This came out of a voice discussion on Discord today, and it's a fairly significant rework, but the basic idea is to introduce two things.
First, have all nobles (supporter) able to choose a noble that they feel is helping them and making their life better (supportee). This could be your lord, Duke, or Ruler, but it could also be that nice knight who greeted you when you started, helped explain things, and gave you a hand with that letter you had trouble writing. This choice would amount to your noble talking positively about them to their hangers on, minor nobles on their estate, etc, and as a result that noble you choose gets the benefit of increased prestige.
The exact mechanic of this we'd have to model out with numbers a bit, but it would be a large (possibly the largest) source of prestige for characters. And over time, it should permanently add (small) amounts to the supportee's prestige.
In addition, prestige from other sources would likely need to decay, or eventually this would become pointless.
This ties in to positions: In order to hold a particular position, you need to have enough prestige for it. Not just the very minor requirements we have, but real amounts. To the point where you would really need someone supporting you to be a lord. And if you lost that support, and couldn't make it up with constant prestige gains from other sources, you would no longer be eligible for your position (with a warning, intermediate zone for low support, "The court officials are murmuring about the lack of legitimacy of the Lord of Keplerville").
This goes all the way up the chain. Dukes would need significant support, say at least a third of the nobles in their duchy. And Rulers would need even more, say at least a third of the nobles in the realm. And if that character lost that support, they are not eligible, and they lose their position.
Probably setting this support would need to be protected in some fashion otherwise people would be ordered to support, for the obvious reasons.
I think this would solve a number of problems at the same time.
First, you need active support to keep your position, rather than the same Duke or Ruler being in charge for 5 RL years while they do nothing.
Second, it provides an incentive for people to actually interact, and help others out.
Third, it makes prestige more based on actual character reflection. As opposed to right now, where the highest "prestige" characters are often characters that have been around forever, fought a lot of battles, and don't necessarily have any particular prestige from roleplay, and are not considered important by other characters.
Fourth, it gives important currency to non-titled characters, which gives them more power and agency, which I consider to be a very good thing.
Thoughts?
