When and Why to Recognize Members

The Covenant says that “adequate and timely recognition of activity” is a right of every Brotherhood member. This course will walk you through what that means and how to provide it.

In some cases, it will be very easy and straightforward to know what recognition is appropriate. In others, you’ll need to consult with other leaders, particularly the Master-at-Arms (MAA) staff.

Consuls are responsible for ensuring that all clanned members are receiving timely recognition by the clan summit. However, all leaders in the Brotherhood are expected to give formal recognition to their staff and subordinates as it is earned, coordinating with the member’s clan summit as necessary. Although this course aims to cover everything you need to know, leaders should be familiar with the XP Policy as well as the MAA Policies in general.

Promotions

In most cases, the biggest reward you can give somebody is a promotion to a higher rank. For all members under the rank of EL2, promotion works the same way. Members will accumulate experience points (XP) for all site-tracked activity and awards for service, and at predefined benchmarks they will be promoted. Elder 3 and 4 promotions work a little differently and will be discussed below.

Promotion Assessment

Every member will be able to see their current total XP in a progress bar at the top of their administration page. Leaders do not need to track promotion progress on behalf of the member or do regular sweeps to determine who is eligible.

Instead, you will receive notice through the website and via email that a member under your jurisdiction is ready to be promoted. The lead recommender will Claim the promotion and take responsibility for gathering any supporting recommendations and submitting the promotion request to the MAA staff for final approval.

Regardless of who takes the lead on the recommendation, the member’s Consul (or the MAA, if they are outside a clan) is ultimately responsible for ensuring the member is promoted no later than one week after the site determines that the member is eligible for promotion.

Recommending a Promotion

Recommending a promotion is straightforward. The primary recommender, most often the leader of the member’s unit or subunit, will outline the member’s accomplishments and activity since their last promotion. If the member’s activity spans multiple units or includes project or staff work, you should reach out to the member’s other supervisors for supporting recommendations.

The primary recommender will have the option to Invite members to supply a supporting recommendation, which will generate an alert and an email notification for them and allow them to input their recommendation into the site themselves. Alternatively, if they provide you with a written recommendation outside the site, you may press Append Recommendation and enter it on their behalf.

Because the member’s promotion has already been justified by their XP total, you do not need to prove to the MAA staff that the member deserves to be promoted. The member has already proven that themselves. Instead, consider your recommendations as a public, permanent record of the ways the member has positively impacted the club.

Example: Alice has earned a total of 23,000 XP since joining the Brotherhood, making her eligible for the rank of EQ3. The site alerts her summit, and her Quaestor handles the recommendation. Alice receives a 30000 credit promotion bonus and the perks of her new rank.

Elder Promotions

Promotions to the ranks Elder 3 and Elder 4 have additional requirements beyond simple XP value. Members are expected to serve at least three years aggregate time as a Consul (or independent unit leader) or member of the Council. Simply holding a position is not sufficient. Consideration will be given to a member's contributions to the club as well as whether their time-in-position was active or inactive. Highly impactful work in positions other than Consul or Council may also be considered.

Further, the member's sacramental awards will be reviewed to ensure that they are justified by their recommendations, as some high sacramentals have been awarded in years past for as little as winning a single competition. The value of any medals that do not pass this review will be reduced or deducted from the member's XP total solely for purposes of determining whether the member meets the required XP threshold.

Example: Bob is an EL2 who has been a Brotherhood member for years. During his career, he’s served in multiple summit positions and as Voice and Headmaster. When Bob earns the required 330000 XP, the MAA and GM review his service record and agree that he has earned a promotion to EL3.

Medals

Awarding medals is a bit more complicated than promotions, because a medal can be awarded for site-tracked, XP granting activity; or for project, staff, or summit work; or for a combination of the two. We’ll walk through each of these scenarios.

As a member works through their first set of medals, the site will generate a claimable recommendation and notify their summit, similarly to how promotions work. In other situations, you will go to the “Recommend an Award” page accessible from your Administration page or from the member’s dossier, enter the member’s name in the “Target Member” field, select the appropriate medal from the drop-down menu, and enter a justification for the request. As with promotions, once you have created the award request, you may invite other members to provide supporting recommendations as appropriate.

Medals for General Activity

In addition to the lifetime XP total used for promotions, the site also tracks the amount of XP earned since the member was last awarded a medal. This is called Medal XP.

