Fwurg

[Brend]

This post builds on the suggested changes to the Participation Act thread. However, the topic of this thread is not how the participation act should be (retro-actively) changed, but how to implement the proposed things OOC.

This post contains:

• An overview of the exact details of the different stages of involvement in the game,
• My proposal for the rules regarding Protectorates and Minor Worlds,
• A short justification of these rules

I'd like your opionion on the proposed system.

Overview of Stages of Involvement

For each level of involvement I have listed the measurable influences between ( and ). The influence field gives an overview of all kinds of influence a player's faction can exert, the requires field indicates which things the player needs to decide on before she can participate at that level of involvement, and the optional fields shows other ways the player can involve themselves in the game.

(Note how 'Jedi character' is always optional; one can be perfectly happy to play a protectorate that profiles itself as the ultimate vacation destination and roleplay the barkeep of said place. I would be certain at least one of my characters would be visiting that place with some regularity.)

Candidate World (No Vote, No Economy) - Temporary status as the player designs things up to the desired entry-level
Influences: None

Protectorate (No Vote, No Economy) - Intended for players that mainly want to RP with a Jedi (or other character)
Influences: Jedi
Requires: Race, Location, Character
Optional: Jedi character

Minor Worlds (Vote, No Economy) - Intended for players that want to RP and busy themselves with politics
Influences: Jedi, Politics
Requires: Race, Location, Senator character
Optional: Jedi character

Inner Worlds (Vote, Economy) - The highest level of involvement
Influences: Jedi, Politics, Economic
Requires: Race, Location, System, Senator
Optional: Jedi character

Core Worlds (No Vote, Economy) - only accessible from inner worlds (through Chancellor Election)
Influences: Jedi, Politics (though without a vote), Economic
Requires: being an inner world


Protectorate and Minor World Rules

Some things in this section border on being IC law intead of OOC rules. This can not be prevented, as the whole subject of levels of involvement is both an IC and OOC issue. Remember that all members of the Union fall under the military alliance act, so an attack on a protectorate is an attack on the Union (that's why they're called protectorates).

Protectorate
IC: A protectorate's is to small to warant a vote in the Union senate, but the Union recognizes them as being a sovereign entity, and a representative of a protectorate can request a time-allocation to speak in front of the assembled senate.

OOC: A protectorate needs a position on the starmap.

Minor Worlds
IC: A minor world's economy can not compete on a galactic scale; this can be due to a lack of population, or a lack of interest in increasing their economy. They have however, progressed far enough to posses all the other requirements for becoming an Inner World.

OOC: A minor world needs a position on the starmap and a senator. A minor world is allowed to vote in the senate. A minor world can not trade, does not earn tax and has no zones.

Author note: I'm currently unclear on the reasons of the Union to allow the Minor Worlds a vote -- it seems unlikely that this is done from a purely altruistic perspective. I therefore propose that they are seen as advanced enough to form a beachhead should they join up with some foreign superpower -- so the Union offers them participation in the decision-making process in exchange for their joining the Union (with all benefits of joining).


Inner World
IC: Inner Worlds have progressed their economy to be able to compete on a galactic scale.

OOC: The Union Grant (of 10.000 ) is available to any faction becoming an Inner World for the first time.

Justifications and Issues

This section addresses the issues of requireing a starting position, the relative political power of a Minor World, and the decision to disallow the handling of taxes.

Why do they require starting locations?
Given that the hurdles to take from protectorate to minor world to inner world should be minimized to encourage players to participate in more facets of the game, we should consider the problem of sovereignty and starting sectors.

First off: at the moment we have 16 starting sectors that offer a position of sovereignty along the bozzy spine. Depending on the growth we experience (and the fact that the bozzy spine can be extended) this should cover most of the issues.

To make sure that there will be no hurdles with regard to sovereignty I propose that we use the same guidelines for PC protectorates and PC Minor Worlds as for PC Inner Worlds: "Pick a valid starting location in an empty sector. (Though it is possible to start in a sector with another faction in it, this should be discussed first, with the player of the other faction and a GM. We strongly suggest picking a location in which you have sovereignty.)"


The options for Minor Worlds political influences?
At it's most basic level a Minor World's influence is restricted to having a vote in the senate. At the moment a lot of votes are directed purely at the economic aspects of cooperation within the Union -- this is due to the large economic interests of all Inner Worlds.

As time progresses and people get into a range of tax income in which they feel comfortable (I don't think everyone is aiming for 12k+ budgets er turn -- some people might be perfectly happy with having 2500/turn to spend on things they like to do such as special projects), votes will become more nuanced, and will begin to involve questions of morality and what is 'the right thing' for the Union.

Having one or more minor worlds will speed up this process, as they are not involved in the economy, and as such are able to base their vote on their ideology, and pay no attention to the economic impact of their decision.

