[Discussion] House Cup

**Garbarsardar** · February 19, 2014, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by LestaT

I am homeless.

House Wilpuri would be happy to accommodate you.

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

The only function houses ever had was in the bad old days of political chaos and duplicity that preceded the imbtatorship.

Yes! Beautiful, beautiful memories. Chaos! Duplicity! Intrigue! Backstabbing! Can we please do it again?

Originally Posted by StealthFox

I'm afraid that people will not be active enough to really make this big change idea work. I think we should start off with a House Cup Competition similar to the original proposal and/or Poach's once a year Olympic style competition. If people like the idea of House groups and if members are active, participating, and representing their Houses, then I think we can revisit any ideas to expand the roles of Houses. One step at a time.

That.

**Derpy Hooves** · February 19, 2014, 09:57 PM

Originally Posted by StealthFox

I'm afraid that people will not be active enough to really make this big change idea work. I think we should start off with a House Cup Competition similar to the original proposal and/or Poach's once a year Olympic style competition. If people like the idea of House groups and if members are active, participating, and representing their Houses, then I think we can revisit any ideas to expand the roles of Houses. One step at a time.

I wholeheartedly agree.

**Påsan** · February 20, 2014, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by StealthFox

I'm afraid that people will not be active enough to really make this big change idea work. I think we should start off with a House Cup Competition similar to the original proposal and/or Poach's once a year Olympic style competition. If people like the idea of House groups and if members are active, participating, and representing their Houses, then I think we can revisit any ideas to expand the roles of Houses. One step at a time.

Support. Get something working first and take it from there.

**Mhaedros** · February 20, 2014, 03:52 AM

I think the House Cup proposal was a fun idea, something for citizens to do, which might fill the Curia with some activity, but to be frank I think Poach's proposal is absolute bollocks and I oppose it from the bottom of my heart.

**Inkie** · February 20, 2014, 07:28 AM

I feel the same way, though Derpy has been saying that since page 2 but it seems no-one noticed.

As those of us working on updating the Houses know, many of them don't actually exist for all intents of purposes because they have been entirely forgotten, and the initial hurdle here would really be about getting people aware of their ancestry and House(s), letting people migrate around if they want to, and helping each other rub some flint and steel together.

I don't support such changes wherein the project would start off already crippled through the alienation of those who are on the edge - reducing the amount of interested bodies - or making people divided and supportive of some aspects but unhappy with others. Also, it would be very awkward to give such broad powers to House communities that don't actually exist yet and have yet to create their own culture or identity.

**Navajo Joe** · February 20, 2014, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by Inkie Pie

I feel the same way, though Derpy has been saying that since page 2 but it seems no-one noticed.

As those of us working on updating the Houses know, many of them don't actually exist for all intents of purposes because they have been entirely forgotten, and the initial hurdle here would really be about getting people aware of their ancestry and House(s), letting people migrate around if they want to, and helping each other rub some flint and steel together.

I don't support such changes wherein the project would start off already crippled through the alienation of those who are on the edge - reducing the amount of interested bodies - or making people divided and supportive of some aspects but unhappy with others. Also, it would be very awkward to give such broad powers to House communities that don't actually exist yet and have yet to create their own culture or identity.

Sadly, this thread as been hijacked by other parties, who want to use this as a crowbar for other changes, therefore making your job and your colleagues even more difficult to sell to an audience that believe there are other reasons behind this.

**Derpy Hooves** · February 20, 2014, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by Inkie Pie

I feel the same way, though Derpy has been saying that since page 2 but it seems no-one noticed.

As those of us working on updating the Houses know, many of them don't actually exist for all intents of purposes because they have been entirely forgotten, and the initial hurdle here would really be about getting people aware of their ancestry and House(s), letting people migrate around if they want to, and helping each other rub some flint and steel together.

I don't support such changes wherein the project would start off already crippled through the alienation of those who are on the edge - reducing the amount of interested bodies - or making people divided and supportive of some aspects but unhappy with others. Also, it would be very awkward to give such broad powers to House communities that don't actually exist yet and have yet to create their own culture or identity.

Originally Posted by Navajo Joe

Sadly, this thread as been hijacked by other parties, who want to use this as a crowbar for other changes, therefore making your job and your colleagues even more difficult to sell to an audience that believe there are other reasons behind this.

