Just one comment. The same discussion about fighting clerics was started in the German version and every one their stated that it is no issue for the players and their characters if the pope is fighting.
That means that the entire arguing here with the fighting pope is based on the perception of people and how they would like to see the christian church.

Apparently we all agree that it is preferable if important characters are PCs and not NPCs.

There can be a lot of reasons why a NPC is created.
In the case of Sergios I saw the need to have church roleplay in the Eastern countries, in the case of Bennet Gregory saw the need to answer letters he couldnt have received.

In theory there are other options to solve those problems: Another player could have become Patriarch, Gregory could appoint a chancellor.
But in many cases this wont work. As I said before I tried to find someone who would play the Patriarch, but wasn´t successful. Gregory knows best, why he hasn´t got a chancellor to do his mails when he is gone.

Is this use of NPCs prohibited by the terms of the game? - For sure it is not! One may not have several accounts in this game, that is prohibited.

Should this use of NPCs be proihibited? - I dont think so. By doing so we would cut off a lot of roleplay and very interesting roleplay to my impression.

I am very happy that in the East some church structures seem to emerge lately. More and more players get involved into religious roleplay. Possibly this will lead to a situation in which high up positions in the church will be played as PCs and not as NPCs. But if we would try to enforce that by creating a rule, we for sure would kill what is developing now.


The problem is of course that playing a high up cleric as a PC excludes you from large parts of the game. You would not fight in tourneys, would not lead armies, would not fight in a war,...

The office of the pope is the only one that offers some compensation for that, a lot of compensation actually.
The pope is a king according to the game mechanics and thus has a lot of options for action. And the pope governs the mindset of literally every person at least in Western Europe, which makes him possibly the most influencial figure in the game.

Most clerics do even remotely reach such a position. So I would think they should not have the same diisadvantages either that the pope has. Bishops, Metropolitans, maybe even Cardinals should be possible to be played as NPCs.
Sometimes a Patriarch or Cardinal may reach a level of importance that playing this person would recompensate for the disadvantages. Sergios certainly has reached such a position and maybe others will in the future. The problem is of course that the pope has this importance by his office while Sergios only reached it by roleplay. So you can not say for sure in advance if your character will be worth giving up your knighthood or not.

Hm, maybe we should get an overview. Creating a list of all religious PCs and NPCs and see how those characters are played. Then we have a data basis to find proper guidelines.
After all, each rule we set should make the game better. It should encourage more players to get involved and do roleplay. So we have to be careful that a rule we create should relate to the situation we have in the game at the moment.


One remark to Gregory: Elective Monarchies are not that rare, the Holy Roman Empire being the best known example. That he is elected is not at all what makes the pope special.

People, I pose a simple question, what is so difficult for you to respond?

Do you think the pope institution and Vatican nation is unique?

QUOTE:
I remind you the pope is a special character, not to be assimilated with a normal king:
- He is elected by the vote of catholic nations and no other king gain his position that way.
- The prerogative of Monarchy don't work in his case, his son don't inherit the throne.

It's a simple yes or no, yes the nation of Vatican and the pope institution is unique / no, the nation of Vatican and the pope institution is not unique, we have other nations and their leaders with the same two characteristics, for example..
The rest are only attempts to say it's black when it's white! Only Palomides so far had the guts to admit the evidence and say "Yes, it's unique!"

@Julian: I will quote again the question, maybe this time you'll pay attention:

QUOTE:
Do you think the pope institution and Vatican nation is unique?

Since the Holy Roman Empire is not a nation, your argument is not valid.

Now we come to the point and speak about NPCs as characters, not about NPC in generally and the use of NPC according to the game rules!

The statement of Hoern is clear enough:

QUOTE:
But if you take a look to the rules:
It has to be clear that the NPC is no character at the game - it is a third person.

