Hepburn's Twelve Proposals
Table of Contents
1. RP Nation Label
2. Political Protocols
3. A Position for Veteran Roleplayers: The "Nation Expert" Role
4. Repeal of Game Mechanics Holding Precedence Over Roleplay
5. Discord Bots
6. Noob-Friendly Nations
7. Enhanced Troll Monitoring
8. Relaxation of Military Equipment Equivalent Monopolies
9. Introduction of a New Player's Guidebook
10. Continuity of Moderation and Administration
11. Enforcement of Standardization
12. The Banning of "Ordosocialism" and any Other Ideologies Imported from Video Games
Section 1 - RP Nation Label
This section is largely self-explanatory, and is mostly a formal request to finally integrate the proposed "RP Nation Label" idea, which was met with universal approval and a positive reaction from most players in the last thread for it when it was originally proposed. If decided to be fully incorporated as a rule and procedure, it would be subject to the proposed rules set out for it in the original thread. Of course, comments and opinions on this are welcome, but given the previous reception, this is seemingly an uncontroversial non-issue; as such, as stated before, this is mostly just a request to have it be integrated proper into the game and the rules.
Section 2 - Political Protocols
It is hard to believe now that there is an entire generation of new players who are unfamiliar with the concept of Political Protocols, and who don't remember the original proposal when it was first introduced. In short, Political Protocols are essentially a document that outlines the "defined" Political Protocols of a nation, in a similar vein to Cultural Protocols. It outlines the system of government, the structure of the state, and so on. For nations that are inseparable from a certain form of government, such as a constitutional monarchy in Luthori, or a socialist republic in Kalistan, this is essentially a means of reinforcing the work of veteran players, and protecting these nations with a long history of time and effort put into them from being suddenly disrupted or haphazardly changed overnight due to a player deciding they wish to change course without discernible reason, or has decided to not respect several real-life years of prior-established roleplay. For some players, Particracy is a passion project that they have sunk several years into as a hobby; and numerous times these players have sought to have these accomplishments and their hard work recognized.
I felt it necessary to revive conversation on this topic and to formally reintroduce it again in this new atmosphere of openness and transparency because I believe it never received a fair shake in terms of conversation or consideration from staff. I also feel as though this proposal would largely be uncontroversial if introduced, as the nations that arguably fit this criteria can roughly be counted on one hand, so the potential for conflict would be scarcely felt. Player freedom is, naturally, a two way street - people are free to play the game as they like (within the confines of the game rules), and likewise other players are free to support and protect what they have built, and continue putting in the time and effort into making excellent roleplay. The implementation of political protocols would, in my sincerest opinion, continue to uphold player freedom and reward those who have put effort into their roleplay and shield it from unsolicited interruptions and changes.
Procedure-wise, I believe some changes can be made here from the original document in the administration of Political Protocols. The process for application and approval would be no different from Cultural Protocols, but the removal of a political protocol should be a different matter entirely. I lay it out as follows.
To remove a Political Protocol, the player in question must submit a request with significant reasoning explaining their changes made to the country and what exactly they plan to do in the foreseeable future. Delegation and administration on the matter is shared between both Moderation and the Roleplay Committee, and the country in question's resident Nation Expert (see more on Section 3). If a reasonable case is made, the Political Protocol may be removed with the same guidelines for making a nation Culturally Open. After it is removed, the country is considered "Politically Open" and can be changed in any direction a player may wish, provided it is within the game rules. Ultimately however, the final decision is up to the discretion of Moderation, the Roleplay Committee, and potentially the Nation Expert under the provisions of Section 5, Subsection 9 under the Game Rules and any other provisions forthwith.
