Shattered Kingdoms

I don't see how they aren't viable. I recall you leading the Hammer with relatively few complaints, and having an active Hammer at that. It really isn't the fact that PK noobs lead cabals/tribs that causes people to hate certain "Roleplay Players"

When I played recently, the leader of the Peacekeepers, Callie, was quite viable even though Jennbo is horrible at PK. When I played Lorzatu years ago, the leader of the MC, Konstantin, was also viable despite not being good at PK.

There have been a lot of successful characters in leadership positions that are able to exert influence and command respect, despite the fact they are below average or terrible at PK. If you can't make a viable RP character that is able to exert influence and/or command respect in CRS due to lack of PK skill - that is probably a "you" issue and not a game issue.

Just sayin'.

You're intent on ad hominem, are you, Finney?

As dralan pointed out, I haven't had any problems successfully leading more than one cabal and tribunal even though I suck at PvP.

This isn't -- truly isn't -- about me.

Ilkaisha, my understanding of your suggestion is that it will provide "a place" for RP-centric characters in a faction, in that there will be a part of the code that discourages killing diplomats. Reading over your original post again, I realize that you aren't asking for anything dramatic (I think). Just that judges everywhere have knowledge of when someone has killed a diplomat, and a question of "are you sure" before someone does it. Correct me if I'm missing another mechanism for discouraging the killing of diplomats.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but this discussion seems way too heated for such a minor suggestion. When I was making my posts earlier, I thought the suggestion had more teeth to it, as in, people would really not want to kill the diplomats because of the code, but I'm not sure where I got that from.

What ad hominem? By pointing out that failing to be relevant in CRS due to lack of PK skill is a "you" (as in player issue) and not a game issue, since I have provided examples of both recent and old characters that have been successful at CRS while being bad at PK.

You claimed RP characters were not viable - I have provided evidence to the contrary. As I said to start this thread, your suggestion is both ill-conceived and completely unnecessary.

That's pretty much it, baldric.

You have correctly identified a problem, but I do not think your solution would work. A more diverse and multi-faceted organization system on SK would require a lot of work in terms of modifying the entire way CRS and factions work. There would have to be real consequences for making/breaking alliances/truces, and real economic consequences for going to war. It would also require about 5x as many players to fill the 10 factions SK has, not "slightly higher player participation in factions." As it is now, you can barely get a few decent faction leaders. Good luck trying to get 10 good generals and 10 good diplomats.

Honestly, I don't have an easy answer for what can make a legitimate positive difference in the RPK climate of SK. I think one of the main problems is that RP is not incentivized as much as PK is on SK (and leadership is incentivized even less). You obviously identified that because you were looking for a way to incentivize RP-oriented players to get more involved in politics. As it is now, you can solo plevel up, join the flavor of the day faction, PK left and right, acquire all the best loot and become a force on the MUD, or you can RP and get rewards that do nothing for you and be a paragon, which also does nothing for you, then end up getting stomped by a PKer with 50 hours on his GM character because he spent all of his time preparing to own you and everyone like you. I think this is a serious shortcoming for a place that is supposed to be "where RP and tactics collide," as opposed to a place "where tactics steamroll RP all day and all night." The problem with your proposal is that it tries to address this by forcibly taking power from PKers and giving it to RPers, rather than incentivizing everyone to add more depth to his RP. There is certainly an asymmetry here that could be addressed by having RP rewarded in more meaningful ways.

Anyway, I think the problems with RPK are pervasive and ingrained in the culture of SK right now. This "fix" would be a band-aid at best, and just create more problems at worst.

Styles, you're probably right.

Unfortunately, ideas to incentivize roleplay are usually responded to in a manner identical or similar to this one.

I'll probably continue to come up with and suggest ideas, though.

Add poll options in the future. Also don't get so bent out of shape when people disagree with you.

Disagree with more than "you suck, noob. obviously, you just don't know how to properly play a leader and are suggesting changes that will directly help yourself."