Public Rules Proposals

Sreeya

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Cool, let's see some more rule/structure suggestions cuz we're all collectively losing sight of the point of this thread.
 
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Wit

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But the key word is 'discuss', not verbally curb stomp others and outright dismiss their opinions with the most vitriol you can muster without physically vomiting acid on your keyboard as you type your response.
You ask for discussion and then straight up call us toxic and only capable of vitriol, nice. And this is not the first time I’ve seen you have such an opinion about the site, so do you just love all the toxicity to keep on coming back just to remind us about how bad we are?

Also, I don’t really agree with the “taking it too seriously” line that gets thrown around so often. Yes, it’s a hobby, but we also care about this site and the avenues for creative writing it provides. So any and all arguments are not because we hate each other but because we care. As sappy as that sounds.
 

Phoenix

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I'd like to take a moment to call back to an earlier point/concern I raised in this thread. Specifically that regarding site culture.

To be point blank, there is a rudeness factor that underpins this site that, speaking from a personal point of view, has been a growing deterrent to my interest here. I need not seek out past evidence or examples (though I easily can if such are required/requested), but this has been a pervasive issue, both off-site and on, and in one page of conversation in this thread alone, we literally see a site owner (of all people) and a moderator proclaim that they "don't give a crap about what gripes" someone has, and that if someone hasn't been active then their opinion has "no merit".

How are either of those sentiments being constructive? They're being dismissive. There's no other interpretation you can glean from comments such as those. They contributed nothing to the conversation but to "smack down" a member for voicing an opinion.

If the site is going to change or improve in any meaningful way, the first step is to learn basic respect for the opinions of others, and be less prone to flying off the handle at perceived slights.

Now before anyone can pull my own behavior out of the dust bin to use against me, yes I have been snarky and bitchy myself in the past. But it was about the time I received my first actual reprimand (somewhere near the end of the last TL when I was prohibited from participating in battles/PvP due to my behavior) that I understood I was taking things here far too seriously. If I could be so easily goaded and whipped into a rage by something as silly as RP... I was doing it wrong.

Roleplaying is a hobby. Hobbies should be entertaining, something you do to unwind and relax. Not something that breeds frustration and brings out the worst in you. Discuss things that need to be changed, that's fine. But the key word is 'discuss', not verbally curb stomp others and outright dismiss their opinions with the most vitriol you can muster without physically vomiting acid on your keyboard as you type your response.

You say this site has a problem because everyone is rude, but I'm going to propose a radical theory here.

I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that you don't really RP here until a thread like this comes along and then you decide to make a post, in which, out of one corner of your mouth you say things about "cooperatively" and "discussion" while out of the other corner (literally the same post) you say that the people you dislike are "physically vomiting acid on your keyboard." Perhaps the reason you're on the receiving end of people being rude to you is because you are, in fact, incredibly rude yourself. With the great number of times you swoop in from inactivity to state how much you hate this site, I really have to wonder why you bother staying here at all.
 

Loco

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I'm actually sort of intrigued by @Boli 's idea, but I'm not sure I'd make it so random and mechanical- generally speaking, I'd like to have less rules rather than more. And, ass much as I like pvp, I would also like to see less minimally-meaningful character death. The dichotomy is real.

A large part of the issue maye be site pvp culture, which I think has been slowly shifting, but I'm not entirely opposed to rule based options that discourage wanton slaughter.
 

Green Ranger

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I'm actually sort of intrigued by @Boli 's idea, but I'm not sure I'd make it so random and mechanical- generally speaking, I'd like to have less rules rather than more. And, ass much as I like pvp, I would also like to see less minimally-meaningful character death. The dichotomy is real.

A large part of the issue maye be site pvp culture, which I think has been slowly shifting, but I'm not entirely opposed to rule based options that discourage wanton slaughter.

Feel free to tweak it or play aroubd with it if you want. The idea definitely needs refining - I was mostly just trying to convey the general idea rather than any specific mechanics :P
 

Brandon Rhea

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Boli said something to me the other day I found intriguing, and, while I don't have an opinion on it, I want to pose it here.