Members should work through the medals from Dark Cross through Amethyst Kukri in order by accumulating Medal XP. When a member accumulates enough Medal XP to earn a medal type they don’t have yet, the site will notify their summit by email. When the member receives a medal for general activity, that medal’s XP value is removed from the member’s Medal XP, while any leftover Medal XP will remain in place for a future award.

When creating a recommendation for an award like this, you will leave the “Non-site XP” field set to 0 when you create the recommendation.

Example: Carol has a Dark Cross and an Anteian Cross, but has never earned a Steel Cross. An SC is worth 1012 XP. As soon as Carol earns 1012 XP, the site alerts her summit, who recommend the award for her. She receives 3200 credits and her Medal XP total goes down by 1012.

Medals for Service

Keeping the Brotherhood running takes a significant amount of work from dozens of members. DC staffers process every award recommendation, gaming session, character sheet, and item aspect. Summit members handle award sweeps, clan lore and storylines, and clan events. Other members contribute to the wiki or large projects. A few of these tasks, such as running competitions, generate XP. The rest will need to be recognized with a medal.

You have two options for recognizing project, staff, or summit work that falls outside of the XP policy. If the work justifies a medal all by itself, you can recommend one. If the MAA staff agrees that the medal is appropriate, the member will receive the medal, the full credit value of the medal, and the full XP value of the medal. This will not affect the member’s Medal XP or delay future medals. It will allow the member to reach their next promotion faster.

Example: Dave is wrapping up a successful term as Magistrate to the Regent (M:RGT). During his term, Dave contributed 20 prototypes to new possessions released, reviewed 15 item aspects, and worked with the rest of the staff on a major project to improve RGT systems. The RGT determines that Dave’s service merits a Grand Cross and the MAA agrees. Dave receives a Grand Cross, 6700 credits, and 2278 XP.

Alternatively, you may combine minor project or staff work with the member’s general activity to award a medal they have not yet earned through Medal XP alone. They will receive the full credit value for the medal, but will only receive XP for the project or staff work.

Example: Emma has 7000 Medal XP, well over what’s required for a Sapphire Blade (5125) but not enough for an Amethyst Kukri (11533). However, Emma has also been active as a Quaestor since her last award. She has written multiple official fiction updates for her house’s ongoing plot line, overseen two award sweeps, published six monthly reports, and organized multiple live activities on the DB Discord server on weekends. Emma’s CON recommends her for an AK, outlining all of her summit work and why it justifies a higher award than her Medal XP would allow. The MAA agrees that Emma deserves an AK. She receives the full 22500 credits for an AK as well as 4533 XP, the difference between her Medal XP and the full value of an AK. Her medal XP resets to 0.

How to Recommend a Medal

Leaders can assess their members for awards in the Administer your members/students page reachable from your Administration panel. For unit and sub-unit leaders, this page will show the status of all unit members, including their last award, their lifetime XP value and the threshold for their next promotion, their current Medal XP total as well as the highest medal they qualify for using Medal XP. We will walk through several examples.

Example 1

This member’s Next XP Award is listed as “Periodic Award Sweep,” meaning that she already has a full set of medals and is not working towards anything in particular. Her summit should just make sure she receives an appropriate award 2-4 times a year. Right now, she has 5525 Medal XP, which the site tells us qualifies for a Sapphire Blade. Her summit has two options. First, they can recommend a Sapphire Blade, which will use 5125 points of Medal XP, leaving her with 400 points towards a future award.

Alternatively, if she has positioned service or project work that has not already been recognized, her summit can recommend her for an Amethyst Kukri instead. She needs 11533 Medal XP for an AK, but only has 5525 from site-tracked activity. In order to award her an AK, her summit will need to justify applying 6008 points of non-site XP from projects and service. If the MAA agrees that she’s earned it, when the AK is awarded that 6008 of non-site XP will be applied to her lifetime XP total.

Example 2

This member has every award through a Sapphire Blade and is working on their first Amethyst Kukri. Fortunately, he’s almost there. He needs 11533 Medal XP and has 10879, so he’s only short 654. If he’s done 654 XP worth of service or project work, his summit can recommend that AK for him now. Otherwise, his summit can just wait until he earns the last bit of XP. The site will alert them when this happens so they know the can start the award process.

Example 3

This one is simple: this member needs a Grand Cross, and he already has what he needs, as indicated by the Next XP Award box lighting up. His summit can quickly write him up for a GC, which will use 2278 of his 2870 Medal XP.

Example 4

Uh oh, what happened here? The member has over 100 times as much Medal XP as he needs for his next award!