No more unfair advantage by using a NPC character and accuse the pope as PC, just because he play the game! I will not RP anymore with NPC characters because they violate the rules of the game.
Julian, Smelgar and the others can be also chancellor-patriarch, but as PC, not convenient NPC characters, nobody will be removed from the game.
And I'm sure if orthodox will hold election for the Patriarch leader of the orthodox, we will have enough candidates, to respond to Julian complaints the players are not interested on his position of Patriarch leader of orthodox.
We can have rules for the clerical PC dueling or fighting, now that the unfair advantage of using a clerical high rank NPC character is prohibited.
We can have a Council to make rules about the relation between the orthodox and catholic in the same way it happen in real history. They meet and found a common ground and when they didn't manage to do it, they excommunicate each other in the big schism.

@Julian signed

@Florian: KH is not RH, if the KH community states it is an issue to their characters, then it is.
But we could speed but the discussion. Are there any arguments in RH supporting their ignorance that would fit for us, too?

Of course this is only the perceptive of our chars, but that's the reason this should be dealed with in-character and by roleplaying. If Gregory is able to defend his actions as being ok with church dogma and the purity of the reliigious caste or whatever clerical rule is roken by him fighting in battles, the problem is solved.

We could also come to terms, that a duelling pope, clad in armor is fine, because this means having fun in KH and the player of the pope does not necessarily have to be excluded from that, although it does not fit the roleplay. This is an out-of character issue some of us have with Gregory, because we could agree to ignore him doing it and concentrate soleloy on his roleplay (with the exception of him fighting in battles, which is a different issue IMO).

Just bcause Palo agrred with you on the unique nature does not mean you are right, does it?
I did admit there are unique parts to the office, but not in the way you see it.
Both statements of yours have been negated by me, care ro read please.

I have repeated my arguments and won't do it again this time. But I'd like to add this:

How about the Order of the Temple. The GM is elected and can't inherit.
True he is not elected by foreign cardinals, which are NPCs and therefore serve a purpose, he is elected by PCs and easier to dethrone again.

I agree the pope is a unique character.

I agree the Papal States are a distinct kind of nation, of which they are the only instance (both in history and in KH currently). This means that the papal states are unique in history and it also means that they are currently unique in KH. The papal states are the expression of the temporal power exercised by the Pope..

However, I also assert that the (four) Patriarchs are unique, but different in various ways. The Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople has some degree of authority over the other three, but far less than the authority the Pope has over cardinals. I.e. the other three ancient patriarchs are more than Cardinals, whereas the Ecumenical Patriarch is less than the Pope. There are unique aspects to the other three as well, particularly Antioch as it is first.

Whereas the Pope holds explicit temporal power (expressed in the Papal states), the eastern Patriarchs hold no explicit temporal power; their official role is purely spiritual. The Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople has some degree of implicit temporal power, due to his proximity to the Imperial Court. However, this is entirely dependent on the individual instead of the role: one Patriarch may be quite powerful, the next powerless.

The conventions that have arisen mean KH models the Pope well enough: his significance in the game matches that in history. Greg is the best player of the Pope so far, I don't think there is much disputing that: in history the Pope was often a divisive figure. Being divisive may annoy some people, but it's not bad role play.

KH does not model the four Ancient Eastern Patriarchs at all: all the problems relate to this fact. Collectively, the four Eastern patriarchs as are important to the Orthodox as the Pope is to Catholics, so the failure to model them implies that Orthodox is not as well supported in KH as Catholic. In particular, being (only) an Orthodox patriarch is nowhere near as interesting as being Pope, and so no-one wants to do it (except Morras in Alexandria, and that only very recently). Hence, the second rate solution of Patriarchs as NPCs has arisen.

QUOTE:
How about the Order of the Temple. The GM is elected and can't inherit.
True he is not elected by foreign cardinals, which are NPCs and therefore serve a purpose, he is elected by PCs and easier to dethrone again.

GM is elected every two years. The mandate of the GM ends, and yes, if he wants to remain GM, he needs to submit himself to the elections' procedure. So, it's even more different than the Vatikan case, where, theoretically at least, the Pope is chosen for a longer period, by people (NPCs or playerz, doesn't matter) outside the nation.

