Geas

Imagine the possiblity for RP'ing a trial for example. The Inquisitor of the church gets assigned to be prosecutor for a new case. A man is accused of molesting innocent children. A prestigous struggle begins as the Inquisitor gathering his evidence. This one is important to him because a conviction will without doubt get him to the next rank within the church. It is not without difficulty though. The old man judge refuse a verdict without unity amongst the judge's officials. Two bishops are in doubt of his guilt. The first part of the trail begins - they all gather and the prosecutor lays forth the accusations. The defense claims his innocence and after a while the proceedings are commenced. What will happen in between the first and second act of the trial? Maybe there is a secret love-affair between the accused man chained in the dungeons and one of the fine ladies of society who so much do not want to see his death? Maybe the tide of war turns and suddenly changes the outcome? Maybe the guard agrees to smuggle a piece of paper out into the free? Does she hire a dagger to take out the prisoner transport? Or maybe the inquisitor will attach event more dirt to the accused? Maybe in the end, the innocent man will be there on the stand and loudly repenting to quicken his death? Maybe the flames will burn and the inquistor gets his approval? Maybe there will be one or two more acts with fine play in between? No matter who you play in that cast, you are going to have fun.

Naaah. In Geas this will be reduced to:
Crusader knocks Accused Man unconscious.
Crusader arrests Accused Man.
Cleric stares at Accused Man, who shivers slightly.
Crusader brings Accused Man to castle and lights him up.
The end.

My view on favour checks is that they simplify many RP situations, thus turning the RP less interesting. As Arxthas wrote above me, a lot of intrigue and good RP oportunities are lost.

For instance, my poor Lilithian was recently discovered. Through a favour check, in a market. It was not particularly interesting. (No finger is being pointed at anything but favour checking here.)

If I could perform mind control on the wizards I'd have them "reduce" (*cough* improve IMHO *cough*) favour checks according to this poll: Just revealing whether a person has the favour of the cleric's god. AKA favoured by Asral or not, and not aura or what deity the person follows.

The poll is rather clear so you are not alone with this opinion.

19 of 28 voted for "Only leave the ability to see how much YOUR god favours them." which is a change to how it currently works.

Or in other words - the poll states rather clearly that the current way to find out deity association is too easy and should be made harder in one way or another. (I am speaking of the favour check miracle only.)

And 24/28 want it changed in some way. Only 4/28 want to keep it the way it is

I also thought I might add that it's rather hard to play a surreptitious evil person when one can easily find out if you worship an evil deity because of the favour loss associated with teaming with someone who worships the deity opposite yours on the spectrum. I suppose there are ways around it, but it would be awfully suspicious if someone regularly avoids teaming with people who worship Taniel or Evren. You could always not team with anyone, but again that leads to less social interaction = less interesting = less fun.