Settlement Election Integrity

[Drogo Gyslain]

The whole system, in my eyes, just incentivises OOC (discord) co-operation.
That is not to say everyone is cheating through metagaming, but it does reward those who do, and that specific kind of metagaming is near impossible to police for DMs because it can easily be done through private channels and have the necessary RP sprinkled in in-module to legitimise anything that was ordained.

It isn't the good old days anymore. How often is it that a settlement leader is the leader without being involved in any discord channels at all? When was the last time 'the greatest fighting force' didn't have a discord channel? I'm not saying it's everyone all the time, but it's certainly most of them most of the time.

...

Honestly, this was one of the highest forms of praise I think I received.

It is possible. It is doable. I actually work pretty hard to KEEP things IC and not rely on discord for much other than just timezone coordination with hard to reach people and talking with people I've made friends with.

And I can tell you, from my time as the Bendir Leader, We don't... use discord for anything really other than just having fun with occ shenanigans and general queries. There's... almost no chatter aside from 'hey, are you around at this time on this day?'. Most of everything is in the server, in game. Events posting, some suggestions... but no, huge, collusion. No secret back rooms. No private discord calls just, a bunch of friends coordinating and trying to make the best of it.

But that's the thing, we make it work. IC, we make the effort to make it work. The Heartwood Grove didn't have much of a discord (it had 2 actually) but the leadership at least from Burin onward was pretty active IC only. From my time in Myon, not much of what I did was ever Discord related, even after discord became bigger.

At the sake of acting and speaking anecdotally about my own experiences, I've found that statements like these are a bit... unsubstantiated? Sure they happen but not nearly on the scale that they are rumored to be.

All I'm saying is that, for a faction, Settlement Factions, leadership opportunities are there. Settlement leadership, is not some archaic, anti-rp beast. And if it is a bit burdensome, let's try to come together, and fix it. Make suggestions like have been made, and stop making claims like this because in the end, it just distracts. Because at the end of the day, it's a system to give us the opportunity to BE a better rp-er, and to do something different other than PVP, PVE and Crafting. It gives us a system to try and make change.

So instead of complaining, join. Become part of the government, learn it, and help it succeed. You think it doesn't work? Then find a way to make that change. Get into those circles and try.

Because just claiming over and over that people are acting 'as the leader' we aren't. Most every Leader I've worked with understands that they aren't the supreme commander of the forces. Hell, have you even seen what's happened in Cordor Lately? In Brog? In Andunor?

Because if you had, you'd know that the leaders are in constant flux and there have been huge changes IC recently that change how settlements interact. It's not 2D faction nightmares. There's alot of depth, you just have to get involved.

Join Today! (insert some... Starship troopers-like recruitment banner)

[Hazard]

There's... almost no chatter aside from 'hey, are you around at this time on this day?'. Most of everything is in the server, in game. Events posting, some suggestions... but no, huge, collusion. No secret back rooms. No private discord calls just, a bunch of friends coordinating and trying to make the best of it.

The Heartwood Grove didn't have much of a discord (it had 2 actually) but the leadership at least from Burin onward was pretty active IC only. From my time in Myon, not much of what I did was ever Discord related, even after discord became bigger.

Because just claiming over and over that people are acting 'as the leader' we aren't.

from my time as the Bendir Leader.

I'm sorry, but I'm getting a little bit of mixed messaging from what you're saying.

So instead of complaining, join

For the recond, not complaining and I am presently involved in settlements and have been heavily involved many times in the past.

have you even seen what's happened in Cordor Lately? In Brog? In Andunor? Because if you had . . .

I have seen, and was involved.

[Bazelgeuse]

So instead of complaining, join. Become part of the government, learn it, and help it succeed. You think it doesn't work? Then find a way to make that change. Get into those circles and try.

Unfortunately if you are running into deep OOC discord coordination, it's really hard for your character to break in unless you happen to be part of the OOC coordination efforts.

There's already a very obvious trend of many characters just not being interested in RPing with anyone who isn't an official, and working as a type of 'secret official' has made that very obvious to me, where people will just refuse to interact with nearly anyone until "The Important One" gets here, and then the real RP can start.

Something like this.

Drow Matron Mommy can grant you a place in the settlement but that doesn't mean you'll be granted the rank of master IC respect and acknowledgement of your character's position.

[Hazard]

Drow Matron Mommy

(,,. _ .,,)

[AstralUniverse]

I'm going to say sadly that...