We've tried basically everything we could think for 15 years of other than really leaning into dice, and nothing's worked well. Should we give dice a shot?
 

Yuan

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The downside of dice is that everything basically boils down to pure chance at the end of the day...

However, it would give decisive results in most situations, which could cut down on bickering and make threads flow smoother. The dice threads I've taken part in have been some of the smoothest sailing I've experienced on the site. I, for one, would be game to give it a shot.
 

Green Ranger

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The downside of dice is that everything basically boils down to pure chance at the end of the day...

However, it would give decisive results in most situations, which could cut down on bickering and make threads flow smoother. The dice threads I've taken part in have been some of the smoothest sailing I've experienced on the site. I, for one, would be game to give it a shot.

Yeah, look, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be advocating for dice rolls being involved if I thought there was a better alternative that didn't need them.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with using dice rolls, per se, but generally in a site that is primarily about freeform, writing-based roleplay....if we can avoid relying on them, then I'd rather do that.

And that's kind of why its worth stressing that this idea would only come into action if the parties involved in the thread couldn't agree to anything else or didn't have a pre-arranged 'gentleman's agreement (so to speak)' between themselves.

I think under those circumstances, if the sides can't cooperate or agree for whatever reason, then resolving the dispute with a dice roll is probably the neatest and fairest way to sort out the situation.

Like I said previously, It's also an opportunity to build stories, rather than end them. Like, it would be cool to see a character steadily finding themselves transformed more and more into a General Grievous type cyborg because of all the limbs they lost in various battles. And sure you could argue that that stuff can happen anyway, but....on the other hand, I think it's kind of cool that it's an unplanned consequence of losing a fight too?

I dunno, I just think it's a fun way to add a curve ball that isn't 'oh your character is dead now'. And maybe if everyone's a little less worried about their characters suddenly, unexpectedly dying, player combat in missions, battles, plot threads etc. won't need to be so heavily framed by how many weapons or Force Powers you can have at Level/Rank X for example. (Not that I'm saying that it's happening a lot, I'm probably not in a position to comment on that, but I suppose this is more about dealing with player anxiety that such a thing *could* happen and it could spoil any other personal stories they are working on?)

That would be my hope, at least.
 

Sreeya

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I find it appealing to where I'd advocate for any ooc dispute that would otherwise escalate to reports to be resolved via dice. I want to see a drastic reduction in pvp reports and endless OOC disputes. And for people that are nervous about chance, it forces them to find a compromise if they wanna avoid it.
 

Brandon Rhea

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And for people that are nervous about chance, it forces them to find a compromise if they wanna avoid it.
This is a good way to think about it.

If you collaborate and find a story resolution that works well enough for everyone, you don't need dice. If you can't, you roll the dice and whatever happens happens. Better to leave it up to chance than staff ruling IMO, because while staff have the best of intentions it's still a human judgment call at the end of the day.
 

Green Ranger

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Just as a quick note, as well, but I do want to note that if this was implemented and everyone found that the system wound up with player deaths still occurring too much, or if people used it more than planned and everyone just starts choosing to default to the most severe roll outcome or anything like that, then the numbers could still be tweaked.

Like there's still if 20% chance your character will roll an outcome that could result in their death, but that's also assuming you fail the 'get out of jail free' roll. I feel like those are decent enough odds to make it still a decent possibility...but at the same time, I'm not sure what the body count will look like in practice once the dice start rolling.

I might do some test rolls tomorrow or something to sort of get a better picture of what to expect.

