>good points.
Thanks 
The only thing I will add to this is to quantify my statements
>a bit, as they were a little confusing. Firstly, let me say that I am of
>the opinion that temple, guild and source holdings all seem to me to have
>an advantage in some way. For example, you must have guild holdings to set
>up trade routes, thereby gaining income. You must have source holdings to
>cast realm spells, and temples bring in income and allow the casting of
>priest realm spells. Where does this leave law holdings? IMO, law holdings
>do very little. Just owning law holdings does not give income, like temple
>& guild holdings. They do allow the law holding ‘holder’ to pressure the
>temple and guild holdings for funding, but the negative effects of this
>tend to far outweight the 1 or 2 GB which stand to be gained from such a
>move (unless of course, there is an active campaign against the
>guild/temple holder).
Well, not to be picky–but oftentimes, in fact, I’d say most times, the law
holder is the province ruler as well, which means they get to collect
province taxes. Additionally, by being the province ruler, they have
inherent power above and beyond ANYTHING the temples and guilds can bring
to bare. So income wise, it’s pretty even, or more likely, between claims
and taxes, they can make more than a priest–except they typically don’t
have as many provinces as priests have temples, but in any case, with a
word, they can evict temples and guilds from within their country. This
gives them the power, or at least the legitimacy to talk and work with
their “tenants” for an equitable solution to monetary problems No one
said that they have to be strong-armed about it–simply going to the local
guilder/templer and hashing out the ways they can help you, help them, etc
etc.
They also allow you to ignore loyalty changes. But
>loyalty does not seem to affect things too much. I would have liked to see
>the loyalty of a province affect taxes. In addition, most of the regents
>are warriors, and warriors in general do not get an additional free action
>(priests get to agitate, rogues get to spy, etc). To my mind (and I have
>found this in my games, though I can’t speak for others) regents with law
>holdings are at a disadvantage to those who have other types of holdings.
>
>What’s the point of my “thesis” above? Well, in my games I allow law
>holdings to influence actions taken by other types of holdings (except
>source - I keep them completely separate) in any province, but NOT vice
>versa. I know that it is not very realistic to say that the church cannot
>affect the law (loyalty) of a province (after all, I believe the church had
>quite an influence in the Middle Ages), but if the temple holder wants to
>do that, then they can use their free agitate action. Likewise, it’s not
>very realistic to say that the guilds can’t affect the law (either overtly
>or subvertly). But in the end, it would be difficult (not impossible) for
>the guilds or the church to totally squash the law, but the reverse could
>quite easily happen (ie. send on the troops to get rid of the
>guilds/temples) depending on the whims of the regent.
Again, when the province ruler is the law holder, he can do these things
anyway, because it mentions, in almost all the cases where I mentioned
“similar holdings” that the province ruler can affect those actions already.
The rules also account for the situation where the law holder isn’t the
province ruler–at any time he can contest the province, and take it over
relatively easily. When you think of situations where the law is split,
you can easily rationalize the fact that the province ruler has an
overwhelming influence on the action–Let’s take for example, The Imperial
City. Basically, several people all have law holdings there–Aeric
Boeruine, Prince Darien, Baron Diem, and the Chamberlain. But, the
Chamberlain rules the province, so he’s able to apply that 10 modifier to
pretty much any action in the province. He gains overwhelming superiority
on actions there, and the little 3 law he has is inconsequential, in so far
as influence, EXCEPT that, since it’s NOT 0, he can’t simply be “province”
contested out of existence. A very useful holding indeed…
Oh, and on a different note, when I play BR in RL, I found a lot more
negative connotation on law claims than when I play in a PBeM. I think the
reason lies in the fact that when I’m playing in RL, I’m sitting in the
same room, typically with friends, and peolple I adventure with, and it
seems rougher, on me and them, just “taking” money from them, because I
can. On the otherhand, in a PBeM, I have no compunction against taking
money from someone I don’t know! grin
>
>So allowing law holdings to affect the actions of other holding types is my
>way of evening the odds. From my experiences, it works quite well, and
>encourages more interaction between the guild/temple holder and the
>regent/law holder. Of course, when the action is likely to offend the
>regent, then it encourages great secrecy. But, on the whole, it gives
>regents with law holdings a little more power (whereas those regents with
>guild/temple holdings usually have more income).
>
>just my 2 cents (actually, I think I’ve put in a bit more than that),
>
> Simon
>
I also want to point out that you had very good points also From my
experiences, especially now that I’ve run a PBeM, and played a PBeM, it has
redefined for me, what a Landed regent is capable of doing. I mean, before
when I played only in RL, and I was somewhat hesitant to tick off friends,
and fellow adventurers, I felt constrained, and quite frankly it wasn’t
completely realistic. I mean, chances are, people would rarely know the
local highpriest, head guilder THAT well. It certainly cut down on my
influence! I mean, I would be pretty hesitant to threaten the High priest
with kicking him out, if he didn’t cough up some money for me! So, it did
force us to work on things peacably–but I digress
E
that the section on page 48