You dont need discord for anything, however discord makes your life easier because in order to be a central person in a group, feel involved and included, you need to actually make the effort and be present frequently. You need to spend X amount of time with them to be taken seriously and not all of it has to happen IC (unfortunately) because your perceived presence is the sum of both your IC and discord presence, not just IC. If you're contributing to the fun, you're contributing to the fun. This is obviously ooc-leaking but it's a really hard one to catch and enforce. It is entirely possible to not use discord at all and still get into faction and settlement leaderships, but you'd need to be online a LOT in order to contest against people who are active both ICly and OOCly on discord. This is the main root of what discord culture brought us.

[Aeryeris]

I use discord almost exclusively for ooc jokes, talking with ooc friends about ooc things, and looking at the event calendar. Not having discord would honestly not affect my settlement leadership much beyond just having to manually keep track of event planning.

Only two people on this server have ever heard my voice and they were both irl friends before I even learnt of Areliths existence.

This notion that Discord is somehow extensively used to get elected and coordinate settlement leadership is false, and honestly discredits a ton of people's roleplay. I'm sure there are cases were it was abused, but it is not the norm at all.

As for settlement leaders having no freedom to change things: this is also definitely untrue. The DMs only step in if the settlement government does something that actively ruins someone's time or hurts people because of character creation screen choices. Outside of that, settlement leaders have a free hand.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

This is from a few posts up, but I definitely think examining the term "Player Autonomy" in its own thread would be prudent. It's one of those things that sounds good in theory as the mind can instantly apply it to things that are desirable for the game, but that can also lead to it being applied to things that may or may not be what's best for the server overall in debate to shut the other side down. Who wants to argue against player autonomy after all?

But the truth is too much eventually leads to might makes right, which in turn leads to pvp becoming all that matters. And while that could be fun under the right circumstances, in a world where no one stays dead after you kill them everything just becomes pointless.

[D4wN]

I have been Chancellor twice now across two different characters and have held various other Settlement and Faction leadership roles in Cordor, Bendir and Andunor. None of these achievements have been through Discord and none through OOC friendships. I came to Arelith knowing only 1 person on the server and that was my then partner who played with me. Everything I have ever achieved on Arelith has been through RP and by being an active member of the communities I played in.

The facts are that a lot of people like to complain ICly (or OOCly) about their leaders. But what they do not see is:

• Being a faction/settlement leader takes an immense amount of time, effort and energy most people aren't willing to put in or completely underestimate

• Many faction/settlement leaders have a very high burn out rate for various reasons incl. the time and energy it takes, toxicity, and the stress of people wanting your attention all the time

I have seen so many settlement leaders elected over the years who simply end up sitting behind closed doors talking with their inner circle only. I have seen so many being elected and just disappear several days later because it is all too stressful to deal with. Settlement leaders especially get absolutely no help or education on how to run a settlement and you're left to your own devices trying to figure it out while also dealing with a queue of 10's of players a day who want to "talk to the manager".

As a Settlement or major Faction leader you basically resign yourself to being like an NPC. Your time turns into a commodity for others, enabling others and helping others develop their stories and RP. That's not something everyone is willing to do frankly.

I know what it's like to be in these positions and thus will always treat any Settlement / major Faction leader with respect and kindness even if my character doesn't agree with them or maybe like them ICly. As long as a Settlement leader is active, they're a-okay in my books no matter the IC political stance of such a leader vs my own character at the time.

There have been a ton of leadership changes in the majority of Settlements in the recent months as well, so I disagree with opinions that leaders are in place for too long. There are many ways in which leaders can be removed (which has been proven a lot lately) and for anyone actually willing to put in the time and effort and gather IC support, you can work towards overthrowing any leader. The problem is most people don't have the patience and feel entitled that they should just be given it without having ICly proven themselves or garnered the support. A lot of others are acting as defeatists and give up before they even try because they have preconceptions of OOC cliques holding onto power and getting their buddies to come vote for them. I think the proof is in the pudding when you look at examples of Minto removing the Rivorndir and Sudo removing the Thane. Is it easy? No. Is it impossible? No. You just need to put in some effort.

[Cthuletta]

As far as people waiting around for the "Important One" to talk, or "Talk to the Manager", I really want to take a minute to echo that sentiment.

While I've never been a settlement leader, only playing a leadership role in smaller areas, that part of leadership is absolutely exhausting. Even when a leader-figure is trying to delegate and doing well at it, giving those under them their agency and ability to handle their respective duties, people still want to bypass them and go straight to the head of it all. It's frustrating for the leader, their 'employees' (for lack of better term), AND those sitting around waiting to get some kind of communication done.
It's no wonder they burn out so fast- even when trying to get help and people lined up TO help, it very rarely turns into any real form of aid.
Then we have the 'If you want it done right, do it yourself' mentality. Something I've personally experienced and have had to work on, unfortunately. That can lead to burn-out like no other.