EDIT: So I did some example rolling using the WOTC dice roller (https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm) rather than the inbuilt site function, but got the following:

winner loser 'damage'
72 45 100 - Death.
46 91 - escape
84 85 - escape
3 97 - escape
99 99 - draw. reroll?
28 68 100 - Death.
45 94 - escape
82 61 11 - captured unharmed
55 98 - escape
5 78 - escape
31 42 - escape
92 76 8 - captured unharmed
84 83 78 - captured with major injury
89 45 12 - captured unharmed
74 40 85 - Death.
94 78 70 - captured with major injury
59 33 56 - captured with cosmetic injury
50 96 - escape
98 26 5 - captured unharmed
70 59 33 - captured with cosmetic injury
56 50 96 - Death.
98 26 5 - captured unharmed
70 2 1 - escape
46 32 38 - captured with cosmetic injury
21 44 - escape
66 73 - escape
92 92 - draw. reroll?
52 32 93 - Death.
50 46 17 - captured unharmed.
20 87 - escape
31 64 - escape
38 17 94 - Death.
82 48 26 - captured unharmed.
89 45 8 - captured unharmed
68 58 55 -captured with cosmetic injury
97 36 32 - captured with cosmetic injury
76 20 100 - death.
71 82 - escape
59 97 - escape
43 23 39 - captured with cosmetic injury
100 54 46 - captured with cosmetic injury
51 4 29 - captured unharmed

Total of 42 example scenarios, with the following outcomes:

2x draw
15x escape
9x captured unharmed
7x captured with cosmetic injury
2x captured with major injury
7x death

So, given the high chance of escape from the initial 1d100 vs 1d100 rolls (which is to be expected), I'd suggest a slight tweaking of the outcomes for the 'damage' roll to something like:

Roll of 1: Loser escapes because the winner crit failed his capture/damage roll.
Roll of 2-20: The loser is defeated but unscathed, and can be captured. If they are captured, they might have their equipment confiscated.
Roll of 21-50: The loser is defeated and receives a permanent cosmetic scar and can be captured.
Roll of 51-80: The loser is defeated and receives a major injury such as losing a limb that requires treatment to recover from and can be captured.
A roll of 81-100: The loser is killed.

As before, at the winner's discretion they can opt to choose a more lenient punishment or to let the loser go, and these dice rolls would only be required if both parties could not agree to a resolution among themselves.

So if you can't resolve the situation among yourselves, you roll for capture, and then damage, where applicable. After those dice rolls are made, you can discuss whether or not the winner will be applying the full punishment available to them via the dice roll for 'damage', or if they want to choose to be more lenient. And if not, then the roll for 'damage' is applied and the thread is considered resolved.
 
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Malon

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I had a thought about improving the level system today while I was sitting at work. I don't know if this has been proposed already, so I apologize if I end up inadvertently rehashing someone else's idea.

What if we removed "credits" entirely (or repurposed them for something like advanced tech, idk) and, instead, had members apply for a level-up the same way they do for a faction rank up? My reasoning is as follows: right now, the level system is about quantity over quality. If you write a whole lot, or write a lot of "'11 credit posts," as I've often seen bragged about in the Discord, you can quickly increase the level of your character. Moreover, PvPs are rewarded with more credits to compensate the risk and to award good OOC behavior, and completion of plots does this as well. In essence, if you are crazy active, it doesn't matter if you're telling good stories or reasonably progressing your character's growth, you're still going to level-up and have the potential to be insanely powerful.

Instead, what I envision is a system in which people write plots—not only to grind for gear and territory and artifacts—but as ways to genuinely advance their character arcs. These can be plots that involve training, some personal tragedy (or overcoming such tragedy), going on an adventure, etc., etc. Then, once you have done the work of training the character and/or growing them through story rather than grinding, you submit the applicable threads to the staff team, who will review it and—if they deem the work sufficient—will level your character up. Quality over quantity.

Brandon said earlier in this thread that character level should correspond to their growth as a character and I couldn't be more in agreement with that. This would also remove the issue we had earlier in the timeline with people abusing personal plots for credit gains by removing the credits altogether. Staff could set standards for each level, which would allow them to keep Level 3s and 4s progressively rarer, only awarding such levels to the people who have genuinely written the stories for the characters that deserve such progression.

