SR - Beginning new traditions

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

The question arose of why term limits if there are none for A&S / bard
/ Warlord / ... competitions.  The longer terms was already mentioned
as an effect.  Also, you don't get as spiffy a title, precedence,
pre-eminance, and power for winning those.  Frankly, I couldn't name
the winner of *any* kingdom bard, warlord, or champion competitions.
But I know damned well who won the last crown tourney, and the one
before that, et cetera -- and I bet you can too.


I just thought of one effect of a "no fight for N months" law:
resonance is still possible, but less damaging.

Example: U. Wisconsin restored a prarie for research, but it wasn't
doing well, being overrun by European fast-growing weeds.  After some
research, they discovered writings about prarie fires.  So they did a
controlled burn, and the European weeds (not having the prarie
adaptations to fire) were wiped out.  So they set up a regular 2-year
cycle of burning.  They then found prarie dock taking over.  Turns out
that prarie dock has a 2-year life cycle, growing much in the first
year, and growing and setting seed in the second.  They went to
irregular burns and the problem went away.

You can get resonance now with two fighters, as in the West, because
someone can't compete while they're royalty.  So Jade wins, and hold
crown tourney, and Stephen wins, and then Stephen holds crown tourney
and Jade's eligible and wins, and in Jade's next tourney Stephen's
eligible and wins ...  If memory serves, that's what happened when
they got their "once and every other king" phenom.

Suppose there's a "no entry for 18 months" rule, and six-month reigns.
-- Anyone want to consider four-month reigns?  Spreads the wealth and
limits damage (also limits good). -- So a Jade can win, but then can't
win again until 2 years in the future.  Stephen wins next, but then
he's barred.  You then get two slots open for others: "Jade Stephen
someone someone Jade Stephen someone someone ...".  That at least
looks like an improvement to me.

If you get three or four hot fighters, you can get a similar pattern
set up, and others locked out.  In a no-limit case, you may not get a
regular pattern with four: Bearkiller takes out Jade in the second
round, say, and Anton nukes Stephen in the third and Bearkiller in the
finals.  In an 18-month scheme as above, you might get "Jade Stephen
Anton Bearkiller Jade Stephen Anton Bearkiller ...".

I don't know how to fix such a scheme easily.  Chance?  "OK, Jade roll
2d6 on the tourney re-entry table.  You need 8 or better to be able to
enter. ... Too bad!  Take off your spiffy armor now."

Increasing backoff?  You can't compete in the next 12 months
multiplied by the number of times you've been prince/ess already.

   Jade: J__J____J______J________
Stephen: _S__S____S______S_______
   Open: __*__***__*****__*******

(Some time I want to write an article on pairings in tourneys.  That's
a bigger concern.)

Daniel "Open 24 hours" de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel.   Reply to tmcd at crl.com;
    if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com is my work account.
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