QUOTE:
We can have rules for the clerical PC dueling or fighting, now that the unfair advantage of using a clerical high rank NPC character is prohibited.

Wait! It has been decided?! Where?! I missed that post...

QUOTE:

We could also come to terms, that a duelling pope, clad in armor is fine, because this means having fun in KH and the player of the pope does not necessarily have to be excluded from that, although it does not fit the roleplay. This is an out-of character issue some of us have with Gregory, because we could agree to ignore him doing it and concentrate soleloy on his roleplay (with the exception of him fighting in battles, which is a different issue IMO).

Of course, the community of the people playing Church can decide one way or another. Would it be too much to ask for this to happen in RP?! Or it would be better to leave the RP out, since we are already talking OOCish days now... what's the point of RP, anyways, since it has been previously said it brings no direct benefits to the game?!
I have to slightly disagree, I believe it is an RP issue, if agreed Church is an RP issue as well.

It all falls to how the people react on this, as Florian said.

This is the posting from Hoern in which he clarifies what a NPC can and can not be:
http://knights-honor.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,181/func,view/id,27846/catid,53/

QUOTE:
First: NPCs are allowed. They are needed.

But if you take a look to the rules:
It has to be clear that the NPC is no character at the game - it is a third person. The NPC is not allowed to have a position of a king, chancellor, count. This positions are for players only.
The NPC can be a religious leader - but the importance of this comes from the other players or nations who give him credit.

So - you can play as much NPCs as you want - but they are only of importance if the other players want them to have. Otherwise, the NPC is not more than a messenger or an observer.

I do not see how Gregory comes to his conclusion that high up clerics are forbidden now. The posting clearly says "The NPC can be a religious leader" and adds "the importance of this comes from the other players or nations who give him credit".
To me this exactly describes Sergios. All what he is has been established in roleplay. His importance arises not from any office the game mechanics provide but solely from the from the acknowledgement of other players.

Gregory bases his claim on the phrase that the "NPC is no character at the game". But what that means is very much clarified in the next sentence: An NPC can not be king, chancellor or count. The NPC exists outside the mechanics of the game:
It is not possible to say that the npc "personal guard" fought a duel that appears in the list. It is not possible that a NPC is the king of Saxony, while his actions are carried out by a player who holds that office in game mechanics only.

I would be surprised if I misunderstand the posting of Hoern. But of course we can ask for a clarification.

Julian, you can say as much as you want that white is black, but Hoern statement is quite clear:

QUOTE:
It has to be clear that the NPC is no character at the game - it is a third person

That means no character, it has to be a third person! Sergios is another character of yours and it's forbidden by the rules to have multiple characters, what's so difficult to understand?
As I previously state, I will not RP anymore with NPC characters, especially with those who take an unfair advantage in using religious NPC characters to accuse of misconduct the religious PC!
It is like cheating and I hate cheaters, I use to play with the cards on the table, not plot on the corners!
You can do whatever you want, but furthermore, I will ask those who abuse of usage of NPC characters to be banned from the game as players, because they are cheating!

Alright Gregory I have watched this topic progress. I do see you points. I do feel you are going to far. You have the right not to rp with anyone you wish. This is your right. However if a character is rped clearly as a npc and not an IG character in reviewing the rules it really isnt a break in the rules. In my opinion. If you dont like rping with them than dont. No one can hold you responsible for this, but to harass with reporting is to far.

I myself use many NPC's. An have just been told I will have more. Including a body guard that does in fact aide in army battles IG. Something like this. Still a bit new to this npc that actually effects IG... much like our children actually being born IG. They effect the game, but not alot. Thus are still NPC as are not a daily action character.

Please just keep a general rule of thumb. If you wish to ignore a specific more commanding performance NPC do. This is your right as a player. No one can force you to rp with anyone. Though tender the line between what is actually harassment of other players. Really just have fun a bit, and dont get so worked up.