Date: Friday, May 11, 2001 10:47 PM Subject: Reading the Fine Print Greetings, O Honored Heroes! Be thinking about the following.... Your Guild Charter is a long boring document... and I have no desire to try to replicate the legalese involved. Nevertheless, it contains certain information that you must decide on collectively. Give this some thought so you can talk about it Tuesday... The GUILD recognizes defines things like PARTY and EMPLOYER. Every Guild PARTY is required to have a LEADER, and the Charter must state how the LEADER is selected. This can be a simple majority vote held once a month, a rotating post, or a permanent position, or some other method. The LEADER has two official functions. First, the LEADER is designated as being the Guild's representative. That is, he or she legally represents the Guild and/or Party in dealings with outside entities. The primary result of this is that the LEADER is permitted to sign documents on behalf of the PARTY. Second, the LEADER in empowered to break ties in parties where there are an even number of party members (including the LEADER) voting on a matter. There are two other "official" positions within the PARTY. First is the SCRIBE, who is responsible for keeping the Party Log. This is the equivalent of the Ship's Log, and is required by the Guild. Only the barest minimum information must be kept... but there must be a SCRIBE at all times. The SCRIBE can change according to any criteria the PARTY desires, and this need not be defined in the Charter. The Guild also recognizes the position of CARTOGRAPHER. CARTOGRAPHER'S are NOT required -- HOWEVER, the PARTY is required to create and/or acquire whatever maps can be had -- there are virtually no existing maps of the Isles, and the Guild is trying to compile field data so that large regional maps can be drawn. If the PARTY has a CARTOGRAPHER... that's the person who is Officially in charge of dealing with the maps (compared to Everybody, otherwise). Aside from the regular selection of a SCRIBE, most of those others won't come into play often. However, as much as you (the player) might not care about the next item, I guarantee your characters will... You need to decide how treasure will get divided, and how the party will handle special cases. Oh... it's easy enough to give each member of the party a single share, and divide the coins into equal piles.... but how do you split up a 10,000gp necklace? Who gets the +5 rapier? (as if! ;-p). If someone joins the party "for a while" how do they get paid? How does the party hire people (like a guide, for instance)? The Guild requires that you work out ahead of time how this will be handled... it can be very loose, but whatever you decide will go down in writing and be used by the Guild to arbitrate any disputes about treasure brought about by PARTY members. Need to sleep... Talk to you later, KtG