Thanks everyone for your interest in the PolPros Society. But just to clarify: this is not a consultation about whether PPs should be implemented. While some of us who are members of this group do hope that Moderation will one day implement Political Protocols in-game, Political Protocols Society is a party organization of players who've already expressed support for the idea. We accept that this style of playing isn't everyone's cup of tea. That's why we've decided to work with like-minded players to increase our enjoyment of the game without infringing on others' gameplay. We simply ask the same in return.
As I said, this thread isn't for debating the merits or demerits of Political Protocols. But we do appreciate your interest in the group and so I will answer your questions since it may help you decide if you'd like to join. The GRA and PolPros are not analogous. The GRA has always been a Moderation-driven project that imposes certain gameplay values onto players. Those impositions are not arrived at by player initiative or consensus, they are determined by a group of Moderation-selected RP Masters. I have experience both on the short end of the stick of GRA rulings and as a member of the RP Team/Committee myself. And therefore I can say with certainty that GRA Rankings and Rulings are essentially arbitrary and primarily depend on who happens to be on the RP Team/Committee at the time. For me, that is no way to treat players' RPs. But until Moderation and the Global RP Committee are willing to commit to publicly-known and publicly-developed standards for ranking nations, it's not a system I'm willing to participate with in terms of gameplay.
Under my proposal (linked in the OP), Political Protocols would be very different. Firstly, they would be driven by players
in the concerned nation every step of the way. Players would
choose to develop Political Protocols in the same way players currently choose to develop Cultural Protocols. Such PPs would have to pass a supermajority vote in the concerned nation. Importantly however, such vote could only begin after at least one player has played in the country for a long period of time (I don't remember if it's 1, 2, or 3 months). This is to ensure that any Political Protocol proposal represents the consensus and chosen play style of the players in the nation. After the long approval process inside the nation, the players would then have to present their proposed Political Protocol to a weeks-long Public Consultation where all players in the game would be able to scrutinize, discuss, object to, and request changes to the proposed PP. This would be to ensure that no single player is able to lock-in any RP or game mechanics elements for personal benefit alone. Finally, the GRC would have to approve the proposed PP before it could be made official. As part of their approval process, the GRC would be required to certify that a high degree of in-depth RP has been produced by the players requesting the PP
prior to submitting their request. This is to ensure that players are not simply trying to lockout unpopular players and play styles from their country. PPs are intended to enrich
the entire game and gameworld of Particracy not just a single group of players or a single country. Therefore any players wishing to have PPs in their country must
work hard to create them and
work hard to keep them. In exchange for such hard work, Moderation, the GRC, and the community at large would all agree to support and protect
certain agreed upon RP elements for a certain span of time. Finally, the PP would only be enforced for a specific number of months before it would
automatically sunset, meaning that no country would be allowed to remain locked-down forever.
I hope that answers your question as to why I would support PPs but do not support the GRA in its current form.
Martinulus wrote:I'm not quite sure we should be in the business of locking down precise governmental forms (especially those expressed in long names) by protocol. That seems like a recipe for players to freeze their preferred governmental settlement for infinity. It reminds me, in fact, of the infamous "Luthori is a Monarchy and any party that even wants to change it can have its leaders executed for treason" bills. There were quite a few countries who had that, and they all exhibited "why don't you go to another country if you don't want to play the way we want" tendencies.
In practice, a single determined player willing to explain the reasonable nature of deep RP (like the 1st United Imperial Crownlands) to other players and ask them to play ball can do a lot of good. I was able to preserve the heritage of H&GS for about 300 years, after which it was about right that it came to an end. The point is that crises during which, for example, Communists were successful, led to natural reactions on behalf of the defenders of Septembrism which evolved the backstory of the country and led, in this instance, to the ban on anti-democratic parties enforced by RP law.
I guess what I'm saying is: no amount of protocolling can be a substitute for good-naturedly asking players to observe some good manners and best practices in roleplaying, including that guideline that says "always say yes and...", meaning you should respect the premises of those you RP with and those who RPed before you. Any attempt to lock it down, in my well-informed opinion, will almost certainly lead to animosity.
Again, this thread isn't to debate the wisdom of PPs. However, since that seems not to have been made sufficiently clear, hopefully this last reply will assuage others' concerns in addition to your own.
First, a Political Protocol if implemented as I have proposed would not lock-down a country for infinity. As I said in reply to Occam, in addition to an automatic sunset (6 months if I remember correctly), a months-long process of review, approval, consultation, and amendment would be required before any PP could be passed.