While this should never happen going forward, some members will have gaps in their lower awards because XP is a new system. In this case, the member never received a Dark Cross, so his summit should recommend one for him immediately. It’s possible that this member will need other awards in the sequence as well. Note that awarding him a DC now does not mean he will need to wait longer to receive the Ruby Scepter he has earned through Medal XP. He has enough MXP for both and he can receive the RS immediately after his DC.

Your Obligation as a Leader

Expectations for leaders vary depending on the situation.

If you are a positioned member’s direct supervisor, you are responsible for documenting the work that they do in their position through an independent award, a supporting recommendation for an award recommended by their summit, or an activity note at least once per year and/or when they leave the position.

If a member does not have the full set of a Dark Cross, Anteian Cross, Steel Cross, Grand Cross, Sapphire Blade, and Amethyst Kukri, the site will automatically alert their summit when the member has earned their next award. The Consul may delegate the award recommendation to other summit members as they see fit, but they are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the award is submitted no more than one week after they receive the site alert. If a member working through their first set has gone for at least six months without an award but isn't close to the next medal in the sequence, the Consul should reach out to the MAA to discuss the situation.

Consuls are also responsible for ensuring that any summit service, clan projects, or other work is included as non-site XP.

Once a member has a complete set of awards, clan summits are strongly encouraged to recommend an appropriate medal each quarter. The Consul is responsible for ensuring that every clan member who has a full set of awards is receiving a new medal for activity at least once every six months unless that member has not earned enough Medal XP to justify any awards.

Activity Notes

If a member has done something helpful that does not award XP but doesn’t justify a merit award by itself, you will want to make a note of it so that the member’s summit will know to include it in the member’s next award recommendation.

To enter an activity note, go to the member’s dossier and select the speech bubble.

If you are in an appropriate leadership position, there will be a field at the bottom of the page in which you can enter a brief note describing the work the member did. Pressing “Post Note” will append the note to the member’s dossier, where it will show up in their individual Activity Assessment screen.

It is important to remember that activity notes are permanent and cannot be edited without the direct intervention of the Seneschal, so be sure that your note is accurate and appropriate before committing to it.

Other Options

In addition to formal recognition through awards and promotions, there are less common ways of showing members that their contributions to their clan are valued. This includes a very important and too often overlooked method that is open to every member of the club.

Clan Possessions

All clans have artifacts among their possessions, easily recognizable by the red color of their names. Several clans choose to grant one or more of these artifacts to members for outstanding service or victory in a competition. While the artifact still belongs to the clan as a whole and not the individual member, the member may include it in their loadouts for as long as they hold it.

To award a clan artifact to a member, make sure you set clear criteria for how the artifact is earned and for how long the member will hold it; this information is usually in the item description itself. To award the item, the Consul should email the Regent staff, who will remove the artifact from the clan’s inventory and transfer it to the member.

The complete policy on artifact possessions can be found here.

Just Saying Thanks

The Brotherhood and most of its members have invested a huge amount of time and energy into site-based progression systems like XP and credits, and merit awards and promotions play an important role in those systems. But it is critical to remember that the real reason behind every award and promotion is to let members know that their participation in the club is valuable to the rest of us.

There are many ways you can thank another member for their contributions to the Brotherhood. The simplest approach is to simply say so directly. Alternatively, you can highlight the member’s accomplishments in chat or news posts, feature their character in unit fiction updates, or come up with other ways to put the spotlight on your deserving members.

Demotion and Probation

Unfortunately, sometimes members will be demoted and/or placed on probation by the Chamber of Justice (CoJ) if convicted of wrongdoing. This is a process handled directly by the Justicar and the MAA, but probation will impact your responsibility to recognize your members. When a member is demoted, their progress is lost and they will have to re-earn their lost rank from scratch.

Typically, the first half of the probation sentence is strict probation. During this period, the member cannot receive any promotions or merit awards at all. The member will, however, continue to accumulate XP as normal. While the member is on strict probation, you are exempt from any requirements to issue awards or promotions to the member in a timely fashion.

Once strict probation expires, the member will be placed on general probation. During this period, the member may receive awards and promotions as normal. However, all recommendations will automatically be sent to the Justicar for approval to ensure they are not attempting to bypass or make up for the penalty from the member’s CoJ conviction. While a member is on general probation, you are required to recommend awards and promotions for them in a timely fashion as normal.

Note that there may be other consequences to a CoJ conviction or probation that fall outside the scope of this course.