Most, if not all, people who run for settlement positions are doing so with creating a story in mind, and trying to involve other people in it. Some have visions for what they want to achieve and do tunnel-vision on it, and that's usually not malicious in the slightest, just how some people's brains work. I think term limits for how long someone can be in power is a good idea on paper, but it DOES give a timer of sorts on those leaders who are in power for a long time because they're very good at what they do and people genuinely enjoy their leadership and the RP they provide.
Say you have Mayor Jacob-Jingle-Heimer-Schmidt in power for 2 IG years. Nobody called an election because he's wonderful at creating RP in his settlement! Most people enjoy his story, the city is thriving. But- oh well, his two years are up! In comes the new Mayor, Mayor Jillian Beige is elected in. She decides to take the settlement in a different direction, but becomes overwhelmed, or maybe doesn't do as good a job as she hoped, and the settlement turns stagnant. People are leaving, the city is suffering, and by the time the 'Call for an Election' timer is up, the damage has been done. What do you do then? All of Mayor Jacob's work had been undone, and even if Mayor Jillian didn't mean for it to go this way, both of them are going to be very disheartened.
So while term-limits are good, in theory, I'm not entirely sure they'll be worth it when someone can call an election and put up their campaign at just about any point in time if they wish to see change. Plus the timer, whatever that might be, would more than likely be quite arbitrary. People achieve different things at different paces.
How many times they can run is probably a safer bet? You run the risk of one person/group triggering an election every time they can just to grief, but that feels like territory for the DMs to look into if they're being a butthead.

[D4wN]

Term limits is an awful idea. If things go well (or well enough), people won't call for an election like Cthuletta stated because there's simply no need to. Why change things if you're having fun?

If people don't like the settlement leader there is nothing stopping them working on a narrative to change it. Simple as that. But these things take effort like I said. Effort many aren't willing to put into or have the patience to see through. And many after getting one set back of their plans going wrong or not progressing fast enough for their liking, give up. People just don't have the tenacity to see things through.

It's easy to complain, harder to be a mover and a shaker.

[Xerah]

You run the risk of one person/group triggering an election every time they can just to grief,

This is exactly why it would need to be automated. Calling an election when it's possible to do so would absolutely not be griefing. You can't think like that. It unfairly makes people ever scared to call an election out of IC and OOC worry about being accused of that (we already have that as is, which I experienced once).

I totally agree that your scenario is more than likely to happen from time to time and it is the one negative against any kind of limits. There's a loud anti-change sentiment on this server, and but I'll take the good change with the bad change. Yes, there have been some settlement leader changes recently, but that doesn't mean there hasn't historically been leaders in charge for a long time.

It's possible 3 months is the wrong amount of time (maybe it's 6; or maybe it's some combo of 3 election wins no longer than 6 months). I just used 3 months because that's how long Katernin was in charge and I felt like I did a lot of fun and interesting stuff during that time, but I knew it could have been a stifling environment for other players (similar length with Bendir where it felt like the vets really didn't like a gnome being in charge; I was a new player at the time and just stepped aside). Obviously, that's just 1 data point with me and some people work faster/slower.

[Drogo Gyslain]

It's possible 3 months is the wrong amount of time (maybe it's 6; or maybe it's some combo of 3 election wins no longer than 6 months). I just used 3 months because that's how long Katernin was in charge and I felt like I did a lot of fun and interesting stuff during that time, but I knew it could have been a stifling environment for other players (similar length with Bendir where it felt like the vets really didn't like a gnome being in charge; I was a new player at the time and just stepped aside). Obviously, that's just 1 data point with me and some people work faster/slower.

Depending on the RP, a 6 month IRL, 2 year IC election cycle seems pretty reasonable.

I made the suggestion before, but a 2 year IC call, but leave the option for elections to be called after 1 IRL month.

That way, if someone is definately not doing a good job, you can call a vote out of no confidence and challene it.

If they ARE doing a good job, and the people choose to, they can go to the polls and support their candidate, and they remain in office as long as noone else gets voted in.

It's a pretty fair and balanced approach that has a Mechanical forcing of a vote, but it gives enough time in between forced votes to where plenty of RP can happen. 6 months is alot of time, even for a casual player and there is much that can happen over 2 IC years.