Even more so -- minor worlds derive part of their political power from the fact that they are able to ignore the economical impact of a vote: they can offer their support for a position in such a vote, in return for someone else's support on a more ideological vote.


Why no Minor World tax budget?
If we assume that the budget is generated by their own economy, it should be much lower that the starting income of an Inner World, otherwise they would be able to compete on a galactic scale and would be an Inner World due to the size of their economy. This would mean that the generated budget should be something in the range 5 through 20 . This is significantly lower than the 210 I see as the worst non-degenerate starting income of an Inner World (by building 210x 3-set). Such a low amount of income would not really increase the options of the Minor World, as they can not even come close to a 'bribe' from a starting Inner World.

Giving the minor worlds a Union-funded budget seems problematic for both IC and OOC reasons:

IC a minor world does not pay taxes, so they would be leeching tax from the union. This budget will either be an advance on the Union grant for becoming an Inner world, or it would be a 0%-loan from the Union to the Minor world, with a repayment time of 'never'. One option is earmarking the budget for technological development and special projects -- but that would just mean that decision on the spending of Union budget shifts from the Core Worlds to the Minor Worlds.

OOC having a budget at all makes the player involved with economics, so they would need to submit a turn report -- we need to track tax transfers on cooperative technology development or other projects that are of interest with regard to subsidy laws or the likes.

Since a Minor world can already influence the flow of tax to technological works or special projects through throwing their political support behind such a proposal, I don't think further influences are necessary.

Author note: Should we want another way for minor worlds to exert their influence, this should not come from a tax budget, but instead from something that would not require the player of the Minor World to submit some form of report every week.

[RemcoSwenker]

it seems like a good plan to me.

[Chriz]

I agree with this proposal. I guess Brend is right on the minor worlds, if you would give them a tax budget they would get the administration, this is not what we want.

[Mercury]

I really like the proposal and I think this would work excellently. The different levels of participation are clear and you can relatively easily shift between them.

I don't see a problem with requiring a starting location - in fact, I think this will work just fine that way ^_^ The reasoning of no tax handling for minor worlds is good and I don't think it'll be a problem in the influence area.

Regarding Minor Worlds and an IC explanation, there are many reasons Minor Worlds would have political influence - not all politics is directly financially motivated.

For example, a minor world might have historical relations with other members, hold control over resource rich territories which can be exploited in the future, share a history or a people with another member, have strategic military importance, hold sway over various relevant territories, factions, corporations, etc.

They may even simply have a reputation for having wise and sensible rulers who make fair and balanced decisions and bringing people together. Any such nation would be a welcome addition to the Union, able to build bridges even between members who have opposing commercial interests.

Plus, Minor Worlds can very well be self-supporting - they don't require a large investment from the Union, meaning any benefits they bring are essentially free of charge, while increasing the influence and size of the Union.

There is one thing that come to mind we should probably answer, backwards escalation. A Minor World can easily become a Protectorate without problems if they no longer want to participate in the politics (but still want to play a Jedi, for example). However, an Inner World that wants to stop with economics would not become a Minor World, but rather a Fringe World. We should clearly define how this works and how the transitions between these are handled.

[Brend]

There is one thing that come to mind we should probably answer, backwards escalation. A Minor World can easily become a Protectorate without problems if they no longer want to participate in the politics (but still want to play a Jedi, for example). However, an Inner World that wants to stop with economics would not become a Minor World, but rather a Fringe World. We should clearly define how this works and how the transitions between these are handled.

I am still not really happy with players actively playing a Fringe World. In my opinion that status should be reserved for players that have stopped playing, or are away for an extended period of time.

As such, I would say that any player that doesn't want to play an economy says so, and stops submitting turn reports. I am unsure how to clearly define this, as it does imply that a special status is required for this. It also raises questions such as: are they exempt from taxes?

A second point I wish to raise is the fact that currently, only Inner Worlds can become Core Worlds. Depending on the amount of Minor Worlds that join, we might want to reconsider this. But IC I foresee a lot of friction about this, as the Minor Worlds would suddenly be spending a majority of the Union's collective funds -- funds they did not contribute to. Next to this is the fact that they suddenly have to submit a turn report for their ministerial spendings.

[Freekjan]

If a player wishes to stop playing an economy, the economy doesn't just suddenly stop. If there are trade deal still running, they finish as agreed upon (if it is not a deal like: I stop playing an economy anyway, have all my until I change my mind). Tax can still be paid. All leftover economic powers are simply wasted. No need to hand in a turn report, since nothing changes anymore.

[Brend]

If a player wishes to stop playing an economy, the economy doesn't just suddenly stop. If there are trade deal still running, they finish as agreed upon (if it is not a deal like: I stop playing an economy anyway, have all my until I change my mind). Tax can still be paid. All leftover economic powers are simply wasted. No need to hand in a turn report, since nothing changes anymore.

That is what I wanted to express (but apparently failed at)

It is mainly a question of "Do we need another level of participation for this, next to fringe world?"