
Types of guilds
===============

Guilds are built on this idea: A living character has an ethnic background
that he has common with other characters in his neighbourhood. He has
choosen a profession in which he specializes. He also has an amateuristic
interest in which he has some skill. Besides this he is a member of some
local clubs and organizations.

Guilds are divided in to 'major' and 'minor' guilds. Major guilds are
powerful guilds that give considerable advantage to its members. Minor
guilds are very little more than 'secret societies' and 'clubs' that only
add to the feeling of the game. A player can be a member of as many minor
guilds as he likes. Open guilds are also possible. They are described
below in the paragraph 'adventurers guilds'.

There are three types of major guilds: occupational, layman, and race. 

The occupational guild defines the profession on the player. Currently, an
occupational guild has to be of one of the following professions (guild
styles): 'fighter', 'magic', 'cleric', 'thief', 'ranger'. Other guild
styles can be added if there exists a good reason, but guild styles not
mentioned in this document are illegal.

The layman guild is the 'everyman' version of the occupational guild. A
fighter that wants to learn the basics of magic will typically enroll here.
An occupational guild will typically have a layman branch as well where
members of other occupational guilds can become members. Naturally the
level of skill proficiency in the layman guild is quite lower than in the
occupational guild. Like the occupational guilds, a layman guild has to be
of one of the guild styles mentioned above. This type of guild also covers
guilds that can't conveniently be categorized as 'race' or 'occupational'. 

The race guilds supplies the player with a background and a place of
origin. The main features of a race guild should be race-specific emotes of
different kinds. The race guild might also offer one small extra ability or
skill, for example limited 'nightvision' for elves. Since race guilds don't
train a profession, their style is always 'race'.


Entering and leaving guilds
===========================

The guild can choose to accept or deny any player for any reason. However,
there should be formalized guidelines. Individual players may be denied by
a council if one is created, but wizards may never accept or deny at a
personal level. Otherwise, the accept/deny rules should be put into code.
You may for instance disallow people with certain styles of guilds, certain
alignment requirements, whatever, but you should be very careful with
disallowing specific named other guilds.

The punishment for leaving a guild can be anything, even death, AS LONG AS
the player is informed of this BEFORE he joins the guild. The punishment
for leaving a major guild should be very strict. It should be very small,
maybe even none, for leaving minor guilds. 

If a guild wants to be able to remove members from the guild, for example
in case they break guild rules, the removal may not be executed by a
wizard. It has to be coded so that it either happens automatically or that 
it is decided and executed by mortals.


Atmosphere and wizard involvement
=================================

Interaction between mortals and wizards is specially sensitive where the
mortal is a guild member and the wizard is the guildmaster of the guild.
This requires that guildmasters take extraordinary care so they do not get
involved into the affairs of the mortals too much.

Since in many cases close cooperation is necessary to improve the guild,
and since the guildmaster can add and remove features, especially powers
to the guild and thus to its members, the interaction and interdependence
between mortals and wizards is closer than anywhere else. In addition, for
role playing reasons it can be of advantage if the guildmaster interacts
with the members of his or her guild within the role playing context, thus
adding an emotional (role playing) relation to the functional one.

It is the responsibility of the guildmaster and the responsible Lord or
Lady to set up the guild structure and the role playing background in such
a way that the guild does not rely on any specific wizard to operate. In
short, the guildmaster must be replaceable without much problems.

To achieve this it will in general be necessary that the guildmaster does
not assume a role of supreme command, but of someone who just announces the
decisions of a higher authority, in most cases some kind of deity or other
abstract leader. This leader/deity/authority should not be an interactive
player/wizard. In general, it will also be detrimental to this purpose if
the guildmaster or any other interactive player is named in any documents
available to the members on the background of the guild.