I personally share your revulsion at the style of gameplay which harangues new players with 'why don't you just go to another country!' I have always preferred to integrate new players into the gameplay culture of a country rather than seeking to hound them out. However, as Doc discussed, the situation being addressed here is not that of unwitting new players. It's plainly more insidious. There is a class of player in Particracy who deliberately activates in a country with the often express purpose of dismantling and deconstructing the
stories (not the game mechanics so much) of prior players. Certainly the game mechanics allow for this style of play. But Particracy is not the game it was in 2005. More than 10 years of effort has been put into encouraging, maintaining, increasing, and protecting Role Play. Cultural Protocols and the GRA are both obvious elements in that long effort. The problem that I have with allowing the nation raiders and vandalizers to go unchecked is the glaring contradiction it engenders. Specifically, Moderation not only encourages players to produce copious amounts of RP, but a few months ago Moderation decided to REQUIRE every nation to abide by Role Play dictates determined by a Moderation-selected committee of RP Masters. One of the dictates the Moderators have established for GRAed nations is that they cannot be RPed contrary to Rankings determined for them by the GRC. Recently, the contradiction this engenders was tested. A group of OOC/offline friends decided to begin their summer recess by raiding Talmoria. Why Talmoria? Well, they've done it several times before, always 5 to 8 of them, and when they first did it, Talmoria was Culturally Open; so I think they just got used to raiding that country and after doing it over multiple real-life years decided that Talmoria was theirs. The problem is, as Doc discussed above, these players never had any intention of sticking around. All they wanted to do was make radical changes that gratified and entertained them for the few weeks or few months they chose to log-in to the game. Their most recent raid deliberately disrupted and halted months of plans and content produced by Talmoria players and involving Talmoria's RP allies and opponents. A months-long war RP across Dovani was abruptly halted when the raiding players decided to turn Talmoria into an isolationist backwater. You might guess that this was simple ignorance on the part of these players. But you would be wrong. These players not only reached out to Talmoria's main
opponent in the war, but they deliberately refused to reach out to the main Talmorian player who had written all Talmoria's war RP (and who has played Talmoria for more than 1,000 game years besides). I'm currently a member of the GRC, so I have ready access to lines of communication with the Moderators. When I approached them about this problem, their response was lukewarm. To their credit, I don't think they fully grasped what precisely was occurring, which is understandable if you haven't followed Talmorian history closely -- I of course have followed Talmorian history closely because Talmoria is a close ally of my main country. However, the Moderators did seek to create a process that would at least allow some mediation of such issues. The mediation went nowhere and produced nothing. By the time I and the main Talmorian player began discussing how to appeal to the CRC responsible to take more action on the matter . . . lo and behold . . . the raiders deactivated. And just like that the problem was over. But not before several months of headaches and wasted time were created. And for what? So these kids can click law variables?
So the contradiction I'm referring to is that: prior to the raid, the GRC Rankings had just been released. In the Rankings, Talmoria had been promoted to a Middle Power. As a member of the GRC, I can tell you this was done for two reasons: first, Talmoria's RPs had been ignored during Rankings processes for several real-life years. Second, Talmoria's prominent and high-quality role in the Medina War warranted recognition and reward. However, the aggressive isolationism and fabricated RP assertions pushed by the raiding players were diametrically opposed to the GRC's Ranking of Talmoria. Now, how can it be the case that the Moderators 1) require every nation to participate in the GRA (as Occam pointed out, I am aware nations can opt-out, but witness the slight-of-hand Moderators pulled on Dankuk players when they tried to leave), 2) require that all players RP their nations in accordance with GRA Rankings, but 3) allow random groups of players to play diametrically opposite to the GRA Rankings?
That of course makes no sense. For the last ten years, a veritable generation of Moderators and players have gone to some lengths to push this game to be a Role Play game
modified and impacted by elections rather than an election game modified by RP. That push has resulted in tens of thousands of pages of stories
which build on eachother. Those stories collectively have created a contained universe with its own unique physics. If we allow players to aggressively attack the underpinnings of those stories, we would be saying in effect that our stories and our nations do not exist in the same universe, but rather that new universes are fabricated out of thin air anytime a player chooses to turn back everything prior players have built.
The reason I advocate for Political Protocols is because I do not believe the latter can be sustained given the game's current gameplay culture as developed over a decade and enforced by Game Moderators. Political Protocols in my view would allow the community to affirmatively protect those elements of Terra's story deemed indispensable, while allowing players uninterested in RP to continue playing undisturbed.