This Proposal has met found some controversy, as evidenced by a 112 post conversation on Facebook yesterday:
www.facebook.com/groups/goldenvale/permalink/1148827705131886/Here are some substantive comments that I have pulled from the overall discussion:
Karl William Benson It was entirely intentional. Knighthood is not a noble title in itself, so far as we define it. Additionally, how do you plan to resolve a non-noble squire taking a man-at-arms, for example, but who later loses his red belt? Is the relationship dissolved? Yesterday at 11:29am · Like · 1
Maria Judd Squires not being able to belt anyone was intentional in an earlier version of the corpora, there was a big explosion over that years ago, then people started ignoring it or writing their own corporae. Yesterday at 11:29am · Unlike · 3
Maria Judd 'Is the relationship dissolved?'
i have seen this happen multiple times for various reasons, and yes. just like a squire would lose their belt if a knight was stripped, or a noble was stripped of titles. Yesterday at 11:30am · Unlike · 6
Maria Judd this corpora change, in fact, was part of why Caradoc followed the Wolvenfang corpora pre-NE Yesterday at 11:32am · Like · 4
Eugene Law That's very interesting Karl. I do not believe this to be the general practice of the kingdom. Are there any knights or squires out there that have taken Pages and or Men/Women-at-Arms that don't have noble titles? I can't think of any off the top of my head but I think that it's likely.
And yes, I believe that a formal belted relationship should be dissolved if the Knight, Squire, or Noble were to lose their honors for whatever reason. Yesterday at 12:13pm · Like · 1
Brittany Lopez I don't know any knights that don't also have titles of nobility but given the general practice of belted families, isn't it heavily implied that knights are belting people under their knighthood?
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Maria Judd when the initial change happened, i remember Anders being affected, as he was a squire at the time but had a few years earlier rescinded all of his noble titles for personal reasons. his entire belted family under him was suddenly invalid, so his park at the time (Ashen Wind) had to start writing their own corpora to follow.
at a point where GV is potentially pushing for more parks to actually follow their corpora, changing things like this is most definitely in the kingdom's interest to follow how most people play- if there are any knights or squires without noble titles, then yeah, they're not going to suddenly say 'welp, time to follow the corpora, hand that belt back'. they're going to continue to ignore it and keep their family anyway. Yesterday at 12:26pm · Like · 2
Robin Moore I believe, everything, as it was, was grandfathered over. It was trying to actually match what both knights and nobility would have had under them historically. Yesterday at 12:34pm · Like
Eugene Law I don't think that this has anything to do with History, Robin. Typically a young boy would be a page to a knight, then elevated to squire in the teen years, before eventually being knighted. And Men/Women-at-Arms were historically just soldiers in the employ of a particular person.
Even in the RoP: "Historically both Men-at-Arms and Pages fulfilled
a variety of responsibilities, such as servants, soldiers, or
apprentices to Knights or members of the nobility." Yesterday at 12:50pm · Like · 4
Maria Judd Amtgard is in no way historically accurate. no way. ever. the fact that anyone thinks we are or could be is, frankly, silly. not with a set of rules that includes magic.
i hope you guys, as a kingdom, listen to Eugene's corpora talk in general, because the GV corpora is jacked right up. Yesterday at 1:08pm · Like · 1
Eugene Law The only squires I can find that have underlings without a noble title reside in the Northern Empire, so I guess that nobody is currently breaking the rule, although a few GV Squires have recently been given noble titles and it isn't clear whether their underlings came before or after that. But I still think this is a reasonable proposal since it seems like the entirety of Amtgard does it differently if you take the RoP as an indicator: "Men-at-Arms or Pages are
typically individuals who are sworn to Knights, Squires, or
Nobles."
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Ally Holmes So wait....Knights can only take squires under their belt, squires get nothing, and you have to have a noble title to have (wo)man-at-arms and pages? What about people like myself who serve the game (flame) but never hold office, and thus aren't likely to get noble titles? Do we just get no (EDIT: underlings) ever until we become knights? Yesterday at 1:51pm · Edited · Like · 5
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Ally Holmes Karl: "Additionally, how do you plan to resolve a non-noble squire taking a man-at-arms, for example, but who later loses his red belt? Is the relationship dissolved?"
I would say yes, as isn't it the same way for a knight who loses their white belt? Does s/he then lose their squire(s)? Yesterday at 2:00pm · Unlike · 4
Brittany Lopez Yes. It's happened Yesterday at 2:01pm · Unlike · 5
Ally Holmes I wouldn't imagine a de-belted squire losing their underlings to be different than a de-belted knight losing their underlings. Yesterday at 2:02pm · Unlike · 2
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William McCarthy The big difference between a squire losing their belt/ability to belt others and a noble or knight losing theirs is the procedure required to strip it. A squire's belt exists at the whim of the knight. Titles and knigthood require a group of equally titled/belted individuals to agree in order to be removed. So an argument for stability could be made there. However, I think that practical experience across the whole game shows that this is not an overly valid concern. Amending to match practice makes the most sense to me. 22 hrs · Unlike · 11
Ally Holmes I agree on both those statements. 22 hrs · Unlike · 3
David Syas My belted family can make our own decisions about MaA/Page.
