A suggestion for the way settlements will work on Thessir.

My post here was mostly inspired by an idea posted by Mithreas on the Arelith forums. Now, I realise Thessir is not Arelith, but there is nothing wrong with learning from the experiences of other servers and taking what works to filter it and adapt it into our server's context. When it comes to player involvement in settlement politics, Arelith is perhaps the most successful server in NWN, especially considering the size of its playerbase.

Mithreas on Arelith forums wrote:The cleanest direction I see is for guildhouses to have open membership signup, with the guild leader (and guildhouse owner) elected by the members. The only design challenge is how to avoid the same person joining multiple guilds (i.e. the problem we have solved clumsily for settlements right now by not letting characters change allegiance).

We could then potentially evolve this further, with guilds attaching themselves to settlements (with some restrictions - e.g. a guild located in Cordor would only be able to attach to Cordor); each settlement could potentially also have a merchants' guild comprised of all shop owners that runs a separate election for the merchants' guild spokesman, and ships would count as guildhouses that could attach to any coastal settlement (and, hopefully, change their home port to where they attached).

Leadership of the settlement is then either a straight vote from among the guild leaders (and other equivalent positions) or a council of them (using writs as present). Elections as we have them today cease to exist, replaced by contests over individual elector seats (so the Merchants' Guild Elector might change independently of other electors).

Thessir, setting-wise, is a more typical medieval world with noble houses in power who decide the direction of politics. Since noble houses can't recruit members and depend on birth or marriage, by nature, they exclude players from taking part in politics. To an extent, it's a good thing: It avoids some potential silliness of certain players doing cheesy RP based around nobility. The bad side, however, is that having control over settlements is a huge creator of RP and gives players a sense of involvement - they feel like they can SHAPE the world around them, and /that/ is one of the most enjoyable experiences in a roleplaying environment.

I'd say, there should be a middleground:
Noble houses are inaccessible to players, and they should forever forget any chance of joining them; but they could have influence over settlements through a system of guild-electors as in the draft described above by Mithreas as a potential avenue for Arelith.
The council of guild leaders would make the day-by-day decisions of settlement life, and noble houses (DMs/Devs) would only interject when the council's course of action goes clearly against their interests. Of course, the noble house's word would be final.

Yes. Players should be as intertwined in politics as possible, if they so desire. They should directly be a part of the story and the world, not simply watching it from afar.

I actually would disagree on never being involved with Nobility period. Honestly, it shouldn't be something that just anyone can join, but it shouldn't be an impossibility; restrictions on RP are just that.
I'd say that having a Noble name would carry a lot of responsibility, and if a player wants to be a part of that(and have it mean a thing) they need to put in the time for it. Many nobles are very fierce about the condition of their family name, it has a certain upkeep to maintain...