Naturally, I'd like to start by giving my thanks to the outgoing mods. A good few of them I consider to be my personal friends, and they've all been exceptional moderators.
Why do you want to be a moderator on Seven Kingdoms? What can you bring to the mod team?
I want to be a mod because I love this game, and I want to do whatever I can to keep it running smoothly. I have a fair amount of free time what with my being a filthy freeloading student, and I dedicate more time than is frankly healthy to the game as it is. What's more, I have a great interest in game design, and I think working on this game could provide some valuable experience. I am an avid historian, and my understanding of the medieval period, and medieval warfare in particular might come in handy with Warfare rules. Plus, I am one of the top ten ASOIAF Trivia Experts in the UK. [1]
What do you think the role of moderator entails?
Putting up detection and plot result posts, naturally, and calculating and rolling up conflicts. But the more important part is the work you do for the community, answering rules queries, adjudicating over disputes, and maintaining OOC civility. What's more, we get to work on new mechanics to improve the function, balance, and verisimilitude of the game, which is just such an exciting idea.
How would you define your knowledge of SevenKingdoms mechanics? How could you improve gaps in your knowledge?
I'll admit, there are a couple of holes in my understanding of the rules, just because I haven't really encountered them in the game yet, but planning this recent Mass tourist excursion to Greencastle Invasion of Skagos has gotten me really immersed in a lot of the land and naval combat rules, and I imagine I can study the others fairly intently.
How would you handle a particularly tense conflict pertaining to mechanics or rule interpretation on Discord?
I would recommend that one or both parties block the other until the conflict is resolved, to prevent things from escalating in Private Messages, then I would talk to both players, get their version of the argument, put the other player's argument to them in a more impersonal fashion, then come to a ruling that both parties can find acceptable, probably somewhere in the middle of the two.
Which parts of the game do you think need to be tweaked?
The way that commander experience works has always felt a little odd to me. For it to be based solely upon how great a chance of dying you had feels a little weird, but then it's tricky to find a better version of that. Perhaps the Battle Tactics rolls could be factored into it somehow?
I'd also quite like to introduce some sort of mechanic for the Ironborn that allows them to Reave offscreen, as they can in the Crusader Kings II Game of Thrones mod. It'd be a good way for Ironborn to get to do their Old Ways thing without overworking the poor mod team, and it allows us to have the flavour of Essos in our world without having to entirely map the whole bloody place out.
In the most recent mod post there have been various proposals for different systems and revisions, please offer your take on one, some, or all of them.
As far as dealing with Doomstacks is concerned, I think speed reductions are the most realistic way to mitigate the problem, as larger armies would indeed be more cumbersome in historical fact. Nerfing them in combat would be a little unrealistic, and larger armies already suffer disproportionate losses in battle as it is. Krul's ruins proposal is really cool, I think it adds some fun little flavour to the map, and with regards to Doomstacks, might liven up defensive combat a little. I really like the Steel Caesar proposal, since Trade has always felt a little pointless to me, although I will admit that my understanding of the Economy Mechs is a little shaky.
[1] QuizUp, Dec 2014