That way, people who are concerned over abuse are heard, and have the chance to effect change, but the griefing is kept to a minimum. you have to at least give the player a chance to be the leader they were elected to be.

And being honest, there have been quite a few leaders who just vanish after being elected. They just get elected and then don't show up on monday to work. That happens, and this is a way to remedy issues like that without hamfisting it.

[BlankStare16]

If I have read correctly so far there seem to essentially be three main objections to term limits: They might bring in unprepared leaders who will burn out, they might force out good leaders everyone wants to keep, and they would be against the democratic will of the players as expressed through their votes for an established character. I think each of these points are overlooking some things.

1) New Leader Burnout

As mentioned above, leading a settlement is undoubtedly incredibly stressful, and some of those who find themselves in the spot will inevitably find that it wasn't what they wanted. That is undoubtedly going to happen.

At the same time, the rate of challenges would seem to indicate that there are quite a few people who think themselves up to the task but who are nevertheless unable to 'break in' and give it a try. I think it is desirable to create a system with enough 'flow' that allows players a reasonable shot of getting into office. If we try it and determine that leaders are burning out too quickly and no one wants those positions, we can always adjust, but I would personally rather err on the side of "Anyone can have a shot" over "You'll need wait RL years to maybe have a chance at playing a settlement leader and even then it's unlikely".

2) Forcing out good leaders

Primary problem here is that what makes a 'good leader' is subjective. The same leader that is Aragorn to some factions are Sauron to other factions. In an ideal world, all of the different factions may get a chance to have "their person" in the top seat at some point and tell their stories, but that would require turnover happening more easily than it does now.

3) Against democracy

This one is semi-related to the above. The entire premise of this thread, and many of the comments earlier, indicate that there are quite a lot of players who are interested in seeing leadership changes and want to RP in various settlements, but are otherwise unwilling to RP in those settlements during the interim where whichever leader they dislike is in charge. Being that they don't RP in those settlements, their votes are removed.

Thus the 'democratic will' that is winning repeat elections is really just the will of whomever is left in a given settlement, and not necessarily indicative of all of the people who would like to RP in a given settlement.

[Eyeliner]

My own opinion is unexpected outsiders, charismatic new arrivals, pariahs working outside the city to get votes and so on is great for story. Maybe it's not "fair" to long term citizens who were RPing functioning government if some evil warlock who was shunned out of the city rallies the warlocks of Arelith to get citizenship in Cordor (*with proper RP of course, always RP) and sway votes to grab power but that's a memorable event and that gives the good people who slept on the election something to fight against.

Obviously that can get ridiculous, but stagnation isn't desirable either and a long term steady government that reliably handles any threat is ideal in real life but boring as hell in a video game.

[Rei_Jin]

I never personally had one of my characters elected as a settlement leader, but I have had a lot of involvement in settlement and faction leadership on Arelith, beginning in Guldorand and then the Underdark.

I feel like if Elections were held once every four RL months, but no-one was barred from running (asides from current reasons to be barred, so no term limits) then there would be a good balance between the chance for new folks to come in without having to trigger an Election, old folks move on to have a break, and also folks to know when to EXPECT an election so they can plan accordingly. You additionally would not be removing a good settlement leader necessarily, but giving them the encouragement to stay connected with their citizenry.

Mind you, I’m also the mad dog who thinks quarters and guild houses should be on a timer for ownership based on their perceived value so that powerful individuals and groups can’t hold things forever (ships especially), and stores in highly sought after locations should be allocated by the settlements who get the taxes from them, but that’s another topic (seriously, ships are so limited, give other folk a chance!)

Edit: Also let me say that I abhor the idea of OOC collaboration to exclude folk from settlement leadership or do cryo-voting, and as the one-time leader of the (at the time) biggest UD faction, we steadfastly refused to do so, handling all “notices to vote” IC because otherwise it simply was not just nor fair to anyone involved.

As I have heard and seen elsewhere “how we win matters.” I firmly believe that, and I firmly believe that the ends does not justify the means.

[ScalesofEquilibrium]

This server has had a history of OOC troubles with shops and quarters being handed off to their respective cliques, character generation to character generation. The Auction system was put in place to regulate this. At the time I didn’t like it – of course not. I was a player, and I don’t like things being made more difficult to achieve or be made my own. But what’s fair is fair, and what is reasonable is reasonable. The team must react to the behavior of the player base.

Settlements are no different, and verifiably so in this very thread. When it comes out that one in three votes in a democratic system are in violation of the rules, the system is dead. Frankly, the base does not have the capability or maturity to participate in that system.

