Exactly in the way of RH the things worked here, until some players decide to go against the tradition.
When a player ask the rules to be changed, I always think there is a personal interest behind. Also I hate people asking to change the rules in a game they play already.

The tradition:

- Camerlengo send invitations to the catholic nations to gather their church representatives in Rome for papal elections. (catholic nations church representatives could be NPC's, but they must RP about traveling in Rome and participating in the gathering.)

- One nation, one vote!
It's for Vatican to decide and send invitations to short handed or new catholic nations. Of course any attempt to fraud by making a new catholic nation from multies will reach the participants' protests.

- The church representatives make proposals for the pope position. It should be a real player, willing to move to Vatican, born / baptized as catholic, present in religious RP or according to the Bible a faithful man:

QUOTE:
This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

(thanks Smelgar!)

After the gathering decide to accept or not the nominations based on the standards, each candidate should state "what your plans are if you will be elected as pope".

As soon as the list is closed, declare the voting procedure open. Camerlengo cannot run for the pope himself.
The pope is elected with 60% votes of the nations clerical representatives present in the gathering.

Everything happen in a RP topic (not in CF or Off topic), part of the game. Agree with you that papal elections it's a very interesting moment of the game.

The dogma of the Church is mainly based o tradition.
New laws (canons) can be made only in an ecumenical council and have the blessings of the pope or by the pope himself without being contradicted by the Conclave. That's why we need a pope first if we want the rules to be changed.

As I proposed in RP already, there is at least one available candidate who shows nice clerical skills in the tavern everybody knows him: Wilhelm de montferrat
He is not my friend, Castile is an in-game enemy to England, I cannot be accused to support a friendly candidate. For the fun of the game I'd say: welcome pope Willi!

James wrote:

QUOTE:
The church representatives make proposals for the pope position.

Well, but if there is a dearth of candidates I say let everyone, who wants to, offer his own candidacy in addition to candidates proposed by others.

James wrote:

QUOTE:
It should be a real player, willing to move to Vatican

I quite agree.

James wrote:

QUOTE:
present in religious RP or according to the Bible a faithful man:

QUOTE:
This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

(thanks Smelgar!)

Let's not be too picky and remember generations of successful Borgia popes. What are a few bastards to a pope? A most minor bump, I say. In my opinion the pope should be a saintly man or believe himself to be a saintly man or be able to present the facade and public appearance of a saintly man.

I would not totally rule out a woman for the job either (anyone else read Donna W. Cross: Pope Joan?). Though this is one instance where I would consider being a woman something of a handicap for the job, I think if any woman wanted to be pope she would have to be clearly a lot better than any male candidates.

So candidate nominated by James: Wilhelm de montferrat, NPC pope Denis de Fecamp could become a proper pope in the vatican. And anyone else who is interested in the job don't be shy about nominating yourselves and speak up. The whole thing won't work, if there are no candidates.

QUOTE:
Bella wrote:

I would not totally rule out a woman for the job either (anyone else read Donna W. Cross: Pope Joan?). Though this is one instance where I would consider being a woman something of a handicap for the job, I think if any woman wanted to be pope she would have to be clearly a lot better than any male candidates.

The satire of a female pope is a fabrication and, as the story goes, the female popess known as "Pope Joan" was actually a female pretending to be a man. As the story goes, she gave birth during a procession and was immediately killed.

I am not against a female pope in KH. But it should be known and accepted that doing so is throwing historical reference completely out the door. There is no such thing as Pope Joan.

Redrick Fieraas wrote:

QUOTE:
There is no such thing as Pope Joan. :huh:

I don't know. Where did this come from? http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican39.htm

Redrick , the game doesn't need to follow any historical reference . The most awesome thing about KH is the ability to "rewrite" history and most of all have fun while doing it .

I agree to this proposal . The pope should be the leader of the Papal States and not the NPC of a knight . I've said this before, since the pope is an NPC of the ruler of Burgundy this gives Denis de Fecamp even more power . 1st of all he's the ruler of Burgundy , 2nd of all he is the pope thus his word has influence over the other catholic nations .

Also , although this would require some help from the game designers , the Papal States could be granted a new feature : to excomunicate other catholic nations . The excomunication could be translated in-game as a permanent morale loss for that nations armies and possibly even a penalty to daily income . This would keep the other nations "in line" .

Bella wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't know. Where did this come from? http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican39.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan
The good thing about wikipedia is that verified sources are required.

Beyond that there are 2 things to consider:

1. She was dressed as, and thought to be, a man throughout her life in the curia.

2. When she was found to be a woman, by apparently giving birth to a child on a horse, she was killed.

At no point did she go public about her gender regardless of whether or not she truly ever existed. Once she was known to be female she was executed for it.


Étienne de Congost wrote:

QUOTE:
Redrick , the game doesn't need to follow any historical reference . The most awesome thing about KH is the ability to "rewrite" history and most of all have fun while doing it.

I am aware of the preferred fabrications. I've been down this road before in the history thread concerning "Byzanz" and the difference between a modern german historian's "Byzantium" which was based on a greek city state--and what the eastern roman empire was actually called before the german historian titled it "Byzantium". I stated then that these fabrications were absurd and I stand by that now. I don't like the lies and you don't care that I don't like them. I get it. You don't need to repeat yourself.

Let's not talk about it and say we did.


I am suddenly feeling the extreme urge to make my next character pagan.

Well, obviously the role of females in this game is as a whole a huge historical anachronism. I really would not have wanted to be a woman living under historically accurate conditions.

