GL Approvals and Disapprovals

[Kinaed]

Since we moved to the system where GL disapprovals require IC_Event notes (anonymous!) , It seems that people have simply stopped submitting them. May I ask why?

I've had some feedback that people don't know HOW to submit an approval or disapproval. Are there other reasons?

[Dice]

I had to ask somebody else for the command the other day, as I couldn't figure it out anymore myself.

But also, I think people feel like there's not enough IP to do anything. The base 5 IP required to do it at all may be out of reach for most PCs now that we cycle weekly.

Me personally, I tend to only use the system when I intend to be part of unseating a GL (or in the occasional case I really, really strongly approve of someone) and the last campaign of that sort involved the GL choosing to just step down before anything started.

[Inertia]

I couldn't understand the process through the help file and there were definitely a few bugs when I tried using GL approval.

It did also feel a bit stifling that what IP I could gather alone right now appeared to be worth little in the grand scheme of things. That said, I understand and appreciate that peons SHOULD have to work harder to have their voices heard.

But as a player, I was under the impression that we moved away from the rumor approve/disapprove because we wanted characters to have to invest more into their attempts to build up or tear down a leader. Because of this - as Dice suggests - I think we're likely to see fewer approvals or disapprovals unless somebody does something -really- boneheaded, or really awesome. I like this, personally, and I think just reminding people that the process exists may help encourage people to run campaigns for their favorite/least favorite GLs.

Also, I hope that as more options for using IP come in, more than just the top tier characters will be interested in the currency which will help shuffle things about more, too.

[Kinaed]

I suppose I really enjoy seeing people take some sort of visual action and things happening in the game for or against various guilds and their leaders.

I'd like to encourage this, but I'm not certain how. So far, identified are the following:
- Help File Improvements need to be made, and any bugs ironed out
- IP feels like it's too little on the individual scale to have a lot of impact (which is probably true since the idea was for people to 'influence pool <name>' with one another to work together for an outcome....

Any other thoughts or comments?

Thanks to those who responded, please keep 'em coming!

[Cellan]

I haven't had more than 10IP across both characters for a few OOC months now, despite one being a noble and the other a guild leader. I would have approved/disapproved people to show love/hate, but I don't have the points to invest!

[Dice]

Arranging pooling influence is hard when you have to get everybody on board within a week, or you lose the influence others gave you. The weekly reset really is the problem here, I think.

[Kinaed]

Well, we just tried GL Approvals/Disapprovals in a bid format for the first time. Thank you everyone for your patience with the system thus far.

At this stage, I'm thinking about a few changes, and I'd like general opinions:
* GL Approval probably should be a function of the supporters and subverters, with supporters and subverters WITHIN their guild being heavily weighted. Thus, a GL can be ousted simply by having their guild members subvert them.
* Members of a guild should probably have "Free" (ie, doesn't use a slot) ability to support or subvert their GLs.
* Limiting the highest IP hit on a GL in a single run (not that I don't think people should be able to influence, I just think going from Approved to Ousted in one blow is... weird? Thematically strange? Hell, we can't even get that prick Abbott out of office...)
* Making IP not expire on a roll-over date, but normalize once per day at a given rate. IE, you either lose or gain your max/7, minimum 1, based on if you're over or under your max, per day.

In the future, with roles, we intend to make max IP and IP per week or day link to Precedence. That's a little ways off because we need to do a lot of under the hood work.

[Leech]

I love everything you just said! I definitely liked the little bit of the influence system I've gotten to use recently (it's never been a big thing in RP), and I suspect I'll be using it more, and these changes will make it all the better!

[Onyxsoulle]

I recently tried to use the Influence stuff and ran into quite a few problems. First off, finding the help file was very difficult. It turned out it was in the help support file, but wasn't highlighted like the rest of the topics in that file. Secondly, there wasn't a way to see what I still need to do for the polca. By this I mean I would fill each line(title, investment, etc) but couldn't find a command that would show what I have done already. Finally, it got rejected in the end. When I went over what the new guidelines for the support were, there was no IC reason why I should/could do anything, so I gave up.

[Dice]

I agree with Onyx that there is some difficulty in the idea that it must be an action your faction explicitly takes. I think it might make sense to approve influence events that involve realistic and reasonable NPC reactions. I.e., if your PC achieves some big goal, posting an influence event that says "X achieved this thing, so people support X!" makes sense to me even if it involves just talking about opinions/reactions of NPCs.