

Occasional Sage
2015-01-17, 06:54 AM
Wait a minute. Becoming a master means I'm on someone's hit list. Why do I want this position again?


Can either person forfeit the challenge, or just the student? There could be some shenanigans with setting the forfeit to something the Master will do, either by habit or because of manipulation/spells/etc. This might be a feature, not a bug, but it lets the student set a win condition.

In this sense, forfeit = cost of losing, not surrender. So death isn't the only (or even common) goal of a challenge. Masters are encouraged to treat students humanely so that their choice is something like "loser builds the winner a nice house."

Seto
2015-01-17, 08:09 AM
1- If you defeat the Master, does the Master stay a Master ? Because that would encourage leniency and reduce tensions within the Guild. It's the way I would do things. However, it doesn't quite work with the difficulty of the first way to become a Master (death, 90% votes)
2- Every student is bound to one Master only, but is the opposite true ? If it is, then the Guild is very small ; if it's not, then you'll have students at each other's throats.

Either way, I don't think that's the right approach if you want cohesion within your Guild. If you don't, by all means, fire away. (but then why encourage nonlethal fights etc. ?)

Belkarseviltwin
2015-01-17, 10:30 AM
1- If you defeat the Master, does the Master stay a Master ? Because that would encourage leniency and reduce tensions within the Guild. It's the way I would do things. However, it doesn't quite work with the difficulty of the first way to become a Master (death, 90% votes)
2- Every student is bound to one Master only, but is the opposite true ? If it is, then the Guild is very small ; if it's not, then you'll have students at each other's throats.

Regarding 1: I am slightly reminded here of the system for becoming an archmage in the Rhineland Tribunal Ars Magica, which requires defeating an existing archmage in a challenge which can take any form- the archmage chooses, but their challenge remains the same throughout their life. No wizard can challenge the same archmage twice, and no archmage can grant the status more than seven times. After the seventh defeat, they become an honorary/retired archmage and can no longer be challenged, as it is assumed that their powers are weakening.

Archmage, though, is the highest of several grades of wizard, above apprentice, journeyman and master. An Apprentice wizard is not fully trained, lives with their master, and must obey them. To be promoted to Journeyman, they must pass the "Gauntlet"- a test set by their master, but that does not involve the two wizards directly opposing each other as at this stage the master is still expected to be more powerful. If an Apprentice fails the Gauntlet 3 times, they can ask the wizard authorities to set one for them to prevent masters setting impossible Gauntlets to retain the services of an apprentice (there were graduate students involved in writing Ars Magica, can you tell?).

A Journeyman must be promoted to Master to be formally allowed to train apprentices- this is by the acclaim of their fellow wizards.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-17, 01:20 PM
In this sense, forfeit = cost of losing, not surrender. So death isn't the only (or even common) goal of a challenge. Masters are encouraged to treat students humanely so that their choice is something like "loser builds the winner a nice house."

Regardless, other then a cool title, what do I get? Do students pay for the training? Do I get paid and have a nice office if I win? Are there job opportunities if I win? Because if not...Why not coast on being a student?

Hazrond
2015-01-17, 01:58 PM
Regardless, other then a cool title, what do I get? Do students pay for the training? Do I get paid and have a nice office if I win? Are there job opportunities if I win? Because if not...Why not coast on being a student?

i would say that havving to be essentially an apprentice/butler for your wizard master is a good reason

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-17, 03:22 PM
i would say that havving to be essentially an apprentice/butler for your wizard master is a good reason

They have to be treated humanely, right? So how far does that protection extend? Is the position of student unpleasant? If so...Could you just get your student training and leave the guild?

ExLibrisMortis
2015-01-17, 04:49 PM
I don't understand why the guild would have such a vote on the death of a master, especially with a 90% in favour requirement. That's almost impossible to get*, especially since there will always be people who will say: "they didn't beat a master's test, and that's very important, so they're not in". Instead, allow a student whose master is somehow missing to take the test at another master, any time within a certain timeframe after the disappearance of the original master.

About the challenge: if the master gains levels over the years, his students might never get a chance to beat their master (by combat rules), especially the later apprentices, who could be five or more levels behind. If you want to use class levels as an indication of student/master status, require the apprentice to counter a number of 2nd or 3rd-level spells, indicating their mastery of those spells (and if they fail, it's anything from darkness to fiery death). Perhaps the master can technically demand more, but that would be frowned upon as being too harsh.


*If that's intentional, you're good.

goto124
2015-01-17, 07:08 PM
They have to be treated humanely, right? So how far does that protection extend? Is the position of student unpleasant? If so...Could you just get your student training and leave the guild?

In RL, why don't we all stay as students instead of finding jobs?

...not a rhetorical question, just wondering how logic from RL can(not) be applied here.