But I agree that for a pope a male would be preferable, if we can get one.

Étienne de Congost wrote:

QUOTE:
Also , although this would require some help from the game designers , the Papal States could be granted a new feature : to excomunicate other catholic nations . The excomunication could be translated in-game as a permanent morale loss for that nations armies and possibly even a penalty to daily income . This would keep the other nations "in line" .

This would seem to me to encourage the forming of huge rigid blocks by religion. Every Catholic who did not want to join a crusade would be excommunicated and suffer game penalties? Does not sound particularly attractive to me. And I'm sure the non-catholic nations won't be enthused about this notion. Currently the pope has to rely on his diplomatic skills and on sweet-talking other monarchs into joining any agenda he wants to follow. That seems fine to me.

This also means, in my opinion, that good diplomatic skills would be one of the best qualifications for being a pope, with good skills as a warrior being optional, if you can talk others into helping you in your wars or crusades.

So, about getting some more papal candidates, any further ideas? What a pity that KH has no newspaper or we could place a wanted ad there.

We are speaking OOC here, not make a candidates list that should be done in RP.
Papal elections is a great opportunity for RP and it's for the church organization and church representatives to chose the shepherd, even the influence of the kings cannot be denied.
The only concession made is that the kings should approve the church representative for the Conclave. Usually the kings don't bother to offer the opportunity to another player to play this role, but send their own NPC.

As I says, it's for the church representatives in the Conclave to make the nominations and accept them or not.
For example, a barbarian or a muslim just converted on purpose to run for the pope won't be accepted.

It is true that we could re-write the history, but in order to be credible the historical reference should not be completely throw out.

About the College of Cardinals proposal, this institution who could elect the pope and control the pope by Conclave's decisions, it should be made by the pope, not OOC by the players. It's for the pope to bless the Cardinals as real players (or NPC's of real players) interested in religious RP and not being the king (or king's NPC). That leads to some autonomy of the church from secular powers.
Pope Gregory I made a first attempt to form the College of Cardinals by starting appoint them, but was brutally stopped by the attack on Vatican who leads to Gregory's resignation.

About changing the game mechanics, some players complaint about too much power to the pope (call for crusades, excommunications, appoint Cardinals, Bishops) and others about the pope not having enough power.
I'll quote Denis de Fecamp: "The pope have as much power as the christian nations give him"

James, what you are describing are the ideal circumstances for a papal election.

But I think we need to differentiate between what would be ideal and what is doable. I understand the last papal elections yielded no more than an NPC pope, because no one could be found who wanted to do the job full time.

Upon taking a closer look at the Papal States, I think I have recognized two experienced RH players, who speak barely enough English to click on the right buttons. Their RH experience means they will be perfectly well able to ensure that their nation does not accidentally get itself incarcerated while campaigning, but we are unlikely to ever see them in RP. I don't know whether the reason for the silence of the other members or the Papal States is disinclination towards RP or lack of English?

So I would suggest removing as many hurdles as possible for papal candidates and set at first only the minimum requirements for a papal candidate.

Which would be in my opinion
- wanting to be pope
- speaking adequate understandable English
- being online daily (or mostly daily if there are competent chancellors in place)
- writing RP fairly regularly, in a convincing Christian fashion
- presenting their nomination in RP and participating in the conclave
- moving to the Vatican, if they win the election
Any other requirements a pope absolutely must have?

I think we should definitely allow candidates to nominate themselves or to create their own NPCs to nominate them. The conclave could be made up either of the NPCs of the rulers of the Catholic nations or a representative sent by the Catholic monarch; whether each nation gets one representative only or large nations get several bishops, reflecting the larger knightly flock, could up for discussion. The conclave can then receive the nominations of these candidates, who think they could make good popes, in RP and vote on the candidates in RP. The voting should hopefully ensure that the best candidate gets to be pope.

Bella wrote:

QUOTE:
James, what you are describing are the ideal circumstances for a papal election.

But I think we need to differentiate between what would be ideal and what is doable. I understand the last papal elections yielded no more than an NPC pope, because no one could be found who wanted to do the job full time.

Upon taking a closer look at the Papal States, I think I have recognized two experienced RH players, who speak barely enough English to click on the right buttons. Their RH experience means they will be perfectly well able to ensure that their nation does not accidentally get itself incarcerated while campaigning, but we are unlikely to ever see them in RP. I don't know whether the reason for the silence of the other members or the Papal States is disinclination towards RP or lack of English?

So I would suggest removing as many hurdles as possible for papal candidates and set at first only the minimum requirements for a papal candidate.

Which would be in my opinion
- wanting to be pope
- speaking adequate understandable English
- being online daily (or mostly daily if there are competent chancellors in place)
- writing RP fairly regularly, in a convincing Christian fashion
- presenting their nomination in RP and participating in the conclave
- moving to the Vatican, if they win the election
Any other requirements a pope absolutely must have?

I think we should definitely allow candidates to nominate themselves or to create their own NPCs to nominate them. The conclave could be made up either of the NPCs of the rulers of the Catholic nations or a representative sent by the Catholic monarch; whether each nation gets one representative only or large nations get several bishops, reflecting the larger knightly flock, could up for discussion. The conclave can then receive the nominations of these candidates, who think they could make good popes, in RP and vote on the candidates in RP. The voting should hopefully ensure that the best candidate gets to be pope. ;)

Problem is, KH is going down in active players since i started to play and probably even before...