Admittedly, the flaw in this system is that it leaves leveling up at the hands of humans rather than a simple mechanical acclimation of credits, opening it up to personal bias and whatnot; but, having been on and led the staff, I know that this group always strives to be unbias and will call each other out if they suspect bias of having creeped into another's judgement. But, in my view at least, it is equally unfair that someone can spam a lot of posts per day, or write consistently massive posts, turn in a lot of plots and PvP threads for credits, and have access to higher levels of power despite the fact that their characters haven't grown in the slightest and have all the personality and development of a cardboard box. Character power and growth shouldn't be about how much and how fast you can write, nor how many people you can gank in PvP, but how well you can write, and I think that this system or some version of it could help to promote better story writing over blind grinding for credits.
 

Sandshark

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I had a thought about improving the level system today while I was sitting at work. I don't know if this has been proposed already, so I apologize if I end up inadvertently rehashing someone else's idea.

What if we removed "credits" entirely (or repurposed them for something like advanced tech, idk) and, instead, had members apply for a level-up the same way they do for a faction rank up? My reasoning is as follows: right now, the level system is about quantity over quality. If you write a whole lot, or write a lot of "'11 credit posts," as I've often seen bragged about in the Discord, you can quickly increase the level of your character. Moreover, PvPs are rewarded with more credits to compensate the risk and to award good OOC behavior, and completion of plots does this as well. In essence, if you are crazy active, it doesn't matter if you're telling good stories or reasonably progressing your character's growth, you're still going to level-up and have the potential to be insanely powerful.

Instead, what I envision is a system in which people write plots—not only to grind for gear and territory and artifacts—but as ways to genuinely advance their character arcs. These can be plots that involve training, some personal tragedy (or overcoming such tragedy), going on an adventure, etc., etc. Then, once you have done the work of training the character and/or growing them through story rather than grinding, you submit the applicable threads to the staff team, who will review it and—if they deem the work sufficient—will level your character up. Quality over quantity.

Brandon said earlier in this thread that character level should correspond to their growth as a character and I couldn't be more in agreement with that. This would also remove the issue we had earlier in the timeline with people abusing personal plots for credit gains by removing the credits altogether. Staff could set standards for each level, which would allow them to keep Level 3s and 4s progressively rarer, only awarding such levels to the people who have genuinely written the stories for the characters that deserve such progression.

Admittedly, the flaw in this system is that it leaves leveling up at the hands of humans rather than a simple mechanical acclimation of credits, opening it up to personal bias and whatnot; but, having been on and led the staff, I know that this group always strives to be unbias and will call each other out if they suspect bias of having creeped into another's judgement. But, in my view at least, it is equally unfair that someone can spam a lot of posts per day, or write consistently massive posts, turn in a lot of plots and PvP threads for credits, and have access to higher levels of power despite the fact that their characters haven't grown in the slightest and have all the personality and development of a cardboard box. Character power and growth shouldn't be about how much and how fast you can write, nor how many people you can gank in PvP, but how well you can write, and I think that this system or some version of it could help to promote better story writing over blind grinding for credits.

If you wanted to change player progression to something based on your contributions to the story, then I would hazard to say that the most meaningful metric of player contribution is faction rank. Every faction does it differently of course, but you still have a process where people have to meaningfully move things along and then show their leader they mean business.

IMO the most obvious one is the Jedi training system for Galactic Alliance. To become a Master you have to really prove yourself IC'ly by surmounting multiple challenging milestones in your character's story. Those characters have reached the highest rank of Light Side Force users, but they might not necessarily be level 4. It would be the same amount of applications to review as normal, with the fringe benefit of getting people to participate more in major factions.

I guess there would have to be something separate for unofficial faction members or independents, but this scheme would at least cut down on the workload for admins and fit with the idea you want.
 

TWD26

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I had a thought about improving the level system today while I was sitting at work. I don't know if this has been proposed already, so I apologize if I end up inadvertently rehashing someone else's idea.

