I'm not sure a dedicated bribery mechanic is a good idea. The concept is interesting, but turning the election into an opportunity for profit could mess up what I think is more interesting, an in game popular vote having an actual consequence. It would be a shame if the more popular candidate lost because people cared more about chasing profit. A bribery mechanic might also allow some unsavory ways of transferring wealth from alts. I'm not opposed to the idea of bribery, but I think that can be handled through the gift opportunity card or first city coins. That's also a bit more interesting because the briber has to trust that the recipient will vote the way they promise, without a quality forcing them to uphold their end of the deal.

If there is bribery, I think it should be more about cool gifts to build goodwill for your candidate than exchanging actual wealth. Something like the rose feast is a good model, where you can exchange neat presents, but you aren't shipping rostygold or diamonds to people. Personally, I'd much rather get collectible campaign items from supporters, like a Sinning Jenny For Mayor pin or a Jovial Contrarian pamphlet, even if they are useless, than just swap money.

Generic suggestion - a hunt is on! mechanic for taking out rival campaign managers.

I really liked that after reaching level 20, you were free to grind resources... but I would not mind the opportunity for more lore either. What if we had the chance to unearth some hidden aspect of our chosen candidate (and our chosen candidate only) as level 20 professionals? This would feel like an adittional reward for reaching the cap - a storytelling reward, instead of more resources.

Grenem wrote:

I'd have liked a third lore route somewhere, which revealed something positive or mostly positive about each candidate, and always did. How they're implementing their plans, policy changes for the better, actions they've taken during the election.

Say, that sinning jenny bribed the urchins with a large amount of food each- hundreds or thousands of echoes worth- to make peace for the duration of the election. That was her only terms for enough food to feed all the urchin colonies for a month.

The Bishop has been buying souls in the bazaar, and donating them to the shepherds for return to their rightful owners. [whether for years, or a shorter span of time.]

Stuff like that. No intruiges, no hidden underdepths, just a good deed from each candidate, and how they've done it.

Not a bad idea, but the road to hell is paved with good intention (pun intended). The Bishop financing the Soul Trade might drive off his core supporters instead.

Here's an idea, a new social activity for people who take the Campaigner career: pamphleting.

Election pamphlets will sort of be like Christmas cards. If you are a Campaigner, you can pay whispered hints, appalling secrets and a certain amount of echoes/rustygold/brass/whatever to print and send a certain number of election pamphlets to fellow players each day/week. The cards will contain information about the election. Positive pamphlets will cost whispered hints, boost the candidate by providing positive information and give the receiving player whispered hints. Negative pamphlets will cost appalling secrets, rubbish the opposing candidates and supply the receiving players with appalling secrets.

Naturally, some players might not want to receive tons of election related mail, so there will be two ways of escaping the flood. The first will be to stay at a remote lodging. Remote lodgings are too remote for election related soliciting. The second choice, if you don't have a remote lodging or prefer your city residence, is to pay a few echoes to buy a Ferocious Polythreme Letterbox at Mr Mirror's Election Market. Specially trained to savage all but the postman's hands, it will take a bite out of unwelcome soliciting. Literally :P
edited by Anne Auclair on 7/21/2016

Vavakx Nonexus wrote:

I have already made my suggestion, that being a less linear bribe scaling, with 1-votes being buyable purely through election material (so that newbie fixers get to have a bit of fun as well), and the higher-votes getting the actual bribes from PoSIs.

I've given this some thought and I think a scale system would be too complicated and not worth the effort. Failbetter can only do so much coding so the simpler the system, the better. And how many players will really take the early bribes? Why settle for a small payment when a little effort and patience can get you a big payout?

I think a simple, one size fits all Election Bribe mechanic is the best way to go.

Here’s how I imagine it. A bribe can only be sent to someone with ten or more campaign career levels, as bribes aren't for nobodies and it’s not just to convince the player's character but also some of his voters. When you accept a bribe you lose half your campaign career, as if you switched normally (this to stop the mechanic from being abused by players who want to switch without losing campaign career). The bribe is roughly 200 to 300 echoes worth of comprehensive bribes, rustygold, brass, jade, glim, amber, moon pearls, greyfields, a bottle of broken giant, and a use of villains (the alcohol and villains are the tools of negotiation and delivery, respectively). The player accepting the bribe only gets a certain percentage of the bribe’s original value (50%? 75%?). Accepting a bribe earns you a special quality, which can lead to problems if you accept further bribes or betray your word.

Here’s how a straightforward case would go. Say Player 1 has a campaign career of 20 + 5 Notability and he is supporting Candidate A. Player 2 is supporting Candidate B and sends Player 1 a bribe to switch to supporting Candidate A. Player 2 accepts the bribe, and so he switches, going from 20 to 10 campaign career. Even if Player 1 shrugs off future campaigning and focuses on profiting off the election resources, Candidate B has gained 15 votes, while Candidate B has lost 25. If this is done enough it could tip an election.

I also think you should be able to bribe someone who is already supporting your candidate to make sure they do not accept a bribe to switch sides. So Player 1 and Player 2 are supporting Candidate A. But Player 1 is interested in a bribe. So stop Player 1 from switching to Candidate B or Candidate C, Player 2 bribes Player 1 to stay with Candidate A.

Furthermore, I think sending out bribes should be limited to Fixers, as it’s exactly the sort of thing they get up to.

Bonus story material: if a majority of competing players accept bribes than the election's overall story could shift to how the election is being tainted by widespread vote buying. If most competing players refuse bribes than the story could be about how unexpectedly clean things are (relatively speaking).

Perhaps a bribe for those at 10, another bribe for those at 15, and the largest bribe for those at 20? Notability should be ignored altogether. But I think the profit ratio of accepting a bribe at level 10 should be the same as accepting one at level 20, otherwise no one will take a bribe at level 10.

Anne Auclair wrote:

Here's an idea, a new social activity for people who take the Campaigner career: pamphleting.

Election pamphlets will sort of be like Christmas cards. If you are a Campaigner, you can pay whispered hints, appalling secrets and a certain amount of echoes/rustygold/brass/whatever to print and send a certain number of election pamphlets to fellow players each day/week. The cards will contain information about the election. Positive pamphlets will cost whispered hints, boost the candidate by providing positive information and give the receiving player whispered hints. Negative pamphlets will cost appalling secrets, rubbish the opposing candidates and supply the receiving players with appalling secrets.

Naturally, some players might not want to receive tons of election related mail, so there will be two ways of escaping the flood. The first will be to stay at a remote lodging. Remote lodgings are too remote for election related soliciting. The second choice, if you don't have a remote lodging or prefer your city residence, is to pay a few echoes to buy a Ferocious Polythreme Letterbox at Mr Mirror's Election Market. Specially trained to savage all but the postman's hands, it will take a bite out of unwelcome soliciting. Literally :P
edited by Anne Auclair on 7/21/2016

It's a good idea, but that the candidate gets auto-boosted just for sending seems kind of powerful, if that's what you mean. If not, do they give a trite anti-x phrase every time, or do you get to write it, or either or? [random phrases are impossible, i believe.] I'd also make it auto-receive, so that players who would be buried in election social actions aren't.

And I'd say that random distribution is impractical and/or impossible, but that'd be the best way to implement it. since that's not an option... I'd say the payout is a pittance for the recipient, but offers stat boosts or second chances like christmas cards, or that there's a cap on how many you can receive. [or it's card-based, like give a gift, if more frequent, so that you can't just spam them all day.]
edited by Grenem on 7/21/2016