This is all what I was afraid of and wanted to put an end to. I never wanted this to be about revolutionizing the current system, if anything that should come later when there is (as Inkie so aptly said) houses in place for such a system. Getting citizens behind proposals and initiatives is already hard enough considering people are more used to saying no than yes and taking a chance (as ABBA sang). For all I know, the House Cup might just crash and burn, but you know what? I am willing to take a chance and make it into something that perhaps can be enjoyed by citizens and observing peregrinii for years to come (and that's not in e-years). If however, it is successful and dozens of citizens participate then maybe we can think about the next step. Until then, can we just focus on pooling our ideas together and making the first House Cup the best thing it can be? Inkie, Poach, StealthFox and I are not going to be the be all end all on all things House Cup. This thread is to gather ideas for how to make the House Cup a thing that is successful. I definitely cannot come with this all on my own, I lack the ability to create concrete proposals that detail everything there needs to be. It is why we need the help of the entire citizenry who might be remotely interested in this idea.

In other news, I have only two houses remaining to compile: the House of Annaeus and the House of Ward. Then I will throw these up on the net.

**Poach** · February 20, 2014, 11:00 AM

Then let's do only the House Cup, nothing more, and watch it fail as everything else in this incarnation of the Curia does.

I honestly think I'm arguing against people who have buried their heads in the sand and refuse to even acknowledge that the Curia is a failure. I can't convince you people to change because you think this shambles actually works adequately, it's many, many, many failures always to be blamed elsewhere and it's total lack of success simply excused because "Citizenship is a reward!!", as if that somehow justifies twenty one forums.

Everything you claim this place stands for can be done in two forums: Public and CdeC. Everything else. Every single thing: the Curator, the Constitution, the Citizen-only forums, the CCT, everything else, we can get rid of. Do you support that? Do you support reducing the Curia only to the function it successfully carries out? By successfully I mean it ticks over, not that the CdeC is competent: current proposals show otherwise.

**Inkie** · February 20, 2014, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Poach

Then let's do only the House Cup, nothing more, and watch it fail as everything else in this incarnation of the Curia does.

I honestly think I'm arguing against people who have buried their heads in the sand and refuse to even acknowledge that the Curia is a failure. I can't convince you people to change because you think this shambles actually works adequately, it's many, many, many failures always to be blamed elsewhere and it's total lack of success simply excused because "Citizenship is a reward!!", as if that somehow justifies twenty one forums.

If the initially-envisaged House Cup, which has a lot more support currently than the 'House-centric Curia' proposal does, what would make you think that the latter would have had more hope? And take a look at the Prothalamos, you can't exactly see the tumbleweed rolling by. I think that the Curia works fine as a bloated, 'democratic' reward-giver but I hope for it to be much more than that, and I think that's where we don't disagree at all.

Everything you claim this place stands for can be done in two forums: Public and CdeC. Everything else. Every single thing: the Curator, the Constitution, the Citizen-only forums, the CCT, everything else, we can get rid of. Do you support that? Do you support reducing the Curia only to the function it successfully carries out? By successfully I mean it ticks over, not that the CdeC is competent: current proposals show otherwise.

It might be an idea to replace the Symposium with a forum where all House activity takes place, with a main Chat thread where members of all Houses (all citizens) can come and chat/rattle sabres, some sticked threads administered by the CCT*, and the rest of the main open for each House to make and maintain their threads? Just an idea.

*No, I don't think the CCT is a failure, apparently contrary to the whole Curia. Like the French leadership in 1940, we here seem to be so plagued by a culture of defeatism that we'd rather throw our hands up and take any venture encountering difficulties as 'yet another failure' and point fingers or shake our heads in disgust with ourselves, rather than learn from the difficulties and keep on trying to find ways of doing it better. That's why I hate to see you write this when the original Cup was your brainchild:

Then let's do only the House Cup, nothing more, and watch it fail as everything else in this incarnation of the Curia does

Why abandon the project before it has even begun, just because the project might most likely won't take off your way, but instead in a more widely accepted way?

**Poach** · February 20, 2014, 11:34 AM

I have complete confidence that a standalone House Cup will do very little to motivate the Citizenry to regard being a Citizen as being a part of a community and, as such, will quickly fail amid poor uptake and confusion as to which House you'd compete for. Houses must be made the central theme of a renewed Curia to foster any sort of community, as an all-encompassing Curia has already been demonstrated to be insufficient for the task.

Smaller, more intimate groups that can express themselves uniquely and have other, differing groups to compete against will do far more for this place than an isolated Cup awarded to a House no-one identifies with, few know to which they belong and most regard as functionally useless.

**Inkie** · February 20, 2014, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by Poach

I have complete confidence that a standalone House Cup will do very little to motivate the Citizenry to regard being a Citizen as being a part of a community and, as such, will quickly fail amid poor uptake and confusion as to which House you'd compete for.

