Now that the election is over...
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Feedback time. What can we do to improve the process? I'll ask the same question as the first term of Chancellor comes to an end about the actual position, so keep it strictly to the election for now please.
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To start things off, I LOVE THE IDEA! I think players in positions of power is only good for the server, and we need a lot more of it going forward.
I would limit the election week to a few days. 7 days of voting is A LOT, especially because the campaigns started as soon as it was announced. Hells, in the course of the election, the Militia went from being undermanned, to having like 6 active members. That is alot for a faction heavily influenced by the election.
I lacked rules, laws, as to what was allowed in order to obtain votes, and what was not. For instance, buying votes. In Denmark it is strictly forbidden, so I may have mixed my RL / Game world, but was it allowed?
I disliked Myron O'Connors participation (not Fluffys campaign), because as soon as he entered, it felt as if the entire ordeal was made fun of, which made it harder to stay IG at times, and felt like people made a mockery of it all. Thats not a big motivator.
I disliked the idea of an election where the winner took all. That is how it was described in your posts CF. I think it would have been easier to perhaps elect X members to Hawklins Council, elect the next Judge, Warden of the Militia etc.
Which leads me to the Chancellor position being too little predefined. Without some basic guidelines and structure, it becomes hard to understand what it really is (at least for me)
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i never actually knew how to make a vote tbh, though to be fair i never went looking as my character would not really care.
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I didn't get the concept.
Would the DMs like a player to be in power or not?
If yes, why had Myron decided to run? If no, why the whole thing? I know these sound a bit offensive, I don't mean to nail you to the wall with questions, I only intend to elaborate the first sentence. -
I had Myron run cause the npc would use it as a publicity stunt and as an example of what you can do. It turned into a minor troll fest towards the end which influenced (in part) the decision to kick him out.
We did say cheating was valid, no? :) Icly, it’dve been frowned on to buy votes, but if you were not caught...
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Do IC what your character would do, not what you would do.
There's a big difference.
@cadiz_stoker said
i never actually knew how to make a vote tbh, though to be fair i never went looking as my character would not really care.
Pretty sure it was posted somewhere to PM CaptainFantastic with your vote.
@o-louth said
I disliked the idea of an election where the winner took all.
This is how it is in most RL elections..
@o-louth said
I would limit the election week to a few days. 7 days of voting is A LOT, especially because the campaigns started as soon as it was announced.
We also set it for 7 days to allow for players who arent on every single day for many hours a day to have the opportunity to have input and be able to vote. And for those players to have their votes swayed IN GAME.
@aronff said
Would the DMs like a player to be in power or not?
In power, but with checks-and-balances on that power.
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IC wise, the elections didn't make much sense- instead it all felt weird and out of place for the setting. I portray a lord from a medieval period where he'd never expect a need to ask for anyone's confidence but the kings, the gods and fellow nobility. To earn the trust of the commoner, he simply felt he needed to demonstrate his abilities through generous contributions to society, and public displays of good leadership- as he had done for the better part of 3 months. But even that confidence is not necessary for a lord to gain power in a place like Cormyr.
OOC wise, this election worked against the core belief that people earn shit by doing shit and just felt more like the RotW popularity contest of old(look it up). As a player, I knew I was going through with the "loosing strategy to be elected", as I didn't focus on gathering player votes but instead continued life like it was before. He was recognized for the destruction of the Dragon Cult and the Chaos Brigade, stood as the provider of conflict against characters like Wyrmlocke, Hronk and Ironfoot, took its stand as provider of Old town and even today continues to act as a proactive force to involve people in all sorts of endeavors. He gained the support of both nobility and commonfolk through these deeds of valor and greatness, but in the end- none of that helped him to win the election.
TLDR - Make the previous actions and privileges of nobility or other affluent positions earned reflect to the outcome of these elections, and you will be on the right path. Never take character opinion as only factor, as that reflects poorly on the consistency and realism of our server.
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I felt that the end seemed sort of rail roaded to ensure all the main candidates got something.
Like in the write up the Chancellor was meant to be able to do things like choose the Militia Warden and most of the candidates did offer that in their campaigns but in the end that was just given out by Hawklin.
Also as Kingsman put it seemed like NPC support and such didn't matter.
For example Bhaliir had a lot of noble backing and Thundersword also had a fair bit of NPC support until IC actions lost that towards the end but that wasn't really reflected
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I believe there should perhaps be a voice to represent the commoners as well.
Say, the adventurer's votes only stand for 30-50% of the actual votes or something like it.
That means previous popularity, nobility etc can be played into effect more.I also think the ending was very weird, especially with some of the positions making close to zero sense from an IC standpoint. If I'm wrong about that I'm happy to be corrected though.
