I'd like to share the system of governance for a fictional country.

[enderlord99]

I'd also like help adding to it.

The country is called "The Tradelands" and it is run by a set of Guilds (of which there are hundreds, with more being founded every day) in cooperation with a National Council. The members of each Guild elect Guildmasters (one per Guild) from among themselves. Most citizens are members of multiple guilds, and some even lead multiple guilds! Anyone who is currently the Guildmaster of at least three Guilds, and a Member-in-Good-Standing in at least ten, is known as a Duke, and automatically granted a seat on the National Council. An additional five people, known as Chancellors, are elected to the Council by the general public. Guildmaster elections occur every year, and elections of the Chancellors every six years.

[jqavins]

I'd also like help adding to it.

The country is called "The Tradelands" and it is run by a set of Guilds (of which there are hundreds, with more being founded every day) in cooperation with a National Council. The members of each Guild elect Guildmasters (one per Guild) from among themselves. Most citizens are members of multiple guilds, and some even lead multiple guilds! Anyone who is currently the Guildmaster of at least three Guilds, and a Member-in-Good-Standing in at least ten, is known as a Duke, and automatically granted a seat on the National Council. An additional five people, known as Chancellors, are elected to the Council by the general public. Guildmaster elections occur every year, and elections of the Chancellors every six years.
Well, I see one thing that looks like a problem, and a bunch of questioons the need answering. The problem is that it seems like the number of dukes could be changing day to day. A master of three guilds and member of 9 could join a tenth guild at any time and become a duke and - poof - the Council just got bigger. A duke loses an election within one of his guilds but his successor is not master of two others and - foop - the Council is smaller. It'd be hard to get anything done that way. Perhaps the questions below will lead to a solution for this.

I won't make any suggestions for fixing this or adding to the system; instead, as is my wont, I'll ask a bunch of questions meant to help you think on the issues and find your own answers. (Just call me Socrates Jr.)

On what are these guilds based? With traditional trade or professional guilds, only one would be open to a given person. Are they social clubs? Something else?

Are there requirements other than guild membership to be a guild master? What are they?

If new guilds are formed every day, are they disbanded just as fast? Are they ever disbanded? If not, there'd be not hundereds but thousands of guilds in just a few years. At one new guild per day, 10,000 would form in under 27½ years (assuming 365 days per year.)

What's the population of The Tradelands? If the setting is pseudo-medieval, remember to keep medieval demographics in mind.

What is the function of The National Council? Being an American, I think in terms of three governmental branches. Although our separate branches are not necessary, they do give a good starting point for the basic functions of a government: making laws, enforcing laws, and settling disputes. That is, the legeslative, executive, and judicial functions. So where does the Council fit in? A large body like that is usually a legeslative body, so I assume you've got that covered. Does it also provide executive and/or judicial funcions? If not, how are those done? And how are the people that do them chosen?

[Corneel]

The basic problem is belonging to more than one guild. Guilds were basically the unions of their day, but with even a stronger group identity, and belonging to more than one seems quite problematic, if only because two of their main reasons of existence was protection of the secrets of the trade and controlling access to certain professions.
Even if you could be member of more than one guild, it would be doubtful that you could rise high in the ranks in more than one of them. Some dedication or commitment to the guild should be required and membership of a lot of other guilds would be a counter indicator of that.
This is of course if your guilds are serious organisations with goals and ideals of representation towards the authorities in mind, and not some hobby clubs. But if they aren't then there's the question why being president (of the equivalent) of your local tennisclub, the chess club, the carnival committee of your neighbourhood, the parents' association of your kids' school, etc. would give you political clout.


Well that is unless your game is called "The Elder Scrolls <roman numeral> : <fancy title> " where one of the joys is to see how many of the guilds are going to accept you as a member, and in how many of them you can become the ultimate boss.

[Everyl]

I'd like to see the rules defining a "guild" in this setting. What does it take to establish a guild that is official in the "helps-qualify-for-council-membership" sense? Is there a certain minimum membership count? Registration and/or membership fees? If people can be in multiple guilds and can form new guilds easily, what's stopping someone from forming 10 guilds with the same half a dozen members just to get several of those members automatic National Council membership?

[lothofkalroth]

I'd reiterate what jqavins, corneel, and everyl said: A land where guilds are made that frequently, and where people rise to power in multiple guilds would be incredibly chaotic. This would also have a negative effect on the day-to-day operations of each guild. If your leader is running two other guilds as well, chances are yours is going to suffer. In addition, you run into the problem of competing guilds:

How many smiths' guilds are there? Are they more like companies vying for dominance in a free market, or is the fact that guild leaders run the country skewing the laws in favor of the older guilds? Over time, wouldn't this stamp out any newcomers?

Also, just so that you're aware, Duke is a title that already has a specific meaning. To quote wikipedia:

"A duke (male) (British English: /djuːk/[1] or American English: /duːk/[2]) or duchess (female) can either be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch. The title comes from French duc, itself from the Latin dux, 'leader', a term used in republican Rome to refer to a military commander without an official rank (particularly one of Germanic or Celtic origin), and later coming to mean the leading military commander of a province."

So a duke is really a military/aristocratic position, and there is generally only one per province that has penultimate executive authority under the monarch. I've found it can be confusing for players when you use existing terms that are in conflict with their meaning in your setting.

Hope this helps! :smallsmile:

[jqavins]

The basic problem is belonging to more than one guild. Guilds were basically the unions of their day, but with even a stronger group identity, and belonging to more than one seems quite problematic, if only because two of their main reasons of existence was protection of the secrets of the trade and controlling access to certain professions.


I'd reiterate what jqavins, corneel, and everyl said: A land where guilds are made that frequently... How many smiths' guilds are there? Are they more like companies vying for dominance in a free market, or is the fact that guild leaders run the country skewing the laws in favor of the older guilds? Over time, wouldn't this stamp out any newcomers?
But what Everyl and I both said is that we need to know just what the OP, Ender Lord, meant by "guild," since it pretty surely can't be the same as the historical guilds of the reall world. There don't need to be lots of smiths' guilds if there are, say, a stamp collectors' guild, a bird watchers' guild, a tinkerers' guild, etc. Or even with more practicle things, there could be not a smiths' guild but instead a farriers' guild, a knife-makers' guild, a housewares guild, etc.; then smiths who work in a few areas of custom could be members of a few guilds.

We really need Ender Lord to answer the question before we can meaningly critique his or her proposed system. (Which is why my first reply took the form mostly of a list of questions.) But since he or she seems to have vanished, I guess the topic is dead.