You seem to be focusing on the current 'private citizenry', which can only be detrimental to efforts to make the Curia better over time. Why would it be more motivating to most current citizens, to find out that the badge they earned suddenly means something completely different, and that the Curia is now a community game-forum? Why would they be any less confused as to who and what their House is? Citizens who pay no attention to the Curia will always be annoyed when the "Curia RP'ers" change something they know and accepted. The only participation you could probably garner from them in such a case, would most likely be the formation of an angry mob asking for a return of their old badges and the status quo

I like the idea that the House Cup is complimentary to the Curia (definitely a different Curia than the current one though, see the Prothalamos), rather than becoming the Curia. I mean, I hate to say it but I don't think Houses would have much appeal to the ordinary member just on their own, as the whole essence of the Curia: People already have avenues to take part in competitions, and just doing it as part of a random bunch of people really wouldn't be that groundbreaking. I think the House Cup has the biggest appeal when it's another reason why people would want citizenship, something that gives flavour to the badge they've gotten for their dedication, something that they can participate in part-time and flexibly and that gives character to other interactions in the Curia. Here's an example of how the two systems would probably function in the case that people want to do a World of Tanks challenge:

Original plan: House representatives post in their thread and group calling for volunteers and getting in touch with those who play that they know. Houses settle it out between themselves in the challenge thread, organizing coalitions and such if necessary. The game is played, the points are added to the tally by the CAT, and that's that.

House-centric plan: World of Tanks-playing peregrinii suddenly become much more appealing to Houses. Some recruit only from their own pool, but some turn to the WoT forum and start recruiting the most able players for their House. When played, the game is totally lopsided and people leave it feeling bitter about what has happened. But then would there be any oversight of Houses to dictate what they can and can't do? Why should a House care about the 'prestige' of its recruiting standards if it can say that it wins the most tournaments, has the most skilled members and is the biggest, best one on the site?

I can really see people in the current plan looking at the list of their House's members, and reaching out to, say, a debater just before a debating challenge, and asking them if they want to debate for the House. That is the best kind of way I can see already existing citizens being affected in some way, and it's one that works in both systems, yet in one of them there is a lot more potential for abuse.

Houses must be made the central theme of a renewed Curia to foster any sort of community, as an all-encompassing Curia has already been demonstrated to be insufficient for the task.

Smaller, more intimate groups that can express themselves uniquely and have other, differing groups to compete against will do far more for this place than an isolated Cup awarded to a House no-one identifies with, few know to which they belong and most regard as functionally useless.

I'm not denying the possibility of working things more in the direction you envisage later on (that will of course depend on the will of the citizenry), but there's no worse way to start something than in a way that people are already finding uncomfortable even among the Curialists who will be essential to starting it. If people don't bother to do anything, then the Cup will indeed probably founder as you predict (please no "I told you so" if it does). And yet, you certainly wouldn't be increasing your chances of getting more participation if you just have a few enthusiastic people seen as 'radical' trying to completely change the place all at once according to their views. That's how the entire plan could get dragged into the abyss and never happen. Believe me, I've been behind enough failed proposals to know. Example: Return of King of TD Roleplay in the FM. Who were we? A small number of proponents who felt that our idea could make the TD better without being any real hindrance to others. What happened? The proposal was generally

on from the start and construed as a dangerous conspiracy aiming to trample over the TD, sow division and create tyrannical mafias. Sure, you could say that the TD is much more fun than the Curia the way things are, but the proposal was also much more moderate than something like this.

**Derpy Hooves** · February 20, 2014, 12:10 PM

The House Cup would create the framework for such an idea. Things like this are best handled in baby steps.

**Derpy Hooves** · February 22, 2014, 12:51 PM

Since I have finished my portion of the list of houses and their members, I'll post the statistics of my findings. In this post will be the list of houses I compiled, the number of members they have and the number of members who have been online once since 2012.

