@Apos
Like a PRP in a normal MUSH, while it varies a lot we know the general idea- a player gives staff a heads up for approval or not, depending on the game, it's checked for consistency, then everything falls upon the player running the plot and depending on how it resolves, sheets are updated and so on. There's not really hard code in so much, since everyone ultimately has the tools to do what they need.
Do consider the advantages though. For instance balancing out NPCs for a violent encounter (especially one in a system you're not very familiar and experienced with) is a bitch; it's as easy to get everyone slaughtered because you overestimated the PCs - which is never ever fun - as to make it trivial and see your big-piece villain get one-shot too early.
With a coded system you could theoretically be able to dynamically create credible threats for a party. If as a ST I could just pick the difficulty I want for the NPCs and let the MUSH crunch out the numbers for me that'd be awesome.
My feeling there is just an increasing degree of leeway granted to GMs based on feedback from players. For example, unless staff wants to risk messy retcons and constant oversight, probably shouldn't give a new guy the ability to shatter the grid and get carried away on his first try. Or similarly, the ability to bankrupt a great house or give something worth millions or arbitrarily kill players or so on. So this would be inherent limitations on the commands a player acting as a GM would have access to, and then just gradually removing the limitations as a GM goes.
This could be trickier than it seems, too, if it's hardcoded. Cliques are dangerous things and so are circle-jerks; you might not want to encourage situations where a specific social group mass-upvotes each other to 'enable plots' for themselves, which can create a power race to do the same thing ('why does House Jerk have three Rank 4 Storytellers and we only have one? Come on guys, VOTE FOR THIS!".
I think relying on your judgment would probably be preferable.
For example, a player in house Grayson wants to run a tinyplot about Iron Guard elements that have gone rogue and are working with Abandoned to raid pilgrims traveling to Arx, and have been murdering Knights of Solace trying to escort the pilgrims. This would highlight different plot elements as a searchable index so anyone making a plot would know story is happening there- Grayson, Iron Guard, Abandoned, Pilgrims, Knights of Solace. Probably with a synopsis of each plot searchable in a database, then automatic sorting of different plot elements, so later if some dude is doing a story about Iron Guards purging disloyal elements, they'd see that previous plot highlighted and pop up and let them know what happened there,
Yeah, that actually sounds pretty cool.
You should also factor in how much you want your players to play with the game's toys before you design how they'll get access to them to begin with. This is a poorly seen effect that sometimes surprises staff who think they'd have allowed folks to use an NPC, corrupt an once loyal military squad or have a prestigious resource destroyed by marauders if those folks had just asked.
However it doesn't quite work like that, and players who perceive staff wanting them to prove themselves, earn their trust or be worthy of certain privileges as roadblocks or even hoop-jumping - in other words you need to balance sanity checks with encouraging players to use thematic elements you have in place exactly so they can get used, otherwise you risk squandering them.
The greatest plot device left sitting there untapped might as well not exist.