What if we removed "credits" entirely (or repurposed them for something like advanced tech, idk) and, instead, had members apply for a level-up the same way they do for a faction rank up? My reasoning is as follows: right now, the level system is about quantity over quality. If you write a whole lot, or write a lot of "'11 credit posts," as I've often seen bragged about in the Discord, you can quickly increase the level of your character. Moreover, PvPs are rewarded with more credits to compensate the risk and to award good OOC behavior, and completion of plots does this as well. In essence, if you are crazy active, it doesn't matter if you're telling good stories or reasonably progressing your character's growth, you're still going to level-up and have the potential to be insanely powerful.

Instead, what I envision is a system in which people write plots—not only to grind for gear and territory and artifacts—but as ways to genuinely advance their character arcs. These can be plots that involve training, some personal tragedy (or overcoming such tragedy), going on an adventure, etc., etc. Then, once you have done the work of training the character and/or growing them through story rather than grinding, you submit the applicable threads to the staff team, who will review it and—if they deem the work sufficient—will level your character up. Quality over quantity.

Brandon said earlier in this thread that character level should correspond to their growth as a character and I couldn't be more in agreement with that. This would also remove the issue we had earlier in the timeline with people abusing personal plots for credit gains by removing the credits altogether. Staff could set standards for each level, which would allow them to keep Level 3s and 4s progressively rarer, only awarding such levels to the people who have genuinely written the stories for the characters that deserve such progression.

Admittedly, the flaw in this system is that it leaves leveling up at the hands of humans rather than a simple mechanical acclimation of credits, opening it up to personal bias and whatnot; but, having been on and led the staff, I know that this group always strives to be unbias and will call each other out if they suspect bias of having creeped into another's judgement. But, in my view at least, it is equally unfair that someone can spam a lot of posts per day, or write consistently massive posts, turn in a lot of plots and PvP threads for credits, and have access to higher levels of power despite the fact that their characters haven't grown in the slightest and have all the personality and development of a cardboard box. Character power and growth shouldn't be about how much and how fast you can write, nor how many people you can gank in PvP, but how well you can write, and I think that this system or some version of it could help to promote better story writing over blind grinding for credits.

I like this idea, I just don't know how feasible it would be in the long run. Granted I think there would need to be some defined rules on how that would take place. How do you show that a character has progressed? We would be turning a lot of our already stretched thin staff into editors and literary analysts.

I do know that we had training threads in the past to progress your character's physical powers, I believe that this was in the 5th TL. Maybe something like that could be done? It's an intriguing idea, just not sure if logistically it would make sense.
 

Malon

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I like this idea, I just don't know how feasible it would be in the long run. Granted I think there would need to be some defined rules on how that would take place. How do you show that a character has progressed? We would be turning a lot of our already stretched thin staff into editors and literary analysts.

I do know that we had training threads in the past to progress your character's physical powers, I believe that this was in the 5th TL. Maybe something like that could be done? It's an intriguing idea, just not sure if logistically it would make sense.

I don't believe it would be hard at all to implement. The plot team already takes a look at a group of threads, makes a judgement about whether certain goals were achieved, and then passes or fails a plot based upon its outcome. This system is basically using that existing infrastructure to ensure that leveling-up is done in the same fashion. The admins and mods could simply say, "To level up, submit x-number of threads showing training/character development/etc. that you feel makes your character a candidate for level-up" or some such. That way they don't get overwhelmed with too many threads—just the ones members believe show their characters growth and development.
 

Malon

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If you wanted to change player progression to something based on your contributions to the story, then I would hazard to say that the most meaningful metric of player contribution is faction rank. Every faction does it differently of course, but you still have a process where people have to meaningfully move things along and then show their leader they mean business.

IMO the most obvious one is the Jedi training system for Galactic Alliance. To become a Master you have to really prove yourself IC'ly by surmounting multiple challenging milestones in your character's story. Those characters have reached the highest rank of Light Side Force users, but they might not necessarily be level 4. It would be the same amount of applications to review as normal, with the fringe benefit of getting people to participate more in major factions.

I guess there would have to be something separate for unofficial faction members or independents, but this scheme would at least cut down on the workload for admins and fit with the idea you want.

