Feedback: Political protocols

[Auditorii]

Good evening (or morning) everyone,

Vescia and I have been chatting a bit about some ideas we've had, ideas that have been brought up throughout the games past and one idea we wanted to float and gauge player interest was the concept of political protocols. I believe its been discussed around the game before. The general idea we had was adopting a sort of "Cultural Protocol" for national governments for lack of a more in-depth explanation. These "Political Protocols" would essential protect a nations system of government or government culture for a finite period of time, our current estimate would be somewhere between 100 to 150 years in-game. The concept that we had was we'd adopt something similar to the Cultural Era's from the Cultural Protocols.

The rough idea is that upon adoption of a political protocol a few specific things would be protected:

(1) the system of government (monarchy, republic, dictatorship, etc.)
(2) constitutional titles (to some degree allowing changes within the spirit of the political protocol)
(3) disallowing changes to the system of government while a political protocol is active without significant RP to justify the change
(4) enforcement of more specific RP laws that might apply to the system of government that might be denied under the current ruleset

These would naturally require 2/3 of players with seats to adopt (same as Cultural Protocols), they could be removed in a few circumstances:

(1) Player who implemented them leaves nation thus lowering threshold for RP to overturn political system
(2) the "Political Era" ends without an affirmation/update to the Political Protocol
(3) significant RP is conducted to justify a change of political system rendering the Political Protocol "done"
(4) Players within the nation agree to some event/RP that alters the political system beyond the scope of the Political Protocol

As I mentioned above this is a concept that we've discussed and wanted to get player feedback before moving towards either an experimental phase or a dumpster phase! Something similar to this is added in PT Alpha but I know this has been something that has been discussed within PT Classic on and off for several years.

[robmark0000]

When this political protocols will start that will accept a country's current political system?

For example:

In Endralon, there is the directorial republic, and this directorial republic will protected for 100-150 game-years in this mode?

[ChengherRares1]

I find this unfair and killing in regards of roleplaying. Of course there are ways out but overall it is bad and leading to weird situations, with locked countries in dictatorships as well having to bare a system for long time for no reason. Particracy is cool for it's fluidity and I would prefer to remain fluid. Though i'm not 100% opposed, just generally skeptical.

[robmark0000]

In partly, I can agree with ChengherRares1.

In other hand I created a try of this: http://classic.particracy.net/viewbill. ... lid=623622

[Uhtred]

Agree with ChengherRares1.

Having rules based around 'significant RP' being needed to justify actions moves power away from players. It also discourages new players. We already allow RP Laws dictating playing style and nations which have them generally see fewer players.

Argued against on a previous occasion Political Protocols were proposed http://forum.particracy.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8549&p=150559#p150559

(1) Player who implemented them leaves nation thus lowering threshold for RP to overturn political system

Why would this only lower and not remove the threshold if the remaining players/new players did not want them to continue?

The complaint, "I have spent a lot of time in country X and whenever I leave people come in and change it or do things that I don't like. This shouldn't be allowed", is not a good basis for a rule change. It sacrifices RP among current players in order to preserve the RP of a player who has long gone.

[jamescfm]

The concept of political protocols is interesting to me and I have expressed support for formal recognition of them in the past. In general, I am sympathetic to the idea of providing certain countries (and I do think it should be limited to a small collection of countries with extensive, consistent, quality role-play history) with more specific protections.

For a couple of reasons though, I'm not too keen on the idea at this time. The first reason is that I feel the current enforcement of role-play laws already goes far enough in enforcing something akin to the objectives of political protocols. If you take the example of Dorvik, Moderation has already approved role-play laws that effectively prevent any player from role-playing as anything other than a conservative, monarchist party. I'm not really sure that if such comprehensive role-play laws are already allowed, what a political protocol in a country such as Dorvik would add.

The second is a practical issue, you've said recently that there's already a significant administrative burden on Moderation and in the wake of Mr.God's departure the team is presumably now operating at two-thirds capacity compared to what it was when you made that comment. With that in mind, it wouldn't seem to be a priority to introduce another administrative burden, particularly one of this nature that is likely to create some friction between players.

Personally I would rather that Moderation focus their efforts on improving the areas of the game that we already have, like the cultural protocols system, the second accounts scheme and the so-called "Third World" countries, before taking on a new project. If Moderation really did feel that political protocols were an important addition to the game, perhaps they would consider at least delegating some responsibility for these other components as they've already done in the case of the World Congress?

[Auditorii]

We appreciate everything, as I said earlier Vescia and I are looking to float ideas and see what people are and aren't interested in. Keep 'em coming! Thanks.

[John Cracker]

I think it would be better if they were more political guid lines/suggestions rather than protocols

[Liu Che/Zhuli]

Support, but also maybe make them more of a "band" of acceptable governments. You can have different types of republics or monarchies. This would grant enough flexibility to play around with, but also maintain the reality of rare drastic change.

[Reddy]

I would suggest a regimen similar to the cultural protocol one. Players who carry out radical regime changes would need to (if opposed,by co-players) justify these changes through convincing RP before Moderation can initiate a nation name change. It is my view that the nation name is the most important part of any regime change and the easiest tool for enforcement without any excessive confrontation. So Moderation could require 24, 48 or 96 hours before it approves of and carries out a nation name change.