Transitioning away from ability apps

[Chance]

The commendation thing is eh, 90% of the time no one really cares enough to commend you, and most of the time I even have good enough RP I even think to remember to commend somebody the cooldown on it prevents me from doing so so I gotta hit them with the “hey I would’ve commended you but can’t” only for the cycle to repeat. Along the same lines the “Standout” thing is kind of meh, I feel like anything put to the discretion of staff will be at risk of bias, and this would also add something for staff to have to pay attention to / do, which I thought was kind of the purpose of removing the application process to begin with - 1 less thing for staff to do, and removing bias when coming to receiving signatures. 

Staff (and player) bias is frankly a good thing because this is a writing game.

There are players who are great storytellers and uplifting them isn't bad, and that's a biased process of judging each other's writing. Whether that's via a commend or selecting them as standout; it is a competition in that sense. I am going to repeatedly spiritually-ass-pat characters or plots I thought were amazing both as a DM and as a admirer, because that's what I enjoy about this game, seeing writing and stories that inspire me, and to talk about it with others. I want more of that, not less. I want people to seek it and aspire towards it.

And you know what, I much prefer a competition where we're judging (and sometimes fawning!) over each other's writing rather than everything being decided purely by PvP. Boring. Part of why IMO tactical/turnbased combat is going to overshadow realtime as far as a storytelling device goes for conflict resoluton.

So yeah, there should be ways of progress by being a good roleplayer. Something like this is very healthy and also lets the community really make their voice known- when you see the same relatively new character receiving multiple commends, as a Staff member it makes you curious and wanting to learn more. This is good.


Let the players who are focused on writing cool shit eat, simply. Bias is only bad when it favors the undeserving. A process to find the deserving is the key; ofc we're all playing a game and should be having fun/are deserving of things, but there's still an art to it, and that's how it is.