Shattered Kingdoms

There's also the membership forums.

I think that's right about the need for OOC action. At the least, the F3 needs to PM the immortal with the new choice. And what happens if the F3 doesn't? Or worse yet, if the only F3 has to be removed? There's really no objective standard for choosing a successor. Doing it subjectively and ICly is very, very time-intensive. Last time I saw this happen in-game, it took multiple immortals several hours to work things out, despite it being a relatively easy case. There were hurt feelings and claims of unfairness to boot.

So I'm not going to complain about an automatic selection system. Granted, it will occasionally create a leader who needs to be removed for IC or OOC reasons. But the system's very existence makes removing an unfit leader easier for the immortals. Looks win-win to me.

I read some of this topic, and basically, a popularity system is likely to be hard coded in? I don't like it... but I'm likely the minority. (hint hint)

Agreed! Better for everyone to be able to have some individual portion of beef with a system than for people to be divided up, angry at each other.

Bring it, witch.

I call Shenanigans!

Baldric is avoiding forum filters! Ban! Ban!

Pray isn't always reliable. Forums are a minimum. YIM is common. Of the last five requests I've made to flag leaders, all of them included a PM to me or a forum post. This is just an existing leader getting another leader flagged. This doesn't take into account the time the players spent in debate over who should or shouldn't be the leader.

I'd love for the game to tally a vote at every monthly update and flag leader(s) based on the votes and the number of hours in for the month. This system would allow for natural changes in leadership. The leader flag is the carrot for the person putting the hours and effort in to help their cabal. The flag can be lost when either starts to fail. I'm of the opinion that there should be one leader with the bulk of the power and several sub-leaders with important abilities especially invest/induct.

This mechanism would basically be available to a character privately at any time and at the time of the monthly update it calculates all the votes to choose the leaders for the next month. Such a system keeps leaders from going too far from what the membership would desire. The biggest factor I think is that hours become one of the most important criterion for having the highest level of leadership. It allows regular contributors to have a leadership role without feeling as if the group is on hold waiting for them when they are less active.

The system will not fix everything, but in the least, changes the fundamental meaning of leadership in both act and feel. Is it going to make things different? I hope. Will leadership situations still frustrate players? Most likely. Are we satisfied with letting leader flags be hoarded by the few and handed off with a wink and a nudge? Not at all. I'm all for ideas, but I've really had years of experience watching leadership issues cause huge damage to game morale.

Sorry, Achernar, but you just convinced me the system is a bad thing. Automatically filling leadership vacancies is fine bordering on great. Making leaders stand for monthly election is terrible.

Good leaders accept some measure of dissent in their ranks. It keeps group population reasonably high, and a little political infighting makes for an interesting group. That's gone if dissenters are a threat to the leader, for both IC and OOC reasons.

Good leaders enforce roleplay standards and plot resolutions. That's not always the popular thing to do.

Seems to me that this punishes good leadership rather than rewards it. And there's no need for this. It's pretty obvious when a group's leader has failed beyond redemption. It shouldn't be too burdensome for the immortals to perform a simple boot. Why have immortal group patrons at all, if they're not making sure the group works? It's not as if groups need their own private builders.

My conclusions differ from yours, sir. I think a monthly rehash of votes makes for accountability, and function not so much as an election... but as a means of providing a No Confidence vote when the time comes that a leader no longer suits to will of the people.

People give up their claim to leadership by voting for another leader. The expectation is that you make that trade of some of your potential/rights with the idea that you receive a service/protection in return. Once a leader is chosen, his or her word is absolute... or they would not be a leader at all. The only recourse for a bad leader is revolt... which, with this system, is as simple as changing your vote. As is, divine intervention seems to be required. How inefficient! Immortals should get to handle more than just problems. Assuming no-vote was counted as a vote of confidence (or no-change,) and that minority governments weren't permitted by the system, dissent would have to be very wide among the masses indeed to induce a turnover. A leader worth his salt will know to test the waters before stirring them, and now there is actually some reinforcement to do so; change is not impossible, but leaders would be held directly and swiftly accountable for their actions this way.

Which situation is worse: a runaway leader or an exceptionally stable and empowered organizational ethos? Its a trade off, and I think the choice is being made only after careful thought and reflection on experiences we cannot hope to have presently. I trust the decisive power of the powers that be; give it a chance, and let the problems be in the system, not in the nay-saying.

tl;dr: Check your copy of The Leviathan. Do not fall into the mistake of automatically assuming active leadership is good, authentic leadership. A new follower-driven leadership system is no less sound than the present, leader-driven one.

In the short time I took leadership in the Harlies, I've spent some time in laying down a system to solve all these problems. Actually the leader flag was taken for that reason and only. It's straight forward purpose was to stop all these pathetic OOC invasions that ruin the gameplay of others. None would have to wake up one morning and find his cabal torn apart by some random "Jack or better".

Tried to make it close to what current members of the team think and how each member acts on the long term. It was an anti-OOC system which promoted longevity but required the involvement of every member at least once each month.

As it seems, that alone was too heavy as a duty and all I've seen was QQing before even consideration. So this is why this topic strikes me funny...

Cheers.-