BoM/TWS Message Forum

In a comment on the blog, Nostrum write:

>> It's a very odd method, that of using GPs, but also a strange parallel to real life, where - sometimes - the wealthy can shift the decision of elections to their side. While they're votes nonetheless, GPs hold immense power over Free Votes, which would've led to vastly different choices. <<

The GP polls are designed to achieve a balance between popularity and passion -- a way to give minority tastes a chance to overcome the majority.

There are some very popular characters in the BoM universe, and certain storylines that are also very popular. And if popularity were the only determinant in a poll, the easy and popular would always win. But I want to give the minority tastes a chance as well.

Commissions are the main avenue for letting a minority choice get a chance, but I don't want to force those with a minority preference to always be making commissions. A poll system that melds low-weight free votes with higher-weight GP votes is way of introducing a kind of commission option into the polls: Throw some GPs at your choice, and if it wins it's like you've commissioned the choice, and if it loses then you get your GPs back and so are out nothing. And the proper comparison isn't to "rich people" getting their way in politics, but to high-passion groups getting their way through extra investment in the process, be it organizing, lobbying, or militant voting. Here, voting GPs is a way of investing your passion.

Also, the way the system is set up, there is no simple correlation between dumping GPs onto a choice and getting your way. There can be unpredictable effects, because the value of a "free vote" itself changes given the size of the GP bequests. There have been cases (recently too!) where someone thought to fortify a leading choice by adding GPs to their total, but this had the paradoxical effect of actually weakening that choice. This happened because the GP bequest was a small one that, when factored into the equation, actually lowered the value of the free votes, and thus lowered the number of "points" the leading choice got. So, for example, if a choice has 10 free votes, and each vote is worth 1000 points, then it will have 10K points; but if it gets a 500 GP bequest, this has the effect of lowering the value of each free vote to 700 points, and then that choice's score will drop to 7500 points (7000 free votes + 500 GPs); and this could in theory lower its support far enough that a different choice could overcome it. In other words, dropping GPs onto a choice could actually cause it to lose. This outcome is very rare and unlikely, but it is mathematically possible. Alternately, and more commonly, a massive GP bequest onto a losing choice might still fail to overcome a leading choice, because it could cause the value of the free votes to skyrocket, so that the extra GPs for the lower-ranked choice fail to overcome the leading choice because of the added value to the leader's free votes.

The bottom line is that this system does not lead to "sure thing" outcomes, and it is very hard to rig because anyone who votes GPs can't be sure how far his bequest will aid his choice, or even if it will aid it at all! The only thing you can do is "vote your passion" with GPs -- and that is the behavior I want the system to encourage.