Apologies for the double-post.

The problem with this suggestion is that it puts leveling up in the hands of factions, which creates a couple of problems. Number one, faction leaders change every few months now and each leader brings with them a new set of standards for the faction. That would really put leveling up all over the place because each faction leader would have different standards for what constitutes a higher level. Adding to the problem is the fact that multiple factions usually exist per-timeline and if it is easier to level up in one faction than it is another, the site would become horribly imbalanced.

Not to mention, from a PvP standpoint, factions have a vested interest in having a lot of high-level characters in their ranks. The more high level characters you have, the better chance your faction has of controlling the PvP scene, and I'm not sure I want the people making those decisions to be the ones deciding whether their faction members get a level-up too.
 

Sandshark

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Apologies for the double-post.

The problem with this suggestion is that it puts leveling up in the hands of factions, which creates a couple of problems. Number one, faction leaders change every few months now and each leader brings with them a new set of standards for the faction. That would really put leveling up all over the place because each faction leader would have different standards for what constitutes a higher level. Adding to the problem is the fact that multiple factions usually exist per-timeline and if it is easier to level up in one faction than it is another, the site would become horribly imbalanced.

Not to mention, from a PvP standpoint, factions have a vested interest in having a lot of high-level characters in their ranks. The more high level characters you have, the better chance your faction has of controlling the PvP scene, and I'm not sure I want the people making those decisions to be the ones deciding whether their faction members get a level-up too.
Yeah this is a big problem, but it's a problem with having the level system to begin with too. Factions with more veterans or more prolific posters will naturally accrue more credits. That's good on a purely theoretical level, because it implies they post more, but it's a disincentive for new players to compete with older ones.
 

Green Ranger

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Ill try to come up with some more extended thoughts on the levelling system a bit later today, but since I havent been around much for most of it, I genuinely want to ask - what is the benefit of having the level system? Does it really offer much to the RP landscape of the site? What are the benefits of it compared to when we didnt have it and 'power level' was essentially determined primarily by writing ability and rank?
 

Malon

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Yeah this is a big problem, but it's a problem with having the level system to begin with too. Factions with more veterans or more prolific posters will naturally accrue more credits. That's good on a purely theoretical level, because it implies they post more, but it's a disincentive for new players to compete with older ones.

Which is why you remove the credit system entirely and base the level of a character on the substance of the story and achievements they've actually made in the RP, versus some arbitrary credit count that shows how much one can post and not how good one can write.

Ill try to come up with some more extended thoughts on the levelling system a bit later today, but since I havent been around much for most of it, I genuinely want to ask - what is the benefit of having the level system? Does it really offer much to the RP landscape of the site? What are the benefits of it compared to when we didnt have it and 'power level' was essentially determined primarily by writing ability and rank?

A fair question. I think the system I proposed will handle the first part of your question, because it places the characters "power level" at the mercy of their ability to write. If they really can write that good, then they will climb the level ladder rather handily. If they can't, they won't climb the latter. The way the current system works, how well you can write doesn't matter at all, so long as you can keep chugging out posts, plots, and PvPs.

As to the second question about why have levels at all—why not just rely on faction rank? Well, I've already outlined my concerns with that. Just like you, Boli, I've been around before the level system existed for a good while. In fact, I have been in faction leadership every timeline since I've been on the site in some shape or form. Every time a faction gets a new leader or leadership team (which happens more frequently now due to the new rules), they bring with them a new way of running the faction and a new set of standards for ranking-up among other things. If a character's power is going to be tied to their ranks, that essentially means that a faction leader can promote whomever they wish and instantly give them access to high-level powers and abilities, whether or not that member/character has proven they deserve it. And believe me, faction leaders DO make that choice.

The level system, at the very least, allows for some measure of balance on the site and prevents Faction Leaders and Assistant Faction Leaders from giving powerful positions and characters to people they like versus the people who actually earned it. It just needs to be refined a little bit more so that level reflects writing and story-telling ability versus how many words you can crank out in a post, etc.
 
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