It is a personal decision between players. There is no need to legislate it. 20 hrs · Like · 5
Kyle Shaub Let's make stricter guidelines and *gasp* enforce the ones we have. Squires shouldn't belt people. Must be Jedi before taking on Paddy Wan Learner. 20 hrs · Like
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Dan Clarke Or, I mean, we could acknowledge that pages and men-at-arms are belts that mean "I have a personal relationship with this other player" and just leave it be? 20 hrs · Like · 2
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Kyle Shaub Except it's not *really* personal. It's very public. If it were personal, we wouldn't be throwing status symbols around their waists and advertising them publicly the way we do. 20 hrs · Like
Dan Clarke So marriage isn't a personal relationship? 20 hrs · Like · 5
Alex Missett We just have to decide if we want to amend to how we practice or amend the existing belts to how the game plays it.
Check other corporas, see what they do, if its split enough it doesn't matter. 20 hrs · Edited · Like
Kyle Shaub Some other Corporas have awesome stuff like "A Knight should only have one squire per title of knighthood." We can't base what we do off other kingdoms actions. That's probably why the lines got blurred in the first place between kingdoms. 20 hrs · Like · 1
Alex Missett Also woah, it can be personal and for status. I belt people so they can get guidance and so their name can be sullied by association with mine. 20 hrs · Like · 9
David Syas The relationship is personal, the symbol is physical. What I look for in a Squire is no one's business but me and my line.
Similarly, if you want to take a Page belt from someone without titles/belt, that is between you and them. 20 hrs · Like · 1
Kyle Shaub ^And also against the rules that we all agreed to play by 20 hrs · Like
David Syas I am not advocating anyone break the rules. I am saying the rules are over reaching here. 20 hrs · Like · 6
Nexus Crow ^very 20 hrs · Like · 2
Kyle Shaub I think people got pissy and basically started cheating. Now we want to amend rules to condone the behavior? 20 hrs · Like
Brittany Lopez Kyle by your logic, you had nothing to offer a sword squire under your title of nobility and should have waited until you were a knight. Because what does your service-based lord title have to do with her journey? You were still a padawan. 20 hrs · Like · 5
Dan Clarke That's what happened with pommels. 20 hrs · Like · 3
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Alex Missett I'm a traditional belting type myself, honestly.
Knights get whatever, they earned it.
Titles get MaA and Pages.
Knights can belt people as a 'placeholder' and they can be 'under' the Knight.
I'm hard pressed to think of someone who is a non-noble, non-Knight beltline person who has Pages and MaA in our Kingdom.
I'd also be okay with it the other way but I don't know. It seems less special if everyone gets it. This is actually a case where I don't get it because it doesn't apply to me. 20 hrs · Edited · Like · 1
David Syas The corpora should reflect our culture. It is a statement of how we collectively choose to govern ourselves. If the rule is not suitable for the majority, it shouldn't be a rule. 20 hrs · Unlike · 4
Alex Missett But is there a majority of people who are actively doing this? 20 hrs · Like
David Syas That is the question 20 hrs · Like
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Alex Missett I'm finding this wonky because it feels like a gross precedent of "I may break the rules in the future, I'd like to make it aligned with the rules now".
I think we should be talking about shitty, backwater parks that don't give out enough titles where they're deserved for years of hard work but that's not the argument we're having. 20 hrs · Like · 6
David Syas It is a give and take. We don't want to promote a culture of ignoring rules, but when they fail to meet the satisfaction of the majority, they need to change. 20 hrs · Like · 1
Alex Missett I belted who I belted to hopefully give them a boost socially, because I am a loud stupid idiot. I could still do that without them having their belts.
We're not violating the ROP either way - it uses the word 'typically'.
" [...] being a Man-at-Arms or Page denotes a special relationship
between the individual and his or her mentor, who is typically
a Knight, Noble, or Squire. " 20 hrs · Edited · Like · 4
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Alex Missett I guess the compromise for me is if a Squire with no noble title has their belt taken away or gives it back, they lose their Pages. 20 hrs · Like
Eugene Law That would make sense to me Alex. My point in making the proposal was that I was surprised to find that knights and squires aren't allowed to give those belts under their Knight/Squire belt. As it seemed to me that the common practice was that they could, which is why people talk about "I'm a M/WaA to so-and-so because they're a serpent knight and they're mentoring me in their area of expertise". In reality there are few (if any) knights that don't have noble titles, and a few more but still not many Squires without noble titles, so this change wouldn't really effect anyone as it stands 20 hrs · Like
Nexus Crow This is a weird conversation. I guess I've never really seen this as an issue because it isn't very often that people lose belts so there isn't much of a potential problem. I don't really know that losing a squire's belt and then losing one's pages because of it REALLY makes much of a difference. I mean, the relationship there isn't really changed at all. Really, I can't even remember the last time (if at all) that I've seen someone policing the site, confirming that all those yellow/black and silver/red belts out there were actually what they denoted. 19 hrs · Unlike · 5
Eugene Law As far as I can tell the only squires without noble titles and underlings are in the NE as I think I mentioned before , and they have a separate Corpora anyways that probably allows this sort of thing.
But the main question for people voting on this proposal is first whether they think this is common practice and the rules should reflect that, and I guess second if they think that it makes sense for Knights and squires to be able to have M//WaA and pages whether they have a noble title or not even if that is not the current practice in our Kingdom. 19 hrs · Like