Section 3 - A Position for Veteran Roleplayers: The Nation Expert Role
Throughout the history of Particracy, many players have come and gone, but there are many who have stayed throughout the years - them being veteran roleplayers. Either hopping nations across Terra or staying in one place, they have contributed heavily to the game and the individual nations that they play in. We see this in Kalistan, Lourenne, Luthori, Hutori, and even Forum-Based Countries such as Vascania. They have led a highly influential position in building, shaping, guiding, and setting the nature of a country's culture, not just in the background but the history, politics, and numerous other variables that comprise a PT nation. As such, they should be recognized for their efforts. This section requests the establishment of a "Nation Expert" role for veteran players, who hold the responsibility to teach incoming new players of the nation they're in to uphold the established culture, political systems, and system of government in a nation, as well as continuing to enshrine any active roleplay laws and mechanics. This role would fold over into the previous section and additional duties would be to uphold the RP Nation Label, the Political Protocols, and partake in the administrative process for reforming or removing these two items. The role would exist as a semi-formal position separate from administration and the Roleplay Committee.
Requirements for gaining the role would be simple: the player in question must have contributed significantly to a nation's roleplay and established culture (both national origin and political), and have been a member of the Particracy community for more than three years. In terms of powers, there would relatively minor abilities allotted to Nation Experts. The chief power one can have is to request the inactivation of parties who are in breach of the above terms in the previous paragraph, are ignoring or choosing to actively disregard an established Political Protocol, or are not roleplaying consistently enough within the rules outlining the RP Nation Label. The Nation Expert has the power to reform or remove a Political Protocol or the RP Nation Label alongside other players, but the final judgement on such a case lies with the Nation Expert, alongside Moderation and the Roleplay Committee. The guidelines for this process are outlined in Section 3.
Section 4 - Repeal of Game Mechanics Holding Precedence Over Roleplay
This section is also self-explanatory. Particracy is a wonderful game, but it is also an unfinished game. One that is almost twenty years old. Numerous core gameplay mechanics have never been fully finished, or outright do not work. The game is kept alive behind a core, dedicated group of veteran and newcomer roleplayers who have joined the game in the past two to three years since 2020-2021. Roleplay is the guiding vehicle behind nearly every interaction in this game. It has functionally ceased to be a "game" outside of the most basic political simulation mechanics. Outside of treaties being drafted and approved, there is little actual in-game interaction between states other than the occasional message. An overwhelming amount of activity, discussion, and planning occurs on the forums, the main discord, and countless associated servers for nations, organizations, and other things.
The section of game mechanics coming first over roleplay should be formally repealed, ending this dominance of an unfinished game over what is essentially a creative writing project, as some have pointed out. This would enhance opportunities for active roleplay and would encourage far greater participation on the forums and the wider community. Removing this barrier would open a variety of new doors that unfortunately for the moment remain closed.
Section 5 - Discord Bots
I feel as though it might do some good to add some additional bots to the main discord server. Mainly role bots that allow for players to be given a certain role that can easily be removed. Multiple other servers do this, and I believe it would help players identify where someone else might be active in, and possibly facilitate increased roleplay opportunities in a given area. In action, these bots, like used on other servers, would have emojis underneath them to allow players to give themselves a role. Once they remove the emoji, they no longer have the role. The scope of these player-assigned roles can be as simple or as complex as administration would like - but I think a good initial baseline is to establish discord roles for all of the continents in Terra, to allow players to see where a person is currently active. Later down the line, there could possibly be more roles like head of state/government, majority party, or a basic slate of forms of government roles denoting whether a player has turned say a democratic nation into a dictatorship, therefore heightening player awareness into what's going on internationally and potentially galvanize a response.
Section 6 - Noob-Friendly Nations
Particracy's community has admittedly shrunk, and the rate of incoming new players reduced significantly, but every once and awhile a completely brand new player comes into the game, eliciting excitement from some and careful apprehension from others. This section hopes to welcome the former while relieving the latter. Essentially this label, known as "Noob-Friendly Nations", can be applied to easily accessible nations with an instantly-recognized culture and political system, and as such can be encouraged as a primary place for new players to go and learn the game and culture of the community. The risks would be low-stakes, and players who choose these nations would be guided and advised by both Moderation and the Roleplay Committee on how to learn the mechanics and functions of Particracy. I feel as though the best area for this label to be applied is nations that are culturally-open, primarily English-speaking or an accessible language such as Spanish, French, Italian and German, and have little prior-established roleplay or a history of continuous changes to systems of government.
