King of Dragon Pass attempts to tell a self-consistent story about the recolonization of Dragon Pass. The focus is of course on the clan, rather than the individual, but the idea is that the clan is in fact made up of individuals.
Individualistic and unruly individuals. Who often defy their leaders. Who, like real people, have selfish self-interest.
Although the game freely lets you rearrange the clan ring, in fact the ring represents the individuals of the clan. In a normal clan, one leader has to represent about 200 people. You want them to represent more than 600. Who has time to maintain personal relationships with three times as many as the norm? So, many members of the clan won't have someone looking for their interests. Since the clan is not serving their needs, they can either try to get new leaders who are beholden to them, or start their own clan.
Don't forget that bigger isn't necessarily better. When every family sends a representative to the chief's hall, it's now real crowded. When every family recites their ancestors as part of the rituals, the ceremonies go on past sunset. And how important is your ancestor now, with so many others wanting attention?
Most decisions in KoDP have consequences. Lots of them have tradeoffs. The idea is that having a large clan is not automatically a good thing -- there are tradeoffs.
>As to ungovernable mob, why, that's true! Only 20 nobles to govern
>over those 4000 peeps! more nobles, less ungovernable , yes?!
The Orlanthi have social structures that can govern 4000 people: tribes. Not clans. The ring is the government, not the individuals of good birth. The rituals are structured so only seven people are magically endowed with leadership.
If the game ends up saying otherwise, it's failing at portraying the world it's intended to. So it's a bug.
Doesn't mean it's not fun despite this. Doesn't mean we're going to patch it. But it's not according to the design, so it's a bug. And because of that, things may not work as well as they normally do.
-- David Dunham A Sharp, LLC Voice/Fax: 206 783 7404 http://a-sharp.com Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
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