Poll - How many Clans should players be allowed to have?

[Davin]

I have no idea what "deep pockets" is... in my world a clan is $5 with three special actions and a city is $5 with three special actions.  I'm used to most of the GM comments on special actions being "Noted and done," and I'm okay with that if I'm doing something like training or another action that doesn't require much of a response.  Paying $5 to input a build order and recruit command with three special actions sounds reasonable -- that is what my usual turns consisted of (building along with special actions).  I was paying close to $100 a month on Midgard.  I may not do that now, but if I have to donate plasma again I would consider it -- if the game was fun and like it was.

Oliver, "deep pockets" has to do with as you pay more hard currency for a game, you get more game benefits which makes you more powerful.  Those with lots of money in their pockets, then, can "buy" major game advantages creating an unfair situation for players that are just trying to struggle along.

I plan to have the costs structured entirely differently these days.  As noted on my web site front page, what I'd like to do is allow people to play all the positions in all the games that they would like, all for a single $5/month fee.  This means you'd only be paying $5 instead of $100 for all the fun you can have - not exactly a financial boon for me but I hope to make it up by gaining many players.  I feel like everyone should be able to have as much fun as anyone else.

However, that assumes that I can automate most processing and reduce GMing time to a very low level.  My major concern right now is the GM time needs for special actions.  But I'm hoping to automate most of the easy stuff that used to require special actions, such as construction projects, "contracting" for tasks to be performed for payment, clan-to-clan heliographing, coordinating cooperative clan movement and actions, picking up simple rumors in the local taverns, and hopefully even training for skills.  The more I can automate, the less GM labor I'll be required to do and the lower I can keep my costs.  But if I can't cut out enough, I may have to add extra turn costs for special actions beyond the automate-able stuff.