House of Wild Bill Kelso 75 Total Members, 58 "Active" Members and 8 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members

House of GodEmperor Nicholas 60 Total Members, 34 "Active" Members and 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members

House of Quintus Valarius 5 Total Members, 4 "Active" Members and 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members (note the small size is due to Marenostrum breaking off and forming his own house)

House of Baltar 15 Total Members, 10 "Active" Members, and 2 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members (note Hesus de Bodemloze was originally from this house, but broke off to form his own)

Line of Thor 20 Total Members, 19 "Active" Members, and 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members

Imperial House of Hader 72 Counted Members (must have forgotten a couple names), 68-70 "Active" Members, and 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members

House of De Bodemloze 17 Members, 17 "Active" Members, 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned

House of Siblesz 113 Total Members, 67 "Active" Members, and 6 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members

House of Marenostrum 8 Total Members, 5 "Active" Members, 1 Resigned/Ostrakoned Member
House of Basileus 17 Total Members, 16 "Active" Members, 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members (Small size is due to the house breaking off from the House of Siblesz and the Imperial House of Hader breaking off from the House of Basileus)

House of Annaeus 32 Total Members, 25 "Active" Members, 3 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members (House of Annaeus broke off from House of Siblesz)

House of Ward 20 Total Members, 18 "Active" Members, 1 Resigned/Ostrakoned Member

House of Saints 5 Total/"Active" Members, 0 Resigned/Ostrakoned Members (house broke off from House of Ward and appears to be more of a self-declared house within the TWC houses thread).

So there you go everyone. Obviously there are the other larger ones that Inkie did like the House of the Black Prince, House of Wilpuri and the House of the Caesars.

**Inkie** · February 23, 2014, 12:49 PM

Derpy has done some excellent research. Added to my data we got this line-up for the Houses in terms of numbers (discounting those who are no longer citizens):

248 House of Wilpuri
107 House of Siblesz
104 House of Caesars
83 Legion of Rahl
67 House of Wild Bill Kelso
72 Imperial House of Hader
60 House of GodEmperor Nicholas
32 House of the Black Prince
29 House of Annaeus
27 House of Rububula
24 (Knights of Walpurgis)
20 (Line of Thor)
19 House of Ward
17 House de Bodemloze
17 House of Basileus
13 House of Baltar
7 House of Marenostrum
5 House of Quintus Valarius
5 House of Saints

After discussing this information a bit together, we decided that the best option was to organize a system which means that things start out as fairly as possible without too much artificial dissecting of Houses. Here is what we propose:

248 House of Wilpuri
112 The Confederation
- House of Annaeus
- House of Baltar
- House of the Black Prince
- House de Bodemloze
- House of Quintus Valarius
- House of Marenostrum
- House of Rububula
107 House of Siblesz
106 Legion of Rahl
- House of Ward
- House of Saints
- Line of Thor

104 House of Caesars
91 House of Basileus
- Imperial House of Hader

67 House of Wild Bill Kelso
60 House of GodEmperor Nicholas

Obviously this is still not perfect. Namely, given the small sizes of GEN and WBK, we thought it would work best if two could organize some kind of alliance (permanent coalition) or union (United House of WBK-GEN for example) to bring them up to strength.

Additionally, if this balance system were to work, it would depend upon some form of change relating to the Wilpuris (not personal, you guys!), as they have twice as many members as the 2nd largest grouping. Derpy and I thought it would be a highly gracious move if, say, our God in Colchester formed his own House - seeing as his descendants form roughly half of the House of Wilpuri - or if for the purpose of the competition, we had two Wilpuris (for example, Wilpuri and Wilpuri-imb, or Senior Wilpuri and Junior Wilpuri, etcetera.)

Finally, all of the Houses listed here as 'sub' Houses within another are of course, for all intents and purposes, independent and would of course be able to maintain their own heraldry, cultures, internal organization and social groups as they so desire. Yet they would all function together in competitions and for scoring

So, how do these ideas sound to everyone? We will be getting to rules & organization next.

**Derpy Hooves** · February 23, 2014, 12:58 PM

My first thought was Wilpuri Red Team and Wilpuri Blue Team

**Finlander** · February 23, 2014, 01:50 PM

Good work, some +rep.

Though, could anyone of you count the still active Wilpurians? It seems to be the sleeping giant there.

**Inkie** · February 23, 2014, 01:56 PM

Hmm sorry, but that's such a painstaking workload I fear it'd delay the main thrust of the project too much if I was to undertake it.

I forgot to add this, but lots of the Houses are updated on the wiki too.

http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Categor...tal_War_Center

Thanks for the rep, btw

**Confederate Jeb** · February 23, 2014, 02:20 PM

I just added myself to the House of Ceasars, so they may still not be fully up to date.

**Inkie** · February 24, 2014, 07:53 AM

Indeed, you and falconpilot appear to have been missing as I wrote up the Caesars before the citizens list was compiled, and it seems like I wasn't rigorous enough with updating it. My bad, johnny reb.

This reminds me though, don't hesitate to look yourself up on the wiki if you're unsure which House you're in.