Of course, if a nation has the RP Nation Label or a Political Protocol and is currently occupied by a Nation Expert, this designation cannot be readily applied, and therefore a consultation period can be opened to possibly grant a nation this status at the discretion of Moderation, the Roleplay Committee, and the active Nation Expert in the country. The same rules apply as in other sections with regards to the final say on these matters.
Section 7 - Enhanced Troll Monitoring
While the community does not experience this issue not nearly as much as it used to, it is still a problem nonetheless, and one that calls for enhanced supervision and the necessary tools for dealing with such. The simple matter is, for brevity's sake, the request that certain nations who receive numerous complaints of poor behavior from active players be designated as a "Troll-Risk Nation", and receive counseling, advice, and a warning. If it persists, the matter can be escalated to sanctions, temporary bans, or if gravely severe, permanent bans. This problem shouldn't come to such lengths hopefully, and is merely another tool in the toolbox to uphold a fair, equitable, and equal community and be free of needless harassment or player-caused drama through trolling. If the problem is solved, then the nation can have this label removed without issue.
Section 8 - Relaxation of Military Equipment Equivalent Monopolies
Championing player freedom is the cornerstone of this community. Nobody should have an explicit monopoly on the visual references a nation has to their military equipment. We saw this as a brief issue some months ago, where concerns were raised over Zardugal using Yugoslav equipment when it previously used American equipment. This caused a ruckus from one player, one that was needless and, if it can be honestly put, ridiculous and stupid. In short, this section would request that we relax the monopolies certain nations have over using the real-life visual equivalents of a variety of military equipment. This is a game, people can have fun and use whatever equipment they want. While designs are recognizable as being made by a certain nation (like the M16 in the US, for example), they do not belong exclusively to that nation. Arms are international; they're exported everywhere. My prior example of the M16 given in parentheses is used by a handful of nations officially and countless other groups unofficially.
It is frankly absurd that this monopoly exists in the first place. They're just images. Players should be allowed to use what they wish for their national armies if they desire to do so. It's childish to essentially want to have all the toys to oneself.
Section 9 - Introduction of a New Player's Guidebook
Following along with implementing mechanics and proposals to facilitate the onboarding of new players to Particracy, this section should come as no surprise. There currently exists no definitive guidebook for new players to learn the core mechanics of the game, the culture of the community, and various other items. Sure, there are pages on the wiki that teach about certain elements of the game, but there is no central repository of information for new players to learn about the game. If this suggestion is approved and implemented, I'd like to request a consultation period where players can suggest articles to add to the Guidebook, alongside the help of the Roleplay Committee and Moderation.
Section 10 - Continuity of Moderation and Administration
This section may sound ambiguous, but the request is simple, so therefore the section is short. In effect, this requests that currently active Moderators on the Forum and in-game be also made moderators on the main discord, therefore ensuring a continuity of moderation and administration, to avoid the complicated nature of the era before this. Essentially this would streamline moderation to be the same across both platforms, ensuring smoothness in function and duties.
Section 11 - Enforcement of Standardization
Alongside Section 10, this one may also seem ambiguous at first; let me elaborate. Throughout the years players and staff alike have sought to implement a standardization of items across the game, both on the forums, the wiki, and the game itself. This would simply ask for the enforcement of those standardizations. Jamescfm (hereby referred to afterward in this section as James) has done a wonderful job in creating a template for a Cultural Protocol that is incredibly effective, simple, and to-the-point, allowing new players to instantly get a frame of reference for what a nation is and how best to organize their party to fit within it. I ask that his template for Cultural Protocols be the enforced standard going forward, reflecting a trend that has already been started by himself and other players. Numerous nations already have his templates in place; this would simply further encourage what is already being done.
Likewise James has implemented an effective standardization of newspapers in the nations that he is active in, alongside other players. This would also request the same as well - for players to use prior-established newspapers and to fit them within the template of style of other players in a given nation. Alongside this, if a nation has over ten (10) already made newspapers/magazines/news channels covering a broad spectrum of ideologies, then no more need be created, unless granted an exception at Moderator discretion. Alongside this, players could be given advice in helping to make good-looking newspaper headlines that are simple to read, and have the correct image dimensions; we see this as a problem in various places across the game, where headline banners are too big, the images below them either too small or ridiculously huge, taking up most of the page, and overall just looking messy.