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@chinatown said in Now that the election is over...:
I believe there should perhaps be a voice to represent the commoners as well.
Say, the adventurer's votes only stand for 30-50% of the actual votes or something like it.Well, this was kind of an experiment. I'd be interested to see how many players feel like this, and how many think it should be entirely player motivated.
I get the distinct feeling that either way, it would either be "NPCs should count more" or "DM's railroaded it, none of the players wanted that guy to win! wth?!"
So it'd be nice to see some kind of metric on that.
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@chinatown said in Now that the election is over...:
I also think the ending was very weird, especially with some of the positions making close to zero sense from an IC standpoint. If I'm wrong about that I'm happy to be corrected though.
I don't overly mind it, but i can't echo this one enough >.>
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From the outside looking in (just based on what I saw on the forums) it seemed quite rushed and not thought out, with an NPC in power just up and leaving setting up the election.
The idea is cool, though - but it seemed very rushed.
Support from NPCs / commoners having an impact on what happened would have been cool, and I agree the whole Myron thing was pretty dumb and detracted from it all.
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I would I think have liked a longer campaigning season, or more warning- But as a test I think this went rather well.
It had everything I love about politics on CoA. Posturing, backstabbing, making promises to factions and players in the game....
I've always wanted to see something like this be accessible within the game, so I am looking forward to seeing how well it works! I just wish I was playing a PC that cared enough to run... Next time though!
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I dislike that Myron was kinda kicked out. I think after he was introduced, a lot of players had good ideas on how to abuse his stupidity and the promises he made to their own personal gain - and if that isn't CoA politics what the fuck is? ;)
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My biggest concern was the amount of OOC stuff seemed to affect the voting and outcome. I'll also echo how out of place it felt and how little influence and control the rest of the city had on such an important position within the city. A very small handful of adventurers just decided who now rules a city that has never been very pro adventurers. And how easily the player in power circumvented the positions also given out by Hawklin, i.e. The Warden position.
I do like the concept of giving players more power and giving us a chance to have a way to control the direction of the server. It just felt forced and extreme in this case. It will be interesting to see how this affects the server both ICly and from an ooc "fun" aspect.
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@angryowl How did a 'very small number of adventurers' decide anything?
It was a free vote, and only 5k to stand. voting was anonymous, you could have voted for anyone.
Hell you could have taken some bribe, and then voted for the other guy, literally nobody would know
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Because even with the what? 40 votes? That is a very small number compared to the size of Arabel and all adventurers.
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@angryowl They can only account for the people who voted. It was an election by players for players.
If Elodie got 30 adventurers votes, and Thundersword got 10, but a DM decided thundersword had appealed to npc adventurers or commoners more, and given them the vote, how would that be the player base choosing?
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I think the "everyone is a winner" sudden twist, while very interesting from an ic perspective, sort of shot a lot of people in the foot for supporting their candidate.
The feeling that npc's didn't matter at all made the whole thing feel odd, given that typically adventurers are considered the dregs of society in forgotten realms and are usually the last people who's opinions who are considered.
Also means you can be a blackguard of cyric and get elected provided you have enough players supporting you. Which is really random in a city like arabel!
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Wow, I feel I need to clarify some setting factors that people apparently miss ENTIRELY!
1). King Azoun V is a supporter of democracy and the removal of aristocratic rights. Cormyr is not, never has been, a medieval setting. Historically, its a copy of 18th century French/British absolutist monarchy--and Azoun V is canonically a king who wishes to see the monarchy transition into a democracy. So an election actually makes perfect sense if you understand the setting. People should have seen it IC for what it was, an attack on the nobility pushed by the King himself.
2). Arabel is an INCREDIBLY pro-adventurer city. It would have been destroyed decades ago without adventurers, many of its major noble leaders are adventurers. The city is incredibly rebellious, and has been openly hostile to Suzail since it was first conquered hundreds of years ago. This is why they had the Phoenix Rebellion, the only thing that kept Arabel loyal to Suzail for years was Lhal, whose grand-daughter is married to Azoun V and has been pushing him to grant the city greater autonomy since their courtship began in the canon material.
So saying it felt rushed or a bit forced, those points make sense--saying it didn't make sense to hold an election because "canon" just tells me the canon isn't understood.
Personally, I thought it was a bit lacking in sense that we weren't including NPC groups in the voting process. That was largely an oversight because we kind of did rush this, I think there was some eagerness to see this done, to send players a message we're all about giving more authority and ability to influence the server to players (which players keep requesting we do), and that caused a few oversights--including how the outcome was handled.
But it was an experiment, so if folks want to be helpful and positive, suggest HOW to improve rather than focusing on what didn't work. Positivity is important and much more helpful than complaints. You want us to experiment, try new things, tell new stories, give players more control and influence--help us know how to do it better please.