It is well past the point for something as ‘radical’ a change as the Auction system. Regulations, strong ones, need to be put in place.

Term limits do this – and not just term limits on characters. This goes beyond IC behavior. One out of three players are breaking clear-cut rules of Arelith.

Term limits on -players-.

Term limits on -factions-.

You get your spotlight for a time and move on. You do -not- get to generationally keep this gig up for years, and years, and years. It is time for the team up top to do what they did with quarters and shops and level the playing field for settlements.

Edit: Yes it should be retroactive.

[Rei_Jin]

Term limits on factions cannot be automated (so many ways around this) and would require manual DM interaction; this is troublesome and prone to accusations and arguments, as we’ve seen with ANYTHING where it’s handled by people as opposed to automation.

The difficulty with putting in place rules is that they need to be enforceable and worth the cost of enforcement.

In this case, terms limits for factions is not able to be automated and not worth the human cost to staff, who are all volunteers and quite frankly don’t deserve the crap that gets thrown at them.

[ScalesofEquilibrium]

Term limits on factions cannot be automated (so many ways around this) and would require manual DM interaction; this is troublesome and prone to accusations and arguments, as we’ve seen with ANYTHING where it’s handled by people as opposed to automation.

The difficulty with putting in place rules is that they need to be enforceable and worth the cost of enforcement.

In this case, terms limits for factions is not able to be automated and not worth the human cost to staff, who are all volunteers and quite frankly don’t deserve the crap that gets thrown at them.

I would argue one out of three people violating clear-cut rules results in a lot of time these volunteers must spend.

Simply because something is hard does not equate to ignoring the issue. If factions are presenting that much of a problem for the staff, perhaps we need to revisit those factions and their behavior?

Perhaps settlements themselves are too much of a burden for the volunteer staff and their capabilities can be scaled down/regulated to NPC and event status? There are solutions to this if the question of man hours spent is too burdensome.

[Eyeliner]

Seems like there could be some mechanical guard rails to ease DM time required, like only one vote per CD key and if a character hasn't been played in two weeks or more it can't vote for a period of time when it returns. I'm pretty sure a new citizen already can't vote for a while, but if that's not the case it should be too. After that the only problem left is people who don't RP voting and a lot of them might just be inexperienced instead of devious.

I honestly don't think the 34% will happen again for a while... I think this has been a wake up call to let players know this is serious. Enforcement of these rules was pretty lax for a long time.

[D4wN]

I honestly don't think the 34% will happen again for a while... I think this has been a wake up call to let players know this is serious. Enforcement of these rules was pretty lax for a long time.

I would agree. And 1 in 3 players is this particular instance. It says nothing about the rest of the settlements or UD districts. The DMs are clearly coming down hard on the behavior now and I think that's great and should address the issue by and large.

[chris a gogo]

one vote per CD key and if a character hasn't been played in two weeks or more it can't vote for a period of time when it returns.

Maybe if they haven't played for a month but two weeks off to have a holiday shouldn't be punished it's bad enough you lose your shop and quarter for doing it as is.

[Paint]

one vote per CD key and if a character hasn't been played in two weeks or more it can't vote for a period of time when it returns.

Maybe if they haven't played for a month but two weeks off to have a holiday shouldn't be punished it's bad enough you lose your shop and quarter for doing it as is.

I'm not so sure. Stuff moves fast on Arelith, and missing an entire month before an election cycle can be the difference between being informed or not. Sometimes it's best to just sit back and enjoy the chaos, you know?

[chris a gogo]

I was arguing that two weeks was to quick as thats the length of most peoples holidays(vacation if your from the colonies).

Not that a month.

[Hazard]

You don't need to conspire when interests converge.

[Eters]

How about actually roleplaying to change a leadership? And actually roleplaying to weaken a faction? And using the already existing assassin's guild mechanics to force elections? I don't see a reason for a blanket maximum duration to exist as a standard for leadership.

If someone is hogging leadership and not doing anything from it, not creating roleplay and not developping people's stories from their position, I am certain the staff would intervene on a case by case basis to mend the wrong. Otherwise, it is a roleplay server and leadership challenges and such are part of the roleplaying world. If a leader is able to hold a position for a long time it is due to their own effort and their own roleplay which lead them to such a position in the first place, and so it feels disingenuous to penalize people's efforts in that way.

More so, settlements have an ebb and flow, sometimes activity peaks and sometimes it tanks, and there isn't always someone interested in taking the mantle of leadership. For a settlement to lose their leader on such a moment with no one to take the mantle it would eventually kill a lot of the roleplay.