If a newspaper fits this criteria then a player can be advised to make changes to it to accommodate other players who may have difficulties reading certain passages, be sensitive to harsh colors, or find it difficult to understand what is being said due to a poorly-framed newspaper article.
Section 12 - The Banning of "Ordosocialism" and any Other Ideologies Imported from Video Games
While this section might be controversial, I believe it fully necessary to discuss this matter head-on. Recently there has been an upsurge in players importing ideologies from other forms of media, most notably with "Ordosocialism". Though it has been talked to death, I still don't think some players entirely understand what Ordosocialism is, so let me elaborate. The ideology is ripped directly, with no changes, from a popular modification for the game Hearts of Iron IV, called The New Order: Last Days of Europe. Ordosocialism is a sub-ideology of fascism, and is practiced by Ivan Serov, the real-life former Chairman of the KGB and Director of the GRU from 1958 to 1963. In this timeline, which is an Axis Victory scenario, the Soviet Union has collapsed into a smattering of warlord states, one of which is Komi, a republic named after an indigenous people group in Russia. Among many ideologies the nation can become, Ordosocialism is one of them. Here is the description of the ideology, lifted directly from the mod's wiki, alongside the icon of the ideology displayed above it, straight from the mod's files.
In 1847, Karl Marx shook the world to its very core. He created an ideology that discarded the old order, and addressed the true struggle of the common man. Now, Marx's true successor has arrived. Ivan Serov, creator of Ordosocialism, did not understand why one's patriotic love for their country must be at odds with their nation's class struggle. Why must they demonize the Germans, when their ideology clearly has unique characteristics that could better serve the forces of revolution? Ordosocialism is the resolution to these conflicting questions and ideals.
Ordosocialism is the synthesis of the class struggle and the national struggle. Ordosocialism is the synthesis of all that opposes both capitalism and cosmopolitanism. Ordosocialism concerns itself with the destruction of those who decided to follow the path of reaction, and those whose reactionary tendencies are of a more... hereditary nature.
Some fools accuse Ordosocialism of being a reactionary, corporatist betrayal of all that Marx stood before. Some fools accuse Serov of being a madman, no better than Hitler himself. These individuals attempt to weaken the revolution with their slander, and defend hereditary reactionaries despite their inherent opposition to the revolution. Serov and his followers will not let these false claims distract them, however, for they have a new revolution to bring forth. A revolution free of the rot that plagued its predecessors.
I need not explain further that there is a reason this ideology is under the fascism category; it is essentially National Bolshevism. While eccentricities can be fun to roleplay with in Particracy, at the end of the day, this is a political simulator, not an Axis Victory mod that has, alongside Ordosocialism, other ideologies such as multiple strands of Nazism, including Esoteric Nazism, which is practiced by the SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, a notorious perpetrator of the Holocaust, both in the mod's timeline and ours. While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with The New Order, as it does a relatively good job to portray the decay that comes with heinous ideologies like Fascism and Nazism and other totalitarian ideas, alongside showcasing some brief shines of hope, it is a grimdark Hearts of Iron IV mod. One that is incompatible with, again, a political simulator - one that is near to reality, and so should not be flooded with things like this.
The request is therefore simple; the banning of Ordosocialism and any other ideology directly imported from a video game under the real life and ridiculous variables rule. There is fun to be had in eccentric ideology, and has been seen before in game with things like Felinism, and (to some) the Thallers, but this is not the way to go. Again, I predict already this proposal will be controversial, so a multitude of opinions, thoughts, and discussions are wholly welcome on this matter. Once more I believe this loops back to the idea of player freedom; many people play this game as conventional democratic parties in a liberal democracy, and are potentially strained by the entrance of these ideologies, so I felt it necessary to include among these proposals and tackle the matter head-on.
